Saturday, January 31, 2009

DWR - Easy Ajax for JAVA | Direct Web Remoting

DWR - Easy Ajax for JAVA | Direct Web Remoting

Direct Web Remoting

DWR is a Java library that enables Java on the server and JavaScript in a browser to interact and call each other as simply as possible.

DWR is Easy Ajax for Java

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Say hello to the Network Graph Visualizer - GitHub

Say hello to the Network Graph Visualizer - GitHub

Say hello to the Network Graph Visualizer

mojombo Apr 10

Our goal here at GitHub is to break down the barriers that normally impede collaboration. One of the biggest challenges that we face as developers is keeping track of what other contributors have done. I’ve spent the last month working on GitHub’s answer to that problem and so we’re very pleased to announce the interactive GitHub Network Graph Visualizer!



Thursday, January 22, 2009

2Shopper:: Uncommon Gadget | Green Laser Pointer | Geek Toy


Aluminum Mobile Computing Workstation Cart / Computer Stand

Aluminum Mobile Computing Workstation Cart
Aluminum Mobile Computing Workstation Cart
Aluminum Mobile Computing Workstation Cart



  • Individual components in kit (all available separately)---
  • 111 0345: 67-inch quad-groove pole $90
  • 111 0383: 5-point wheel base $99
  • 111 0360: LCD mount with 75/100mm VESA adapter
  • 111 0382: Foldable keyboard/mouse arm
  • 111 0384: CPU holder
  • 111 0386: Stabilizer disks
  • 111 0343: Paper tray
  • 111 0342: Printer bracket
  • 111 0385: Handle


  • Radially Expanding Table

    Radially Expanding Table

    Wednesday, January 21, 2009

    Blabber, Etcetera: Welcome to 101

    Blabber, Etcetera: Welcome to 101

    'Tri Sword' is a three legged table made of bamboo-sword (2007)

    Tuesday, January 20, 2009

    MOS48 Mobile Hexagon/Octagon Table

    MOS48 Mobile Hexagon/Octagon Table
    MOS48 Mobile Hexagon/Octagon Table

    round folding table

    Make - GridBeam: How to get started?

    Make - GridBeam: How to get started?

    We found that the bolts that one wants to use are called "Joint Connector Bolts" (seen here: href="http://www.stafast.com/products/screws.html ) -- sometimes shortened as "Connector Bolts" (but that can be somewhat ambiguous if you're asking the person at Lowes for help finding them). if you can find (and afford) the "BA" variety, I imagine that's better, but locally we were only able to find the "BB" type. Here is one place ( http://www.baltimorehardware.com/hardware.cfm/Category/Joint-Bolt-Connectors.html ) that stocks them in many forms, but all BB type. As to the length, you have to be exact in the length on these, or else the flat nuts (that look like the heads) won't fit on the ends of the bolts. If you're going to be joining 2x2's (actual dimensions 1.5"x1.5"), we found that the perfect length of bolt is 70mm.

    Monday, January 19, 2009

    Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) nsf09529

    Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) nsf09529

    Program Solicitation
    NSF 09-529

    Proposal Deadline May 22, 2009

    For Type 1 proposals from submitting organizations located in states or territories beginning with N through W.

    Hackerspaces - HackerspaceWiki

    Hackerspaces

    Hackerspaces are community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their projects.

    This website is for everyone who started or wants to start their own hackerspace.

    Resources
    • Hackerspaces Blog:The Hackerspaces blog showcasing interesting projects and events around the world at hackerspaces.
    • List of Hacker Spaces: Find a or start a Hackerspace near you!
    • Communicate: Get in touch with Hackerspaces from all over the world!
    • Documentation: Infos on running a space: Legal Structure, Location Scouting, Decision Making, ...
    • Hackerspace Software: Billing, Membership Management, Calendaring, ...
    • Events: Upcoming Hackerspace Events

    Thursday, January 15, 2009

    Access Control by Testing Shared Knowledge



    K-Sketch: The Kinetic Sketch Pad

    K-Sketch: The Kinetic Sketch Pad

    Project Information

    K-Sketch will allow ordinary computer users to create informal animations from sketches. Current tools for creating animation are extremely complex. This makes it difficult for designers to prototype animations and nearly impossible for novices to create them at all. Simple animation systems exist but severely restrict the types of motion that can be represented. To guide the design K-Sketch, we have conducted field studies into the needs of professional and novice animators. These studies showed the wide variety of motions that users desire in informal animations and indicate how to prioritize these types of motion. Our design allows the most important types of motion to be defined with pen gestures, and gives visual feedback for coordination of events.

    Demonstration Video (CHI 2008)

    QuickTime, 20MB) (Windows Media, 34MB)

    Tuesday, January 13, 2009

    QA: The Telepresence Robot

    Anybots · About the Robots

    QA: The Telepresence Robot


    Be two places at once with QA, the new telepresence robot from Anybots. Enjoy complete freedom to move fluidly and interact with others in a remote location from the ease of your home or office.

    Monday, January 12, 2009

    myGreenStimulusPlan


    Create green jobs and increase energy independence by training people to insulate their own homes, and their neighbors' homes.  Let the National Guard lead.



    Jon Schull, Associate Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology,  jon.schull@rit.edu






    Increasing energy efficiency is the shortest path to reducing energy costs, energy dependence, increasing national security, and reducing climate change.







    Buildings consume 40% of the US energy budget.







    Increasing energy efficiency means lower energy bills for bill-payers, but home-owners must invest now to save energy and lower costs later.  This is often psychologically difficult and, these days, economically untenable.







    Insulating homes is not rocket science.  With a relatively small amount of training, do-it-yourselfers can learn how to evaluate energy-saving opportunities and select and install appropriate materials.  Then they can save money by insulating their own homes, and make money by insulating other people's homes and buildings.







    So the US government and the National Guard should train people to insulate homes, subsidize material costs, and  help create green jobs, reduce energy independence, and combat global warming.





    The National Guard is uniquely positioned to lead this initiative:





    • It is already spearheading sustainability efforts domestically.





    • It is already in the business of training Guardsmen and women to support national security on the homefront.





    • The Guard's trainees could immediately apply Guard-delivered training to their own homes.





    • The Guard's trainees could go on to train others, thus creating a green-collar job creation program.





    • Optionally, the Guard could further reduce costs and facilitate conversions





      • by aggregating purchases





      • negotiating reduced materials costs





      • making capital investments in equipment (trucks, insulation blowers, etc.)








    And who better to receive job retraining, green jobs that can't be sent abroad, tax credits, and home improvement loans than National Guardsmen and women who lost  jobs and home improvement opportunities while serving the nation in Iraq and Afghanistan?




     



    High energy prices demonstrably stimulate increases in energy efficiency (which is good) but they also slow down energy-addicted economies, and burden consumers with higher costs. The economic and ecological benefits of high energy costs can be maximized, and the drawbacks minimized by





    • enforcing a floor on energy costs




    • using revenues generated by that floor to kick-start a sustainable economy.




     


    Thus, the National Guard is uniquely positioned to kickstart a sustainable economy, and a more stable and secure America.



     



    "Investing in a home on your street could be more profitable than investing on Wall Street." --  http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/vh.shtml






     


    "Investing
    in home energy retrofits might yield more national security and
    stability benefits per dollar than anything else the National Guard
    might undertake" –Jon Schull, Associate Professor, Rochester Institute
    of Technology
    Jon.Schull@RIT.edu



     
     

    Further Reading from the News:   http://tinyurl.com/73mt74






    Jonathan Schull is an entrepreneur, inventor, and tenured Associate Professor of Information Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and an affiliate of RIT's new Golisano Institute of Sustainability.  Now in his third career, Schull is the author of twelve patents, specializes in action-oriented technology and innovation, and is currently co-chair of the task force organizing RIT's new Center for Student Innovation.



    Schull obtained a B.S. in psychology from Reed College in 1975 and a Ph.D. in biological psychology from University of Pennsylvania in 1980; he was a professor of Biological Psychology at Haverford College from 1980 until 1992.  In 1992 Schull gave up tenure to start one
    of the first digital rights management companies.  SoftLock.com eventually became a 75-person publicly traded company called DigitalGoods.com (NASDAQ:DIGS). After the collapse of the internet bubble in 2001, Schull joined RIT, where he teaches courses on Interaction Design and Innovation and Invention, and has organized and executed a number of technology-enabled social action projects.  These include QuakeHelp.net, a social action website that organized the collection and transport of winter survival gear to earthquake victims in Pakistan; RochesterDigitalRipple.com, helping 20 inner city young people assemble and install a community wireless network in their troubled neightborhood; and helping General Motors assess opportunities for making the OnStar system more accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. 


    Schull's Curricum Vitae can be found at http://it.rit.edu/~jis



     



     


     



    Saturday, January 10, 2009

    Visiting Smidgens

    Maybe I don't get out enough, but a visit with Bob Kremens to Smidgens (Gary Villa, the LaserGuy) was one of the high points of my break!




    View Larger Map

    By way of thanks, I sent him a few links to current trends (with notes on opportunities, you might want to explore...perhaps with some of our more entrepreneurial innovation students.)


    • A New Zealand company that has brilliantly "consumerized" your business. I send them line drawings, they send me laser-cut objects. ( http://www.ponoko.com/ But they're shipping from New Zealand . I imagine they could use a North American fab-site.)
    • Fabbing as popular (geek) culture. (or, why you are changing the world)
    • http://www.fabbaloo.com/ a blog that tracks this stuff
    • Google Sketchup. An extraordinary, and extraordinarily free, 3D modelling program.
      http://sketchup.google.com/index.html
      Soon, someone will tie this right in to a laser cutting rig...
      http://jonschull.blogspot.com/2008/12/shopbot-buddy-cnc-routers-and-zomadicam.html
    • A few pictures from our visit http://picasaweb.google.com/jschull/Smidgeons#

    Monday, January 05, 2009

     
    Posted by Picasa

    Thursday, January 01, 2009

    Python Twitter Tools (command-line client and IRC bot)

    Python Twitter Tools (command-line client and IRC bot)

    Why should I use this API over the other two Python Twitter APIs in PyPi?

    • It's minimalist. Small. Simple. Don't you like simple?
    • Its methods are directly bound to the Twitter API's URLs. For instance twitter.statuses.friends_timeline() will always hit the URL http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.json. Always. When Twitter decides to change them you won't have to update your version of the API (though you may have to update your code. Sorry, can't help that).
    • The command line tool is pretty swell, I think.
    • The Twitter IRC bot has no parallel (that I know of).


    Chart Types - Google Chart API - Google Code

    Hey! Google supports QR codes!

    Chart Types - Google Chart API - Google Code

    QR codes

    QR Codes are a popular type of two-dimensional barcode, which are also known as hardlinks or physical world hyperlinks. QR Codes store text, which can be a URL, contact information, telephone number, even whole verses of poems!

    QR codes can be read by any device that has the appropriate software installed. Such devices range from dedicated QR code readers to mobile phones.

    Specify a QR code with

    cht=qr
    chl=
    choe=

    Where:

    • is the text for the QR code. The text must be url-encoded in UTF8. Note that the space between hello and world is written as %20 in the following example.
    • specifies how the output is encoded. If this parameter is omitted, the default encoding of UTF-8 is used. Available encodings are Shift_JIS, UTF-8, or ISO-8859-1.

    For example:
    QR code
    cht=qr
    chl=hello%20world
    choe=UTF-8

    ...

    QR code reader software is available from many sources. Google offers a QR Code reader library, Zebra Crossing (ZXing), for free.

    See http://code.google.com/p/zxing/ for details.