Nils’ Geek Blog

I really like Web 2.0, the AJAX technology and all that comes with it. I adore the idea of making all applications available online. I guess I’m not the only one using several computers every day. When making the applications available online you don’t have to go through the pain of setting up all your computers with the same software. You then also don’t have to reinstall every application every time you reinstall the operating systems. (Read the article)

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Yesterday the guys at Last.fm gave their website a huge makeover. Lots of new features have been added and a new Last.fm player. The site is now built with Web 2.0 technology in mind from the bottom up. It’s a lot more clean and slick and in general a lot more intuitive. I’ve been using the service for 3 years now, and I love it. For those who haven’t tried it yet, you can use it to explore your taste in music and help you discover new music. (Read the article)

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It’s finally released! I guess I’m not the only developer who’ve been waiting for this release. One of the new features of Flash Player 9 is the support for ActionScript 3.0. Here are some of the new features of version 3:

• Runtime Exceptions
• Runtime Types
• Sealed Classes
• Delegation
• ECMAScript for XML (E4X)
• Regular Expressions
• Namespaces
• New Primitive Types
• Flash Player API Features
• DOM3 Event Model
• Display List API

(Read the article)

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It’s been a while since I’ve been on the search for domain names, but then today I remembered that I had an idea years ago. I was thinking that it should be possible to develop a online service that monitors the currently available domains and then sends you an email as soon as they’re available. After googling I found Domain Watcher. However, they charge “£9.99 (approx. $19 USD or EUR15) to monitor the domain of interest for 12 months.” I think this should be a free service from the domain registrar.

After googling some more I found an application called Domain Name Pro. This is indeed a very neat application. What I find interesting is that you may add a few word combinations, and the application comes up with lots of alterntives (using a thesaurus). This application could also be useful if you are looking for a suitable name for your product or company.

I still think that this service should be available online, with the possibility of subscribing to feeds and notification. If such a (free) service doesn’t exist already, I guess it soon will. It will probably take advantage of the popular AJAX development technique.

UPDATE: I found a freeware version of the application. It’s however a lot simpler, but it has no restrictions.

UPDATE 2: Domainnameshop offers a free monitoring of your domain. Subscribe for monitoring of domains and get an email notification when it’s available. Thanks to Håvard this tips.

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I know I’ve discussed with friends years ago when the desktop would become fully 3D. I don’t know if this is a good idea, but it indeed looks great. It can however be discussed wheather it’s efficient to use. What do you think?

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I’ve used Transana when transcribing the interviews for my thesis experiments. I really recommend using this application. It’s free and it has all you need. When transcribing you use CTRL-A to rewind a few seconds, CTRL-S to pause and rewind 2 seconds, CTRL-D just to pause, CTRL-F to skip forward a few seconds. The software can be used for video transcriptions as well as for recording. However, it does not support mpeg4 yet. It didn’t matter to me as I was only trascribing wav-files. Still the main argument, in my opinion, for choosing Transana instead of a Word & Winamp (using global hotkeys) solution, is the use of the timecodes. You connect the transcription to the actual recording. This is very useful.
When analyzing the data I exported the transcription to word, as I prefer this to Transana’s keyword functionality. But the exported rtf-document contains the “¤<23423>” timecodes. After googling about word and regex queries I found the pattern I needed. For those interested use this pattern: ¤\< (<[0-9]*>)\>

If you want to know more about word and regex queries check out these links:

Putting regular expressions to work in Word

Microsoft Office Assistance: Add power to Word searches with regular expressions

Finding and replacing characters using wildcards

Mastering Regular Expressions

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As probably many of you, I’m now using G-Mail on a regular basis. I was not a fan of web based email-readers before, but with G-Mail it all changed. It’s neat and simple, fast, flexible, got filters and labels and all the functionality I need. I now forward all my emails to my gmail-address, and I then don’t have to check them all. I always keep one tab in my brower(s) open. This is, in my opinion, at least as good as keeping Thunderbird or Outlook Express open at all times. I always keep a browser window open. If not I get notifications from the G-Mail notifier or Google Desktop.

But one the strongest argument for me to choose G-Mail is still the filtering possibilities. This way I can filter, label, archive, forward etc. easily. I don’t have to manipulate config files, forward files on the server etc., but the option is easily accessible through the settings menu. I also use G-Mail as an rss-reader. I subscribe to feeds at R-Mail, and filter them (skip-inbox and add label). I use a seperate gmail account for this. Some of the filters forward search hits to my main account.

The latest addition to my G-Mail tools is G-Mailto. By installing this software the mailto: links will be redirected to G-mail. For those of you using firefox there’s a plugin called GMailCompose. Pretty neat

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When working on the Quito Project I’ve created a couple of useful components. I now want to make these available for those who want to continue to improve them.
If interested, send me an email or a comment here, and I’ll send the components to you.

You can test the compontents here:

The VideoViewer component
The VideoCurve component
The PhotoViewer component
The Horizontal Slider component

If you want to see them in use, check out The Quito Project

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