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Ninja text generator

Get your own Ninja text here.

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IE7Pro - the features Microsoft forgot in Internet Explorer 7

IE7Pro is pretty neat as it adds a lot of FireFox like features that are missing in Internet Explorer 7:

IE7Pro is a must have add-on for Internet Explorer, which includes a lot of features and tweaks to make your IE friendlier, more useful, secure and customizable. IE7Pro includes Tabbed Browsing Management, Spell Check, Inline Search, Auto Fill Form, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator, User Agent Switcher, Webpage Capturer, AD Blocker, Flash Block, Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform, User Plug-ins and many more power packed features. You can customize not just Internet Explorer, but even your favorite website according to your need and taste using IE7Pro.

Via Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

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Windows Live for Nokia Series 60

The new Windows Live client for Nokia Series 60 (3rd edition) has more features than the client on my Windows Mobile 5.0 device...

• Messenger: Share pictures and voice clips. Manage your Messenger contacts


• Hotmail:  Create and synchronize mail. Contacts are integrated with the device's phone book


• Spaces: Upload photos from the gallery or right after you shoot them.


• Search: Fast and easy access to content on the web, on maps or local directories. Search results are seamlessly linked to the device's Phone, Map, Contacts and Browser applications.

  

A client for Series 40 should be out next year.

Via The Register

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The father of sudoku makes Masyu

I solved a lot of Sudoku puzzles this winter when I went to Norway during my Christmas vacation. When it is cold and dark it is little else to do than play and eat… I am glad to see that Maki Kaji, the father of Sudoku, has invented Masyu so I don't get too fat next Christmas :-)

 The rules are simple but I don't think it will have the universal appeal of Sudoku as most people will find it more difficult:

1. Make a single loop with lines passing through the centers of cells, horizontally or vertically. The loop never crosses itself, branches off, or goes through the same cell twice.


2. Lines must pass through all cells with black and white circles.


3. Lines passing through white circles must pass straight through its cell, and make a right-angled turn in the cell next to the white circle (left or right).


4. Lines passing through black circles must make a right-angled turn in its cell, then it must go straight through the next cell (till the middle of the second cell) on both sides.

Example Puzzle

Solution:

Via BBC

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Day trips for kids

Bugaboo has day trip suggestions for parents with small kids throughout the world. The example below is from London.

The maps and guides can be downloaded as PDFs which makes it easy to bring them along on the road.

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Moller M200 flying saucer

The SkyCar may turn some heads but the M200 will make people call the Pentagon…

It looks like a UFO and flies like one as well as you can see in the video. It is certified to fly at 3 meters off the ground which lets it avoid regulation by the FAA. It flies higher in the demo though.

Cool Or What?

Via ICTblog

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Cool tool: PPT Minimizer

I get a lot of big Power Point files at work. They contain large images/screen shots which has been resized to fit in the slides but Power Point stores the high quality image which occupies a lot of space.

PPTminimizer reduces PowerPoint presentations by up to 96% of their initial size in seconds by optimizing graphics and embedded objects.

My favorite feature is the Microsoft Outlook plugin that can automatically optimize Power Point attachments when you send mails.

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Bio diesel in Italy?

The subject of bio diesel continues to confuse me. Rudolf Diesel made his engine to run on bio diesel: (from Wikipedia)

Biodiesel is biodegradable and non-toxic, and typically produces about 60% less net carbon dioxide emissions than petroleum-based diesel,[2] as it is itself produced from atmospheric carbon dioxide via photosynthesis in plants.

Can someone please explain me why we are still using fossil based diesel that is worse for the engine and pollutes more?

Some vehicle manufacturers are positive about the use of biodiesel, citing lower engine wear as one of the fuel's benefits. Biodiesel is a better solvent than standard diesel, as it 'cleans' the engine, removing deposits in the fuel lines.

Bio diesel came up in the Italian news last year when the gas prices sky rocketed. As expected the gas companies where quick to explain that bio diesel were bad, very bad, but what surprised me was that some consumer organizations also stated that consumers should not use bio diesel. If it really is so bad, how do you explain the success of Lovecraft?

Lovecraft Biofuels  has converted over 1400 vehicles to run on vegetable oil in the last five years. We specialize in a single tank system that allows you to mix new or waste vegetable oil, diesel and/or bio-diesel in any combination using the original fuel tank. We have Conversion Centers in Los Angeles, California and Portland, Oregon and have customers from around the world successfully running on our conversions.

I can't help it, I want it. Let me know if you know of any companies in southern Europe that does bio diesel conversions.

via Wired [082 July 2007] (PDF)

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Nokia MoSh beta

MoSh as in Mobilize and Share: Your Stuff. Any Phone. Everywhere.

Features:

• Create: Upload your games, applications, photos, video and more.


• Collect:  Organize your favorites into collections


• Share: Pass it on to your friends and other MOSH members around the globe


• Mobilize: Leave the laptop at home — upload, share, browse all your favorite stuff right on your mobile phone

It is a “closed“ beta at the moment but you can get a peek behind the scenes here.

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Maltese Falcon

The 289-foot Maltese Falcon is the biggest, riskiest, most technologically advanced sailing machine in the world:

The technology is just amazing:

The heart of the boat's technology is a novel rigging system called the DynaRig, designed by Dutch naval architect Gerald Dijkstra and based on a half-century-old German concept. The genius — and risk — of the DynaRig is its use of freestanding masts that rotate to adjust sail trim and tack the boat. There are practically no external ropes or wires, no traditional rigging of any sort to brace the spars or control the nearly 26,000 square feet of sail. The 15 sails deploy at the push of a button, rolling out from inside each hollow mast along recessed tracks on stationary horizontal yardarms.

Via Wired

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Short range wireless transfers at 15 Gigabits per second

Forget about USB and Firewire with its cables. Georgia Tech is promising very high speed wireless peer-to-peer data transfers in a couple of years:

The research focuses on RF frequencies around 60 gigahertz (GHz), which are currently unlicensed—free for anyone to use—in the United States. GEDC researchers have already achieved wireless data-transfer rates of 15 gigabits per second (Gbps) at a distance of 1 meter, 10 Gbps at 2 meters and 5 Gbps at 5 meters.

I use Bluetooth for connecting to the internet via my mobile, synchronizing my PDA etc but Bluetooth is too slow for devices requiring high data transfer rates like hard disks, video cameras, streaming etc. Transfer rates of 15 Gbps means that it can replace cable in most cases.

I thought it would be outright dangerous to be close to a something transferring data via radio at 15Gbps but it looks like I am wrong:

Even when sitting on a user’s desk, Pinel stresses, a multi-gigabit wireless system would present no health concerns. For one thing, the transmitted power is extremely low, in the vicinity of 10 milliwatts or less. For another, the 60 GHz frequency is stopped by human skin and cannot penetrate the body.

Via Dr. Dobb's

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Take control of your windows with WinSplit and GridMove

WinSplit Revolution is a very simple to use window organizer. You can use Ctrl+Alt+(numpad) to move the selected window to the specified quadrant on the screen or use a handy little popup window if you prefer to use the mouse.
  

WinSplit also has several other functions:

• Mosaic Ctrl+Alt+m : evaluates the best arrangement to show several windows at the same time.
  
• Close All Ctrl+Alt+c : close all open windows.
  
• Fusion Ctrl+Alt+f : WinSplit splits the screen in two with the last two active windows. By default each windows takes half of the screen but a window appears with a slider to change the ratio between the both windows.
  
• Save the window position for a process so the application always opens at a certain place on the screen.

GridMove
I found GridMove less intuitive to use initially but it is great when you get used to it. GridMove works using a set of pre-defined grid templates that you can use or edit. The default template works like this image shows

There are several ways of organizing the windows:

• Left button drag: click close to the upper left hand corner of the window and drag to a grid
  
• Middle button drag: this is the simplest option as you just click the title bar with the middle mouse button and drag the window to one of the grids
  
• Edge Drag: Click and drag the title bar to one of the edges and keep it there for a short time until the grid to appears
  
• Keyboard: WinKey + G shows the grids. Enter a number to move the current window to that grid. This is a great timesaver as you don't even have to take your hands of the keyboard to organize your windows. You can also press letters to perform other actions:
  
  
  
  • N: GridMove will switch to the next grid on it's list.
    
  • M: toggles the maximize state of the window
    
  • 0: minimizes the window

Which program is best for you depends on your needs. GridMove is your only option if you have multiple monitors, it is also the best choice if you have a set of grids you use. I currently use WinSplit Revolution as it lets me play around with the different layouts live. I had to modify the hotkeys as my laptop does not have a numeric keypad. For the moment I use WinKey + arrow keys to move left/right/up/down in combination with Shift+Ctrl.

I may move to GridMove in the future if I find that I always use the same layout (or if I am lucky enough to get a second monitor :-)

Via Coding Horror

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Swim like a dolphin with Powerswim

DEKA has made the Powerswim device for DARPA. Normal swim fins are inefficient as they only convert about 10% of the energy to propulsion. The Department of Defense requirement was to increase the speed compared to normal swim fins by 50% and reduce by a factor of two the energy needed to maintain a speed of 1 knot. The project has been a success as the the swimmers can sustain speeds of more than 2 knots increasing energy efficiency from 10% to 85%!

The result reminds me of the SeaBreacher with a front wing and an oscillating foil:

Powerswim has been made for the DoD but I am sure it will arrive on the commercial market sooner or later.

More pictures at Ares. Via The Register and Wired.

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Happy 75th birthday Lego!

Lego celebrates its 75-year anniversary today.

They started by making wooden toys in the 1930's before they introduced the LEGO brick in 1958:

LEGO is an abbreviation of the Danish words “LEG GODT” (play well).  What a fitting name. I grew up playing with Legos an have spent countless hours inventing new things to build. Legoland is also the most "family" friendly theme park I have been to. I went with my kids last year and we had a great time.

The camping in Legoland Village was just fantastic with lots of toys and made with kids in mind. It is the only camping I have been to with "family bathrooms” that has separate small showers for the kids.

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Sharing many or large private files

A friend of mine asked how to share 160GB of photos and files with a friend?
(yes, that is 160 gigabytes not 160 megabytes). The main problem is that neither of the users are very skilled using computers so putting up a VPN is out of the question. Sending DVDs is not an option either as you need at least 40 DVDs to send so much data.

There are many file sharing/upload systems out there but nobody gives you 160GB of storage.

• GigaSize  (1.5GB)


• You send it  (max 1 GB)
  
• File factory (max 500 MB)


• Mega upload (max 250 MB)


• The upload (max 100 MB)
  
• Drop load (max 100 MB)


• Mail big file (max 100mb)
  
• Turbo upload (max 70 MB)


• 4 shared (max 50 MB)
  
• Your file host (max 25 MB)

There are some private P2P networks  around but the only decent alternative I have found so far is Folder Share.

Please let me know if you know of any other alternatives.

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Use your Nokia phone or Pocket PC as as a WebCam

wwigo (Webcam Wherever I Go) works on a wide range of Symbian based Nokia phones and lets you use your phone as a Web Cam in applications like Skype, yahoo! Messenger and Widows Live Messenger.

WebCamera plus from Ateksoft provides the same, and then some, features for the Pocket PC.

• Transform your PDA or Smartphone to high-resolution web-camera. 


• Works through any connection: USB ActiveSync, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS, 3G, LAN. 


• Compatible with almost all modern Smartphones and PDAs. 


• Capture device screen and transmit video to Desktop PC. 

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Jott: Hands free note taking and messaging

I often use the voice recorder of my Pocket PC to take notes when I drive or when I walk but I have to transcribe them later. Jott solves the problem, and it works with any phone: just call and leave a message to yourself or anyone else. Jott analyses the message and sends a mail with the transcribed text and an audio attachment.

A great service but currently only available in USA and Canada.