Star Trek is upon us

Well, according to The Register, the Star Trek vision of holographic computer storage has apparently come to be. And, it will be available next year! Maxell, and another company called OptWare, are both set to unveil new holographic storage products in the coming year. This should be interesting, as they boast 300GB to 1.6TB of storage space and a shelf life of 50+ years.


And, in other news, the "Holodeck" appears to have arrived as well. Maybe Gene Roddenberry wasn't so far off in his vision of the future....

Now, how's that transporter thingie coming along?

Centering tables in XHTML

Something that was driving me nuts, trying to create dynamic PHP/XHTML pages recently: you cannot easily center tables. I found a hint here that gives a (non-elegant but functional) solution.

The end of Hotmail

Looks like Hotmail will be coming to an end in the near future, to be replaced with Windows Live™ Mail.

Applying Newton in a new way

Well, in what may be the shape of things to come, a company called Agela has created the new PhysX chip for your PC that will enable game developers to offload physics processing within their games onto its specialized processor. Popular Mechanics has an article about it in their "Best of What's New in 2005" article.

BFG Technologies and ASUS are reportedly have daughterboards that utilize their new chip. We now have sound cards, video cards, game cards and now physics cards to use in games -- what could be next?

Free Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express

For those that have ever wanted to dabble in writing code for Windows, here's a great opportunity to get, arguably, the best development environment for Windows.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express for free

This includes development environments for Visual C++, Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual J#, etc. So, most all of the bases are covered. It also includes an Express version of a SQL server.

Be sure to download the packages before November 7th, 2006, when they revert back to being paid-for software.

Need your gadget fix?

A friend showed me a great blog today (thanks, Trey!). For all those techno-savvy people out there, this is great! Some of the wildest and weirdest new gadgets available:

http://www.techeblog.com/

Now, I've GOT to figure out how to play Doom on my iPod.... ;->

Week numbers bug in Entourage 2004

There's a bug in Entourage 2004 for Mac; enough said! If you rely on week numbers, as I do for work, the week numbers are off for 2005; Entourage is always 1 week behind, if your week starts on a Sunday as it does in the US. For example, this should be Week 45 of 2005; however, Entourage shows it as Week 44.

There is a workaround for this bug for 2005: change your 'First day of week' to 'Monday', rather than the default of Sunday. This can be found in Entourage's Preferences, under General Preferences: Calendar. See below:


This, however, is only a temporary fix. When January 1st, 2006, rolls around, you'll have to figure out which day to start your week on again for correct week numbers (I'm betting on Sunday this time 'round).

The 'root' of the matter

I ran across this very interesting article today. While this really doesn't currently affect Mac OS X, it theoretically could, eventually. However, in order for this to work, someone has to gain access to the root password of your machine -- another reason to make sure you have a good password! If you don't have the root password turned on (or don't know what I'm talking about), you probably don't need to worry about this -- OS X, by default, disables the root password on your system.

Mac Security: Identifying Changes to the File System by Peter Hickman -- Black-hat hackers often use a bundle of tools called a rootkit to secure access to your machine and cover their tracks. When working on your computer, they need to store files and be sure that you will not stumble across them and get suspicious. Peter Hickman explains how this works.

Inside Jack

Sun Microsystems gets creative in their marketing. The never-ending battle between the "marketing droids" (sorry, sweetie) and the engineers!

These make me chuckle:

Inside Jack #1 (The Sun-Microsoft Thing)
Inside Jack #2 (Solaris 10)
Inside Jack #3 (AMD)
Inside Jack #4 (Dual Core Sun Fire v40z)

...so much, in fact, that I got the T-shirt..."No, I will not fix your computer."

The UN taking over the Internet?

OK, here's your scary thought-for-the-day: The UN taking over control of the Internet. Gee, you mean the one worldwide organization that can't run anything correctly is now trying to vie for control of the free Internet? I can't imagine how this could turn out good.

The nerd is complete

Well, I guess I'm getting older these days: I finally went to an optometrist, since it had been probably on the order of 10+ years since I'd seen one last. My eyes were getting sore, dry and blurred from staring at this computer screen all day long.

My worst fears (well, not really) came true: I need glasses. Goodbye 20/20 vision.

So, I guess I'm getting older these days....

You know you're from Texas if...

Couldn't help putting this up, for those that haven't seen it...


YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM TEXAS IF:

~You can properly pronounce Corsicana, Palestine, Decatur, Wichita Falls, San Antonio, Mexia, Waco, and Amarillo.

~A tornado warning siren is your signal to go out in the yard and look for a funnel.

~You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.

~You know that the true value of a parking space is not determined by the distance to the door, but by the availability of shade.

~You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.

~You measure distance in minutes.

~Little Smokies are something you serve only for special occasions.

~You listen to the weather forecast before picking out an outfit.

~You know cowpies are not made of beef.

~Someone you know has used a football schedule to plan their wedding date.

~You have known someone who has had one belt buckle bigger than your fist.

~You aren't surprised to find movie rental, ammunition, and bait all in the same store.

~A Mercedes Benz is not a status symbol. A Chevy 3500 4x4 is.

~You know everything goes better with Ranch.

~You actually get these jokes and are "fixin' " to send them to your friends.

~You go to the river/lake because you think it is like going to the ocean.

~Finally, you are 100% Texan if you have ever heard this conversation:

"You wanna coke?"
"Yeah."
"What kind?"
"Dr. Pepper."

Finally, a reason to go to the movies again

Disney has finally come up with a reason for us movie-goers, spoiled by home theatres and bored with high-prices and mediocre movies at theatres, to return to the cinemas.

With the release of Disney's "Chicken Little", moviegoers will get to experience the next generation of movie-going. The movie will play, not from film, but instead via computers and digital projectors. The movie will be "shipped" to the theatre, not in cans, but via computer networks. And, it will be in a new flavor of 3-D!

A fascinating read...

What the world needs now...

I tried booting my PowerBook G4 today, and I was greeted with a nice blinking globe icon. I had never seen this before, but it turned out to be similar to the blinking folder with a question mark I'd seen on earlier Macs. The cause: the computer was confused as to where its operating system and/or NetBoot server was located. Kinda made sense, as I'd just told it to boot from an external drive with my most-recent backup on it. Well, apparently, it didn't like that backup (good to know, in case of emergency!).

So, I followed the instructions at Apple's support site, and ran the Disk Utility to repair my startup disk. It didn't really find anything wrong with it, which is good. I restarted the Mac, and saw the blinking globe once more...then, the blinking folder with a question mark...then, the grey Apple OS X boot screen. Whew! Glad to know things like this are easily fixed.

Now, it's time for another backup (that works, this time)!