I was pretty happy that I got signal the 0.2 mile from the campus to the town of Loretto. Awesome job guys, keep up the good work. I'm amazed you got the distance using just standard equipment without any amps.
July 2005 Archives
Yet in another example of my poor timing, the Konfabulator software that I purchased for $30 six months ago is now free. Yahoo purchased the company and is using the software to drive traffic to Yahoo sites. I believe I'll be getting a rebate for the purchase price shortly and I highly recommend the software to anyone. Several people have expressed interest in Konfabulator, but they weren't willing to part with the cash needed for a license.
I got an invite for Yahoo 360 beta today, which kind of surprised me since I only use Yahoo for some limited groups and stock info. I signed up and the first question I have is how can I integrate my Movable Type entries on this blog into the blog provided by Yahoo 360? I'm certainly not going to maintain 2 blogs at one time, as I have enough difficulty just keeping this one updated. Yahoo 360 needs some type of hook into Moveable Type to allow entries on MT powered blogs to show up on a person's 360 page.
Check out today's Woot Off. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but Woot sells 1 item a day. Occasionally, they have their "Woot Offs" where they sell something at a deep discount until their inventory runs out and then move to the next item.
Update (7/28/05 3:51 PM EST): I'm extremely disappointed with this Woot Off. Not much good stuff being sold.
Seems like there have been a whole lot of new mapping web apps out there this week. Three of my favorites:
1, Not sure of the name, but this page seems to use Google Maps, but somehow made the zoom in and out a whole lot faster. Press and hold "Z" while drawing a rectangle over the area you want to zoom in to.
2, MSN's Virtual Earth just came out yesterday. Nothing too terribly special here, but it does have a neat "Locate Me" feature that apparently uses your wireless LAN connection to find your closest location. I'm assuming that they pulled data from wardriving websites to create the location database. It worked with amazing accuracy when I tried it on campus.
3, Mapbuilder uses Google's interface to create pages you can use on your site. I'm not sure what functionality it's providing that's not already in with Google Maps, but I'm going to test it out.
Location: Great Allegheny Passage, Garrett to Meyersdale
Mileage: 10.4
Average Speed: 8.5 MPH
Max Speed: 14 MPH
Notes:
Yes, I know my attempts at biking this summer have been pathetic. Two young children and some house remodling will do that though. Fortunately, St. Francis University held their first ever "Tour 'De Turbine" this weekend which gave me an excuse to get out. Great weather for a ride, blue skies and low humidity. Ride included a packed lunch from the university and a talk about wind energy. The area we biked in is full of electric producing windmills. This was the first trip with Ethan in the bike seat instead of the trailer. I think my speed was increased, even though the numbers don't show it (because I was riding with a group, and I had to turn around and ride very slowly for a mile looking for the helmet padding that Ethan dropped). The Tour 'De Toona starts this week.
Notable Landmarks:
The Salisbury Viaduct is a very long bridge spanning a river, train tracks, and highway. Views were great, but I forgot my camera. Also, the 20+ windmills that can be seen on the ridges all around are pretty impressive.
I can always tell when Peerflix is in the news because my website gets hammered (or at least as close to "hammered" as this website ever gets). Yesterday was no exception, enGadget released a short article about how Peerflix may become the next "poorman's" P2P program. Interesting read, but I don't see it happening. The Internet has made people too lazy to go through the Peerflix process IMHO.
I had the pleasure of viewing a demo from LifeSize Videoconferencing today in Washington (Warning: cheesy home page). It's pretty refreshing seeing a company introduce some innovative technology into a rather stagnant market as of late.
LifeSize is the first to imbrace high definition in videoconferencing applications. I'm sure Tandberg and Polycom will follow suit as HD monitor price points fall and it will be interesting if LifeSize can capture enough of the market to compete at that point. Their products reminded me a lot of the direction that Apple has been taking in recent years with their user interfaces and overall design.
Most of LifeSize's products won't be out until September and I'm hoping to get ahold of some units for testing.
Just ran across Make Magazine. Looks like a pretty sweet web site/magazine for folks who are into making cool stuff with technology.
I just signed up for their RSS feed, will sign up for the podcast later.
Just ran across this on digg:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/13/foxsports_ruse_web/
Interesting marketing technique. I really don't care about the All-Star game, so I didn't catch it, but I definately would have been one of the first to check out the website if I had.
I'll have to keep this in mind for next semesters e-commerce class.
The PA House and Senate approved a 16% pay raise for themselves. I'm not one to criticize such actions if a good job is being done, but let's consider the legislature's record over the past year:
1, PA property tax relief - The recent approval of slot machines to offset property tax is a joke. The majority of the school district's won't buy into the plan. PA is once again a day late and a dollar short on the issue.
2, The state budget is once again late. I'm not sure how this happens year after year considering how much time they have to complete it.
3, The economy continues to get worse and the Brain Drain that is occuring in this state is remarkable with no end in sight.
PA Legislature is now the 2nd highest paid in the country. Oh, and on top of the 16% raise they gave themselves, they also get yearly automatic cost of living adjustments (which they have been getting yearly now for several years) as well as several travel perks.
I used to have a fairly good impression of Senator Jubelirer from Blair County, but after he voted yes to the raise and didn't step forward to stop it from occuring, I sincerely doubt that he'll be getting my vote next time. Rick Geist voted for the raise, while Jerry Stern voted againist it.
See you how your reps voted here.
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