New, tips, and more
From Reuters:
Japan’s Canon Inc. said on Tuesday it has developed tiny fuel cells that it hopes will start replacing conventional batteries to power some of its digital cameras and printers in three years. Canon will join a small army of companies, including Toshiba Corp., NEC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., that are working on the development and commercialization of fuel-cell batteries for the next-generation of consumer electronics.
Another press release I received:
I’ve just found your e-mail - and since, as far as I remember, you are the network manager, I wanted to tell you about our newest program - Axence NetTools 2.0. NetTools is a host monitoring solution with alerting and a set of several IP tools (it comes in two versions: freeware and Professional).
Do you remember the last time you learned about problems with your network from users or - even worse - from your boss? Well, I experienced the same thing in the past. But now NetTools can make sure that you are the first to know, every time. You can set multiple thresholds so that NetTools will notify you by e-mail, message or warning sound in case of any problems (i.e. host not responding or slower connection).
It will also show how your network connections are performing - you will know the response time and packet loss rate on a minute-by-minute basis. With this kind of host availability report you can even negotiate a discount from your internet provider whenever you experience problems with their service.
NetWatch - host monitor with alerting
The freeware version also includes other popular tools like ping, fast trace (full trace in 1 second), lookup (port scanner, network scanner, and SNMP browser in Professional).
What makes NetTools unique is its speed and the highly intuitive user interface.
To download our freeware program, follow the link: http://www.axencesoftware.com/Download/NetTools2.exe
We are currently working on our next, more complex network monitoring solution. It includes interactive graphical network maps (showing status of hosts and the services running on them). This product will also have a full range of host/service monitoring, alerting and reporting capabilities. I’ll notify you as soon as it’s ready and I hope to see you at Comdex’05 or BrainShare’06, where we plan to introduce the first release.
Best Regards,
Greg OleksyAxence Software, Inc.
501 Silverside Road
Wilmington, DE 19809, USA
Phone: +1 (866) 303-8787 (toll free)
I recently received this press release:
Winter Wolves Studio Announces Quizland update for PC/MAC
Winter Wolves has released an updated version of their popular trivia game Quizland, adding more than 1000 new questions and two new languages: italian and spanish. Now you’ll be able to play the game with questions in those two new languages (useful also if you want to learn them).
More about the game:
Quizland let you test your knowledge through a fun and simple trivia game.
Featuring a database of over 1500 different questions, covering various subjects like sport, movies, history, science and much more.
You have 15 seconds of time to answer correctly to each questions. The faster you answer, the higher the score you get. The game is divided into three difficulty levels: Easy, Medium and Hard. After 15 questions you go on to the next level where the difficulty will increase. There’s a “Jolly” button, though, to help you; Clicking on it will erase two wrong answers, leaving you with a 50% probability of picking the correct answer.
The demo let’s you play 10 matches for free, while the registration is only US$19.95, and may be handled online from the company’s web site.
In the fullversion you can play local multiplayer games and submit your highscores to the online tables!
Download link for Pc:
http://www.winterwolves.com/games/QuizlandSetup.exe
Download link for Mac:
http://www.winterwolves.com/games/quizland.zip
I haven’t tried this at all. I’m just passing it along…
About 2 years ago my father bought me an Interactive Media Sales, LLC (IMS) Ink Refill System. It sounds sophisticated, but it was just a simple set of squeeze bottles with ink to refill my ink cartridges. The first couple of times I used it, it was a little messy, but I quickly got used to how much ink to put in, and how best to do it. In the last 2 years, I’ve only purchased 1 set of cartridges for my hp deskjet 990cxi printer, and that was only because we were doing something very important and I wanted to make sure that the cartridges were good.
I believe the refill kit cost $30 CDN at the local Costco, and has saved me probably hundreds of dollars worth of ink cartridges.
One way that I have been lucky though, is that at my place of work, they have several different printers that use the same ink cartridges. I’ve asked people when they are empty to give them to me. I have a collection of probably 30+ empty ink cartridges that I can try if it seems like a print head is dead. I don’t really have to mess with trying to clean the print head. I just toss the cartridge and try another one.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, don’t be afraid to try refill kits. This one has worked great for me.
From MSNBC:
A quiet revolution is transforming life on the Internet: New, agile software now lets people quickly check flight options, see stock prices fluctuate and better manage their online photos and e-mail.
Such tools make computing less of a chore because they sit on distant Web servers and run over standard browsers. Users thus don’t have to worry about installing software or moving data when they switch computers.
And that could bode ill for Microsoft Corp. and its flagship Office suite, which packs together word processing, spreadsheets and other applications.
From the Houston Chronicle:
The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.
The action, which the government says is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals, has unleashed protests and the threat of lawsuits from universities, which argue that it will cost at least $7 billion while doing little to apprehend lawbreakers.
Chris has an auxiliary input jack on his car CD player, so he can plug his MP3 player, Axim, or whatever else he can into it and hear it over his car stereo. I don’t have such a thing, so I had to resort to the FM Transmitter route. These are devices that plug into your device, and then broadcast the sound to a radio nearby over a frequency of your choice.
I recently purchased a Belkin Portable Music TuneCast II FM Transmitter
Note: I created this post using BlogJet. I’ll be reviewing this over the next couple of days…
From the New York Times:
Much of the used computer equipment sent from the United States to developing countries for use in homes, schools and businesses is often neither usable nor repairable, creating enormous environmental problems in some of the world’s poorest places, according to a report to be issued today by an environmental organization.
From TechRepublic:
Gretchen Hayes was understandably concerned when she received a letter warning that she could be at risk of identity theft.
A laptop had been stolen from the University of California at Berkeley in March, and stored on it was personal information on 98,369 graduate students or graduate-school applicants, including Hayes.
The breach–which exposed names, dates of birth, addresses and Social Security numbers–was widely reported in the media, and the school created a special Web site to help individuals who found themselves suddenly vulnerable.
The Gigapxl Project
Our Vision
Defining the upper limits of large-format photography, digital scanning and image processing, custom-built Gigapxl™ cameras capture images with unprecedented resolution.
It would take a video wall of 10,000 television screens or 600 prints from a professional digital SLR camera to capture as much information as that contained in a single Gigapxl™ exposure.
The Project’s near-term goal is to compile a coast-to-coast Portrait of America; photographing her cities, parks and monuments in exquisite detail.
A longer term goal is to create for future generations a world-wide archive of vanishing cultural and archaeological sites.
Check it out at http://www.gigapxl.org/
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