Belkin’s new Bluetooth printer adapter – at first i thought this looked cool but then looking at the connectors on it, it requires its own wallwart power connector – so you don’t get rid of a cable at all, you just trade usb for power. seems dumb. can’t it leach power off the usb connector?

Marc’s Outlook on Productivity: Fix Outlook’s Address Confusion – awesome!

Due Diligence

Hack the Planet: – The EURion constellation – hmm the new US $20s have this. And I didn’t know that Photoshop and other apps also won’t let you scan and play with currency. I guess this is good tho it is a little surprising/nervewracking that the government has its hands in software and devices without our knowledge.

Lots of discussion in the MoM group about using Christmas lighting and control gear for Halloween. Lots of good pointers – Light-o-rama control software, Dasher at the Christmas Cave, Animated Lighting for all kinds of controllers and props, a simple two-outlet fade controller. Now controlling Christmas lights is actually a bit different than Halloween – Christmas lighting is not intended to surprise, so much of the software and gear doesn’t pay attention to latency, and doesn’t have all the input/control options. But some useful stuff here anyway.

The USB server: connecting USB devices to your home network. very interesting. I wonder how it resolves ambiguities – for instance my kodak camera dock, when i hit the sync button, tells my pc to sync – which pc will get the message? analogous issue for my scanner. and then the other way around – which machine is using the hard drive now, and how do i switch the drive to a different machine?

Amazon.com: Books: The Non-Designer’s Design Book, Second Edition – good quick intro to design principles, primarily for the printed page, but a little for websites too. Not that it will help my page but still nice to know in greater depth what I am screwing up.

New Scientist – yet more evidence that eating farmed salmon is just not a great idea.

52 magazines or bust (kottke.org) – a great idea, read 52 new and diverse magazines this year, one a week, things that I wouldn’t normally read.

I was overwhelmed at the magazine rack and decided the only way to implement this was to work my way through the alphabet. Magazines starting with the letter “A” the first two weeks, and so on thru the year. So my first pick is Archaeology. Circulation 215,000; fairly well educated. My stream of consciousness on the contents…published by a 125 year old organization, not a johnny-come-lately…they also offer “Dig” magazine for kids with an archaeological bent (seems like a tough sell)…amazing copper-alloy bowl from 2nd-century Roman occupation of Britain…maybe even more amazing 1000BC conical hat from Germany, what were they thinking?…book review of a brief history of the human race, sounds good…an Erich von Daniken themepark???, holy cow…they run some cool trips…a metal detector owner is called a “detectorist”.

OK net/net, this is pop archaelogy for the college educated. A fun read, not too deep. Not sure I could read this every 2 months, there is not a ton of news in this field, but fun to pick up and look at. Completely apolitical, very little opinion content that I could find.

The Furrygoat Experience: WikiPad – looks cool but the last thing i want is a client app that locks up all its data on one of my machines. I need a real server wiki that has a great editting frontend like wikipad.

Deep Green Crystals: Microsoft best of PDC highlights

I’m a sucker for color pickers – Don Park’s Daily Habit - Mad About Colors – you’d think my site colors would look better. I’m like the bad golfer who keeps buying the latest trimetal, titanium, depleted uranium, carbon fibre club – I’m sure if I just improve my gear, my skills will automatically improve.

cre8d journal: Blog Design Showcase Archives – i should learn from.

multineedia.com

Don Box’s view on the role WinFS and other technologies might play in getting apps and data cleanly separated. A noble goal, I would particularly love to get easy access to all my PIM data.