Solid State Drives

In 23 things #7 I mentioned diskless computers. Another big thing about to hit the market is the solid state disk drive. SSD's are in production and have capacities up to 63 gigs. They are sure to have an impact on both the notebook computer market, and the server market. How about an mp3 player with 63 gigs!!!!
These silent SATA compatible devices have no moving parts so are less prone to failure than the standard hard drive (I know of 2 people in the library that have experienced the dreaded "click click click" of a failed hard drive). They also cut boot and shutdown time in half, are lighter in weight, and produce less heat than a conventional hard drive.
About the only down-side is the "limited" capacity. The 63 gigs should be enough for most operating systems for a while, but I'm sure the capacities will grow in short time.
Crucial claims that it will be selling the devices in the first quarter of '08 (see http://www.crucial.com/promo/index.aspx?prog=ssd). Also check out Samsung for some great information: http://www.samsungssd.com/

Flickr Mashups

Well, this didn't really excite me too much. The mashups which included mapping software were the most inspiring. I can see using them again. However, most of the mashups I found were pretty lame.
There is a mashup called "AlphaLearnr" whose aim is to teach children the alphabet through pictures. Think "A is for Apple". I thought it was a good idea, and could be expanded upon to teach foreign language words, or perhaps to quiz on any subject that can be presented visually. The actual implementation stills falls a little short. Instead of "Apple" when I landed on the site and clicked on "A" I got "Airbus". That seemed a bit of an abstraction for a child just learning the alphabet. You can change the search by replacing what falls after the "=" in the url, but they could have had an interface that allowed you to set the search for the picture-set which will represent the letter.

Flickr Discovery Exercise

I'm hesitant to actually setup an account with Flickr, because my personal preference is to use Google's Picassa (here's a sample)- staying with one company's products makes moving around a whole lot easier and avoids providing passwords for multiple times. I use iGoogle as my home page, and my civilian email account is on Gmail. Most things I do on the web can be set up in one place via iGoogle.

But I do browse the Flickr photos at times to see what is there. There are some really good photographers out there! I did a search for "Telecaster Thinline" which was my first good electric guitar purchased in 1974. I was 14 at the time and spent $275 of lawn-mowing funds for the guitar, but couldn't afford the case for it. So I wrapped it up in a blanket and bungee-corded it to my bicycle's "rat-trap" for the ride back from Burlington center to Bedford (Massachusetts). My parents bought me the case for Christmas! BTW, mine NEVER had the mother-of-toilet-seat pickguard. The original was white. I now have a mahogany pickguard on it. Over the years I've changed a lot of the hardware - early 70's Fenders where not great gitfiddles. The pickups died. I've replaced them with DiMarzio and Lawrence humbuckers. The bridge is now a DiMarzio. The tuning machines are Schaller minis. I've also added two switches to split the coils on the humbuckers to get more sounds. Recently the nut cracked -so I have to repair that. But I will never get rid of this guitar!!!

My favorite Flickr search is "Nature Photography". As of this morning, the search revealed 59382 hits. There are some really spectacular photos in here! Modified tags are "Nature and Landscapes", "Beauty of Nature" and of course for fun "Animals".

TechnoBlog (#7)

First of all, if anyone is using the combination of Gmail, Mac, and the Firebug add-on for Firefox, you might want to uninstall firebug. It causes the browser to crash whenever you leave the Gmail page.

Second of all, my weight was down to 170.5 lbs. this morning.

O.K., now to talk about my current interests in technology. There are a few things interesting to me right now.
The first is diskless computers. I bought another MacBook laptop at a bargain price from KeithCo this week. The hard drive had failed on the machine, so I plan to replace it. Last night I put in 2 megabytes of memory to replace the 1 gig installed, and managed to boot the machine under several linux "live" cd's. Perfectly functional for browsing the web, or using OpenOffice. All without a hard drive. If I added a usb pen drive, I could save my work too. What's the point? Nothing to corrupt! No hard drive to crash. Linutop is marketing a small footprint linux-based system in Europe which boots from a usb drive and has no fans, no hard-drive. It is silent and small. I can think of more than one application for such a device! Especially for certain relatives and friends who tend to trash their computers on a weekly basis.
The next thing that I'm interested in is the Basic Stamp module. Although my father was an electrical engineer (maybe because he was an electrical engineer), I've never had much interest in "hobby" electronics. Now I'm having fun programming lights to blink, motors to turn, and sounds to play. I'm not very far into learning about this stuff, but it has really opened up a whole world of ideas that would have never occured to me before. Suddenly, those stupid $7.00 dogs in CVS that wag their tails, bob their heads, and sing Elvis Christmas carols are viewed in a whole different light. Mainly, as a cheap source of servos.

7 and 1/2 Habits Easy/Hard...

We've been asked to write on which of these habits are easiest and hardest for us. I'm finding that answering this question is rather difficult; it really depends on what I'm trying to learn. Different situations present different opportunities and difficulties.

But to generalize, I suppose habit one might be the most difficult I routinely encounter. The example in the exercise was pertinent, because I don't remember in my schooling ever thinking that I would become fluent in Spanish. That goal was never set, and as a result - I know a lot of words but can't put a sentence together! However, everything you set out to learn needn't have a goal. I recently took a gas welding course at the Brookfield Craft Center with Michael Rivera (who recently had an exhibit at the Quick Center). He was a very good instructor who gave us all we would need to get going. When we started the course, he asked each person why they were here, and what they hoped to get out of the course. I didn't really have a clear aim, I just had never been exposed to this technology before and wanted to get a feel for what it could do. Since then, my mind has been coming up with all sorts of things. I might now set some more concrete goals....

The easiest for me might be using technology to help out. I love gadgets. I love to tinker with electronics. However, this can be expensive! I'd love an iPhone, but I'm not going to be getting one in the near future. I'd love a digital movie camera, but my old Sony Hi8 has a few more years left in it. Getting a set-up to have my iPod (thanks Roxann!) play in the car - at some point I'll have to take out the toolkit and rip out the radio on the truck. Software, especially all the new web applications like those Google is providing are real time-savers. I REALLY recommend Google Notebook!
BTW. First week of this course I weighed 175 1/2. Today I weighed 173. Rice cakes and figs for lunch.... I'll soon make a side-bar to track my great personal make-over.