Daniel Von Fange

Recent Bookmarks.

Civic Helicopters. Photo Gallery makes me want to learn to fly.
How to (and not to) work with a designer . Must send to all customers.
Ember. Mesh networks
POPFile. Baysian content filtering. I love it when something I'm going to build is already built.
CVTrac.
http://www.browsercam.com/

Friends from strangers..

I'm getting people responding to my post about testing AIM. It's great meeting strangers - reminds me of traveling on a cruse ship. Sadly once this becomes mainstream, we will no longer have the experience of randomly walk up to strangers and talking with them.

So far I've hung out with someone from Paris, New York, and Virginia.

Some visitors are coming from Google. It's been less than two days since I made that post, and it's already indexed. Maybe I made the post right before an index update, but I think this is more of a sign of more rapid indexing from google.

TouchStream Forums.

The TouchStream keyboards finally have their own official web forums.

Thoughts on iChat AV.

My younger sister and I played with iChat AV tonight. My thoughts:

• This cool.
• I need a way to save the audio or video feed. I prefer using AIM for business conversations over telephone because I can go back and see what I really said, or what they really wanted.
• Being able to dump a video feed to disk, or rebroadcast it, means suddenly we can have ad-hoc live "home video" news broadcasts. Quicktime broadcaster is just plain a pain to hard to use. iChat would knok it's socks off.
• Microsoft had it right with threeDegrees. After about five minutes of chatting with my sister between the two houses, we started playing music to each other. I suppose this is not some thing that should be in iChat, but somebody needs to make some little shared space program.
• The other major use of broadband video is not conversations. It's presence. It would be so cool to be able to have thumbnail sized live video feeds of your closest acquaintances. Just parked down in the dock. No need for audio. Just the ability to feel they are there. You can see their moods. It's like working in the same room with your friends.

iChat.

Hey, if anyone wants to test out the new iChat audio conferencing with me, feel free to connect to AIM: BrainsVF

YAML.

I ran across YAML this weekend. This looks like a great way moving or storing data in human readable, language independent format. My first thought was to make a rpc format for it. Of course a few minutes digging, and I found out that somebody has already made a YAML RPC for ruby, called !Okay/RPC.

I also found the first XML library I've seen with a sensible API - REXML.

Computers are dark powers.

"Whoa! What was that! You went clicky-click and suddenly there were picture thingys. Just like that! You computer people march to a different drummer," the lady said to me.

I had gone over to help an acquaintance of an acquaintance get Front Page setup so she could edit her website. I lost my faith in humanity's use of computers. I'm still working on getting it back.

Typical Feedster User.

On the Feedster corporate page, a quote from me is show as a "A Typical Feedster User". Wow, I'm "Typical" for the first time in my life. Usually, I'm the "Odd" or "Special" one. Heh.

But I certainly meant what I said about Feedster.

b..

I was looking for a bookmark script that looked something like Beth's nicely laid outbookmarks. While she has the source available, for her script, I wanted something a little more automated for the categories. After hunting through hotscripts, I found b. B. looks like just what I was looking for. A few template changes, and I am all set.

Hydra/VoodooPad Combo.

You know, I'm always wanting things I can't have yet. Now I'm wanting Hydra mixed with VoodooPad.

A paintball thief shooter?.

At the close of an article on on a upgraded Japanese security robot, it notes:

To upgrade the robot, Sohgo Security is planning to equip it with a fire extinguisher and a paint-pellet gun to mark the clothes of intruders.

"However, we have no intention of developing dangerous tools that will cause physical harm, even to thieves" Tosaka said. "Robots must not have the capability of attacking human beings."

Anyone want to have a paintball game with a robot?

Minding the puppy..

I got to baby-sit a 55 pound Greater Swiss Mountain Dog puppy last week.

This little bit of text below has been posted all over the internet, but I stumbled on it yesterday and it felt strangely familiar.

• Pour cold apple juice on the carpet in several places and walk around
  barefoot in the dark. (Well, he did it on tile at least.)
• Wear a sock to work that has had the toes shredded by a blender. (He didn't shred, just chewed it)
• Immediately upon waking, stand outside in the rain and dark saying, "Be a good puppy, go potty now - hurry up - come on, lets go!" (We did this one)
• Cover all your best suits with dog hair. Dark suits must use white hair, and light suits must use dark hair. Also float some hair in your first cup of coffee in the morning. (I'm used to dog hair. Does not bother me)
• Play "catch" with a wet tennis ball. (We used one of his stuffed toys. It was still wet)
• Run out in the snow in your bare feet to close the gate. (I avoided this one. It's summer)
• Tip over a basket of clean laundry, scatter clothing all over the floor. (He got my bother's laundry, not mine. )
• Leave your underwear on the living room floor, because that's where the dog will drag it anyway. (Socks. He likes socks)
• Jump out of your chair shortly before the end of your favorite TV program and run to the door shouting, "No no! Do that OUTSIDE!" Miss the end of the program. (yup, yup)
• Put chocolate pudding on the carpet in the morning, and don't try to clean it up until you return from work that evening. (I work at home. Did not have to deal with this one)
• Gouge the leg of the dinning room table several times with a screwdriver - it's going to get chewed on anyway. (He used the big dogs to chew on)
• Take a warm and cuddly blanket out of the dryer and immediately wrap it around yourself. This is the feeling you will get when your puppy falls asleep on your lap. (This one does not apply to Cowboy-Puppy. He does not like laps. And he like to chomp on hands.)

Dot aka Graphviz.

I've been having way to much fun using Graphviz. It takes in a simple file format, and outputs a diagram showing the relationships. Any time I run accross relationship data now, my first reactions is to regexp the data in BBEdit's find box into dot file format, and then see what it really looks like.

Omni Web 4.5.

I tried the beta of OmniWeb 4.5. It's not too bad.

The one feature that stands out to me is "Edit Source" as opposed to the tradtional "View Source". It's a great way to try out CSS stuff. The way the location bar searchs through the history is very convenient.

Of course, I can not make OmniWeb my brower of choice until it has tabs. But then the faq informs me that tabs are due in Version 5.