| code fixed... now it actually works. |
[Feb. 10th, 2007|02:23 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | funny | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  amused | ] |
1. Go to a website with graphics (Google, CNN, weather.com, etc - does NOT work on LJ)
2. Delete everything in the address bar and paste this:
javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);
3. Hit enter. Funny!! |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 9th, 2007|05:44 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Lily Allen - LDN | ] |
 |
|
|
| insomnia |
[Jan. 30th, 2007|05:16 am] |
So, there is an awesome calendar plugin for Thunderbird called Lightning. It pretty much seems to rock my world. ( Screenshot! )
There is also Sunbird, which is the full version of Lightning and has lots of cool stuff, but I like how Lightning is attached to my e-mail client so I don't have to open another program. This way, my calendar is right in my face... so I don't forget shit :P
I've also discovered widgets - right now, I just have a Woot widget and a local weather widget (from yahoo). I need to run my spyware scanner just to be sure it's cool... if you guys know anything sketchy about widgets, let me know. and I'm still highly addicted to this Woot-off... although, the past few hours have been less than exciting. |
|
|
| This is pretty darn cool! |
[Jan. 21st, 2007|12:19 pm] |
(12:17:07) AOL System Msg: Your screen name (cmobrien) is now signed into AOL(R) Instant Messenger (TM) in 2 locations. To sign off the other location(s), reply to this message with the number 1. Click here for more information.
(12:17:42) cmobrien:1
(12:17:42) AOL System Msg: Your other AIM sessions have been signed-off. You are now signed-on from 1 location(s). |
|
|
| silly funnies |
[Jan. 20th, 2007|03:46 pm] |
To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.
Microsoft is not the answer.
Microsoft is the question.
"No" or "Linux" is the answer.
Linux don't need no steenkin' viruses. The users can destroy the system all by themselves.
Microsoft -- because God hates us.
The *REAL* Y2K is the year 2048.
Favorite MAC error message: "Not enough memory to eject disk!"
Well, there's a quantum computer that can factor 15, so those of you using 4-bit RSA should worry.
The BeOS takes the best features from the major operating systems. It's got the power and flexibility of Unix, the interface and ease of use of the MacOS, and Minesweeper from Windows.
Why do geeks think Halloween and Christmas occur on the same day?
Because 31oct = 25dec!
The last good thing written in C was Franz Schubert's Symphony #9. - Erwin Dietrich
99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...
101 little bugs in the code.... |
|
|
| COOL! |
[Nov. 15th, 2006|03:01 pm] |
Dell user paid to uninstall Windows XP
By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News website
A Sheffield man has won a refund from Dell for not installing Microsoft's Windows XP on a laptop he bought from the PC giant.
Freelance programmer Dave Mitchell ordered a Dell laptop on 21 October, and the machine was delivered a few days later.
As Mr Mitchell was planning to run the Linux open source operating system on the machine, he had no need for the copy of Windows XP Home that had been pre-installed.
When he started it for the first time, he clicked the box that said "no" on the Windows licence agreement that asked him to agree to its terms. The text of this agreement states users can get a refund for the "unused products" on their new computer if they get in touch with the machine's manufacturer.
Cash back
Mr Mitchell, who is an active member of the open source community, said he knew that other Linux fans had tried to get refunds in a similar fashion with varying degrees of success.
The origins of this campaign date from 1999 when open source activists in the San Francisco area started campaigning to get refunds for software they had no intention of using.
Every time a computer-maker, such as Dell, sells a PC or laptop they must pay Microsoft for the copy of the Windows operating system installed on it. While many PCs are now sold with a customer's choice of operating system installed, no laptop-makers yet offer the option of anything but Windows, said Mr Mitchell.
To bolster his case, Mr Mitchell shot photographs of every stage of the process that ended with him declining Microsoft's licence terms.
"I had a clear record of what the licence did or did not say," he said.
"I fully intended to take it as far as the small claims court," he said, "just to be bloody-minded."
He then wrote a letter, outlining what he had done, to Dell's Bracknell office and waited for a response. In the letter he did not mention his digital document of the process with photographs.
"I assumed that would come out when it came to the small claims court," he told the BBC News website.
However, two days later, Dell rang him and told him to expect a refund to his credit card soon after.
"They only took two days to respond," he said. "I was pretty gob-smacked that it was so easy."
The total refund was for £55.23, which Mr Mitchell took to be the value of a pre-installed version of Windows XP Home.
A couple of days after the refund was agreed, an invoice from Dell arrived through the post, which described the refund as "goodwill unspecified".
Although Mr Mitchell has now waived the right to use the copy of Windows XP Home on his laptop, Dell has not asked for the installation disc to be returned.
"I've cost Dell £50, not Microsoft, which is a slightly annoying," said Mr Mitchell. He encouraged other people to try to get a refund and wondered if Dell's policy on which operating systems it offered on laptops would change if enough people tried. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 15th, 2006|02:55 pm] |
Physics promises wireless power
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
The tangle of cables and plugs needed to recharge today's electronic gadgets could soon be a thing of the past.
US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires.
The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
( Read more... )
HOW WIRELESS POWER COULD WORK:
1) Power from mains to antenna, which is made of copper
2) Antenna resonates at a frequency of 6.4Mhz, emitting electromagnetic waves
3) 'Tails' of energy from antenna 'tunnel' up to 5m (16.4ft)
4) Electricity picked up by laptop's antenna, which must also be resonating at 6.4Mhz. Energy used to re-charge device
5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 6.4Mhz |
|
|
| Glitches in state databases could turn away voters |
[Nov. 6th, 2006|07:09 pm] |
Summary:
The November 7 elections will mark the first use of a centralized voter database in a general election in Florida and many other states. These databases are governed by state selection officials in accordance with the Help America Vote Act. However, the databases require that new-voter information match information in other databases, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, says Dianne Wheatley-Giliotti, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVF). The databases were compiled quickly, providing IT workers minimal time for proper training. Leon County, Fla., has the benefit of having previously used a database system on which the new system was built, so IT personnel there will be better prepared, but according to Ion Sancho, head of elections for the county, "Other counties don't know all the ins and outs." Discrepancies, such as "Bill" in one database and "William" in another, would mean that this voter would receive a provisional ballot, and would need to furnish proper documentation within three days; contrary to the belief of many that a voter in this position would simply be sent home, says a spokeswoman for Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb. Some ineligible voters have been sent warnings, but many will find out at the poll site. Justin Levitt, associate counsel with the democracy program at New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice, cites Ohio's eligibility practices that are quite unclear, explaining, "Where the systems are less transparent, there's greater reason for concern." The provisional ballot is meant to assuage voters' fears concerning ineligibility, but LWVF's Wheatley Giliotti sees it as yet another obstacle for a shrinking pool of voters to negotiate.
( full article from Computer World ) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 4th, 2006|01:50 pm] |
Microsoft backs Novell's Linux platform
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. has embraced Novell Inc.'s open-source software platform, forming a technological truce between two longtime antagonists who want to make it easier for the still-dominant Windows operating system and the increasingly popular Linux system to work together.
( Read more... ) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 14th, 2006|11:56 am] |
Robot car to tackle city streets
Look, Ma, no humans.
Such is the rallying cry of the Stanford Racing Team, composed of nearly forty Stanford faculty, researchers and graduate students. The team has been in collaboration with Volkswagen’s Silicon Valley lab to try to win the 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge, seeking a car that can navigate a simulated urban environment for sixty miles in less than six hours, without any human guidance. To win the $2 million prize money, the Stanford team must do all this while finishing first in what will likely be a field of more than thirty teams.
...
According to Montemerlo — the new car, a Passat donated by Volkswagen — will have to reliably detect and track a variety of new obstacles. These will range from static hazards, such as curbs and holes, to dynamic hazards including cars, bicycles and pedestrians. And it will have to do so while obeying traffic laws, acting appropriately at intersections and doing everything else an experienced human driver would.
...
“We have a tremendous amount of space on this campus devoted to parking,” Stavens said. “But an automatic car could drop you off and go park itself some distance away.”
...
In a self-driving car, the passenger’s attention could be focused on more productive tasks, such as answering email.
...
“It could also affect traffic,” Montemerlo added. “With communication between vehicles, you could increase [traffic flow] substantially so you actually get places faster on the highway. And you can imagine people driving who can’t drive today, such as elderly people who can’t see very well. Or even kids. Their parents could put them in the car and send them to where they need to go.”
( full article ) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 12th, 2006|01:58 pm] |
I'm still learning about this whole podcast thing. I thought maybe Firefox could read podcasts, but I guess not... so I downloaded Juice to receive podcasts. I've found some podcasts on an Italian news site, so I might use that to keep my Italian skillz up. BBC also has great podcasts. Now I'm looking at NPR's podcast list.
Whoa, I'm listening to an NPR technology podcast, and they are talking about MySpace. News Corp (parent company of Fox) bought MySpace last year. Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace. That's insane. Big corporations scare me. |
|
|
| Women in Science |
[Oct. 4th, 2006|10:59 pm] |
Numbers Are Male, Said Pythagoras, and the Idea Persists
When I was a physics major in the late 1970’s, my very few fellow female students and I had high hopes that women would soon stand equal with men in science. But progress has proved slower than many of us imagined. A report last month by the National Academy of Sciences documents widespread bias against women in science and engineering and recommends a sweeping overhaul of our institutions.
While there may indeed be subtle biological differences contributing to the scarcity of women in the top ranks of science, interviews make clear that many female scientists continue to experience both overt and covert discrimination.
The academy’s report is welcome, yet there is reason to believe that when it comes to the mathematically intensive sciences like physics and astronomy, it is not just bureaucracies that stand in the way.
Female physicists, astronomers and mathematicians are up against more than 2,000 years of convention that has long portrayed these fields as inherently male. Though women are no longer barred from university laboratories and scientific societies, the idea that they are innately less suited to mathematical science is deeply ingrained in our cultural genes.
( Read more... ) |
|
|
| COOL! |
[Oct. 4th, 2006|10:35 pm] |
Scientists teleport two different objects
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Beaming people in Star Trek fashion is still in the realms of science fiction but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.
Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.
But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.
"It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium," Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.
( Read more... )
This is super interesting to me. The concept of entanglement was part of the Quantum Computing paper I wrote for Physics last semester, and it really fascinates me - I think it might be evidence of at least one more spatial dimension, and by teleporting, we are tapping into that dimension. At least that's what I like to think :) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 4th, 2006|09:44 am] |
Best Buy:
SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4.0GB USB Flash Drive
USB 2.0 (compatible with USB 1.1)
Retractable USB connector
2.25"L x 0.8"W x 0.3"D
Brilliant amber LED (lights up when plugged in)
Lanyard and SKYPE voucher card
SignupShield password manager
SKYPE VoIP software
AVAST virus scan
U3 Smart enabled
Originally $206.
Listed on sandisk.com at $180.
Best price on pricegrabber.com is $113.
On sale at Best Buy for $100.
It's back-ordered online, but check availability at your local Best Buy - mine had some, and gosh darn it, I got me one!
 |
|
|
| Firefox "flaw" was a joke! LOL! |
[Oct. 3rd, 2006|11:02 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | amused | ] |
Mozilla Duped by Hacker's 'Humorous' Presentation
A Firefox 'flaw' revealed at a hacker conference over the weekend was a joke, hacker admits.
One of the hackers who demonstrated exploit code for a vulnerability in the way the Firefox browser handles JavaScript admitted today that the presentation last week at a hacker conference was meant to be a joke, according to Mozilla's chief of security.
Mozilla security researchers spent most of Sunday and Monday scrambling to determine whether exploit code revealed during a presentation by hackers Mischa Spiegelmock and Andrew Wbeelsoi at Toorcon over the weekend could allow someone to execute malicious code through a memory corruption attack on Firefox.
However, Window Snyder, who leads Mozilla's security team, said Spiegelmock admitted to the company that the presentation was meant to be humorous, and that he and Wbeelsoi had not actually achieved remote execution with the exploit code demonstrated at the show.
"At best, in some cases it will crash only the client," Snyder said Tuesday. "That's all we've been able to verify at this point."
Spiegelmock, who works for blogging-software maker Six Apart, confirmed as much in his LiveJournal blog, in which he includes a link to a statement he made that is posted on Snyder's Mozilla blog.
All a Joke
"The main purpose of our talk was to be humorous," according to the statement. "As part of our talk we mentioned that there was a previously known Firefox vulnerability that could result in a stack overflow ending up in remote code execution. However, the code we presented did not in fact do this, and I personally have not gotten it to result in code execution, nor do I know of anyone who has."
During the presentation, the hackers also had said that they knew of 30 other vulnerabilities in Firefox, but this, too, was a joke, Snyder said.
To hear Six Apart spokesperson Jane Anderson tell it, the Toorcon presentation was a joke invented by two kids barely out of their teens who didn't understand the ramifications of their actions.
"It was all a parody," she said. Anderson added that Spiegelmock was not representing Six Apart at the show, and the company spent most of Sunday on the phone with Mozilla putting out fires and cooperating with the company to get to the bottom of the matter.
Anderson added that Spiegelmock will not be terminated for his actions. "We all make mistakes," she said.
Snyder and the Mozilla team also are being good sports about the ordeal.
"Of course, we always prefer that security researchers report vulnerabilities to us so we can create a patch before customers are put at risk," she said. "But at this point he's been very cooperative, and we're pleased he's chosen to work with us."
Still, Snyder said, "I know people who were working really hard here on Sunday probably have other things they'd rather be doing." |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 26th, 2006|05:54 pm] |
Sony Launches GPS for Cameras
Device adds location info to your digital camera's metadata.
Ever been on a trip where you've visited a dozen places, taken hundreds of pictures but can't quite remember where you shot them? Sony has developed a pocket-size, Global Positioning System device and software that helps you identify the location of every picture you've taken within a couple of meters.
The Japanese consumer electronics giant announced the availability of the GPS-CS1 tracking system on the eve of the Photokina imaging trade show, which opens Tuesday in Cologne, Germany.
Specs
The device, which records location data every 15 seconds, can accurately pinpoint a shot to within two meters.
The device measures 3.43 by 1.42 by 1.42 inches, can hold up to 31MB (equivalent to approximately one month of tracking and recording for 12 hours per day) and has a power-efficient design that allows up to 10 hours of continuous use with a single, alkaline cell battery.
How It Works
The GPS-CS1 doesn't connect to a digital camera. Instead, tracking data from the device is downloaded via a USB cable to a Windows PC running the Sony GPS Image Tracker software. Camera images are also downloaded to the same PC, which then "matches" the position data from the GPS tracking device with date and time data from the images.
Another piece of software, the Picture Motion Browser, which Sony now supplies with new cameras, allows users to view JPEG images with the appended location information. If they want a more visual view of the location, they can click the "Map View" function, which uses the online Google Maps services to show the geographic location.
"This is a device aimed at the amateur user," a Sony spokesman said at the company's booth. "It's lightweight, easy to use and affordable."
The suggested retail price of the GPS-CS1, now available in all major markets, is $166, the spokesman said. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 20th, 2006|12:54 am] |
This is really random, but I was just working on something in Microsoft Word. I had just typed a letter, and I was trying to do Ctrl+z to undo it, but I accidentally hit Alt+x. Suddenly, the letter (a lowercase "a") turned into 0061. I tried it after an "r" and it turned into 0072. I thought maybe it was ASCII, but it didn't make sense for "r" to be only 11 numbers after "a". I looked up an ASCII chart online, and it looks like it's maybe the hexidecimal representation of the letters. ( chart )
If you do Alt+x, it'll change the letter to hexidecimal, and then if you hit it again, it will change it back (although it doesn't always convert back correctly). WEIRD! Does anyone know more about this?? I wonder if Microsoft did this on purpose for some reason, or if it is some debugging tool or something. |
|
|
| Hacking Coke machines |
[Sep. 14th, 2006|05:38 pm] |
I'd never heard of this until ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) plexplex told me about it.
From this site:
Coke vending machines are everywhere. They're getting more and more like regular computers with LEDs that show little "ICE COLD" messages and whatnot. Well, there's a lot more to those little built-in computers than you may think. Included in the low-level operating system that these babies run on is an actual debug menu that gives you access to all sorts of machine information and possibly gives you free cokes in older machines.
( how to do it! ) |
|
|
| WEEE TRAFFIC LIGHTS!! |
[Sep. 14th, 2006|05:20 pm] |
There is something exotic about the traffic lights that "know" you are there -- the instant you pull up, they change! How do they detect your presence?
Some lights don't have any sort of detectors. For example, in a large city, the traffic lights may simply operate on timers -- no matter what time of day it is, there is going to be a lot of traffic. In the suburbs and on country roads, however, detectors are common. They may detect when a car arrives at an intersection, when too many cars are stacked up at an intersection (to control the length of the light), or when cars have entered a turn lane (in order to activate the arrow light).
There are all sorts of technologies for detecting cars -- everything from lasers to rubber hoses filled with air! By far the most common technique is the inductive loop. An inductive loop is simply a coil of wire embedded in the road's surface. To install the loop, they lay the asphalt and then come back and cut a groove in the asphalt with a saw. The wire is placed in the groove and sealed with a rubbery compound. You can often see these big rectangular loops cut in the pavement because the compound is obvious.
Inductive loops work by detecting a change of inductance. To understand the process, let's first look at what inductance is. This figure is helpful:
What you see here is a battery, a light bulb, a coil of wire around a piece of iron (yellow), and a switch. The coil of wire is an inductor. If you have read How Electromagnets Work, you will also recognize that the inductor is an electromagnet.
If you were to take the inductor out of this circuit, then what you have is a normal flashlight. You close the switch and the bulb lights up. With the inductor in the circuit as shown, the behavior is completely different. The light bulb is a resistor (the resistance creates heat to make the filament in the bulb glow). The wire in the coil has much lower resistance (it's just wire), so what you would expect when you turn on the switch is for the bulb to glow very dimly. Most of the current should follow the low-resistance path through the loop. What happens instead is that when you close the switch, the bulb burns brightly and then gets dimmer. When you open the switch, the bulb burns very brightly and then quickly goes out.
The reason for this strange behavior is the inductor. When current first starts flowing in the coil, the coil wants to build up a magnetic field. While the field is building, the coil inhibits the flow of current. Once the field is built, then current can flow normally through the wire. When the switch gets opened, the magnetic field around the coil keeps current flowing in the coil until the field collapses. This current keeps the bulb lit for a period of time even though the switch is open.
The capacity of an inductor is controlled by two factors:
* The number of coils
* The material that the coils are wrapped around (the core)
Putting iron in the core of an inductor gives it much more inductance than air or any other non-magnetic core would. There are devices that can measure the inductance of a coil, and the standard unit of measure is the henry.
So... Let's say you take a coil of wire perhaps 5 feet in diameter, containing five or six loops of wire. You cut some grooves in a road and place the coil in the grooves. You attach an inductance meter to the coil and see what the inductance of the coil is. Now you park a car over the coil and check the inductance again. The inductance will be much larger because of the large steel object positioned in the loop's magnetic field. The car parked over the coil is acting like the core of the inductor, and its presence changes the inductance of the coil.
A traffic light sensor uses the loop in that same way. It constantly tests the inductance of the loop in the road, and when the inductance rises, it knows there is a car waiting!
howstuffworks.com |
|
|
| scary! and cool!! |
[Sep. 12th, 2006|02:11 pm] |
Scientists Prepare to Create Mini Big Bang
An experiment that could prove the existence of additional special dimensions
By: Vlad Tarko, Sci-Tech News Editor
"We are going to make mini Big Bangs. There has never been such a jump in particle physics. It will go into an area that we don't really understand," said Brian Cox of Manchester University at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
He is referring to a new experiment that will be conducted at the Large Hadron Collider, the 27km-long underground circular particle accelerator at the CERN experimental facility near Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border. Scientists will smash protons (hydrogen nuclei) into each other at such tremendous speeds that they expect to replicate the conditions during the Big Bang.
"It is an incredibly exciting machine. It will be turned on next year and run for at least a decade and probably 20 years and the first results - if the machine behaves itself - should start coming out within a year," Dr Cox said.
The experiment might also reveal the existence of other spatial dimensions which are postulated by various candidate theories to the "theory of everything".
But the most important question is how matter appeared in the beginning of the universe.
"We don't know what 95 per cent of the universe is made of - which is a bit embarrassing for a subject that claims to be fundamental," Dr Cox said. "There is dark matter. It is all over the place but we have no idea what it is. There is also something called dark energy, and that is an even bigger question. It makes up about 70 per cent of the energy in the universe, but again we have absolutely no idea what it is."
Some physicists think that at first, there was nothing but, due to the uncertainty principle, the nothing "fluctuated" and as a consequence, the Big Bang happened. According to such views, there might be many universes.
If the theories are correct, the collider should create tiny black holes that evaporate and leave behind other particles. These particles might offer evidences about additional spatial dimensions above the familiar three ones we know.
"That would be an even bigger headline than the black holes. It could be that there is a whole new universe a millimeter away from our heads but at right-angles to the three dimensions that are here," Dr Cox said. "That would be a real paradigm shift - our relegation to a little sheet in a multi-dimensional universe. That kind of thing is really profound and will capture the imagination that perhaps the origin of mass won't, although it should. For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction. New processes are bound to be discovered. We are truly journeying into unknown territory."
Some have worried that such an experiment that would create black holes could destroy the entire planet, but Dr Cox dismissed the worries. "The probability is at the level of 10 to the minus 40," he said. That is a 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 11th, 2006|09:24 pm] |
Samsung Unveils New Kind of Memory
Company says PRAM will replace NOR memory used in mobile phones.
Samsung Electronics unveiled a new kind of memory chip Monday, PRAM (phase-change RAM), aimed at replacing NOR flash memory in mobile phones.
The new kind of chip, which will be commercially available in 2008, combines the faster data transfer speeds of DRAM (dynamic RAM) with the ability to retain data after power is shut off in a device, similar to flash memory. PRAM is effectively 30-times faster than flash memory, easier to manufacture, and will have a life span 10 times longer, Samsung said.
Serious Competition
Samsung will have to compete against Intel and Spansion, the two biggest makers of NOR flash memory, with PRAM. NOR is popular in mobile phones for its ability to quickly launch software programs. Most handsets contain NOR and NAND flash, the more popular flash memory valued for its ability to store huge amounts of data, such as songs, videos and photos.
But PRAM will also have to compete with a host of other types of memory used in mobile phones, including DRAM, which costs less than most other memory chips due to its widespread use in PCs and video game consoles.
Samsung plans to launch PRAM initially in a 512-megabit capacity, the same as the prototype it showed off on Monday. |
|
|
| Quantum Computing stuff! |
[Sep. 10th, 2006|12:58 pm] |
Quantum effect offers molecular transistors
A molecular switch that operates in a fundamentally new way could usher in a generation of microprocessors that work on the molecular scale.
The switch exploits the strange laws of quantum mechanics to tackle one of the biggest barriers facing researchers developing molecular electronics, say scientists.
With transistors becoming ever smaller, researchers have long known that they would eventually have to tackle the problems of building circuits on the molecular scale. A number of groups have proposed molecules that should work as transistors and have even used them to build rudimentary circuits.
( read more )
Subatomic IT
Previously untapped properties of electrons and nuclear particles may lead to unimaginably small and power-efficient computers.
The work of Jim Allen, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is so far removed from everyday experience that he has to explain it by analogy: a tabletop covered with refrigerator magnets. "They all interact with each other and do funny dances," he says.
But these are not ordinary magnets; they are nanoscale "quantum dots," and their dance is far from random. The tiny magnets can be choreographed, or programmed, to solve a logic problem. A tweak to one dot causes its neighbors to do "interesting things," Allen explains.
The magnets employ a property called electron spin. For decades, computer circuits have been based on the charge, or flow, of electrons. But electrons not only flow; they also spin up or down, offering a new way to store, manipulate and communicate information. Electron spin was discovered in the 1920s, though practical applications have been limited.
( read more ) |
|
|
| go RTP!!! w00t w00t! |
[Sep. 7th, 2006|12:55 pm] |
According to a survey by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the nation's top-ranked tech hub is North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham area, which enjoys relatively affordable housing and a thriving job market. The region also wins points for local kids' performance on eighth-grade math tests, as well as comparatively low sales taxes and affordable utility bills.
The No. 2 city is Seattle, home to thousands of well-paid technology professionals who work at Microsoft Corp., in suburban Redmond, Wash.
Silicon Valley last among tech hubs: Raleigh-Durham area ranked first in the list of 12 technology centers
(thanks to plexplex)
Edit: Mom just told me that Raleigh-Durham ranked second in "brainiest cities" - tied with Seattle. Damn, maybe this ain't such a bad place to live :) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 7th, 2006|01:25 am] |
iPods to 'help US students study'
Students starting their studies at Duke University in the US are to be given an Apple iPod to help them learn.
The North Carolina university said the iPods will be pre-loaded with information for new students, as well as a copy of the academic calendar.
They will also hold course material such as lecture notes and audio books.
( read more... ) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 4th, 2006|12:05 pm] |
On this day in 1956, the IBM RAMAC 305, the first commercial computer that used magnetic disk storage, was introduced.
 |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 4th, 2006|12:47 am] |
I've redesigned my website. I'm not sure how I like it, but it's better than it was. I still need to work on content, but it's getting there.
edit: if the old version is coming up and links don't work, then refresh the pages. It should look like this:
 |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 3rd, 2006|04:18 pm] |
PC World's Top 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time
#8: Internet Explorer 6.
Full of features, easy to use, and a virtual engraved invitation to hackers and other digital delinquents, Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet. How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser--any browser--other than IE. Their reason: IE users who visited the wrong Web site could end up infected with the Scob or Download.Ject keylogger, which could be used to steal their passwords and other personal information. Microsoft patched that hole, and the next one, and the one after that, and so on, ad infinitum.
To be fair, its ubiquity paints a big red target on it--less popular apps don't draw nearly as much fire from hackers and the like. But here's hoping that Internet Explorer 7 springs fewer leaks than its predecessor. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 3rd, 2006|12:40 pm] |
There is this new "browser" that has come out promising privacy. It's called Browzar. It's actually a plug-in for IE that makes it look a little different, and it automatically erases all websites you visited when you close the browser. I think you can change the options in IE to do that... so this seems very pointless to me. I guess I don't visit embarrassing websites or something. ( here are some excerpts from the BBC article )
They also say on their website that law enforcement can still pull up the data... which means that probably anyone who knows what they're doing can. Yup, seems pointless to me.
This reminds me, though - I need to change my browser settings to actually reload pages when they load. I have had problems with old pages loading - especially on LJ. I've missed lots of friends' entries because it keeps loading old pages. Anyway...
EDIT! "The application Browzar has been branded "adware" by many because it directs web searches to online adverts." - HAHA! That didn't take long ;) Here's the follow-up article from BBC. Too funny :) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 2nd, 2006|01:36 pm] |
I have a minor computer issue. But it's really annoying.
My laptop was just reimaged by Tech Services. Now when I reboot my machine, it reverts the display settings back to 800 x 600px. Also, when I close the lid, the desktop icons that are on the right side shift to the left by 3 spaces. It's as if it reverted to 800x600, shifted the icons over to fit on the screen, and then changed the display back to 1024x768... but the icons stay in the same place. It's really annoying, and I've never had a computer do this. I think it might have something to do with the "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for mobile" that's installed on the machine. I've looked through all the settings and options, and I've tried everything that looks remotely related, but nothing seems to fix the problem.
Edit: It definitely had something to do with the graphic media accelerator, but I have no idea what. I opened the settings, didn't change anything, and clicked "okay," and ever since then, it seems to have fixed itself. Maybe it just needed to be reminded that I don't want it at 800x600 or something. Strange. |
|
|
| I am addicted to RSS news feeds. |
[Sep. 1st, 2006|04:24 pm] |
I now have 6 feeds on my Firefox links toolbar: BBC News, PC World, BBC Technology news, PC World Gadgets, Italy news, and Carolina Hurricanes news. When I click on them, it drops down with a list of latest headlines.
( How to get you some! ) |
|
|
| Help the world for FREE! |
[Aug. 31st, 2006|02:25 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  inspired! | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Ernesto raining all over | ] |
Donate the time your computer is turned on and idle to projects that benefit humanity! We provide the secure software that does it all for free, and you become part of a community that is helping to change the world. Once you install the software, you will be participating in World Community Grid. No other action must be taken; it's that simple!
You download their software, and when you aren't using your computer, it will do work to help researchers find cures for cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other global issues - and you don't have to do anything! And it's totally free! They say it's secure, safe, and won't affect your computer while you're using it... it will simply use it while you aren't.
If you're like me, you feel like you should be doing more to help the world... well, this is probably the easiest way you can do that! So DO IT! ;) |
|
|
| Another reason to hate AOL! |
[Aug. 30th, 2006|11:21 pm] |
A Watchdog Group Warns Against AOL’s Free Software - it shows signs of being "badware"
Dealing yet another blow to AOL, a leading software watchdog group warned users away from AOL’s free client software yesterday on the ground that it displayed characteristics consistent with “badware.”
The term badware describes a wide array of downloadable applications that try to install extra components on a computer without clearly informing users of what they are or what they will do.
( read more... )
I hold one of my famous grudges against AOL. They suck you in, and if you try to cancel their service, you end up on the phone for 30 minutes while they try to suck you in even further, no matter how loud you yell at them to just freakin' cancel your service already. That and they teamed up with Time Warner, which is another one of my grudge victims. They charged me $19 to install a cable outlet at my last apartment that 1) I did not request, and 2) never used. When I refused to pay it, they threatened to cut off my service and charge a reconnection fee. When I signed up for internet at my current apartment, I specifically chose Earthlink because 1) they are good, and 2) they aren't Time Warner Cable (Road Runner). So who do I get a bill from? Time Warner Cable. UGH! They have such a monopoly - it sickens me.
If you don't like AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) or are tired of the STUPID advertisements, get Gaim for Windows! You can use your same AIM account. No ads, and it works great. And yes, it's free. You can also sign on with Yahoo and ICQ (and a few other) different chat accounts at the same time... or you can sign onto multiple AIM accounts at the same time, too.
In other corporate news, Starbucks also took a blow this month, much to my delight. Down with huge evil corporations! |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Aug. 29th, 2006|11:28 pm] |
Okay. I am not a genius, but I'm actually not that far from it. I have a pretty darn high IQ, and I know a lot about computers - maybe not as much as some, but I know a good bit. One thing that irritates me more than anything is when someone talks down to me, and in the computer world, it happens more than anywhere else. I get REALLY ticked off when people talk down to me about computers like I don't know what I'm doing. Sure, I don't know everything, so I don't mind some help every now and then. But don't treat me like I'm an idiot.
Rant over :) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Aug. 29th, 2006|09:28 pm] |
My Meredith laptop had been acting quirky ever since I first got it last year... but since the blow-up last month, it's REALLY been acting funky. I had decided to take it in to get reimaged, but I hadn't gotten the guts to actually do it yet. Well, I had to take it in yesterday to get MatLab put on for Numerical Analysis class, and it was just spitting out all kinds of errors. They suggested reimaging it because of other weird things going on, so I said "go ahead." Of course, this was the advice of a guy who was telling me that IE is the only way to go (*BARF*) and that Norton sucks hard core and McAfee is the best (I've only had problems with McAfee in the past 6 years of my life). He told me that the new version of McAfee never worked, but the old one works great (a little unnerving, if you ask me). I told him I'd give it a whirl.
The IE thing really irked me, though. He said, "You're just safer using IE." I said, "But you're computer isn't!!" He tried to act like people were hacking into Firefox, too, but I have NEVER had a security problem with Firefox. In fact, just a few minutes with an IE window open will cause several spyware issues to pop up. It's really quite incredible. I don't trust IE at all. If a site absolutely will not function in Firefox, I will reluctantly open IE to use the site. Then I immediately scan for spyware and remove the crap that was already crapped on my computer.
Besides - Firefox offers news feeds straight from the links bar, and there are browsing right-click options such as "copy image location" or "view image." That is one of my favorite things about Firefox. It sounds silly, but in order to get the address of an image online in IE, you have to right-click, select "Properties," and copy the URL from the properties window. PITA! AND Firefox has tabbed browsing for your browsing pleasure! Another one of my favorite features. Not to mention that Firefox is free and isn't owned by a greedy nerd-wanna-be.
Okay, I swear I didn't get paid by Mozilla for that rant ;) Completely from the heart!
So anyway, yeah, I've spent the whole afternoon trying to get my laptop back up to where it was before they killed it. Software, settings, files, etc. Yay for my external HDD! I love that thing ;) I just need to remember to turn it off when I'm not using it - it gets really hot and probably eats electricity like none other. |
|
|
| Hello, world! |
[Aug. 16th, 2006|05:40 am] |
This is my new geek outlet: a journal to document the nerdy fascinations and discoveries of my life. I originally wanted to primarily document computer-related stuff, but I might stray from that a bit since I do have other dweeby interests.
Note: I'm still learning, so don't judge me for my lack of knowledge and experience. That is why I am creating this journal.
My current home project is a result of a HD scare I had a few weeks ago. I went on a 6-week study abroad trip to Italy earlier this summer, and did not back up my digital photos when I got back. Within a few weeks, my computer suddenly crashed, and Windows wouldn't boot. Although Meredith Tech Services was unable to help me, a man that works with my mom managed to fix the problem. I have backed up my photos and other files on CDs, but I have recently discovered that CDs no longer do the trick.
After debating between getting an external HD or a DVD burner, I decided on the HD. I bought a Cavalry 160GB external USB 2.0 HDD. When I plugged it in to my computer, it automatically installed drivers and was ready to use. I just downloaded some free backup software called GoodSync - I'm trying it out right now. I have scheduled a weekly backup - it will move any new or modified files from My Documents to the external HDD automatically once a week. This is why I chose to get the HDD instead of a DVD burner - far easier... which means it's more likely that I'll actually use it and back up my data. I'm sure the excitement over my new toy will fade quickly since it doesn't actually do anything exciting, but I am really glad I got it.
That's enough for now. It's definitely way past my bed time. |
|
|
sleepy
nerdy
revenge!!
awake after an accidental nap