My friend Pete sent me a link about getting free CAD software from X-CAD. Catch is, you have to be one of the first 100,000 people to sign up on their email list. As of right now, there at about 93,000 people or thereabouts. Sign up and get your free CAD software.
…course, if I get it, what on earth will I use it for? 
Filed under: Applications, Websites, \\\ ETC ///
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As if there wasn’t enough out there for me to get caught up on—XML, XHTML, AJAX, SOAP, etc. Now there is a new way of handling and presenting forms coming down the pipe called XForms. According to Wikipedia,
“XForms was designed to be the next generation of HTML / XHTML forms, but is generic enough that it can also be used in a standalone manner to describe any user interface, and even perform simple and common data manipulation tasks.”
So that implies universal form support for any application that supports XML—the ability to create forms and use them universally.
W3 has an overview on some of the parameters and the basic usage of XForms, but by no means is a comprehensive tutorial. What this means, is that down the road us old-school HTML developers are going to have to learn a whole new way of doing HTML and form handling in general.
Supposedly Mozilla will be supporting XForms sometime in August with some sort of patch or new base installation. I’m curious as to how long it’ll take Microsoft to catch on and add support in Internet Explorer for XForms. Unlikely, I’m sure. Our luck we’ll have to create multiple variations to accommodate browser differences.
This certainly looks like a viable way to go with form handling—universal forms that can be formatted with stylesheets (of course, which can be easily varied depending upon the outputting application). Seems like it won’t be long before HTML becomes a veritable thing of the past and the dominant method of formatting becomes a combination of stylesheets and some XHTML tags here and there.
Filed under: HTML, XML / XHTML, \\\ ETC ///
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go in on the purchase of a town with me? Apparently a town in North Dakota is for salelots are about $45 to $50 each. 
Just think… you could even name it whatever you want… call yourself Mayor, Sheriff, etc. How funny would that be?
Filed under: Culture, \\\ ETC ///
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Google seems to be expanding the usage of XMLHttpRequest technology to their search capability in the form of Google Suggest. Very interesting technology.
Filed under: XML / XHTML
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Imagine this…
You just came to Texas Tech university as a freshman… You get the opportunity to make it big time as the football teams BELL RINGER during their games… Your whole family, all of your friends, and about 10-15 million ESPN viewers will see you on a Saturday telecast ringing the teams bell….
But to your whole family, all of your friends, and about 10-15 million ESPN viewers you DO NOT appear to be ringing the teams bell…
Filed under: General
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It does exist afterall….
http://www.drgadget.co.uk/product.php?xProd=759&xSec=1
Update:Now there’s a vendor in the US that sells an in-dash player that has USB support. SWEEEEEET.
The Pyle AM/FM-MPX CD/MP3 Player w/USB Input [model PLCDUSB78MP3] has a huge array of features:
AM/FM-MPX Tuner CD/MP3 Player
PLL Synthesizer Tuning
Motorized Slide Down Detachable Face
White LED Multi-Color LCD Display
DSP Control: Pop, Rock, Classic, Flat
Auto Best Station Memory/Preset Scan
CD-R/CD-RW for MP3 Playback
ID3 Tag Information Display of MP3 File Name
Electronic Anti-Shock for CD/MP3
Pause/Intro Scan/Repeat/Random
Track Skip-Forward Reverse
Preset EQ & Power Meter
Mode Button: Radio, CD/MP3, CDC, AUX, USB
30 Station Memory: 18FM/12AM
Encoder Electronic Audio Control: Volume/ Balance/Bass/Treble/ Fader
1 Bit D/A Converter
3 Beam Laser Tracking
8x Oversampling
Anti-Shock Mechanism
Auto Power Loading
Local/Distance, Mono/Stereo Button
Loudness, Mute, Clock Button
RCA Preamp Output
Full Illumination & Carrying Case
US/European Frequency Compatible
ISO/DIN Chassis & Remote Control
USB Input For MP3
CD Changer Control
Aux Input for Video
200 Watts Maximum Total Output
Looks like I’ll be modifying my car stereo a bit soon. Being that I spend about five to six hours on the road each week (just for the morning commute), it seems like a worthwhile investment. The only thing that’d be better is a portable FM broadcaster that’d play mp3’s from a USB and Memory Stick. Then I could just take the broadcaster with me in whatever car I’m in or at work.
My cubemate just picked up a cool little device for his iPod that allows him to broadcast his songs to an FM frequency, so he can play it on his car stereo or pretty much wherever he’s got an FM radio available nearby. Sweet, huh?
Well, it got me curious as to wondering… can this be done with an iPAQ? Apparently it can.
I’m sure this is old news by now and I’m years behind, but this is certainly on my must-buy list. Apparently it takes the signal from the headphones jack and then broadcasts it with the device to an open FM channel, which you specify on the device.
Now if someone would just invent the ability/capacity to either play USB jumpdrives in your car stereo or somehow connect them to an iPAQ type device. I know that USB works on a Master/Slave relationship and the slave (USB device) requires poweran iPAQ is a slave device. But if they could somehow make an attachement to alter that relationship and provide power through an adapter… think of the cool capabilities you’d have. 2 GIG storage for your iPAQ. Man, that’s just something that needs to be created. Or even a USB hub/adapter for your iPAQ that could act as a master controlling all your devices and allowing your iPAQ to access them all.
‘Course at that point, I guess I might as well just get a laptop, eh? Now if I only had 2 grand to blow.
Well, this evening I carved out a few hours to spend in rehearsal, practicing some improv. Out of it came a few pieces that were sharable with the public. I posted them over at my music site’s downloads page.
One of the pieces, entitled “Ridge Over Klein Ranch” was drawn from the memories of an old Lutheran summer ranch program called Klein Ranch in Isabel, SD. Granted, there really isn’t a ridge that overlooks Klein Ranch, but it’s a good way to describe the spiritual height that I experienced that week in Isabel. It was the first time that I really experienced something greater than I was experiencing (or not experiencing, more appropriately) at the sleepy old Lutheran church I grew up in.
Anyway, I have a lot of fond memories of Klein Ranch and wish I could go back some day, maybe take my kid(s) there with some church retreat or something.
Enjoy the downloads.
Filed under: Music, Recording
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This is just for my own reference so I don’t lose track of it. You might find value in it if you develop with PHP/MySQL and Flash.
Access MySQL information with PHP & Flash:
http://actionscript-toolbox.com/samplemx_php.php
Filed under: PHP, XML / XHTML
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I’ve been looking for options for a stock ticker for an intranet page we’re developing here and the current feed that’s available to us right now is very limiting—we’re basically forced to accept a feed with certain dimensions, color scheme and a nasty “logo” to boot.
So my first reaction… “AGH, there’s gotta be someone out there doing an XML/RSS type of stock info feed out there”.
I found a posting on someone’s blog about how they’ve developed an XML result by simply querying Yahoo. While the gentleman didn’t share his code with the world, I thought I would at least share the URL string to use when querying Yahoo. Insert the ticker symbol where it’s noted in bold:
http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=UNH&f=sl1d1t1c1ohgv&e=.csv
With the above example, here is what is contained in the .csv file that it dynamically gives me:
“UNH”,51.87,”7/12/2005″,”2:40pm”,-0.56,52.53,52.90,51.75,4787200
a simple comma-delimited file with important stock information. It provides (in this order) symbol, last trade amount, day of last trade, time of last trade, change (plus or minus), opening value, day’s high, day’s low, and what I presume to be volume.
My next goal is to see how I can take that information and make my own xml file and/or parse it with flash to create a stock ticker that’s a bit more flexible to work with.
Anyway, thought I’d pass on that tidbit of information.
Filed under: Actionscript, JavaScript, PHP, XML / XHTML
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