All to common of a conversation.

I just love this concept. I can imagine homes of the future being built with this technology built into it. The thought of just laying down your phone or MP3 player on the table and it getting charged while there is just cool.

Just something I came across and thought I would post about. This is a video about a “green project” called Air Trees. Pretty cool, would love to see one of these in person and feel how effective it is.

They produce climates and energy in a couple of different ways from cooling down the air to traditional solar power. Very cool stuff.

Recently I got my invite to try out the new Dropbox service. I am a long time Folder Share user and had heard some good things about Dropbox. I have to say, I am very happy with the performance of Dropbox and was even more pleased when I found out there was a Open Source Linux client. Figured I wouldn’t be a good geek if I didn’t do a quick install and see how it performed. Here is a video of that effort.

Dropbox has clients that run on Windows, Mac, and Linux
http://www.getdropbox.com/

I had made mention last week to a couple of friends how I got a few Adobe Air applications up and running on my Ubuntu install. I walked one person through how I did it and decided to also make a quick video tutorial on the process.

A couple disclaimers, first one is that I use my Ubuntu laptop on a daily basis and I have had it up and running for awhile so I am not sure if I installed some supporting packages that make this work. I haven’t tried this on a fresh default install of Ubuntu. Second, I was trying to keep the video somewhat short so I didn’t get into some of the corkyness that I see in the applications, like on Pownce you don’t get the embedded video feeds. Remember, this is Alpha software and it seems like how well the applications are written also factors into how well they are going to run under Linux.

Hope you enjoy the video. Here are the links from the video encase you miss them.

Adobe Labs – http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/
Tweet Deck – http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
Twhirl – http://www.twhirl.org/
Pownce – http://pownce.com/download/

UPDATE: I mentioned in my video how you don’t need to save the .air file but can instead just launch it with the “Open With” in the dialog box. This works fine on my Gutsy box but doesn’t seem to work on my newer 8.04 Hardy box. Even though Hardy recognizes that the file should be launched using the “Adobe Air Application Installer”, I still get the error that “the associated helper application does not exist” when I trying using it. You can however save the file to disk, right click, and select “Open With Adobe Air Application Installer” and it works fine. Not sure why I have this behavior.

UPDATE (2008-Sept-16): Adobe moved the Linux version of AIR to beta (link) and this has fixed a couple of things. First, the issue from my last update doesn’t appear to be a problem anymore on Hardy. Second, now AIR Applications have their pretty icons. And finally, and most exciting, Pandora AIR client now works!!

I think it goes without saying that I am a huge supporter of Open Source but believe it or not I am also a big fan of Bill Gates. You’ve got to respect what he did for the industry and what he does for the world through his charities. The guy is a geek’s version of Michael Jordon. I don’t agree with everything the man does obviously but I think the guy has a great mind and he will be missed in the computer industry when he finally moves on.

Anyways, I enjoy watching Bill Gates talk but I kind of caught something interesting in this last interview I was watching.

Here is a link to the interview:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7462156.stm

At about 1.45 Bill talks about how finding the source code for an operating system took him and Paul Allen to the next level on tinkering. I thought to myself how fortunate we were that he had that oppurtunity to look at and study an operating systems source code. It would have been a real shame if the ability to look at source code was deprived from Bill Gates. I wonder how many great thinkers Linux has or will inspire by offering them a similar opportunity.

Just found this funny, check out “Cancer Test” is near the end of the clip. I hate it when my doctor doe this to me. You would think being 3 years in remission I would have learned this trick by now.

This is taking Online Roll Playing to the next level allowing you to play a character playing a character in a game. I think it might be time to start playing games online.

‘Warcraft’ Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing ‘Warcraft’

New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less

One word, INSANE!