Computing

Well, the blog has a new look and is running on some new software. I switched to drupal for this and my photo galleries. I had been running the galleries on 4images (which I created an extension for to use the Google RSS Feed AJAX code to create a slideshow viewer) and my blog on MoveableType 3.2, but I wanted more features than 4images, and at some point I'd need to update the MT software. Drupal is great, flexible, content-management software, and it has a relatively easy to work with structure. I've already created my own custom module to list the galleries, and have been hacking away at the Brilliant Gallery module to customize how my pictures are actually shown. It also has user and access management, so I can now have some of the galleries public, and others only to registered users. Sorry for the inconvenience of having to register to my friends. If it helps, I'd recommend signing up for an OpenID login, a portable login identity which you can use at an increasing number of websites so you don't have to create a separate login for each one (and of course, this site takes OpenID). Please let me know if the layout looks strange, I don't get much chance to test on Windows. UPDATE: Now you can login using your facebook login.

The Participatory Culture Foundation released Miro, a great TV/video app for Mac OSX. Free and open source, just the way we like it.

I've been looking for a replacement to Quicken for a while, sort of. The program is annoying in many minor ways, but having used it for several years, I wasn't really sure if I could stop. What else could substitute for it? I've started seeing maturing finance programs for the Mac for a little while now, so I started looking, and saw this rather intelligent roundup.

Who said they had to be driving directions (check step 23)?

What to do if someone has stolen your identity - started using your social security number, name, credit cards, etc. A thorough 24-point checklist.

The trials and tribulations of electronic voting are not just an American problem. The Dutch Government apparently had their main supplier of e-voting systems essentially threaten them with blackmail if they didn't purchase his company after an independent watchdog group (great: The "We don't trust voting computers foundation") leader was poised to be put on a commission to investigate the voting computers.

Scroogle allows one to search through Google without having the borg retain all of the lurid details about your search and you - even with their new and slightly restricted data retention policies.

Sign The petition

To my Congressional representatives (and to Congress as a whole) --

As a fan of Internet radio, I was alarmed to learn that music royalty rates were recently determined by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) which, if enacted, would certainly silence most or all of my favorite online listening services. (For most webcasters, this new royalty rate represents more than 100% of their total revenues!)

Looks like Polymer Vision will soon actually be selling an ebook device with a roll-out flexi-display. Hopefully soon we'll start seeing full-color displays like thing, and all sorts of products with this type of display. No more squinting for no good reason!

A great use of the visualizer plug-in function of iTunes - iConcertCal. Now you don't have to search specifically for shows by the bands you like, this plug-in looks for shows of all the groups in your music database and lists them in a calendar with links. Super-handy.