Fun weekend

Had a fun weekend doing nothing!

Saturday I went on the IEE NorCal brewery tour to Coast Range Brewing Co. in Gilroy.

 Not a very  big brewery, but that made the tour all the better and very hands on.  Naturally there was some tasting of the 8 brews they have on tap right now.   I could have bought a crate to take home, had I taken enough cash.

Funny to see the Gilroy locals sneaking down the brewery to refill their beer jugs - taking the opportunity to try the free beer samples.

Had lunch (and Margarita) at Chevys too.

Sunday we spent the day on the beach at Seacliff beach.  Couldn't believe how many people were on the beach.  Not particularly sunny, but fairly walm.  Did BBQ for lunch on the beach.


Friday night too, we went out for a couple of drinks down to Capitola.  actually I was hoping to sit out by the ocean and watch the sunset - given it was such a beautiful evening in Santa Clara when we set-off, however, in Capitola you wouldn't have known it was the height of summer.  Nothing but fog!  Still, we had fun at Margaritaville.

 

Why Passwords suck - Lesson 1

One of several videos showing servers being hacked. A lesson in not using your cats name as your password! (unless your cat happens to be called 8&%fdds3ds2)

Whoppix and WHAX demos from whoppix.net and iwhax.net

Sagarville 'bot -- Compact SBC includes analog/digital I/O, runs Linux

... included are 24 CMOS I/O lines from an 82C55, eight channels of 12-bit A/D, four channels of 12-bit D/A, and three 16-bit timers from an 82C54. If needed, I/O expansion can be added to the SBC0489 through stackable PC/104 and PC/104-Plus modules.

Ah, the 82C54. Takes me back to my ZX Spectrum-powered remote control vacuum cleaner days.

Would be a nice controller for the lego robot, but at $600 it probly puts it outside the realms of a Junk project. Stick with the 90's vintage PDA I think for now...



Compact SBC includes analog/digital I/O, runs Linux

blinkx video search

blinkx video search

Diggnation / iTunes

While I don't really have a need for iTunes, I installed it just so I can subscribe to the Diggnation podcast and hence help make Diggnation[1] number 1 in the iTunes podcast chart.  I insist that you do the same:

Download iTunes
   - http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Sunscribe to Diggnation
   - http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=74169891



[1] - Diggnation is a podcast that does a weekly round-up of the 'most digged' stories on http://digg.com/.  Digg is like Slashdot, but unlike Slashdot it is the reads of the site that promote stories to the top of the list, rather than a single opinionated moderator .  It's also worth noting the site is created and run by Kevin Rose, the former TechTV presenter.

Beaming blobs about!

I'm so psych'ed right now, I managed to beam a blob of data from my Treo six fidy over to my PC.  OK, it's no big deal, the Palm OS Exchange Manager did all the hard work, but even so, I managed to write a couple of hundred lines of code that can get an opaic blob of data out of a palmOS filestream or VFS file and onto the harddisk of my PC, either via bluetooth, email or IR.

Now that's what I call a great operating system!

Lego Robots - a photoset on Flickr

Serious competition inthe Lego Robot Space!
Lego Robots - a photoset on Flickr

Not sure that our Sagarville 'Bot is up to the challenge!

Sagarville Bot

Ben and I are progressing with the robot project ... well, mainly me that's progressing, he's just hanging around asking me when we can play soccer ... but exercise is important too. When we take over the world, we'll need to be fit.

Anyway, pictures and videos ...

stage1_lego_01_topview.jpg (JPEG Image, 640x480 pixels)

Video

Welcome to Palm, Inc.

Welcome to Palm, Inc.

Cell Phone Use Quadruples Car Crash Risk

Ironically I read this headline on my Treo 650 smartphone while behind the wheel :-D

... and now I'm blogging it at a traffic light

Damn Small Linux (DSL)

Damn Small Linux, running in QEMU on WinXP, booted from my LifeDrive (in USB drive mode)!

Priceless!

Oh come-on this is SOOOO my idea from 1986

Kudos to these guys. I so wanted to make this for my A-level design project ... after I realized that the remote control vacuum cleaner was a waste of time (er, but that's another story).

OhGizmo! - Topeak’s Bikamper, The Perfect Mountain Biker Companion



My design was more of a lean-too concept.

You know, there just aren't enough hours in the day for all the good ideas that I have.