circle.ch :: Technology

circle.ch weblog by Urs Gehrig Search


2013-09-21T10:12:02 Academic, Android, Apache, Apple, Art, Best Of, Biotech, Civil Society, Content Management, Cooking, Copyright, Creative Commons, Crosspost, Culture, Database, Deutsch, DRM, Economy, Education, Event, Gadget, General, Geodata, Government, Health, Howto, Humor, Innovation, Intellectual Property, Java, Language, LaTeX, Law, Linux, Media, Moblog, Mozilla, Music, Office, Open Content, Open Source, P2P, PHP, Podcast, Politics, Privacy, Projects, Random Thought, Rant, Science, Search, Social Network, Software, Sport, Talks, Technology, Technology Transfer, Travelling, Weblog, Wiki, Wireless and Mobile, XML
27. August 2007 128GB SSD to replace conventional disk drive Technology (wiki) - urs @ 19:21:56 There is a company building SSD disks up to 128GB that could replace a conventional 2.5 inch disk drive [1]. Super Talent says that their SSD disks are compatible with SATA drives. My question here - has someone tried out such a replacement recently and how did it work? Just wondering. [1] http://www.supertalent.com/datasheets/6_53.pdf Related post(s): Walmart sells PC with Lindows at less than $200 (12.5) .htaccess problem on drives other than C (6.60) QEMU version 0.6.1 (4.35) Apache, PHP, Sablotron, libxml, GD on OS X (4.26) FileVault is memory hungry (4.02) Related tags(s): apache, software, apple, open_source, weblog Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 25. August 2007 Behold search engine for images Technology (wiki) \| Creative Commons (wiki) - urs @ 10:58:25 Behold's (image) search engine has the following background [1]: Behold's visual concept search is based on the technique called "automated image annotation". This technique calculates probabilities of concepts being relevant to images based on the pixel content of each image. The models for calculating concept probabilities are estimated using manually annotated training images. Behold implements the automated annotation model proposed in Alexei Yavlinsky's PhD thesis. [1] http://www.beholdsearch.com Related post(s): CreativeCommons search engine (9.33) Indexing PHP search engine (8.52) Plug-and-Play search engine written in PHP (8.26) search.ch with a new CI? (8.17) Feedster RSS search engine (7.53) Related tags(s): intellectual_property, art, random_thought, technology, technology_transfer Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 10. July 2007 reCAPTCHA - avoid spam Weblog (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) - urs @ 17:31:29 reCAPTCHA is a service for your blog, webpage, guestbook what so ever. It helps to avoid getting spammed by providing a CAPTCHA feature [1]. There are e.g. plugins for various blog engines. [1] http://recaptcha.net Related post(s): Spam filter for Outlook 2000 and 2002 (6.96) Spam in a new suit (6.81) Visual history of spam email (6.71) Blog Comment Spam (6.08) barratry - the offense of persistently instigating lawsuits (5.78) Related tags(s): software, law, civil_society, technology, php Comments (1) Permalink del.icio.us 12. December 2006 Lessig's Code v2 Technology (wiki) \| Intellectual Property (wiki) \| Deutsch (wiki) \| Copyright (wiki) - urs @ 09:09:16 Nach der Erstausgabe von "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" anno 1999 folgt nun Code v2, eine Art "Update" der ersten Version: Code v2 [1] updates the original work. It is not, as Lessig writes in the preface, a "new work." Written in part collectively, through a Wiki hosted by JotSpot, the aim of the update was to recast the argument in the current context, and to clarify the argument where necessary. [1] http://codev2.cc Related post(s): Blogger code (4.28) QR code - decoder to proof the concept (3.98) Zend Code Gallery Spotlight (3.79) New PHP Template Class by ISPI geeks (3.60) Generate barcodes on the fly with PHP (3.59) Related tags(s): wireless_and_mobile, law, mozilla, random_thought, p2p Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 28. February 2006 Lightbox - image overlay in the page Technology (wiki) - urs @ 17:39:11 Lightbox JS [1] is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It's a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers. Once the scripts is loaded, you simply use link tags to get the overlay effect. Update: Have also a look at zenphoto.org that some combined with Lightbox [2,3,4]. [1] http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/ [2] http://zenphoto.org [3] http://technorati.com/search/zenphoto [4] http://taggphoto.com/zp/blurp/ Related post(s): List of Rich Text Editors (7.94) Image cropping with PHP and Javascript (5.13) PNGlets for Netscape 4.06+ (4.74) HTMLarea with enhanced Image Handler (4.73) Playing with Qemu (4.59) Related tags(s): creative_commons, random_thought, content_management, rant, projects Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 17. November 2005 Modifications on the $100 Laptop Technology (wiki) \| Random Thought (wiki) - urs @ 22:25:16 Last Monday I read the first time about the $100 Laptop of the MIT to be built for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative [1]. There will be no shop that is going to sell that Laptop, as I read on the introductional page. The Laptop roughly will be a Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop that will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data. This rugged laptop will be WiFi-enabled and have USB ports galore. Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel. So far quite impressive, if you keep $100 in mind. Nevertheless I would like to add the following; To add a solar panel on the top of the Laptop case [2]. To add a foil keyboard to make it more robust [3]. To add more fixed Memory (>1GB). To set up a Hardware-Kit to let students build their own Laptop. To find a way to license the schematics, Hardware-Kit etc. under a non-commercial license. I am not yet sure about what an Open Hardware License would look like and even if it even is nescessary. As said, it is just a random thought. But I can imagine that it would push the innovation in the soft- and hardware industries, even though I tend for a non-commercial license. The idea behind is that companies should not re-produce the hardware and sell it at exorbitant prices. The Laptop should be available for approx. $100. So if they are innovative, they produce it for less. [1] http://laptop.media.mit.edu [2] http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/touring/laptop.htm [3] http://www.industrialkeyboard.com/html/internettastatur-folie.html Related post(s): Linux on Laptops (8.16) Open Hardware - SUN opens up UltraSPARC processors (5.34) myNEWS V2.0.2 (3.86) PHP Xpath class on sourceforge (3.38) 100 Mbit/s Laserlink as an alternative to Fiber (3.33) Related tags(s): innovation, open_source, php, weblog, economy Comments (3) Permalink del.icio.us 06. October 2005 QR coded blog entries Weblog (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) \| Random Thought (wiki) - urs @ 00:23:26 Innovations is - if it works, but you do not have the technology to prove it. The blogpost title, the blogpost date, the URI to each blogpost and some copyright ("CC") information of this weblog are QR coded. Actually the images have not been decoded yet, since the writer of that code has no QR code scanner nor has he a mobile phone with an appropriate software to decode those codes. But anyway. QR codes are kind of twodimensional barcodes [1]. While conventional bar codes are capable of storing a maximum of approximately 20 digits, QR Code is capable of handling several dozen to several hundred times more information. 20 digits are not enough to encode a typical blog title, a link, a date string and some copyright information. As an example, the QR coded string for this blog post is: "QR coded blog entries, 06.10.2005 00:23:26, http://circle.ch/blog/p1773.html, CC-by-sa_2.5". The QR code library behind my implementation is written by Y. Swetake [4]. If it makes sense, to link from a QR code to a blog post, is not yet plain clear. But I could imagine a simpler, maybe automated navigation for mobile phones: Reading a blog feed (e.g. qr.xml or qr img link in the RSS feed) with QR codes The phone decodes the images and displays the title to the blog entries A single click on the auto-linked title is enough to access the full blog post At least in Japan there are various applications that support QR codes [2]; e-commerce e.g. is a big issue [3]. Is anyone out there with an opensource QR code decoder? ;) Update: The ETH Zürich has a project running called "Visual Code Recognition for Camera-Equipped Mobile Phones" [5]. They also provide so called Recognizer software for Symbian OS based mobile phones. [1] http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrfeature-e.html [2] http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/qr-code/sample.html [3] http://www.camreader.jp/eng/service/index.html [4] http://www.swetake.com/qr/ [5] http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/rohs/visualcodes/ Related post(s): Parsing blog entries for StudlyCaps (6.85) Finding related tags to blog posts (6.43) Kaywa Blogger Network is growing (5.87) KABLOG - enhanced mobile blogging (4.98) Revision Control on Blog Entries (4.76) Related tags(s): java, wiki, law, creative_commons Comments (5) Permalink del.icio.us 21. September 2005 OpenLaszlo Open Source development platform Open Source (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) - urs @ 19:39:26 OpenLaszlo is the leading open source platform for the development and delivery of rich Internet applications on the World Wide Web. Although I read the first time of it today, it looks promising, at least if I have a look at the demo applications [1] and the "Laszlo-in-10-minutes" introduction [2]. [1] http://www.laszlosystems.com/demos/ [2] http://www.laszlosystems.com/lps/laszlo-in-ten-minutes/ Related post(s): WW2D - Explore Earth the Open Source Way (8.82) Jahrbuch zu Open Source und Open Content (8.56) Microsoft view on commodity software (8.43) Open Database Transport Protocol (8.33) eXist - an Open Source XML Database (8.14) Related tags(s): government, technology, software, intellectual_property, economy Comments (1) Permalink del.icio.us 29. August 2005 Get Tags with Yahoo! Term Extraction PHP (wiki) \| Weblog (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) - urs @ 21:54:35 This is a start: The Term Extraction service provides a list of significant words or phrases extracted from a larger content. It can be implemented by making use of the Yahoo! API [1]. One might then need to sort out the result set a bit and use them as "tags". Since this blog has no cache and the API only lets me have a limited number [2] of requests a day, I will not dive into it yet ;) For those using PHP, there is a so called yahoolib availabe. [1] http://developer.yahoo.net/search/content/V1/termExtraction.html [2] http://developer.yahoo.net/search/rate.html [3] http://sourceforge.net/projects/yahoolib Related post(s): Scaling PHP for Yahoo (8.77) Yahoo! to buy some Blog company? (7.43) Blog backend with recommended tags per post (6.59) Finding related tags to blog posts (6.07) Freetag - a tagging and folksonomy system (5.51) Related tags(s): random_thought, law, economy, technology, weblog Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 28. August 2005 Working out a category cloud Weblog (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) - urs @ 20:32:18 The category cloud above does work with a variable font-size for each item. The font size is related to the number of posts per category. Since some categories have up to 600 items while others only have two, I had to find a suitable scale. A good effect could be found by using a logarithmic value. So I used something like the following: printf("<a href='/blog/p%s.html' title='%s' style='font-size:%s;'>%s</a>", $row->cat_id, $row->cat_name, floor(log($row->items_per_cat) * 20) +100 ."%", $row->cat_name ); I preferred to chose this solution from having e.g. a switch with ranges of posts/category to point to different style classes like size1, size2, size3 etc. Related post(s): Collaborative Events handling with a Wiki (4.18) TagCloud to analyze my blog (3.85) Parsing for trusted FOAFs (3.79) Get a complete working back-end! (3.71) myGBOOK V1.0.2 (2.90) Related tags(s): wiki, crosspost, social_network, open_source Comments (4) Permalink del.icio.us 03. August 2005 PHP Developers for blog.ch PHP (wiki) \| Weblog (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) - urs @ 10:55:09 blog.ch is seeking PHP developers to turn the projectlist into reality [1]. Matthias has some good ideas and is eager to fulfil them. [1] http://blog.ch/blog/?p=148 Related post(s): Liip is hiring - again, again, more and more (7.17) PHP developers: Fill your XML toolbox (6.16) European Mozilla Developers Meeting 2003 (5.66) PHP and Web Standards Conference UK 2004 (4.61) PHP Developer's Cookbook by Hughes/Zmievsky (4.19) Related tags(s): mozilla, apache, weblog, content_management Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 14. June 2005 Favourite URL? Technology (wiki) \| Best Of (wiki) - urs @ 11:51:31 Sometimes you get asked, what your favourite URL is. For some years, this one is among my top three [1] ;) Magnus Bodin came up with this idea years ago. It is just fantastic, regardless of the "USELESS SITE OF THE YEAR 1998" award. From todays perspective it is not at all that useless, just remind what others do [2]. [1] http://$sin(72.0221).x42.com [2] http://www.google.ch/search?q=sin(72.0221)= Related post(s): Enhanced usability with automatically generated site maps (5.18) Coverpages has new URL (4.57) A trackback-guide (4.55) Swiss Stock Exchange drops new market segment (3.80) Sablotron XSLT release 0.50 (3.80) Related tags(s): technology, open_source, php, event, intellectual_property Comments (1) Permalink del.icio.us 06. June 2005 Marklar - reinforcing a background task at Apple? Apple (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) - urs @ 11:02:50 [via infam, 1] It is rumoured that Apple will move to Intel technology. There has already been running a background task called "marklar" [2] that has been working on keeping Apple applications running on Intel processors. It is said, that Steve Jobs will reveal more today [3]. [1] http://infam.antville.org/stories/1138384/ [2] http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1656622,00.asp [3] http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ Related post(s): Marklar follow-up (10.9) Jaguar eaten by the Panther (6.77) Apple is offering iBook repair (5.51) Safari for Windows soon? (5.12) Apple users that switched (5.00) Related tags(s): economy, apple, mozilla, civil_society, open_source Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 29. May 2005 Grüfnisch - Geheimsprache für Schüler Technology (wiki) \| Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 10:14:14 Auf DRS3 spricht Perry wieder mal auf Grüfnisch. Wie die Sprache funktioniert, hat er bisher noch nicht verraten; wär ja dann auch keine Geheimsprache mehr: "Inefi lienefib denefech" ;) Related post(s): KMUadmin - Dienstleistungsportal des Bundes (3.82) Am Ball - Sichtbehinderte Plätze? (3.72) Resultate der Wahlen 03 (3.72) Registerharmonisierung in Bund, Kantonen und Gemeinden (3.70) Silbentrennung nach Installation von Office XP SP3 fehlerhaft (3.19) Related tags(s): sport, deutsch, php, music, mozilla Comments (5) Permalink del.icio.us 07. April 2005 Legaltorrents taken offline? Technology (wiki) \| Intellectual Property (wiki) - urs @ 08:57:53 Legaltorrents is currently down. Has it been taken offline? Related post(s): Wikipedia auf CD-ROM (4.06) RSS Reader for MIDlet capabale handhelds (3.89) Complicated world (3.37) MozPHP - running PHP in Mozilla (3.09) iTunes als Business Modell für CC Musik? (2.38) Related tags(s): open_content, deutsch, content_management, wiki, wireless_and_mobile Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 05. April 2005 Access to Desktop Search results PHP (wiki) \| Open Source (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) \| Privacy (wiki) - urs @ 22:16:07 Today I run across DNKA [1]: DNKA is a search tool for remote computers. It acts as a web server by interacting as a layer between Google Desktop Search (GDS) and the user. It allows other users to search, view and download your files, emails, chats and web history. Basically it is wonderful; you get a full search access to the indexed content of a remote computer. IMHO this application should be filed under "As long as You know what You are doing.". I tried it out in an intranet and got full access to the root drive C:\. Then later on I found Baagle [2]. The principle is similar to the above but the tools are different. Baagle is a set of Perl scripts wrapped around the search engine Swish-e. Baagle provides a standalone webserver and an indexer. But compared to GDS it is up to you to configure and restrict the indexing to the data directories of your desire. If you like to figure out a similar solution with PHP have a look at the earlier mentioned nanoweb or nanoserv webserver built with PHP [3] and a Swish-e wrapper written in PHP [4]. Once decided to go for Swish-e (on Windows) you need a couple of tools to handle various file mime types, among others pdftotext, ps2ascii, antiword and one that I found today to convert Excel files to text, called xlhtml. Just search.ch for them ;) Well, now the only thing I could not find is a few lines of code to get a configurable search field to be integrated in the Windows task bar as we know it from GDS. Anyone up with a solution? [1] http://dnka.com [2] http://floatingsheep.com/baagle.html [3] http://nanoweb.si.kz [4] http://www.neokraft.net/articles/swish-e/ Related post(s): Googles Desktop Search privacy policy (12.1) Google Desktop Search going for Thunderbird (10.6) Beagle - Open Source Desktop Search (9.50) Livesearch - let's talk about usability (6.63) Google and CC sensitive search (6.41) Related tags(s): content_management, privacy, search, art, economy Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 30. March 2005 PHP Naive Bayesian Filter against Spam Weblog (wiki) \| Technology (wiki) - urs @ 21:37:07 As recently mentioned this blog got an awful amount of trackback spam. After a short period of silence it started again today. So I turned off the trackback feature and will live without it for a while. Loïc d'Anterroches by the way has implemented a PHP Naive Bayesian Filter [1] that I could imagine would help me out the most with the trackback spam. Captacha is no solution there and I would rather prefer the "Bayesian Way" compared to semi-automatic solutions like moderation, blacklisting et.al. By the way, the script by Loïc did work right out of the box. ;) [1] http://www.xhtml.net/php/PHPNaiveBayesianFilter Related post(s): Spam filter for Outlook 2000 and 2002 (12.3) Bayesian Filtering of Spam in MT (10.4) Bayesian Filtering of Spam (7.67) Spam in a new suit (6.81) Blog Comment Spam (6.71) Related tags(s): software, law, apache, content_management Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 21. March 2005 Google Desktop Search going for Thunderbird Technology (wiki) \| Software (wiki) - urs @ 22:33:41 Google Desktop Search is now indexing also: Netscape Mail / Thunderbird Netscape / Firefox / Mozilla PDF Music Images Video Various plug-ins seem to result from the Google Desktop Search SDK. There is e.g. an OpenOffice document indexing plug-in [1]. [1] http://desktop.google.com/plugins.html Related post(s): Googles Desktop Search privacy policy (11.9) Beagle - Open Source Desktop Search (11.2) Sony Ericsson Z520i sync with Google Calendar (8.82) Google and CC sensitive search (8.82) Google search plugin based on XMLHttpRequest? (8.60) Related tags(s): content_management, privacy, howto, creative_commons, search Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 16. March 2005 Die tel.search.ch Option linkzoom Technology (wiki) \| Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 08:40:52 Letztlich bin ich bei tel.search.ch auf die Option "&help=linkzoom" aufmerksam geworden. Zusammen mit der Option "&region=" kann die Suche auf eine Gemeinde reduziert [1] oder aber auf einen Bezirk, also ein grösseres Gebiet ausgeweitet [2] werden. Das kann dann Sinn machen, wenn nicht leichthin durch eine Option im Stile von "&plz=300" eine Einschränkung vorgenommen werden kann. [1] http://tel.search.ch/result.html?name=imobersteg&region=d-bern&help=linkzoomd [2] http://tel.search.ch/result.html?name=imobersteg&region=z-bern&help=linkzoomz Allenfalls kommt man zu denselben Suchergebnissen, wenn man die Option "&help=linkzoom[d\|z]" auch ganz weggelässt. Related post(s): tel.search.ch with vCard export (10.6) Google and CC sensitive search (9.36) marktsalat (6.41) PHPNuke ::: News system, Web Portal etc. (6.22) Durchsuchtes Wahlverhalten (6.16) Related tags(s): search, random_thought, technology_transfer, moblog, mozilla Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us 15. March 2005 O'Reilly hacks*