Monday, April 30, 2007

Folding@Home, PS3 and Energy Consumption


PS3 owners can run a Folding@Home client on the game console.  (As on March 23rd, PS3s were contributing 338 teraflops.)


According to the PS3 frequently asked questions page, the power consumption of the PS3 running the Folding@Home client, is 200 Watts. 


This is the main reason that I don't run these clients, even though I would love to participate.  We are trying to reduce our energy consumption, so I wouldn't want to leave a 200 watt device running all of the time.


I do wonder how efficient the PS3 (flops/watt) is compared to other types of hardware.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Twitter plugin


I am interested in integrating LIfeType into various services for sending notifications.  I just whipped up a plugin to post "tweets" to Twitter when a new post is added.


Here is the wiki page for the Twitter plugin.  The plugin uses the class provided by David Billingham.


This is the type of thing that I think Twitter is perfect for: automatic notification of various processes.

links for 2007-04-28

Memory problem with securityd


For the past couple of days, my computer has been having problems when trying to update access to my Keychain when an application has been updated.  If I approve the update, the securityd process starts eating up memory.  I have seen this process using as much as 1.7GB.


This post has a description of this problem, and the solution.  The problem is that the CodeEquivalenceDatabase was corrupt.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

links for 2007-04-23

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

links for 2007-04-18

Monday, April 16, 2007

links for 2007-04-17

Better Gmail


Better Gmail is a Firefox Add-on that adds several features to Gmail.  Some of these include:


  • Icons for emails that have attachments

  • Reminders when sending a message that refers to an attachment, but doesn't include one

  • Label colors

  • Saved searches

It's All Text!


slacy mentioned the It's All Text Firefox Add-on.  This allows you to use an external application to edit/add the text in any html text area.


When using this on Mac OS X, you need to set the "Editor" to /usr/bin/open.  This will open your configured editor for text files.

Mailplane


Mailplane looks like a cool application that integrates Gmail into a Mac OS X application.  This application uses Webkit, for displaying the Gmail interface.


One down side of  Mailplane, you can only access your mail when you are connected to the network.  Though, one benefit is that you don't have to worry about synchronizing filters or labels between the web interface and Mail.app.


Here is a video walkthrough of some of the features:










[via UNEASYsilence]

Sunday, April 15, 2007

fotowoosh


Fotowoosh is a pretty cool future web service that will convert a photograph into a 3D scene.  It does this by creating a 3-D model and then mapping the image to the model.


[via TechCrunch]

Kinetic Art Demo


This is a pretty cool demonstration.



http://us.i1.yimg.com/cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/player/media/swf/FLVVideoSolo.swf

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

links for 2007-04-12

Menubar items


I saw this post on The Apple Blog mentioning Menubar Goodies, so I decided to describe mine.


Menubar-1


From left to right:


  • Quicksilver - The best application launcher (IMHO)

  • VirtueDesktops - Virtual Desktops for Mac OS X 10.4

  • iAlertU - Motion alarm for Mac Book Pro

  • VolumeNotifier - Growl notifications of volume mounting and unmounting

  • smcFanControl - Fan control for laptops and dsktops

  • SlimBatteryMonitor - Better battery status display than Apple's built in one

  • .Mac Sync - standard with Mac OS X

  • Keychain - standard with Mac OS X

  • SynergyKM - GUI for the synergy project

  • AirPort - standard with Mac OS X

  • International Input Menu - standard with Mac OS X

  • Clock - standard with Mac OS X

  • Fast user switching - standard with Mac OS X

  • Bluetooth - standard with Mac OS X

  • Spotlight - standard with Mac OS X

Monday, April 9, 2007

links for 2007-04-10

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Force emacs to open files in unix mode


I believe that emacs by default will use the line endings for current system when opening and saving text files.  This may cause a problem when you want to force the file to be saved with different line endings. I found this series of commands to force the file to be opened in unix mode:



C-x RET c unix RET C-x C-f


You can replace unix with dos, if you want to use those types of line endings.

Friday, April 6, 2007

links for 2007-04-07

No more Twitter


I have decided to uninstall Twitterrific, and stop using Twitter.  I didn't find it useful at all.  I didn't have the desire, or inclination to post "tweets" for everything that I do. Also, we don't use it at work or in my close group of friends.


As I mentioned before, there are some ways that I would find Twitter more useful:


Receiving information:


  • Receive a tweet when someone leaves a voice mail on our home phone number

  • When receiving a package, tweets would be sent while the package is on route.

  • When important status on servers changes, a tweet is sent.

  • Important status information about car diagnostics



Wednesday, April 4, 2007

links for 2007-04-05

One True Media and TiVo


I just tried the One True Media service.  One True Media lets you create and share videos from your photos or videos.  You can then share these videos in several ways:


  • html code to embed flash player on various sites

  • Share via email

  • Create a link to the video hosted on One True Media site

  • Send to a mobile phone

  • Share to a TiVo Channel


The last one is what I am interested in.  We have been sharing our videos with our family by either burning them on DVD or posting a copy on the web.  Sending the video to family members who have TiVo DVRs is a great way to share family videos.



Tuesday, April 3, 2007

LineIn


Linein When I am at work, I usually wear headphones connected to my laptop, so I can listen to music or podcasts while also being able to hear instant messenger notifications.  But, sometimes, I want to listen to music on my portable music player.


Previously, this would mean that I wouldn't be able to hear instant message notifications, since the headphones would be connected to the player and not my computer.


LineIn is a free utility that lets me listen to my portable player, and computer audio.  What it does is let you configure that the audio on any input gets mixed an audio output


[via TUAW]

links for 2007-04-04

Google Desktop for Mac


Google just released Google Desktop for Mac.  This adds searching and indexing of:


  • PDF, TXT and HTML files

  • email for Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage

  • iChat chats

  • Word, Excel, PowerPoint files

  • Address Book contacts


Spotlight also supports searching these thing, but Google Desktop also search the text of web pages that you have visited.  Also, you can search text in older versions of your document, even if they have been deleted.


I have installed it and it is working well, though the index hasn't completed yet.


Download link


[via Google Operating System, TUAW]

Sunday, April 1, 2007

links for 2007-04-02

Multifunction print server


This weekend, we reorganized the closet in our office.  I took this as an opportunity to move out Deskjet 812C to our kids iMac.  I am going to setup the free (after rebate) printer that we got with the Mac Book Pro.  I am going to try to use the Linksys PSUS4 again with this printer.


One problem with this solution is that we will not be able to access all of the functions of the printer.  While the printer is connected to the print server, we will not be able to use the scanner.  We will have to disconnect the USB cable from the print server, and connect it to our computers.



Seamless Local Control: Integrating WeatherFlow with Home Assistant Across VLANs

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