Unit Converter widget

I hardly have an occasion to convert units of area or temperature, but I often need to convert between Hex, Decimal, Octal, Binary and ascii.

This post links to an AppleScript that patches Apple's Unit Converter Widget to do these conversions.

SNL/Steve Jobs on the iPhone

This is pretty funny:

http://www.youtube.com/v/7Kd-beTSdkQ

[via TUAW]

JVC KD-NX5000

One of the problems with after market navigation systems, is that they require an external, often flip out, monitor.  There have been several headunits only available in Europe that integrate a navigation unit into a single-DIN headunit.  For example, the Blaupunkt Travelpilot, and the Harman/Kardon Traffic Pro are mainly available in Europe.

The JVC ND-NX5000 is a single-DIN headunit with navigation.  It has a 40GB drive, where 15 GB is reserved for navigation maps, and the rest is available for audio or video content.  The built-in 3.5" screen can also be used for watching DVDs or other video content on the hard drive.

[via Engadget]

Alpine KCE-300BT

I have mentioned that several car headunits that allow hands-free talking on your cell phone over bluetooth.  These usually were missing some feature that I wanted like, iPod controls, or satellite radio controls.

Now Alpine has announced the KCE-300BT.  This is an Ai-NET component that will connect to any of the newer Ai-NET compatible stereos, and allow you to have hands-free conversations on your Bluetooth cell phone.  The caller id information will appear on the headunit display.

Since most of Alpine's headunits are Ai-NET compatible, this will allow the hands-free functionality, with all of the other extra features that I want.

[via Engadget]

OmniGrowl

OmniGrowl is an framework that allows notifications to be sent for applications that don't natively support Growl.  It also comes with some pretty useful plugins:

• various notifications of iCal appointments


• track changes in iTunes

Some of these are available as separate scripts, but it is nice to have a single place to enable/disable them.

[via TUAW]

My Visited States

I guess I have been to 58% of the states.

create your own visited states map

or check out these Google Hacks.

[via Ramblewords]

iPhone Alternative?

A new line of Linux-based phones is scheduled to be available soon.  The Neo1973 is the first phone from this family of phones.  The GSM phone has a 640x480 touchscreen, and an A-GPS receiver. In addition to the standard applications, you can install new applications using an "application manager" interface.

They are expecting a follow-up model that includes both WiFi and Bluetooth.

I think that something like this has the potential to be a challenger to Apple's iPhone.

[via Razvan Antonescu's link blog]