The various competing digital RAW formats have been a boon to professional and pro-sumer photographers but to date the support for them has been limited to the manufacturer's software and expensive photo editing software.  Yesterday's news that MS is going to support RAW in the OS is great news, I hope it will drive some serious improvements for the format (compatibility, closed standards and more abound).  Just having the big camera manufacturers talking about the same topic is fabulous.

More info:
Press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/jun05/06-01RAWWindowsPR.asp
Omar's comments: http://www.shahine.com/omar/MicrosoftRAW.aspx
Sean Alexander's comments: http://blog.seanalexander.com/LonghornGetsRAW.aspx
MS How-to article on dealing with RAW in XP: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/expert/rawfiles.mspx

 

I was organizing my music last night (after ripping another 110 albums this weekend) and was reminded of the free music from Mercedes.  On a whim I went back to the Mercedes Benz Mixed Tape site... they're up to number 7!  They were supposed to e-mail me when the next edition came out but didn't.  I missed out on mixed tapes 4, 5 and 6.  Oh well, I won't pass up on some gratis Euro-pop.  Free music is free music, get yours while it's there.

 

I say Ketchup, you say Catsup, let's call the whole thing off.

But wait... something new on the horizon?  Here's just the thing for people looking for that special condiment to set off their latest culinary creation:

Click for big

Yummy, banana ketchup.  Now public schools can ensure our under-fed youth get their requisite serving of both fruits and vegetables simply by dousing cafeteria french fries with this compound condiment.

 

There's cool, and then there's geeky cool.  I think this is both.

Robots master reproduction
Andreas von Bubnoff
Modular machine assembles copies of itself in minutes.
 
Humans do it, bacteria do it, even viruses do it: they make copies of themselves. Now US researchers have built a flexible robot that can perform the same trick.

Cool, right?  What? I'm a geek?  Here, watch this video then tell me if it's cool.

For the full story, please check out the article at Nature.com.

"Sarah Connor?"

 

A while back Omar turned me on to FavoriteSync as a great tool to keep your IE favorites in synch across multiple machines.  Omar has since moved on to Groove but I still much prefer this light, simple tool to the heavy-handed beast that is Groove (Groove is designed to be much more than a synchronization tool, it’s a Share Point-like platform with a large feature set and a start up time to match).

Setup is fairly simple, download the installer and run.  In order to store your favorites on the FavoriteSync server you will need to sign up for an account, but filling out the form and waiting for the confirmation e-mail is about as complex as it gets.  Using the default configuration FavoriteSync stores your favorites on their web site but if you want to be more geeky (or more secretive) you can publish your favorites to your own ftp site.  Other advanced options include the ability to ignore certain folders (e.g. to keep work-only stuff off your home computer… or more importantly, vice versa), publish an XSL style sheet (useful if you have your own ftp/web site and want web-based favorites) and the ability to create multiple backup copies of your favorites.

Once installed the synchronization is automatic.  Anytime you start IE or you change your favorites FavoriteSync will merge an updated copy with the copy of your favorites stored on the server (either yours or theirs).  Your other computers will automatically pick up the changes when you next use them.  Changes are merged if you change your favorites on multiple machines and the options allow you to tweak the sync behavior if you desire.

With a work laptop, work desktop and a home desktop it’s great to have my IE favorites finally roam to all my computers.  The software is simple and effective, I recommend it to Windows IE users with more than one PC. 

Software: FavoriteSync
Web Site: http://favoritesync.com
Platform: Windows/IE (FireFox version in beta)
Cost: Free/Donate Ware
Ease of setup: 4 of 5
Ease of use: 5 of 5

 

Working in the computer industry and living in this strange computer utopia there are a lot of useful sites and software packages that one adopts simply by means of osmosis.  In an effort to document this things for both my family and myself I've created a new category: Useful.

If you have a suggestion of something you find very useful, please send it my way... I can always benefit from a little extra time in my day. 

 

So, according to the bible, God created the world in 6 days and rested on the seventh.  This is, quite simply, the reason there is a weekend.

Now, let's say I'm looking at this from a very practical, non-religious point of view.  The weekend is the time of rest (especially Sunday, of course) when one is expected to relax and recoup.  The last thing anyone wants on their day off is the office calling with a bunch of demands.

Given that... isn't it inconsiderate to hold church services on Sunday?  It amounts to the whole world calling God on God's day off, demanding that God do stuff.  Sheesh, makes me glad I'm not a deity.

 

...does "Virgin Water" really sound appealing?

Perhaps it just needs a catchy slogan:
   Virgin H₂0: Fresh squeezed from the world's finest virgins.
   Virgin H₂0: Like holy water, only better.
   Virgin H₂0: Now in plastic containers... because no one wants their Virgin Water to break.