New Sysinternals utility released today, Disk2vhd v1.0 – Yes, creating a VHD from a physical hard drive, even an online one, is now a couple clicks away… - http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com/2009...
Seriously people...gaming and laptop don't even spend time in the same zipcode...they are arch enemies. Never was this more apparent than at the Intel truck at PAX 2008. They had "gaming" laptops and desktops from Alienware side by side running Crysis and it wasn't even funny the difference. So to recap, gaming and laptop hate each other.
I finished Portal and most of Half Life 2 on a Toshiba laptop which is now so very close to dead. Can't say I'm ever going to get another "gaming-capable" laptop ever again. Besides being overpriced, they are good for exactly the year you buy it, then are completely outdated.
- Adrian
Gaming on the desktop is much more enjoyable for sure, but it's pretty nice to be able to play something like WoW on a netbook while on the go.
- Rodfather
How does WoW run on the little guy? Anika only plays like puzzle type games... won't let me install any real games. :D
- Adrian
I'm with Rod. laptops will never replace desktops for games but they can be a pretty convenient backup.
- Joe Pierce
Depends on the game. Skyrates at 10fps on the netbook is kinda amusing.
- Morton Fox
WoW runs surprisingly well on a netbook. It slows down when there's a lot of content around, but it's still doable.
- Rodfather
It's also not going to make a difference if all you play are small casual games. Games like Plants vs Zombies, Peggle, Puzzle Quest, Braid, etc. all work well on low spec'd machines. They are all great games too.
- Rodfather
This is very sweet - I found it last night trying to figure out what all the police action in the area was (they were down last night, so no dice). You can get updates on EMS/fire calls from their Twitter account: @WashCo_FireMed. We need more hyperlocal mashups like this! :-)
- Josh Bancroft
from iPhone
Hey Josh, a buddy and I run the @pdxalerts account on twitter. We post police and fire incidents in the Portland Metro Area. Check it out: http://www.twitter.com/pdxaler... Oh, and BTW the @WashCo_FireMed twitter account isn't official. It was created by screen scraping the Joint CAD Incident Tracking System data and outputting it using Twitterfeed.
- Joe Perrin
I run the @WashCo_FireMed Twitter feed. It's actually a custom php script that I run and host, not a screen scrape and Twitterfeed :) I'm looking for more online dispatch systems that I can set this up for.
- Gary
When I started using Tweetdeck for twitter I stopped using friendfeed, for the most part. I had been using Twhirl to interact with twitter, friendfeed, and identi.ca, but Tweetdeck replaced Twhirl for me.
- Richard Klein
Like like like. Been waiting for this. I have a couple of family WordPress.org blogs I maintain that I want to move to Posterous. For non-geeks, posting by attaching stuff to email is SO much easier than logging into a WP site and writing a post there.
- Josh Bancroft
Anyone know some good tumblr themes that work well with posterous? I tried a couple and they did not work completely.
- Bryan Lee
Pocket Universe will overlay constellations over a live view of the night sky; that sounds like "augmented reality" to me, and that application has been out for a while. I don't know why people keep claiming that the Yelp thing is the first.
- Glen Campbell, B.A.
I've got Poket Universe, and love it. But it's not a live video overlay, it's just a bitmap of the sky. Which makes a lot of sense when you're out using it in the dark.
- Steve Feinstein
I thought there was one of the planetarium apps that had a live video overlay—they were discussing it at #gnomedex
- Glen Campbell, B.A.
Download the new Yelp app (came out yesterday). So you shake your iPhone 3 times. That activates a feature called Monocle. A message should come up if you activated it. A blue box will come up saying "the Monocle has been activated." It will create a button in the top right corner. Now you should be able to look at the bars, restaurants, etc. Only works on iPhone 3GS.
- Robert Scoble
You point it at businesses, or down the city block. I'll try it right now.
- Robert Scoble
Yep! Works. Took a few tries to get it to activate. Some of the places it shows me have been closed for ages though, guess I need to update Yelp for the area.
- Otto
That sounds so cool. Would love to see a video demo of it Robert!
- Alex Calic
I wonder why it's an easter egg. That sounds great.
- Daniel Ha
I just did it. Very cool. I hear this feature was added for me. I really love it!
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Daniel: probably to get it through the iPhone store approval process faster.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Raises the question of whether they would have rejected it if they'd known about it. Or did Yelp tell the reviewers about it?
- Jan Dawson
Very, very cool! Just tried it out. There's not a lot on Yelp near by work (kind of an industrial area), but I did get it to find the nearest restaurant. So cool! :-)
- Josh Bancroft
Nice idea but in my case the locations seem to be about 180 degrees off - i.e. showing behind me instead of in front - but may be down to a fuzzy GPS location or something - will have to keep trying
- Jan Dawson
I wonder why it was "secret", ... undocumented API usage or just to create marketing buzz ?
- Kooleido
I hate that the iPhone 3G can handle all this new stuff, but Apple insists that you need the 3Gs. Qik on the jailbroken 3G has been awesome!
- Elijah Nicolas
@Elijah Nicolas The 3Gs is for the built in compass that is required for augmented reality to work.
- JP Holecka - Jaypiddy
lol if it was added for you Robert it would show the cutest girls in the area instead
- Sherry Reynolds
Didn't I hear that Apple had an embargo on AR apps til next month?
- Brian O'Connell
Very cool, thanks for the info. It appears you have to be logged into Yelp though the app before the monocle option will appear.
- Patrick Looney
1st sentence typo in your post Marshall ;o)
- Alex Calic
Couldn't get it to work by "shaking it" but I got it to work by moving my iPhone up and down 3 times in a vertical motion. Pretty damn cool.
- Doug Rice
Marshall, how do you get that camera view? I can't seem to get mine to work. I've shaken and shaken
- Stephen Pickering
Stephen, you should probably just keep shaking. In publish, with lots of people around. :) No, I don't know. I don't have a 3Gs so I don't have a compass so I don't have the Yelp AR.
- Marshall Kirkpatrick
Unreal... landscape and portrait works.
- Drew Lucas
Yeah this is very cool. Don't know if I want to be the guy standing in the middle of the street downtown using it, but I can see some very practical applications.
- Trevor Childs
I got it to work and man, is it sweet! So smart.
- Leslie Fishlock
Shake the darn thing 3 times :)- they say that break dancin was learnt , robbing hubcaps of a movin car in NYC.. so lets so what the new thing will be by the time th iphone has all the motion sickness activiated apps !!
- Peter Dawson
I already had 2.0.2, but I'm downloading 3.0 now. I'm not thinking it's going to work in my office, but we'll see.
- RobinDotNet
Ok, that's really cool. It even works sitting here in my office at home.
- RobinDotNet
Downloading now. I am absolutely fascinated by the idea of augmented reality!
- Victoria Harres Akers
This is pretty cool but the shake 3 times thing doesn't work too well
- Jason Wehmhoener
from iPhone
This is fantastic, just activated Monocle. For those having trouble, its best to move/raise and lower the iPhone 3 times vertically instead of just shaking it. I was shaking mine like a madman until I tried the vertical move.
- Bryan
very cool - I can't believe stuff actually shows up near my house on the bay - sweet :)
- Susan Beebe
Damn, guess I'll have to upgrade to the 3GS now.
- Damon Cortesi
I am using the app in Indianapolis to find a restauant. As I guessed the augmented reality is cool but not very useful. Other than to help figure out which direction to walk in.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Argh. I wish I had wifi here so I could download it. A trip to Starbucks might be in order.
- Ha3rvey (Free hugs!)
It's innovative and that's awesome, but I think this type of interface will be a passing gimmick until more advanced image processing is built into the mobile device. My thoughts on what does matter about it here - http://bit.ly/12wtcY My $0.02.
- Alex Hawkinson
shake your iPhone 6 times, that activates GoogleVoice
- HansVanRock
I just got this going on my friend's 3Gs. I don't even know what to say. That is freaking incredible! Makes me want a 3Gs *just* for that feature!
- Michael Lynton
Just tried this. Awesome! Too bad I'm in a po' dunk town with nothing to do. :)
- Bryan Lee
Amazing, how on earth did you find it! It's still 6:00 am, perhaps I'll Yelp for breakfast
- Nalin Perera
Wow, I'll have to say this is phenomenal. Wish I'd had this on my trip to D.C. a couple weeks ago. Yelp just made an incredibly useful app even more useful. I've seen a lot of developers working on this technology lately but it looks like they beat everyone to the punch.
- Mike Elliott
very cool....it took me a few times to get the blue box, but then it worked. thanks
- Pam Negoro
I just got the yelp AR to work, and I am staying tonight in a hotel, so I went to my window, and held the camera to the window and it was able to show me reviews of the businesses right across the street from me! I am in love with yelp all over again!
- Colide81 (James)
Can't get it to work! Shook long and hard!
- Islandwoo
from iPhone
This youtube video should help you learn how to get it Islandwoo, I think its in how you shake it, I tryed several ways but after I watched this video I did it like the guy in the video and it worked. http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Colide81 (James)
Yeah, you've got to learn to shake it just right! :-)
- Nalin Perera
I think a neat thing to do out of #gnomedex would be to get 4-5 netbooks with aircards for Nickelsville... Raise money to pre-pay all the usage fees. (access to internet = more opportunity and connectivity for those folks.)
Great idea, but what about getting them computers to use that internet? Using websites to help them find jobs could be very powerful though.
- MarkCarras
Hmmm... Dan (I mentioned raising money for pre-paying the accounts) Although, a huge problem is the knowledge and training of how to use the internet effectively. That's something FFer's would be really good at. And library solving that need is a good place to keep that. Agreed.
- SAM
Scott - excellent didn't think of it that way - count me in on the training side, let me see if I can get the college I work at involved as well.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
scott - rmorrill@cityu.edu drop me a note - I'll help on this one.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
Let's get both the netbooks and aircards donated, ehh?
- Brian M. Westbrook
@Brian that would be the idea hopefully, there are ways of going about this one.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
That sounds good. I'm also working with my Mom on a program for interview training/resume writing for folks that don't have those skills at a community center in Memphis. I would love to share that program here.
- SAM
This is most intriguing. I might need one :)
- Jay Gunn
Ooh. I want one of those. My cards are forever getting bent/damaged in my wallet when I sit on it. $40 is kind of steep, but I dig the orange one... :-)
- Josh Bancroft
from iPhone