Post to Flickr by Tim O'Reilly and titled - Result of a "What is Web 2.0?" brainstorming session at FOO Camp 2005.

Yahoo! is getting a lot of props for it updated mail interface. Seems like almost everyone is say Yahoo! is better than Gmail.

I've yet to be able to login to my Yahoo! mail account. This started because I hadn't logged on to My Yahoo! for a while, so my mail account was no longer active. But when I tried to re-activate my Yahoo! mail account I got caught in some kind of loop where I'd get passed from a page informing me my mail account was no longer active, to a page asking me whether I wanted to re-activate, back to the page informing me my mail account was no longer active, so on & so on & so on...until I ended up getting the following message...

Yahoo! Mail is experiencing some temporary problems. Please try again later.

It's no big deal really because I'm primarily a Thunderbird mail user, taking advantage of public email services mainly for online registrations, etc. But it would be nice to try out the new interface. Guess I'll try again later.

I think I like Dave's view on the subject...

Two great development companies competing for our attention, and neither of them is Microsoft. Come to think of it, neither is Apple.

Good to see...true?

SixApart has release details on their new Project Comet.

Project Comet will launch in early 2006 and will combine the publishing power of TypePad, the community aspects of LiveJournal and the years of insight garnered from Movable Type. Project Comet is focused on creating an advanced weblogging technology platform combining the best elements of all our products, giving people the ability to easily stake out, build and share their own place on the web.

Here's the press release titled - Six Apart Ups the Ante for Weblogging. Mena also has a nice introduction of the service.

I'm still a dedicated roll-your-own-blog-software, but congrats to SixApart for raising the bar yet again.

A while ago I posted about Koders - a search engine specifically design for searching source code. And more recently someone kindly pointed me to a similar project called Codase.

Codase is the leading source code search company with advanced source code understanding and xml index/search technologies. Rather than treating code as text, Codase understands programming languages, and treats code as code, the way it's supposed to be. This unique and syntax-aware approach provides the most accurate and detailed search results with fine granularity levels of controls. With Codase, one can search functions, classes, strings, constants, macros, comments and other programming language constructs.

Codase hosts huge amount of open source codes providing a much better coverage, as it covers codes usually hidden inside compressed files and source control repositories, where general search engines fail to find and index. In addition, Codase only indexes and searches high quality codes with every line of code literally validated and compiled by intelligent and powerful source code analysis engine.

Codase is a privately held company based in silicon valley, founded by Dr. Huihong Luo and other veterans. We are a group of innovative and passionate professionals with diverse technologies, business background and proven track of records. We are committed to make Codase the world's best search engine for source codes in terms of features, quality, performance and code coverage. If you are a developer, you may find Codase useful, since improving your coding productivity is our goal.

Sounds interesting to me. And at the very least it's always good to have another resource at your fingertips when building a software project. Usually Google comes through with enough information to point you in the right direction, but I have a feeling using a code search engines will not only sorted the time spent researching, but also provide you with more options and variants to solve the particular issue your dealing with.

While trying to find out more information on Dr. Huihong Luo I came across this artcle on Codase at NewsForge.

It seems he's also the founder of a company called RemoteSoft.

Remotesoft is a silicon valley company dedicated in providing the best development tools for Microsoft .NET platforms.

At the moment it looks as if Codase only searches C, C++, Java, C# & VB, which makes it a little limiting to all those Perl, Python & PHP developers [not to mention all the other languages out there], but they state in their roadmap that - "[We will] gradually cover[s] Visual Basic, Visual Basic .NET, Fortran, JavaScript, JSP, ASP, ASPX, PHP, Perl, etc."

This great idea of $100 Laptops has been in the pipeline for a few years now, but it looks like Nicholas Negroponte has got the ball rolling with plans to start providing by 'end of 2006 or early 2007'.

The site has some interesting answers to the problem of making such a low cost device.

How is it possible to get the cost so low?

• First, by dramatically lowering the cost of the display. The first-generation machine may use a novel, dual-mode LCD display commonly found in inexpensive DVD players, but that can also be used in black and white, in bright sunlight, and at four times the normal resolution—all at a cost of below $30.
• Second, we will get the fat out of the systems. Today's laptops have become obese. Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine different ways.
• Third, we will market the laptops in very large numbers (millions), directly to ministries of education, which can distribute them like textbooks.

And the project has teamed up with some good companies.

Organizationally, MIT will work with a small number of companies of complementary skills to develop a fully working and manufactured laptop (50,000 to 100,000 units) in fewer than 12 months, with an eye on building about 100 million to 200 million units by the following year. Five initial companies who have committed to this project are AMD, Brightstar, Google, News Corp, and Red Hat. MIT will also work with the not-for-profit company One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), as well as with the 2B1 Foundation.

I just hope they sell them to everyone and not just developing countries. If I ever have a kid I'd love his/her first computer to be a rugged little $100 laptop.

'nuff said...check it out here.

Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves. Whether you're looking for Harry Potter reviews, political commentary, summer salad recipes or anything else, Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice.

Your results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger; our blog index is continually updated, so you'll always get the most accurate and up-to-date results; and you can search not just for blogs written in English, but in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and other languages as well.

Oh...I'd just like to say thank you and goodbye to all the other blog search engines that have started out in the last few years. It was nice having you around and thanks for all the hard work.

PocketMod has a nice useful flash application to create a paper based PDA [I guess you'd call it a PPA].

I like flash apps when there's a good reason to use it. Using flash just as eye-candy is a little old, but as a web-based application platform it's just dripping with potiential. I know I've mentioned it before, but TheyRule.net is still my favorite flash app on the net.

For anyone into a little home-based music production, you can't go past a product like ReBirth. It provides you with some of the most popular sound makers of all time [TB-303 Bass Line Synthesizer & the TR-808/909 drum machines]. The ReBirth Museum has been setup by PropellerHead Software [makers of the now-out-of-production Rebirth program], and they are giving away version 2.0.1 of ReBirth for free.

If you've already got a copy of Reason there's no real need for ReBirth, but if you're on a budget and can't afford Reason, Rebirth is a good place to start.

That that I own a Log Home I have the responsibility for the care and maintenance for the logs that make up a significant amount of it structure. And seeing as the house was unoccupied for such a long time, some of the maintenance is required asap. Especially, if I want to move it before winter, all the little holes and cracks need to be attended to.

Rather than rely on my lack of experience in this field or the knowledge of the sale rep. at the local hardware store, I thought a good place to start learning would be from the good old book - via a few days of research via the good old net.

What I came up with were the following two amazon purchases;

Log Home Care And Maintenance provides a more theoretical approach to the maintenance of log homes. It contains a lot of information about the methods you'll need to practice and the products you can use. It's all good information that you need to know, but the style of presenting the informatiion is sometimes a little difficult.

...Smart care of the log home begins with understanding the materials, and Jim Davis starts with the basics, explaining why logs make good homes, demystifying the science of wood, and talking about the properties of the various types of wood and how they respond to changes in temperature and humidity. He follows with advice about inspecting and designing log homes, outlining approaches that will head off trouble before it sets in. Also included is a complete and easy-to-follow plan of regular maintenance, addressing problems related to everything from weather to general cleaning to fending off the assaults of insects. Final chapters cover replacement of entire logs, and evaluating contractors. Most important is Davis's overarching theme - intelligent maintenance will save log home owners countless hours and, just as crucial, many dollars.

It's a good one to have on the bookself, but I think I'll get more immediate use out of...

Log Home Maintenance Guide on the other hand is light on the details but straight into the guts of practical know-how. Descriptive steps are vital for a DIY project and this book does it all really well. More importantly it provides photos and diagrams of all the issues and resolutions so you can visually relate.

When I first received this book I thought the layout looked too simple to provide indepth knowledge about log home maintenance, but I was wrong. I'm glad I have both because they compliment each other, but if I had to choose one it would be the Log Home Maintenance Guide.

America has hundreds of thousands of log homes from the Great Lakes region to the West, from the Great North Woods to the Deep South. Indeed, several national magazines cater to the log home crowd for design and decorating ideas. Now Gary Schroeder offers this world the first guide to the unique maintenance issues these homes present.

Many log home owners do further damage to their expensive homes by incorrectly treating their problems. No more. With detailed full-color photos and clear instructions, The Log Home Maintenance Guide will help you identify, diagnose, and resolve problems ranging from dry rot to carpenter ants.

The Log Home Maintenance Guide is an investment that will protect your investment. No home repair section should be without it. 150 color photographs, 50 color illustrations.