Technology Bytes

If you’re sporting any mac hardware running OS ten, you might want to fire
up the Software Update Utility to download and install the QuickTime
update that became available today. QuickTime 7.1.6 includes numerous bug
fixes, including a critical security issue with QuickTime for Java. The
download is a little over 45 megs, so if you’re not on a broadband
connection, you’ll want to kick this one off before bedtime.

This Friday is the first Friday of the month, meaning that it is once
again time for the Technology Bytes Geek Gathering. Jay Lee and crew will
be on hand at our not so new home of Tropioca tea and coffee to drink
drinks, pick at the occasional pizza and weigh in on all things techy.
Free WiFi is available for fast fact checking and the Tropioca staff will
be on hand to deliver all the balls you could possibly want. 2808 Milam
at Drew is where you want to be starting around 7:00 this Friday.

After the geek gathering, I’ll be heading down the street to catch Junkie
XL, who has been working under the moniker of JXL on a large number of
console and PC games here in the US since leaving his home in The
Netherlands in 2002. In addition to his remixes that have found their way
into the mass media, such as his remix of Elvis Presley’s A Little Less
Conversation that found itself in an ad for the 2002 World Cup, his video
game credits include the theme music for The Sims 2: NightLife and the
entire soundtrack for the XBox game Forza Motorsport. His song “Today”
was featured as one of Burnout Legends’ EA Trax. There are also 2 tracks
remixed by Junkie XL found on the Need for Speed: Carbon soundtrack. His
works was also included in the videogame Test Drive 5. JXL is responsible
for the SSX Blur original soundtrack, Blur being Electronic Arts’
snowboarding game for the Wii. He’ll be at 6400 Richmond this Friday
night doing live remixing of whatever he feels like playing. My Cylon
girlfriend will be opening up the show around 10:30, with Junkie going on
sometime after midnight. You can hit www.junkiexl.com for details.
That’s junkie with an IE.

The Houston Linux Users Group is having the first of their two monthly
meetings this Saturday form two to four at the Hal-PC headquarters near
610 and San Felipe. While the information on this Saturday’s presentation
is a little sparse, the meeting scheduled for the fourth Saturday of the
month will be a data backup seminar. More information will follow in the
next couple of weeks, but for now, put May 26th on your calendar and hit
www.hlug.org for details.

That’s it for your Friday Night Geek Goings-On and that’s that for
BarretTime.

Whether in the form of People, Camps, Casts, or Cast-ready devices, pods have entered out geek vernacular in a big way over the last two years. If you’re all about all things pod, you might want to consider heading out Peter’s way to attend Podcamp San Antonio on May 19th. This free event is an unconference where everyone is the speaker as well as the audience. Podcasters will get together with bloggers, vloggers, and new media folk who are all interested in getting their message out. Hit podcampsanantonio.com to register as either a presenter or registrant. And if you’re without a place to stay in San Antopnio, hit up Peter soon, as his San Antonio house is sure to fill up fast.

This weekend is also the last weekend of iFest. If the weather holds, the Houston International Festival might be the one day you go out into the big blue room. Taking place both Saturday and Sunday in downtown Houston, this year’s celebration centers around China. No word as of yet as to whether or not the WiFi routers serving the area will be filtering content. For more info you can hit www.ifest.org.

This next one is a little bit in the future, but I think that it warrants a mention. Our own Dwight Silverman will be speaking at next Month’s Houston Area Apple Users Group about his own experience making the move from his windows centric worldview to the adult onset apple syndrome that he is now fully in the throes of. That takes place at the Rice University Media Center on Saturday, May 19th. I’ll have more information for you as the date approaches, but if you absolutely can’t wait, you can hit www.haaug.org.

And getting back to this weekend, if you’d rather spend your Saturday indoors with a group of linux geeks, you’re in luck. The Houston Linux Users Group will be meeting this Saturday from two to four in the afternoon at the HAL-PC Headquarters. Hit www.hlug.org for details and directions.

And to end on a slightly odd note, a new game for the Nintendo’s DS is coming out called Doki Doki Majo Saiban. From the kotaku.com site:

“Plot elements for SNK’s witch-toucher Doki Doki Majo Saiban have surfaced over at Famitsu. The game stars naughty Akuji Nishimura, who is commanded by an Angel Lulu to search for [witches] lurking in his junior high school. When the search is narrowed down, the suspected junior high school witch is examined with the touch pen.

How do you know if the little girl is a witch? Usually, there’s a “witch’s crest” hidden somewhere on her body which can appear in “Witch Check Mode.” The goal: Make her heart beat quickly. Players use the stylus to touch the girl, whose expression will change depending on how her heart beats. The background with change as well. However! Rush things, and the girl does not respond. Players must take it slow with the touching — these witches are flowers, or something.”

Odd fare for Nintendo, but not really that odd for Japan in general. Whether your weirded out by this or think that it’s kinda cool, one thing is certain. A new gaming genre has been born: “touch-a-girl-to-see-if-she’s-a-witch”. Game on.

That’s it for your touch and tell presentation and that’s that for BarretTime.

For a number of years now, the likes of Google, Slashdot and ThinkGeek have fed users new products and rolled out ground-breaking services, all of which are announced on day one of the second quarter. If you weren’t out surfing the sites Sunday, you might have missed some of them. Never fear, as I have taken it upon myself to compile a short list of some of my favorite products and services for Q2 2007.

For the coders out there, a rapid development framework for Python which uses commonly known design patterns like ActiveRecord, Association Data Mapping, Front Controller and MVC was released Sunday. Check out the PythonOnPlanes 1.3.07 release notes for more information.

I’m bad about leaving the loft without my phone. I generally won’t realize I have forgotten it until I am about to leave my parking garage, which means a trek back through the underground garage, up the elevator, down the hallway, into the loft, and back again. I’m also bad about going to the dentist as often as I should. AT&T/BellSouth/Cingular could change all of this, though, with a new technology that would allow dentists to implant a cellphone device into a user’s molars. Howstuffworks has a good description of the technology, stating that, “once implanted in a person’s molar, the transducer caused the tooth to vibrate in response to radio signals. The physical structure of the jaw carried the tooth’s vibrations to the inner ear, where the user, and no one else, could perceive them as sound.” Hopefully they’ll have this rolled out in time for my next cleaning…

Google is at it again, this time with the launch of Google TiSP, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users’ plumbing systems. This project is years ahead of the City’s recently announced proposal with Earthlink. It will be interesting to see if the aptly nicknamed “Dark porcelain” project will stay afloat amid Google’s other projects and purchases.

While not necessarily a product or service, this next piece of news still merits a mention. We’ve already heard that actress Gillian Anderson has announced that she will not be returning in the long-awaited sequel to Chris Carter’s The X-Files: Fight the Future. In her stead, actress Julianne Moore will be portraying Special Agent Dana Scully.

And speaking of fighting the future, you can’t escape the fact that this friday is the first friday of the month, meaning that this month’s Good Geek Gathering is taking place this Good Friday at Tropioca in Midtown Houston, located at 2808 Milam near Drew. Tropioca serves up Bubble Tea, fish pizza and meatless smoothies. A few wall outlets are available, as is free WiFi, so bring your laptop if you’re so inclined.

And so you won’t come to the Geek Gathering too weighed down with old computer gear, be sure to drop it off the day before at the Siera Club’s Computer Recycling Event at the Central Presbyterian Church, located at 3788 Richmond at Timmons. They ask that you show up with your old gear between six thirty and seven thirty this Thursday. Dropped off computers will be used in training programs, and will be dismantled by the trainees. Some parts are salvaged for re-use and other parts are sorted by type for recycling. Of course if you’re going to drop off an entire PC, you may want to ensure that you wipe all the data from the drive if you believe that the drive could be reused, or just hit the thing with a hammer once or twice if you know that it is beyond salvage.

And just a heads up for next Thursday. Yuri’s Night, the World Space Party, is coming up. Scheduled for Thursday, April 13th, Yuri’s Night has been described as the St. Patricks Day or Cinco de Mayo for Space. It is one day when all the world can come together and celebrate the power and beauty of space and what it means for each of us. You can hit www.yurisnight.org for more info or just wait for next week’s BarretTime.

That’s that for your Second Quarter Update and that’s it for BarretTime.

Just some obligatory vacation highlights –

If you’ve ever made a mark in a dictionary when you learned a new word, then you have Dr. Samual Johnson to thank. He completed the first compendium of the English language in 1755, having done much of his work near the pub called Ye Old Cheshire Cheese. I had a couple of pints there and sat in his seat, which was just a few down from where Charles Dickens often sat.

This next observation was a little disconcerting. On the return flight from London Gatwick to Houston IAH, the Local Time was off in the cabin due to the Daylight Saving Time change. The pilot announced that the error was due to the cabin entertainment system software not being updated for the new DST times. I would assume that the software in the cockpit reflected the correct times, but the crew were dodgy about answering any questions relating to the Y2K7 bug.

And another important date…

This Sunday is April first, meaning that you’ll want to be wary of sites such as slashdot.org and thinkgeek.com. April Fools web hoaxes have been popular since before the creation of the web, with some notable figures going all out. “On March 31, 1989 thousands of motorists driving on the highway outside London looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending on their city. Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft float through the air. The saucer finally landed in a field
on the outskirts of London where local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon extended before him. When a door in the craft popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records. The
stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks. His plan was to land the craft in London’s Hyde Park on April 1. Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.”

That’s it for your April Fools 411 and that’s that for BarretTime.

While Benjamin Franklin may have been first to suggest saving daylight in
1784, he made no mention Daylight Saving Time (DST). It was William Willett
who first officially proposed DST to the British government, though he was
unable to convince Parliment to adopt it. Though often referred to as “summer
time” in British English, it was the Germans (during World War One, no less)
who first put DST into practice, choosing the initial dates of April 30th,
1916, through October 1st, 1916. Not to be outdone, the Brits followed suit,
first adopting it between May 21st and October 1st, 1916. Newfoundland lead
North America in the charge, and in March of 1918, the U.S. Congress
established DST from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October,
only to have Congress repeal it in 1919. President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the
repeal, but Congress overrode it. Despite the very American proverb, “Early
to bed, early to rise,” American’s don’t like to be told to get out of bed
any earlier than they have to…

Everything ticked right along until August 8, 2005, when President George W.
Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change
dates for Daylight Saving Time in the US. Beginning this year, DST will begin
on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November.

This gives us a new term: Y2K7

Y2K7 refers to the Year 2007 problem, caused by this US-mandated change to
Daylight Saving Time, which could have widespread repercussions in the
computer industry.

Any device that automatically corrects its clock to match the time changes to
Daylight Saving Time, such as a personal computers or VCR, now needs to be
updated so that the device knows of the new rules. If the devices are not
updated, they will show an incorrect time for three weeks in March and one
week in November, and cause a number of problems including having e-mail with
incorrect timestamps, events in calendaring software being displayed
incorrectly and some authentication software, such as Kerberos in Mac OS, not
behaving properly.[1] To avoid these problems users either have to update
their devices manually when Daylight Saving Time changes, or update their
software to newer versions.

If you want to know how to do that, wikipedia has a fairly exhaustive list of
updates for various Operating systems, from i5/OS to Mac OS 10.5. You can
find this page by googling for y2k7 and wikipedia.

Incidentally, the band Coldplay’s song “Clocks” was co-written by Chris
Martin, great-great grandson of DST inventor William Willett.

That’s it for your dose of DST deliverance and thats that for BarretTime.