Category: Cool Stuff

Yahoo music 2 years for the price of 1 offer

I’ve already mentioned this recently in another posting, but this is a big enough deal to get its own article.  If you are thinking at all about getting in on one of the online music subscription sites, consider Yahoo Music.  If you use your Mastercard to pay right now, and if you are a new subscriber, you get 2 years of service for the price of 1.  And given Yahoo Music’s low price, that works out to about $2.50 per month for unlimited downloading of music.  The big drawback to this for a lot of folks is that Yahoo Music is only portable to Plays4Sure compatible players, of which the iPod is not one.  And unfortunately for me, my Samsung YH-920 is not on the list either.

[tags]Yahoo music deal[/tags]

New laser trimming robot

To be shown at the upcoming IMTS (International Manufacturing Technology Show) in Chicago is the AccuTrim WJ-110 six-axis robot with Abrasive Water Jet from Robotic Production Technology (RPT).

At the show, RPT will demonstrate three-dimensional, abrasive water jet trimming of a stainless steel part. During the demonstration, the part will be approximately placed into the robot’s work area and an RPT AccuFind* Sensor will quickly locate the part and find varying critical feature positions to ensure the trimming occurs in the correct location.

. . .

laser_abrasive_water_jet_lr.jpg

“We’re excited to introduce yet another water jet trimming solution to the marketplace with more capability than has ever been available before,” said RPT CEO Chuck Russo. “By working with H2O Jet and FANUC Robotics, we’re able to offer abrasive trimming solutions that combine a high reliability robot and high pressure components with system design, software and process knowledge that maximize the productivity of the system and deliver world-class value to our customers,” Russo said.

No mention of shark use in future water jet trimming projects was made.  However, it is never wise to rule out the use of frikkin’ sharts with frikkin’ laser beams on their frikkin’ heads.  Just remember that.

[tags]Lasers, Laser trimming robot, Robotic Production Technology[/tags]

Ninja loves Pirate

With a name like that, you have to want it. The only thing better than a pirate ninja game is an undead pirate ninja game. I’ve just downloaded the demo for Ninja Loves Pirate, so I can’t say whether or not there are undead pirates or undead ninjas in the game, but since you’ve got the pirates and ninjas, that’s enough of a start to make the download worth it. More news when I get a chance to play.

Imagine a place filmed through a blurry lens, in a time when pirates roamed the seas and ninjas sneakup up, attacked and vanished into the night. Heroic quests and shameful ambushes being a part of everyday life. Adventure and fighting. Treasures and poison darts. Manly men being rocked to sleep by the endless rolling of ocean waves. Cunning knights of the night dressed accordingly in snug black pyjamas. A deep blue sae filled with small islands covered with dense jungles and coral beaches. This is the world of Ninja Loves Pirate. You better believe it.

[tags]Ninja loves pirate, Undead pirate ninjas flipping out a killing everything (not really)[/tags]

Get increased control over your Windows windows

DM2 is a cool open source tool that gives you more control over your Windows experience.

DM2 provides several Windows enhancements that may help in every-day work. One of the nicest and most popular features of DM2 is minimizing windows to floating icons® (unique feature!) freeing both task bar and tray bar space. Moreover, DM2 can manipulate windows in various ways: minimize to tray, make them standing always on-top over all other windows, roll to caption, resize, align to screen borders, hide, set the opacity etc. DM2 also helps with Open/Save dialog boxes, by providing user-defined menu with favorites and recent files and folders. Plenty of program’s settings options will satisfy most of requirements.

And that is not all! DM2 also supports custom plugins, which further enhances the program and that usually covers some more specific functionalities. So, from this aspect, one may think of DM2 as a small, but robust manager for all kind of plugins. Find what you need, plug it in, and use it:)

One of the reasons I like this tool is the Virtual Desktop plugin for it.  Get access to extra desktops.  I’m so accustomed to this feature in Linux and Unix that getting it on a Windows system is a nice bonus.

[tags]Improve your Windows experience, DM2[/tags]

Anti-Rootkit tools

In this day and age of malware everywhere, it’s nice to occasionally use tools that look a little deeper at your system to see if something bad is hidden there. From Sophos, you can get the Sophos Anti-Rootkit.  From F-Secure, you can get F-Secure Blacklight.  From SysInternals, you can get Rootkit Revealer.  All of these tools look for certain abnormalities that appear on your system when you have a rootkit.  They won’t catch everything, but they do pick up a lot of stuff not hidden perfectly.  Rootkit revealer is the tool Mark Russinovich was testing when he discovered and publicized the Sony DRM Rootkit.  The Rootkit Revealer download page has good information on how to read the output to tell if you have a rootkit.

While we’re dealing with anti-malware tools, why not head over to Grisoft’s web site and pick up the free version of AVG anti-virus (free for home use, that is)?  And since we’re on that thread, there’s AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic, also free for private individual use.  Or how about Avast Home Edition?  Even if it weren’t already a great AV tool, it would be worth checking out for it’s name – anything pirate sounding deserves recognition.

In fact, there are so many free anti-malware and security tools out there, that you should just start checking more of them out.  You should find something that works for you without being too intrusive.  I recommend starting with Freebyte’s guide to anti-virus and anti-malware tools.

Thanks to Clif at Freewarewiki for pointing out the Sophos tool in the August 27th newsletter.  This lead me to putting out some other recommendations for free anti-rootkit and anti-malware tools.

[tags]Free anti-rootkit tools, Free anti-virus tools, Free anti-malware tools[/tags]

Super compact 9V USB charger

(via MAKEzine blog)

I’ve seen a lot of 9V battery based USB chargers.  Most seem built around an Altoids mint container.  This one is far smaller, and doesn’t have room to actually hold the 9V battery.  Basically, you plug the battery in on one side and the USB device which needs charged in the other.  I’ve skipped all the other 9V USB guides, but I may try to put one of these together just for those occasions when I have something which charges or runs off a USB connection.  It even has a cool little LED so you can tell when it’s working.

One of the really cool things about this is the charger itself is built from the shell of a 9V battery.  Instructions and images are given for disassembling one battery to build the charger.  Obviously, then, you need a non-disassembled battery to hook up and provide power for the USB port.

[tags]9V USB charger, YAN9VUSBC (Yet another 9 volt USB charger)[/tags]

The latest laser news

(via Engadget)
A co-worker pointed this out to me, as I missed it when perusing my Engadget news for the day – UC, San Diego researchers have come up with an improved method for finding flaws in tracks using lasers.

A team led by UCSD structural engineering professor Francesco Lanza di Scalea describes in the Aug. 22 issue of the Journal of Sound and Vibration a defect-detection technique that uses laser beam pulses to gently “tap” on steel rails. Each laser tap sends ultrasonic waves traveling 1,800 miles per second along the steel rails. Downward facing microphones are positioned a few inches above the rail and 12 inches from the downward pointed laser beam. As the prototype vehicle rolls down the test track delivering laser beams taps at one-foot intervals, the microphones detect any telltale reductions in the strength of the ultrasonic signals, pinpointing surface cuts, internal cracks, and other defects.

And let me just say, I find it freaky cool that there is even a scientific journal called Journal of Sound and Vibration. So naturally, I had to go look it up – here’s the skinny on the journal. Sadly, it appears subscriptions are roughly $1750 for 50 issues. That puts it slightly out of my price range.  Understand, I have no use for the journal, but I thrive on highly specialized knowledge that has no applicability to my daily life.
The article online does not mention specifically if the technology is based purely on lasers, or if there are any frikkin’ sharks involved in building the detector.

[tags]Lasers used in detecting train track flaws, Frikkin’ sharks possibly help find train track flaws[/tags]

Saitek tri-color keyboard review

(via Kotaku)

The folks at Gameworld network have a review up of the Saitek Tri-color keyboard.  It doesn’t actually have any special gaming features, so at $70, it might not be a must-have product.  But it’s shiny, and I want one anyway.

saitek-tricolor.jpg

In the corners, the oversize feet extend beyond the outside edge of the top surface of the unit, creating a unique, symmetrical, horizontally stretched “x” shaped footprint. The overall style of the Eclipse II is quite attractive, but the true kicker, the defining cool-factor is the remarkable three-color, manually dimming backlighting. By hitting a button at the top right corner of the keyboard, the user can select between red, blue and violet backlighting. A twist of a knob in the multimedia control array can increase or decrease the brightness of the light.

[tags]Saitek, Saitek keyboard, Tri-color keyboard[/tags]

Hey, you got your Pac-Man in my Qix field!

(via Blue’s News)

This is really cool.  Someone had the bright idea to take the Pac-Man(TM) characters and put them on a Qix field, giving us a game called Pac-Xon.  Your goal is to rope off parts of the playing field which get filled in.  Hit 75% filled and you advance a level.  It’s really your standard Qix game, but the field is more course-grained, and the power ups are pretty cool.  Plus, some of the extra opponents do more than just bounce around the field forcing you to avoid them.

pac-xon.jpg

[tags]Pac-Man, Qix, Pac-Xon[/tags]