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Seth

An Internet connected GPS

My friend Stephen calls it my idolPod.

(For the record, I have an iPod Touch, not an iPhone.)

Steve

I have created a spreadsheet for use in Microsoft Excel that I am calling the Ultimate Budget Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is a powerful tool for helping you to manage your personal budget.

I have written this to be my first stab at an online business. It will not be free software. For $25.00 a user will get a copy of the spreadsheet and access to my upcoming website that includes a document called A Step-By-Step Guide to living on a budget AND video tutorials on how to use the budgeting spreadsheet.

But this is the good news for you, our loyal readers, I am GIVING away the first 50 copies of the software to first responders to this blog post. All I ask in return is that you link to my upcoming website from your website (if you have one — that could be a blog or a business site ) AND/OR that you write a brief testimonial about the spreadsheet once you have given it a go.

To help you determine if you would be interested in the software I have put together this 7+ minute video on how to use it. Check it out:

If you would like to be included please leave a comment on this post.

Regards

Seth

For those of you that don’t know me personally…I write software applications for a living. An application I have written was briefly mentioned in a local newscast here in the upstate of SC. The article doesn’t quite get it right in terms of what the application does but it still is sorta cool to see some of your work get a fly-by mention.

Susan, interviewed for the newscast, particularly is a good friend of mine as well as a customer.

To watch the newscast click the URL mentioned below:

http://www.foxcarolina.com/video/15967368/index.html

To learn more about Loaves and Fishes Greenville click the URL below:

http://www.loavesandfishesgreenville.com/

Seth

Am I the only one that thinks AT&T’s marketing campaign is really, really stupid? “Use AT&T to call Japaradelphia or Chilondoscow.” It is not clever, memorable or funny. It’s just stupid. The Ad firm should be fired. The VP of Marketing that approved the campaign should be fired. And they should turn all their Marketing over to Apple and leverage the iPhone to grow their business. Certainly better than the current silliness.

Steve

In a (not-so) secret laboratory in his basement, Thiago Olson has created a small nuclear fusion reactor,. Nuclear Fusion is the kind of energy technology that powers the sun and many people have high hopes that if fusion energy can be harnessed on a large scale that it could provide abundant and clean energy for the world and end our dependence on fossil fuels.

Also in the news today: France has won a bid to build the first large-scale experimental fusion reactor in the world. It is expected to cost more than $15 billion.

Photo Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.

PC World has collected a bunch of old vidoes off of YouTube and compiled them together into a history of PCs, as seen through commercials. It is really fascinating and you at least have to check out the 1984 Apple commercial. I remember seeing that the first time the ad ran during the superbowl.

CHECK IT OUT

Scott

I have posted before about the One Laptop Per Child Program (formerly known as the $100 Laptop).

Below is a video of the first working prototype of the OLPC laptop.
The initial cost will be around $130 but as economies of scale go into play the hope to make the $100 goal within a few years.

I think with the red horns it looks like “da debbil”.

HT to Engadget

Scott

If you are both a gadget and technology geek as well as a history buff (as I am), you might be keenly interested in THIS item currently for sale at eBay.

It is a (supposedly) authentic German WWII enigma machine, which was used to create ciphers and unbreakables codes for radio transmissions during the war. One of the best kept secrets of the war (so well kept that the information only became public within the last 10 or 20 years) was that with the help of the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing, the Brits at Bletchley Park were actually able to crack some of the enigma codes.

If you have an interest in ciphers and codebreaking, I would highly recommend two books I have read. The first is a novel, Crytonomicon, by Neil Stephenson and the second is a wonderful histor of ciphers, codes and codebreaking by Simon Singh called The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography.

Both books give a lot of information about Bletchley Park, Alan Turing and the Enigma machines.

Scott

I have an interest in the deployment of technology in the developing world, especially Africa. I posted about it months ago when I wrote about the Hundred Dollar Laptop program (now called the One Laptop Per Child Program or OLPC). One of the unique features of the OLPC laptops is that they auto-magically create a wireless grid network with all the OLPC laptops in the vicinity when you boot them up. Imagine a bunch of kids cranking up (literally) their laptops together under the Jacaranda tree and collaborating on their schoolwork (and passing eNotes and eSpitballs).

I remember thinking when I first read about that feature that its too bad so many of these kids would not have access to the Internet. That would open up a whole new world of ideas and information to them that has always been largely inaccessible to children in the developing world.

Enter inveneo -

They provide Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to villages and locations without a power grid using alternatives such as bicycle power and solar power. Inveneo’s Vision is “Connecting Villages Around the World” . The potential advantages to villagers in remote locations and developing nations are myriad (this is copied from the inveneo website):

• The difference between life and death (telehealth services)
• The ability for villagers to earn more for their crops (economic development)
• A better future for rural children (education)
• Faster and better help in crises (humanitarian and emergency assistance)
• Generating income by providing communications services (entrepreneurial applications)
• The ability to communicate with neighbors and the world

Inveneo systems have been deployed twice (temporarily in the American southeast after Katrina hit and currently in Uganda). You can see the status and location of their systems HERE.

Maybe those OLPC laptops will be connecting to the internet after all.

Scott

Engadget is having a Happy Birthday contest since they are 2 years old. Make them a gadget-themed cake and if yours is judged the best you winner a killer PC.

So here are the pics of Our STYLISH BLACK IPOD CAKE, COMPLETE WITH METALLIC SIDES.

Heres the real thing ours was modeled after.

The Final result

My 13 and 11 year old mixing and pouring.

A Bunch morePICS

The Middle School Geeks I volunteer to teach web development to EATING THE IPOD

I kid you not. Check it out. Funny take on it at Engadget. Heres the story at Catholic News Service.

This may be my first post tagged with both Christianity and Christian Living and Gadgets and Geek Stuff.

Scott

Y’all may have noticed that I have been posting a lot of geek and technology posts this year and I just wanted to tell you what sites I have been reading every day and getting all that good information.

So here they are:

www.engadget.com
www.woot.com
www.techcrunch.com
www.slashdot.org
evangelicaloutpost.com (All the Yak Shaving Razor posts)

Scott

at IE7.com

Scott