StickyC.com

Fritz’s Software Page Groovy - linux-based GPS navigation software.

Real life Tron game - using GPS tracks, you wander about the city, but no crossing paths!

O’Reilly: Build Your Own PVR (for free) with HackTV Something I’ve been thinking about for a while - how to set up a Mac as a PVR. Although this article doesn’t talk about it, I could have sworn I read somewhere that if you had an HD signal coming in from Firewire, you could record in HD…

NeverBored - Animations - Windows Noise I dont know whether to laugh or cry…

CollegeHumor.com - Napoleon Dynamite soundboard

In case Slashdot doesn’t pick it up, I’m crossposting to my own blog…

So I couldn’t help but notice as I was installing World of Warcraft on my behind-a-firewall machine… It appears that Blizzard is using BitTorrent as their client engine to download program updates. I’m suprised this hasn’t gotten more press. One of BitTorrent’s greatest unsung strengths is that the publisher has complete control over the content and unlike most P2P clients (eXeem included, as near as I can tell), spoofing content is beyond the skillset of the average hacker (or RIAA/MIAA lackey). It’s great to see that big commercial organizations are recognizing that and willing to put it to the test in A-list titles. Alas, as I sit here, latest patch stalled at 99%, one of BitTorrent’s greatest flaws is also exposed. ahh, the irony.

GameSpy: PlanetFargo: The Top 10 Things EA Should Buy Next

south by southwest festivals conferences W00T! Just booked my tickets for SXSW!

For those not in-the-know, SXSW is a 9 day festival of music, film, and interactive technology. Running from March 11th, to the 20th. I’m hot for the music portion - 4 days, 60 venues, 1300 (and counting) bands.

A partial list of bands (via the Austin Chronicle):

Alabama Thunderpussy, the Album Leaf, Ambulance LTD, American Music Club, Amplified Heat, Apocalyptica, Apostle of Hustle, the Arm, Nic Armstrong, Ash, Athlete, Austin Theremonic Orchestra, Awesome Cool Dudes, the Black Halos, Black Moses, Bleach, the Bloody Hollies, Bonk, John Butler Trio, By Divine Right, Laura Cantrell, Cephalic Carnage, Charanga Cakewalk, Chingo Bling, Chingon, Meg Lee Chin, the City Lights, the Coolies, the Crimea, Crooked Fingers, Kacy Crowley, the Crystal Method, Crystal Skulls, the Cuban Cowboys, Cut Copy, the Czars, Daaraj, Walter Daniels/Wade Driver, Darediablo, Jesse Dayton, the Dears, DJ Jester the Filipino Fist and QuadRod, the Donnas, Johnny Dowd, Edith Frost, Kathleen Edwards, Endochine, Experimental Aircraft, Faceless Werewolves, Jason Falkner, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, the Fighting Brothers McCarthy, Ruthie Foster, the George W. Bush Singers, Eliza Gilkyson, Gnappy, Gorch Fock, Grady, the Greencards, Grupo Fantasma, Guitar Wolf, Caroline Herring, Robyn Hitchcock, Hobble, Hot Hot Heat, Billy Idol, Jetscreamer, Daniel Johnston, Laika & the Cosmonauts, Jon Langford & the Sexy, Ben Lee, Gary Lucas & Gods and Monsters, Aimee Mann, Marlowe, the Meat Purveyors, Metal Urbain, Midlake, Milton Mapes, the Mobius Band, Mono, Ronnie Montrose, Moonlight Towers, M. Ward, Nashville Pussy, the Octopus Project, Of Montreal, Anders Parker, Piccola Orchestra Avion, Pig Destroyer, the Pink Swords, Plastilina Mosh, Pong, the Pretty Please, Radar Bros., the Raveonettes, the Real Heroes, Gruff Rhys, Stan Ridgway, Rockland Eagles, Scott H. Biram, Charlie Sexton, Michelle Shocked, the Silent League, Sleater-Kinney, Son Volt, the Soundtrack of Our Lives, Mavis Staples, This Microwave World, Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers, the Six Parts Seven, Trashcan Sinatras, Patricia Vonne, the Waco Brothers, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Whitey Houston, Zykos

We’re going the wristband route - booked through http://www.southbywristbands.com/.

Some other links of note: http://www.sxswbaby.com/ SXSW Community Weblog http://www.sxsw.com/forum/ SXSW Community Forums http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/unofficialsxswinfo/ SXSW Yahoo Group

We’re booked at the Springhill Suites - I’ll try and photoblog to Flickr if at all possible - it sounds like there’s plenty of free WiFi in the Austin area.

Seeya there!

Mozilla Thunderbird Inline Spell Checking Test Build - MozillaZine Talkback Way cool for those of us who are horrible spellers and blog via web interface.

So I caved in and bought the latest rev of crack - Worlds of Warcraft (I hate you, Blizzard, I hate you so much!). There is, of course, a CD key required to get access to the game. I’ve worked in the hardware/software biz for a while now and know of all the tricks that good serial number generators use to make the user experience a little better - for example, a good serial number does not contain I, O, S, V, or L (to avoid confusion with 1, 0, 5, and U). A bad serial string I had not heard of, and finally ran into with W0W, was mighty obnoxious. One of the strings of characters in my CD key was “WWVW”. Given that the number was printed using the standard bulk label printer, it looked more like a the trail of a drunken ant than any particular string of letters. Took 3 tries to get the right sequence. Way to go Blizzard!

Media Center Wiki I’ve started a wiki documenting my attempts to “improve my digital lifestyle” by building an HD-HTPC and media server. So far, it’s going suprisingly well. I’ve probably logged 40 hours on the project altogether including research, shopping, building, rebuilding, installing, reinstalling, etc…. Current project cost is in the $2000 range for both the server and HTPC (not including existing hardware I’d repurposed). Suprisingly, one of the biggest single costs is turning out to be upgrading the home network to gigabit ethernet. The server is a 441gb RAID machine running Libranet that uses bittorrent to download HDTV shows and legal music found on RSS feeds. The HTPC is a fairly silent (quieter than my aging TiVo) Athlon 64/3000 with a Radeon 9800 that runs Windows Media Center Edition. Note that the HTPC is playback only at this point. So far, I’m suprised at how easy it’s been. Especially compared to my efforts to set up my own mail server which can best be compared to swimming uphill in the mud backwards. Kudos to Microsoft for making a decent Media front end and the linux community for making a great server backend.

EDIT - Link updates as I’ve migrated to the more secure TWiki (from use mod wiki)

Portable Firefox 1.0 (USB Drive-Friendly) :: Mozilla Stuff :: JohnHaller.com Portable Firefox is a custom build designed to be run from a USB device. No longer do you haveto rely on some scary hijaaked version of IE in a pinch. Sass these hoopy features:

* Extension-Friendly Launcher - Portable Firefox Launcher v0.0.3 is now included by default. It will alter the paths to any extensions you install to work relatively. Just be sure to download the XPI to your PC and then open it with a FILE - OPEN, followed by a browser close/restart before switching PCs. I still have the .bat launcher included for those who like it. * EXEs and DLLs Compressed - All EXEs and DLLs were recompressed using UPX. This gets our installed size down to one that works on 16Mb drives. Additionally, it will speed up use of Firefox when you’re running over USB 1.1. The options used were: –best –compress-icons=0 –nrv2d –crp-ms=999999 -k * JARs re-compressed - The JAR files in the chrome have been recompressed at the maximum level, getting our package down to 7.8Mb. (For the curious, JAR files are just ZIP files with a different extension) * Default Profile - A default profile exists within the firefox directory. * No Default Browser Check - Firefox won’t check to see if it is the default browser on startup. * Download Prompt - Firefox will ask where to save downloads. * Download History Cleared - Download history is cleared on exit. * Browser History Disabled - The history has been disabled to decrease disk size and the number of writes to the disk, increasing disk life. * Form Info Saving Disabled - Information from forms is not saved. * No Disk Cache - The browser disk cache has been disabled to decrease disk size and the number of writes to the disk, increasing disk life. * No permanent cookies - Cookies are only saved for the current session. None are written to the disk.

Human Connectednness / Projects / Mutsugoto / Pillow Talk Not really sure what to make of this.. One one hand, it’s yet more dang cool simple-tech applied in a new way. On the other hand, it’s an absolutely bizzare intimacy tool. What might be more fun is a couple of these set up in different rooms at a party or rave…

Technorati: Tags Even though I’m still annoyed with Technorati’s inability to keep up with my url change 8 months ago, they do have some cool features. This one being a meta-meta tag UI. Click on a tag and get results from the half-dozen or so sites that support them (Flickr, del.icio.us, etc.).

bizzaro_ipod.mov (video/quicktime Object) I dont know what to say… Best watched while under the inflence.

Free Spirit Sphere’s There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t curse the human race for evolving beyond living in trees and picking fleas of eachother. FreeSpiritSpheres offers spherical homes designed to hang among the trees. Of course, if I got one, I’d have to set up a wi-fi connection. Ahh, cursed technoaddiction.

Roland Tanglao’s Weblog: Irrationally want an iPod Shuffle And I thought I was the only one… I’d be curious to see marketing data on how many “full-sized” iPod owners are also buying the Shuffle…

Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard

This game was invented because it seems like when you know someone well enough, 75-80% of any Rock-Paper-Scissors games you play with that person end up in a tie. Well, here is a slight variation that reduces that probability.

Griffin Technology Griffin’s new iPod cassette adapter goes a cut above the competition - by allowing you to control your iPod using the tape deck’s controls. Fast Forward, Rewind, Pause, and Stop are all passed on to the iPod (ejecting the cassette also pauses the iPod). A bargain for only $25!

EA scores exclusive AFL deal - PlayStation 2 News at GameSpot Nooooooooo! The AFL was the last great untainted built-for-the-consumer league! Now EA’s going to meddle in it! I’m so displeased about this.