Month: October 2006

Seed: Dead Bacteria Walking

Seed: Dead Bacteria Walking

Scientists had previously hypothesized that an organism couldn’t have a genome with fewer than 400,000 nucleotides, the units that compose a strand of DNA. But Carsonella’s genome has evolved right past that theoretical limit, weighing in at a mere 160,000 bases. In fact, it is the smallest genome ever sequenced.  Scientists are still not entirely sure how these bacteria and the insects that house them continue to survive.

Wow, that is pretty cool. Granted, I can only act like I really have a clue what this means, but it’s quite cool anyways.

[tag]Chaos[/tag]
[tag]Thoughts[/tag]
[tag]Life[/tag]
[tag]Personal[/tag]

IE7 – No, Not the Browser

/IE7/overview/

IE7 loads and parses all style sheets into a form that Explorer can understand. You can then use most CSS2/CSS3 selectors without having to resort to CSS hacks.  The lightweight script is a single-line inclusion in your HTML/XML document. No alteration of your original markup is necessary. Neither do you have to alter your CSS.

Perhaps I am the only one who thinks it’s incredibely stupid confusing to name a javascript project with the same name as a popular web browser. Oh well. It’s confusingly named, but it works absolute wonders.

Here is a list of some of the things you can “add” to Internet Explorer 5/6/7 :

  • supports the following CSS selectors:

    • namespace|selector
    • parent > child
    • adjacent + sibling
    • adjacent ~ sibling
    • [attr], [attr=”value”], [attr~=”value”] etc
    • .multiple.classes (fixes bug)
    • :hover, :active, :focus (for all elements)
    • :first-child, :last-child, only-child, nth-child, nth-last-child
    • :check, :disabled, :enabled
    • :root, :empty, :contains(), :not()
    • :before/:after/content:
    • :lang()

  • works with both HTML and XML documents
  • supports imported style sheets
  • preserves the cascade of the style sheet
  • does not alter the document structure
  • does not repeatedly query the DOM

    tree using JavaScript
  • uses pure CSS to enforce style sheet rules
  • supports the W3C box model in both standards and quirks mode
  • supports fixed positioning (flicker free)
  • supports overflow:visible
  • supports min/max-width/height
  • fixes broken (X)HTML elements (abbr, object)
  • standardies forms behavior
  • supports PNG alpha transparency
  • lightweight script (22K)
  • completely modular (add/remove fixes)
  • works for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5+ (Windows only)

I know you’re as excited as I am. wink

[tag]Chaos[/tag]
[tag]Tech News[/tag]
[tag]Internet Related[/tag]
[tag]Software[/tag]
[tag]WebDEV[/tag]

Free Directory Assistance

Free directory assistance – Lifehacker

1-800-FREE-411

The price for avoiding the $1.80 to $3.49 charge of a 411 call is hearing an ad based on your information request – so you hear about the competitors to the business you’re asking about.

Now this is pretty cool. I will have to try and remember this next time I need to look up a number. Just ask my girlfriend anyways, I am quite good at not listening to things I don’t want to hear sometimes. wink

[tag]Chaos[/tag]
[tag]Thoughts[/tag]
[tag]Life[/tag]

Open Source Internet Explorer

I am quite curious what people think of the idea of making Internet Explorer open source. I know it would never happen (ok, very very unlikely), but the recent release of IE7 final got me thinking about this again.

Here’s my thoughts. If Internet Explorer was to be open sources:

1. Millions of more eyes looking at the code, therefore a plethora of new exploits/bugs would be found and in turn also be fixed quicker. Open Source: +1

2. Perhaps if they were to open source IE we could finally make the sweeping (and much needed) rendering/CSS updates that badly need to be done. Microsoft has made it abundantly clear with the final release of IE7 that they are going to just go about taking their sweet time to update the handling of CSS standards for example (just to name one huge lacking area). My thought is that a community could handle this fairly daunting task in a much more time efficient manner. Open Source: +1

3. It’s likely that if they were to open source IE then it would no longer be bundled so deeply into the core of any future versions of Windows. This is not necessarily a bad thing. With the recent upgrade of IE7 we all became painfully aware of how deeply Internet Explorer is baked into Windows. What other web browser needs to restart the computer to be installed? That is a ridiculous requirement at this point in software. Very few software applications should require a system reboot, especially something as non-system critical as a web browser. Also along this separation from the Windows core would be a greater level of security. We all know perfectly well about all of the vulnerabilities in IE (and even Firefox for that matter). It would help the overall security of Windows to have one less application that is very prone to exploitation being so closely tied into the core security of the entire OS. Less built in applications = less sources of problems. Open Source: +1 (sort of)

etc…

My main reason for thinking about this was due to the fact that I did not see any (ok, very little) innovation on the part of Microsoft with Internet Explorer 7. This release contains virtually no new features that have not been taken, copied, or based off of existing products. I think the community could come up with better ideas and a quicker period of time.

Please state any ideas/thoughts agreeing with my ideas, contracting my ideas, or just in general about this. I am curious to see what people think.

[tag]Chaos[/tag]
[tag]Tech News[/tag]
[tag]Internet Related[/tag]
[tag]Security[/tag]
[tag]Software[/tag]
[tag]Thoughts[/tag]
[tag]Personal[/tag]

ShotgunGuide.com – Official Rules for Calling Shotgun

ShotgunGuide.com – Official Rules for Calling Shotgun

Ever have the problem of catching a ride with someone whose car doesn’t have much of a back seat? At times like these, it is important to know the rules of calling shotgun. Never again will you let someone take advantage of you because you don’t know the rules.

I know everyone was wondering about the very specific and ever so important rules that govern the usage of calling shotgun.  LOL 

[tag]Chaos[/tag]
[tag]Thoughts[/tag]
[tag]Life[/tag]
[tag]Personal[/tag]

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh]

Zotero

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

What a cool extension for Firefox. This would have been incredibely useful while in college. Give it a try.

Important Note: This is only compatible with Firerfox v2.0 which is currently in beta testing. Get Firefox 2 here

[tag]Tech News[/tag]
[tag]Internet Related[/tag]
[tag]Software[/tag]
[tag]WebDEV[/tag]

Yahoo! Time Capsule

Yahoo! Time Capsule

Like everything Yahoo! does, it’s about you: our amazing users. We think there’s no one better suited to teach future generations what the world was like in 2006. For 30 days, from October 10 until November 8, Yahoo! users worldwide can contribute photos, writings, videos, audio, and even drawings to this electronic anthropology project. This is the first time that digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes.

In addition to submitting your own content, you can view, read, or hear the images, words, and sounds contributed by users from around the world. You can also comment on the content you and others have submitted, and engage in a digital conversation that is just as revealing and important as any of the content you’ll witness.

A very intriguing idea, and a very interesting site to browse if you have some time to kill. Take a look, add some content, and then comment on other people’s content.

[tag]Chaos[/tag]
[tag]Tech News[/tag]
[tag]Internet Related[/tag]
[tag]Security[/tag]
[tag]Software[/tag]
[tag]Thoughts[/tag]
[tag]Life[/tag]
[tag]Personal[/tag]

How to Create Professional HDR Images

How to Create Professional HDR Images

If you visit here regularly, you’ve probably noticed that I post a lot of High Dynamic Range, or HDR, stuff these days. Even if you don’t, you’ve likely seen HDR photos all around the net as photographers both pro and amateur experiment with this emerging artistic format.

    What you need:

  • 1. A digital camera that allows you to set exposure manually.
  • 2. A sturdy tripod.
  • 3. A subject (i.e., what you’re taking the picture of) that does not move.
  • 4. A computer with Photoshop CS2 installed.

Very cool stuff. Here is an example of HDR images in case you’re curious what all the fuss is about:

[tag]Tech News[/tag]
[tag]Internet Related[/tag]
[tag]WebDEV[/tag]
[tag]Thoughts[/tag]
[tag]Life[/tag]

Google Video Sidebar

Google Video Sidebar

The GSvideoBar Solution is a simple to use application of the Google AJAX Search API that is designed to let you easily add application and page controled video search and playback capabilities to your pages, sites, and blogs. This solution is a simplified subset of the Google Video Search Control solution. In this solution, the videos are displayed in a horizontal or vertical bar and there is no search form or tag stack.

This may be coming to a blog near you rasberry We shall see, but that of coarse will assume that I get around to uploading some videos to Google Video. Now if they would only tie into YouTube this would be easier (oh wait, that might happen very soon).

[tag]Tech News[/tag]
[tag]Internet Related[/tag]
[tag]WebDEV[/tag]
[tag]Thoughts[/tag]
[tag]Life[/tag]