uvageek

So I’ve been contemplating buying a MacBook Pro for a while now.  And yes, I realize that there will be a hardware refresh sometime in the next six to eight months… though I also realize that in the past whenever Apple has done a hardware refresh that there are typically some small problems (warping of cases, etc.) during said releases which means that the current MacBook Pro which is nimble and quick is at the height of its refinement.

What to do… Thoughts? Recommendations?  I know, go read a forum and make my own decision, but those are coming from folks that I don’t know

Now Playing - Charlie Haden - Land of the Sun - Sueno Solo Con Tu Amor (I Only Dream of Your Love)

So I received an e-mail from Apple saying that my 16 GB iPod Touch was on its way shipped via Fedex. Looks like it’s coming direct from the manufacturing plant in Kunshan, China (Live Local Map). Wonder when it will show up…

Sonicflood - Sonicflood - I Need You

So you’ve recently invested anywhere up to $600 in an iPod or iPhone and you’re thinking to yourself, “I really hope that no one gets greedy and steals my precious.”

Well, look no further, someone has created a clever device that will allow you to keep your iPod safe and sound.  They’ve created the “Zune” case for the iPod - yes, that’s right, who would ever want a zune

Check it out over at http://www.hideapod.com

Editors - Well Worn Hand (An End Has A Start)

So my good friend Danny down at UVA sent me a link this evening that I read and was like, “Nooooo!”  Granted, I don’t own an iPhone, nor do I intend to procure one until the iPhone has been upgraded to 32 GB of solid state memory and is on the UMTS/HSDPA with a downlink of 14.4 Megabits per second.

Alas, that’s another subject altogether, back to the link at hand… over at TechCrunch there was an article posted on the 10th of July entitled “Will an iPhone Blend“.  Apparently some company known as BlendTec has a blender that can even take on the iPhone and make it into a nice (okay, so maybe not so nice) smoothie of dark plastic.

Nonetheless, check the video out when you get a chance - probably my favorite part is the slow motion section

Editors - The Weight Of The World (An End Has A Start)

According to a blog posting published on ZD net, Cisco may not in fact really own the iPhone name that they claim to. Definitely should be an interesting court case. If anything I’m surprised that NTP, Inc. hasn’t jumped on Yahoo!’s back for their “push” e-mail system that they’re going to deploy with the iPhone.

So the real question is what is it that we can expect to see in the next six months before the Apple iPhone deploys to market. Stay tuned (not zuned)

So I do have to say that I think technology is truly amazing.  Why you ask?  Quite simply because for $80 I was able to buy Microsoft Streets and Trips 2007 with a GPS locator.  Simply amazing.

Broadcasting this out from:  38.80529 degrees North and 77.16328 degrees West.  Apparently with an elevation of about 300 feet from sea level, being tracked by 8 satellites.

So I do have to say that I’m quite impressed by Timex and their Triathlon watches that they offer that come with a GPS locator. Can we just say, “Whoa.” I mean seriously that’s pretty wild that you have the ability to a) be traced, but also b) be able to track distances that you’re running for training purposes all the more accurately. I surmise that it’s still commercial grade in which case it could be anywhere within 150 foot radius but for all intensive purposes that rocks. And the price, still pretty low as the highest seems to be $300. Check it out at: http://www.timex.com/bin/detail.tmx?item=753048113774#

Dark Reading - Host security - Researchers Find Technique to Quickly Erase Hard Drives - Security



If you’ve ever been worried about someone snooping your data perhaps after you turn your work laptop into your employer when you leave, you might want to consider using something like Jetico’s BCWipe. It’s a program that essentially writes 1’s and 0’s all over your harddisk, making the data unretrievable without some super pricey equipment. Additionally it usually can take up to a day to wipe say a 100 GB harddrive (yes, even a 7200 rpm drive will take a while).

So sure, that’s fine if you’ve got a couple of days to plan things and you need to make sure that your drive is wiped before you leave, but what about those instances where you just need to wipe something immediately? Well, it would seem that the US Government is investigating doing something about this. Many times there is a need for the immediate disposal of media, and using something like the aforementioned software just doesn’t cut it. Enter the media disposal system reference in the aforementioned article. Holy smokes that’s sweet. But my curiousity is why not just use a good ole fashioned microwave? I mean, when I was in college, I used a microwave to destroy CDs from time to time and they were more or less unreadable. However, by no means do I suggest this, as it is hazardous to both your health and a fire safety issue.The only caveat to the story is that the device weighs a whopping 125 pounds. Granted it mentions that they’re working on putting together something that is a little more transportable, but for the time being it would seem that’s a little out of the question.

So I get a kick out of the fact that now four months later that Alex Bosworth’s article on 6 Places to use AJAX is coming up on digg.com. Maybe there’s hope for me afterall?

Nonetheless, I find it interesting that there is such an outcry for using Ajax anywhere and everywhere. On the discussion boards that I read on a regular basis, I hear people talk about how it would be great to start programming all of their applications with Ajax mixed in. It’s interesting to see this idea put forth mostly because it’s completely useless to think that way.
I remember writing a simple form program a year ago for a friend and doing it all in Javascript so that it would have form validation, embedding it in code that would then be displayed on the page. My friend came back and said, “But why not write it entirely in PHP?” Sure, PHP was what the server was using for its backend application server, but JavaScript worked perfectly fine for what the need was.
I see this occurring more and more with regard to Ajax. There’s a need for it here and there such as Alex mentions, but there are times where it’s basically pointless to have such code included when it adds a level of complexity that some coders aren’t ready for and in some instances becomes so much of a hindrance to the end user that it drives people to other sites in search of the information for which they seek.

So over at the SWING group, a part of the Computer Science department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there’s a group working on a project known as PERM - Practical End-host collaborative Residential Multihoming framework.
Yes, not your usual perm, not the kind that you wear in your hair, unless of course you’ve got an 802.11 network router interweaved in your french braid.
So what does this mean? How is this useful? Well, in some cases if you’re good friends with your neighbors, it allows you to truly maximize the bandwidth that you have and extend the range of your wireless device that you use to connect while at home. And for those of you that don’t know your neighbors well, but you can see that they’re one of the 30 wireless networks nearby, you are essentially extending the hand of friendship, getting to know your neighbors maybe and exchanging WEP/WPA keys and getting your groove on with this PERM.
What do you mean there are multiple networks in your neighborhood? Well in the case of the northern Virginia neighborhood that I reside in, there are approximately 30 802.11b/g networks that I can pick up, though I’m pretty confident that we’re the only 802.11a network in the neighborhood.
So what’s the point? Check out the PERM project, test it out, play with it, extend your mobility and really get the best bandwidth for your buck. Sure it probably invalidates all of the internet providers terms of service that you signed when you started your service with the company, but hey it couldn’t hurt to try it out as a scientific experiment right?