The Gadgets Page

Could this be the lost city of Atlantis?

Things were in an uproar when the British tabloid, The Sun, stated that Google Earth had found Atlantis. Unfortunately for all of us sci-fi fans, it was not the case. The BBC got the full story from Google:

• BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Google dismisses ‘Atlantis find’

“It’s true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth including a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species and the remains of an Ancient Roman villa,” a Google statement said.

“In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor,” she added. “The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data. The fact there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world’s oceans.”

The really cool thing is that now Google Earth includes data from the ocean floor. It’s not perfect, but it gives us the idea of how much of the ocean there is still left to explore. If you have never played with Google Earth, here is a tutorial about it here:

I realize that this is an obscure problem that hardly anyone will need an answer for, but if you do, this will be a godsend.

For years, I used Bloglines for my RSS reader, but it has been sluggish lately. Everyone was raving about how easy Google Reader was, so I decided to try it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was easy to use and updated the blogs quickly, so I have been using it regularly with Bloglines a distant memory kind of like Netscape became after AOL bought them.

My only problem is that Firefox still thought that Bloglines was my favorite browser, so whenever I would push the handy RSS button on the location bar…

…it would automatically take me to Bloglines.

EVERY recommendation that I could find online just said that I should choose Google when the subscribe box came up, but it never came up. It just took me to Bloglines, which took its sluggish time loading before I could scream in frustration.

I FINALLY got an answer from Mozilla’s Help Forum:

• How do I change the default RSS Reader in FireFox 3? • mozillaZine Forums

The most excellent and patient eisneun helped me reset it, but be warned, it’s not for the faint of heart. Read more here: (Continue Reading…)

You are looking at my first problem with Google Chrome:

I downloaded Google’s new browser to see if it was worth all the hype and within seconds, I had my first problem. The download was “kind” enough to import the bookmarks from my Internet Explorer browser for me. Unfortunately, I hadn’t used IE since I first found FireFox years ago. The only bookmark on that old list that I still use is Bloglines, but when I tried to go to Bloglines, it asked me to log in.

I haven’t logged into Bloglines for YEARS. The cookies have just transferred over from one version of FireFox to the new one for so long that I don’t even remember which email address or password I used for Bloglines.

So much for making it easy for me…

I’m going to play with Chrome for a little while to see if it is as cool as everyone is thinking it’s going to be, but they don’t have a Mac version and I switched to Mac last year. I really hate going back to my clunky PC just to test things, so I can’t even promise that I’ll write an in-depth review of Google Chrome. Instead, maybe I’ll write a devotional for Firefox.

The one killer app I’ve wanted for a long time is the one where I can sync all my computers AND my mobile. There are plenty of services out there that let you sync multiple PC’s; and some even give you a web interface to access those files on a computer you haven’t synced.

But the one feature that is always missing is the ability to sync from your mobile phone to your other machines. SugarSync gives you all that and more.

The companies latest offering is a 45 day 10GB trial account. Once the trial is over the cost to keep your 10GB of storage is about $25 a year. Compare that to Apple’s 10GB .Mac service at $100, with single machine sync and no mobile access, it seems a good price.

How SugarSync Works SugarSync monitors files in specified folders on your computer and keeps an up-to-date copy of them on a secure, remote central server. It then automatically synchronizes these files to all the devices you specify. The downloadable SugarSync Manager software is required on each device that you want to sync

While having to install the client software on all the machines and devices I want to sync can be a hassle, it’s a small price to pay for the ability to connect everything.

Several months ago I was talking with a senior executive of an online storage company, and I told him one thing I would love to have is the ability to get to media files I store online so I don’t have to cary them with me. His comment to me was the amount of bandwidth needed to download the files was not cost effective. While I agree trying to download large music or video files doesn’t seem an effective use of bandwidth, my unlimited use account with T-Mobile allows me to download as much as I want.

I really like SugarSync. I think it has a lot of potential. I have accounts with Amazon S3, Mozy, Apple’s .Mac and several web hosts. But none of these services have the immediate sync capabilities nor the mobile access.

I’m going to sepnd the next several weeks using the sevice and I’ll write a follow up post. But for now, I recommend you try SugarSync.

Thom Allen is also the writer of Digital Thom.

I love this video of a montage of all the Windows startup screens.

Just seeing those old screens made me feel all the excitement I felt when I was just starting out with computers. Those blue screens and that font reminded me of all the possibilities that computers represented to me. Then hearing the old sounds, especially from Windows 3.1, spurred my nostalgia. I remembered walking into Egghead Software over on State Street by the Shopko. Mike and I used to go there several times a week just to look around.

Now, we hit the Apple store several times a week, but it all feels the same, yet different.

I wonder if I’ll ever feel nostalgic about the Vista noise.

Via: Windows Startup Screens | Joseph Scott’s Blog

Microsoft has created a new online service for you. It’s a portal called Health Vault where you can keep track of all your health information online. It’s free and you are supposed to be able to give your doctors permission to upload your data there. Sheldon Comics eloquently put into words my gut reaction to it:

Sheldon Comics by Dave Kellett (10-10-07): Click to see full comic

The worst thing about this situation is that Microsoft is our BEST option here. Our healthcare system is in such shambles that a website like this is the best we have to keep track of everything. Where other countries like Germany require doctors to give you all their information on your personal microchip, we are trying to drag our doctors into the twentieth century (much less the twenty-first).

• Your Health Data, Plugged In to the Web – washingtonpost.com

According to the Washington Post, doctors are a bit shy of technology:

About 90 percent of physicians and more than 80 percent of hospitals still use paper records, according to Nancy Szemraj, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Good luck getting your doctor to upload his manila file into Health Vault for you. If you actually trust Microsoft enough to use Health Vault, it’s YOU who will be doing all the work of inputting your data.

Sorry, Microsoft. Software can’t solve this problem. Our entire system is broken and half of us can’t even afford it. Canada looks better and better all the time.

Update 10-11-07: Sheldon did it again and said EXACTLY what I was thinking!

More thoughts on the User Agreement for Health Vault here:

• Use Health Vault, Lose Your Rights

If Twitter’s unreliability hasn’t worn you down, you’ll be happy to know that they have added a new feature called tracking:

• Twitter Blog: Tracking Twitter

You can follow friends on your phone through Twitter, but what about concepts? What if you wanted an update anytime anyone mentioned your name, your favorite band, “NYC,” “earthquake,” or “Steve Jobs?” In real-time? What if you were attending an event and wanted to know who else was there?

If anyone in the public timeline mentions the words “Steve Jobs,” you can have their tweets sent to you by tracking those words.

Turn on tracking: track Steve Jobs
Turn off tracking: untrack Steve Jobs

You can track many things at once. To turn off one, use the untrack feature, to turn them all off:

Turn off all tracked concepts: track off
Get a list of all tracked concepts: track

I am racking my brain to think of a topic that I’m willing to let any moron interrupt my day with and I haven’t been able to think of one. Quit adding features, Twitter, and get the IM and SMS to deliver messages in order and within an hour. Or deliver them at all. I’m sick of missing out on half of everything. We’re trying to have a conversation here.

Via: Twitter / Daniel Johnson, Jr.: Twitter tracking enabled Thanks, Daniel!

For more information about Twitter:

• Pick Me! » Twitterpated

• Pick Me! » Why Twitter Is Appealing… to some

• Pick Me! » My Phone Sings Twitter

• Pick Me! » Has Twitter Killed My Urge To Blog?

• Pick Me! » Twitter Is Not The End Of The World

• Gadgets Page » Character Count When Using Adium With Twitter

The newest version of Software for Starving Students is available. It’s right in time for the new school year, so if you have a student who needs software, or if you like free software yourself, this is the place to go:

• SoftwareFor.org: Home of Software for Starving Students

This year, they have a ton of great software to download for both the PC and Windows operating systems. You can see the complete list here:

• Software for Starving Students: What software is on the CD?

Why does Software for Starving Students provide all this software for free and how do they do it?!

The cost of a college education is always increasing — usually faster than students can earn money. We hope our efforts will help lower students’ software costs.

We obtain all of this software, legally free of charge, via the Internet. Most of it is open source, the rest is obtained and distributed by permission. It doesn’t cost us anything but our time (for the most part), so we pass the good will on to you.

If you are in need of software to optimize your computer, try the software they recommend. They’re awesome!

I have enjoyed Twitter for the last few months. I have a group of friends that write regularly and it makes me feel less lonely.

When I use Twitter on my cell phone, some of the messages come out of order and late. When I use Twitterific, some of the messages come out of order or they come in a huge barrage of messages after too long of a delay. When I use Adium, the messages come out of order. When I use Twitter’s website, I have to use the refresh button to see if anything new has come.

There are really no ideal options for Twitter, but out of all the options on the computer, I prefer Adium. The cute little birdie flaps his wings when my friends have said anything, it works with my GMail and Yahoo IM accounts, and it shows the Twitter names instead of people’s real names (like Twitterific does). My only problem with it is it doesn’t tell me how many characters my message is, so I can’t tell if I’m typing too much. After searching Adium Help, online and asking around, I don’t think there is any feature to enable that will give me a character count. So, here is my workaround.

I have sized my Adium window so it is 30 characters wide and then I sized the response box so it’s five lines tall. That gives me exactly 150 characters in the box. If I write more than can fit in that box, I’m over the Twitter limit. In order to do this, I typed the numbers 0-9 over and over again until I had 150 characters and then sized the box accordingly (see picture to the right).

It’s just a small thing, but it has made using Adium with Twitter so much easier for me that I just thought I’d share.

At WWDC last week, Steve Jobs announced that they are creating Safari for Windows. It is available as Beta here:

• Apple – Safari 3 Public Beta – Download

I have read comment after comment about this release questioning why?

I’ll tell you why.

The iPhone uses Safari. If Apple wants to drive sales of the iPhone, familiarity with Safari will help. If Apple wants to encourage people that the iPhone can handle the web, familiarity with Safari will help that as well. In fact, if you’re using an iPhone and you want the bookmarks to be the same as your computer at home, your only option will be to use Safari on your home PC as well as your Mac.

Who knew the iPhone was going to be a Firefox killer?