Pipes for the Internet

Yahoo has found the Internet's pipes. Well, actually they have this beta project called Pipes which let's you roll your own web aggregator. There have been mashups before using google maps and craigslist, but this let's you do something similar without writing any code. See here for Lifehacker's article on Yahoo Pipes.

Here is my simple example of using pipes. It returns all pages containing iphone, and restricts it to only pages found on apple.com

Wii Fit Brings Wii yoga, wii exercise, wii dance.. Wii Jane Fonda?

Nintendo announced Wii Fit at E3 convention yesterday. Here is the Wii Fit Video. The Wii Fit video shows the different modes, Wii yoga, wii aerobics, Wii dancing, Wii balancing, Wii blocking as a soccer goalie (Wii 'futbol' for international fans). Watch the Wii Fit video below.



What's next, a Wii Jane Fonda exercise video?

Nintendo Wii is Still Hot

The Nintendo Wii console continues to sell like hotcakes, even better. Brand new wiis sell for close to $350 on CraigsList. The Wii is outselling PS3's 6 to 1 in the latest month. At E3, the president of Nintendo America says “Wii has effectively been sold out for all 33 weeks,”. And he also said one in eight men over 50 are regular users of the wii. They also announced Wii Fit, an exercise pad and game. They also announced the Wii zapper, will this wireless gun accessory take the wii to the next level?

Rival Xbox stumbles with Microsoft extending the xbox 360 warranty to 3 years. Many users have reported heating problems and the "red rings of death". Microsoft scrambles to find the cause. Microsoft earlier even blamed a customer that he had faulty wiring in his house. All this finger pointing ends up costing mister softy about $1 Billion. I wonder if Bill let's his kids buy a wii??

Sony concedes ground and offers $100 price cut to entice more buyers. A week earlier, they denied there would be a PS3 price cut. The current model will be priced at $499. They will also release an PS3 with a larger hard drive for $599.

Damn Small Linux Really Is

If you ever wanted to have a way to work anywhere, but didn't want to lug a notebook PC, check out Damn Small Linux.
This linux distribution fits in most USB pen drives. It's only about 50MB. And it requires very little RAM and will run on most anything today. It claims to be able to run with only 32MB RAM.

If you are piqued, check out this article.

Automation via iOpus

Found this interesting app called iMacros from iOpus. iMacros lets you create macros to automate repetitive browser tasks. Sort of like batch files for your browser. Their licenses are pricey, since they are targeted to developers and testers who want to catch bugs with their web applications. They claim to also work with Ajax-enabled sites. So they would be competing with open source solutions such as Selenium. However, they do give away a free plugin for IE and Firefox.

Tame your Passwords with Roboform, or Web Replay

One big problem faced by every web user is managing multiple name and password pairs for each website they visit. What ends up happening is some people use the same password which is not a secure way to do it.

One good solution is Roboform, which will save your web passwords. It remembers them the next time you go to that website. You only have to remember one master password, and Roboform will fill in the web passwords for you. Roboform even lets you use the product for free for up to 10 passwords.
Roboform encrypts all your passwords and they have won many awards and recognition.
Roboform is quite easy to use once you see how it works, but I think they need to go the extra step and make their UI even more friendly to newbies.

Another competitor is Web Replay. It seems to have a similar feature set. But I have not tried Web Replay yet. Take a look at their demo here.

Pidgin encryption plugin - easy to setup and use

If you use pidgin as your IM client, here's a lifehacker article about a pidgin plugin to keep your messages private. (The article refers to Gaim, but this is same as pidgin)

Just install the plugin, restart pidgin, then you can now send encrypted instant messages to other pidgin users who have the same plugin installed. The nice thing about this plugin is it makes public/private key encryption fairly easy to set up and use. I've tinkered with PGP before, and to me this pidgin plugin is "Secure IM for the rest of us".

If you haven't heard of pidgin, you should check it out. Pidgin used to be called GAIM, and they had to change their name because AOL was going to sue them.

Steam Punk - What Sherlock Holmes would use

Check out how this guy modded his PC to look like it was from the Victorian era.
Gas lamps, steam engine, LCD monitor???

Pimp My PC

Here you'll find pics of pimped up PC's. Just one word of advice: Guys, that's not the way to attract the ladies. Pimp the car, not the PC.

Germany's Enigma implemented in Flash

During WW2, the German army used the Enigma to encrypt their messages. The story of England's effort at Bletchley Park to crack the Enigma code has been made into a movie starring Kate Winslet. Another factoid is that computer science pioneer, Alan Turing, lead the effort on breaking the Enigma.

Neal Stephenson wrote Cryptonomicron, about this war effort. I really enjoyed that book.

Click here to use the Flash (SWF) implementation of the Enigma.

Click here for the background and how to use it.