Thursday, May 31, 2007

New Tech impresses me

Read about Microsoft Surface today, which looks like a very interesting and fun platform to play with.

The concept is using multitouch (more than one pointer on the screen, just like what Steve Jobs showed with the iPhone) on a big touch screen to navigate a delicious user interface built with WPF. In addition, a system utilizing invisible ink to tag devices like cameras and smartphones, is used to make Surface interact with devices and objects from the real world.

Microsoft says that the hardware will be kind of expensive (in the $5K-$10K range). What I really would like to see is Microsoft Surface running on a TabletPC with lots of cpu and memory. That would be a nice way of using my Toshiba Tecra M4...!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Link to PopFly

Some of my readers have pointed out that I didn't include a link to PopFly yesterday. Sorry :-) Here it is:

http://www.popfly.com

And here is the link to the video presentation on Channel9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=308460

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Popfly!

Just read about PopFly from Microsoft, which seems to be a really cool solution for building mashups and sharing them afterwords. The whole thing is built on Silverlight, which is also what I am currently installing on my computer..

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Facebook is a cool hypeapp

I finally decided to join some of the social networks out there, and went for both linkedin an facebook.

Facebook has definitely been giving me most joy out of the two, but I suspect that Linkedn will probably give me more bang for the bucks if I'd really need it sometime in the future.

I really look forward to see if people will still enjoy writing on each other's walls and keep on connecting with long lost friends and classmates six months from now.

I really need to stay on Facebook for the nex months to see for myself :-) Anyway, without the hype there wouldn't have been any fun! Hope the hype stays.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Multitasking and the joy of Media Center

I'm currently doing some serious multitasking on my new HTCP.

The kids are watching children's tv while I'm reading my RSS feeds (and blogging). All on the same screen (thanks to NRK not sending in widescreen), thanks to our LCD flatscreen. And the kids aren't complaining about my thin Firefox window taking up approx. 1/3 of the screen.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

My new HTCP

I've been working a lot the past few days to get my new HTCP up and running. Everything seemed to work perfect, except that I couldn't get any live TV. I tried everything from reinstalling Windows Media Center (which took a while and wasn't as easy as other Windows installations) to opening up the computer making sure there were no faulty connections anywhere. I also installed a couple of alternative applications for watching TV hoping that my channels would magically appear.

The solution was to borrow another TV-card and insert it into the computer. This is a small and tight PC, so inserting the slightly bigger PVR 500 card (originally a PVR 150) was a tight fit. But when booting up the machine the new card was immediately recognized, and all my channels were instantly found!

Since my HTPC was bought used from the internet (norwegian site finn.no), I was a bit skeptic to what I could achieve in return for the faulty card. I contacted the seller, who was a real gentleman and was promised a direct return on the card. Thanks!

Now I'm of to watch some recorded TV shows!