Tuesday, January 11, 2011

2011 Silicon Valley International Auto Show and Traffic school


Allie went to traffic school this past Saturday for a ticket she earned during the Thanksgiving holiday. In the past, the real life edition of traffic school was a preferable over the online edition. However, she reported to me this time was no picnic. The class of more strict that before. She then told me several tales about her 1 day adventure in dealing with many different kinds of strange people. How do people fit that much annoying interaction into a lousy 8 hours?

So, on Sunday, I planned an in-town day trip to downtown Campbell for lunch, and also the 2011 Silicon Valley International Auto Show in downtown San Jose. This trip is notable for one very strange fact. We were actually able to take local light-rail public transit to each of our destinations. Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area are notorious for poor public transportation options. The fact that we were able to go to two enjoyable locations using light-rail is amazing.

Anyway, there were some cool vehicles this year. Here's some pictures from the show.









Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The bear at the Bellagio



Here's the bear in the Bellagio (Vegas) xmas display.  Its adorable, but if it was real, I'd never be this close.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Senseless Sunday: fruitville


  • The peanut is misnamed since it is actually a legume.

  • Pineapples are coalesced berries.

  • If a raisin is dropped into a glass of fresh champagne, it will float and sink over and over.

  • From 1923 to 1969, Illinois had a law making American their official language[1].

  • After Canada and Mexico, Russia is the nearest neighbor to the United States, via Alaska. In the middle of the Bering Strait, Russia’s Big Diomede Island and the U.S.’s Little Diomede Island are only two miles apart. "I can see Russia from my house."

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Android Top 10 Utility, Tools and Communications Apps for 2010

A lot of new apps are now available on the Android Market this year. With so many new apps and Android phones, it's hard to keep up. So, I'm going to do several top ten app lists for various categories this year. This is the 2010 installment of my Top 10 Android Utility, Tools and Communications Apps for 2010, in no particular order.

  • Star Contact by StarObject provides advanced Contacts search functionally that is missing from almost all smartphones (even Palm). Though I do not use this app every time I need to look up contact, it proves itself to be essential when searching contacts based on criteria other than a person's name. (Also listed in 2009.)
  • Easy Dialer Premium by UIP ($) does cost a small nominal fee, but it is worth the chump change! It provides a well designed speed dial interface that really should be the standard for any Android smartphone. There is a free version with small and unintrusive ads called Easy Dialer. (Also listed in 2009.)
  • App Referrer by Drathus allows one person to quickly give an app to another person's phone by scanning a simple barcode. (Requires Barcode Scanner app from Google.)
  • Blogaway by Kumar Bibek is a simple and convenient method to post articles to your blogger.com blogs.
  • WordPress by Automattic, Inc (WordPress makers) is a fairly powerful app that allows you to add and edit comments, articles and pages to your WordPress blog.
  • Shazam by Shazam Entertainment Ltd is a powerful tool that can quickly identify a work of music just by listening to it, with information about the artist, myspace pages, etc.
  • FPT System Manager by FPT Software is a powerful app provides detailed system and app information, with many tools built-in. Unfortunately, this app may no longer be available.
  • Mute by Marko Mitic is a very simple tool that allows for one-button press to toggle the fully muted mode on the Android phone. This is on my home screen and I use it almost every day.
  • Tip Calculator by Techmind determines a tip on the pre-sales tax price. It also calculates the amount each person owes on split bills. There are many tip calculators on the Android Market, but this is gets straight to the point with a simple and easy to use interface.
  • Twidroyd for Twitter by PostUp, Inc is a great Twitter client app with a lot of bells and whistles that are missing from Twitter.com homepage. It tracks multiple accounts, has LivePreview which automatically shows webpages or profiles associated with a particular tweet, and has an intuitive interface. There is also a paid version called Twitdroyd Pro for Twitter, which I recommend if you want additional control over your Twitter experience.