Technology – Page 4 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Google Maps

Google just announced a new feature of their map site that allows you to embed a Google Map right into a web page just like you would with a Youtube video.

KPFT

View Larger Map

The embedded map has all the functionality you find at the actual Google Maps site. You can scroll it, zoom it, get directions and that good stuff.

It’s way faster and easier than the in-line Google maps plug-in I was playing with before.

This will be a lot of fun to use during the upcoming trip to Spain….

Details are at the Google Lat Long Blog

I can see my house!

Microsoft Virtual Earth has a nifty option that let’s you see a “bird’s eye view” of a location on the map.

This is my house.

When travelling to Europe a few years back I did not take a computer with me. It was pretty much “catch as catch can” in the various countries, between the odd Internet cafe and the various hotel or B&B provided terminals.

Something I knew, but did not fully consider, was that each country used a unique keyboard layout. This made it somewhat vexing when it came to typing certain characters. I recall struggling to find the key combination for the @ symbol on a French computer with the key symbols worn away from over-use.

If you know how to type without watching your fingers, and you have access to the computer settings then the easiest thing to do is go to the control panel and change the layout to US.

Microsoft offers step by step instructions in KB306560

If you’re a hunt and peck typist or you don’t have the ability to change the keyboard layout you will need to familiarize yourself with the keyboard layout of the country you’re visiting.

There’s a handy guide located at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout

US KEYBOARD LAYOUT

UK/IRELAND KEYBOARD LAYOUT

One of the most frustrating differences on UK keyboard is that the quotation marks are on the 2 key while the @ sign takes the place the quotation marks.

Cat Cam

I’m not a huge cat fan nor am I cat cam fan but I am a technology fan and a fan of novel ideas. That’s why I find Mr. Lee’s CatCam quite fascinating.

Ever wonder what a cat who spends most of his time outdoors is up to?
Apparently J. Perthold in Germany did and came up with an idea…

So the idea was born and split into these parts:

1. find small, lightweight, inexpensive digital camera
2. develop a controller for the camera
3. protect the camera from cat attack
4. mount equipment to cat

For anyone who has lived with a feline, the mystery of a cat’s mind is an all-too-familiar quandary. This site does not venture any answers to that dilemma. But it does attempt to record what one cat.the illustrious Mr. Lee.does and where he goes when left to his own devices. Mr. Lee’s human companion, a clever man who lives in Germany, rigged a small digital camera to take a photo at regular intervals. He affixed the device to his cat’s collar and let Mr. Lee do his thing. What came back is an amusing, sometimes fascinating peek into Mr. Lee’s daily activities.

Out of the day of a cat – Trip 1
Out of the day of a cat – Trip 2
Out of the day of a cat – Trip 3
Out of the day of a cat – Trip 4

TV Time

Got a call from Jeff Ehling over at the local ABC affiliate (Channel 13). He was putting together a story to tie in to the recent FBI press release regarding botnet cyber crime and needed a geek talking head.

Lord knows there’s no talking head geekier than yours truly and despite my fear of being in front of the camera, I agreed to do it. I try not to pass up any opportunity to promote the radio show. Plus I think I must secretly enjoy being scared out of my wits.

Much like the previous times, it went smoothly enough and I was not horrified with the results. Jeff did a great job on the story and used sound bites from me in the piece that worked well and I was very pleased to hear him use talking points that came from our more candid off camera conversation.

You can see the news story video here.

I blog alone

I’ve installed the Podpress plugin for WordPress.
This means you can automatically pick up any audio content I post on this site as a podcast. Just add the RSS feed of this site to your iTunes and your iPod will do the rest.

The Podpress plugin also allows readers of this blog to play audio content I post to the site right inside the post, streaming in REAL TIME! No more waiting on a download.

If you are viewing this from the main URL (www.baldheretic.com) you should see a Podpress player at the top of this entry. Just click the play button and the song I have posted will start playing.

To test my new feature I have uploaded a song called I Blog Alone by M. Spaff Sumsion over at spaff.com

I’ve also included the lyrics below:

I BLOG ALONE
Parody of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”

PERFORMED BY ROBERT LUND
Download MP3 (3.4 MB)

I spill my guts online
At live dot home dot blog my name dot com
No one hits my site
But it’s home to me and I blog alone

I dish out brilliant quotes
On the blogger board of broken links
Guess who leaves me notes?
Yes, I’m the only one and I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog a-

I work all
Day to make the Web admire me
It’s not my
Job; if my boss knew, she’d fire me
That’s fine; the
New York Times would beg to hire me
Till then I
BLOG ALONE

Bla-ah, bla-ah, bla-ah, blah-og
Bla-ah, bla-ah, blah-og

I mock celebrities,
Politics and sports and TV shows
Then I Google me
And hope it links to where I blog alone

I can’t sleep at night
Even on vacation far from home
I pull up my site
To know I’m still online and I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog alone

I blog alone
I blog a-

My only
Friends are avatars and smileys
I humbly
Post my views then praise them highly
Some day I’ll
Sell my soul like Bill O’Reilly
Till then I
BLOG ALONE

Bla-ah, bla-ah, bla-ah, blah-og
Bla-ah, bla-ah

I blog alone
I blog alone

I unmask media lies
On the blogger board of broken links
Guess who leaves replies?
Yes, I’m the only one and I blog alone

Hey, look, they
Praised me in the News on Sunday
My site got
Thirteen million hits in one day
Okay, I
Lied, but that could happen some day
Till then I
BLOG ALONE

Good Morning Houston

So the interview on ABC 13 went well, I think. 2 minutes and 27 seconds was the total time. You can view it on Jeff Ehling’s blog by clicking here.

I enjoyed the experience. The staff that makes up the Sunday morning crew made me feel welcome and at ease. Elissa Rivas conducted the actual interview and she made it very pleasant.

When the interview was over Mark Garay (who, by the way, was wearing tennis shoes behind the anchor desk) asked me to stop by and speak with Carmin the producer on my way out. I figured they must want me to sign something or I don’t know what, but I stopped by. No paperwork, oh no. Carmin was having a computer problem and they wanted my assistance.

Turns out that Carmin’s workstation was having a problem with the time change. This was the computer she was using to manage the current on air program with all the various time blocks, story segments, commercial breaks and so forth and every couple of minutes it was reverting back to pre-DST time after she would manually set it to the correct time.

My ~~guess~~ expert opionon was that it must be synching to an NTP server and also not have the current software update to allow it to sort out the time change.

How ironic. Here we are making light of the Y2K7 problem and how it’s no big deal and the very show hosting the interview is in danger of collapsing in a Microsoft-induced DST wormhole.

There’s no way to patch the machine what with it being used to mange a live program. It would have to wait till after the show and wait for one of the ABC IT staff as I was on my way out the door.

It was a great fun and I hope to do more work with ABC in the future.