<meta name='google-adsense-platform-account' content='ca-host-pub-1556223355139109'/> <meta name='google-adsense-platform-domain' content='blogspot.com'/> <!-- data-ad-client=ca-pub-2799935330569724 --> <!-- --><style type="text/css">@import url(https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/v-css/navbar/3334278262-classic.css); div.b-mobile {display:none;} </style> </head><body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\x3d24422183\x26blogName\x3dTech+at+the+speed+of+Warp\x26publishMode\x3dPUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\x26navbarType\x3dBLACK\x26layoutType\x3dCLASSIC\x26searchRoot\x3dhttps://nccwarp9.blogspot.com/search\x26blogLocale\x3den_US\x26v\x3d2\x26homepageUrl\x3dhttp://nccwarp9.blogspot.com/\x26vt\x3d2845469267604558330', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe" }); } }); </script>
0 comments | Tuesday, December 26, 2006

All who ever played around with Google Earth knows how addictive the application can become. The only drawback is that Google web based solution is not very user friendly.
Here comes Flash Earth. It not only provides Google Earth pictures but can also connect to Microsoft VE, Yahoo Maps, ask.com, NASA and OpenLayer.

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0 comments | Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Musicovery is an online radio station that has some interesting features. The concept is so catchy that it borders on addiction. With this said it should also be said that it creates playlists without your input or preferences outside of the select era from which you can hear music from, or the selection of mood you want your music to be delivered to you. I find this amazing, simple but affective. Some may find this a little restrictive and would like to fashion their own playlists but then this wouldn't be a radio. It boasts itself as interactive radio and it does that exceptionally well.

The selection box for mood is presented as a matrix with Energetic, Calm and Dark, Positive.
One of biggest downside until now was that there was no way of pausing the playlist. Some other nuisance were that if you select the next song in the playlist it refurbishes the playlist according to some mysterious rule.

The pause and play are now added in 2.01 version which is a big plus.Along side the pause/play button a subtle indicator that displays from which era the current playing music is also a welcome addition.

Now they have to fix the skipping of songs when selected from the playlist or even add the ability to rearrange the songs in a playlist. Or, just leave it as is and just explain what is the point of the playlist path and why is it so wavy....

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6 comments | Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Yesterday I wanted to add social bookmarking clickets to my webpage but found that many just supported Blogger and not Blogger beta.

One interesting site is 3spots. Actualy it is the only site that offers some advice on how to implement Social Bookmarking in Blogger BETA.

I had some hard time and I know what I was doing so here is a "template" to add some of more popular Social Bookmarking sites to your site.

First open your template and edit HTML, check Expand Widget Templates and locate 'post-footer-line post-footer-line-2' line and insert text as shown below. Bolded text is to be inserted.

EDIT:> IF you are using Blogger Classic then remove "EXPR:" infront of HREF tag.

Preview, and if everything is ok, save.

<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>
<data:postLabelsLabel/>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a><b:if cond='data:label.isLast != "true"'>,</b:if>
</b:loop>
</b:if>
<br/><br/>

<strong>

<a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt='digg' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/61822091.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt='delicious' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/80727937.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u=" + data:post.url + "&amp;t=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt='furl' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/47600014.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://www.google.com/bookmarks/mark?op=add&amp;bkmk=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt='google' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/10847106.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://ma.gnolia.com/bookmarklet/add?url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt='ma.gnolia' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/10998644.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://reddit.com/submit?url=" + data:post.url + "&amp;title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img alt='reddit' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/10796749.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://technorati.com/faves?add=" + data:post.url' target='_blank'><img alt='Technorati' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/81723336.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?t=" + data:post.title + "&amp;u=" + data:post.url' target='_blank'><img alt='yahoo' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/54687920.png' width='16'/></a>


<a expr:href='"http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/bookmark?" + data:post.url' target='_blank'><img alt='Squidoo' height='16' src='http://img2.imagepile.net/images/ycc2106/25436023.png' width='16'/></a>

</strong>

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0 comments | Monday, December 11, 2006

I've been a Trekkie as long as I can remember and has always wanted to be emerged in Star Trek universe interactively. Discovery's, space battles and diplomacy are main components of Star Trek, or at least I thought they were.

A new Star Trek game came out and I was very eager to check it out. So a couple of hours ago I downloaded a demo and started to play.

What was the last good Star Trek game anyone on the planet has played? It seams that people that are trying to create Star Trek games are ruining them on purpose. One such example of late is Star Trek Legacy. I waited a long time for some decent ST game but Star Trek Legacy absolutely fail to live up to any expectation. I even dare to say it is the worst ST game ever. Or, this may be an overstatement as there are worst ST games out there.

Not to totally tarnish ST gaming as there are shining examples of good ST games like; ST Elite force I and Elite Force II, ST Bridge Commander and even ST Armada to some extent.

Star Trek Legacy has nothing to offer to gamers, its engine is retarded and old. The entire game has a feel that it was made in 2000 and not 2006. "In game" shots posted on line are nothing like the game engine can render. Ships break apart always the same way, not to mention that they are block of something and nothing near "realistic". The speed of the game is good until you get to some nebula and it starts grinding, I PLAY FEAR ON HIGH SETTINGS IN HIRES, and you can't manage to render a fucking nebula right?
The gameplay is frustrating. slow and after 10 minutes, boring. Control of your fleet is nonexistent except that you can switch from one ship to another. A homeworld 2 style of combat would have been allot better. There is something that resembles a story line but game doesn't allow you to choose anything. There are no upgrades for ships. Shall I continue?

I don't get one thing. Why didn't Universal Studios take ST Bridge Commander and just improved the graphics, added more depth to it, more exploring? ST Bridge Commander is one of my favorite games out of ST universe. There is still a lot of activity around this game. Moders added more animation to consoles, more variations in bridge designs and more ships. Why not take that game idea and just expand it.





Watch the GameSpot video review to see what I mean.

I can't imagine that anyone at Universal Studios didn't play ST Legacy before they embarrassed all the fans with yet another absolute failure. As a Trekkie, if something doesn't change soon in the direction in which the whole ST universe is going and people in charge of it aren't removed, I QUIT. Stargate offers more than Star Trek and at least they cancel games that don't live up to the challenge of fans.

Star Trek Legacy is an insult to any Star Trek fan.

addition> Oh MY GOD... uninstall lasts longer than installation.... its over 10 minutes and it's not over....

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0 comments | Friday, December 08, 2006

Some time ago I wrote about how some companies that have future in front of them are running out of money. It would seem that at least some of them are getting back on their feet. One of my favorite candidate when looking at the underdogs of Web 2.0 is definitely Litha-Paint. They are the only good vector based online drawing application that I know of.

Lately, Litha-Paint published a blog that follows the development of its application. One thing I noticed is that they described their "out of money, please donate" message as a joke, hmmm....fishing for money .. aa guys... Well played, well played. One constant theme is funding so if anyone has a ear for it please check it out. They deserve it.

They had a skype meeting with one possible investor but refused to fund as they needed to see them in person and ... as I figure ... have problems with getting visas for USA. Hmm... yep they are now on official US gov black list as hackers. A proper definition of what US gov considers a computer threat can be read here, trust me its interesting ... aaa ... opinion.
Litha-Paint changed server provider and are looking to get out of Alpha version. The long development cycle is understandable as they are trying to create a fully fledged vector based web application or at least I hope so. It is a giant task by any means. They are currently adding support for layers and if they manage to cram that in it would be a big step forward.

Any, guys please change the color, I mean ... green? and ultra green at that. Why green?

Best of luck....

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0 comments | Wednesday, December 06, 2006

There is always a need to reduce work and programing is no exception. Alot of times there is some algorithm or function that are simply to dirty to code, I call it "manual labor". Under "Manual Labor" I take any programing problem where solution is known but to get to that point we need to spend hours of coding.
With Introduction of Krugle and Google Code Search this task has become alot easier.

Krugle is a search engine designed for searching large stacks of source code for variety of programing languages.
Demo of Krugle capabilities can be seen here.

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