October 2009 Archives

The easiest way to get apps.

1. Pick the apps you want.
2. Start your customized installer.
3. You're done!

Ninite runs on Windows XP/Vista/7 and works
in the background 100% hands-free.

We install apps with default settings and
say "no" to browser toolbars and other junk.

All we do is install the latest versions of the apps
you choose. Not even Ninite is installed.

So you've upgraded to Windows 7 and now face the tedious task of downloading all your "crucial" applications (Firefox, Evernote, Dropbox, Flash, etc).

Nitrite makes the process less painful by allowing you to "package" many app installs at once. It beats tracking them down among multiple websites. And it's free!

In some ways, the latest update from the National Transportation Safety Board about Northwest Airlines Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis confirms the worst fears: The pilots just plain weren't paying a lick of attention to flying the airplane.

The NTSB interviewed both pilots, both experienced aviators, who overflew MSP last week and said the captain and first officer say they had laptop computers out and were deep in discussion of a new crew scheduling system launched by Northwest's parent, Delta Air Lines.The first officer was showing the captain how the new system worked, and neither were listening to radio transmissions or even glancing at airplane instruments or messages from company dispatchers.

There's an old saying in aviation: "Flying can be hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." Automation can make flying a jet a boring task -- set the autopilot and all you have to do is change radio frequencies as you cross the country. Automation has made air travel safer, but complacency in the cockpit will lead to accidents.

I can certainly understand the need to fill some of the time while on autopilot,but what about a good ol' game of Solitaire or some games/books on the iPhone/iPod touch? Couldn't you at least set an alarm/timer to remind you to pay attention? I'm sure there's an app for that.

Back in 2007, Canadian researchers discovered that a common seashore plant, called a sea rocket, can recognize its siblings — plants grown from seeds from the same plant, or mother. They saw that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they "play nice" and don't send out more roots to compete with one another.

But as soon as one of the plants is thrown in with strangers, it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil.

Mulberry, you hear me over there? It it SO on!

Babies are often given acetaminophen when they get their routine vaccinations. The drug, sold as Tylenol in the United States and called paracetamol in most countries, counters the common risk of fever and the much less common risk of fevers high enough to cause seizure.

But a new study, done in the Czech Republic and published last week in The Lancet, may have implications for children everywhere: the researchers found that the antifever drug makes some vaccines less potent. Fever is part of the immune response, and suppressing it, the authors said, appeared to impair the body’s ability to make antibodies.

I certainly understand the need for the body to have a powerful immune response for a vaccine to be effective.

While it's outside the scope of the study, you might want to hold off popping down a couple Tylenol when you get your flu shot(s).

This trompe l’oeil cover opens just like a book, and features a delightful quote from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Made from durable, subtly textured cotton canvas and coated for extra protection, this cover is also lined with a soft synthetic suede interior that helps protect your nook from scratches and handling while you read. For added convenience, an angled pocket on the inside of the cover is perfect for notes and cards.

Out of the gate, the Nook has much cooler covers for the Nook than Amazon has for the Kindle -- even now!

Share favorite eBooks with your friends, family, or book club. Most eBooks can be lent for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the book you want to share, then send it to your friend's reader, cell phone, or computer.

Barnes and Noble's new Nook eBook reader looks cool. The part that sets it apart from the Kindle (for now at least), is the ability to lend a book to someone else.

The color touch screen is nice, but the lending is the killer feature.

Your move, Amazon.

The MiFi, or the "intelligent mobile hotspot", may sound like one of the most pointless devices ever created. It's a small, battery powered gizmo that converts one wireless network protocol (3G) to another even less efficient protocol (WiFi).

I'm dieing to ditch my Sprint broadband card for their MiFi one. My iPod Touch would be just that much better!

Windows 7 may be Microsoft’s most anticipated product ever. It builds on Windows Vista’s positives, and eliminates many of that OS’s negatives. It adds new functionality, too—all in a package that is less resource-hungry than its predecessor.

And whether or not you're upgrading from Vista or skipping it altogether and moving up from Windows XP, you'll need to know how to make the most of it in your environment. Here are 77 tips and tricks to get you there.

Windows 7 is awesome. Microsoft TechNet has a list of 77 Windows 7 Tips with the sysadmin/IT person in mind.

What email provider do you use? The classic Hotmail? Perhaps the rising Gmail? Or maybe you just Yahoo because you find it ironic. Whatever you use, here is a terrifying thought: there is a decided connection between what email provider you use, and what your credit score is.

Don’t believe me? A survey was taken with 20,000 credit scores, and the score and the email providers were linked, and it became clear: the word after the @ in your email address tells more about you, than you thought. Take a look:

I'm amazed BellSouth is so much higher than Comcast and GMail. Could it be people with older, more established credit histories using their personal email address vs. their work one?

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines operated jets later found to have substandard repairs, and federal regulators are probing allegations that at least one plane was considered unsafe to fly at normal cruise altitude, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Federal Aviation Administration's latest moves, these people said, indicate the agency is expanding its probe into suspected structural problems with rear bulkheads on a small portion of American's fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-80 jets.

Earlier this year, American took more than a dozen planes out of passenger service, retiring several of them, after finding they had improper bulkhead repairs. FAA inspectors are pursuing allegations from pilots that one of those MD-80s was believed to be in such poor condition that it was ferried without passengers from Dallas to the carrier's Tulsa, Okla., maintenance base at unusually low altitudes to avoid the stress of pressurizing the fuselage during the trip.

I've spent thousands of hours on MD-80s, and more than a few of them are really showing their age. Here's hoping AA gets more 737s in service ASAP.

On Monday, the Kindle 2 will become the first e-reader available globally. The only other events as important to the history of the book are the birth of print and the shift from the scroll to bound pages. The e-reader, now widely available, will likely change our thinking and our being as profoundly as the two previous pre-digital manifestations of text. The question is how. And the answer can be found in the history of earlier book forms.

I'm all for the Kindle, and the wireless content delivery internationally is killer, but I don't know if it's enough to be a milestone in the book's history.

The BOLT mobile browser has been through eight months of beta testing and the developers, Bitstream, are now ready to launch out of beta into version 1.5.

The browser has so far been downloaded 2 million times and rendered in excess of 200 million web pages. The latest iteration of the browser includes the following:

• Cache Support to speed users' ability to move quickly back and forth between the currently and previously viewed Web pages through the use of backward and forward navigation.
• Download Manager for easy download of files directly from BOLT and the ability to save them to specific folders on the mobile phone (requires JSR75 support on the device).
• Support for Streaming Videos of Any Length that overcomes limitations on some phones' ability to stream videos of longer lengths. The new approach ensures video clips will play on all devices, for any length video.
• Video Wizard to assist users in configuring their device for optimal video playback.
• Dedicated Search Bar on home page, for easier and faster online searches.
• Improved Ability to Manage RSS Feeds by allowing users to arrange and file feeds just as they do with their favorites and bookmarks.
• Enhancements for Touch Screen Devices such as simple volume controls for the BOLT media player which now offers volume controls on the screen.
• Enhancements for BOLT Servers in the cloud, which increase the already fast BOLT mobile browser by an additional 10 to 20 percent.

Try the BOLT browser for yourself and let us know what you think.

FINALLY! A BlackBerry browser that doesn't totally suck.

Bookmarklet Converts PDF Links to Be Viewed With Google Docs PDF Reader

Joen created a JavaScript bookmark snippet that turns any normal links to PDF files into links that will point to Google’s online PDF viewer. Adobe’s PDF viewer tends to freeze browsing, and Joen finds Google’s viewer “far outshines” it. (Would it make sense to turn this into a Greasemonkey script, too? This would help with the occasional surprise effect when you click on PDF links.)

What a fantastic thing for lightweight browsing.

Google tests a service called Cloudboard, an online clipboard that should make it easy to copy data between Gmail, Google Docs and other Google services. The service is not publicly available yet, but there are many references to it.

That would be awesome. I'd be far more likely to use Google Docs more if the clipboard was in sync with Gmail.

Cruft (occasionally kruft) is computing jargon for "code, data, or software of poor quality".^[1] The term may also refer to debris that accumulates on computer equipment. It has been generalized to mean any accumulation of obsolete, redundant, irrelevant, or unnecessary information, especially code.^[2]

I've been deciphering a software install I didn't do and have definitely found lots of cruft. One problem, though, is I'm not always sure what the cruft is (and so I leave it in).

Coca-Cola Co. said yesterday that it will put a calorie count on the front of almost all the drinks it sells around the world.

At the same time, some cities and states are requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus, hoping that will encourage overweight customers to choose lower-calorie foods. One key backer of this push, former NYC Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, is now running the CDC.

The company said the labeling will go on almost all of the company’s products, including “all sparkling beverages, teas, energy drinks, flavored water beverages, juices and juice drinks.” The more-prominent labeling is already in place in Europe and Australia, it’s currently being rolled out in Mexico and the U.S. and will be in place world-wide by the end of 2011.

While I'm against a "soda tax," I applaud Coke for putting the calorie count on the front. We can now have Coke Zero and Coke 100.

I'd love it if chain restaurants posted nutritional information in a more prominent place and even on the menus. I travel a lot, and healthy eating is hard enough as it is.