TechCast

ConvenienceSoftware.com

2007-07-15T16:26:00.000-07:00

Here is my new software company. You should go check it out.

Hello Tech Support? My book isn't working

2007-02-17T13:43:00.001-08:00

Saw this on Engadget a little while ago. Hilarious.

Anna Nicole

2007-02-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

I just posted to one of my other blogs about Anna Nicole Smith's death. I sort of think it was suspicious, and so does her mother. What do you think?

What Is Time

2007-02-08T14:19:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking a lot about this question lately. What exactly is time. Is it just a human notion that doesn't really exist? Is it linear? The answer is very elusive.

But I think I came up with an answer that satisfies me.

Time, is motion. Without motion there is no sense of time. Think about. In the movies, when somebody stops time, what else stops? All motion. How do we tell time? By the motion of little quartz crystals, or the movement of the sun.

Time = motion, without one there is no other.

Corporate Jets Leave the SuperBowl

2007-02-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a radar shot of all the corporate jets leaving Miami after the SuperBowl, I thought it was pretty interesting.
Source

Why Social Networking Traffic is So Fleeting

2007-02-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Social sites like Digg and Reddit, if their homepage links to you, can bring you thousands upon thousands of visitors. For about an hour. And suddenly, right after the world seemed righteous and just in bringing you to the pinnacle of fame, the traffic subsides and you are again dumped into the lonely dredges of small bloggerdom. But why does this happen. Why is it, that other types of traffic, lets says from search engines do provide some sort of lasting traffic or *gasp* feed subscribers. Well lets look at it this way. Digg user's consume media. They look at Digg for little bits of information, and consult Digg for more and more information. Just because they came to your blog and got a little bit of information, does not mean that they want to get more information from you in the future. Unless of course you make it to the front page of Digg again. This is analogous to the book world. I read a lot of books over the course of the year, and very rarely do I read two books by the same author. Unless the author has something extraordinary to say, and says it in a captivating way, I read the book, get my information and move on. There are however books that are part of a series, such as Harry Potter, that I will read by the same author, and will continue reading until the series ends. This is because I really want to get my little tidbit of information that was broken up into several books because it was thousands of pages long.
So no, don't declare your blog a waste of time after your hits drop off when your page is excommunicated from the front page of Digg. It just means that your tidbit of information isn't worth reading over and over again, and that your writing isn't especially extraordinary. Digg users read tons and tons of blogs posts and news articles a day. If your blog was so good that it could get them to subscribe, you would already have three book deals.

Box Master

2007-02-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

When I was in middle school, the baine of my existence was Box and Whisker graphs (boxplots). When I was in middle school, I also started to program. By the summer before 8th grade, I was very proficient in C++, and I decided that to prove my skills, I would create a program to help me make box and whisker graphs. So make it I did, and by October of my 8th grade year I had completed it. I christened it BoxMaster, and awaited the day when I would need to use it for a lab. From the day I completed it, until now, I have never once had to make a box and whisker graph. Now I am releasing it to you.

Download it here.

Lost: The Flash Game

2007-02-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I told you guys I was working on a game in the last post, and here it is. Basically it's Lost, so you have to enter "4 8 15 16 23 42" (afterwards press the enter key) once every 108 minutes for as long as you can. It's still very much in Beta, and I am having trouble making a submit your scores system, so if anyone could help me with that just leave a comment. You can also post your scores and any comments or bug's on this post too. Enjoy. For a full screen version go here.

May I stress that although you can enter the code at any time during the cycle, you need to press the ENTER key afterwards, or else it won't work.

This Guy is Making a Commerical Game by Himself

2007-02-01T12:46:00.000-08:00

Yeah so I'm really excited because a story I submitted called This Guy is Making a Commercial Game by Himself, made it to the top of Digg. I'm sort of sad that I didn't link jack it but whatever this is the first time that one of my stories made it to the top.

Apparently Flash is Harder than it Looks

2007-02-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

I've been programming since 5th grade, so I figured I'd pick up Flash pretty easily. The program itself has a pretty complicated interface, (though it pales in comparison to a program like Maya), and I'm having a pretty rough time of it.
Here's a preliminary screen shot. More on the game later.

Posting

2007-01-29T13:43:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a little while, I'm working on this game about Lost which I think will be pretty cool. I'll have a post up by tomorrow, and the game will be finished probably in a week. See you soon.

Why Vista is Doomed, the Definitive List

2007-01-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

Here is the definitive and authoritative list as to why Vista is doomed and Apple and Linux will soon take a big dip into Microsoft's market share.

1. It's expensive
2. It doesn't offer features promised that would have made it a contender, in essence, it's too little too late.
3. Many home and business computers won't be able to run it, cutting a huge slice out of their market share.
4. Its 5,000 different versions will leave users shocked and confused as to which one is right for their needs.
5. Dell, the world's biggest PC corporation is now giving users the option to not have Windows pre-installed on their computer.
6. Linux is free and is all the time getting new features and programs that make a switch beneficial to the uncertain user.
7. Apple is hip with the young crowd and the early adopters, meaning that Vista won't be as well received with them.
8. Security is an issue and probably won't be fixed for a while to come.
9. Even if your computer can run it, many features that are graphically intensive won't be runnable or will run slowly.

Carbon Dating for Dummies

2007-01-26T19:33:00.000-08:00

For those of you curious as to how scientists figure out the age of ancient artifacts and skeletons, I have put together a simple little article on why carbon dating works.

Carbon comes in two stable non-radioactive isotopes (meaning that it won't radioactively decay) Carbon-12 and Carbon-13. There are many other Carbon isotopes, but the one we want to look at is called Carbon-14. Carbon-14 is produced as a reaction to cosmic rays in the Earths atmosphere. This means that small amounts of Carbon-14 are present in your body whenever you breathe in, or eat. Carbon-14 unlike Carbon-12 or 13 is unstable and slowly decays into Nitrogen-14 over the course of thousands of years. Now you ask, how is this related to Carbon Dating?

I'll tell you.

Carbon-14 is not naturally present in your body. It only comes in when you breathe or eat. So when you die, you stop intaking Carbon-14. Now when scientists dig up your remains thousands of years later, they can measure the amount of decay of the Carbon-14, and if you have died within the last 60,000 years they can determine the exact time at which you died.

There you go, carbon dating for dummies.

Page Rank on Google Toolbar

2007-01-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

As many of you who have the Google Toolbar (if you want it click on the link in the upper right hand corner ;) ) know, whenever you go to a web page, it shows you that page's "Page Rank." The Page Rank system uses a complex algorithm to calculate the importance of a site based upon other sites that link to it.

That's the page rank for my site, a lowly 2/10. I have a question for everyone, do you look at the Page Rank often and if you do does it affect your view of the site that you are visiting?

Why Apple and Linux Will Kill Vista

2007-01-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

Because my last post touched upon why Vista is doomed, I wanted to do a more in depth post on why Apple and Linux will kill it.

Apple isn't the main reason why Vista is doomed, but it does contribute to it. With its slew of hilarious commercials and the iPod it will cut into Vista's market share but not that much because you can load Vista onto one any way (I think).

Actually the company that has really killed Vista is Dell. By giving users the option to opt out of Windows, they have opened up a whole new market for Linux which is cheaper and more secure than Windows. Linux will gain market share steadily while Windows loses it, and finally it will culminate in Microsoft leaving the operating system game altogether, at least for the time being.

Vista was too expensive and too late to be a success.
What do you think?

Another 4 Reason Why Vista is Doomed

2007-01-25T14:50:00.000-08:00

Here are another 4 reasons why Vista is doomed:

1. Its five flavors are confusing and do not lend themselves to easy purchasing
2. It doesn't provide enough new security features and other features to make it worth its price tag.
3. Increased competition from Apple and Linux will stifle growth especially now that Dell is selling computers that do not have Windows preinstalled.
4. It doesn't deliver on many promised features so that it could ship earlier.

The Gnome Project

2007-01-24T15:04:00.000-08:00

The Gnome Project, is a project designed to let bloggers tell their readers that they are
a.) serious about blogging
and
b.) that blogging is an important revenue stream for them.
It's kind of like a secret handshake that just lets the reader know a little more about the blog without even having to read a word.
You'll notice that on the sidebar of this blog there is a little Gnome. Take this little Gnome, and post it into the sidebar of your own blog. Explain to you readers what it means, and eventually it will sink in. If a reader sees the gnome he will know that you are serious. If another blogger sees the gnome he will know that you are serious. And if that gnome is there, it might encourage them to support you through a PayPal donation.
I could be totally off on this whole gnome thing, but it seemed like a good idea.

Alright So Here Is What I'm Going To Do

2007-01-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to start podcasting again, that takes too much time. But I am going to be posting my thoughts on tech stuff here much more often, as I already have a political and personal blog. I have this thing that I want to do called the Gnome Project. It's going to be pretty sweet. You'll here more about it maybe later tonight, maybe tomorrow.

My new Blog...I am posting a lot...a lot

2006-12-24T19:39:00.001-08:00

Go to here....see you there!

Cool Site

2006-06-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

www.theripp.com - sort of like digg, when it matures it could be better.

If you still don't believe me...

2006-03-24T09:12:00.000-08:00

You can go to the FYE store in The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens Florida

Rebuttal

2006-03-24T08:42:00.001-08:00

After the last post, I have had a lot of people sayig that it was a fake. It was no fake...how and why would I fake it? It is cleayly from within a store and the box looks real enough. I am not saying that the fact that it was there means anything, I just thought it was an interesting tidbit of information. In case it wasn't clear, the picture with the text is a close up of the back of the box...

Halo 3

2006-03-23T18:45:00.000-08:00

I know I have been inactive on all my blogs lately, but I saw this in FYE today and I thought it merited some mention, it might actually be nothing but I thought it was interesting. Because of all of the hype and articles surrounding Halo 3 being confirmed and then denied and then the article about how it won't be called Halo 3. Well after this I'm pretty sure that there is going to be a Halo 3, and that its going to be called Halo 3 and that its going to be coming out in November.

New Blog

2006-01-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

You can find my new blog here....http://dev-logg.blogspot.com/

I'm Back

2005-10-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone..I'm back. Sorry I haven't posted in so long I've been really really really amazingly busy. A lot of stuff has happened since I last posted..we shot a big comet with a ball of metal thousands upon thousands of people have become homeless and countless more have died. In response to this I would encourage everyone to donate or something like that. I really haven't done anything very special in the meantime..I got addicted to a band called Sublime...I'm currently working on a program which I will post here when I am done with it that does box and whisker graphs..if you don't know what those are just forget it. Anyway..next sunday the round-up is back..See you then.