Clothing as Solar Cells? Yep …
A friend of mine here at Novell, Jesse Pretorius, sent me this link that is an article about some research where fibers are being made which could be woven into fabric … allowing the fabric to generate power! This could be used for clothing, sails on boats, or almost anything cloth. This is a great breakthrough for the wearable computer fashion industry!
Great Interview with Dave Winer … and great philosophy …
I am thoroughly impressed by this interview, and the philosophy presented within. Dave always seems to have a great grasp of the possibility that conversations and communication are the root of all creation. He also understands the differences between centralized systems, and the distributed nature of the net. He has some good, IMHO, observations of the recent Microsoft announcements, and many of the new and developing standards. A good read!
Cool little administration and management tool …
This is a very cool architecture for a management and administration tool. It is a script based agent that can be easily configured to monitor a variety of sources, generate ‘alarms’, which can trigger a variety of scripted actions. Simple, yet elegant …
PIKT 1.13.0pre8 (Default). An innovative new systems administration paradigm. [freshmeat.net]
Very cool little Flash Design site …
I found this cool Flash site, ScreamDesign, through a Utah Business magazine. They have created a very cool browser based service called FlashBlaster to create and edit Flash animations and files. It’s a very cool idea, and I have created my first Flash animation for my web site!
All of the design and editing is done through the web, and you then download the finished product. I used one of the three ‘free’ templates, but they have a large number of additional templates. You can edit, experiment, and create all you want for free … and only have to pay when you go to download the finished product. I think it’s a very cool concept … creating a new market for artists to submit templates, and a simple interface for web designers to get Flash creations …
Fashion for Wearable Computers …
I have been putting together my own wearable computer over the last couple of years, and it’s getting real close now. One of the items that I have been looking at is the clothing that will contain a wearable PC. This is really going to become fashion, as demonstrated by Charmed and Levis … they get it! Even Nokia and the other cell phone vendors understand how electronics are becoming fashion as described in this article.
There are a couple of ways that this can be done, such as modifying existing clothing, or using a vest under a jacket. I have been looking at a couple of different sources for vests, including camera vests and fly-fishing vests. At our recent Novell Brainshare conference, Erin Quill and I did a presentation [Session IO148] on our work with Wearable Computers and using Novell’s ZENworks to manage them. We called the presentation Automated Management and Configuration of a Wearable Computer Workforce … it was a blast! One of the people that was attending our session was Mike Avery, Reviews Editor for Network World. He was wearing a really cool camera vest made by Domke, and he bought it here. I’m thinking that I am going to have to go buy one of these … it really seemed to have all of the pockets that I am after, and it’s a mesh vest for summer usage … cool stuff!
A PC in my car? Yep … I’m working on it now …
I like this article, and it reinforces what I already believe … PCs in the car! As a part of my research into Wearable Computers I have been playing with a permanent PC installed in my car. I’m using a very small Intel chipset-based PC, and just recently started to buy some LCD Monitors that I can run off of 12vdc. I have been running Microsoft’s Streets and Trips, and using a serial-port GPS unit. I’m also going to put a bunch of my MP3s on it, and of course my 802.11b interface. When I pull in the garage, my car will be on my home wireless network, and so the Internet also … I can upload/download MP3s, maps, etc. Now I can’t wait until gas stations start to provide free 802.11b wireless Internet access while filling up …
In-Car Comm Systems to Explode. Attractive to wireless operators, carmakers [allNetDevices Wireless News]
802.11b (WiFi) over HomeRF? Of course …
I have long been an advocate of 802.11 and 802.11b … they are the handsdown obvious, IMHO, choice in wireless networking. I’ve been using them for years, and think that HomeRF is a very dead solution … it was only a matter of time. Here is more perspective on this subject …
Intersil’s director of strategic marketing pumps WiFi: hardly unbiased opinion, but he succinctly states the reasons for 802.11b’s current rapid penetration. The opposing view from the HomeRF group is also food for thought. But, even better: watch the two duke it out in public forums on the Network World Fusion site. The HomeRF rep: “Your article was riddled with false and misleading statements.” The Intersil director: “Let me point out that your article is typical of HomeRF; long on promises and assertions, but short on facts.”
Home networking continues to grow …
So this is really cool to see … more and more home networks emerging on the scene … and I still believe that the wireless (802.11b) solutions are going to decline in price and dominate. It reminds me that this last weekend, when I stayed with my parents at their house in California, I turned on my laptop with my 802.11b adapter inserted … and got a carrier! It appears that one of their neighbors has an access point up and running with no security or encryption key settings … so I got bandwidth for free all weekend on my two laptops! Wild … wireless everywhere …
Home networking market nearly $300 million in revenue in 2000: increases due to a large upswing in home wireless sales primarily by Lucent (now Agere)’s Orinoco division and Proxim.
Network/Protocol Analyzer for free?
This is very cool … a low-level network analysis tool for free! I have been using Novell’s LANalyzer for years, but it was shelved a couple of years back, and the support of it went away. I don’t believe that I can get a Win2K version of it … let alone a Linux version. Now, I can get something here that will most likely satisfy any of my network troubleshooting and protocol debugging needs …
Ethereal 0.8.17 (Default). GUI network protocol analyzer [freshmeat.net]
Wow … News on my NoizCast streaming MP3 station …
I was just sitting here and saw the new Wired News Radio post come out, and I started to think about how I can listen to it. I have downloaded the MP3 to my laptop and listened to it in the car a few times (using a cassette tape adapter), but it’s not exactly what I wanted. What I just thought of is that I’ll insert the downloaded file into my NoizCast playlist as I get it going again this weekend. That way the latest Wired News Radio will automatically be rotated into my playlist and I’ll hear it when I listen to my music stream … and anyone listening to my stream will also hear the news as it’s updated … kinda’ cool …
From Wavy Gravy to the Navy. Psychedelic music programmer-turned-sailor Andy O’Meara is feeling yellow on a submarine. Also: A judge clears the way for music publishers to sue Napster…. Kozmo takes more than an hour to shut its doors and lay off 1,100 workers…. and more, as we compress the day’s Wired News. (2:23 min) [Wired News]