mobrec

So
If you are a Mac owner looking for a little pleasant distraction, cruise on over to iDevGames and check out their selection of over 30 free games for the Mac.

technorati tags: mac, macintosh, games

So
Think Secret is reporting on rumored new features of the next iMac Mini. It will be Intel-based, include Front Row 2.0 and some Tivo-like functionality.

While the specific model and speed of the Intelprocessor in the new Mac mini is unknown, sources are confident thesystem will be ready for roll-out at Macworld Expo San Francisco, inline with other reports Think Secret has received that Intel-based Macs will be ready some six months sooner than originally expected.

Thenew Mac mini is also said to sport a built-in iPod dock, a feature thatwas scrapped from the Mac mini Apple first introduced one year ago.Other hardware specifics are unknown, such as whether the Mac mini willfeature video recording out of the box or whether an add-on will beoffered for those looking to employ the Mac mini not as a secondcomputer but as their living room command center.

technorati tags: apple, mac, macmini, pvr

So
I thought that I should follow up and have another look at mturk to see if Amazon has addressed the performance and functionality quirks and issues. Nope.

Granted, the home page loads quickly, but when you actually get into the meat of the app and try to do something with it, it is still crap. For example, viewing the list of 'HITs' available shows one with 350 available. Ok, request a HIT for that one. Buzz. Returns a screen that states:

There are no more available HITs in this group.

Great. Honest mistake. Wrong again. The same HIT group shows up on the screen again, stating that it has 350 HITs available. In fact, clicking on any HIT group other than the one that lists 30000+ HITS available (and also has the lowest per HIT payoff) gets you the same message.

It's amazing to me that this thing has been around for weeks now and still operates like some CS101 I-just-learned-how-to-code-sort-of web app; especially with all of the resources of Amazon behind it.

technorati tags: amazon, mturk, suckage, webdev

So
Opera has released a beta of their Opera Platform SDK that allows developers to more easily create web applications for mobile phones. The big news here is the ability to create AJAX-style applications where the meat of the application can reside on a server rather than on the phone. I foresee this being a huge benefit as it will allow for the repurposing of existing web services for providing mobile services. Hopefully, this will translate into a flourishing of mobile apps for smartphones.

Along with this announcement, Opera has apparently synched all of the versions of its browser to make it easier to do cross application development. I updated the Opera Mobile browser on my Nokia 6620 to version 8.5 and noticed a bit of a performance increase, the welcome addition of a password manager and the ability to zoom web pages. It should be noted that the 8.5 browser release is different that the Platform described above.

I also have to wonder what Nokia's reaction to this will be. They recently previewed some screen shots from their Apple webkit-based browser, but there was no mention of an SDK or framework to leverage AJAX-like development. Nokia's new browser is also only compatible with their newest phones (many of which probably won't see the light of day in the US market for upwards of a year). Perhaps this will serve as a wake up call to the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world to help developers more easily create mobile apps (and leverage existing resources in the process).

technorati tags: opera, mobile, webservices, webdev

So
Gchart is a nice little Google Maps mashup that allows you to input the names of countries or major cities and find out what the local time is as well as international calling codes. Right now it's 10h45 AM (tomorrow morning!) in Wellington, New Zealand — I'd love to be there.

So
A new species of lemur has been named for former Monty Python member John Cleese. It is named “avahi cleesei” and as the anthropologist points out, lemurs don't do silly walks, but they do do silly jumps.

So
If you are a total newsfeed and IM junkie, you can combine these to add to your own personal information overload by using immedi.at Using this site, you can be notified via MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, and AIM/ICQ of things of interest in your news feeds. From their site:

Use immedi.at to be notified instantly when:

* news on a certain topic is posted * your competitor does something of interest * something interesting happens with a favorite sports team * your name or company is written about * you receive new email

The second to last bullet seems a tad on the Narcissistic side, but, hey, every one has different needs.

So
The Standford University is making available the Sherlock Holmes stories as they originally appeared in Strand magazine. You can subscribe to them via print or receive a notification to download the PDF when it becomes available.

Distribution will start in January of 2006.

So
Rummors are flying today that yet-to-be-launched photo recognition site Riya is to be acquired by Google. It would certainly make another fine addition to the Google arsenal.

More as things develop (or don't).

So
steptwo has an excellent article enumerating the 10 Principles of Effective Information Management.

I have to agree with lifehack that principle five 'take a journey of a thousand steps' is one of the real keys here. Too often I have seen important strategic changes not put into place because they would never be implemented as their own project. However, they could be just as easily broken down into manageable chunks and implemented along with other projects.

via lifehack.org