Archive for March, 2006

One Laptop per child?

March 17, 2006 at 6:13 pm · Filed under technology

I can’t quite believe what Bill Gates has said about the OLPC project (briefly, this is a research project founded by MIT faculty members which aims to develop the technology required to create laptops costing USD100 each for distribution to children in developing countries). More analysis can be read here but here are two juicy excerpts:

  • “Hardware is a small part of the cost” – Sure, if you’re a rich American! Of course, when he speaks about software, Mr.Gates is probably referring to all the over-priced proprietary software sold by companis such as, oh, Microsoft springs to mind :-) A Linux distribution costs $0 and includes (apart from the OS) virtually all the application software that a typical computer user would ever need..
  • “geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you’re trying to type” – I’m sure the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation will be happy to donate the funds required to (1) Equip all the 100million+ laptops with batteries and power supplies (2) Upgrade and extend power supply to all those rural locations in Nigeria, amongst other target countries

Oh and, did I mention that Google is one of the supporters of the project? :-)

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PyBlog

March 16, 2006 at 11:10 am · Filed under Just For Fun, Tools

I have created a simple tool to simplify posting to blogs. You first need to save your login details (these are encrypted using AES), after which text files may be dragged onto the application to create instant blog postings (for example, this post was created using PyBlog) (yup, that’s the name of the application). I used Python, which provides a nifty little XMLRPC library, which makes interfacing with the Blogger API (supported by WordPress as well) a snap. The downside? I still need to log in later to update the title/tags. Will probably use support one of the most modern APIs at some later date but this works already. Give it a try :-)

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The Read-Write Web

March 3, 2006 at 1:07 pm · Filed under technology

Originally published as a PDF file, Rod Boothby in this white paper discusses the new wave of web-centric interactive applications (a.k.a. the “read-write web”). Throughout the paper he frequently refers to the “MBA class of 2006″ as a kind of shorthand for the new generation of super-web-literate tech workers who come fully conversant in the various web office technologies. Examples are shared calendars (i’d like to use this opportunity to shamelessly pitch for 30boxes :-) ), web e-mail, blogs and wikis. It is argued that web office applications have the potential to make corporate workers more productive, reduce costs and (more importantly) stave off obsolescence ;-)

Well.. he also says a bunch of other stuff.. go read!

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Cute

March 1, 2006 at 10:01 pm · Filed under Just For Fun, Tips

very.. ;-)

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P.C. phone home

March 1, 2006 at 5:24 pm · Filed under Tips, technology

This looks like it will be SUPER fun to set up ;-)
The idea: create a little script which will (figuratively) “phone home” when the computer is stolen. This can be installed into a hidden location on the notebook and instructed to run everytime the machine starts up (a (discreetly named) entry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run or something should do the trick).

As for the script, there’s only about a million ways of writing it but here’s a “hello thief” sample in python:


import urllib,re,tkMessageBox
reg=re.compile("stolen_stolen")
fil=urllib.urlopen("http://www.yourweb.page/stolen")
if (reg.search(file.read()):
tkMessageBox.showwarning("This Machine has been stolen. Please alert the authorities");

Which basically checks for the file “http://www.yourweb.page/stolen” everytime the machine starts up. If present and containing the trigger phrase “stolen_stolen”, the script pops up a message warning the user (or delete key files, e-mail the IP to you, etc etc)

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Dijjer

March 1, 2006 at 6:30 am · Filed under technology

Read this post about a new service called Dijjer. It’s a Bittorrent-like distributed downloading service which allows files to be distributed to multiple clients without sucking away all your bandwidth.

The main difference to me seems to be the ease-of-use factor -> to share a file using dijjer, simply add a “http://www.dijjer.org/get/” to the front of the actual file URL. So, to share “http://www.karipuf-file.com/karipuf-file.zip” (this is a fictitious URL, please don’t try to get!) the dijjer-enabled” link is: “http://www.dijjer.org/get/http://www.karipuf-file.com/karipuf-file.zip”. There are apparently other benefits, for e.g.Chris Holland in the above link also mentions that Dijjer also allows uploads from behind a NAT though this has not been a problem with me in the past (have been bittorrenting from behind a NAT and was apparently still able to upload..).

While you’re in the mood, check out the Million Book Project (a bit unrelated but what the hey :-) )

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