Summary of this week:

Apple is doing well
So is Lenovo
Does anyone care about tall buildings anymore?
The death toll from the China earthquake is over 40,000
Creating a space on SecondLife hasn't been profitable
I make a Fedora 9 USB stick - it worked
And another university is suing students for spreading knowledge

This week: May 19-May 25, 2008

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday May 19, 2008

There are several things of interest in this story. The headline is "Students Plant Trees to Offset Emissions from School Bus." This is in New Jersey. I think it is great that people plant trees. Telling students this is some kind of carbon offset...I don't know, sounds like it is motivated by politics. How about, "Let's plant some trees because that is good." Another item in the story, the kids have to ride the school bus because their school won't let them ride bicycles to school. I hate that one. The same thing happened to my kids. Fairfax Country Virginia won't let kids ride bikes to school. Then I see all sorts of stories in newspapers about an obesity epidemic in kids (the Washington Post is running a series on that topic this week). Hmmm, let's see...kids don't exercise enough, schools won't let kids ride bicycles. Is there a connection here?

I have seen this story in many places. Older gasoline pumps will not work when gasoline hits $4 per gallon. This is the classic roll-over problem. How many times do we have to make this mistake?

I've encountered this situation. There is little posted on Sundays. Sunday is the day of the traditional printed newspaper.

Intel will sell a quad-core processor in 2009. More power, more speed - I hope someone can create a useful application.

Another scientist reverses his position on the affects of global warming on storms. Oh, well - at least he published his change of heart.

I DON'T like this one. ASUS, MSI, and Apple have used the same stock photo of a cute kid in the ads. This is probably legal. This kid in the orange hat (and his friends fuzzed in the background) may one day become famous as they show up on a "Where are they now?" type of show.

A new Linux distribution is coming from the developer of the Gentoo distribution. The new distribution is called Exherbo (see the site).

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Tuesday May 20, 2008

Apple is doing well in the $1,000+ computer market. In the first quarter of 2008, they had 66% of the market. That compares to only 18% in January 2006.

Here is a site to investigate - TechTutor.tv. I've read some good reviews on this.

ASUS will put a chip on thier motherboards that boots a small Linux in 5 seconds. This will be great on portable computers. I don't know why it takes so long for portable computers to turn on. I guess I do know why, but I don't like it.

Here is an older post from author Tim Ferris. He describes his experiences with the "no complaint" bracelet. I recently heard of this concept from someone - cannot remember who. I shall give the idea a try.

This post discusses the many uses of wikis. There are many web sites that let you host a wiki free. I use a wiki daily at work. The problem I find with wikis is that most people do not want to write anything that other people will read. The fear of feedback is too great.

The Burj Dubai is now the world's tallest building. The post shows that only a few of these tallest structures are in the U.S. We have fallen out of that race. I think the world's tallest stuff was a race of the middle of the 20th century. Technology does not express itself in this manner any more.

Companies that set up spaces on SecondLife didn't make money. Some were surprised that they needed a plan before jumping in. I am surprised that people still make these mistakes.

I fell into this site. Writer.BigHugeLabs.com It bills itself as "Writer: the Internet typewriter." That is an apt description. It is similar to Google Docs in that I write online and the service saves everything. What is different is that it is really, incredibly SIMPLE. Visit and try it. It isn't for everyone, but may be of use.

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Wednesday May 21, 2008

I experimented with Fedora 9 (Red Hat's latest Linux release) on a USB stick. It worked. I tried this on a Lenovo X300 portable computer running Windows XP (service patch 2). I went to the Fedora download site and downloaded the x86_64 Live CD iso image (about 690 megabytes). Then I went to the Fedora live USB creator site and downloaded liveusb-creator-2.4.zip. I unzipped it and ran the utility program liveusb-creator. That is a very nice little utility. It did all the work of installing the iso image on the USB stick. I used a 2 gigabyte USB memory stick. This all took me several hours as I had all sorts of trouble downloading the Fedora image. That was all problems with my Internet connection and nothing to do with Red Hat. I rebooted the Lenovo, hit the F12 key at the right moment, selected boot from USB HDD, and it worked. This gave me a persistent Fedora 9 image on the USB stick. I could create and save files on the USB and they were still there the next time I ran it. I was also able to have the WiFi work - easy. Great stuff. Linux is becoming easier to use and much easier to try as an experiment. I can see high school teachers handing out Linux USB sticks to students so they can learn Linux on their home computers - all for the price of a $10 memory stick.

The One Laptop Per Child project has introduced the concept for version 2.0. I like this. Instead of the machine folding open to reveal the standard display-and-keyboard, it opens to reveal two touch-sensitive displays. Want a keyboard? One of the displays becomes a keyboard. I love this concept as long as the touch screen keyboard works. This breaks the way we have been doing things for a few decades. The promise is to have this available in 2010 for $75. I hope they make it. Here are several posts about thishere , here, and here (contains a video).

Turn your bicycle into an electric-powered bicycle in one simple step. Maybe this will work.

More good news for Apple. Sales of their computers are up 50% for April over the previous April. This post also predicts an update to the Apple portable computers this summer - in time for the college and high school buys in August.

I am cutting today's Day Book short as I am on the road (literally) and have little time.

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Thursday May 22, 2008

I am sitting in a Starbucks on the road this morning. I am using a T-Mobile account where I pay $10 for 24 hours. I had to create yet another new T-Mobile account. I only use such an account 2 or 3 times a year. It seems that every time I use T-Mofile I have to create a new account. T-Mobile doesn't remember my old account. I don't know what the problem is. Anyways...

I love George Will's editorial today. He ties the recent proclamation of doom for the polar bear to "the new green left" to judges to government to everything else. I do like his thoughts. He pulls together several different stories into a coherent movement - a movement I do not like.

Nano-technology may not be all good. It may act in the body the same as asbestos. I am not sure about this, but I find it good that someone is looking at it.

Another law suit case at a University about spreading knowledge. I am not an expert on Florida state law, but if a person (a professor) creates class notes while being paid by the taxpayers of Florida, those notes are owned by the public and hence in the public domain. The professor dislikes the idea that students read his class notes on the Internet, skip class, and get an A on his tests. Imagine that - the students have found a way to learn without being in the professor's presence. My goodness, we must stop that learning - this is after all a university!

For future reference, here is a WiFi extender that has a range of 5 miles. This could be of great use in rural areas - like the ones in which I may live in the next ten years.

Lenovo's quarterly profits rose 133% this quarter. So Apple isn't the only one growing world wide.

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Friday May 23, 2008

There is some hope for relief at airports. The TSA has started looking at laptop bag designs. The TSA claims that if a laptop bag does not interfere with their X-Rays, you won't have to remove your computer from the bag. Wow, what a concept. I am for the idea, or how about training the TSA employees?

Google continues to improve its Google Docs - this time with a print preview. I drafted a book last year using only Google Docs. It works as advertised. The offline feature recently added increases its utility greatly. I like it.

I like this idea. Some companies are giving employees money to buy their own laptop instead of providing one to them. This saves everyone some trouble. The virtualization described in the post allows the company's software to run along side the person's own software. Here is a related story. Microsoft is doing well in $$$$ terms with this concept.

This is the video of the week (do I have such a thing?). They call it Direct Manipulation Video. Watch and think.

Now here is something - some people are reacting to the rising price of gasoline by allowing more telecomuting and video-conferencing. Wow, what an idea! This week I am at a meeting where yesterday it was suggested that we close a satellite office. That would cause half a dozen people to commute 50 miles more (one way) every day. What are some people thinking?

This story appears in several places today. There is a secret, forgotten tunnel joining New York and London. This telescope uses a series of mirrors so that a person at either end can see people on the other end. I saw a web site for the "project" somewhere, but went past it. If nothing else, this is a creative sort of science fiction idea that is kind of neat. What if this were real? What could we do?

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Saturday May 24, 2008

Intel will push manufacturers to include solid state disk drives in portable computers this year. That seems to make sense.

This post compares two small, simple, and good video cameras: the Flip and the Vado. The Vado looks better, the Flip shoots better. It seems the point of a simple camera is to be simple and be a camera, hence the Flip wins.

Ubuntu - a very popular Linux distribution - is making a special version for the flood of netbook computers. It will be available in June.

I like this post about a different strategy for government web sites. Instead of simply bad web sites, governments should expose data and APIs so that others mashup useful applications. National security would have to be considered (at one time, for example, detailed blueprints of thousands of public buildings were on a web site - great for terrorists wanting to destroy a building and kill all the people inside) as would privacy, but I like the idea.

Honda has sold 60,000,000 (that is 60M) Cub motorcycles. 150 miles per gallon, get on it and ride. Simple, inexpensive, and of course you cannot buy one in America anymore. The last ones were sold here in the early 1980s as the Passport. Did the Cub put the Polar Bear on the endangered species list or something?

Gasoline may hit $4 or $6 or $7 in the U.S. This story claims that it may be tough to go to work at those prices. By the way, the meeting I attended this week did decide to close a satellite office that would save several employees 100 miles per day. Those employees will eventually quit working for us and switch to another employer that has a more liberal attitude about telecomuting and such.

Microsoft has stopped funding the Internet Archive - its book-scanning partner. Microsoft has left this arena to Google.

This rumor won't die. It is about Apple introducing a 12" tablet computer later this year. The idea looks great to me.

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Sunday May 25, 2008

Little to record today as it was overcome by events.

George Will has an excellent editorial today. He writes about Mr. Frank Buckles who, at age 107, is the last surviving American soldier from WW I. A fine story of of gentleman's life.

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