Refenestration Daily.
Annika Sörenstam, an excellent golfer in her own right, has accepted an invitation to play in the PGA’s Colonial tournament in May. This isn’t the first time that a women has played in a PGA Tour event, but the last time was in 1945.
At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about this. But, I think it’ll be interesting, and I look forward to seeing how it turns out. As long as they play by the same rules, I welcome women in traditionally men’s sports.
I was talking to Bryan today about Plucker. I was originally going to e-mail him, but I figured I’d post about it here as well.
Plucker is an offline web browser for the Palm (screenshots). It has a PC-component that downloads websites that you specify, converts them to Palm-friendly format, and queues them for your next Hotsync into your Palm. The Plucker-viewer resides on the Palm to view the pages.
Sounds like AvantGo? Well, it is similar, but better. Unlike AvantGo, Plucker is free (well, the basic AvantGo with 2 MB capacity is free, but the 8 MB version is $19.95/year). And, while AvantGo actually charges websites to be accessible by AvantGo, you can also pluck any page on the web (though it has an easier time with pages that are enhanced for mobile devices).
Plucker is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
Update 2/13: Changed URL for plucker friendly pages (the PDA Sized URL Wiki is more up-to-date).
I haven’t had much luck in finding a roommate for SXSW, so I may end up just booking a hotel on my own. So, does anyone have any suggestions for hotels? Something close to the convention center would be convenient, and free breakfast would be a plus (since I’m trying to save on costs here and there).
Apparently, there’s a new Hampton Inn near the convention center which is becoming popular with some bloggers. According to that post at SXSWBlog, the rate is $76.50 (for AAA), though I’m currently getting errors at Hampton Inn’s website when I try to get a rate quote to confirm that :-/. (Perhaps it’s full already.)
I also checked Hotels.com for prices. There, the Wellesley Inn & Suites North (8221 North Ih-35) caught my eye as it’s just $60/night but it includes breakfast and a kitchen in each room.
There’s also the Wellesley Inn Town Lake which is closer than the North location. However, it wasn’t showing up on Hotels.com and wasn’t able to get a rate quote on their website either, leading me to believe that it might just be full (not that I’d be terribly surprised, considering how close it is to the convention center).
If you’ve already booked your hotel, we could even carpool to and from the convention center if I were to book there as well.
I took some pictures at the last Slashdot Meetup (with Jason’s camera), and I’d like to put them up with Gallery (Gallery is a free web based photo album). I know several other people that have installed Gallery, but are there any tricky parts to the installation?
Gallery requires PHP, of couse, but I’ve confirmed that my hosting provider includes that. And, looking over their abbreviated installation instructions, it seems so simple ;).
- Check your requirements. You will need access to a server running Apache and PHP, with NetPBM installed and running. - details
- Download the gallery files. Create an appropriate directory and install the files on your server.
- Create an albums directory and set its permissions.
- Run the configuration script. You will need to know your root directory and URL.
- Set up some albums and add images.
- That's it!
With any luck, installing Gallery is no more difficult (or even easier) than installing Movable Type, which I made it through without much trouble.
PS: Byran, I would have TrackBacked one of your posts, but I couldn't find a TrackBack URL there :(.
There was a Slashdot story recently with a parody-history of the character Q*Bert. Seeing an opportunity, I asked about Q*Bert clones for the PC (since I know of none).
I also asked whether there were any decent Arkanoid clones for the PC (Arkanoid must be my favorite arcade-style game). I didn’t get an answer about Q*Bert clones, but entrippy pointed to Jardinains as a viable Arkanoid clone.
I had previously discovered DX Ball on my own, but Jardinains is even better. Though DX Ball is also fun (be sure to give it a try if you like the Arkanoid/breakout genre), its chief disadvantage is the scarcity of levels — I think I completed the game within a few days.
Jardinains doesn’t necessarily have more levels (I haven't finished the game, so I can’t be certain), but its levels are more intricate so they last longer anyhow. And, like any good Arkanoid clone, Jardinains has plenty of cool power-ups from laser-gun shooters to 1-Ups and ball-goes-through-everything powers.
As an interesting twist, Jardinains also features gnomes — yes, gnomes. The little guys “live” in some of the blocks and throw flower-pots onto the player’s paddle (these count for negative points if you run into them). However, if your ball hits the block housing a gnome, he falls of his perch — and, at this point, you can bounce him around for some extra points.
I’ve enjoyed Jardinains so far and I’d be rather temped to register it (as it is shareware) if I were properly employed. Its only disadvantage, perhaps, is that there is no save-game functionality nor level-codes; so, even advanced players that may have made it to level 9 in previous games still have to trudge through the easy level at the start of every game :-/.