SkyHarbor needs to go embedded

A few weeks ago I went to Terminal 2 at Phoenix SkyHarbor Airport (PHX). [PS: I'm always impressed by the cleanliness.] There were new 'Arrival/Departure' screens .... not the normal TV-Monitors.

These monitors were large, LCD monitors ... 4 monitors in a group .. at body-height. It was nice because the old TV-Monitors are usually mounted up high and you have to always look up to see them.

I was able to look behind the monitors and took a great snap-shot. Notice what they're doing? Each monitor has its own Dell small-footprint PC .. what a waste. It would be so much easier to have one monitor with an embedded PC .. and that PC driving the video for all the monitors. If they make it wireless and use a low-power PC .. imagine the cost savings (in support and power).

It's nice to find these issues ... I just wonder to who I should communicate this idea.

Kodak Gallery -- download script

I have some photos that I uploaded to Kodak Gallery (2002-2003). Now, I want those photos back .. going into each album, viewing the picture then downloading the picture. Luckily, I found a script does all the grunt work for me.

Axon Flux has a great Ruby script that easily downloads all your albums into separate folders. I modified the script based on the comments and validated that it works in Windows-XP.

First, install Ruby for Windows (http://rubyinstaller.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?RubyInstaller)
Then install the 'mechanize' and 'fileutils' addons:
At a prompt type: c:\Program Files\Ruby\bin\gem install mechanize fileutils

Modify the ruby script with your KodakGallery username and password.
Now run the ruby script: ruby ruby_script.rb

It's that easy!

I am now able to blog from my phone thru SMS. Not sure when I will ever do it ... Except for now (just to test to see if I can do it).

Oh .. Only 160-chars!

Blogger Essential Training -- Online

Learning by video is unique to understand a new process. Lynda.com provides great video tutorials for various technologies. What's nice is they've provided one for free .. online.

"Blogger Essential Training" 17 chapters on blogging .. and using Blogspot.com. This is a great way to learn to about blogging ... just watch the videos on your free time.

Google Voice

Hooray! .. I finally got an invitation to use Google Voice. Google Voice gives me my own phone number .. and that number is multi-faceted. That number can forward to my cell-phone, work-phone or home phone. And .. if I don't answer .. it will go to Voicemail. That voice mail can be access from my email.

There are other neat features with Google Voice. I can call anywhere in the US for free. From my Google Voice webpage, I can enter a phone number to call. GV will then call that number .. and call my home phone. So I can call anywhere in the US .. and it will connect it to my designated phone!!!

Here's something to think about. Setup your GV phone number to an area-code where your family is. Some of my family live out of state. So I setup my GV number to that state's area-code. Now my family can call a local number .. and it will ring my phone. It will be a local phone call for them.

It took me a few months before I got my 'invite'. But they may be giving them out now with less of a waiting time. Go ahead .. try Google Voice.

Previous Ubuntu server from within VMWare

Ok ... it took some time, but my Ubuntu garage server is back .. up-and-running inside VMWare Workstation running on Vista-32.

Brief background information: I have a pink PC (my daughter's old PC) running in the garage. I loaded it with Ubuntu 9.04, configured with Gallery2 .. so I can host family photos. I was also using it to learn Drupal and some torrenting.

But .. I'm on vacation, and I want to convert the family VCR home movies to digital. So I purchased a Canopus ADVC 110 (analog to digital) device. But I was nervous on software .. and Canopus software runs on Windows only. So I put another harddrive in and installed Vista. My conversion of the VCR tapes is going well .. but then I thought about my Ubuntu server.

Ahh .. I remembered there was an option in VMWare ... which allows you to use a physical harddrive. I tried that option .. and I was able to boot my Ubuntu up and have it running inside VMWare. Some simple finageling around with port-forwarding on the router .... and Apache is working well.

It took some time .. but my Ubuntu is back, up and running!

web2mail.com

I've been using web2mail for about 5 years now. It allows you to surf the web by email. But that's just one of several things you can do with this website. You can schedule Web2Mail to email you a snapshop of a webpage daily (or weekly or monthly).

Most times, I want to follow up on a web site ... usually it's several sites. It's a repetative process .... to type in the URL .. check the site out .. just to see what's new.

That's why it's nice to use Web2Mail.com. I've been using it for about 5 years (probably longer) and it is quiet handy. It emails a copy of webpages to me every morning. I check my email daily .. and this is probably the best way to follow up on a site without having to type in the URL of every site I want to visit.

Give www.web2mail.com a try. Setup an account ... select a URL to track .. and put in a subscription time (and day of month).