Datura Garden

Animoto

marygiel — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:46:00 -0500

I've discovered a very cool service today and I can't get enough of it. It is called Animoto

Animoto is a service where you upload pictures and music and it creates a slide show like thing that matches the speed of the music to the transition of the photos. How it does that I don't know but it does it very well.

The transitions are incredible, the finished product looks like it took hours to create.

You can make free shows that are limited to 30 seconds. For just 3 dollars you can get one full length video or for 30 dollars an unlimited use for a year.

It is hard to describe this service so have a look

Do you Twitter?

marygiel — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:04:00 -0500

Lately I have started to use Twitter more. My first try at twitter was unsuccessful as I found it quite useless. Now however I may have to reconsider.

I used twitter to keep my family up to date when my wife went into labour. That experience was quite positive and it encouraged me to use twitter more.

The more I use it the more I like it. I now follow few people and find that getting updates from their time lines is not as annoying as I thought it would be. The opposite is the truth. I know through the people I follow am discovering new links and other cool stuff on the net.

I also like how you can use twitter just about everywhere. I use it at home, I use it at work and I even use it on my ipod touch when ever I can find a hotspot.

I'm pleasantly surprised at twitter and for now will continue to use it regularly.

HD Wars are over

marygiel — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:23:00 -0500

Now that the HD DVD format is dead, the question remains, did Blue Ray win?

Are people really interested in High Definition DVDs? I think not any more. The technology missed its chance. I think that because of the format wars, downloading of High Definition content took off a lot faster than it would otherwise. This web based HD content trend will only continue and soon there will not be a big market for Blue Ray at all.

I for sure don't see myself buying a High Definition player any time soon.

The content is on the net and that's where the focus should now move. The next big thing should be delivering the content in a timely and easy way.

Rest in peace HD DVD.

How to Write a Love Song

marygiel — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:42:00 -0500

A step by step guid to Love Song writting on this Valentine's Day

Microsoft and Yahoo sitting in a tree...

marygiel — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:29:00 -0500

Normally I could not care less what happens to either one of these companies if the merger goes through. I hardly ever go to Yahoo and Microsoft well, it will stay Microsoft no matter what happens.

One problem however that I have with this whole mess is the future of Flickr. I love flickr and so do millions of other people around the world. I would hate to see this great service be changed or even possibly killed off in the future.

The parody video of Tom Cruise

marygiel — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:28:00 -0500

This is just too funny..

facebook is dead to me

marygiel — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:16:53 -0500

After a few months of complete absence from facebook I have decided to cancel my account. Unfortunately facebook does not allow you to completely delete the account but rather they let you deactivate it. They still keep all of my profile information and everything else I have ever done on facebook (that's just one of the reasons I quit it. Way to invasive.)

facebook, like all other social networks, is just a temporary fad. First there was friendster, then came myspace, now facebook *yawn*. Tomorrow it will be something else. I'm sure that the vast majority of people who chose to remain on facebook had or have accounts with the other social networks. Why? Every time you sign up for these you need to fill out a long profile, you need to build your network, you need to care enough to participate. Well I don't.

So what alternatives are there to facebook? Well for starters, isn't the entire web one giant social network? Why use lousy software that someone else made and is making billions off of, and in the process completely invades your privacy (Beacon *cough*)? Why not have a blog and tell all your friends about it?! That sure sounds a lot more reasonable to me. If I want a place that represents my identity on the web, I sure want to have full control over it. And I want to be the one who is responsible for my privacy!

So this is goodbye facebook. I wish you well.

Divorce pains the planet

marygiel — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:51:00 -0500

There is an interesting (funny) story on CNET about how divorce is partly to blame for global warming

Divorced couples use up more space in their respective homes, which amounts to to 38 million more rooms worldwide to light, heat and cool, noted the report.

And people who divorced used 73 billion kilowatt-hours more of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water than they would otherwise in 2005.

Dissolving a marriage also means doubling possessions, from the lowly can opener to the SUV. The report, however, did not estimate how many more natural resources the children of shared-custody parents consume by getting birthday and holiday gifts twice.

Technology Podcasts

marygiel — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:07:00 -0500

I'm a podcast listening freak. During a normal day I listen to anywhere from 2 to 8 hours of podcasts. Most of them are either technology or religion themed.

They make my day at work go by fast and I stay informed with the latest in technology news.

The following is a short list of the podcasts I really enjoy.

If you know of any great technology podcasts (audio only for now, I still don't have my ipod video or maybe a new zune... hmm) let me know!

e-book readers

marygiel — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:41:00 -0500

Sony and Amazon.com have both released handheld devices that are designed to replace paperback books.

Something tells me that this will not work. Why would I buy a $400 device to read a book on a screen. Personally I love to read and having a physical book is part of the satisfaction of reading. I can't imagine reading an entire book from a screen (even if it was less than $400!!!!).

Audio book format is more a reasonable idea to me. Occasionally I will listen to an audio book and I find it quite good, if the narration is done well. E-books are just to bizarre to me.

I feel sorry for both companies because I predict this will be a miserable failure.

Flickr Picture Extension for BlogEngine.NET 1.2

marygiel — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:04:00 -0500

I put all of my family pictures on the flickr web site, and then if I need to have a picture from my account in my blog posts I just add it from there. This is not a hard process but now I have made it easier with this little Extension.

To make this extension work you will need an API key from flickr. I already had one before since I use it to display my pictures directly from flickr on this site (See my Photos Page). If you don't have it yet, get it at flickr's Services Page once you log into your account. You will also need your flickr id which is a number that looks like 123456789@N00. Once you have these two things you can use this extension.

To set up the extension to work with your API key and your account details you need to change few things in the code. On line 25 in the code you will see
"http://www.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.photos.getInfo&api_key=[KEY]&user_id=[ACC]&photo_id=[PHOTOID]"
Change the [KEY] to your API key and the [ACC] to your account details. You will notice that the url uses ?method=flickr.photos.getInfo this is the only function of the API we will use for this simple extension.

How does it work

First to make the extension work you will need to put in

The number is your picture id which your can get from flickr. (Its part of the url of every picture)

The extension converts this into a picture link to your flickr photo using the correct url information obtained from the XML file returned by the API method.

Download it and put it in your App_Code/Extensions/ and don't forget to change the [KEY] and [ACC] in the code.

FlickrPicture.zip (1.04 kb)

Mogulus

marygiel — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:38:00 -0500

While stumbling away in the world wide web I came across this web site Mogulus.

I must say that my first impression from watching the tutorial videos is quite positive. The idea is super cool and I can just see me setting up a TV station where I would broadcast the day to day life of my wittle baby. This would make my relatives across the world very happy I assume.

I have signed up for the bata but no invitation came in yet! I'll keep you posted

Natasha in the autumn

marygiel — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:45:00 -0500

My wife is becoming quite good at Photoshop I must say. She created this a while ago.

Some tools to make everyday life easier

marygiel — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:28:00 -0500

The following is a list of applications that I find super usefull in day to day work.

SlickRun - This little utility makes accessing applications super easy. It works by creating magic words which you can then use to quickly access your applications and web sites
PsPad - This is a freeware editor for windows. It handles syntax highlighting beautifully, it comes with a build in FTP client and tons more. I used to use EditPlus editor but I find PsPad more useful to me and the fact that it is free does not hurt.
xplorer² - This is an amazing Windows Explorer replacement tool. It is perfect if you have to work with multiple folders open. I am using the free lite version.
Beyond Compare 2 - This program lets you compare file content between two sources. Very helpful when you are working on several servers and need to move files around. It also comes with a FTP support so comparing files on the web server never been easier.

Custom Validators

marygiel — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:16:00 -0500

Recently I had to write some simple custom validators so I thought I would share them with the world

CustomValidators.cs (3.52 kb)