Profound Potifications

Walking the Garmin Plank

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:10:00 +0000

Many months ago I purchased the Garmin FR60 for my triathlon training. It turns out that if you do not want GPS this is the perfect watch for you. It has everything a triathlete needs to train (when not in the water). It a has heart rate monitor, can connect to a cadence monitor (it effectively can serve as your bike computer), pacing capabilities, and can connect to a foot pod. See the Garmin site for more information. I, of course, decided that GPS is a must have.

Since I have already bought Garmin compatible add ons I will be sticking to Garmin. After weighing in on everything I wanted the choices came down to the Garmin 310XT and the Garmin 305. The main difference between the two watches is that the 310XT is water proof and is supposed to be able to be used on the swim. After reading many complaints about how this capability just does not work as advertised I decided to hold off on this technology until it matures (especially since the 310 XT is $350 and the 305 if $127 on Amazon.com).

Both watches are extremely large. I happened to be in Best Buy and saw a 305. You will not be winning any fashion contests wearing either watch. Swimming with one on your wrist seems like it would be annoying. Nearly settling for the 305 I looked at the FR410 and the FR405CX. Both are much smaller and would be the perfect GPS watch for a Triathlete. There is nothing different between the two outside of color and a slight price difference. Both have all of the same capabilities as the FR60 plus GPS and some other fancy pants features (such as Waypoints, "workouts", and custom courses) that you will likely never use. That being said I would still go for one of the GPS watches right off the bat.

In the end it turns out that I really wanted a GPS for my bike so I decided to get a bike specific computer instead. Which one? It is most likely going to be the Garmin Edge 500.

Running an Eclipse application on Snow Leopard

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:01:00 +0000

Today I was trying to run the Eclipse RCP "Hello World" application with a view on my Mac. I was getting the following stack trace when trying to run the app:

java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Cannot load 32-bit SWT libraries on 64-bit JVM
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.Library.loadLibrary(Library.java:182)
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.Library.loadLibrary(Library.java:159)
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.C.(C.java:21)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.createDisplay(Display.java:973)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.create(Display.java:967)
at org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Device.(Device.java:125)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.(Display.java:775)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.(Display.java:766)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.createDisplay(Workbench.java:532)
at org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI.createDisplay(PlatformUI.java:161)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ide.application.IDEApplication.createDisplay(IDEApplication.java:143)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ide.application.IDEApplication.start(IDEApplication.java:88)
at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.app.EclipseAppHandle.run(EclipseAppHandle.java:194)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.runApplication(EclipseAppLauncher.java:110)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.start(EclipseAppLauncher.java:79)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:368)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:179)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:559)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:514)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1311)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:1287)

I turns out that the Eclipse SWT libraries will not run with a 64 bit jvm. I came across this blog which explained how to fix. The short and sweet answer is to add the -d32 as a vm arg in the run configuration.

President-Elect Barack Obama on Election Night

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:35:00 +0000

Laughing Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:20:00 +0000

Laughing Baby
Originally uploaded by tamcknight

This is a video of my son Brady at the age of 9 months. This makes me
smile every time I see it. Our dog, Bailey, is great with the kids.

More Multitouch Devices

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:19:00 +0000

The multitouch revolution continues as the cell phone has become the killer application that brings multitouch to the mainstream. The iPhone was the first followed by many imitators that have not faired so well. Now Blackberry has stepped up with the Blackberry Thunder. This will probably become the first feel head to head competitor to the iPhone given the amount of corporate users of Blackberrys.

Mutlitouch's place in the everyday lives of people is still unknown. It is not the silver bullet that many tout it to be. On home pc's it may not replace the mouse like I one thought it would. As I type this is sit about 2 feet from my mac. If my monitor were multitouch I would be sitting much closer to my monitor or have to stretch over to move the cursor. Future state may be that the mouse does not go away, but multitouch is just an added feature.

The areas that come to mind where I see it being used sooner rather than later is design and when people have to browse something. It is nice just to flip through pictures as if it were pages in a book. In the area of design there are efficiency gains when you are able to move design features. Would it be easier to shape playdoh with your hands of with a mouse on a computer?

More TED: A talk on Shrooms!

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:05:00 +0000

When this TED video came up next on my ipod I thought for sure I would be shortly skipping to the next video. I quickly was surprised on how interesting mushrooms could be...

Johnny Lee at TED

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:09:00 +0000

This is another great example of how human interaction with computers is changing. Multitouch is just one aspect of this ongoing change. In this video from the TED conference Johnny Lee displays that for about $50 bucks (and some free software from his website) you can completely transform the way you interact with your pc.

Elephant paints a picture of an Elephant

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:57:00 +0000

originally seen on boingboing.net

NUI Group Selected to participate in GSoC

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Congrats to the NUI Group in being selected to participate in the Google Summer of Code. I hope this momentum continues for the multitouch world.

Lunar Eclipse

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:54:00 +0000

IMG_0020
Originally uploaded by tamcknight.

I purchased a new digtal camera just in time for the last lunar eclipse until 2010. This is the best shot I took. Click here to see all of the pictures I took. In some of the pictures you can see Saturn at about 7 o'clock with respect to the moon.

Steroids in Professional Sports

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:38:00 +0000

The list of professional athletes who admit to taking steroids grows everyday. People cry something must be done, but still pay top dollar to go see the steroid abusing athletes play their respective sports. The government steps in and says something must be done, but it is only a dog and pony show. No one is really looking at why the athletes do it. It is for two reasons: 1) Money 2) to Win. There is no other reason to put harmful chemicals other than those 2 reasons. Knowing those 2 factors I propose one solution: Let the athletes use steroids.

Yes you heard it right. Let them do it with 2 little gotchas.

If you use steroids you will earn less then players that do not. Say half as much as the average of all of the clean players at your position.
Your team will automatically start each game with having something taken away from them. In baseball it could be a run or start the first five innings with only having 2 outs at the plate. In football you could start 1st and 15 ever series.

To get what the fans want you must hit the platers where it hurts most, in the pocket books and reduce their chances to win a championship for cheating. This solution is drastic, but would be extremely effective.

Too Late to Reduce CO2 - Time for a more Drastic measure

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:50:00 +0000

In this Ted Talk David Keith talks about how it's too late to reverse global warming by way of CO2 reduction. He has an alternative way of cooling the Earth and we know that it works thanks to volcanoes. His method is short term and the world must still reduce it's Carbon emissions. The CO2 problem will be solved it's just a matter of whether or not humans will see if occur.

UPDATE 4/24/2008 - This article from newscientist.com talks about the ramifications of injecting sulfur at the poles.

Ford Software Company??????????

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:28:00 +0000

Yesterday I took my 2003 Ford Escape in for an oil change. The service guy at Ford called me and advised that I purchase a software upgrade for $109. This is the first time I have ever come across this. I asked what was in the upgrade and if I could see the specs on each patch applied to my car. The response was "I plug the car into my computer and it says it needs new software. It's improves the shifter and turning response." I proceeded to ask if it was bug fixes, new features , or improvements. He said improvements, but how did he know if he could not tell me the details of each.

As cars become more and more reliant on internal computers automakers will look more and more like software companies. They must be able to provide information to their customers about the software and the upgrades going into the vehicle. This is a very early trend. Take note and watch to see how it evolves.

As a side note the next time I buy a car I will try to negotiate that all software upgrades be free. Who like to pay for software!!!!

Podcasting to Promote Books

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 19:39:00 +0000

Lately I have been listening to more and more podcasts on my train ride into work. Two podcasts I recently started listening to, The Disciplined Investor and The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, are associated with books. After listening to the podcasts I found myself buying both books.

These 2 authors are onto something. Provide people some in site to my book and what I am about and they will buy my book. So far this strategy has worked on me. The podcast allowed me to peer into what the books are about before buying. This is an effective way to promote your book and am sure the trend will continue.

Did the Gas Giants join our Solar System?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:03:00 +0000

I was recently listening to the AstronomyCast about the asteroid belt. While listening to it I started thinking about the Kuiper belt and the asteroid belt. Why does our solar system have 2 belts of floating rocks (asteroids if you will) that conveniently seem to split the the 2 types of planets in our solar system?

On the inner half you have Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars which are all rocky and iron core planets. The outer half (separated by the asteroid belt) contains the gas planets anchored by Jupiter followed by Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It is quite odd that it seems as though there are two different solar systems within the solar system we live in.

A question that commonly comes up is whether or not Jupiter is a failed star. Jupiter would only need to be need to be 30% bigger to be the size of the smallest of Red Dwarfs. Upon thinking about that I wondered if it is possible that Jupiter and it's 3 siblings could actually have been it's own solar system that got captured by our sun's gravity and became part of ours. If so where did it originate? How long ago did this event occur?

This is only a theory that just struck me and may be completely wrong, but it is always fun to think about.

Linus Torvalds rips into SVN and CVS while touting GIT

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 15:17:00 +0000

Check out this post where Linus Torvalds, father of Linux, rips into Subversion and CVS. At the same time he touts GIT and Mercurial as the next generation of SCM systems.

Multitouch Battles Begin

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 10:45:00 +0000

The battle to be the leader in the mutlitouch arena is starting. Apple first announced the iPhone and now Microsoft has come out with a table. Last week Microsoft announced it had "invented" a new table that has multitouch capabilities. It does have some impressive features and one can only assume that it is only a matter of time before Apple counters. The following 2 years will be interesting to see if the technology takes off.

Chernobyl

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:29:00 +0000

Recently a co-worker and myself were discussing what the next steps were to solve Americas' thirst for energy. Wind, solar, and ethanol based technologies are all nice, but have major setbacks. No wind, a cloudy day or a drought all would result in no power produced. The next logical choice is nuclear. It's clean (minus the waste of course), efficient, and inexpensive. The two major setbacks are the waste and the outcome in the event of the disaster. Myself believing that figuring what to do with the waste will be solved I took a look at how bad is a nuclear disaster at a plant. Chernobyl is the obvious test case.

I was not prepared for what I saw or read. Being 6 years old in 1986 I was not aware of what was going on in the Ukraine so I first checked the wikipedia entry. The entry had little information on the topic so I started reviewing the external links. The pictures on kiddofspeed.com were extraordinary and compelling. The devastation in the Northwestern part of the Ukraine and southern part of Belarus are far beyond what I had ever imagined. The affected areas will not be safe for people to live in until the year 2500!!! I highly recommended viewing kiddofspeed website. Just knowing that a nuclear disaster occurred does not do the event any justice. We all should be thankful that the worst thing we ever have to do is pay taxes or lose our jobs. The people in the affected areas lost everything and for many that included their lives.

2 Technologies that will change the World

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:13:00 +0000

Change is constantly upon us, but it is rare to see a disruptive technology that changes everything. Innovations such as the integrated circuit or the combustion engine just do not come around everyday. Below are three technologies that will change the world.

Holographic Hard Drives

The hard drive industry has been operating in a sustaining innovation pattern for some time. Some may argue that flash drives are disruptive and while it is true that they improve performance the doors are still on the hard drive industry. Introduce holographic drives. Nothing in the market remotely compares to the promise that these drives bring. They are being touted as replacing all types of storage including CD, DVD, Magnetic Drives, Flash Drives, and RAM! Preliminary reports are speaking of a terabyte of storage per disk and extraordinary data access speeds.

Multi Touch Monitors

June of 2007 will mark the start of a revolution. The iPhone will be bringing mutlitouch screens to the mainstream. Multitouch is not a new concept, but until now nothing has ever used it commercially. Once people are able to use their hands to select things on a pc (the iPhone after all is indeed a pc) they will ask "What other uses are there for this?". Why will we hand mice in the future when one can manipulate data with their hands? No matter how fast PC's get interacting with users (up until this point) is single threaded due to the mouse/keyboard restriction. Architects can model a building with their hands, traders can send more than one order at a time, software developers can draw up data models in a snap, and engineers can collaborate on designing a car at the same time on the same screen.

My Vonage Experiment is Over

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:57:00 +0000

After almost 2 years of using Vonage my VoiP experiment is coming to an end. I have never had a clear signal (I have a high pitched buzzing noise in the background) and after browsing their help section, dealing with some guy in India trying to resolve the issue, and flat out trying to ignore it I am done. There are just too many issues to deal with and it is no longer cost effective.
Some other issues I have had include:

The phone will ring after you get off of it. When you pick it up no one is there.
Concerns about the 911 service. It routes to a center that will then call 911 for you.
The Former CEO (now chief strategist because he has already been banned by the SEC from ever running a public company) is a crook and Vonage has screwed its customers over in its IPO
Poor Routing. At work I have received phone calls from my home number, but the person did not dial my home phone. The call somehow got routed through my home phone to my work number.
The cost continues to increase every month. For $10 more I can now get AT&T service and use AT&T DSL which is significantly cheaper than Comcast Internet (don't get me going about the Comcast outages early in the morning)
Poor billing practices. I tried to cancel last night. I just got billed for the month of March through April. When I asked how I would be reimbursed for services I will not receive Vonage "Customer Care" (I spoke with Dana) told me that the service is turned off immediately and I will NOT get reimbursed. I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

Given those items I am going back to AT&T. Vonage has lost its competitive advantage which was its cost versus regular phone service. VoiP is becoming a commodity and many companies (Skype) are offering it for free. VoiP will have a hard time taking on the likes of AT&T in the next 10 years, but I do see a future where both are used in different ways.

Too Much Content Too Little Time

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 02:42:00 +0000

Content is everywhere these days. I visit and view so many websites I have moved to Google Reader as my content aggregator. The problem now is keeping up with reading the content. Reading the headlines is a daunting task in itself. There is not enough time in the day to actually read every article. With this in mind I wonder how in the world traders and analysts can keep up with the data coming into their in boxes, showing up on their websites, and flying past them on their beloved Bloomberg terminals. My guess is that they don't and as a result of it critical data is missed.

I once worked on a project to aggregate content in Documentum, but it required too much hands on effort by the users. They simply just don't have time to drop documents into a repository and tag it so it can be indexed. Information overload is upon the industry so how can the industry get smarter about managing content. The problem is 3 fold:

Getting the data in a central place "automagically" with out anyone having to do any thing
Finding the key pieces on information that will provide in site
Delivering the data to users that will be interested in it

Problem 1 is the hardest part of this task. Once the data is in a place where it can be indexed and tagged the rest is relatively easy. This is the biggest hurdle to over come and I have yet to come up with a good way to do it. Problem 2 can be solved with a search engine and some rules that will try to pick out the "golden content". Problem 3 is busch league compared to everything else. Delivering is easy, but the implementation could make or break you. Be very careful on GUI design and how the content appears to the user. One misstep here and the rest of the project is irrelevant.

Touch Screen - Things to Come

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 01:18:00 +0000

This video on Future Feeder shows Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel and his new touch screen technology. I don't need to sit here and say how impressive this is. There is a high level of the "WOW! factor" when viewing this. Apparently this technology has limitations, but at this point in the game it may not matter. Next Window is another company operating in this space.

I once saw a product by a company called Vizible that also had software similar to this. When I sat through the demo I was amazed at what I was seeing. How will touch screen technology change the world and in what ways will people use it that you would not expect?

Latest issue of Popular Science

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 03:11:00 +0000

The latest issues of popular science (March 07) is bleeding with innovation and emerging technology. Each article was impressive in it's content and overall this is probably one of the best issues I have ever read.

The issue covers everything from a machine that uses plasma to evaporate garbage to the next generation Hummer which takes in Co2 and "breaths" out oxygen. Articles on new types of office furniture and equipment (such as staples with RFID tags so you never lose another paper) will get the creative juices flowing. An interesting article on P&G is in the issue which discusses how P&G is trying to stay cutting edge with it's technology. "Who wudda thunk it?" Everything from digitally storing experiments to using RFID tags on everything to track inventory. The issue is truly compelling. By the time I was done reading it on my two hour train delay I was jotting down new ideas for the financial industry.

My Wii

noreply@blogger.com (Tim McKnight) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 02:26:00 +0000

My wife surprised me a couple of weeks ago with a Nintendo Wii! It's been years since I played video games on a consistent basis, but it is hard to put the Wii down. Nintendo has done an outstanding job in finding a massive hole in the market and exploiting it (some may call this finding the white space innovation gap).

For years it's been all about graphics. The Wii (although the graphics are still good) has created it's own market that is going to be huge with parents. Nintendo has also been able to price the console much cheaper as well as the games. Overall it's a huge win for Nintendo.