January 23, 2006

AJAX

Posted in General at 7:05 pm by Chris

All kinds of JavaScript XML goodness!

  • prototype.js - the grandaddy of AJAX javascript libraries.
  • RICO - An open source Javascript library for creating rich internet applications. Rico originated as work done in Sabre Airline Solutions and extends on the excellent prototype.js effort from the Ruby on Rails folks.
  • MochiKit - More of an overall utility library, MochiKit has some AJAXish features.
  • qooxdoo - Another Javascript toolkit with some AJAX features.
  • AFLAX - Ajax meets Flash!
  • Cpaint - Presenting application like interfaces with AJAX
  • Complex Data Types with AJAX - sometimes it isn’t as simple as the demos make it look.

    • and … AJAX is the short name for all the technologies that make things like Google Maps so slick, like dragging the map around to find the stuff you’re interested in.

    [tags]AJAX[/tags]

January 12, 2006

Overloaded Truck

Posted in General at 11:01 am by Chris

<%image(20060112-loaded_truck.jpg|323|221|Overloaded Truck)%>

Check out the full size photo at photo.net

More ways to play Monopoly

Posted in General at 10:39 am by Chris

Ever wonder about all the extra rules people come up with for Monopoly? For us, it was always the Free Parking Bonus, either a $500 bill from the bank to sit on the center of the board, all the taxes and payments collected to go to the center or both. Whichever way you played it, Free Parking gave a few players a nice boost to cash, introduced an additional element of luck and usually sped up the game.

I just found a number of additional rules that players introduced to the game.

We always played with Immunity as a negotiating tactic but I’ve found players who were amazed I would offer such a thing.

Some of the other suggestions looked amazing though … Traveling Railroads? It makes perfect sense! Combining Railroads with Utilities? Another interesting idea, while getting all four Railroads always makes a nice boost in the early game it starts to pale once hotels start popping up. And both utilities only made a difference very early on.

Playing on a double board? It sounds insane! However, with a number of people wanting to play it would be very fun to have everyone in the same game.

I’m gonna have to try some of these out next time I get a chance to play Monopoly.

from boingboing

July 25, 2005

Vanilla - Web Forums

Posted in General at 11:42 am by Chris

Just came across Vanilla, a nice, clean web forum software. GPL, XHTML & CSS, extensible and more. Also Filebrowser, a thumbnailer / web file browser.

July 17, 2005

Capturing Creativity

Posted in General at 9:09 pm by Chris

Interesting artcile from Psychology Today: LookSmart’s Capturing creativity. Robert Epstein (last to receive a Ph.D. from B.F. Skinner) lists four strategies for generating creative output. These are

  • Capturing: The main thing that distinguishes “creative” people from the rest of us is that the creative ones have learned ways to pay attention to and then to preserve some of the new ideas that occur to them. They have capturing skills. In other words, get a PDA and learn how to use it.
  • Challenging: One way to accelerate the flow of new ideas is by challenging yourself–that is, by putting yourself in difficult situations in which you’re likely to fail to some extent. A challenging situation is like an “extinction” procedure in the behavioral laboratory. We extinguish behavior when we withdraw the reinforcers that usually maintain that behavior. In challenging situations, a great deal of behavior goes unreinforced; it just doesn’t work.
  • Broadening: If you want to enhance your own creativity, take courses in subjects you know nothing about. Once a year, at least, take a course at a local college in the last thing you’d ever want to know about. Land’s own breakthrough invention came about because of training he had in crystallography, chemistry, and other fields. The invention of Velcro, the modern theory of electron spin, and countless other advances were made possible because their creators had training in diverse fields. Steve Jobs recently made a point of how his training in caligraphy contributed to the intitial success of the Macintosh.
  • Surrounding: Finally, you can enhance your creativity by surrounding yourself with diverse stimuli–and, even more important, by changing those stimuli regularly. Diverse and changing stimuli promote creativity because, like resurgence, they get multiple behaviors competing with each other. If you put a Mickey Mouse hat and pliers on your desk in the morning, your thinking will move in odd directions during the day. Call these items distractions, if you like; they are great reservoirs of creativity

Found this reading a ./ article discussing SAS management styles.

July 12, 2005

Cross Browser PNG

Posted in General at 3:29 pm by Chris

PNG’s nice compression and alpha channel make it a nice format but the Internet Explorer’s lack of support for this image format has proved problematic.


One PNG, two browsers, no hacks and IE PNG Fix address the issue.

July 11, 2005

NASA World Wind

Posted in General at 12:34 pm by Chris

NASA World Wind brings a huge amount of NASA’s satellite imagery to your computer, allowing you to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. It also uses a 3D model of the earth so you aren’t just looking at flat images but have a real-life view of the topography you’re flying over.

Google Earth is a similar application. And of course, you don’t even need to download and install either of these free applications if all you need is a quick look, both Google Maps and Microsoft’s Terraserver offer satellite imagery of Earth.

July 9, 2005

Free phones for your computer

Posted in General at 12:33 pm by Chris

VOIP has been changing the telephone and communications industry for the past several years. From giant enterprise devlopments to individual PC users, the ability to communicate over IP networks opens up huge possibilities that never before existed.

Skype brought VOIP to the computing masses with a simple client that worked right. Unfortunately the the proprietary system that Skype uses restricts further innovation by 3rd parties.

Gizmo and ineen are two VOIP software packages that use the SIP standard to communicate with anyone using a compliant software package.