Monthly Archives: June 2008

Internet TV #2 Miro Free open Internet TV and video player

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I tried the earlier versions of this and it was a bit unstable. But the latest is really working well. It lets you easily find, download and subscribe to lots of video-feeds over the Internet. And yep, one of these is TED as previously discussed. Also NASA is in there too, with a number of ‘channels’

It’s actually a program you download and install, not just a web site.

You can then browse by Category (Technology, Comedy, Arts, Music, Movies & TV etc), find the most Popular, have recommendations given to you or – of course – just do a Search.

If you really are keen there’s even High Definition shows too.

I’m not exaggerating when I say there are thousands of channels available.

In fact I use it to handle the subscriptions and downloads, then use my Media Centre to play it back on the PC or – more likely – on the TV.

New phone as modem for laptop

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It’s nice to discover things you didn’t know about. Even better when they have a practical benefit.

My new HTC phone is 3G and can access the Internet at quite good speeds. I initially thought that I’d have little or no use for this function as the included web site content was pretty basic ; a handful of news summaries, movie times, even horoscopes (!) Yes it can access other sites, but the small screen makes it a bit difficult.

But but but. An icon called Internet Sharing changed all that.

Basically it goes like this:

  1. Laptop has no Internet connection. You can be sitting in your car or visiting someone etc.
  2. Connect Mobile Phone to Laptop (USB cable or even Bluetooth)
  3. Start Internet Sharing on Phone
  4. Laptop says “okay connecting to Internet via Phone”
  5. On the Laptop, browse and email away to any site
I can see a use for this straight away. A few places I visit – including running training at my local library – have limited Internet access. So I may not be able to ‘see’ the very site I’m trying to teach about ; like Gmail, Google Reader or Flickr. Their firewall or proxy server is doing this.

So I just use the phone as modem.

Another benefit, particularly when visiting a customer, is that I’m not on their network either. So good for security reasons too.

Mars probe cooks and looks

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The Mars probe Phoenix has an oven on board. How cool is that. Well actually how hot is that. Cue Paris Hilton…

After the robot arm grabs a sample of soil, it’s sifted a bit. Actually it was a bit sticky and this took a while. But finally the soil fell through the sifter and into the oven. By heating it and examining the gases, scientists can tell what’s in the soil.

Another way is too look. And to my surprise, Phoenix has a microscope on board too. So the robotic arm can place a sample under the microscope and the images sent back to Earth.

Compared to earlier probes this one has another advantage. The previous ones had to send their signals directly back to Earth and that took a fair amount of power. We now have a few satellites in orbit around Mars and they can relay signals to and from Phoenix. So the probe needs less power. Clever, eh?

Hyperwords: a clever and useful Firefox add-on

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Besides being open and fast, the Firefox browser also allows you to add-on add-ons. These are small mini-programs that enhance the functionality of this already terrific web browser.

One of my favourites is the free Hyperwords. Once installed you right click on a word or phrase and a most clever menu pops up. From this menu you can easily take that word/phrase and do lots of smart searches. For example look for it on Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, Flickr etc etc.

It looks like this

Also, if it’s a numerical amount you have selected, it can convert it from currency A to your local currency. It will even convert between units like kilograms to pounds. The conversions are NOT going to a separate web site, they just appear – already done – in the popup menu. Nice.

You can even add your own searches. I’ve added in “Search my local Williamstown library”. So if I’m reading a web page that mentions a great book or author, with 2 clicks Hyperwords is searching my local library for it.

Highly recommended. And great at the price.

Firefox 3 ; installed on Day 1

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The latest version of my browser-of-choice came out this very day. So I backed up my bookmarks and download the brand new Firefox 3. Installed just fine on both the Windows boxes; PC and Laptop.

Most of my add-ons either migrated over or had new versions that pretty much installed themselves. I noted during the day that new versions of some more of the extensions were updated, so the developers were busy. The bookmarks came over just fine.

First impressions: it seems faster. I also like the Tags feature, where you can add your own descriptive Tags (Keywords) to your individual bookmarks. So I can add a Tag of “AussieNews” to my The Age newspaper and The ABC News web site’s bookmarks. Later on I can look at all my bookmarks tagged AussieNews.

Classic Minus One album : “Meddle” by Pink Floyd

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The second Classic Minus One starts with Pink Floyd’s 1973 mega-album Dark Side of the Moon. Their previous album-album was 1971′s Meddle. Why album-album? Well in 1972 they recorded a soundtrack for the movie Obscured by Clouds. So I mean non-soundtrack-album.

The thing for me with Meddle is the one track. In fact back when albums had sides, this one song took up all of Side Two. It’s their masterpiece Echoes.

All I can say is just have a listen to it, preferably through headphones or in a good audio environment. It’s some 23 minutes long and goes through a number of phases, including:

  • Dreamy and wistful, sweet vocals
  • A heavier rock/guitar/funk,
  • A fascinating, experimental soundscape (see below)
  • More dreamy vocals
  • A final heavier flourish, then dreamy fade

The soundscape section is very interesting. It’s not ‘music’ in the traditional instrument, chords, melody, rhythm way. It sounds like early synthesisers, but used in a subtle, almost gentle way. There’s a swirling, whooshing sort of sound set in the bottom layer. In the distance we hear what sounds like birds. In fact that’s what it all sounds like to me: we’re on an alien planet, shrouded in a dense fog. Lonely, bird like creatures are swooping in and out of hearing range. They are occasionally calling out to each other through the cold fog.

No, I’m not kidding. That’s the image these amazing sounds create when I hear them. I guess that itself is a tribute to the creative team behind this wonderful work of aural art.

Classic Albums (minus one) Revolver

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It’s interesting to take a musical step back. That is, to take a classic album and look at the one the artist released directly before that. In other words a classic minus one.

First classic is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from The Beatles (1967), so back one is Revolver (1966). In many ways I actually get more from Revolver that its more famous cousin, Pepper. To me Revolver is the big jump album. It took the lads from the pop world into the more experimental landscape that the studio offered them.

This was a key time too. They were no longer touring or even playing live. So, in one sense, they didn’t have to be concerned about being able to re-create the recording live or in concert. I’d argue that they could easily re-create all of Revolver’s predecessor (1965′s excellent Rubber Soul) on the stage quite easily. Not so with Revolver itself. At least not without backing tapes to help.

A quick look at the track listing:

  • Taxman
  • Eleanor Rigby
  • I’m Only Sleeping
  • Love You To
  • Here, There and Everywhere
  • Yellow Submarine
  • She Said She Said
  • Good Day Sunshine
  • And Your Bird Can Sing
  • For No One
  • Doctor Robert
  • I Want to Tell You
  • Got to Get You Into My Life
  • Tomorrow Never Knows

…shows a wide variation of influences and styles. From George’s political opening number Taxman, through to Paul’s sad, socially aware Rigby and For No-One.

And John. Wow. John – for me at least – provides the Big Jump songs, such as And Your Bird Can Sing,She Said and Tomorrow. The lyrics, the playing and the recording, which included backwards guitars, chants etc, were (are!) stunning. This brings George Martin and his team of studio magicians into the mix: excellent work from them as well. Indeed I’d rate Revolver as a Classic Album unto itself. And hence the whole title and concept of this article is redundant. But I’ve enjoyed the journey anyway

Wobbling video? Smart technique to fix and merge.

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One of those, hey why didn’t I think of that ideas.

Your hand-held camcorder/phone etc video is always going to wobble. So the subject moves around within the fixed frame.

So why not use software (like Motion 3 on your mac) to process each frame and make the subject still and move the frame around it. As per this. Then you can make nice videos. Which also has a link to the stabilised Zapruder film too (obviously a disturbing video, so be careful)

Original article at LifeHacker.

Newspaper for One

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I am fairly regular in my Internet viewing habits. That is, every morning I check the same web sites, sometimes even in the same order, for what has happened over night. Indeed I will return to those sites during the day. It’s not just news – as in newspapers – it’s also hobbies/interests.

Nearly every one of these sites also offers their information as an RSS feed, that is a formatted summary of their items. It’s like the headline and the first few paragraphs.

As mentioned earlier, I now use Google Reader to manage and read these summaries. Unlike earlier RSS Readers, this one has a Home page. It shows you a summary of the summaries, which isn’t as silly as it sounds. It shows about 3 items from all of your feeds. All in the one place.

As I wrote in an email yesterday these are “my topics and sub-topics, my sources, my organising tags/folders: My newspaper.”

And here’s a (shrunk) screen capture of my very own Newspaper for One. You can, of course, ‘drill down’ and read each individual feed, like Lifehacker.

David’s Google Reader main page.