Image ©2006 Paul Burd. All Rights Reserved
I went down to Redwood City today to drop some materials off at a client’s office. Right across the street is Oracle. I just love their crosswalk sign at the entrance to their parking lot.
Month: March 2006
Cool 3D Fly-Through
I don’t speak French, so I have no idea what this was made for, but it’s a very cool 3D fly through from Cube, the same French company who gave us Elephant on a Trampoline.
Star Trek: New Voyages?
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a big Star Trek fan. The other day I came across a site called New Voyages. They are producing new episodes, of classic Star Trek. They’ve only done a couple of episodes, but they actually have Walter Koenig (Chekov), and George Takei (Sulu) signed up for future episodes. You can see a preview of Walter’s episode on YouTube. They also have D.C. Fontana as one of the writers. Fontana was a writer and major influence on the original show.
They’ve done a really good job at recreating the show, and actually have some fairly impressive effects. In fact, they’ve almost done too good of a job recreating the show, as it is ultra cheesy.
They are making the episodes available as free downloads, but unfortunately, they are primarily in wmv format, and somewhat unorganized.
Here’s some info from their FAQ:
“The new show will be the continuing voyages of Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701 as seen in the 1966-69 television series, Star Trek. The series was cancelled after its third season. We are restarting the series as if it were in its fourth year.”
“The idea for creating a new series based on the original Star Trek first originated in 1997 with James Cawley. James worked with original series and Next Generation costume designer, William Ware Theiss. Over the years James has amassed a huge collection of set pieces, props and costumes with one goal in mind: reclaiming the spirit of Trek. Max Rem joined the dream with his artistic talents and together the co-producers have put together a team that has brought back the Roddenberry spirit, ideals and philosophy to Star Trek.”
“Our ultimate goal is to produce a full year’s worth (22 or more) web episodes per year maintaining Gene Roddenberry’s philosophy and vision for the original 1960’s television show. We believe in challenging people’s thoughts and enticing them to action. We feel that Star Trek is a great vehicle for exploring the human condition. We plan to devote the series to commenting on the current condition of life on Earth in the 21st century.”
Technorati Tags:
Star Trek
Spiffy Corners
“Anti-aliased rounded corners using pure CSS. No Images. No Javascript. No fluff.”… That’s what the Spiffy Corners site says… and they give you the code to back it up. Nice!
Technorati Tags:
CSS
Backup your email with BackityMac
So, as long as we’re on the subject of losing your email… You may want to check out BackityMac. It allows one-click backups of your Mail.app and Entourage emails… along with iCal Calendars, Address Book entries, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
I just tried it out and it works great. It creates a standard disk image (.dmg) of the backups, so it’s not some funky proprietary format, that you can’t access later on without the software that originally created it. You can just mount the image and drag the stuff out. Although BackityMac does offer a Restore function to save you the trouble.
BackityMac is donationware, so technically it’s free to use, but if you like it, you should consider making a donation. It’s the right thing to do.
I found BackityMac through Hawk Wings. He also has this article about mail backups that may come in handy.
Beware! Google may delete your Gmail account
Do you use Gmail as your primary email account? If so, you may want to check out this article over at Hawk Wings. It tells the story of Bob, a Gmail user who unexpectedly had his Gmail account deleted… by Google… without warning. He lost everything.
Also, you may want to be aware of this, from Google’s terms of service policy:
“We may modify or terminate our services from time to time, for any reason, and without notice, including the right to terminate with or without notice, without liability to you, any other user or any third party. We reserve the right to modify these Terms of Service from time to time without notice…
…Google disclaims any and all responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, reliability, or operability or availability of information or material displayed in the GOOGLE SERVICES results. Google disclaims any responsibility for the deletion, failure to store, misdelivery, or untimely delivery of any information or material.”
PacMan: The aftermath of superstardom
Oh how the mighty have fallen. PacMan achieved phenomenal success in the early 80’s, but after years of consuming excessive amounts of little white pills, he is reduced to a wife-beating junkie. Get help PacMan, if not for yourself, than think of the children.
Link: Videogame Theater
Found via Rocketboom
JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank
Have you ever wanted your own personal Tank? Than the Badonkadonk
Found via Rocketboom
“The JL421 Badonkadonk is a completely unique, extremely rare land vehicle and battle tank. Designed with versatility in mind, the Donk can transport cargo or a crew of five internally or on the roof, and can be piloted from within the armored shell or from an exposed standing position through the hatch, thanks to special one-way steel mesh armor windows and a control stick that pivots up and down to allow piloting from the standing or seated positions. The interior is fully carpeted and cozy, with accent lighting and room for up to five people. A 400 watt premium sound system with PA is mounted to project sound both into the cabin and outward from behind the windows. The exterior is a steel shell with a rust patina, and features head and tail lights, turn signal lights, trim lighting, underbody lighting, fixed slats protecting the windows, and a unique industrial-strength rubberized flexible skirt that shields and protects the wheels to within an inch of the ground, while still allowing for enough flex to give clearance over bumpy and uneven terrain. Master power, ignition, all lighting, and stereo features are controlled from a single switchboard to the left of the driver, again accessible from either the seated or standing position. Standard drive is an air-cooled, 6hp Tecumseh gasoline (unleaded only) engine, with centrifugal clutch, giving the Donk a top speed of 40 mph. This vehicle is not licensed for use on public roads, and is intended as a recreational vehicle only. Badonkadonks are produced on an order-by-order basis, with each one having it’s own unique set of features. With your order is included unlimited consultations with the designer and manufacturer concerning all relevant options (a representative from NAO will contact you shortly after your order). Price does not include shipping and handling.”
iPhoto won’t span discs
I wrote a tutorial on how to effectively keep your music backed up using iTunes. Since then, many people have asked me if the same procedure will work in iPhoto to backup your photos. Unfortunately… the answer is no. As of version 6, iPhoto still isn’t capable of automatically spanning discs… which is a crucial part of the procedure. I’m not sure why Apple chose to put that functionality into iTunes, but leave it out of iPhoto. Hopefully, they’ll put it in at some point.
Macworld’s ‘Tweaking’ utilities roundup
If your Mac has some obscure problem that you’ve never been able to fix, or you just like to tweak your system for best performance or to meet your specific needs… Macworld has you covered. They’ve put together a nice list or utilities for tweaking and maintaining your system.