Blog Posts of Category Daily Update

FireBug: A Must-Have For Any Developer

Holy Crap! The folks at the Lullabot Podcast were talking about development environments for Drupal. One tool they referenced as "indispensable" was FireBug. I haven't tried it out too much yet, but man, it looks useful.

The Best Super Bowl XLI (2007) Commercials

After reviewing most of the commercials another time, I decided that these are my favorites:

#1: The fan-made Doritos commercial. Brilliant.

#2: "The Fist Bump" is so last year. Even Matt can be seen on Google Chat slapping me.

#3: Everyone was pulling for the poor factory robot.

#4: Coca-Cola redeems GTA

#5: But he has an axe!

Podzinger Audio Search

One technology that has not yet matured is talking to your computer or the computer understanding what you have said. Well, at least it is not working very well on desktop computers yet. But apparently companies have been working on it for the bigger, higher-paying customers. BBN Technologies, apparently a leader in the speech-to-text field, has been running Podzinger for a while now. Podcasters can sign up their podcast to be automatically transcribed by their computers and made searchable.

The Super Bowl XLI Ad Game

The big event this weekend is the best night in television: the Super Bowl commercials. (The rumor is that some people watch the football game that happens during the commercials, but most smart people know that's the time to go get more burgers, brats, and chips.) This year companies are spending $2.6 million for a 30-second ad, and none of them are guaranteed a touchdown in reaching their audience. Here's some interesting information:

FireFox Smart Keywords

Here's one of those things that will bind your heart to FireFox and make you vow never to go back to that boring Internet Explorer even if it does have tabs and RSS in it: Smart Keywords.

Bill Gates and Windows Vista with Jon Stewart

A couple people have been checking out the brand new Windows Vista. So what do I think? It's too bad that Jon Stewart didn't get Bill Gates' password:

John Reuben Is Frickin' Awesome!

John Reuben Photo

Ha! I think that picture's hilarious. John Reuben is my guilty pleasure, if you know what I mean. I know he's not the best rapper ever, but I identify with him a bit, he's my type of humor, and he's definitely not afraid to push the boundaries. Just to show you all the fun, here's a couple things on YouTube (after the jump):

OpenID Distributed Authentication

Many companies have tried to make a universally-acceptable login system. Microsoft tried to promote their .Net Passport for years. Google owns so much it feels like a universal login for almost everything. It's the same with Yahoo! But, in each case, they were doomed because everyone was afraid for security reasons. If I give Microsoft my payment information so that I don't have to put it in on sites again, just how much does Microsoft know about me? How much information are they collecting and sharing about me? No one really knows.

Google's Hidden Features

Did you know that you can do many things in the Google search box? Sure, it might search the web for it, but the real answer comes up first. Here's some examples:

Joost Internet TV

Everyone seems to like Skype. (Although, no one that I know ever feels free to call me.) Apparently Skype was started by the same people that started Kazaa. And apparently they're about to do it again.

Their newest project is called Joost. I'm not sure why, but apparently they're trying to recreate network TV over the Internet. I'm not sure why I'd want to choose from a number of channels because there's usually nothing on. I mean, I like podcasts on demand better.

The Pixar Story

I've always been a fan of animated movies, but everyone knows my favorites are from Pixar. Found via digg, here's a detailed look into the history of the company and the rise to a film studio. It's pretty amazing that John Lasseter started creating Toy Story with no feature film experience at all.

The Planets on Google Maps

So it came to 11pm and I still didn't have anything for this morning... so why not go with something Google but something a bit obscure?

You may know that they updated Google Earth recently. But did you know that Google has also mapped out the Moon and Mars already too? They're fun for at least a couple minutes.

Cake ...PHP, That Is

At work, this week is going to be all about CakePHP. What's CakePHP? For those programmers, it's similar to Ruby on Rails or Django for Python, but it's in PHP. For the less technical, it's also called a web framework for PHP.

R2-D2 Does Everything!

Last week at CES 2007 there were many amazing products announced. But how a fully functional R2-D2? Yes, there are two R2-D2 products from NIkko Electronics.

Cingular and AT&T Explained

Corporate buyouts can be so darn confusing. This week's example is Cingular, which bought out AT&T Wireless a couple years ago to become the largest provider. Apparently the big news of this week is that Cingular is now going to be merged back into the AT&T brand. To tell us how this works, here is the ever-humorous Stephen Colbert:

No iPhone Apps?

Apple iPhone PhotoHopefully it's not true. Of course, last week Steve Jobs announced the Apple iPhone. But, even though he claims it runs OS X, it seems that the early official word is that there will be no third-party apps.

Drupal 5.0 Released

Yesterday was the announcement of Drupal 5.0, the latest and greatest version of the open-source CMS, Drupal. So what's so cool about it? Well, there's the cool new default theme, an improved administration interface, and plenty more. Check out some of these features at a Drupal site I have set up, EmmausProject.com.

The Daily Section

Speaking of Community and living life in common, the guys at the house said they'd like to know more about be. They've laid down the challenge to have a "Word of the Day" thing or something. I don't know about words, but I can certainly bring something new to the table every day.

So, starting tomorrow morning, I'll have a daily idea. I figured if I was going to share it with the house, I may as well share it with the other two people who read this blog. ;-)

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