• This is your Tech Tidbits Daily for Wednesday, May 18th, 2005. Today’s podcast contains one technical reference and some reader feedback.

    While going through my RSS archive I found the following post from Chris Pirillo entitled "Convert VHS Movies To DVD!"  This article is available for $17 and is in Adobe Portable Digital Format (PDF).  The principle author for this document is Jake Ludington who examines hardware, software, and other key areas that you’ll need to make this step-by-step "how-to" work for you.

    The reader’s feedback came in via email from Dave @ ChubCreek at (Podcast Feed). Dave shares his thoughts on Digital SLR cameras.  More info was suggested by checking out: Digital Camera Resource  and Steve’s DigiCams Online.

    For more information about the links mentioned in this podcast, or for
    more details on how to subscribe to this podcast check out www.technewsradio.com. You can also email feedback to technewsradio@gmail.com; or you can leave audio comments by calling 206-337-1533. Have a great day.

    + , , ,
  • This is your Tech Tidbits Daily for Tuesday, May 17th, 2005. Today’s podcast contains one technical reference.

    LDAP (v3) Revision is progressing to final stages of being turned into Draft Standard by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).  This is expected by December 2005. 

    LDAP is the acronym for Lightwieght Directory Access Protocol and is basically "a lightweight alternative to the X.500 Directory Access Protocol (DAP) for use on the Internet. It uses TCP/IP stack verses the overly complex OSI stack. It also has other simplifications, such as the representing most attribute values and many protocol items as textual strings, that are designed to make clients easier to implement."

    Some key sub-documents outline all the technical details like: protocol, string representation, name distinguishing, authentication methods, security mechanisms, resource locator, schemas, syntaxes, matching rules, road map, and models. This effort is also being heralded by OpenLDAP.org.  Which has version 2.2.26 available for download and details on how to implement solutions in Java.

    For more information about the links mentioned in this podcast, or for
    more details on how to subscribe to this podcast check out www.technewsradio.com. You can also email feedback to technewsradio@gmail.com; or you can leave audio comments by calling 206-337-1533. Have a great day. [BACKGROUND MUSIC from Billy Watson]

    + , ,
  • This is your Tech Tidbits Daily for Monday, May 16th, 2005. Today’s podcast contains one technical reference.

    IBM Cloudscape version 10.0 is an open source-based Java relational database management system that can be embedded in Java programs and used for online transaction processing (OLTP).

    It is platform-independent, and has a small-footprint, only 2MB.  In addition Cloudscape v10.0 integrates tightly with any Java-based enterprise solutions like J2EE, Apache web-servers, and will run on any standard Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

    It also has interfaces to Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) using IBM DB2 Run-Time Client.  Sounds pretty powerful.

    For more information about the links mentioned in this podcast, or for
    more details on how to subscribe to this podcast check out www.technewsradio.com. You can also email feedback to technewsradio@gmail.com; or you can leave audio comments by calling 206-337-1533. Have a great day.

    + , ,
  • A Rip and Read podcast posted in early May has a great segment on First Lady Laura Bush’s roast of the President and others at an event in DC recently.  It is very funny.

    My wife is currently listening to it in the kitchen and she is laughing out loud.

    + , ,
  • One of the more recent Federal Computer Week (FCW) had an article about how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was doing some more technology training, but the picture they used was funny (linked here).  It appears to be a 1980s picture of training via CRT monitors.

    +
  • Funny picture (linked here) came in through Blogdigger.

    +
  • TiddlyWiki is really cool.  Just playing with it on the web is neat. 

    But then when you dig a little deeper and find out you can save it local since it is all HTML based, it will blow your mind. Very neat!

    Since it is all HTML based it can also be served up pretty easily to probably just about any type of server.

    +
  • PRESS RELEASE [MacWorld – San Francisco, CA, USA]: "Geek
    Factor Podcast
    "We here at Macworld have decided to experiment with the
    Podcast format. … Former Macworld intern Cyrus Farivar is the
    host of this Podcast. …"

    +
  • Renee Blodgett [down the avenue] posted her answers to:

    "Someone sent this to me and these are things I think about frequently, and its amusing so worth posting part of it. For those of us born in the 50s and 60s, things we survived:

    • We survived being born to mothers who smoked and / or drank while pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
    • After that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.
    • As children, we rode in cars without seatbelts or air bags.
      We drank water form the garden hose and not from a bottle.
    • We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
      We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because we were always outside playing.
      We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones-unthinkable.
    • We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-boxes, or video games, no 99 channels on cable, videotape movies, surround sound, cell phones, personal computers or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them.
    • We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
    • We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.
    • We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house, knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
    • The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
    • This generation produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. Here here.
    +
  • [CNN.com – Most Popular] "A surprising number of Hyundai customers [all from Red States?!?] said they didn’t want Sirius Satellite Radio installed in their vehicles because they objected to Howard Stern, according to an auto news Web site."

    +