Sunday, May 25, 2008
Wii Fit
We've had a Wii Fit for a few days now. The package includes the Wii Balance Board and the Wii Fit title. Other Wii titles such as We Ski are coming out that also use the board. We're all having lots of fun with our "little white thing that you stand on". Nintendo is going to sell a lot of these.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Vince Mira
I was skimming reviews about this weekend's Sasquatch Music Festival and found this one about Vince Mira. He's a 16-year-old Federal Way high school student who sounds like Johnny Cash. He performed as the opening act for keynotes at MIX08 a couple months ago and was amazing. I thought he was a Vegas act; I didn't know he was a Seattle local. Take a listen, or better yet watch.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Bluetooth Mouse
As much as I like the trackpad on the MBP, I prefer to use a mouse when I'm at my desk. And I like my Microsoft Notebook wireless mouse. I like the size, shape and feel of it. The only thing I don't like is the wireless receiver (aka dongle) that you have to plug into a USB port.
Why not use a Bluetooth mouse and ditch the dongle? So I got a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook mouse. Same size, shape and feel as the mouse that I've been using. Pairing was easy. No drivers to install. The only negative I've found so far is that when I wake the MBP from sleep, it takes a second or two for it to re-pair with the mouse. I'm not sure if this is specific to this mouse or just a general Bluetooth issue. More likely to be the latter. Either way it's not a big deal.
One alternative to going Bluetooth is the Logitech VX Nano Notebook Mouse. It still uses up a USB port but the dongle is so small you could leave it plugged in all of the time.
Update: I liked this mouse so much, I bought a second one for our MacBook. The wireless Mighty Mouse was another option but I don't like its "hand feel" as much and it costs more than twice as much as this one.
Why not use a Bluetooth mouse and ditch the dongle? So I got a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook mouse. Same size, shape and feel as the mouse that I've been using. Pairing was easy. No drivers to install. The only negative I've found so far is that when I wake the MBP from sleep, it takes a second or two for it to re-pair with the mouse. I'm not sure if this is specific to this mouse or just a general Bluetooth issue. More likely to be the latter. Either way it's not a big deal.
One alternative to going Bluetooth is the Logitech VX Nano Notebook Mouse. It still uses up a USB port but the dongle is so small you could leave it plugged in all of the time.
Update: I liked this mouse so much, I bought a second one for our MacBook. The wireless Mighty Mouse was another option but I don't like its "hand feel" as much and it costs more than twice as much as this one.
Locking the screen on OS X
Earlier today I was asked what keyboard shortcut I used to lock the screen on my MBP. I don't. I just click on Login Window from the Fast User Switching menu. But that's not as convenient as a keyboard shortcut and only works if you have the menu enabled. So I went looking for alternatives.
You can use an Exposé Hot Corner to turn on the screen saver along with the Require Password when waking from sleep setting in Security Preferences. I don't like this approach. I find that it's too easy to trigger by accident.
Another alternative is to use the Keychain Access application and enable Preferences > General > Show Status in Menu Bar. This adds a lock icon to the menu bar with a Lock Screen choice. This takes up the least amount of menu real estate but still doesn't offer a keyboard shortcut.
So, as far as I can tell, Apple hasn't provided a way to do this from the keyboard. But we can use Quicksilver to do this. The target of the shortcut will be an Automator script that runs the following arcane command line:This command executes the equivalent of the Login Window choice on the Fast User Switching menu. You can download a pre-built Automator script that does this from here. Just create a custom trigger to run it in Quicksilver and pick an appropriate shortcut. I chose Alt+Cmd+L. That's close enough to 
+ L to make Windows users happy.
You can use an Exposé Hot Corner to turn on the screen saver along with the Require Password when waking from sleep setting in Security Preferences. I don't like this approach. I find that it's too easy to trigger by accident.
Another alternative is to use the Keychain Access application and enable Preferences > General > Show Status in Menu Bar. This adds a lock icon to the menu bar with a Lock Screen choice. This takes up the least amount of menu real estate but still doesn't offer a keyboard shortcut.
So, as far as I can tell, Apple hasn't provided a way to do this from the keyboard. But we can use Quicksilver to do this. The target of the shortcut will be an Automator script that runs the following arcane command line:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
+ L to make Windows users happy.
Monday, May 19, 2008
The Netflix Player
The Netflix Player is pretty tempting. Only $100. HDMI and optical outputs. Unlimited streaming of over 10,000 titles at no additional cost for an existing Netflix account. Looking at my current Netflix queue, about a third of the titles are marked as Watch Instantly including recent titles such as The Orphanage, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead and The Good German.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Javaone causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea?
I've heard of viral marketing but this is ridiculous. Some of the staff and attendees at this week's JavaOne caught a norovirus — it's highly contagious and causes vomiting and diarrhea. I'm picturing a plane load of infected Javaone attendees heading back to the East coast. Yikes!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Processing in Javascript
John Resig has ported the Processing visualization language from Java to Javascript. Amazing stuff.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Mentos and Diet Coke Explosion at 1200fps
Heard about the Casio EX-F1 camera? It can do ultra-high speed burst shooting captures 60 still images per second as well as high speed movie recording of up to 1200 fps. Here's a good example of the latter — Mentos and Diet Coke at 1200fps. Just beautiful. There's so much that you miss at normal speed.
High-speed recording in consumer-grade cameras? Doc Edgerton would be pleased.
High-speed recording in consumer-grade cameras? Doc Edgerton would be pleased.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Iron Man
My son and I watched Iron Man this afternoon. Big thumbs up from both of us. If you plan to see it, stick around until after the credits, there's a stinger. If you already saw it and missed the stinger, just do a search for "iron man after credits scene". It was on Youtube earlier but Marvel made them take it down.
New Passport
My passport was about to expire so I sent in a renewal application. I was expecting a long wait but the new passport arrived today, twelve days after I sent in the application. They even sent the old one in a second package that arrived today as well. Government bureaucratic efficiency? The new one looks spiffy. There's an RFID chip and antenna embedded in there somewhere. It's probably in the back cover but seems to be pretty well hidden.
Friday, May 02, 2008
retrievr
retrievr is a service that lets you search and explore in a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch. According to the About page, retrievr picks interesting images from Flickr. It seems to work pretty well. I've found some of the strangest (and most interesting) images by drawing different shapes and using various colors with retrievr.
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