Rick.Stavanja.com : computers

My Newest Wish List Item!!

Stavanja — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:16:00 GMT

Microsoft officially revealed the Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) Thursday (formerly code named “Origami”). As much as I love my trusty iPaq, I really want one of these...

I like the evolution that's taking place in mobile PCs. With the emphasis on connectivity, and performance closer to that of a desktop, these devices should be far more useful, and usable, to a broader audience.

The three new UMPC models shown at CeBIT...

from Founder, Asus, and Sumsung respectively

They're supposed to run any Windows XP app, so there will be no need to buy PocketPC versions of your apps to do real remote comuting. I'm dying to fire up some real CAD apps on one of these babies.

Now the only question is: Where and when do I get one?

More information:

tags: umpc, origami, founders, asus, samsung, microsoft, cebit

Link-O-Rama (December 2005)

Stavanja — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 10:43:00 GMT

Another month. Another collection of links...

Sports/Packers/Racing

CAD/GIS/Mapping

Local/Regional

Current Events/Politics

Programming/Computers

Manufacturing

Science

Off-the-Wall

You can see my complete bookmark archive at my del.icio.us bookmarks page.

tags: links, montana, programming, asp.net, packers, racing, iraq, katrina

Link-O-Rama (October 2005)

Stavanja — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 05:53:00 GMT

Several of you seemed to enjoy my Links of the Week post a couple weeks ago. Since it's a fairly easy thing to produce I'll try to make it a semi-regular thing. I can't promise once a week, but we'll see how the rebranded Link-O-Rama goes. Enjoy...

Programming/Computers/Technology

New Search Engines

Mapping/GIS

Business/Productivity

Packers/Sports/Racing

Coach Says I'm Fine (WARNING: don't open if you're squemish)
Alabama's Tyrone Prothro - The worst injury I've watched live since Theismann
ESPN.com - ESPN-RSS - RSS Index
Mike Price settles $20M defamation suit over SI article
Romanowski admits steroid use while playing in NFL
Redesigned car coming in '07 for Champ Car Series
RollingStone.com Kid Cannabis News
SPOTLIGHT- ANTHONY'S HOMEPORT
UnderDog Live Action Movie Coming to the Bigscreen!

Current Events

The Damning FEMA E-mails

Miscellaneous

Off-the-Wall

Links of the Week

Stavanja — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:43:00 GMT

As usual, I've been too busy to blog lately, but I thought I'd try something new; I'll try posting a list of some of the things that caught my eye during my online travels during the past week or so. Enjoy...

Programming/Computers/Technology

Packers/Sports

Miscellaneous

Obscure Link of the Week

How to Bypass Many Major Corporate Automated Phone Systems and Talk to a Real Person

Bluesecurity White Paper: Hostile Consumer Profiling

Stavanja — Sun, 29 May 2005 20:29:00 GMT

If you have a web site that uses email addresses for registration ids, you need to read Hostile Consumer Profiling, the new white paper by Bluesecurity. It does a great job describing how your registration system can be used by hackers to profile your customers.

[via CNET: Phishers Get Personal]

Google Offers April Fool's Search

Stavanja — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 12:29:00 GMT

An April Fool's search Engine. Ya gotta love Google's sense of humor.

Seriously though, speaking as a guy that runs a vertical search engine, it's scary how nicely Google can so neatly slice such a thin vertical search. They've been moving this direction for a long time now.

The NFL Helmet PC

Stavanja — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:53:00 GMT

OK, sure, I admit it. I'm a geek (The first step is admiting it, right?). But make no mistake -- first and foremost, I'm a Packer fan. Now that being the case, what would make more sense than having a high-performance small-format PC topped with a replica of your favorite team's helmet? Check out the Helmet PC.

Hint: Christmas is right around the corner

What Happened to my Penmanship?

Stavanja — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 17:05:00 GMT

I was at my mom's house earlier today and noticed some notes she had written. I was again struck by how beautiful her penmanship is. As a kid I always admired her handwriting and did my best to make mine match hers. By high school I had developed a pretty good hand myself, and took a great deal of pride in it. But looking at my mom's writing earlier today made me realize how far mine has slipped. I really got me thinking, and after weighing all the factors, I came to two conclusions...

I should have better things to do in life than contemplate life-altering issues such as penmanship.
The quality of my handwriting has decreased steadily since I began using computers on a daily basis.

That's right, it's the computer's fault. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. When I used to write by hand all the time, good handwriting was easy to maintain. Now that I write so little, it's not. I need to make it a point to work on the issue.

After doing a quick Google search on penmanship, I found an interesting article about the dying art of penmanship from CBSnews.com a couple of months ago. It also brings up computers as an issue, but one of the main points they make is that penmanship itself isn't being taught anymore. Obviously penmanship shouldn't be the highest priority in school these days, but it's still a shame that it seems to get so little now.

You know, another thing just struck me... programmers have long been striving to solve the problems associated with handwriting recognition in order to allow users to bypass the keyboard for input in favor of simply writing directly on a computer screen. It has proven to be a difficult problem to solve, and is still far from easily usable by the masses. The most usable form of handwriting recognition today works best when interpreting printed individual characters rather than cursive. The problem with being able to interpret cursive is simply the wide variety of individual cursive writing styles. Therefore people using today's handwriting technologies are actually being discouraged from using cursive, and encouraged to print. Likewise the less people use cursive, the more their cursive-style handwriting erodes -- making it even more difficult for a computer to interpret. Sounds like a vicious circle to me.

But rest assured, someday someone somewhere will blame Microsoft.