technology

Though they are a bit generous with their ratings, freewaregenius.com does have some nice reviews of free software.

UPDATE: I just noticed in their FAQ that they will only review software that they feel merit 4 or 5 stars, which may explain why the ratings seem high in the first place.

The Blue Screen Screensaver from Microsoft.

It looks quite convincing, too!

Via Slashdot a couple days ago, I became aware of the Openmoko project, an attempt at an cell phone O.S. that's based on open-sourced software, like the Linux kernel, the GNU C library, the X window system, and the GTK+ toolkit. It seems that FIC is behind this, and has already released the Neo1973 for developers to pick up and start programming on (The wiki for the O.S. states that the software is still in a pre-alpha state and not ready for end-users yet).

Note to self: Avoid shutting down a network device on a server if you're accessing said server remotely via that network device...

Yeah, I'm a few days late on this. Heck, Dell had launched the systems on Thursday. Actually, this hasn't been too new, as Dell have been selling Red Hat equipped servers for some time (And they even have their own customized Yum repositories for hardware-specific drivers). But this is a very good sign for Linux (and other open source systems) when Dell is willing to sell systems with Ubuntu 7.04 preinstalled!

I'll have to scour this discussion on how I can improve the workflow for developers at my company.

John on the Lafayette Pro Fiber Blog, while talking about Joost, also mentioned an open-source alternative called Democracy. Though Joost definitely has the commercial edge, Democracy does have a leg-up on Joost in that they already have a Linux client (Joost has it in the work) and that it's open sourced. I'll have to check into it.

(via Slashdot)

Somewhat related to my previous post, I've always been interested in the Optimus Keyboards, even if the $1564 price tag is way too steep for me. It looks like they have to make these by hand right now, though. Maybe if things pick up, they will be able to start mass-producing them by machine and the price will go drastically down. I would think $200-$300 would be the right price point for me, depending on the tactile quality and durability of the keyboard.

As a much cheaper alternative, this Slashdot comment points out the Deck Backlit Keyboards. The backlight wouldn't do me much good, though, as I rarely look at my keyboard as I'm typing.

Description on Youtube:

Presentation by Jeff Han of a futuristic multi-touch interface during the Adobe sponsored TED2006. Jeff Han is a research scientist for NYU's Media Research Lab, and the inventor of an "interface-free" touch-driven computer screen. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 09:32)

{YOUTUBE:UcKqyn-gUbY}

(Found this via a Slashdot comment)

I though I would not think that this could immediately replace a keyboard completely, especially in terms of speed (tactile feedback isn't something that can easily be replicated off of a screen, yet), this will definitely aid in replacing the mouse. And if it can also add in tablet-type functionality (like a physical pen, brush, and air-brush tool), it could be a boon for visual artists. Also, interactions by different users on the same screen would be possible with this.