Hamachi is a really cool little application that allows you to build a secure encrypted vpn accross the internet. What makes Hamachi special is that you don’t need fixed IP’s or anything like that, this means you can create a network between machines even if you don’t know there current ip’s or if they’re behind a router/firewall/nat.
Open Source Desktop Publishing Software
Having once run my own small business I know all about doing things yourself to save money. One of the things that we did alot of was brochures, manuals and other printed documents. When you’re a small company you can’t always afford all the fancy expensive software so alot of our documents were generated in OpenOffice.org Writer or Microsoft Word now theres nothing wrong with either of these but they not exactly the “best” in desktop publishing applications.
That was all 2 years ago and alot has changed since then. I no longer have my own business so I don’t need to do any desktop publishing and the opensource world has now caught up and there are alot of awesome applications available for free. This doesn’t mean that I’ve given up on making and designing things I still am constantly tinkering with things although now it’s more a “just for fun” thing.
Below is a list and short description of some opensource applications that I’ve played with. This isn’t everything available and these are not necessarily the only applications available but these are the ones I know about.
viZoo – Free Format – holographic projection.
I spotted this site along time ago but I keep getting asked about it. viZoo is a advertising company that according to their site “Are an advertising film company, developing and producing new media with “edge”. Something that has never been seen before. For window shopping, events and outdoor.”
So what makes them so interesting then? Well they’ve come up with something called Free Format that is sort of a cheap version of a holographic projection system. What they do is project using standard digital projectors onto an invisible screen the effect is that it looks like the items they are showing are really there in the showroom. Of course because they using Digital Projectors they can make the displays interactive too. If you watch the video clips on there site (under the Show Reel section) you’ll see that most of these displays attract a large crowd, in one the police step in to get the people to move on.
If you check out the site you’ll see they got a few demo clips on the system in action, best ones is the girl who walks around a clothing store at night and keeps changing into clothing (this one isn’t so much “technically” impressive but who cares… it’s a sexy girl removing her clothes…) the others are ones of various cars and other things.
I do wonder how easy it would be to homebrew a similar setup, projectors aren’t that expensive anymore… the problem is find something that allows you to create a screen that from a few meters away you can’t see.
Flight Delayed
Right now I’m sitting in the departures lounge of George Airport… my plane has been delayed due to bad weather and so as I accidently packed my book into my luggage all I’ve got with me is my laptop and cell phone so I’m using that to kill some time.
George Airport doesn’t have wifi not even extremely overpriced wifi so I’m using my cell, a cable because my bluetooth dongle doesn’t want to work and my laptop to get online and chat to friends.
Why I’m only leaving on Wednesday when I was suppose to leave on Sunday is complicated and I’ll explain it all some other time… what I will tell you is that it involves pain, money and doctors.
Below are a few pictures taken with my cell that show why my plane has been delayed… and no it has nothing todo with the pink cloud thats my cell phone… or the painkillers.
Updated (A little while after typing and posting the above.): ?
So I took the pictures below while I was boarding the plane and for obvious reasons I couldn’t post them straight away. As you can see or perhaps thats can’t see… the heavy mist/fog is the cause of all the delays.
Blogging from the gates of…
this post is coming to you from gate 15 at capetown airport. this is all thanks to the wonders of opera, internet and my cellphone. no computers and no qwerty keyboard 🙁 i am on my way to george for a bit of a break and to attempt to get my learners license.
Cool Programs for Cell Phones
I don’t like cellphones, there screens are too small they don’t have full qwerty keyboards and normally the only people who call my phone (during the day anyway) are people I really don’t actually want to talk to.
That all said there are a few cool programs that you can download for your cellphone (if it supports J2ME) that make it a little bit more useful.
Is it wrong of me to say or even think this?
I want to snuggle up to my coffee cup…
Ok so it does sound like a bit of a weird thing to say but let me explain.
The wind is howling outside according to the SA Weather Service it’s a 13km/h North West wind and the temperature is 13deg C. So whats the problem? I’m sitting in our offices which are not air conditioned or very well thermally insulated with a freezing cold wind blowing through (from under a door or something).. and I’m *cold*, *very* cold. I feel like I’m the mitchelin man with all my layers of clothes on and I really hate trying to type when my arms won’t bend because I have so many bits of clothing on.
New Toy
Last weekend Tafelberg Furnishers were having a sale on a Samsung 27″ LCD TV (Model: LA27T51)
So I decided to finally buy a TV as it was a very good price.
Continue reading
Heavy Rain and floods in the Garden Route
As I’m sure any of you who live in or come from the Garden Route area know, they recently had some very heavy rains and a little bit of flooding. I thought I would collect together all the pictures I could find and post them here.
Link Dump – 30/07/2006
Here are a few links I’ve run across over the last few days that I found interesting or useful. I’m putting them up here so that they don’t get lost.