tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-130445652012-02-16T23:13:40.513+01:00Things that I find remarkable and a few things about some of my private technology interests.Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.comBlogger211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-74295541477098269782008-11-23T14:17:00.010+01:002008-12-19T11:04:54.279+01:00

Disclaimer: I normally do not blog on business issues here. But using twitter for business also involves your private life... and in my case, as with a lot of managers, private and business life do interleave.What is Twitter? Twitter is a micro blogging site, you send posts to it like SMS/texting on a mobile phone. The posts called "tweets" are blogged on your site like: http://twitter.com/

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-33560335125195454942008-06-05T20:09:00.007+02:002008-11-21T19:03:55.905+01:00

Well it is starting to look like there will be two developments that we can look forward to.I have blogged on multi-touch input devices before and you will note that I did this before the iPod touch came out or Microsoft vaunted it's Microsoft Surface! The multi-touch interface is interesting because it overcomes many of the limitations of the old regular touch screens.I also some some

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-90812044270920102008-06-01T16:07:00.002+02:002008-06-05T18:51:19.463+02:00

After much looking around and not finding anything apart from crontab "find" jobs that that do not really cut it. I have finally gotten around and written this script, that will clean out Samba server 3.x vfs recycle trash/rubbish bins.The script looks for all files with an access date older than a certain number of days and deletes them. Empty directories will be deleted as well.I have noticed

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-30873613626175877952008-04-13T16:09:00.024+02:002008-06-01T15:31:45.282+02:00

As my own computer that I bought about 4 years ago was a built-to-order without the usual software package, I needed to find alternatives. I needed a set of programs that would let me do what I needed without costing me an arm and a leg.Another thing I noticed, while you used get lot free software (e.g. Microsoft Works or a full copy of Nero CD ROM), new equipment purchases often come with

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-43140604298218079802008-02-01T19:04:00.005+01:002008-04-20T14:37:17.596+02:00

My last blog post was on my Firefox add-ins. I also use Thunderbird and Lightning as my email and calender/task client at home. Again initially because of safety concerns about Outlook, but recently also because of all the neat plug-ins you can get for it.Calendar and Task List:Lightning: is a calendar and task manager extension for Thunderbird. Basically this adds the extra functions that

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-88262712656106879382008-01-19T14:32:00.004+01:002008-04-20T14:37:34.365+02:00

For many years Internet Explorer and Outlook were the primary problems for security under windows. So to save myself the hassle of constantly having to worry about some virus or Trojan attacking my PCs at home I decided to go with Firefox and Thunderbird. If you just want it to work well then Safari is a good alternative, it is fast and safe.Firefox really shines as far as expandability and

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-42727871332024669502007-12-31T11:52:00.003+01:002008-04-20T14:37:55.001+02:00

My brother asked me about a home server yesterday. I have such a beast and have spend some thought on the matter.What most people want is to have a disk available via the network (Ethernet or WLAN). What they should also think about is to have is one that does not lose the data just because a hard disk crash occurs. Which is very likely to happen as you run something like this for several

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-30962669651771367002007-11-25T11:20:00.003+01:002008-11-13T05:56:54.322+01:00

My wife has wanted to have a cat for some time now. So I decided to go ahead and seriously search for a nice cat.We checked out the animal shelters in our area and didn't find any that we liked that were not already spoken for. But one lady at a shelter near Friedberg (the place Elvis Presley was posted during his draft) remembered that we wanted red cats.The two brothers "Field" and "Gar" have

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-66367505988694072102007-10-21T13:27:00.003+02:002008-11-13T05:56:54.595+01:00

In Feb. 2006 I posted that I was considering buying an iPod. I got one for my birthday some months later. It is a "product (RED)" iPod Nano with 8GB of memory. It actually arrived on world Aids day, so that fits.I just love it. I got a load of CDs on it now as well as some podcasts and a few audio books. You may want to check out the LibraVox site for free audio books.PodCasts can really

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1162205674753540412006-10-30T11:13:00.003+01:002008-04-20T14:29:42.898+02:00

Personally I though the keyboard and mouse would be partially replaced by now. I used speech input successfully in the 90s on my Mac 840 AV and have been waiting for the rest of the world to start using it. I think things are starting to move forwards in the HCI (human computer interface) front finally. Three reasons:1) Finally speech input is becoming standard. While text-to-speech (TTS)

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1152964883023505732006-07-15T13:27:00.001+02:002008-04-20T14:24:11.169+02:00

An interesting event is the Lucern Fuel Cell Forum. Ulf Bossel, did a presentation on the economies of different types of energy sources such as fossil fuel (oil & gas), hydrogen and renewable electical energy sources (e.g. windmill generators).He nicely shows that hydrogen will most likly not replace fossil fuels, but electical systems will. So according to his arguments the electrical car is

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1139505293462185022006-02-09T17:59:00.002+01:002008-04-20T14:30:05.595+02:00

Well I have been thinking about getting an iPod for a while. Now that the iPod Nano price has dropped to $149,- I am seriously tempted. I am not travelling so much at the moment so I have put it off before, but I am still looking...I was considering some of the other cheaper mp3 players out there after some magazines said the price performance issues of the iPod were not the best. But after a

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1138980536998171562006-02-03T16:15:00.002+01:002008-04-20T14:31:48.178+02:00

You may (or may not) remember the Classic Illustrated Junior comic books. They illustrated classic books like Moby Dick or Ivanhoe in comic book format, suitable for all ages. I enjoyed them a lot. Unfortunately they went the way of the dodo bird...The people over at Angry Alien Productions, Sase and Topsie have produced 30 second miniature versions of famous movies.Example Highlander.Really

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1138976655091244242006-02-03T15:07:00.001+01:002008-04-20T14:25:55.324+02:00

An interesting poll of Americans by Rolling Stone Magazine and the Associated Press mentions that:75% believe CDs are too expensive71% believe 99 cents is OK for music dowloadonly 26% have downloaded music (both legal and illegal)Most interesting is this statement: "The poll also reveals that record labels that sue file sharers may be targeting their best customers: Downloaders are more likely

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1132486378914499372005-11-20T12:23:00.002+01:002008-04-20T14:30:24.239+02:00

Well Google Earth has seen some updates so it is worth downloading it once more and getting the newest version at http://earth.google.com/.The real fun is of course in the "layers" that can be turned on or off.The two best sites for layers are http://www.gearthblog.com/ and http://www.googleearthhacks.com/ with loads of neat things. Some of my favorites are the weather overlays (to see the

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1129543999292335022005-10-17T11:53:00.002+02:002008-04-20T14:30:50.189+02:00

Well (most) everybody knows that Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia of the age. It not only is larger than the old paper (or CD/DVD) encylcopedias, it is also constantly up to date (jsut like a news service) !But the same is happening for the atlas. Check out Google Earth. It not only is an interactive globe (you can fly around the earth in 3D and zoom in and out in real time), it has complete maps

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1129539829342575482005-10-17T10:51:00.002+02:002008-04-20T14:32:09.041+02:00

For some time I have watched the path that the copyright and patent laws are going with some worry. I believe that the strong lobbying of some companies in the US are making the policy makers go overboard with protecting the rights of the few instead of keeping the public interest in focus.The debate is raging, here is some interesting news on the Adelphi Charter for intelectual property:

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1125304433973281032005-08-29T10:26:00.001+02:002008-04-20T14:33:48.965+02:00

An interesting article in Scientific American: What causes ice cream headaches?Unfortunately, it does not really answer the question. The article also states: "There have been no reports of any ice cream adaptation studies, but there should be no difficulty in finding willing volunteers." which I disagree with. If you have had these pains, as I have, then you are not really enthusiastic

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1123760088422433962005-08-11T13:30:00.001+02:002008-04-20T14:34:16.218+02:00

I wonder if bears get jailed in Kanses for catching fish bare handed...Well it is alway amazing what sort of gems of knowledge are collected:http://wissen.schoelnast.at/ (in German)use this if you need to translate it to english:http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwissen.schoelnast.at%2F&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1123512944158719942005-08-08T16:53:00.001+02:002008-04-20T14:34:37.782+02:00

I play a lot of computer games and am always amazed at how politicians (like Mrs. Clinton) and some activists always say that games cause violent behavior. I am about as pacifistic as they come and was wondering about this. I sometimes thought that maybe I should have a bad conscience because I like to play first person shooters (FPS) games or why I liked to play games like Bloodrayne for

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13044565.post-1116579949654113432005-05-20T11:04:00.000+02:002005-05-20T11:05:49.656+02:00

Always wanted to blog but to my own site. I saw my friend Nick Leaton managed this, so here goes.

Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077295202914946895noreply@blogger.com0