barryhunter's shared items in Google Reader

13 year old kid reviews a 30 year old Sony Walkman

2009-06-29T14:56:27Z

BBC Magazine gave 13-year-old Scott Campbell a gen-one Walkman in place of his MP3 player for a week, then gathered his impressions on the device:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.
I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day

Giving up my iPod for a Walkman (Thanks, John!)

Best Color Illusion I’ve Seen

2009-06-25T06:05:25Z

From Bad Astronomy. It takes no work to see the illusion, but a lot of effort to see past it.

The "blue" and "green" swirls are exactly the same color. Don’t believe me? Verify it for yourself.

Google Fusion Tables [Fast Batch Geocoding]

2009-06-11T07:28:00Z

Google Fusion Tables [Fast Batch Geocoding]

"A fast an effective way to batch geocode spreadsheet data."

Take some data, with no geographic information. Upload to the New Google Fusion Tables and Map it.

Some spot checking of data in location - as geocoding is not an exact science.

Simply import the data will then give you access to 'Map' the data.

Then the real magic of automatic batch geocoding on the fly - you can visually see the data being placed on the map.
All within a few seconds - then whole process takes less than 30 seconds [based on 606 cities] though only 1-200 markers are display at one time.

And to finish it off - it is easy to create a simple thematic map.

Suggestions, would be nice to be able to overlay the thematic map [based in flash] over the Google Map (or creating gpolygons).
Sharing with the option of embedding and link to would be convenient.
*Note currently in Google Labs things will change.

A nice tool with great potential has unique features and powerful visualization functions.

Summary
Google Chart meets Google Maps with Google Spreadsheets binding them.

Related
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2009/06/
google-fusion-tables-google-maps.html

Official Post
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-fusion-tables.html

Mapperz News Blog

Google Maps Shows Suggested Routes

2009-05-21T21:02:00Z

If you don't like the driving directions offered by Google Maps, you can now choose between 3 suggested routes and compare them on the map. Of course, you can still add multiple destinations to restrict the routes generated by Google Maps.

Here are some tips to get better directions:

Add multiple stops on a single route by clicking Add destination in the left panel.
To reorder segments of your trip, drag and drop the destinations in the left panel.
To customize your route, click and drag any point on the purple directions line to any location on the map. Google Maps immediately re-creates the directions on both the map and left panel, and also updates the estimated travel time and distance.

{ via Benjamin Golub }

Just Landed: Visualizing the Tweets of People that have "Just Landed"

2009-05-12T09:28:16Z

A compelling animated map visualization that focuses on revealing interesting data hidden in a social network information stream, here the travel information gathered from people's public Twitter streams by searching for the term 'Just landed in...'.

The idea is relatively simple: a Processing application finds those tweets that contain this particular phrase, parses out the mentioned location the people just landed in, along with the home location that has been listed on their Twitter profile. With this information, the individual travel itineraries are then mapped out as 3D curves placed on a flat world map.

Watch the video below, or read more relevant information at Jer Thorp's blog.

Zap-a-tag lets you publicly shame bad motorists

2009-05-09T19:00:00Z

Filed under: Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Just about every semi on the road has one of those "How's my driving?" badges on it. Ever wish cars were required to have them, too?

Zap-a-tag may be as close as we ever get to that reality.

It's a web site where users can submit the license plate of rude, aggressive, or just plain unskilled drivers and vent their frustrations. It's not all negativity, though. You'll also find users posting helpful tips like "Don't forget, your tags expire next month," and the odd compliment about a snazzy paint job or clever vanity plates.

Tags are (obviously) cataloged by state, and they're also pinned to a Google map for visual browsing. A search box is available in case you feel like checking whether or not someone else has already complained about a particular vehicle (or your own, perhaps?). There is, of course, a "report abuse" option which gives you recourse in the event that some hooligan is wrongfully slandering your driving.

And yes, the site offers Twitter integration so you can quickly zap-a-tag with a simple update.

Posting on Zap-a-tag won't result in a traffic citation or a reprimand from higher-ups, but it's a harmless way for you to get roadway aggravations off your chest.

Zap-a-tag lets you publicly shame bad motorists originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 09 May 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Create a Hotkey to Paste Plain Text in Microsoft Word [How-to]

2009-05-06T22:00:00Z

Pasting text from web pages into Microsoft Word can be a serious pain—all you wanted was the text, but it copies the formatting. Reader Wille writes in with a quick tip to make it simpler.

The official method for pasting plain text into Word is the Paste Special option, assigned to the Ctrl+Shift+V hotkey combination, but it opens a dialog and forces you to choose to paste plain text—a tedious irritation after using it repeatedly. Wille's method is to create a simple macro that pastes using unformatted text, and assign the same hotkey—a simple way to save time pasting text.

To create your own custom hotkey for pasting text, you'll need to follow a couple of steps:

From the View tab, create a new macro named PasteSpecial.
Replace the contents of the code editor with the following text:

Sub PasteSpecial() Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText End Sub
From the Microsoft Office button in the upper left-hand corner, choose Word Options -> Customize, and then click the Customize button next to Keyboard shortcuts at the bottom to bring up the Customize Keyboard dialog.
Choose Macros from the categories list on the left, and then your macro in the Commands box on the right-hand side. Now you can enter in a shortcut key (Ctrl+Shift+V or your own), and click the Assign button.

Once you've completed these steps, you'll be able to easily paste plain text in your document anytime with the keyboard shortcut. You can still access the Paste Special option from the Ribbon, but this tip should save you some time.

If you need to paste into other applications, previously mentioned Clipboard Text Scrubber removes formatting globally, or you can use PureText to strip formatting when you paste. Thanks, Wille!

Update: Reader MisterSlimm points out that he wrote the exact same macro a couple of years ago—we aren't sure if the submitted tip was actually based on his article, but he deserves the recognition for coming up with a great solution well before the rest of us! Great job, Slimm!

Microsoft Word Paste Special as Unformatted Text Keyboard Shortcut [Screened by Slimm]

Breathing Earth

2007-06-22T20:06:39Z

Web Status Maps

2007-06-28T11:11:26Z

How NOT to avoid jury duty!

2009-05-05T16:15:19Z

Click for large picture

Things our grandkids will never understand

2009-05-02T20:33:45Z

This is what augmented reality will look like

2009-04-28T15:40:49Z

Well, at least some of it. They’ve made it hard for me to embed this more complete video, even though they put something similar on YouTube, but here’s a link to the full demo reel.

Looking To Spammers To Solve Hard AI Problems

2009-04-19T02:39:00Z

An anonymous reader writes "With bots getting closer to beating text-based CAPTCHAs for good, New Scientist points out that when they do, OCR technology will at least have advanced. The article goes on to suggest that whatever kind of reverse Turing Test that comes next should be chosen to motivate spammers to solve other pressing AI problems, such as image recognition. Are there any other problems that criminal crowdsourcing could help with?"

Synchronized YouTube with Google Earth Plugin

2009-04-15T13:01:57Z

I'm going to give Keir Clarke at GoogleMapsMania the honorary title of "Google Earth plugin/Tour maniac"! Keir's latest creation is a little app that can play YouTube video's sideb-by-side with a Google Earth Tour so you can both watch a video and see its geospatial context, or view related 3D related content. This is a great idea! See his two examples: a mini-documentary of Frank Gehry with a GE tour of some of his buildings in 3D in GE, and a tour of the Vatican while viewing the 3D GE version.

My very first thought when I saw Keir's idea here was of a similar thing I did back in 2007. At the time, I wanted to create a synchronized playback of a YouTube video showing a Swiss fighter jet flying through the Alps, while I flew the exact same sequences in Google Earth. At the time, there was no flight simulator in Google Earth - just a crude mouse control. I did a fair job of screen capturing the video se quences and produced a video you could play along side the original. See the results here. I'm going to have to try doing the same thing with a GE 5 Tour and use the Flight sim and record it as a GE Tour this time, and try that with Keir's synchronized playback app!

Frank Gehry 3D tour (before the Tour mode)
Keir's tour gallery with GE Plugin
Keir's Mars Tours with GE Plugin

Google Update, Open Sourced

2009-04-13T00:02:00Z

It doesn't have an interface, it's always running in the background, ready to silently update your Google software: Google Update is the service that makes Google's desktop applications behave more like the constantly updated web applications. Unfortunately, the service has many bugs, it can't be disabled unless you uninstall all the applications that use it and there are some privacy issues:

"When GoogleUpdate communicates with Google servers, it sends IDs of GoogleUpdate-managed applications on your computer and general usage information for these applications. GoogleUpdate also uses its own, randomly-generated unique ID number to accurately count total users. This information includes version numbers, languages, operating system, and other install or update-related details, such as whether or not the applications have been run."

Some people are concerned that Google collects even more information. To show that these worries are misguided, Google decided to open source the updater, code-named Omaha.

Since Google Update is always running on your system, there's no simple way to stop it, and since it's a fundamental part of the Google software that needs it, it's not explicitly installed. Some users can be surprised to find this program running, and at Google, we don't like disappointing our users. We've been working hard to address these concerns, and releasing the source code for Omaha is our attempt to make the purpose of Google Update totally transparent. Obviously, we understand that not everyone is both willing and able to read through our code, but we hope that those of you who do will confirm for the rest that Google Update's functionality serves well to keep your software up to date.

A software that's always up-to-date prevents malware from exploiting the already solved security issues, makes it easier to report bugs and it's constantly improving, but Google should provide an interface that lets you control how often the service checks for updates and even disable it. Some power users think that the always-running updater is "a violation of my control as a user, a potential security threat, and an unwanted burden on my system and network resources, which are already stretched."

Google Street View With Full-screen Mode

2009-04-09T23:23:05Z

Google Maps now* offers a more immersive additional mode: you can open Street Views in full-screen via the top-right expand icon. [Thanks TomHTML!]

*Disclaimer: I’m not exactly sure when it was added.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Street View With Full-screen Mode | Comments]

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Color Blindness

2009-04-08T16:04:00Z

6% of the male population cannot read the number 49 in this image:

but yet people use red and green to differetiate areas in Google Earth. Here's a screen shot from a well promoted Google Earth project that shall remain nameless to save blushes.

A long time ago I reported talking to a Googler who couldn't even see the borders in this view.

There are a few rules of thumb to help with avoiding color blindness problems in maps:

If you want to deliniate features using color, choose blends of yellow or blue, very few people have problems with identifying these colors.
Convert your colors to gray scales, if there is a tonal difference color blind users can still differentiate by tone.
Think of using different textures to mark areas. Unfortunately this isn't easy to do in Google Earth.

I'm doing some background reading at the moment and apparently color blindness is easily coped for by other features of our vision such as being able to recognise tone, texture, motion, focus. This means that color blind people often remain unaware they have a problem for years.

Stop Motion meets Tilt Shift meets Tracking: Still Moving in London

2009-04-08T10:19:00Z

Still Moving from mustardcuffins on Vimeo.

The movie above by mustardciffins is a mix of stop motion, tilt shift and tracking techniques. Captured with a Canon G9 its a really nice capture of the urban environment, we are struggling to work out how it was done :)

Picked up via Urban Tick.

Who Has The Most Photos Of Them All? Hint: It Is Not Facebook

2009-04-07T23:25:31Z

Photo-sharing on the Web keeps getting more popular as people transfer more of their digital photos from their the black holes of their computer hard drives to social networks where their friends and family can actually see them. Although Facebook Photos has emerged as the largest photo-sharing service in terms of users and is one of the fastest-growing of any size, it is still not the largest by the sheer number of images that it stores.

That honor, for the moment, goes to ImageShack, which currently hosts 20 billion images, I’ve confirmed with the company (for more background on ImageShack, read this post). Facebook holds 15 billion photos, according to a spokesperson there. But it should catch up by the end of the year. Facebook users are adding photos at a rate of 850 million photos a month, compared to 100 million photos a month by ImageShack users. Good thing Facebook just fixed its storage architecture to be able to handle the bigger load.

After Facebook and ImageShack, the third largest image warehouse on the Web appears to be News Corp’s PhotoBucket, with 7.2 billion photos. And then Yahoo’s Flickr comes in at 3.4 billion, which also includes some videos. Interestingly, coming in right behind Flickr in the photo count is social network Multiply, with 3 billion images. Multiply’s photo=sharing options are one of its main strengths, which make sit attractive to its core demographic of families and moms (an area where Facebook is still struggling). Picasa is probably up there somewhere, but Google won’t get any more specific than “billions” of photos have been uploaded “and millions of photos are uploaded every day.”

In fact, with the exception of Photobucket, none of these services publicly discloses its latest image count. I had to ask each company individually. Some companies like Shutterfly refuse to disclose their numbers, and they are a publicly traded company. I am still waiting to hear back from Kodak about KodakGallery..com, but the trend lines of these older photo storage services are not encouraging (see second chart at the bottom of the post). Below are the figures I was able to collect directly from each company:

Image Warehouses On The Web (numbers are total images stored)

While Google chose to be vague, Yahoo was completely transparent. It provided the following additional stats on Flickr:

And Multiply shared with me the fact that its 12.5 million registered users are uploading an impressive 75 million photos a month. That comes to six photos per day per registered user, which is actually more than Facebook. Since Multiply encourages high-resolution uploads, it is handling 2.5 terabytes per day in image uploads. A little under one percent of its users, or 10,000 of them pay $20 a year for premium services such as unlimited storage and photo album backups. The one percent of premium users accounts for between 5 and 7 percent of all uploads.

If you look at comScore numbers, however, it is clear that Facebook is gaining the most usage overall, with 161 million unique visitors worldwide in February. Flickr is a distant but strong second with 76.5 million visitors. Photobucket is at 58.6 million uniques, Picasa is at 39.9 million, and ImageShack is at 33.2 million.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Sphinx 0.9.9-rc2 is out

2009-04-07T22:04:49Z

Sphinx 0.9.9 branch is officially feature-frozen and we are making 0.9.9-rc2 available. As those who've been following 0.9.x releases should be accustomed to, despite a modest rc1 to rc2 tag change it adds about 30 new features once again. (Wonder if we'll be able to break the spell in 1.x and be less greedy about the version increments.)

The ultimate new feature couple is MySQL binary protocol and SphinxQL query language. Meaning that searchd can now pretend it's mysqld. Meaning that you can use ye good olde mysql command-line client to connect to searchd and fire your queries using regular SELECT syntax! More details are available via that link above.

But wait, there's more. We added ODBC support both on Windows and Linux (through UnixODBC) so you now can connect directly to that Oracle or MS SQL database. We added a bunch of performance counters, IMO they look especially nice when viewed using SHOW STATUS via mysql client program. Strict order operator (aaa << bbb) and field-start and field-end keyword modifiers (^hello world$) were added to full-text query language. GROUP BY now supports aggregate functions (AVG, MAX, MIN, and SUM), accessible both through newly added SphinxQL interface and SetSelect() API call.

Other 20+ features are smaller and these 7 most major ones should be enough to encourage you to get and try it anyway. For the curious, 0.9.9-rc2 change log lists them all along with the bug fixes.

How safe is it to upgrade? Generally, both API and indexes are backwards compatible (for about 2 years now); early adopters roll out intermediate non-public releases on production systems on a rather regular basis; and we never publish releases with known major general issues. And 0.9.9-rc2 is no exception. Of course nobody (except Donald Knuth) can guarantee that his software is absolutely bug free. But what we can guarantee to our customers is that we'll priority fix all bugs that you can repeat. (The keyword here is "priority" as we're gradually fixing all the bugs reports we receive.) So if you're looking for safer production deployment of all the shiny new features, consider support packages. They perfectly cover 0.9.9-rc2.

What's next? We will be fixing issues discovered in rc2 for about 1-2 months from now on before announcing stable release - depending on your feedback. Do send us some! In the meantime, the work on real time updates is progressing, we'll be showing those at MySQL UC 2009. That said, next two planned releases are 0.9.9-release and 1.10.1-alpha, with the one which is the le... the bigger of two goods coming out first.