Arts & Letters Daily (31 Dec 2009): "The sex life of Grace Kelly is like the home life of the Incas: you can investigate it in depth and muse upon it at length, but never hope to understand it... more
Raymond Chandler wrote that his detective Philip Marlowe has 'as much social conscience as a horse. He has a personal conscience, which is an entirely different matter'... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
MARVEL's Shareholders Approve DISNEY Merger: "It's finally official, Marvel is being bought by Disney for money to the tune of $4.3 billion"
Newsarama.com - Comics - http://www.newsarama.com
Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke: "An aerospace engineer leads a cadre of industry outsiders dedicated to sparking a revival of thorium. They say it's a supersafe, clean and massively abundant fuel that can be the energy of the future."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Study: Rumors of Written-Word Death Greatly Exaggerated: "The written word is under a prolonged technological siege, according to conventional wisdom. But new research shows that Americans read more than they did in 1980."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Convert Your Address to Latitude and Longitude: "Your address is helpful to the postman. But if you know your latitude and longitude, you'll enjoy more-accurate maps and get more precise directions from your GPS."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
People's Processor: Embrace China's Homegrown Computer Chips: "China's creating a computer chip that can drive anything from an industrial robot to a supercomputer is succeeding. It's going to have a profound impact on computers everywhere."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Six uses for a dead iPod: "Nothing lasts forever, and iPods are no exception. But in many cases, you can still use a dead iPod in some way."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
CNBC to air 'Welcome to Macintosh' documentary: "Woz-heads and Jobs-worshippers alike will want to set their DVRs for the January 4th showing of the film, which chronicles Apple's history."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Nokia Increases Scope of Patent Complaints to Include 'Virtually All' Apple Products: "The legal battle between Nokia and Apple has been ratcheted up another notch today with Nokia's announcement that it has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging infringement of Nokia-held patents by 'virtually al..."
MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com
Arts & Letters Daily (29 Dec 2009): "Captain Sullenberger's landing in the Hudson River was a miraculous application of skill in a situation that offered the best possible luck... more"
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Four short links: 28 December 2009: "100 Incredible Lectures from the World's Top Scientists -- it's an astounding collection for everyone to have access to. I'm cheekily delighted by the thought that TED talks will become the next generation's equivalent of the cheesy 16mm educational film: 'oh no, not another famous person giving a 20 minute presentation on a life-changing approach to something! It's as naff as Spongebob and that silly multicolour Google logo!'
"
O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/
Create a simple time-lapse movie: "You can create a time-lapse movie with your camera, iPhone, or web cam. Time-lapse movies can give us a fresh perspective by speeding up slow-moving action and compressing hours, days, and months into seconds and minutes."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Arts & Letters Daily (28 Dec 2009):
The Peter Principle appeals to the cynic in all of us. It is also quite possibly true, if academic studies can be trusted. It explains your boss... more
Opera's styles come and go, but its core of music, text, drama, and spectacle is still there. Opera is about pleasure and power... more
Thomas Jefferson opposed ball games, but the wise Abe Lincoln had a baseball diamond built behind the White House and joined his sons in playing ball... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Apple shares hit new all-time high: "Apple Inc. shares reached their all-time high on Thursday as excitement builds over the expected release of its tablet..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Researchers Create First Functional Molecular Transistor: "Nearly 62 years after researchers at Bell Labs demonstrated the first silicon transistor, scientists say they have created a functional molecular transistor that could help computing move to the next level."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Who's the Best Batman of All Time?: "William Baldwin will be the new voice of Batman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, an animated film due out next year. We rank historic Caped Crusaders from best to worst.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock — Faithful or Flawed?: "Sherlock Holmes experts dissect the surprisingly studly portrayal of the detective in Guy Ritchie's new action flick."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes: "It's not just drones' video feeds that can be tapped into -- the U.S. military's primary video-surveillance system is also vulnerable to electronic interception. Militants can see through the eyes of all kinds of combat aircraft."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
OpenID: Over 1 Billion (Potentially) Served: "Thanks to widespread adoption by major players like Yahoo and Google, over 1 billion users now have access to OpenID. Too bad only a fraction of them know what it is and how to take advantage of it."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade: "
With only a few weeks left until we close out the 'naughts and move into the teens, it's almost obligatory to take a look back at the best and not-so-best of the last decade. With that in mind, I polled the O'Reilly editors, authors, Friends, and a number of industry movers and shakers to gather nominations. I then tossed them in the trash and made up my own compiled them together and looked for trends and common threads. So here then, in no particular order, are the best and the worst that the decade had to offer.
The Best
AJAX - It's hard to remember what life was like before Asynchronous Java and XML came along, so I'll prod your memory. It was boring. Web 1.0 consisted of a lot of static web pages, where every mouse click was a round trip to the web server. If you wanted rich content, you had to embed a Java servlet in the page, and pray that the client browser supported it.
Without the advent of AJAX, we wouldn't have Web 2.0, GMail, or most of the other cloud-based web applications. Flash is still popular, but especially with HTML 5 on the way, even functionality that formerly required a RIA like Flash or Silverlight can now be accomplished with AJAX.
Twitter - When they first started, blogs were just what they said, web logs. In other words, a journal of interesting web sites that the author had encountered. These days, blogs are more like platforms for rants, opinions, essays, and anything else on the writer's mind. Then along came Twitter. Sure, people like to find out what J-Lo had for dinner, but the real power of the 140 character dynamo is that it has brought about a resurgence of real web logging. The most useful tweets consist of a Tiny URL and a little bit of context. Combine that with the use of Twitter to send out real time notices about everything from breaking news to the current specials at the corner restaurant, and it's easy to see why Twitter has become a dominant player.
Ubiquitous WiFi: I want you to imagine you're on the road in the mid-90s. You get to your hotel room, and plop your laptop on the table. Then you get out your handy RJ-11 cord, and check to see if the hotel phone has a data jack (most didn't), or if you'll have to unplug the phone entirely. Then you'd look up the local number for your ISP, and have your laptop dial it, so you could suck down your e-mail at an anemic 56K.
Now, of course, WiFi is everywhere. You may end up having to pay for it, but fast Internet connectivity is available everywhere from your local McDonalds to your hotel room to an airport terminal. Of course, this is not without its downsides, since unsecured WiFi access points have led to all sorts of security headaches, and using an open access point is a risky proposition unless your antivirus software is up to date, but on the whole, ubiquitous WiFi has made the world a much more connected place.
Phones Get Smarter: In the late 90s, we started to see the first personal digital assistants emerge, but this has been the decade when the PDA and the cell phone got married and had a baby called the smartphone. Palm got the ball rolling with the Treos about the same time that Windows Mobile started appearing on phones, and RIM's Blackberry put functional phones in the hands of business, but it was Apple that took the ball and ran for the touchdown with the iPhone. You can argue if the droid is better than the 3GS or the Pre, but the original iPhone was the game-changer that showed what a smartphone really could do, including the business model of the App Store,
The next convergence is likely to be with Netbooks, as more and more of the mini-laptops come with 3G service integrated in them, and VoIP services such as Skype continue to eat into both landline and cellular business.
The Maker Culture: There's always been a DIY underground, covering everything from Ham radio to photography to model railroading. But the level of cool has taken a noticeable uptick this decade, as cheap digital technology has given DIY a kick in the pants. The Arduino lets anyone embed control capabilities into just about anything you can imagine, amateur PCB board fabrication has gone from a messy kitchen sink operation to a click-and-upload-your-design purchase, and the 3D printer is turning the Star Trek replicator into a reality.
Manufacturers cringe in fear as enterprising geeks dig out their screwdrivers. The conventional wisdom was that as electronics got more complex, the 'no user serviceable parts' mentality would spell the end of consumer experimentation. But instead, the fact that everything is turning into a computer meant that you could take a device meant for one thing, and reprogram it to do something else. Don't like your digital camera's software? Install your own! Turn your DVR into a Linux server.
Meanwhile, shows like Mythbusters and events like Maker Faire have shown that hacking hardware can grab the public's interest, especially if there are explosions involved.
Open Source Goes Mainstream: Quick! Name 5 open source pieces of software you might have had on your computer in 1999. Don't worry I'll wait...
How about today? Firefox is an easy candidate, as are Open Office, Chrome, Audacity, Eclipse (if you're a developer), Blender, VLC, and many others. Many netbooks now ship with Linux as the underlying OS. Open Source has gone from a rebel movement to part of the establishment, and when you combine increasing end user adoption with the massive amounts of FLOSS you find on the server side, it can be argued that it is the 800 pound Gorilla now.
As Gandhi said, 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.' When even Microsoft is releasing Open Source code, you know that you're somewhere between the fight and win stages.
Bountiful Resources: 56K modems, 20MB hard drives, 640K of RAM, 2 MHz processors. You don't have to go far back in time for all of these to represent the state of the art. Now, of course, you would have more than that in a good toaster...
Moore's Law continues to drive technology innovation at a breakneck pace, and it seems that related technologies like storage capacity and bandwidth are trying to follow the same curve. Consider that AT&T users gripe about the iPhone's 5GB/month bandwidth cap, a limit that would have taken 10 solid days of transferring to achieve with a dialup connection.
My iPhone has 3,200 times the storage of the first hard drive I ever owned, and the graphics card on my Mac Pro has 16,000 times the memory of my first computer. We can now do amazing things in the palm of our hands, things that would have seemed like science fiction in 1999.
The Worst
SOAP: The software industry has been trying to solve the problem of making different pieces of software talk to each other since the first time there were two programs on a network, and they still haven't gotten it right. RPC, CORBA, EJB, and now SOAP now litter the graveyard of failed protocol stacks.
SOAP was a particularly egregious failure, because it was sold so heavily as the final solution to the interoperatibility problem. The catch, of course, was that no two vendors implemented the stack quite the same way, with the result that getting a .NET SOAP client to talk to a Java server could be a nightmare. Add in poorly spec'd out components such as web service security, and SOAP became useless in many cases. And the WSDL files that define SOAP endpoints are unreadable and impossible to generate by hand (well, not impossible, but unpleasant in the extreme.)
Is it any wonder that SOAP drove many developers into the waiting arms of more useable data exchange formats such as JSON?
Intellectual Property Wars: How much wasted energy has been spent this decade by one group of people trying to keep another group from doing something with their intellectual property, or property they claim was theirs? DMCA takedowns, Sony's Rootkit debacle, the RIAA suing grandmothers, SCO, patent trolls, 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0, Kindles erasing books, deep packet inspection, Three Strikes laws, the list goes on and on and on...
At the end of the day, the movie industry just had their best year ever, Lady Gaga seems to be doing just fine and Miley Cyrus isn't going hungry, and even the big players in the industry are getting fed up sufficiently with the Trolls to want patent reform. The iTunes store is selling a boatload of music, in spite of abandoning DRM, so clearly people will continue to pay for music, even if they can copy it from a friend.
Unfortunately, neither the RIAA nor the MPAA is going gently into that good night. If anything, the pressure to create onerous legislation has increased in the past year. Whether this is a last gasp or a retrenchment will only be answered in time.
The Cult of Scrum: If Agile is the teachings of Jesus, Scrum is every abuse ever perpetrated in his name. In many ways, Scrum as practiced in most companies today is the antithesis of Agile, a heavy, dogmatic methodology that blindly follows a checklist of 'best practices' that some consultant convinced the management to follow.
Endless retrospectives and sprint planning sessions don't mean squat if the stakeholders never attend them, and too many allegedly Agile projects end up looking a lot like Waterfall projects in the end. If companies won't really buy into the idea that you can't control all three variables at once, calling your process Agile won't do anything but drive your engineers nuts.
The Workplace Becomes Ubiquitous: What's the first thing you do when you get home at night? Check your work email? Or maybe you got a call before you even got home. The dark side of all that bandwidth and mobile technology we enjoy today is that you can never truly escape being available, at least until the last bar drops off your phone (or you shut the darn thing off!)
The line between the workplace and the rest of your life is rapidly disappearing. When you add in overseas outsourcing, you may find yourself responding to an email at 11 at night from your team in Bangalore. Work and leisure is blurring together into a gray mélange of existence. 'Do you live to work, or work to live,' is becoming a meaningless question, because there's no difference.
O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/
EyeTV Live3G: Free web app streams live TV over 3G to your iPhone: "With Elgato’s new EyeTV Live3G web app, you can watch live TV and EyeTV recordings anywhere..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach: "In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military depends on an array of drones to snoop on and stalk insurgents. Now it looks as if insurgents are tapping into those same drones' broadcasts, to see what the flying robot spies see. It's potentially one of the most serious military security breaches in years."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Archaeologists lift granite pylon from Cleopatra's sunken palace complex: "Nine-ton pylon was part of the entrance to Temple of Isis, in a palace complex submerged in Alexandria harbor"
Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/
MIT unveils new 'smart' bike wheel | Cutting Edge - CNET News: "Any existing bike can be retrofitted with the wheel. In fact, the MIT team sees it as a plug-and play-device, one that any bike owner should be able to easily install as a back wheel."
Get the Most Out of Google Voice: "If you're one of the lucky ones with a Google Voice number, you know it's much more than just another voicemail inbox. Learn some tricks to unlock the free voice service's hidden features."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Dropbox 0.7.79 - Online synchronization tool with Finder integration; free 2GB account. (Free): "
The Dropbox application is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. A video on the site explains more.
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Make a Podcast, Become Internet-Famous: "Make your voice heard by creating a podcast. All you need is a microphone, some lightweight studio software, and something to say."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Set Up a Webcam for Chats, Streams and YouTube Videos: "Want to become a YouTube star? Or maybe just video chat with friends across the globe? You'll need to learn how to set up a webcam and a microphone on your computer. Follow these steps and you can start chronicling your life for all to see.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
How the iPhone Could Reboot Education: "Brian X. Chen (wired.com) reports that Abilene Christian University has just finished the first year of a pilot program in which 1,000 freshman students each received a free iPhone or iPod touch to explore how the always-connected devices ’might revolutionize the classroom experience with a dash of digital interactivity.’ Says Bill Rankin, a professor who helped plan the initiative: ‘I think this is the next platform for education.’"
Apple Hot News - http://www.apple.com/hotnews/
Wireless Brain-to-Computer Connection Synthesizes Speech: "For the first time, a brain-computer interface has wirelessly translated brain waves into sounds. It's a major step toward mobile, wireless systems that can help paralyzed people express themselves."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Macworld Editors' Choice Awards: Software: "Of the hundreds of Mac apps we saw in the past year, these 13 were our favorites.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
What is Google Voice?: "You've probably heard about Google's online phone service. But do you really know what it is, how it works, and why you might want to consider it? Chris Pepper has some answers.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
iTunes compilations: what holds them together?: "The Compilations tag and functionality in iTunes, the iPod, and the iPhone can be confusing. Here's how it all breaks down.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Block Web Ads Across Your Entire Network: "Imagine what the internet would look like without pesky ads taking over your page all the time. Luckily, local whitelists and router scripts make that dream a reality and don't take too much effort to install.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Comic Book Artists Illustrate Sci-Fi Legends: "Arthur C. Clarke, Neil Gaiman and other writers changed our world by putting their own visions down on the page. The favor gets returned when comics pros train their inks and brushes on literary legends for web gallery Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
How to Fix a Scratched CD: "Finding an old stack of CDs or DVDs under your stereo is a mixed blessing. There's your long lost copy of Doobie Brothers, but there's a gigantic scratch on it. Here's our guide to salvaging your CDs and listening to the music.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Applying Quantitative Analysis to Classic Lit: "Stanford English professor Franco Moretti, famous in bookish circles for graphing, mapping and charting novels by hand, is going digital. He hopes to soon be flying through the creative output of entire eras, ultimately changing the way we look at literary history.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Apple Looking to Acquire Music Streaming Service Lala?: "CNET reports that Apple is in 'advanced' negotiations to acquire music streaming firm Lala. The news comes from two sources who reportedly have knowledge of the discussions between the two companies.
Talks are very advanced, said the..."
MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com
EtherPad Shuts Down after Google Acquisition: "
EtherPad is a Web-based tool for simultaneous writing, in which multiple people can see keystrokes as other people type them. It's now about to disappear after the acquisition by Google of AppJet, the firm that developed and supports EtherPad, and its developers.
EtherPad will continue to operate until 31 March 2010 for registered free and paid users, although AppJet won't charge fees after 4 December 2009. Free public pads can no longer be created, nor can new accounts be registered. Paid users can download all their current documents via the account page. Downloadable versions of the software will be supported through current contracts.
The AppJet folks are joining the group behind Google Wave, the invitation-only service in testing by Google for simultaneous and sequential writing, discussion, and interaction. I've been using it for some weeks, and still find it baffling, where EtherPad was instantly explicable and useful. I hope the AppJet team brings its approach with them. (Two of the three AppJet developers were previously Google employees, reports GigaOm, which notes the deal was worth 'less than $20 million.')
I wrote about EtherPad early this year - see 'EtherPad Brings Simultaneous Writing to the Web,' 16 February 2009 - after we at TidBITS started using it extensively. While we still like SubEthaEdit, which has its own advantages, EtherPad allowed ad hoc and program-free collaboration.
EtherPad was created by AppJet, a firm that started up to develop a Web applications platform - a simplified way for companies to start with all the basics to build rich browser-based programs. EtherPad was a bit of a proof of concept that turned into a separate line of business.
'
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It's time to speak up with MacSpeech Dictate! Get the all-newTidBITS - http://www.tidbits.com/
Awkward News Ahead: "Geoffrey Miller on some inconvenient truths in the human genome. The trouble is, the resequencing data will reveal much more about human evolutionary history and ethnic differences than they will about disease genes. Once enough DNA is analysed around the world, science will have a panoramic view of human genetic variation across races, ethnicities and regions."
Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/
Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists: "Blue whales are singing in a lower voice all around the world, but scientists can't figure out why."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Intel Shows 48-Core Processor for Research: "Nicknamed the 'single-chip cloud computer,' the processor consumes about the same power as two standard household bulbs."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Bees Release Deadly Odor That Shortens Sibling Lifespans: "Honeybee larvae release pheromones that effectively trim the lifespans of their older sibling caretakers."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Hulu adds tagging for movies, TV shows: "Hulu gives users a way to tag videos, letting them give the site a whole new layer of organization."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Choose a #$&%ing Strong Password: "Your first line of defense against hackers is your password, so are you going to use the kind of combination an idiot would have on his luggage? Try something a little harder to break instead. After all, your accounts are only as secure as your passwords."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Adults Fooled by Visual Illusion, But Not Kids: "Adults are fooled by a visual size illusion, but children see right through it, revealing that the brain develops the ability to understand visual context later."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Arts & Letters Daily (23 Nov 2009): "There are 36 arguments for the existence of God, each with some persuasive power. But every one of them has buried within it some kind of flaw... more"
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Plenty Of Room: "I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak."
Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/
Hands on: Roku's updated Player software and new Channel Store: "Roku has updated the software for the company's lineup of streaming-media players, and introduced a new Channel Store that offers additional streaming content."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Review: Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server: "The new $999 Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server is a fantastic product for workgroups, small businesses, and even schools to use."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Five unexpected uses for Copy and Paste: "Did you know you can copy and paste a whole lot more than just text and graphics? When you start in the Finder, you can use the Copy command to lift all sorts of information from a selected Finder item. Here are some of Sharon Zardetto's favorite tricks."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Arts & Letters Daily (19 Nov 2009): "Lew Wallace, General in the Civil War, a man Billy the Kid wanted to kill, wrote a favorite 19th-century novel, made into a 20th-century movie: Ben-Hur... more
'Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one does not stay in the cradle forever.' Space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovskii had a vision... more"
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Cisco: New Wi-Fi Flip Camera Early Next Year: "If you thought 'Huh?' when Cisco bought out Pure Digital — the maker of the Flip video camera — you might have an answer: Early next year Cisco will market a new, WiFi-enabled Flip."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
A $25 App Phone? That's Crazy Talk.: "This week, Palm released a follow up to the Pre, a cheaper, thinner, lesser phone called the Pixi. The official price is $100 with a two-year Sprint contract, but Amazon is selling the thing for - are you sitting down? - $25."
Pogue's Posts - http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/?=rss2
Time to cut AT&T some slack? 3G data traffic up 5000% over the past 12 quarters due to iPhone: "According to AT&T CTO John Donovan, nationally, 3G data traffic on the company’s wireless network... "
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Voice Mac 5.1 - Client for Google Voice. (Free): "Voice Mac is a client for Google Voice the features are described below. Short Message Service (SMS) Voicemail Calling people using your forwarding phones. Contact list with the options of Google Contacts or Address Book. Contact Filter. Growl for SMS and Voicemail. SMS History so you can go and view old SMS."
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Revolution Media 4.0.0.950 - Cross-platform development environment. (Free): "Revolution and the Rev platform enables better, easier and faster software construction for everyone. With an extensive product family, we have a solution for you.
Rev is ideal for complete beginners who have never written a line of code before. Its easy English-like language is quick to learn and more memorable than any traditional programming language. Thats why Rev is loved by content experts, artists and educators who need to create interactive content but have no desire to become programmers.
But don't be fooled by simplicity. Rev's powerful, flexible feature set is used by professional developers creating shrink wrapped commercial software, business process automation tools, in-house utilities and working in enterprise teams on real-time and mission critical applications. Rev's high productivity environment is in indespensible tool for professionals under pressure to deliver more with tight budgets.
Top Benefits
Up to 10x more productive than traditional development systems.
Flexible platform creates applications that run on the Web, desktop or server, for the PC, Mac or Linux.
From rich Web applications to powerful enterprise software solutions, designed for any skill-set, platform, project or budget
Deliver dramatically more with less - less time, less effort, ideal for tight budgets
Powerful Toolset
One of the unique benefits of Rev is its iterative workflow. Projects are edited dynamically with changes happening in real time. There is no compile-run-edit-debug cycle that takes so much time with traditional development tools. Rev is also ideal for using agile development to adapt quickly to changing requirements.
Drag and drop user interface builder
Run and edit live
Integrated visual debugger
Edit and debug on all supported platforms
Create Web applications with a single click
Create single-file standalone executables with a single click
Access databases, powerful data presentation options
Create native or custom interfaces for all platforms
Edit server scripts directly on the server
Remote visual debugger for server scripting
"
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Camino 2.0 - Lean and fast Web browser with Gecko rendering engine. (Free): "Camino is an open-source web browser developed with a focus on providing the best possible experience for Mac OS X users.
The Camino Project has worked to create a browser that is as functional and elegant as the computers it runs on. The Camino web browser is powerful, secure, and ready to meet the needs of all users while remaining simple and elegant in its design.
Camino combines the awesome visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with the powerful web-browsing capabilities of the Gecko rendering engine."
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Service lets users build own iPhone, RIM, Windows apps: "The BuildAnApp online service helps novices create mobile applications for several platforms and submits them to the iPhone App Store."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Me and Orson Welles - Clip - Enjoy the Show: "
 | ' | Me and Orson Welles - Clip - Enjoy the Show Based in real theatrical history, ME AND ORSON WELLES is a romantic coming-of-age story about a teenage actor who lucks into a role in Julius Caesar as it’s being re-imagined by a brilliant, impetuous young director named Orson Welles at his newly-founded Mercury Theater in NYC, 1937. The rollercoaster week leading up to opening night has the charismatic-but-sometimes-cruel Welles (impressive newcomer Christian McKay) staking his career on this risky production while Richard (Zac Efron) mixes with everyone from starlets to stagehands in behind-the-scenes adventures bound to change him. Directed by: Richard Linklater Starring: Ben Chaplin, Claire Danes, Zac Efron, Zoe Kazan, Eddie Marsan, Christian McKay, Kelly Reilly |
Latest Movie Trailers - http://www.apple.com/trailers/
"Twilight" of our youth: "It isn't just a tween phenomenon. Women in their 30s and beyond are addicted to Stephenie Meyer's vampire saga, too"
Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/
Two From The Beeb: "Feeling grumpy 'is good for you' An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly. In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed. While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking... That's what I've been "
Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/
Runtime Revolution 4.0 offers new Web-authoring option: "The latest version of this cross-platform software-creation environment allows developers to deploy apps directly to the Web."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Hulu's backers bicker as Web video soars: "The Web video site, with its stockpile of professional content, may not be the cash cow that everyone involved had hoped for."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Celtx 2.5.1 - Scriptwriting, pre-production support, online collaboration. (Free): "
Features include:
Until Celtx, script writers were subjected to bloated and bug ridden software and the pre-production team had been ignored altogether. With Celtx, script writers enjoy using a clean and stable application that includes all the features they need to write. The pre-production team, for the first time, can now perform their production breakdown using software designed for that purpose. In addition to providing media rich tools to annotate the script, Celtx enables a project to be collaboratively shared with others.
Prior to Celtx, projects were completed using slip-sheeted, paper-based scripts maintained in bulky three ring binders that included hundreds, sometimes thousands, of attached pictures and hand written notes. Project information could only be shared in paper form.
Scripts written or imported into Celtx can be broken down digitally and, for the first time, easily shared with others to foster collaboration and creativity during the pre-production and production phases of film and TV making.
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Flush.app 0.3.1 - Flash cookie removal tool. (Free): "
For those who do not know about Flash cookies, more properly referred to as Local Shared Objects (LSO), they operate in a similar way to regular browser cookies but are stored outside the purview of your browser, meaning you cannot delete them from within your browser, whether Safari, Firefox, Opera or any other. Typically they are issued from sites or 3rd party sites that contain Adobe Flash content. Since virtually all internet advertising is delivered in Flash, Google/Doubleclick and all other internet advertising companies are sure to be tracking your browsing behavior with Flash cookies. These companies can see you traverse the Internet as you come upon the plethora of sites that contain their embedded advertising.
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Wimbledon hero Andy Roddick relaxed in a new comfort zone - Telegraph: "'My mailman had it all figured out why I lost the Wimbledon final. He told me that I was sweating a lot more than Roger Federer was. I said, 'that's pretty normal, I sweat more than Roger', and he told me that my sweaty shirts were weighing me down on court, that I should have been changing my shirts more often during the match.
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Roger Federer: confessions of a tennis dad - Times Online: "First he wins it all; now he’s embraced fatherhood. In a rare and revealing interview, the Swiss explains himself
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Wife poses as schoolgirl online to snare husband: "A woman suspects her husband is a pedophile. So she sets up a computer in their house, goes online, and pretends to be a 14-year-old. Her husband takes the bait."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Five unbelievable printers you can't have: "While ink-on-paper printing technology is getting smaller, faster, and more affordable, the world of specialty printers is expanding. Mind-blowing tools are being developed that can print everything from food to human organs.
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Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Hulu Desktop 0.9.7.3 - Stream TV shows to your desktop. (Free): "
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Pedro Almodóvar: An "irrational passion" for movies: "The Spanish director on his delirious new movie-movie with Penelope Cruz, and how the New York Dolls fought Franco"
Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/
Review: 'The Prisoner' Reboot Takes Sci-Fi Out of Spy-Fi: "Visually striking and fueled by powerful performances from Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel, AMC's remake of the '60s series proves ultimately disappointing for the things it leaves out: the risk-taking and rebellion that made Patrick McGoohan's Prisoner an enduring classic.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Man vs. Electricity: Meet Dr. Megavolt: "Sporting a stainless steel mesh suit and a Tesla coil capable of producing 200,000 volts, Austin Richards ('Dr. Megavolt') puts on an electrifying performance at San Francisco’s Exploratorium.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Google says Docs to catch up to Office next year: "A Google exec says that Docs isn't 'mature' enough yet for businesses but that another 30 to 50 updates will bring it up to speed with Microsoft Office."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Darpa: Freeze Soldiers to Save Injured Brains: "The Pentagon's mad science division has a new way to deal with the 70,000+ troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injury: freeze 'em.
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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Israelis Want a Pain Ray of Their Own: "The U.S. military spent tens of millions of dollars and years of work developing a microwave 'pain beam,' but a combination of technical difficulties and political concerns kept the Pentagon from fielding the thing. Now, an Israeli team says they're working on their own own portable version. And it'll cost just $250,000."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
The Prisoner : An All-Star Appreciation: "Patrick McGoohan’s stunning spy-fi series The Prisoner only lasted 17 episodes before sadly disappearing in 1969. But its revolutionary mix of geopolitics, sci-fi and psychedelia has influenced not just television, but also music, comics, film and more. It even made a deep impression on the most influential band of all time.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Flash flaw puts most sites, users at risk, say researchers: "Hackers can exploit a flaw in Adobe's Flash to compromise nearly every Web site that allows users to upload content, including Google's Gmail, then launch ilent attacks on visitors to those sites, according to security researchers."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
YouTube to get high-def 1080p player: "YouTube exec announces another bump-up in available YouTube resolution. The new resolution, as well as a new full-screen player, will roll out to all users within days."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Google buys Gizmo5 for Google Voice: "Terms of the deal for the VoIP software company were undisclosed, but Google's second acquisition of the week will be used to help Google Voice."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Use Google to Create Graphs and Charts: "If you're stuck making graphs with clunky desktop software — or with pen and paper — you’ll be interested to know there are some simple web tools for creating them on the fly. Specifically, Google offers some easy ways to generate graphs without having to pull out the Sharpies."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Secret Math of Fly Eyes Could Overhaul Robot Vision: "Researchers turn the neural activity of flies into algorithms that could be used to make robots that can see better and more efficiently.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
"The Prisoner": It's a trap!: "AMC's remake of the 1960s British cult show trips on its own nonlinear, symbolic hem and falls into a deep abyss
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Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/
Human-Chimp Gene Comparison Hints at Roots of Language: "By examining the difference between FOXP2 (the 'speech gene') in humans and chimps, scientists reveal an entire network of genes whose activity is unique to humans, and may have allowed us to develop complex language.
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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Meet Go, Google's New Programming Language: "Google ups its investment in open source software by releasing Go, a new programming language it hopes will be used to build the next wave of applications.
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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Google Poised to Become Your Phone Company: "Google could be your new phone company, now that it's reportedly bought Gizmo5 -- an online telephone company that fits very well with Google's current voice services. Skype and AT&T better watch out."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Dead battery? Just refill it | The Car Tech blog - CNET Reviews: "A redox flow battery service station would pump out the discharged electrolytic fluid from your car's battery, replacing it with charged fluid, most likely in a matter of minutes."
Business use of Twitter, Facebook exploding: "A survey of 200 companies worldwide found that use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter for business use has exploded in recent months.
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Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Intel Core i5 Quad-Core iMac Begins Shipping: "Several MacRumors readers have reported that they have received notification from Apple that their Intel Core i5-based quad-core 27' iMac orders have been shipped from Shanghai. There is no word yet on whether the upgraded Intel Core i7-based versio..."
MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com
Winner declared in space elevator race: "LaserMotive wins $900,000 in NASA's Space Elevator challenge, where teams compete to see who could drive their space elevator the fastest."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Moolah: 3D Money Screen Saver 1.1.1 - Money screensaver. (Shareware): "
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
CUPS 1.4.2 - Common UNIX printing system. (Free): "
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Agassi: No regrets about revelations (AP): "It turns out Andre Agassi was lying all along. To fans. To opponents. To tennis authorities. To first wife Brooke Shields. To friends, including Barbra Streisand. To the media. And, he says, to himself. 'I cant live with that anymore,' Agassi said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press."
Yahoo! Sports - Tennis News - http://sports.yahoo.com/ten
Downtown Roseburg to get new business thanks to grant to Tribe: "
The Cow Creeks received the money from the Economic Development Administration to renovate the old Douglas County Farmers Co-Op at Spruce and Washington, right across from the visitor's center.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
New technology assisting Douglas County loggers: "
We all know that technology has changed the way we do business, but it is also transforming one of the major industries in our area. It has been the backbone of Douglas County's economy for more than 80 years; logging.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Singularity University: Rearranging Atoms With Ralph Merkle: "'If you rearrange the atoms in coal, you get diamond. If you rearrange the atoms in sand, you get silicon. How atoms are arranged is fundamental to all material aspects of life,' says Ralph Merkle, senior research chair at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. Those words kick off day 2 at the Singularity University Executive Program.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
App Listens and Records All, Waiting for Twitterable Moment: "A new app for the iPhone constantly records the last 60 seconds of audio, so you can hit the button to save that funny thing your congressman or toddler just said. Potentially creepy or cool, depending on who's in charge.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
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