 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We just finished watching Finding Nemo (and now I understand why kids in the US started flushing their pet fish down the toilet after watching this movie!).
We both love the modern computer generated animation movies and this wasn't an exception.
It's a great movie with a LOT of action.
There is so much going on in this movie that there really isn't a dull moment throughout the entire film.
But for some odd reason we both liked it less than other similar movies like Shrek and Monsters Inc.
BTW: I also played a bit of Finding Nemo on the PS2 and it's also a pretty cool game, but I'll elaborate more on that on a different occasion....
 
Posted by Guy at 12:41 AM
| Comments 
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 29, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you like Xiao Xiao style adventures then check out this site.
It displays a story with 10 great episodes of Xiao style action scenes.
Posted by Guy at 06:11 PM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I needed a way to download binary files from usenet and it turns out that Outlook Express doesn't know how to decode binary files that are encoded with yEnc (which is the standard for encoding binary files in usenet, check out http://www.yenc.org/ for a list of yEnc-friendly utilities)!
So, as usual, I started searching for a free news reader that can download yEnc binaries from usenet.
At first I tried Xnews but it was way too complicated and really drove me crazy.
Then I discovered GrabIt and gave it a run.
GrabIt is a great, free, newsreader that specializes in downloading binaries from usenet.
It makes the whole yEnc decoding completely transparent to the user (you have no idea that files need to be decoded) and lets you batch download several files.
Don't leave home without it!
Posted by Guy at 12:37 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 28, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There's a new creation at the Disneyland Resort from Lucky the Audio-Animatronic dinosaur.
There are some more pictures of him on that site and you can tell that he is very cute and lifelike.
That cart that he pulls behind him is filled with electronics that bring Lucky to life.
According to the article, he does not seem at all like a robot: What is most impressive about Lucky is the degree of articulation in the head and neck, and the wide range of facial features. It's easy to believe that he is real as he “talks” with Chandler, or whimpers when his balloon floats away, or smiles and winks at a shy child. Lucky's motions are incredibly smooth—he doesn't appear robotic in his steps, or the way his head moves around to take in the scenery.
Pretty soon you won't be able to tell if that dog you see crapping on your lawn is real or just a Disney promotion...
Posted by Guy at 03:18 PM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After several hours of struggling with the Umax Astra 2200 USB scanner I was finally able to get it to work in Windows 2000.
I bought the scanner about 3 years ago and had it installed on my Windows 98 machine.
Today I tried to install it on my Win2k machine but it wouldn't work.
I went to Umax's site to download an updated driver for Windows 2000 but the site said that the updated version costs money!
I was sure that other people had also run across this problem so I kept searching for some help and luckily ran across this post at driverforum.com.
That post pointed to www.umax.de/support/drivers.htm where I downloaded an updated version of the Astra 2200 driver for Windows 2000 (and XP).
Several reboots later (after about 5 previous reboots while trying to get the damn thing to work) and the scanner was finally working!
Thank god (the Internet Gods of course).
Posted by Guy at 12:03 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 27, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Howto Play Mp3's on a Clie
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Sony Clie is a great PDA (I have a PEG-NX70V) that can, among other things, play video clips and mp3 files.
The only limitation with playing mp3 files on the Clie is that it requires that the mp3 file sampling rate be 44.1KHz and the bitrate be 56kbs and up.
If you try playing a mp3 file on your Clie and get an error similar to this:
This track is not available because of either of the following reasons:
Does not support the copyright system or file format.
The memory stick is write-protected.
then the problem usually is that the sampling rate or bitrate of your mp3 file are not supported by the Clie.
Many people in online forums say that you need to buy the white Sony Memory Stick (Magic Gate which is more expensive than the purple Memory Stick) in order to play mp3 files on your Clie but that's not true, you can use the regular purple Memory Stick.
One caveat: if you want to use Sonic Stage (the PC software that comes bundled with Clie) that uses ATRAC encoding (instead of mp3) then you'll need to get the white Memory Stick (the purple MS can't play ATRAC encoded files), but for regular mp3 files you don't need anything special (just make sure that the sampling rate and bitrate are in the range that the Clie supports).
In order to play mp3 files then remember to always put your mp3 files in the \PALM\PROGRAMS\MSAUDIO folder.
I had several mp3 files that weren't in the correct format so I searched for a utility (preferable freeware) that could convert mp3 files to different sampling rates and bitrates.
I stumbled upon this excellent util:
dBpowerAMP Music Converter (dMC)
It lets you easily select a mp3 file for conversion, select the desired output format, and you're off.
It does have to encode the entire file (that's the whole purpose of it) so it will take some time.
It also comes with an outstanding (really!) CD ripper.
Oh yea, it's free!
Good luck and rock on....
Posted by Guy at 10:21 AM
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 The Neuros Audio Computer seems like a very cool mp3 player.
It has a built in FM tuner and transmitter, has both 128MB flash and a 20GB HD, support for the open source encoder Ogg Vorbis, and runs an embedded version of Linux.
As you can see in the review, there are some problems with it but it's definitely one to keep an eye on....
Posted by Guy at 07:28 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yet another addictive online game:
RocketMania is a great little game where you need to rotate fuse pieces in order to launch rockets (just take a look at the site it'll make much more sense).
Make sure you have a lot of free time before you click that link.....
Posted by Guy at 12:06 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 25, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FreeTechBooks offers a list of free online computer books, tutorials, lecture notes, documentations and references.
They are free to view, download, and print!
Posted by Guy at 10:59 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After the Matrix Ping Pong from about a month ago, I ran into another similar movie clip: girl and her shadow.
This one isn't as good as the Matrix clip but it's also cool.
And it's in Flash format so it's easy to watch.
Oh yea, once the clip loads you'll need to click on the play triangle.
Posted by Guy at 07:47 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 24, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
An interesting anicdote on why the feature from the original release of Windows 95 where you could change your time zone by clicking on the map is gone.
Posted by Guy at 08:13 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A great movie that we saw this weekend was Bad Company with Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins.
It's an action/comedy flick with a pretty standard plot (Chris Rock, a ticket scalper from New Jersey, is called to save the world after his twin brother, a CIA agent, is killed during an undercover mission).
The film is a lot of fun to watch with plenty of action and lots of funny scenes with Chris Rock as the street smart Jersey scalper who suddenly needs to work in the CIA.
Definitely one to check out.
Posted by Guy at 01:14 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 23, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I added a random quote to Guy's World.
You can find it at the right side of the page, right under the links.
What I did to add it was write a Perl script that opens the tidBytes database file, finds all quotes in it, and displays one of them at random.
It is invoked by SSI.
Every time you reload the page you'll get a different quote.
Posted by Guy at 02:27 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 22, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now you can play Insaniquarium, one of my favorite Palm games, online.
Basically all you need to do in this game is feed your fish and collect money that they spit out.
It may sound stupid but watch out it's very addictive.
BTW: the online version is much harder than the Palm version (mainly because it's much faster).
There are other cool games here (but other than Snowcraft, which I ran into a few years ago, I haven't tried the other games yet).
Posted by Guy at 10:42 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 21, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After the USB toothbrush, USB fan, and other weird USB gadgets that I found online, this guy actually bought the USB coffee cup warmer.
Well, it turns out that it isn't that good.
It doesn't warm very well (he suggested that they actually call it the USB Lukewarmer).
He also says that the workmanship also could use a boost (surprisingly :-p ).
Maybe somebody should check out the USB toothbrush.
Posted by Guy at 01:10 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 20, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A company in Japan has announced that they have developed a technology that lets people purchase a product just by taking a picture of it.
All the user needs to do is take a picture of the bar code of the product and send the image to the company's phone number.
Seems like a kinda odd idea but who knows....if you think about this, it could be the point, click, and buy of the real world.....
Posted by Guy at 01:18 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 19, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After more than 3 years with the black background I changed the front page of guymal.com.
I thought I'd give it a more personal look.
You know where it is so check it out and let me know what you think.
Posted by Guy at 08:59 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After Palm bought Handspring (a few months ago) they announced that they would be splitting into two companies: PalmSource which develops the Palm operating system, and Palm Solutions Group, which will do the hardware.
They also said that the Palm Solutions Group would be changing its name in order to avoid confusion.
Well, today they announced the new name and its not the name that everybody was thinking of (Palm+Handspring=PalmSprings).
The new name is PalmOne.
Talk about disappointing!
They could have put a bit more effort into that one....
Posted by Guy at 12:08 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 18, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For some reason if you search google or aol for ''Bye Bye Ms American Pie'' then Guy's World is the first result!.
Power of the blog...
Posted by Guy at 11:34 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Disposable Digital Camera
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Digital cameras are supposed to outsell traditional cameras this year except for disposable cameras (215 millions disposable cameras will be sold this year, 10 times more than regular cameras!).
So in order to take a bite out of the huge disposable camera market, now there's a disposable digital camera which will sell for only $11.
It will be sold by Ritz Camera under the Dakota Digital brand.
The only problem with it is that it doesn't have a LCD screen (what did you expect for $11?) which is the main reason that people buy digital cameras.
Posted by Guy at 12:07 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 17, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yesterday was the first time in almost two months that I didn't post anything here!
I try to post at least one thing every day but yesterday I didn't notice that the day passed and I hadn't posted anything.
Won't happen again sir!
Posted by Guy at 06:35 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 15, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now that Futurama has ended there's a new hope for its fans: Futurama - The Game.
You can see some screen shots and a trailer here and some more information at the official Futurama The Game website.
It comes out for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox
Update: I checked out the game and it is ok but nothing too amazing (there are better games to spend your money on).
Posted by Guy at 12:59 PM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This site lets you design your own shoe (and pay lots of $$$ to buy it later).
They offer several types of shoes (casual, sneaker, boot....) and you can customize different parts of them.
Now you can get the red, gold, brown, and purple shoe that you always wanted (if it just didn't cost $90).
Posted by Guy at 12:30 PM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 14, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Got the Aiptek HyperPen 12000U tablet today.
First impression: very good.
It took me a few minutes to get used to it, but after that it becomes pretty easy to control.
The two drawbacks that I can see (up to now) are:
- The bundled software seems pretty old and not of very high quality (except for Corel Art Dabbler which is ok)
- You can't place the wireless mouse on the tablet and use the pen at the same time (since they interfere with one another and cause the mouse to jump around)
I was going to head over to www.isketch.net to try it out but for some reason isketch is currently down.
Posted by Guy at 12:47 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 13, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DialogMate adds a button to all the save and open Windows dialogs (you know those windows that pop up when you are saving a file and need to select where to save it).
The new button adds a pop-up menu with user-defined favorite folders so you can quickly jump to the folders that you usually use, without the boring and usual navigation.
The configuration is with an ini file (that you need to manually edit) but don't let that discourage you, there is a simple ini file that is included with the program and you can easily edit it and add your own favorite folders.
It's free and just 11KB to download.
Posted by Guy at 10:35 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 12, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spam Filters That Fight Back
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Paul Graham has an excellent article about fighting spam.
Basically, what he suggests is that in order to send spam that won't be caught by spam filtering software spammers need to rewrite the email to use less spammy language and make them seem like ordinary mail.
Therefore: "In spam-of-the-future, the sales pitch is pushed one step back. Instead of being contained in the email itself, as in an ordinary spam, it is waiting a click away on a Web site".
He continues and says: "If the spam is waiting on the site, why not have filters go look at what's there? You could apply the filtering algorithm pretty much unchanged to the contents of the site".
But instead of visiting the link just once let's have every recipient visit the link n times, therefore creating a DDOS attack on the spammer's server!
"Pump out a million emails an hour, get a million hits an hour on your servers."
Very interesting concept and a good read.
Posted by Guy at 08:22 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you think that the models that you see in magazines really look like that then check out this page on touching up photos.
Place the mouse over the image in order to see the original.
There's another good example here.
Pretty amazing stuff!
For more cool graphic work check out all of the author's work
Posted by Guy at 12:08 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 11, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thinkertoys is a very good book about business creativity.
It explains many different techniques in order to generate and evaluate new ideas, especially ideas that are related to business.
It is very similar to Edward DeBono's creativity techniques (that I studied a few months ago).
The only problem I have with this book is that there are so many techniques that it is hard to remember them all, especially without practicing them.
Posted by Guy at 07:18 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's been several years since I flipped through the small fat Guinness Book Of World Records.
Now you can browse the Guinness records online according to several categories or by searching for keywords.
The first record I searched for was of course my all time favorite record: the worlds longest car.
My old Guinness book used to have a crease on that page :o)
Posted by Guy at 07:29 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 09, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In One Hour Photo Robin Williams does not play a typical Robin Williams kind of role, but a serious dramatic role.
The movie is great and is very visually pleasing (the colors are so alive and vivid).
The only problem I had with this one is the end.
I need closure damn it!
I tell you: a digital camera is the only way to go...
Posted by Guy at 01:23 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 07, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The BiGHA bike is a cool bicycle that lets you sit upright (instead of hunching over the handle bar, causing lower back and neck pains) and is filled with gadgets.
The website demonstrates the many features this bike has but the one fatal flaw is the hefty price tag: $3000.
Too bad!
Posted by Guy at 12:35 PM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I've been messing around a bit with streaming radio (got to use up my bandwidth somehow) and I needed a way to cut huge mp3 files that I created.
A quick question to the Internet Gods lead me to Mega mp3 splitter.
It's a very simple freeware program that lets you select breakpoints in your mp3 file and it splits it into several files.
Nothing very fancy just does the job, and it's free.
Posted by Guy at 12:19 AM
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 06, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I ran across this great article about automating interaction with web pages: Web scraping with WWW::Mechanize .
The article teaches you how to use the WWW::Mechanize and WWW::Mechanize::Shell Perl modules in order to get a ``virtual browser'' that can load pages, fill out form elements by name, ``click'' on submit buttons or image maps, follow links by name or position, and even press ``back'' when needed.
I've done quite a bit of similar work with LWP and these modules could come in very handy for many tasks.
Posted by Guy at 05:21 PM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Already dubbed the Netflix of video games, Triggerfingers.com is an online video game rental service.
Users pay a monthly fee for renting a set number of games per month that they keep for as long as they want.
Two games a month costs about $15 and 5 games a month costs $30.
It works just like Netflix: you get the games by mail and they include a prepaid return envelope for mailing them back.
They also offer console rentals for $20 a month.
Posted by Guy at 12:08 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 05, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HoloTouch has invented (and patented) a technology that creates holographic images of floating input devices (dialpad, keyboard...).
The idea is that you'll be able to control a device, like a cellphone for example, just by touching the floating keypad in midair.
Sounds (and looks, according to the site) very cool but I don't know if (and how well) this actually works.
Posted by Guy at 10:07 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 04, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This may seem like the geekiest news but here goes anyway:
The U.S. LZW patent expired on June 20, 2003; the Canadian patent expires on July 7, 2004; the patents in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expire on June 18, 2004; and the Japanese patents expire on June 20, 2004.
Why should I (or you) care?
This should mean good news since many programs could now be able to incorporate support for .gif image files without having to pay royalties.
Bring on the freeware!
Posted by Guy at 11:55 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Another movie we saw this weekend is Basic.
This is an excellent flick that you have to see more than once.
This is one of those movies that constantly keeps you thinking about what's going on, a who-dunnit type of film.
I don't want to give too much away but I'll just say that as soon as the movie was over we both agreed that we must see it again (soon).
Posted by Guy at 07:35 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 02, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yesterday we saw National Security which is basically another Martin Lawrence film (ahh that says enough).
The movie is a pretty funny action comedy movie, along the lines of Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys.
This one probably won't be nominated for any Oscars but it's still worth 1.5 hours.
Posted by Guy at 11:22 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
August 01, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When I was a kid my dad was always telling us to close the fridge and would say that he would stick a photo of what's inside outside the fridge door.
Well technology has caught up with that notion:
Now there's a fridge that is connected to the Internet and takes a picture of what's inside your fridge.
It uploads the picture to a server that you can access using your mobile phone, so next time you're shopping you can use your phone to see what you need to get!
Now all that's missing is some way to track the expiration dates of the products that are inside.
Posted by Guy at 12:21 AM
| Comments
|TrackBack (0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
