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If you click on the illustrations many link to the artist's web pages where larger image files can often be found. Many are suitably sized for use as as desktop wallpaper.  

[Noupe]

I don't know how many of you are fans of CGI, but there's a excellent collection of 3D creature art recently posted over on the Noupe website. CGI has lost some of its luster for many of us over the years. After all, how many space-scapes, robot warriors, and interplanetary battle scenes can you look at before they all start to look just a little bit alike?

But then along come some truly twisted individuals who add a splash of whimsy and humor to the technical mix to come up with something like these images to remind us thatCGI art still has legs under it:

Beam me up Scotty

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or this:

Don't feed the plant!

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43 more examples can be found at this link:

http://www.noupe.com/insp...g-creatures-artworks.html




 

[distributed computing model]

It is possible

I don't disagree with you that it's possible. I just wonder how probable it would be.

Firefox made into a somewhat stable semi non profit corporation from donations, Wikipedia managed to grew steadily. Although both has started getting massive donations from Google recenty.

If people have managed to write an operating system like Linux on mostly voluntering basis, if people let their cpus run for searching for aliens then it is possible to create an open search engine.

Very true also, even if the various flavors of Linux, and some of the major FOSS projects,  aren't without their own agendas. Note that not too long ago, Mr. Shuttleworth even made a statement to the effect that Ubuntu's development map was "not a democracy" in response to some well intentioned criticism of certain unilateral design changes Ubuntu was making to the Gnome interface.

But even without getting into that, developing a search technology is further complicated by the fact that it isn't just software that's needed. It also requires a substantial physical "plant" to run it on. And we're talking significant hardware.

Software is essentially free, except for the time invested in getting it written and debugged. Setting up the massive and high-availability server farm needed to provide a workable meta search-spider that can keep up with the growth of the web is an entirely different matter. And hardware expenses, unlike programming time, will almost always have to come out of somebody's pocket.

Then there's the issue of power. Even if all the servers get donated, the electricity certainly won't be. Especially if the utility providers you deal with are anything like they are in the USA.

But that idea you have about building it using a distributed computing model such as the SETI or gene folding project uses - possibly with a query mechanism that works something like a P2P tracker - now THAT is a very very very interesting and powerful idea! Secure too since the actual search database would not be in any one place thereby making it exceptionally resilient.

I haven't heard anybody else propose going in that direction. If that's your own idea, it's a pretty awesome one.  And it could very well be worth pursuing.

Bravo!`

Maybe you could do up a white paper on how you envision it might work and get it out to the FOSS community? It just might get some traction with that crowd.

[Installation Instructions (Read Carefully)]

Have just installed the program, do not like it opening I.E, prefer Firefox.  So sorry, not for me.

wales

It's easy to change once you install it.

It's mentioned in the installation instructions (emphasis added):

Installation Instructions (Read Carefully)

(1) If your computer's OS is Vista or Windows 7, you may want to turn off UAC (User Account Control) first.

Steps to turn off UAC
a. Control Panel
b. User Accounts (and Family Safety)
c. User Accounts
d. Turn User Account Control on or off (at the bottom)
When prompted with a confirmation screen click on Continue
e. Uncheck Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer
f. Reboot

(2) Close all programs before installation.
(3) Click on the knowledgenotebook_v278.exe installer and then click on Install.
(4) When installation is complete, wait for about a minute or a little bit longer, the screen may appear to freeze but it does not, the Knowledge NoteBook software will launch with IE browser automatically. Please note, you can switch to Firefox later on if you wish. But be aware that IE7 and above is the primary browser that this program supports.

I'm running it under Firefox as we speak, and it IMHO it runs better. Or at least it does on the the "antique" laptop I've got it running on right now.

 

To me there is only one real short term solution and that is an open source, distributed, uncontrolled, non tracking, open search engine.

Very good idea. The only problem is that until somebody steps up and offers to provide and pay for such technology (and with no strings attached) it isn't going to happen.

And you can absolutely forget about involving any government on the planet with something you want to be genuinely transparent and open.

And even if you somehow do manage to build this system, how do you prevent whoever is administrating it from cheating? Despite all their safeguards, even financial and highly classified military systems have their hackers, moles, and 'insider cabals.' And many go undetected for years.

Back in first century Rome, the poet Juvenal asked: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I don't believe basic human nature has changed very much since he first asked that question.


Just my

That is very uneducated use of the word "schizophrenic".  I do not remember people on that thread having halucinations or denying real events or their surroundings

Speak for yourself...  

Now please excuse me. I've got to go tell the driver of that freekin' UFO to get his bloody spaceship off my front lawn!

 

[@urlwolf]

What are your heuristics for detecting bullshit?

I usually ask myself the question: Why is this person telling me this?

Most times people speak with the intention of getting the listener to do something:

• Buy this!
• Do this!
• Join with me on this!
• Believe this!
• Like me!

Less frequent are the times when people speak solely with the intent of sharing information.

That's not to say any speech that supports an agenda is to be dismissed, but rather that it be considered with caution until Cicero's age old question, "Cui bono?" (i.e. Who benefits?), can be answered with some degree of certainty.

 

--------------

@urlwolf - Nice catch! Interesting looking book.
I'll have to give it a scan at B&N. If it's half as good as its TOC I'll probably buy a copy.

[Connected Internet]

But, I didn't mean this to be as google bash, sorry 40hz.

No apologies needed. I didn't think you were.

And even if it were a Google bash, I wouldn't have a problem with that. 

Google is one of those perpetually frustrating organizations as far as I'm concerned. They have (or by now it's maybe more like had) a golden opportunity to become something truly great and ennobling as far as web technology was concerned.

Unfortunately, they seem to have turned away from that vision over the years. Maybe it was inevitable that they had to do so. But it still makes me wonder what things might have been like if Google kept to the high road as much as they claim they try to.

You are showing what google services we are missing....

Ah...thank you for seeing that!

There's a big difference between an FYI - which is what I intended this to be - and a personal endorsement. This is not an endorsement. It's just an acknowledgment (probably more to myself than anybody else) that things like Google and cloud computing are too big to ignore - and here to stay. And to simply go about your life ignoring them accomplishes little other than to put you at a disadvantage.

The thing that motivated me to post this in the first place was an article by Michale Lankton on the Connected Internet site.

I'm one of those people that doesn't really like the idea of doing all my important things up on the web. I could write an essay on why, but most people here are savvy enough to see the obvious risks (security, accessibility, service downtime, etc.) that there's little point in writing about what's already well understood.

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One line in Lankton's article, however, triggered what amounted to an epiphany (of sorts) for me. In answer to why he finally embraced Google Apps he said:

Because my need for synchronization finally outweighed my need to be a software connoisseur.

And the truth found in that simple statement forced me to reevaluate my entire way of thinking about web-based technologies. Lankton chose to use the word "synchronization." But what I think he was really getting at was the need for something I prefer to call ubiquitous access.

Ubiquitous access is the unrestricted ability to get at "your stuff" without regard to access platform or the technology employed to store your data. Think of it as "Anything-Anytime-Anywhere" and you've got it down.

We used to be told that it wasn't necessary to know everything so long as you knew where to go to find the information you needed. Ubiquitous access has a lot in common with that philiosophy.

But enough of me! Read Lankton's article for yourself.

It might not make you happy. But sometimes being unhappy is also the sign of being aware.

Why 2009 Was The Year I Broke Down And Sold My Soul To Google

Michael Lankton | Feb 03, 2010 |

I am somewhat obsessive compulsive. I spend a lot of time researching things that I am interested in. It may be an upcoming electronics purchase, or perhaps I just discovered Malaysian food and now I am methodically visiting all the Malaysian restaurants within driving distance to determine who has the best Char Kway Teow. It is something that usually maddens my spouse, but on the odd occasion gets me a pat on the head for being a genius.

My obsession with operating systems and GUIs has been going on for about 16 years now. I suppose I am no different with software than I am anything else, and a great deal of time goes into deciding which software I use for a given task.

I have been using a Mac at home since early 2002. I have felt that the apps I use on the Mac are superior to their equivalents on the Windows and various unix platforms running X. Better in function, better in form, just better. In the case of my mail client, this is the same mail client I’ve been using since 1997. I have tried other programs over the years, but nothing has supplanted it on my desktop.

Until recently that is.

In 2009 I abandoned the email, calendar, and feed reader applications I’ve been using and started using Google’s web apps.

Why would someone who values good design, simplicity, visual elegance, and good performance switch from using local apps to web applications? Especially when I have always been one for taking functionality out of the web browser and reducing it to the bare function of being simply a web browser?

Because my need for synchronization finally outweighed my need to be a software connoisseur.

...

Link to full article: http://www.connectedinter...d-sold-my-soul-to-google/

 

[@cmpm]

@cmpm - Um...sorry, maybe I'm denser than usual today, but you completely lost me with that one.  

40hz blinks once.
Then thinks and blinks one more time.
All meaning missing.

[Maximum PC]

Just ran into two useful articles about tools and info sources that are available from the giant that is Google.

The first is a Maximum PC article written by Gina Trapani that gives a very good overview of Google Apps worth being aware of.

Link:   www.maximumpc.com/article/features/power_users_guide_google   

[attach]

The second is an Hongkiat.com article entitled: 31 Useful Google Blogs To Keep Yourself Up To Date.

Link:  http://www.hongkiat.com/b...keep-yourself-up-to-date/

Without a doubt Google is one of the largest company in the technology industry and the largest influencer on the Internet. We use Google product and services on daily basis, and some us are depend on it so much that if any of the services are down, we become helpless, resulting things to be put on halt.

...

Using Google services and following the news & updates are equally important. Almost every Google services (excluding the ones in Google lab) have a blog and that’s where the staffs update us on latest development, maintenance, future enhancement and a whole lot more. Sure, some of us might argue that we can get updates from newsletter, but keep in mind newsletters aren’t frequent and if you compare to what you can get in the blog, newsletters merely summaries.

In this article, we sum up a list of Google products’ blogs we generally used and we categorize them by different professions so you can get an overall view what you are likely interested. We’ve also added the hyperlinks to both the blog and RSS feeds so you can subscribe at ease. Hope you’ll find it useful.

If you use or are are thinking about using Google services, this article merits a careful read.

 

Thanks for sharing this.
Best laugh I've had in weeks.

And to think they pay some of these people 6 digits. 

it mirrors much of the way the rest of the world works, for example the difference between politically active people and those who just don't care about politics (even if they still vote).

I agree with you 100%  

What *does* surprise me is how Apple is screwing its target demographic of "those who don't care about lock-in" with all these bizarre limits, issues, etc. I guess it just surprises me that they get away with it.

I guess it surprises me too - even though it shouldn't any more.

But isn't that just another example of your excellent point that it's much of the way the rest of the world works?  

People often treat others in a shabby manner courtesy of the meme which says: those who allow themselves to be pushed around "don't deserve" to be treated any better.

 

40hz, perhaps you're not really suggesting that there are "only" these 2 camps, but even suggesting they're the majority seems dubious to me.

The sad thing is I think it *will* appeal to average people

- Oshyan

Actually, for the purposes of this discussion, I am suggesting just that.  

But I don't mean to imply either side has an automatic advantage when it comes to technical sophistication or depth of knowledge. Sorry if I might have come across that way.

To me it comes down to whether or not you're comfortable living within a completely closed information and software ecosystem.

If you don't have a problem with that, Apple's product philosophy will work for you.

If you do have a problem with some entity arbitrarily deciding what you can have and what you can do with it, then it won't. And that's a problem that will remain for this group even if they never actually do exercise their freedom of choice. Having available options is what's crucial to them.

Group A-types believe in the notion of a single "best" way to do things.

Group B-types believe in the notion of a selection of "better" ways  to accomplish things.

So yeah, I guess I really do believe it breaks down into two groups.

The funny thing (to me) is how I keep hearing about the so-called "average person" or "average computer user." From my experience, I'm firmly convinced there's no such a thing - unless you want to apply that label to all the people who don't much care what they use and who therefor take whatever they're given.

Again, this is just my two cents on the topic - but I see a very significant crossroad coming up for the personal computing community. And I see the iPad as one of the first manifestations of the direction it could go in if this product (or some philosophical equivalent) gains widespread market acceptance.

Apple always maintained they were more about vision, ideas, and attitudes than they were about physical products. I think the iPhone and iPad represent an alternate vision of where Apple thinks the world is going (or should be going) when it comes to ubiquitous data access and communications.

It's hard not to sound melodramatic, but the simple truth is there's an awful lot at stake here. You have two irreconcilable visions of how the future web and infospace should work.

And the market will ultimately decide which path the world will go down based on what sells best.

So I guess we'll have to just wait and see if George Orwell - or should I say Steve Jobs(?) - is right.

 


-----

Note: did a minor edit to correct the grammar in one rambling sentence.

In the end, I think it all comes down to the amount of personal control you're willing to give up for what you think you'll get in return.

Some people don't feel the need to look much beyond what's in front of them so long as they believe they're getting what they want.

For people like this, Apple products are a match made in heaven. Immediate gratification and no-brainer choices are a big plus as far as they're concerned.

More power to them.

It's also worth noting that owning the 'correct' brand of something is very important to these folks. Correct brand names provide instant credibility and validation - something George Alistair Sanger (aka The Fat Man*) once described as: Buying your cool.

The way 'buying your cool works' is that you don't need to know squat about something just so long as you can name drop and shoot the breeze without sounding too stupid.

Owning the right stuff grants you permission to name drop; whereas shooting the breeze (without sounding stupid) is more of a personal gift. Nice to have, but not crucial.

Many blog sites have proven that not having such a gift is still no impediment if you're a real Apple fanboy.


Then there's people (like so many of us) who are only willing to give up so much personal control - and so much personal choice - before we say: You can keep it!

This is the crowd who insists on having the final say on how their technology works, and even more importantly, what they're allowed to do with it. And if too many strings come attached to something, they won't care if it can hand them the world on a silver platter - they ain't gonna buy it.

"Different strokes for different folks!" as the old song goes.

I'm not a Mac...

And I'm sure as hell not a PC!

I'm not anything but me.

Now...who are you?  



-----

Note: This is The Fat Man himself in one of his trademark spangled cowboy suits:

[attach]

He's not fat at all. And he's also from Maine - so why is he wearing a spangly cowboy suit?

Curious, no?

http://fatman.com/

The business edition used to be free - not free "for a limited time" - back when I reviewed it. Seems the developer has done a 180 on that after the program has gained traction.

I don't have a problem with that. It's not a Free Software project.

Hmm...

1. give away free product
2. get customer feedback
3. debug and improve (repeat as necessary)
4. gain market recognition & reputation
5. start charging

Seems like a very smart way to market product to me.

No fault - no foul.

What I've noticed about my app purchases is that most of them aren't on my iPhone anymore...

You too? 

I'll drop a dollar or two without going through the trouble of downloading a trial, then getting the final version.

Same here. But looking over my App Store activity, I see I've wasted about $60 on apps I bought to "try out" only to discover that:

• I just didn't like the way something worked (usually too much "MacCuteness" in the interface)
• It flat out didn't do what the product description said it would do
• It bombed three times - or locked up my iPhone just once
• It broke after an upgrade
• It turned out to be more of a hassle to use than it was worth (i.e. cumbersome workflow)
• It had no provision to export and/or backup stored data
• It had a very serious technical  limitation (that you very often would only find out about if you went to the developer's forum or help page first - and sometimes only if you burrowed deeply once you got there!)

I know it's only a 'buck or few' a pop. But it adds up pretty quickly. Especially with the quasi-automated way the App Store works by forcing you to keep your billing info up online with them. One click and the app is yours. And it only hits you for an average of $2 or $3 each time. Painless! (And no receipt to save or print out either. Brill!!!)

That, by the way, is the one really smart thing I think Apple did when the set up their store. Or at least it is if thinking purely from a business perspective. I put it right up there with when crack dealers discovered they could maximize their revenue stream if they doled out their stuff in quantities priced cheaply enough that even a 6th grader could afford to buy it and still have bus fare left over.

I think we may be getting little bogged down in wording here.

 I don't really see all that much difference in the note-taker "request free reg key" and all those "free" apps that require registration either to download or unlock.  And there are a lot of those out there.

As far as getting locked into a note taking app while trying it out...well...that's gonna be a potential problem with any of them if you decide it's not for you.

Besides, that's really not all that different a situation than you'd have if you wanted to switch your email, database, or office suite - so I'd hesitate to call it a unique problem.    

Just my two.  

Re: Website Baker

FWIW, I couldn't get it to install using WAMPP either. The installer kept coming back with an error that said the Apache server had either shut down or timed out. That was annoying enough. But when I went to shut down Apache via the WAMPP control utility, it wouldn't let me. I had to kill Apache via TaskMan.

Life is too short to screw around with troubleshooting a prepackaged web stack. I uninstalled WAMP (which doesn't do a very clean uninstall BTW) and loaded up my "old faithful" XAMPPlite stack.

Website Baker went in smooth as silk under XAMPP. I was up in less than 5 minutes.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/comparison.html

Home and Business editions are exactly the same.

Oh, thanks for this tip 40hz.

The business edition is licensed for legal use in a business setting. The home edition is not. 

That's a very significant difference for some of us.  
 

One thing I find hysterical.

I'm noticing that more than a few apps that used to cost $1 to $5 back in March 2010 are now priced between $10 and $15 if they also run on the iPad.

And from the screen shots and descriptions, they're the same bloody apps they were before!  

It would be bad enough if they were just jamming the iPad early adopters. Unfortunately, the pricing increases also appear to apply to the iPhone 'versions' as well. Gotta love that...

Reminds me of a place I used to get coffee from. One day they brought in an expresso machine. It was one of those big-ass copper jobs that can generate enough steam to power a medium size freight train. After they got it all set up and sussed out they started selling cappuccinos and lattes for about $4.50 a pop.

That didn't bug me. But what did was when they jacked the price on their regular "extra large" coffee from $2 to $3.55

When I asked why their prices went up so much they told me that not enough people were buying lattes and they needed to "do something" to cover the cost of the new expresso machine.

I wonder if something like that is what's going on over at the App Store...

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[tomos]

Thx  tomos and cthorpe.

Duly noted and revised.

Original post now corrected.

Too bad. I would have loved to watch it. 

[business edition]

Here's something you don't see every day. The business edition of a popular Symantec MT Solutions utility being offered free for registration.

Supports: 2000/XP/Vista/Win7 (32 & 64-bit)

Registration & info here: http://www.partitionwizar...partition-magic-free.html

$39.99, REGISTER FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME

Partition Wizard Business Edition is a free partition magic software optimized for better performance and data security under business operating environments. Business users and system administrators can use our free partition magic to Resize and Move partitions, Copy Partition, Copy Disk , Create, Delete and Format partitions, Convert and Explore partitions, Hide and Unhide partitions, Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk and much more. Our partition magic freeware supports Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7.


Partition Wizard Business Edition is absolutely FREE of charge but a one time registration is required. Click the Register button below to acquire a free business edition license.

---

There is also a free Home Edition and bootable CD Home Edition available at the same site. At only 38Mb, that CD could come in very handy some day...

Download link:  http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html


Stop reading. Go grab!  


-------

  w/thanks to: freewaregenius.com for pointing me to the Home Edition giveaway - which led to my finding the limited free offer on the Business Edition.

http://www.freewaregenius...+%28freewaregenius.com%29

 

 

All I can say to that is this:

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