iPhone app worthy of "WOW!" and a Chrome fix

They thought it wouldn't get through the mysterious Apple approval process, but Opera Mini is officially available for (free) download at the App Store. And boy is it a whole new ball game for regular ole 3G (non-3GS) owners. It's friggin blazing fast. It feels like my iPhone did when I got it - instantly launches, instantly renders the page, and just a great experience all around. The only downside is that your bookmarks don't automatically sync. I'm betting there's some type of limited access to user info, like bookmarks, that Apple prohibits, but that's totally speculation. There is syncing built in, but only to an Opera account, so I'll have to look into ways of getting that to sync with Firefox or Chrome. The desktop Opera app is actually very good, and similarly speedy. Alas, every time I try to stray away from Firefox I end up running back for the add ons. But, definitely worth checking out if you haven't.

(And as an aside, if you have Firefox on your PC, get this add-on. You're welcome!)

Next up, Google Chrome. I've been using Chrome for DNI related stuff and Firefox for my everyday browser. One thing that had been driving me NUTS was that using my mouse's 'back' button jumped me back two pages instead of one. Every friggin time. Maddening!

So, a little ninja intuition after a hearty googling returned plenty of people with the problem, but no solutions that worked for me, and I figured out how to fix this issue. This might not work for everyone, but I figured that there were 500+ page forum threads on the topic and a few people might be helped by this.

The problem for me was that my mouse (Logitech G9) had the 'Back' and 'Forward' commands bound to the Back and Forward buttons. And the problem with that is...? It appears that Chrome will detect that you have a multibutton mouse and execute the back and forward commands if the appropriate button is pressed. BUT, somewhere in the process of drivers, mouse software (SetPoint 5 or 6 in my case), and Chrome handling mouse events, the button press is detected as a 'back button press' AND 'execute the back command'. In other words, Chrome says, "Hey! That's a spiffy mouse! I'll hook into that button and do what comes natural." But, the Logitech software says, "I don't know what's going on, and I don't care. All I know is that when you hit that button, I send the 'back dat ass up' command." You hit the button, Chrome backs up a page, and the mouse software sends the back command, making Chrome back up another page.

The solution: bind the mouse button to GenericButton4 (for back) and 5 (for forward), or the equivalent in your mouse's software. It might even be listed as 'no function' or 'do nothing' or 'default'. If you use the Back binding in other programs, this can be a pain because it forces you to choose whether Chrome works or your other programs work.

So, try getting Chrome to work and then go about using your PC as normal. If you're missing the back command in some programs, you have a couple options.

• If you have a mouse with customizable software, like the Logitech SetPoint software, make a special profile for Chrome, set the mouse buttons accordingly, and use application switching detection. This is what I ended up doing.
• If you have a tilt scroll wheel, the kind that lets you scroll left and right, you probably don;t use the function (I've had the function on my mice for about 5 years and have used it about a dozen times total). Rebind the left right scroll to forward and back or genericbutton4 and 5.
• You can try searching out some freeware, like this program: X-Mouse (note: I've never tried this, so no idea if it will blow up your computer and eat your children)
• AutoHotkey might be a decent option if nothing is working and you're minutes from a a Chrome Navigation Bug Induced Triple Shotgun Homicide. Much more technical, but I would bet the actual script would be pretty simple.
• Search out a registry tweak, though if the above didn't help this probably won't either.

Hope that helps someone out there!

DNI: Dumb Name iPad

Ah yes, been a while, but I thought I would suckle on the sweet, sweet nectar of iDevice frenzy. “Wha?!?! That’s not BCI related!” you say. I know, but I’ve posted in the past about my search for the perfect ereader, my love of tablets, and general techno-fetishism. How could I not post?

Want the short version? Completely unimpressed.

Sure the, oh gawd, do I have to actually type this name…., grrr… Sure the iPad could never live up to the hype the preceded it, but really, the iPad barely lives up to the abilities of the Apple Newton. Really? Sure the iPad has fancy things like color and 3G, but but the Newton had handwriting recognition and a PCMCIA card slot. Otherwise, both rely on a specialty OSes unable to run full desktop apps, cost about the same, and have the same ridiculous bezel to screen ratio. Okay, enough with the kinda ridiculous comparison.

What’s the bright side of the iPad’s annoucement?

I’m actually excited about the iPad. Not the iPad itself, but the interesting apps it inspires. Remember how unspeakably crappy the smartphone market was before the iPhone? It was mind-numbing. If you approach the iPad from the ebook reader perspective, you can see where that market is going.

10 hours of battery life while watching movie. Yes, very nice. Whether this is still true after a month of burn in and OS patches, we’ll see. There are a few magic numbers for battery life: 3 hours – plane ride, movie plus other activities, usage during single ‘events’. 6 hours – leave the house for an outing and recharge when you get back, equal to all day for semi-infrequent daily use. 10 hours – effective all day use for always on, but sleep capable devices. 16 hours – all day use with regular-heavy usage. After that it’s a matter of days between each step. There are netbooks that have made the 10+ hour mark, but cheers to Apple for being there right from the get go.

Really, that’s about it for the pluses. Minuses?

If you approach the iPad from the netbook perspective, there are plenty of app launchers on Windows that do everything from simulate the OSX dock, the iPhone springboard, and about a million other crazy options. How much access Apple will give devs to the GUI is yet to be seen, but if the iPhone or OSX are any indication, you’ll be lucky if they allow you to change the clock’s font.

The worst, unApple-like thing about the iPad is the near total lack of inspiring features. Where are the revolutionary interaction techniques, the device-centric interface reimagining, and those little bits of the unexpected? iPod – the navigation/click wheel. iPhone – multitouch, accelerometer, proximity sensor. iPad – ? Did they run out of ideas? Just make it a big fucking iPhone. That’ll be good enough. Um, no.

For all the crap that Microsoft has taken for the early tablet PC implementations, the iPad is downright embarrassing in comparison. They just took Windows and slapped a pen in your hand. Hey, at least you got a pen…

Which brings me to that. A stylus. The iPad could have gained all the whiz-bang features of a… pad of paper. It could have been used for class note taking, composing messages, drawing/sketching, and so much more. Instead you get an awkward keyboard with no tactile feedback (not even an attempt to make a keyboard you could use while standing up?) and fingerpainting. Not sure if they figured out a way to make the touchscreen pressure sensitive, but if not, what a mess.

Other quibbles are mentioned in this excellent rundown on Gizmodo titled 8 things that suck about the iPad. Enjoy your dongles, iKids. I’ll be over doing something exotic, like running TWO apps at once, swapping out a battery, opening an actual file, or placing an icon on the bottom of the screen before there are 20 above it. Put that on your SD card and… oh, no expandable memory slot. Right.

Intel, do tell

I know I said no more meta posts, but just a quick explanation. I had a death in the family (second in a month), which happened literally the day after I posted last. So, things have been exceptionally crazy.

To tide you over, here is one of the more trumpeted pieces of BCI news.


Apparently Intel is now in the techno-voodoo-Kurzweilian prediction business, because they're saying we'll all be controlling our computers with brain signals by, and I quote, "2020". What's better is that they are basing this claim on fMRI findings. Is this reasonable, I mean, are we really that close to this amazing new world? In a word: OMGWTFNONONO. A) No one is going to wait a week for their BCI to magnetize. B) MRI requires that the whole head be subjected to a strong magnetic field, which means a gigantic, neck crushing apparatus. C) Power. Unless we are all driving out own buses filled with batteries, not even close. D) MRI. Magnets. Computers. Railroad spikes. Manhole covers. Nuff said. E) Temporal fidelity. Imagine playing a game with 400-500ms lag. That's also assuming there are massive improvements in processing and predictive algorithms, because right now it is between 3-10 SECONDS (deCharms, 2007). F) Consumer tech will push for better interaction, not more exotic. If I can control a mouse with my arm, why get a BCI that does worse? Things like multitouch at least provide something new beyond simple 2D control. G) Just, just... *facepalm*

Another school year begins

Ah, the wafting aromatic waves of beer and cardboard boxes could only mean one thing: the kids are back in town. Here are a few minor updates on my end of things (major for me, minor for readers, I suppose)...

Mendeley sadness
My schedule has become too packed and unpredictable to keep up with the Mendeley work, so I decided to leave my Community Liaison job (on good terms). I kept thinking, "As soon as I get over this next time crunch, I'll be ready to really give Mendeley the attention it deserves." But, those crunches just kept coming and I don't see them becoming any less crunchy in the near term. The folks there are great, the product is great, and I really wish I had the time to work on it more. I expect really big things out of that group, and will continue to sing their praises. Okay, maybe not sing. Limericks? Nah. Too many syllables in all the keywords ("There once was a bibliographic... shit, ran out of syllables already").

My Project/Thesis/Thing
I've begun running some of the experiments that I've taken lead on (I don't want to say they're 'my' projects because so much feedback has gone into the process that, like all good experiments, I don't think one person deserves all the credit). I would go into more detail, but you know how it is in research and especially FDA/clinical trial situations. Still, these are 'mah babies' and so far things are looking really good. Now to get to the data! Big thanks to Jessica (my 'med school minion') for putting up with my odd schedule and all the great work. Hrm, I could use another DNI contributor or two...

On the topic of putting together kick-ass experiments, I've been meaning to post that there is a whole field out there that many scientists are completely unaware of called "User Experience", or UX. UX is kinda an amalgamation of user interface, HCI, psychology, feedback, and design that looks at how all those fields converge into the subjective experience of the user. Fascinating stuff, though more on the 'web design' end of the spectrum, and I've been really loving the bits and pieces I've been coming across. This field is set to explode with the continually expanding emphasis being put on web apps, mobile apps, and even OSes in general. Which brings me to another nice tidbit of knowledge.

2 copies of Windows 7 for $30 (for students)

Yeah, right! No, really! Thinking of getting a new PC, but wanna wait for Windows 7? Don't want to reinstall your system halfway through the semester just play with all the fun new built in toys? (Shuddup Mac people. some of us prefer a different flavor of Kool Aid.) Well, you'll love this.

Join IEEE as a student for $30 (1-year membership), and get access to their MSDNAA software library for free. This includes the Windows 7 RTM version. RTM? That sounds like a beta. Nope, RTM stands for 'Release to Manufacturer'. Buy a PC on Oct 23, and this is same version of Windows 7 that will be shipping on it. Not beta, not RC. I've gone through this process, and it works as advertised. Buy the membership, wait about 7 days for the MSDNAA specific email to show up with your login and password (mine took about half that long, maybe because I used my university email address), and go get em, tiger.

Only the Business versions (32 and 64-bit) is up as of this posting (don't waste your time with the RC, and Ultimate isn't much better than Business, unless you need the language packs, which I think can be purchased separately). Supposedly, the 'in place' upgrading has undergone some major upgrades, and Vista users may not even need to do a clean install, though I always recommend it. Mine installed fine - took about 30 minutes and activated without issue.

Here are the linkies:
Source of the info: SlickDeals
IEEE description: here

Data Visualization
I plan to add more on this in the future, but an interesting (free) iPhone app to check out is Roambi, which basically allows you to upload 'data' to their site, and then spit is back in some really visually pleasing, interactive displays on the iPhone.
Try the app's built in demos for a better idea.

Fun tidbits

A brief jaunt into random websites while frantically trying to assemble my experiments, which happen to be unexpectedly soon, is always a dangerous proposition. Here are a few science-y/tech-y funbits...

- The Apollo 11 - rockstar awesome, yes? Well, check out this funky little guidance computer simulator. All systems are go... for fun! (info, and the site.)

- From the DonationCoder forums, bookTome helps you organize your book collection. A better option, though, might be Calibre (though more for the ebook crowd). More alternatives can be found in the forum comments on DC.

- Hodgman vs Obama - sweet nerdcore coolness!

Cool your gigahertz

Still haven't forgotten about the blog here. Things should be normalizing soon, though. I just thought I'd make a random post.

Why get a fancy cooler for your CPU? Because most CPUs can be overclocked safely to speeds rivaling or outperforming top of the line versions as long as they don't get too hot. Also, generally speaking, the stock cooler is louder and less efficient than a decent 3rd party option. I went a little bonkers and got a more expensive cooler, the Coolermaster V10 (picture at bottom), but the results are great. Plus, no more noise than before the swap, and the system was dead silent before.

Here's my Intel Core i7 940 (comes clocked at 2.93GHz) running at ~3.4GHz with what could be considered regular load (all the usual startup apps, browser, email, bit torrent, iTunes all open):

Stock cooler:


with Coolermaster V10:


It looks like the fans should be louder, but there is zero difference in noise. I dunno. There is some sort of control built into this (v10) Peltier cooler unit, so I'm not sure if this is reporting accurately. The NB fan speed makes me think it might not be, since they aren't scaling together at all. Still, look at those temps - and that's just air cooling. I could probably bump this baby up to 4GHz, but that will take more research to do properly (minor bumps can be kinda hack-ish without causing much trouble). The i7 940 (2.93GHz) costs ~$500, the 965 (3.2GHz) goes for ~$1000. The 920 (2.66GHz) is ~$250 and performs just about as well as the 940 from what I've heard (wish I had known that before buying mine), and unless you plan to overclock the 965 and do a bunch of tweaking, it just doesn't make sense to opt for it over a modest overclock on either of the other i7 chips.

Anyhow, this was my yay of the day. Here is a pic of the V10 cooler - try not to look directly at it, cuz it angers easily.

The upcoming rise of Linux

What a sweet looking little interface on the upcoming BenQ MID.



No, I am not a Linux user, and especially not a fanboy/fanboi, but from an interface design perspective, Linux is poised to become the clear winner of the alternative interface wars. The reasons are simple.

A) No corporate identity. If a Linus distro wants a certain branding-type identity, someone just branches the distribution and codes away. The roots of this 'feature' are in the design of X Windows and the various window managers, like KDE and Gnome, and the philosophy that the interface is an extension of the underlying commands in the system. Don't like that Apple menu bar at the top? Sick of a certain Start button? Too bad. Millions have been spent on figuring out how big to make the menu fonts, the order of each item, etc., and with widespread adoption of Windows and MacOS in their iconic interface form, probably 100x's as much money is spent on making sure version X.5 looks and operates similar enough to version X that people won't be calling tech support and businesses don't need to retrain employees - a huge time/money sink, and one that is almost never budgeted.

B) The unstoppable march of the digital device swarm. While the popular WMs are still 'meh' in many respects, they have also been competing with highly organized, profit driven companies with millions of dollars spent on consumer research. People generally don't go to Linux because it is particularly easy to use of good looking, but now that companies are starting to put dollars behind Linux interface design (due to it widely being recognized as the Achilles' heel of Linux) the money factor is about to change. Netbook, MID, smartphone, and specialty computer makers are realizing that they don't need all the library overhead and background processes used in a modern desktop OS on devices meant for stereotyped tasks. The result? Better battery life (fewer computations, simpler computations incorporated into low level, modern instruction sets, less disk access), faster performance, and fewer errors/crashes/conflicts.

C) Multimedia barrage. I remember downloading MP3s back in 1997, while at college. You better believe that once I found a patch cable long enough to reach my stereo, my room was THE party room in the dorm. Pissed off that smug bastard with the 100-disc CD changer, too! But, seriously, if there is one positive outcome from the RIAA and MPAA* suing instead of innovating, it is that media formats have remained mostly the same. Good thing they spent years and tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to find out people want to play the music they buy on any device they choose (give Apple time - they'll pack it up soon enough), because the encoding and decoding to the few popular codecs used now can now be done in hardware. Before this stagnation, it made less sense for, say, NVidia to put mpeg decoding in hardware, or at least to repeatedly refine the ability in order to consume less power and operate with better stability. Same goes for software. Coders have been given the time to optimize, understand, and tweak media decoding. Sure there are a couple dozen different codecs floating around, but that could have been much worse**. Let's not forget that the whole open source software movement was also figuring out how to work out collaborations among many programmers in sparse locations at the same time. The result is that we now have cell phones running full motion video, etc. On the Linux side, this has translated into valuable time to support modern media formats (attract media type programmers to a decidedly computer-y OS, work out revisioning logistics, create a legal base/consciousness within the community). Without the benefit of corporate talks/alliances/contracts, OSS needed to implement media-centric features in a stable and reliable fashion. That has been largely accomplished.

* - To their credit, the MPAA has been MUCH more reasonable on this front, which is why I still go to movies and pay for rentals, but have not purchased a new CD or a paid music download in at least the last 6 years. I've contributed to artists through secondary means, like concerts, buying games they have tracks on, and snatching up any DVD-Audio they might possibly release.
** - Innovation on the media front has been largely squashed by acceptance from IP holders, once they figured out people were copying content for free. Any new attempt to make a better codec would run the risk of be legally hammered into oblivion if it gained a sizable user base, mired by copy protection at the insistence of IP holders, or developed far enough for the owners to sell it off, get their money, and run. The legacy codecs we use are there only because corporations acted so remarkably slowly and then started a legal shit-storm for anyone associated. When was the last time you saw someone distributing a product for free to millions of people, customized to their exact tastes and with immediate access, and it took the IP holders years to even recognize its existence?

D) Dr. Halo or How I stopped worrying about my child's social life and learned to love the video game. And, thank video games for unstoppable march of realism and complexity in 3D environments. Unlike video, which has several targets (movie, transmission, streaming, local playback, etc.), video games have had relatively few, making hardware the limiting factor. We can argue about changing 3D standards helping this, but the mantra of "if you're not maxing out the hardware, you're not taking full advantage of it" has egged developers on. Video games also pioneered the HUD, menu system, navigation nuances, and many foggy cognitive features of human-computer interaction that we probably won't even scratch the surface of over the next 50 years. While 3D support for Linux is still largely dependant on how nice the hardware folks was to be about releasing source code (which varies greatly), basic 3D operations have been removed from proprietary APIs and placed in lower level, quasi-auto-detected interactions of hardware and software (instruction sets), optimized at the library level, and generally more 'universalized'. So, while specular mapping from 8x anisotropic filtered internal reflections on bump mapped surface of a volumetricly rendered light source might not be in the cards right now, fade rectangle and rotate isn't a big deal, and that's all you need to a neat-o menu effect.

E) A new breed of 'digital ready' people. 97% of school children play video games. 1% of incoming freshmen at colleges have land lines, while 99% have cell phones. 17% of US homes overall (including mine) have only a cell phone. How many high school students do you think have ever seen a hand-cranked window in a car? And for the parents, remember when YOU discovered Playboy/Playgirl? Yeah, imagine now. The biggest change in culture between the PC of 1995 and today is the user, and this is arguably true for any type of significant tool at the timescale of generations. We evolve with the tools we produce because of the tools we produce. This rule applies to culture as much as it applies to the mess of neural networks in our heads.

Younger folks, and I like to include myself as one, just 'get' electronics. We can fuck with a car stereo for 30 seconds and, through some ingrained, trial and error process, figure out how to set the clock, add favorite radio stations, and contact the International Space Station. Whether it is Windows, Mac OS, Linux, BeOS, AmigaOS, or whatever, as long as some thought was put into the interface, we're (mostly) fearless. Yes, grandpa, we know all about how efficient the command line was for punch card computing. Unless you are actually interested in computing, no one cares. This is where the Mac has generally shined, but mostly because it was only compared to Windows, and generally from the perspective of someone with enough familiarity with both to know that both tools would accomplish the tasks they needed a computer for.

Once this seemingly innate understanding of computing interfaces is understood, it will be implemented in niche devices. Right now it is mostly trial, focus group testing, and error, which has taken us far enough that device makers for low adoption devices to get some pretty slick interfaces. Once we have better rules and theories about the Generation X (or Y or whatever this generation is called) specific differences in HCI, it will be easier for those closest to the goal and with smaller user bases to adapt. Those devices are largely Linux based.

Anyhow, don't wipe your PC yet. I'm not talking about desktop computers, and those are likely to run a completely different course. But, don't shy away from other devices because they happen to have an unfamiliar interface. You might just find it more usable than your *ack!* iMac!

A couple nice utilties and one more political thing

Just thought I would get the word out about two programs. Both are relatively new to me, and not only that, were completely off my radar for a long time.

First... Like the idea of Time Machine on OSX, but want it for Windows (XP or Vista)? Got ya covered. FileHamster (free and pay-for versions) does the same revision control-type setup for documents that Time Machine does, only no spaceship interface. True, TM does do things with less supervision and configuration, but dammit, that is something I actually HATE about Apple. I wanna know what my PC is doing! Also, TM does backups of system files and other mysterious bits and bytes. FileHamster is much more simple in concept. You point it to a directory and say, "I want you to watch everything in here. If there are any changes, save the old file and add a new one." Bam. Done. You can have it alert you when tings change, so you can add notes to each revision, suspend revisioning, and muck with all sorts of parameters (I likey!) but by default it is simple. For the other types of backups, like disk images and differential/incremental backups, I have used Acronis True Image, but have gotten a little annoyed with some of the latest bugs (long story, non-standard setup, but annoying). I am basically at the point where I make an initial image after an OS install, just in case something bad happens in the near term, and then just do manual backups of revision-watched documents + other docs using either SyncBack or SyncToy (both free) to an external drive. Media files live on a separate drive that is synced infrequently (once every 3-6 months). Sound complicated? It isn't really. Basically, media is an afterthought that requires minimal monitoring. Important docs get revision-tracked automatically, along with syncing via FolderShare, and every once in a while I turn on the external drive and click one icon to backup the desktop PC. All the important stuff is always up-to-date. Chances are that if I obliterated my computer to the point where I need to use an image, I would probably just want to do a fresh install anyways (Vista installs are damn near painless). See? Actually very easy.

Oh, forgot one thing. I am loving Live Mesh for transferring docs between PCs. I didn't realize how many times I had something on one computer that I wanted on the other, but qualified for my "junk drawer" - random program updates, links to read later, temp files on things I don't need for long, papers to read with highlights, etc. I have a Live Mesh folder for all that stuff. When the item is of no use, I throw it int he trash on whatever computer I am using, and it is gone from both. I will probably be moving all my stuff off FolderShare and onto Live Mesh as soon as they leave the tech preview stage - don't want a "MobileMe" incident.

The other program was Sandboxie. Sandboxie is, in a word, wonderful. Got an installer for something you don't trust, or a program that has caused some big problems in the past, even to the point of needed to do a complete system restore? Run it in Sandboxie! Basically, Sandboxie creates 'sandboxes' which exist as a virtual layer between the program you choose to run in the sandbox, and the actual system. Go ahead and play with all those viruses and trojans you've heard so much about. When you're done, just clear the sandbox. Bam! Registry, dlls, files, folders, keys, etc etc etc back to their original state. The makers have the defaults set such that they expect you to use it all the time, and take advantage of the cleaning function as needed (the sandbox is applied to the system when closed). I used it the opposite way - I run it when I think I might be in for a nasty treat, like patching the Vista theme files, altering the # of TCP/UDP connections, downloading some sketchy shareware, etc. I have Sandboxie set to turn back all changes on exit, unless I tell it otherwise. I play with the settings, test it out for a while, and if everything works, apply the changes. Anything look fishy? Clickity-click. All done. There are SOME compatibility issues for things like games, and there is a little overhead (5-10% CPU loss, 10-20% network slowdown), especially while browsing, but in the end it has never actually crashed nor has anything been able to escape it. A MUST HAVE for everyone.


And the political thing - CNN has a report (warning: video link) that the Palin story about wanting to teach creationism in science class is false. They say she thought the students should debate it. Idiots. Same thing. In order to debate it, they would have to give equal time to both evolution and creationism, and then more time for the actual debate. Creationism isn't science. It's tricked out voodoo, with a dollop of Jesus-sauce on top. I don't care if it is a part of an optional theology class, or in the context of a 'Religions of the World' class, but no one should get an A in physics because they think that unicorns poop magical pixie dust that fertilizes invisible brumbamumba bushes which hold the Earth up in space. Creationism is the same thing using different names. Ugh. I'm just waiting for bloodletting to come back into style so the same idiots can kill themselves while trying to balance their bodily humours and remove the demons.

Cortical map desktop images released!

Looks like the interweb deities are smiling on us. As far as I can tell, I can post these without fear of losing my sweet, sweet grad student paycheck to the copyright cops.

I uploaded a new archive, though, which includes a text file that gives attribution to the authors and journal just in case the url gets passed around and people don't get it from here. No password needed.

Here it is:
http://rapidshare.com/files/128403736/Brain_map_desktop_pics_5120x1200.zip.html

Enjoy!

Firefox 3 working pretty well

So far I've had a few crashes (around 4 between 2 PCs), but I like it. I have to admit that it doesn't seem too different, perhaps a little zippier and less memory intensive.

Note that I did not force compatibility and just redownloaded most of these or got them from the dev's site.

My working add-ons:
Google bar
Facebook bar
Zotero
Foxmarks
Tabmixplus
GMail space
Download statusbar
IE Tab
PDF Download
Pic lens
Adblock Plus
Fire Gestures

Not working:
Cache viewer

You know what day it is...

Aw yeah. Get it when it goes live, and register your 'Pledge' to download (does not require any info, other than checking a box).

Word on the street is that the final version is on the FTP servers, but those downloads won't count toward the record, so wait until they post it here. Besides, half your plug ins won't work anyways.

To install Firefox 3 along side Firefox 2, there are several options. My favorite, and by far the easiest, is wait until a "portable" version is released, probably later today. These are the builds that don't 'install' anything and are meant for USB flash drives. You can install add-ons and such with the only real limitation being that you can't run one while the other is open. The fancier methods get around this (though, it is really just a matter of adding a switch to the shortcut).

You can try to force Firefox 3 to use Firefox 2 add-ons, instructions below, or you can check out the developers' direct websites for beta builds. I think I might mess with it and post which of my add-ons work, which can be forced, which have updates/betas, and which are lost to the sands of time.

Forcing compatibility:
1) Enter address "about:config" in the address bar
2) Right-click anywhere in the lower pane and choose New, then Boolean.
3) Name the variable extensions.checkCompatibility
4) Set that variable value equal to false
5) Repeat for extensions.checkUpdateSecurity (also false).
6) Restart Firefox.

PDFs get a major upgrade

So, let's say you write a Letter to Nature, and you slip up and forget that a video in a previous paper causes you to accidentally make a false claim. You know, fantasy/science fiction scenario, but stick with me here.

Well, Adobe has added the ability to embed Flash-based movies into Acrobat 9's file format. If you thought Acrobat was a resource hog now, wait until the video junk gets added (also makes it more complex for those faster third party options to implement)! Still, great idea, and a very smart move. I think Adobe is on the verge of a renaissance with this, the upcoming major tweaks that will be fully implemented by CS5, and their AIR platform.

But, PLEASE Adobe, if there is any chance an employee working there reads this blog, PLEASE rewrite Acrobat completely from the ground up. It is bar none the single worst application everyone is forced to use. Yes, we will still use it if you don't change a thing, but you literally have an entire install base that, should a viable substitute reach market, would leave you in a second. That is a bad place to be, and it is bad customer relations.

Store yer bits

Why do I love storage so much? No idea. Maybe it's because you can never have enough. 3 things in the news recently...


1) Seagate says they will have 2TB drives (traditional magnetic spinner types) by next year. The last major advance was the second generation perpendicular recording which gave us that quick jump from 500GB to 750GB to 1TB, where things have remained stagnant. I have not heard much on the research front to indicate that things are lined up for anything above 2TB, but I have no idea what allowed the doubling this time.

2) Intel is hopping happy about their new 32GB NAND flash chips. Current max is 16GB, so flash drives will be doubling in capacity within the next 6 months, if not sooner.

3) Lastly, if you are looking for a super easy, no fuss 4-drive disk array, the Drobo's price has been slashed by a good chunk. It was waaay overpriced before, and is now reasonable. I'm a control freak and like to know everything that goes on, but if you like technology magic, the Drobo is a nice option. A little add-on dock allows you to turn it into a NAS device, too.

The missing link

Behold, the memristor. Why is this not bigger news? Being touted as the fourth entry to holy trinity of electronics today (resistor, capacitor, inductor), the memristor retains information about its state without power.

Now stop. Seriously think about that for about 30 seconds. This means no boot up times, no spinning platters, zero power consumption sleep mode, no phantom power sucking consumer electronics, essentially on demand activity - you flip the switch and you're instantly at the previous state. Just like a light bulb. I would not be surprised to see a new power box and wall plugs for homes, where a central power distribution unit that is sent an 'on' signal over the line, that kicks electricity only to the devices that need it. More safe (juice not flowing all over the house to cause fires or zap unsuspecting lil ones), more efficient (all wire has some resistance), and it jsut plain makes sense.

Right now the EE software doesn't take advantage of this basic, elemental part, but I am excited to see what incredible devices will be built in the future. I wonder how long until the process is commercialized and available everywhere. With this discovery, HP essentially vaulted themselves into the mindspace once only occupied by IBM. (HP's had some great research, but this kicked it up a level.)

Oh, and for BCIs, the biggest problem for future real-world applications if we figured out all the crazy decoding stuff, is power. Tada! Solved.

Then again, our (USA) energy problem = solved, for now. Even if it costs more to produce, which are you going to buy: The huge honkin HDTV and PC that suck down $150/year when off, or the memristor based versions that cost $200 more?

Sorry, this is one of those news items that totally gets me juiced. Heh, juiced. I'm funny to me when I regress.

Computing

Couple quick items related to computers.

First, has anyone gotten Neuroshare to work on a Mac in Leopard, or has everyone given up and decided to run it in VMWare or Parallels?

Second, does everyone have incredibly shitty performance on Mac OS X Leopard in Matlab?

I ran the same set of analysis routines on our dual quad core 3.2GHz machine and my 2.4GHz laptop under Vista x86. The Mac took 170 seconds, my laptop took 140 seconds. The code is "embarrassingly parallel" so I can run 8 instances of Matlab and get the same performance, more or less (about 190 seconds per run), and on my laptop (dual core) get 150 seconds for two instances, but the difference in performance is pathetic when you take into account that the laptop has a crappier bus speed, almost a full GHz lower for serial computation, is running in friggin Vista which screams of overhead (oh, and I had Outlook, Firefox and a two other programs open on the laptop, while the Mac had nothing else going on). I am considering installing XP on the system now under Boot Camp (Parallels limits you to one CPU, VMWare to two, not sure if having multiple virtual machine instances is just asking for trouble, but will probably try this first with a demo version).

Next, Ubuntu 8.04 is being released tomorrow. Just sayin'.
I'll prob try installing it just for shits and giggles. Be sure to get the AMD64 version for your Intel Core 2 based systems. I didn't know this, but apparently AMD64 is used as the moniker because 64-bit builds of Linux were for the first 64-bit desktop systems running AMD processors, but the instruction set is included in Intel's processors. And they say Linus isn't ready for the desktop... bah! With logic like naming releases for a specific processor when it isn't required or expected, I can't imagine why!
- Also, I have had success using EasyBCD for dealing with booting issues. My current system has Vista, XP, and Ubuntu 7.1 all living in harmony.
- I plan on trying the option of installing from Windows and wiping my old install, which I never used anyway. This also takes care of downloading the install via bittorrent.

I bow before my own computer

As promised (trying to keep the file size down, so sorry about the somewhat the less than stellar pic)...
Must go. Computer demands a sacrifice.

Excuses, excuses, and a few tech items

Going forward...

So, updates have been slow in coming, but as of today, things should be running smoothly. I will post the weekly link dumps next week, because I forgot that it requires that I post for the preceding week (in order to post the stories I didn't report on, I have to fail to report on them first).

Also, posts will probably be slightly shorter. Of course, enough coverage of an item will mean larger posts.


Excuses, excuses...

Reasons for the lull? Cross institution project, prelim (make it stop!), meetings requiring progress reports, laptop dead-received-installing junk saga, major tech site changes (including restarting the podcast, which you should subscribe to, and all the technical issues with getting my mini-studio up and running again), computer upgrades (more below), new lab computers for tasks we've never done, lots of general tech stuff I'm learning about and was previously unfamiliar with (video conferencing standard, serious data security, HD semi-pro film editing hardware/software, etc.), and actually plenty more that I can't remember. I've honestly gone out for 'fun' once in the last 3 weeks, making other friends a little worried, and causing those obligatory "I'm doing great, just lots of work" social sessions. At least that's how I justify playing WoW with the guild, the Tipplesplitters ("Fear the Muffin!"), for 5 hours last night :). I'm not complaining, since all this is actually really fun to me, but you get the idea. Side projects like this blog took a back seat. And, there's also a film project I might be involved with, but that's still in the planning stages.


Upgraded PC setup

My computer is now set up in such an uber-radical way that I am in awe. That's rare. Not every piece is latest and greatest, but I decided to put off assembling a new one until the end of the year at the earliest for tech reasons.

New laptop:
Gateway C-141XL with - Penryn 2.4GHz, 250GB HDD, 3 GB RAM, Vista Business x86, ATI Radeon Mobility x2300 HD w/ 128MB dedicated, Wacom digitizer, etc. Probably the fastest and most feature rich 14.1" widescreen tablet out (neck and neck with the Toshiba). (edit: nevermind, it is now the ONLY 14" tablet, since Toshiba discontinued the M7 and R10. Still love t, even though it is a bit heavy.)

WORTH NOTING FOR ANYONE WITH A LAPTOP AND DESKTOP: Get Synergy2. It's a small, open source, free application that you run on any number of computers of any OS (Win XP/Vista, OSX, Linux, etc) and allows you to use one mouse and keyboard seamlessly with all of them. It is awesome. There is a paid for Windows only app called MaxiVistaPro that supports a few other things like file dragging, but Synergy works great for me.

Desktop changes:
The laptop is mounted below the right 20.1" LCD in my new 3-friggin-monitor setup, so that when I'm home it is used as my scratch pad and reference for notes. All three LCDs (all Dell, 2x20.1", 1x24") and the laptop/tablet are supported by new Ergotron LX100 arms, which are just top notch quality and have no problem supporting everything. Monitors arranged in 20"-24"-20" setup.

The central/main monitor is driven by an 512MB EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS, which uses the G92 chip (used in the 9XXX series, smaller dye, etc). I decided I don't play enough games, and I have 2 consoles, to warrant springing for a 9800GTX, and didn't want to deal with the power issues of the 9800GX2 (dual GPU card).

The triple-display/triple monitor drama
I had an EVGA Nividia GeForce 7950GX2, which is two 7950GTs in one card allowing for two of such cards to be used in a Quad SLI setup (4 GPUs fused into one monster, single monitor driving GPU). Originally I was thinking of putting that card into SLI mode (could only drive one monitor then), using it to drive my main monitor, and getting a cheap-o dual DVI second card to drive the other two. After a shit-ton of research (literally hours, possibly days if you include the many other checks into this setup), I decided to do an about face and do the opposite - get a new, reasonably priced card for the center monitor that performed as good or better than the 7950 in SLI (I was surprised that the 8X00 series is JUST catching up to it). The reason? Everything I read on getting the previous setup to work screamed "HACK!" and I knew that I would one day update a driver and none of it would work. My main concern was whether trying to keep the 7950 in SLI would cause the drivers to attempt to lump the second GPU in with the mix, causing either errors, or not letting me use SLI in the first place, but there were other concerns. My motherboard has two PCI-Express 16x slots so I might as well use them. (Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe, based on the NForce4 Intel x16 chipset, which actually has a second PCI-E mini-bus and bridge chip. It was the first chipset for Intel chips with 2x16x lanes, so it was slightly a hack job in itself.) More importantly, the PCI graphics cards were all older, which means drastically different drivers. If I went with an NVidia card, there would likely be problems with the main monitor, if system files got overwritten with the older chipset files, and if I went with ATI there's always the possibility that down the road a driver update or installer would check the system, and as soon as it saw a non-NVidia or non-ATI card it would either not try to install or assume the drivers were old and uninstall them or something worse. The only option I considered was getting an ATI card and doing alittle dance between safe mode boots in which I disable one GPU, install the other's drivers, disable the other and install the opposite's drivers, enable SLI with the ATI disabled, cross my fingers and hope that everything works. There are reports of this working, but by the number of steps, you can tell it isn't a 'supported feature', and who knows if I could change the display resolution without a million reboots.

Instead I got the 8800GTS 512 - an excellent overall performer and the best bang for the buck - for under $200. The two side monitors are driven by the EVGA 1GB Geforce 7950GX2. I decided that since I'm mixing DirectX 9 and 10 cards, I would split the 7950GX2 (leave it out of SLI Mode) and not run DX10 apps on the side monitors (I should note that this is NOT a triple-monitor GAMING setup, just a triple monitor WORK setup with excellent single monitor gaming). I thought that of all the possibilities, this was most likely to work and offer the performance I was looking for, in the configuration I wanted, and at a reasonable price. Got the 8800, installed it, booted, and bam! Worked out of the box with no driver updates. There were a few odd things in the NVidia control panel application, but updating to the latest beta drivers (174.74, I think it was) fixed all those issues (only real oddity was that only one 20" monitor was configurable in the NVidia app, but worked fine in the system Display Control Panel). Totally happy. Totally in awe of the monster I had created.

(Other general specs: 2.66GHz Core2Duo (E6700 Conroe, watercooled), 3GB 800MHz DDR2, ??TB in HDDs (I've lost count, around 5TB), external 5-bay eSATA enclosure, Soundblaster X-Fi Elite, Logitech Z-5500 speakers, and prob missing something - oh well)

I will post pics soon.

~o.O~ new keyboard just got here! Must go play.