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Original Back to the Future Hoverboard on auction for $30K min!
Remember all the great hoverboard posts? Well, check out this original, used Back-to-the-Future hoverboard on auction at eBay with minimum bid starting at $30 grand!
Other fun stuff on Hoverboards
How to Make a PC Fan Hoverboard on Zedomax
Racing Homemade DIY Hoverboards
Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode
Roboman Hoverboard probably comes closest to concept of a Back-to-the-Future Hoverboard.
Bluetooth Hovercrafts gone bad at Zedomax
Full link to everything tagged with “hoverboard” on zedomax.com. [Page 1 - Page2]
Brought to you by: Zedomax.com
Original Back to the Future Hoverboard on auction for $30K min!
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Useful stuff - 2008 - first half
Having a Google account is sometimes useful in ways you hadn’t planned for. For example, at a few different employers I’ve been at, I’ve had to prepare for reviews by providing a list of accomplishments to my supervisor. One decent tool for generating this list is email, though it can take some time. Another useful tool is the Web History feature of your Google account.
Though this isn’t necessarily indicative of everything I’ve accomplished in the first half of 2008 per se, it’s definitely indicative of the types of things I’ve generally been into so far this year, and it’s interesting to look back. What does your Web History say?
- Gearman - this is used by some rather large web sites, notably Digg. It reminds me a little of having Torque and Maui, but geared toward more general-purpose applications. In fact, it was never clear to me that PBS/Maui couldn’t actually do this, but I didn’t get far enough into Gearman to really say that authoritatively.
- How SimpleDB Differs from a Relational Database - Links off to some very useful takes on the “cloud” databases, which are truly fascinating creatures, but have a vastly different data management philosophy from the relational model we’re all used to.
- Reblog - I found this in the footer of someone’s blog post. It’s kinda neat, but to be honest, I think you can do similar stuff using the Flock browser.
- Google Finance APIs and Tools - did I ever mention that I had a Series 7 & 63 license two months after my 20th birthday? I love anything that I can think for very long periods of time about, where there’s lots and lots and LOTS of data to play with, where you can make correlations and answer questions nobody even thought to ask. Of course, soon after finding this page I found the actual Google Finance page, which answers an awful lot of potential questions. The stock screener is actually what I was looking to write myself, but with the data freely available, I’m sure it won’t be long before I find something else fun to do with it. I’m not a fan of Google’s “Feeds” model, but I’ve dealt with it before, and will do it again if it means getting at this data.
- Bitpusher - it was recommended to me as an alternative to traditional dedicated server hosting. Worth a look.
- S3 Firefox Organizer - This is a firefox plugin that provides an interface that looks a lot like an FTP GUI or something, but allows you to move files to and from “buckets” in Amazon’s S3 service.
- Boto - A python library for writing programs that interact with the various Amazon Web Services. It’s not particularly well-documented, and it has a few quirks, but it is useful.
- OmniGraffle - A Visio replacement for Apple OS X. I like it a lot better than Visio, actually. It has tons of contributed templates. You shouldn’t have any trouble making the switch. A little pricey, but I plunked down the cash, and have not been disappointed.
- The Python Queue Module according to Doug - Doug Hellmann’s Python Module of the Week (PyMOTW) should be published in dead tree form some day. I happen to have some code that could make better use of queuing if it were a) written in Python, and b) used the Queue module. I was a little put off by the fact that every single tutorial I found on this module assumed you wanted to use threading, which I actually don’t, because I’m not smart enough…. though the last person I told that to said something to the effect of “the fact that you believe that means you’re smart enough”. Heh.
- MySQL GROUP modifiers - turns out this isn’t what I needed for the problem I was trying to solve, but the “WITH ROLLUP” feature was new to me at the time I found it, and it’s kinda cool.
- Wordpress “Subscribe to Comments” plugin - Baron suggested that it would be good to have this, and I had honestly not even thought about it. But looking around, this is the only plugin of its kind that I found, and it’s only tested up to WP 2.3x, and I’m on 2.5x. This is precisely why I hate plugins (as an end user, anyway. Loghetti supports plugins)
- Lifeblogging - I had occasion to go back and flip through some of the volumes of journals I’ve kept since age 12, wondering if it might be time to digitize those in some form. I might digitize them, but they will *not* be public I don’t think. Way too embarrassing.
- ldapmodrdn - for a buddy who hasn’t yet found all of the openldap command line tools. You can’t use ‘ldapmodify’ (to my knowledge) to *rename* an entry.
- Django graphs - I haven’t yet tried this, because I’m still trying to learn Django in what little spare time I have, but it looks like there’s at least some effort towards this out there in the community. I have yet to see a newspaper that doesn’t have graphs *somewhere* (finance, sports, weather…), so I’m surprised Django doesn’t have something like this built-in.
- URL Decode UDF for MySQL - I’ve used this. It works really well.
- Erlang - hey, I’m game for anything. If I weren’t, I’d still be writing all of my code in Perl.
- The difference between %iowait in sar and %util in iostat - I use both tools, and wanted the clarification because I was writing some graphing code in Python (using Timeplot, which rocks, by the way), and stumbled upon the question. Google to the rescue!
- OSCON ‘08 - I’m going. Are you going? I’m also going to the Oregon Brewers Festival on the last day of OSCON, as I did in ‘06. Wonderful!
- Explosion at one of my hosting providers - didn’t affect me, but… wow!
- hypertable - *sigh* someday…when there’s time…
- Small-scale hydro power - Yeah, I’m kind of a DIYer at heart. I do some woodworking, all my own plumbing, painting, flooring, I brew my own beer, I cook, I collect rain in big barrels, power sprinklers using pool runoff to give my lawn a jumpstart in spring… that kind of stuff. One day I noticed water coming out of a downspout fast enough to leap over one of my rain barrels and thought there must be some way to harness that power. Sadly, there really isn’t, so I did some research. It’s non-trivial.
- You bet your garden - I also do my own gardening and related experiments.
- RightScale Demo - WATCH YOUR VOLUME - a screencast showing off RightScale’s features. Impressive considering the work it would take me, a lone admin, to set something like this up. The learning curve involved in effectively/efficiently managing/scaling/monitoring/troubleshooting EC2 is non-trivial.
- Homebrew Kegerator - Maybe if this startup is bought out I can actually afford this thing to put my homebrewed beer in. The 30-year-old spare fridge in the basement is getting a little… gamey.
- The pound proxy daemon - I use this. It works well enough, but I’ve crashed it under load, too. I’ve also had at least one hosting provider misconfigure it on my behalf, and I had to go and tell them how to fix it :-/
- Droid Sans Mono - a fantastic coding font. Installing this font is in my post-install routine for all of my desktops.
- Generator tricks for systems programmers - David Beazley has made available a lot of Python source code and presentation slides from what I imagine was a great talk (if you’re a systems guy, which I am).
- The Wide Finder Saga - I found this just as I was writing Loghetti. There are still some things in Mr. Lundh’s code that I haven’t implemented, but it was a fantastic lesson.
- Using gnu sort for IP addresses - I’ve used sort in a lot of different ways over the years… but not for IP addresses. This is a nice hack for pulling this off with sort, but it doesn’t scale very well when you have millions of them, due to the sort utility’s ‘divide and conquer’ method of sorting.
- Writing an Hadoop/MapReduce Program in Python - this got me over the hump.
- Notes on using EC2/S3 - This got me over some other small humps
- BeautifulSoup - found while searching for the canonical way to screen scrape with Python. I’d done it a million times in Perl, and you can do it with httplib and regex and stuff in Python if you want, but this way is at least a million times nicer.
Well, that’s a decent enough summary I guess. As you can see, I’ve been doing a good bit of Python scripting. Most of my code these days is written in Python instead of Perl, in part because I was given the choice, and in part because Python fits my brain and makes me want to write more code, to push myself more. I’ve also been dealing with things involving “cloud” computing and “scalability” — like Hadoop, and EC2/S3. I haven’t done as much testing of the Google utility computing services, but I’ve used their various APIs for some things.
So what’s in your history?
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.protocolostomy.com%2F2008%2F07%2F11%2Fuseful-stuff-2008-first-half%2F'; addthis_title = 'Useful+stuff+-+2008+-+first+half'; addthis_pub = 'jonesy';Destination: San Francisco. And Still NoGoBoingo
The week-long whirlwind of a tour to Israel is finally over. Waiting for my flight, I’m wondering when I’m going to get to sleep in my own bed. It is about 18 hours of flying time — London and Philadelphia are two stops on the way — with about six hours of layovers. Given that I am going to be flying on US Airways — an airline with a patchy track record of timeliness and service — I’m not sure if everything is going to work out. Never mind the fact that both Heathrow and Philadelphia Airports are shining examples of tardiness.
The nightmare ahead not withstanding, I have to say, the trip has been quite satisfying, for I am always amazed by the tirelessness of Israeli people. Tel-Aviv is a unique place, almost matching the pervasiveness of technology (and tech startups). Twice I got pitched while waiting for cabs on the street, a scene right out of a random meeting in Palo Alto. (Check out TypeMock, one of the companies I got pitched on.)
One of the promises I made to myself on this trip was that I would keep my computer time to a bare minimum and rely almost entirely on my mobile device of the month, the Blackberry Curve. The reason for my computer-free diet was to get some downtime and enjoy the lovely beaches of this country. I also wanted to take some time to write a longer-form report from Israel.
Well, the downtime didn’t quite happen, for I ended up meeting tons of companies — about 40 in all. Those meetings consumed a lot of cycles, not to mention the pages in my trusted MoleSkin notebook. I am going to use the long flight home to type out the notes about some of the more promising startups.
One of the highlights of this trip was an informal meeting with Yari Goldfinger, co-founder of ICQ, at the TWS 2008 conference in Tel-Aviv. Our chat was long, expansive and rambling, but enjoyable nevertheless, despite my jet lag.
Before I take off, one last word about the deplorable state of commercial Wi-Fi. The GoBoingo continues to fail the review, for the Tel-Aviv Airport is yet another location where Boingo — via its new client, GoBoingo — refuses to work.
The network shows up but error messages abound. You guys are aware of my troubles with Boingo thus far and how the service failed to work in certain major airports. The company’s spokespeople emailed and did some major verbal gymnastics, but the proof is in the pudding. Next stop will be Heathrow and then Philly. Maybe…just maybe Boingo can redeem itself, but I’m not holding my breath.
See you next week!
Destination Tel-Aviv: Some Work, Some Fun
Updated From Frankfurt: It has already been a long day! I got up at 3 a.m. to get ready and head to the San Francisco Airport in time to catch my early morning US Airways flight to Charlotte and then connect to Frankfurt and then to Tel-Aviv. US Airways doesn’t tell you that you that you’re flying through “some city” on your way to Europe, which was funny because I ended up at the International Airport and then had to head back to the domestic terminal.
I am going there for the TWS 2008 conference, where I am one of the judges. I fell in love with Tel-Aviv on my trip last year, but never got to really chill and enjoy the city very much. This year, I plan to enjoy the beaches and recover a little from Structure 08-related madness. I have to say, I am seriously nervous, because this is a long trip, my first one since my heart attack and my first attempt at normalcy.
While the first part of the journey turned out to be fine, at Charlotte I found out that the connecting flight was going to be late by three hours, so the day — which was going to be around 18 hours — is now going to be even longer. While waiting for the next flight, I tried to log into T-Mobile via Boingo, whose new offering, Go Boingo, is going to be released on Monday and I am testing out right now. You can try out their free day pass, and the best part is it’s ready for Mac users — and is pretty awesome.
Speaking of Mac, I saw dozens of people toting Macbooks of various kind in the airport and its various lounges. Something interesting or maybe just a coincidence? I’m not sure. Regardless, it’s nice to carry the AIR as it doesn’t break one’s back!
Without access, I had to come with a way to connect. My connection with my 3G Nokia N95 didn’t seem to work, so instead I turned to JoikuSpot, an application I’ve written about earlier. Now the connection via JoikuSoft isn’t fast and isn’t letting me download emails, but it is letting me surf the web. It’s better than nothing, and JoikuSoft delivered as promised. Now I’m glad that I wrote about this little application. (Anyway, if you have any tips on how set up a Nokia N95 as a 3G modem, let me know. The default settings aren’t quite working.)
Update: Finally got to Frankfurt at about 3 a.m. PT, or around 11 a.m. local time. The airport is a mess — chaotic and disorganized. It can’t be called “efficient” by any means, and reminds me how old this hub really is. In comparison to SFO’s International Terminal, Frankfurt is provincial. Lufthansa’s business lounge is nothing but a giant, messy hall. For some odd reason, the T-Mobile USA hotspot passwords are not working and it costs 18 euro cents to get a WAN connection. Nice to be a monopoly.
On Boingo: Well it’s proving to be utterly worthless. In the places you really need it — like my two stops thus far, the damned so-called Global Wireless Service hasn’t really worked. I’m wondering if the the dream of a seamless global network that provides endless connectivity will remain just that — a dream.
My flight isn’t till 11 pm tonight and I get into Tel-Aviv at around 3:30 a.m. in the morning. There is little or no chance of any sleep. It’s the last time I trust a failing airline like US Airways fulfill to my travel plans.
I will update the post when I get to Tel-Aviv.
Your WoW summer e-reading list
Free Windows Mobile Software
There are many free software applications for the Windows Mobile platform, unfortunately many of them are horrible. After years of testing various apps on both WM5 and Windows Mobile 6 Professional, I have settled on my essential free programs. I’ve decided to only include those programs I use on a regular basis, or find incredibly helpful. I know everyone has their favorites, but these are mine. I recently had several friends purchase windows mobile based phones (after years of me telling them to do so), so this will also serve as a resource for them to get up to speed. I’ve already done the testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t, so you can just start enjoying your phone for all the cool stuff it can do.
DashWire - This little bit of software combines the best of both worlds… Mobile Gadgets and the Web. This site will allow you to backup the data on your phone to a website where you can manage your data and use as storage if you ever have to do a hard reset of your device. Currently DashWire allows you to backup your contacts, photos, videos, bookmarks, call history, text messages, speed dials and ringtones. But that’s not all, you can even send text messages from the web on your “dashboard” which will then go through your phone. Think of it as a way to control your phone from a website, cool stuff. DashWire also lets you share your photos and videos quickly and easily. From your web dashboard you can share your photos by sending an SMS or Emai, or post your photos directly to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed and Beebo. I must say that DashWire could possibly be the next generation “killer app” for Windows Mobile based phones. Check it out. NOTE: Owners of the Samsung SCH-i760 MUST install Microsoft .net Compact Framework v3.5 in order to get DashWire to function properly. If you have issues with getting it to run on any other device, please try installing .net 3.5.
Vox Mobile - Vox is a Blog network from SixApart. They have a hidden gem (I say “hidden” because its hard to find on their site) of a Windows Mobile application that allows you to instantly upload photos from your phone to a personalized website (See my photoblog for example). This program is great for taking snapshots while on-the-go. For geek bonus points you can use TwitterFeed to post links to the photos on Twitter
MyMobiler - This awesome application allows you to remote control your phone from your computer when it is connected via ActiveSync. Makes it much easier to tweak settings and install programs on Windows Mobile. I also use it at my desk at work to change streaming audio stations since I use my phone as a radio.
CometNow - CometNow is a cool application that will stream live video to the internet from your phone. It will record the video on their site, and also let you post those videos to YouTube later. I don’t use the application that much, but from my testing it was pretty cool. I’m sure there are many creative people out there who can come up with some really great ideas using this tool. Only thing to remember: Use IE when using their website, unfortunately it works best with IE.
GSPlayer - I use GSPlayer as my default mp3 / shoutcast / streaming audio player on Windows Mobile. Its clean, quick, and easy to use.
TCPMP w/ Skunkworks FlashVideoBundle - Combine the best video player with the FlashVideoBundle “hack” and you can now watch Youtube / Google Video and other flash video sites on your Windows Mobile phone.
PocketIRC - If you still like to rock it oldschool on IRC, then PocketIRC is your IRC client of choice on the Windows Mobile platform. Trust me, I’ve tried them all, this one is the best.
Palringo - There are many debates about what the best Instant Messaging application for the WM platform is, I happen to think the best free IM program is Palringo. With Palringo you can connect up to multiple networks and it runs well in the background. There are lots of other features but when it comes to IM, Palringo wins my vote.
Twobile - Twitter client for Windows Mobile. This is the best Twitter client I’ve found. It has the option to run in text only mode (no images) for faster Tweeting. Also more options to interact with Twitter than other clients I’ve tested for the WM platform. Can run in the background in the systray with a small memory footprint.
FriendMobilizer - A Facebook application for Windows Mobile. Allows you to update your status and get the latest updates from your friends. Will check Facebook every 30 minutes for new notifications.
Kevtris - Sometimes you just need to take a break, thats where Kevtris comes in. Kevtris is a Tetris clone with pretty good graphics and is about as addictive as a game gets. You know you like it.
MagicButton - MagicButton is a must have windows mobile task manager. It make the task bar behave like a windows desktop taskbar. You can switch applications and close them via icons near the start button. Great for memory management and keeping programs alive that would normally close automatically.
PocketToolman - Think of this application as the TweakUI of windows mobile, giving you access to settings that you normally don’t have control over. Excellent program for tweaking various functions of your phone. This application is for Windows Mobile 6 Professional only.
Advanced Config - Another tool to give you control over more advanced options in Windows Mobile.
PMClean - Tool for cleaning up your notification queue and temporary files. Use this program if your notifications are screwed up, it will clear the queue of old items and make your alarms work again!
Google Search Today Plugin - Search Google with this plugin for your today screen. On your phone visit http://www.google.com/m/products/
VTap - the vTap application allows you to watch YouTube videos directly on your Windows Mobile Phone. Also allows searching on wikipedia and the ability to set up custom video feeds. Worth checking out if you like to consume video on your phone.
There are tons of other Free Windows Mobile Programs out there, but I’ve chosen to include some of the lesser known and VERY handy ones. Don’t forget the favorites like Google Maps, Microsoft Live Search, Skype and more. Have fun!
Off-Topic: What To Watch This Summer: “Wall-E”
My inner nerd is thrilled at the prospect of Pixar’s upcoming movie “Wall-E.” Rich Greenfield, an analyst with Pali Capital who is typically very stingy with praise is waxing eloquent about the movie after watching the preview. In a note to his clients this morning, he writes:
…Investors have been wary of Wall-E’s box office potential given Pixar’s risky bet on an offbeat main character, who rarely speaks during the film. Nonetheless, the film substantially exceeded our expectations and was well-received by the audience.
We believe Pixar hit the mark, delivering a very rich story in Wall-E.: We see the film appealing to younger children who will be drawn to the quirky but extremely lovable characters (especially Wall-E).
The love story between the two main characters and the presence of a solid female character (Wall-E’s love interest, Eve) should also appeal to girls of all ages. Finally, we believe the film will resonate well with older audiences who will find much to like in Wall-E’s character and antics, the love story and the film’s other messages (e.g. the environment).
Our only concern: There is somewhat less action and the pacing is somewhat more measured.
Looks like this could be Steve Jobs’ other big summer blockbuster hit. Sure he doesn’t run Pixar anymore, but he owns a big portion of Disney. Greenfield expects the movie to make $550 million to $600 million (or more) at the box office worldwide, and says it “should be a solid contributor to Disney’s DVD sales in FY Q1 2009.”
Old School Telephone Kitchen Timer!
Want to make your kitchen look old-school? Then get the telephone kitchen timer, which looks just like an old school telephone.
The company claims:
Burnt roasts and cakes will be a thing of the past!
Great stuff guys, that’s top notch emerging technology we need.
Introducing Om 2.0: The Avatar
A few days ago, commenting on one of my posts, a reader inquired about my health, in particular whether or not I was behaving myself. While on the one hand I found it mildly amusing, as it felt like my mom was asking the question — which she does every Sunday — his comment also made me realize how much our little community cares about my well-being.
I’ve been meaning to write about my progress, but I’ve shied away from it because it always felt like I would be imposing on people’s time. And I’m still not ready to share it all.
But in the meantime, I can show off my new icon/avatar for the site. Gone is the old hat-wearing, cigar-chomping, newshound look. Instead, what you have is a simpler, more understated icon whose sparseness reflects my new mantra — less is really more. And doing more with less is really hard. Let’s call this version of me Om 2.0.
Simple food, simple clothes, a simple home and simple, clear writing. Hopefully I can stick to that plan. I have incorporated physical exercise into my daily life, given up smoking, gone almost completely vegetarian and taken to wearing jeans. Life, as they say, is uncomplicated. More importantly, about six months after my heart attack, I have resumed some of my regular activities — including playing tennis on the Wii!
PS: Check out this awesome little illustration Mivui did using the new icon. This is how I am supposed to look like in 10 years. Worthy goal - both from a fitness and a longevity standpoint.
