August 31, 2004
New Apple iMac released - “where is the computer”
Apple has done it again with the new apple iMac, which you can see on the Apple iMac site. The new iMac now has the G5 processor and the whole computer is hidden behind the screen, quite impressive that they could fit everything into the small case size. I can not wait until my local mac store receives a demo model so that I can play with it.
August 30, 2004
The Best Mac OSX News Reader has turned 1.5
Panic the company that has brought you great applications like Transmit (FTP client), Audion (MP3 Player) and CandyBar (icon customisation utility) has released a new version of Unison probably THE BEST OSX news reader available. The best way to see all the features of Unison is to download a trial copy and give it a go. One of the great features of Unison is the ability to cleanly and easily browse news posts by the content (eg images, files, music) rather than just viewing the messages like the more traditional email client type view, which is also possible.
Links
Panic Home Page
Unison Home Page
August 29, 2004
SyncML
Many of the mobile phones that you can purchase have support for this little known standard called SyncML that allows for mobile devices to sync with your different PIM (Personal Information Management) applications. Up until now not many people have actually made much use of SyncML but with the J2EE application Sync4J you can easily host your own SyncML server.
Links
SyncML Technical Standards - Open Mobile Alliance Website
Sync4J - SyncML Server
August 28, 2004
Tiger Tracker
TigerTracker is a website that has been built purely to track articles released on the Internet about the future release of Apple's new OS version codenamed Tiger. So far Apple has released a fair amount of information tidbits that describe some of the new advanced features to be incorporated in Tiger and many other sites have screenshots of the operating system from versions of Tiger that are released to a limited number of developers. I am very interested in Tiger as I use Apple computers both at work and at home. Have a look at the site if you are interested in Apple products and want to take all the hard work out of finding information about Apple's Tiger operating system.
Links
Tiger Tracker Website
Apple's Sneak Peek at Tiger Site
August 27, 2004
The 3rd Dock
Here is a great article on the Apple-X website about the third hidden dock in OSX Jaguar (10.3). This first is the traditional dock introduced in the first version of OSX. The second dock is the finder toolbar on the left side of finder windows that was introduced in Jaguar. The third dock concept is using the finder toolbar at the top of the finder window next to the search text area. Have a read through the article (includes images) of how to use this.
August 26, 2004
Open Source J2EE Components
I have been looking into the JIRA and Confluence products by Atlassian have found that most of the functionality is provided by a few open source components from OpenSymphony. OpenSymphony is an open source project that is developing a number of open source components to support the development of J2EE applications.
Components Provided
WebWork - MVC framework that stresses simplicity and interoperability.
OSWorkflow - Flexible workflow engine based on finite state machine concept.
Quartz - Job scheduling system.
SiteMesh - Page layout and decoration framework that cleanly separates content and presentation.
OSCache - Web-tier caching framework which enables massive speed increases and improved error tolerance.
OSCore - Set of utility-classes useful in any J2EE application.
XWork - Command pattern framework.
PropertySet - Typed properties storage framework.
Clickstream - Utility to track the current users on your site.
Links
OpenSymphony Home Page
JIRA Product Page
Confluence Product Page
Atlassian Home Page
Mac: Tabbed browsing for all your Desktop Applications
Do you like the use of tabs in your browsers like Firefox and Safari? Sticky Windows is a new application by Donelleschi that allows you to dock windows to tabs displayed at the side of your display. The best way to understand is to go to the Stick Windows website that has a quick animation showing Sticky Windows in operation.
Links
Sticky Windows Website
August 25, 2004
Oracle on Mac OSX
I was very interested when Oracle first announced that it would be releasing its Oracle 10g Database for OSX. Well now OSX is officially supported by OSX and if you want to install it for yourself here is a helpful guide.
August 23, 2004
Paper Boats, Thats nothing
Well I can not even make a paper boat properly, I therefore have no hope of creating this paper dragon. This is one of many pieces on show at the Origami Convention on at the moment.
Links
Origami Tanteidan International Convention 2004
Paper dragon photo
The Next Generation in Computer Games Is Coming - Half-Life 2
At the recent Siggraph conference Viktor Antonov presented a series of Powerpoint slides containing images of the new Half-Life 2 visuals. These have to be seen to be believed as there is incredible detail and lighting effects to make one of the most immersive games I have ever seen. The most incredible thing is that these images are generated realtime using some of the most advanced commercial graphics cards. Many of the images are of such high quality that they rival those created in many computer generated movies where it takes hours to just render a single frame of video. The best way to understand is to view the images for yourself.
Links
Half-Life 2 image slideshow
Thinlet: Java GUI toolkit
Thinlet is a Java GUI that replaces the now standard Java Swing graphics library. Thinlet provides a GUI environment that is specified by properties in an XML file separating the business logic layer from the graphical layer of your application. The XML format used is the standardised XUL (XML User interface Language) which is also used to display all graphical elements in Mozilla and Firefox browsers.
Thinlet follows the current trend to define user interfaces with XML. It has been reported that Microsoft will also be following this model in their new operating system (codenamed Longhorn), which is using XAML to define application user interfaces.
Links
Thinlet Home Page
August 22, 2004
Australian iTunes Store Rumoured
The new Internet ISP called Unwired has hinted that its newly forged relationship with Apple means that an iTunes music store will open up in Australia. Unwired is a new type of ISP that has started deploying a completely wireless Internet access for users in Sydney (to start with). As part of this wireless rollout Unwired is offering special deals on the Apple Airport Express hub. Unwired plans for more than 100,000 customers in Sydney by August next year. Further wireless network deployments are planned for Melbourne and Brisbane in the near future.
Links
Apple Airport Express
News.com.au Article - Unwired aims for 100,000 in a year
Unwired hints at iTunes link
Unwired Website
Streaming Internet Music
With the advent of larger Internet connections and many users now owning broadband connections we are starting to see home music players that can stream MP3 music straight over your Internet connection as an Internet Radio Stream (Phillips Players). For those of you who do not have one of these streaming Internet players it is possible to listen to the music from your computer with such programs and WinAMP (for windows) or iTunes (windows and mac). iTunes has a number of Internet Radio Stations already defined in the program but there are also a number of websites that contain a list of radio stations. The two largest MP3 Internet Radio stream sites are SHOUTcast and Live365.com. These two sites allow you to browse or search through a VERY large list of Internet Radio streams to find what you are interested in. Live365.com is a commercial site that wishes you to pay for advert free radio streams, however you can still listen to the streams for free and it is the same as listening to normal FM commercial radio. The extra feature that Live365.com has is that it pops up a window in your browser that displays the current song and the past 2 songs.
You may have noticed that I qualify that these streams are MP3 streams, as you can also find Internet Radio streams that use other audio formats. IceCast is a site containing software to create your own Internet Radio stream. IceCast can stream any audio format that it understands which includes OGGVorbis (for more information about OGGVorbis go here) and MP3. The IceCast stream list therefore displays Internet Radio Streams that are either using the MP3 or OGGVorbis formats.
Yes I know that there are other sites out there that offer Internet radio streams but I believe that these are the best and will keep you amused for hours. Happy listening.
Links
NullSoft SHOUTcast
Live 365.com
IceCast Stream List
Vorbis Website
Phillips Broadband Internet Audio Players
August 21, 2004
Virtual Reality Environment That Allows You To Walk
University of Tsukuba has developed a prototype system that allows a person to physically walk through a virtual environment. Most traditional virtual reality require the user to stand completely still and then use with hand gestures or control nobs to navigate through the virtual environment. Because there is no physical feeling of movement it makes these virtual environments feel a little fake. University of Tsukuba has created a new gadget called the CirculaFloor that consists of a number of moveable platforms. The moveable platforms are able to move independently across a flat floor so that there is always a platforms where you place you foot. By constantly moving these platforms it is possible to walk over these platforms but staying in the same physical location. Each platforms is able to move in any direction so that the user can also change direction and walk in any direction.
I believe that this is quite an impressive invention and will allow for much greater immersion when using virtual environments. There is a quick video (22Mb) that shows the CirculaFloor in action. For viewing the video it seems that the first prototype version is a little slow, forcing the user to only take small steps, but I am sure this will be fixed in production versions.
Links
CirculaFloor Website
Video (22Mb)
Apple Recalls 15“ Powerbook Batteries
Apple is recalling all batteries sold worldwide from January 2004 through August 2004 for the 15“ Powerbook (aluminum) laptops. The reason given is that these batteries are flawed and have the potential to overheat creating a fire risk. For more details see the Apple site (https://depot.info.apple.com/batteryexchange/).
Links
Apple Website
Battery Replacement Site
August 16, 2004
Funny Signs, Packages and Instruction Manuals
I have known about the Engrish.com for quite some time. Engrish.com contains a collection of signs, bags, posters all with saying that have been converted to English... badly. Well here is another site that contains some new images of instructions manuals that have gone very wrong and are quite funny. My favorite on this site has to be this instruction manual. If you have any of your own you can also submit them to the site owner to expand the collection.
Links
Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness
Engrish.com
August 15, 2004
JDocs: Searchable and User Provided JavaDocs
A new site has been launched called JDocs contains numerous JavaDocs for Java APIs publicly available. What JDoc provides above the normal JavaDocs that come with the Java APIs is the ability to search and provide additional information or comments via user comments on any section of the JavaDoc documentation. This is a great resource for any Java developer. Links JDocs Website
August 09, 2004
When is a sink not a sink?
I did not quite understand what I was seeing when I first saw the pictures of the HF01 sink by Thoms & Nilsson. The HF01 uses a solid stone slab as the sinks basin, but instead of being concave it is completely flat allowing the water to flow straight over the edges to the drain at the base of the bases stand on the floor. The first thought that came to mind was why would you do this, the Thoms & Nilsson website answers this question. According to the makers with the advent of mixing taps it is no longer necessary to have a basin to mix the water to a comfortable temperature allowing for the unusual design of the HF01.
Links
Thoms & Nilsson Website
August 06, 2004
Table Oriented Programming
We have services oriented programming, object oriented programming and now table oriented program. In the browsing through the Internet I have found this interesting site that talks about a programming design based around the use of tables.
Links
Table Oriented Programming (TOP) website
Wooden Swiss Stamp
The swiss have done it again by making a very beautiful wooden stamp. The stamp is 0.7mm thick and made from 100 year old pine trees felled from the north of switzerland.
Links
Swiss Post News Release
August 05, 2004
Toy Rollercoaster
Have you ever wanted to design your own fun park including a roller coaster? CoasterDynamix have delivered your dreams with a toy roller coaster kit, lego style. They even have a video of it in action!
Links
CoasterDynamix Website
Download Video
Identification via your skin
The EE Times is running an article on a technology that allows for data to be transferred via your skin. This can allow devices to send information between each other as long as they are both touching your skin. This could allow for you data on your identity be easily transmitted to a car lock, or secure door or ship details between to an external device. According to the article they have been able to transfer data at 9600 baud which is faster enough to send enough data to move identity information. They are comparing this technology with RFID or bluetooth although I believe that these technologies are to be used in different applications so can not be compared directly although it does open up some interesting doors.
Links
EE TImes Article
