Interview with Dan Barham

I was first introduced to Dan Barham at my old job, he had just moved from Manchester, U.K. I just thought he was another guy in a bike shop until the speaker at the seminar we were at recognized him from the U.K. She had said how he took some amazing photos, so I got to talking with him. Dan was pity modest about his talents, I realized something was up when he said he had a Canon Mark II DS. I have grown up around bikes and computers so we had a lot in common.

Dan has had a number of cover shots on top bike magazines as well as features in many more of them. Bike Magazine, Dirt Rag, Mountain Bike Rider, and Mountain Biking UK to name a few.

Dan doesn’t limit himself to just mountain bike photography if you have a look at his Flickr Gallery. I really like looking at peoples more raw galleries, not the portfolios because it’s a glimpse into the every day life of an artist.

Dan has since moved on from the bike shop and Edmonton to Live in Canada’s Famous North shore (Vancouver) were covers the biking events all over British Columbia.

Dan was nice enough to do this interview with me, and i hope you enjoy it.
Read on..

Next2Friends

Just wanted to inform every one about next2friends, its a real world, real time services to an otherwise static social networking user experience. Next2Friends is the real world application of virtual social networks.

To make thins more interesting they will give away a new Dell Laptop each quarter. (Next drawing is on September 15th, and every quarter thereafter.

Real life, Real people, Real time.

YouTube brings a world of video to your desktop
FaceBook lets you and your buddies exchange and share
MySpace hooks you up with new and exciting people

Yeah they are fun! but we have a little secret..
and you’re gonna love it.

Its more like an umbrella application covering all of these areas.

Check it out and Pre-Register

Address Book 2.5

I have updated the Address Book script it has a new header, better Google Maps API integration, e-mail support for single and group contacts. there has also been a number of bug fixes and links updated, i also trimmed the code a bit, i made some improvements as well as added more comments to the code so people can make changes a bit easier. Have a look at the changes made or the installation instructions. This scrip has and continues to undergo changes based on the input from its users, so please keep giving me feed back or feature requests. Features:

• Free
• Dynamic Content
• GD2 Thumbnails
• Google Maps API
• Email Single or Group contacts
• Printer friendly
• User Login with SHA1 encryption
• Change Password and User name
• XHTML and CSS2 Standards
• Search Database
• Sort by Groups
• CSV Backup
• V-Card Export
• Dashboard

Screen Shots:
Read on..

New iMac

Apple released the new iMac today, changing its body from plastic to a more modern and sleek Aluminum case. As Apple likes to push the boundaries of design while loading there products with features it will still have all the bells and whistles such as an iSight camera, Wi-Fi, and a Super Drive.

They have also added a Glossy Widescreen Display that will deliver rich and vivid colour. Along with the display changes Apple has also upgraded the graphics in the iMac.

The 2.0GHz 20-inch iMac includes the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 dedicated video memory, while the 2.4GHz 20-inch model and the 24-inch model offers extreme graphics power with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of GDDR3 dedicated video memory.

Apple has also gone and released a new super slim Keyboard that should be a nice companion with the new iMac.

Apple Keyboard

Google HTTP Geocoding

I have been doing a lot of searching in regards to Google Maps and information on there API. In my Addressbook I had a some what dynamic but clumsy way of showing some ones location.

So when I would pull the information I would use a PHP function called “urlencode” it basically converts spaces to underscores so your URL won’t explode and make Google angry.

This works fine but I was opening a new window that I had no control over. so that’s when I began to look into the API and after a bit of looking I found that they had support for HTTP Request and by doing so Google spits out a bit of XML.
Read on..

Microsoft ‘Milan’ Surface Computer

Microsoft has come put with a Surface computer that has a table top interface allowing users to control objects on the screen with there hands. its a lot like the Minority Report and defiantly looks very futuristic. In the room there are infrared cameras that will recognize objects on the screen, so something like a glass will tell the computer first were it is, and maybe play an animation around it. so imagine being at the bar and you put your pint glass down and seeing advertisements floating around your drink.

The same goes with wireless devises. put a camera on the table and the pictures will flow out of it. manage the images by tossing them around rotating by hand and then if you want to move them over to your PDA then place it on the table and drag the content over and there you go, you just transfered the data without hooking them up to a computer.

Watch the movie: Read on..

Google Street View

Google is always up to something cool, and this time its Google Street View. Every wanted to know were you were going but you more of a landmark navigator than a physical address person? Well thats exactly what you can do with Google Street View. At the moment the areas supports are San Fransisco, Denver, Miami, Los Vegas, and New York.

as you look on the map (only Google.com) you will see a small camera indicating Street View. click to zoom, and any area or street with a blue boarder will indicate a VR. place your little character wherever you like and a window will pop up allowing you to look around the area, you can even go for virtual walks as well as tours.

I must say i was impressed with this new feature and the detail in the VR’s are actually quite good. I can only speculate that there is some sort of parabolic mirror on a upward facing video camera and a vehicle of some sort drives around recording this allong with GPS way points.

For more information on Google Street View check out the little video here.

Links:
Google Street View Intro
Google Street View

Safari Beta Public 3

Well about 2 hours ago Apple released the Public Beta of Safari Apples Browser. There are a number of cool features added, one worth noting is that it will now run on a PC

There benchmarks show it beating out IE7 Opera and Firefox in everything from Java, HTML, and Application Launch. Faster is always better.
Read on..

Google Gears: Offline Web Applications

Google has come out with Google Gears that will allow developers to create Off line Web Applications, that means a plug in to install to allow your computer to support this feature.

It will be interesting to see how people take advantage of these new tools, i could see some one using the client or users computer to do the muscle work for complex commands. Not to mention the ability for a developer who is on a business trip finishing up some changes last moment on the flight over to deliver the project to the client.
Read on..