23996828
submission
xmas2003 writes:
First-hand account of Reno Air Crash from (Java Designer) James Gosling ... better than most of what is being reported in mainstream media so far. Terrible tragedy and may the deceased RIP.
23987030
submission
xmas2003 writes:
As a long-time reader of News for Nerds, I fit the "profile" in a number of ways — including being myopic since childhood ... but fortunately for me, this was correctable with glasses or contacts. Around age 40, it started becoming more difficult to do close-up tasks (such as using vi to edit Perl code ;-) as Presbyopia showed up right "on time" — I'm sure many older /. readers can relate.
But at age 46, a cataract started to obscure my vision which was no longer correctable — bummer to have this happen a few decades early. After extensive research on the various options (mono focal, multi-focal, accommodating, etc.), I opted for Cataract Surgery with a Crystalens implant.
Millions of Cataract Surgeries are done annually, so I figured my (overly analytical) writeup plus visual examples might be of interest to some /. readers who may (or will) be dealing with the same issue. Plus I'm sure many have gone through this process and can chime in with their experience/recommendations.
I had the first eye done last Monday and have been updating the web page — so far, so good. The eye doctor will "poke a hole" in my second eye this Monday — wish me luck! ;-)
21654606
submission
xmas2003 writes:
A few months ago, Google announced their +1 button which was their response to the Facebook Like button,
Twitter Tweet button, Stumble Badge and other misc. social networking tools.
I have some nifty pictures of baby hummingbirds that seem popular since several hundred people look at it every day. So a little while ago, I added the Google +1 button in-line with the buttons from Facebook (2,452 likes), Stumble (35,000 views), and Twitter (147 tweets) ... and so far, the big "G's" button has been pushed ZERO times.
Are web surfers just not used to seeing the latest web button, or is this a sign that Google is a little late to the social networking craze?
11960268
submission
xmas2003 writes:
Since 2005, I've had a live webcam watching my grass grow — another is currently watching a bird nest on my front door — five babies! While I appreciate the 802.11g wireless and Pan/Tilt/Zoom (10x optical) of the 5 year old D-Link DCS-6620g, it has issues, especially image quality. I've investigated getting a new webcam, but except for high-end/security-related gear from companies such as Axis, there doesn't seem to be much improvement in the consumer space as most offerings are just cheaper and USB connected for tethered video conferencing, etc.
I have an 18 Megapixel Canon 7D DSLR that shoots gorgeous 1920x1080x30p hi-def video. While I don't expect that in a consumer webcam, their recently released T2i uses the same chip and sells for $800. And heck, point-n-shoots are a couple of hundred bucks and now many cell phones have cameras built in, so there's plenty of low power speedy CPU's in small packages these days to handle the signal processing.
So why hasn't someone taken a sensor with good image quality sensor, downsized to around 1024x768, and put it in a PTZ webcam package with 802.11n wireless for around $500?
1740109
submission
Penguin Fan writes:
For those /.'ers with idle time, check out the Growing Pengiun Webcam and "watch it grow 600% in 72 hours"
There is also time-lapse videos if you aren't able to maintain a constant vigil.
834285
submission
A Grass Fan writes:
Slashdot's new Idle Section has gotten mixed reviews from readers, but as Cmdr Taco wrote "We hope you will enjoy wasting a slice of your day with us" and what better way to do that than Watching Grass Grow. Yes, a webcam providing live coverage of a grassy lawn that has been running since 2005 that has over 4,000 comments on a grass blog from web surfers worldwide — certainly a candidate for "We intend to fill our idle section with ... the very best the net has to offer."
Some of the picture and video highlights are actually somewhat interesting such as the Baby House Finch Bird saga (sad ending) and even a full year time-lapse that shows how truly exciting life in suburbia is. And for those /. readers who are bored this Friday, tune in for live coverage at Noon to see the lawn get mowed.
For the nay-sayers out there, remember that Taco's closing words were "Now go about your day — it's mid August, so I'm sure everything you do is urgent, exciting, and oh-so-interesting."
799601
submission
alek writes:
A few weeks ago, there was a good discussion about
Gmail, SPF, and Broken Email Forwarding. So I took the "easy" way out and setup Google Apps for Domains to handle my Email, and have Thunderbird and Outlook (my wife) POP'ing for Email. It works great ... except for one very annoying problem — you can't send an Email to yourself. Turns out a lot of people are affected and rightfully miffed by this violation of the "Principle of Least Astonishment"
Specifically, if you send yourself a message (and forward via Google's SMTP servers), your POP client will never get it. This is because Google is "smart" enough to realize that it already has a copy in the Sent Folder, so it doesn't making it available in the "POP'able" area (for lack of better words) for download. You can see it in the Inbox if you login to the gmail interface ... but it won't auto-download to your TBird, Outlook, etc. POP client.
Since this affects anyone using POP, there are LOTS of people that have complained and
this thread pretty much nails it.
Note that some folks from Google chimed in to say they "passed the suggestion along to the team" ... but that was over two months ago.
Yes, there are some solutions, but (except for switching to use IMAP) they are all kludgy and require the end-user to "do" something rather than just have it "work" as they would expect.
A very nice solution would be a simple checkbox in the gmail interface that would basically say something like "if you want your POP client to retrieve messages you sent to yourself, click here" ... or heck, make that the default behavior if you enable POP as arguably this is the expected behavior. Maybe all /.'ers can suggest that!
Doesn't seem like that complex of request (although it may requiring some fiddling of the innards of gmail) ... but it would be darn nice (and benefit a LOT of people IMHO) if some Googler could do this as part of their "20% free time" project — hint, hint ... ;-)
764847
submission
alek writes:
I recently stopped getting Email from a friend ... which turns out to be related to his use of SPF records and my forwarding to gmail. This "lost Email problem" may get worse with
Google implementing Domain Keys.
Background: Like many people, I have me@mydomain.com as my public facing Email address. When Email comes into my server, I forwarded it to me@gmail.com. But since my friend has published SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records that say only his server is allowed to send Emails for friend@frienddomain.com, gmail apparently rejects (silently buries actually!) the Email since it is forwarding through my server. Please note that this is exactly what SPF is designed to prevent — spammers from sending Emails with your address — but it breaks forwarding and has other problems.
What's *really* strange is that if I look at the raw sendmail logs on my server, the Email from friend@frienddomain.com comes in, and is forwarded to gmail ... with an "OK" as the response — i.e. the gmail MTA doesn't reject the message as it ideally should. However, the Email then disappears — it's not even in my gmail spam filter ... so there is no trace of it at all. If my friend sends directly to me@gmail.com, it shows up ... since his domain sends directly and the SPF test is passed.
Note that on my gmail account, I associate me@mydomain.com with my me@gmail.com account ... so perhaps there should be a recipient test applied before SPF is tested on the sender ... although this arguably defeats the purpose of SPF.
The logical solution is to configure sendmail on my server to do Sender Rewriting — anyone have an easy FAQ to do this? But many people/domains aren't doing this ... and my Email forwarding to gmail is quite common, so I'm surprised that this issue hasn't gotten more attention. Is there another solution?
606556
submission
Pixel Peeper writes:
Being a photography geek, I do a lot of testing of my camera gear. So I've pixel-peeped at countless pictures of objects at varying distances checking for accurate focus, but it's a lot of work and often hard to be certain what is sharpest. However, I recently came across an easy approach that is deadly accurate using moire' patterns to test auto focus.
Wikipedia has more about moire', but you basically just point your camera at a pattern on your LCD screen, let it autofocus, and then use the Live View mode to check how well it did, applying manual focus as required. And since some cameras have the ability to micro-adjust your autofocus on a per lens basis, it allows you fine tune your photography gear to be spot-on precise for super-sharp pictures.
