Month: October 2004

Bike, eh?

BikeIt is not every day that I see a motorbike powered by chainsaw motor. Can you imagine that? I guess you can. Now try to imagine 24 such engines on a single bike. Still up to it? I don’t think so. :)

This does exist though. You can get all the details, more pictures, sound sample and much more here. I am off to trying to figure out how reattach my jaw back from the floor and onto a face.

On wireless inputs

My brother has a post in his blog about how he is happy with his wireless keyboard and mouse. Originally I wanted to write a comment there with my reasons against wireless inputs, but than I thought that it would be handy to have it here (makes referring to it later kind of easier).

I don’t like wireless keyboards/mice at all. Here are my reasons:

  • Slow and inaccurate. Try playing an intensive game of Quake3 and you’ll see for yourself.
  • More work without much gain. Charging and replacing batteries is boring. Battery life sucks for those who spend a lot of time on the computer. Meanwhile, the distance you can move the devices is not that great. Not even a medium room diagonal.
  • Space saving is a myth. All of these keyboards that I’ve seen come with stupid multimedia functions which there is no good use for. They are always there to hide the size expansion that is needed to fill in the batteries. Keyboard cable takes much less space and is much more flexible (you can bend it).
  • Weight. Because of the batteries wireless devices are havy. That is not so noticable with the keyboard, but mouse will provide for some extra body shaping. If you can stand it that is.
  • Price. These things are more expensive than there cord counterparts. Plus you have to buy the batteries once in a while.

Full item and comments feed

Some of you have asked for a way to see if there were any comments to items you’ve commented on. Apparently, there is a NP_RSSItem plugin for NucleusCMS that allows for automatic creation of feeds for full items and all comments. I have installed and configured. There is a new link marked “Item feed” at the bottom of every post. Give this link to your RSS aggrigator and it will notify you in case I will update the item or if any comments will be posted for this item.

Also, if you prefer to get full posts in your RSS feed instead those shorter versions I am providing now, than you can subscribe to this feed (hello Rinat).

I have checked the functionality with BlogLines and seem to work fine. Let me know if you find any problem with this.

GIMP guru

For those people that need minor or midium image manipulation I do often recommend Gimp. Unless you are an Adobe Photoshop fan or a professional designer with some very specific needs, Gimp can do the job for you and save you some money along the way.

While Gimp itself works great, there is a lack of documentation (in terms of tutorials, tips, and tricks) compared to Adobe Photoshop world. There are a few at Gimp’s website, of course. But there are few other resources if you know what I mean.

Gimp guru is just such a resource. It has a few tutorials, links to mailing lists/forums where people can talk and even provides a “Ask your question” section. The site is oriented towards the photographers mainly, but it can prove useful for other artists too.