Technology Information: April 2010

ART BY CHANCE: Ultra Short Film Festival, running on flat panel digital signage in the wild!

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:58 AM PDT

The Art by Chance festival will take place on digital screens in public places all over the world! Here is the promotional material from the Art By Chance website:

LOOK AROUND! Films leave cinemas for the streets

"ART BY CHANCE is a brand new Ultra Short Film Festival will take place from7 May to 4 June 2010 in more than 20 countries and over 100 cities worldwide.
For this festival, you don't need to buy a ticket or go to a movie theater! Movies just pop into your lives in subways, buses, airports, shopping malls, trains, sports centers, art galleries, museums, plains, campuses, cafes and bars! Internationally selected and "TIME" themed creative short films catch you unexpectedly while traveling in the subway, waiting at the airport, shopping or just strolling around.

Art by Chance 2010 has set out to explore how the perception of time is unique to every individual and how time can influence the narrative of city life, one of modern man's greatest challenges. Films touching the untouchable theme of time in their own time.

Digital screens scattered around the city your host for this festival. ART BY CHANCE simultaneously air in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, South Africa, Turkey, UK, USA and It reachs the largest audience ever, allowing art to break into the lives of millions around the world."

ART BY CHANCE 2010 Selection
17.01.1922 / Emilia& Marek Straszak / Poland
Before the Game is After the Game / Henriette Vogtherr / Germany
Contemplate Impermanence / Thomas Zachmeier / Germany
Cyclist / Serhat Dogan- Jeff Treves / Turkey
Eindeloos / Emmy Storm / Belgium
Eye / Todd Herman / US
Follow the white rabbit / Sylvain Favardin- Ludmila Korenarova / Belgium
Half a minute of eternity / Frank Becker- Bernd Straub Molitor / Germany
How to Use Time Flexibly / Eckhard Kruse / Germany
Irreversible / Appu N. Bhattathiri / India
Is this your limb? / Michael Ramsey / US
Mechanism / Michal Wojtasik- Agnieszka Kosinska / Poland
Melt / Kathryn Maguire / Ireland
Movemento / Ahmet Serif Yildirim- Davut Toy / Turkey
No Time / Caroline Arce Herrero / Spain
Parallel Spaces / Georgi Krastev / Bulgaria
Portrait and temporality / Pouya Ahmadi / Switzerland
Prelude to A Symphony (in Sweatch) / Christopher Dax Norman / US
Solid/ Liquid / Ozgür Erman / Turkey
Temp Mort (dead time) / Manas Bhattacharya & Madhuban Mitra / India
Thanks Warhol / Caley Jane Dimmock / Canada
The best Buddhist / Wiracha Daochai / Thailand
Time cubed / Alexander Schmutzler / Germany
Time makes every static image dynamic / Justin Lincoln /US
Timebank / Arttu Lehtovaara / Finland
Trains, dames&timetables / Daniel Coss & Neill Staines / Ireland
Twentyfour seven / Aaron Rositzka- Julius Krenz / Germany
Until, after / Emre Ozerden / Turkey
Up and down at day / Bele Albrecht / Germany
Waiting / Amila Galappatthi / Srilanka
Wake Up / Zane Raudina / Latvia

View videos on the ART BY CHANCE 2009 website:

Raymond.CC Blog: “Free 6 Months Trial Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Activation Code” plus 1 more

Free 6 Months Trial Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Activation Code

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:02 AM PDT

It has been a long time since I have posted something about Kaspersky. This 6 months KAV2010 license promotion which I am about to post is not from any CD magazine promo but a legitimate collaboration between Kaspersky and Microsoft for Windows Live Messenger users. As long as you have a Hotmail or Live account, [...]

Updating Ubuntu Extremely Quickly, and why Ubuntu is taking so long to release

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 06:30 PM PDT

Let me start by saying that I was hoping to install Xubuntu 10.04 just as much as the rest of you did today. However, they have run into a series of serious bugs that have prolonged how long we have to wait until the true final comes out. Last week, it ran into a fatal [...]

Multi-touch application developed by an all-woman team from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology for the Imagine Cup Competition

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:59 PM PDT

According to a recent article from the Microsoft News Center, "statistics from high schools and universities suggest that percentage won't change any time soon. Only 17 percent of Advanced Placement (AP) computer science test-takers in 2008 were women, even though women represented more than half of all AP test-takers. At the college level, fewer than one in five computer and information science degrees were awarded to women."

Microsoft's Imagine Cup competition is a way to encourage female students that they can use technology to help make the world a better place, and that computer science is a field that provides an outlet for creativity a innovation.

One of the teams that participated in the Imagine Cup Competition was "Team Blob". The young women in this team attend South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Their work can be seen in the video presentation of Team Blob's Multi-touch Designer, which allows teachers to create multi-touch presentations for their students. The application was written in C# using Windows Presentation Foundation.

The team developed a interactive timeline to highlight history's famous women in math and science, and demonstrated it on a 40-inch multi-touch table to girls who visited their university campus. The time-line can be seen in the video clip at about 3:34.

Team Blob members, from left, Lori Rebenitsch, Robyn Krage and Jaelle Scheuerman demo their application that aims to bring emerging multitouch technology into K-12 classrooms. The all-woman team is from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

"Team Blob members, from left, Lori Rebenitsch, Robyn Krage and Jaelle Scheuerman demo their application that aims to bring emerging multitouch technology into K-12 classrooms. The all-woman team is from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology."

Thinking Like a Storyteller: Words of Wisdom from Cindy Chastain on the use of storytelling in for interactiondesign (IXDA 10 Video)

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:00 PM PDT

Cindy Chastain is a Creative Director, Experience Architecture at Rapp, a global, full-service agency in NYC. Her background is in screen-writing. She also is a film-maker and technology consultant. The video below is of her presentation at IXDA 2010. It is well worth the 47 minute watch!

Here is a quote from Nasir Barday's post on the IXDA blog about Cindy Chastain's presentation:

"Designing with a narrative in mind can make a difference between a product that merely functions well and a product that engages the minds, emotions and imaginations of users." Nasir Barday, IXDA 2/26/10

Here are a few quotes from the presentation:
"How can we, as designers, provide cues that will deepen that narrative connection?"

"What can we learn from the discipline of storytelling that will help us design for more meaningful and engaging product experiences?"

"If we can move away from thinking of products in terms of interfaces and start thinking of them as representations or environments, in which agents perform actions, we will get us to a place where we can design more fluid and engaging dialogues/experiences."

Cindy Chastain-Thinking Like a Storyteller from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

Near the beginning of this video, Cindy discusses the concept of the user's narrative, described as a stream of self-talk occurs when someone interacts with a design product. Two types of narratives are likely to occur. According to Cindy, this phenomenon was noted by cognitive scientists. One is narrative of use, and involves the person's self-talk about the products features and affordances. The other is a personal narrative, which focuses on what the product means, how it might fit into one's life, and how it might be used.

Raymond.CC Blog: “X/K/Ubuntu 10.04 Releases today – Easy to install, configure, and use!” plus 1 more

X/K/Ubuntu 10.04 Releases today – Easy to install, configure, and use!

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 11:45 PM PDT

For those of you interested in Linux, especially the Ubuntu, Xubuntu, or Kubuntu flavors of it, good news. Sometime today marks the release of the next Long Term Supported release of it. As a supporter of Linux, today is as good of a day as ever to talk about it, the differences between other distributions, [...]

Unable to Activate Windows 7 Error Code 0xC004C008

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 09:20 PM PDT

I have a desktop computer which comes with Windows Vista preinstalled but I’ve wiped the drive and installed Windows 7 activating it with a Technet license. A technet license is a genuine product key where I can activate Windows 7 legally but the license agreement states that it is only for testing purposes but cannot [...]

My Top 5 N900 Applications

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 10:09 PM PDT

Apps, apps, apps! They make or break an operating system (mobile or otherwise). I've had my N900 for over four months now, and I use it at least four or more hours per day. The following are my top five application picks that are not included on the N900 by default.

#1 Firefox - Easily my favorite way to surf the web, on the N900 or otherwise. If you want more of my thoughts on this one check out my Firefox Mobile Review.

#2 fMMS - This application steps up to fill one of the biggest mess-ups Nokia made when they released the N900: lack of MMS support. fMMS currently supports sending pictures and receiving all types of media messages. Since I discovered this wonderful application I no longer have to hear my friends say "your phone does all that, but can't get a picture message?"

#3 TweeGo - Easily one of the most professional looking applications in the repositories that was created just for the N900. The UI is pleasing to the eye, easy to navigate, and provides everything you need to fully use twitter.

#4 FaceBrick - Currently still in development, FaceBrick just recently released its 0.3 version. It supports viewing your news feed, posting/viewing comments on posts, and posting your own status updates. This is for sure one to keep your eye on and I have no doubt that within a couple of months it will be just as polished and feature rich as TweeGo.

#5 Conky - Ever wonder what application is eating up all your system resources? Or maybe want to quickly check exactly how much rootfs space your device has left without having to crack open a terminal? Conky is your one stop application for all system monitoring related tasks.

And finally, because I want to include a good N900 game on this list, I'd like to include my girlfriend's pick for best N900 application: Angry Birds. Seriously, if you own an N900 and haven't downloaded and tried this one yet, stop reading this and go get it now. At least an hour of classic video game fun in that one there :)

What are your favorite N900/Maemo applications that you use everyday on your device?

~Jeff Hoogland

Firefox Mobile - Review

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 09:35 PM PDT

The N900 is my handheld of choice and as I've stated before it is by far the web browsing phone currently on the market. The most wonderful thing about FOSS is choice, just like a desktop computer the N900 provides you with a variety of web browsers to choose from and the Mozilla cooperation choose Maemo as the first platform to release their mobile browser for. I've been using firefox as the primary browser on my N900 since just prior to it's 1.0 release, the following are my summations of what I think of Mozilla's mobile browser.

Firefox Mobile navigates the web wonderfully, what few pages MicroB (the default N900 browser) Firefox handles like a dream. I have yet to find a website it fails to render properly.

Zooming in and out in firefox mobile works well. Double tapping on a section of the screen zooms to that portion for you. If this zoom scopes in too far or not enough for you holding control and pressing your plus/minus keys will allow you to have a more controlled zoom in the browser. In general I find the double tap zoom more than gets the job done and I rarely manually scope in/out.

Another nifty feature is that when you select an entry box on a website firefox auto zooms so the entry box fills the screen (width wise). It also provides you with next/previous buttons to jump between entry fields (for instance from a username box to a password box):

Speaking of password fields - firefox mobile displays the character you have entered for a moment when typing in a password instead of just displaying a star by default. This way you can be sure you have entered the proper character (always nice when you are dealing with function and shift keys on a tiny keyboard). Also present in firefox mobile is the non-intrusive offer to "remember", "not now", or "never" store a username/password combination when it is entered:

Then there is one of the things firefox was famous for first innovating on desktop browsers: tabs. The setup of firefox mobile is designed to keep the navigation features out of the user's way except for when they want to use them. By default when you are viewing a page it is full screen on the device:

To access the various navigation features swipe right, to see your open tabs:

Swipe left, to access back and forward buttons, plus your options:

or do either of the before mentioned motions to access your URL bar, application switcher, and exit button. I like the placement of the back and forward buttons, they are quickly accessible but as I stated out of the way when you do not need them.

Another firefox staple is of course addons. Firefox mobile is packed full of addons you can choose from, customization is the spice of life:

Right below plugins in firefox mobile is your download manager, nicely laid out the download manager lists all files you have downloaded in chronological order:

It also gives you a small notification in your browsing window when a download completes.

We all know you cannot have the good without the bad, there are a few things I would like to see added to firefox mobile. Firstly, there is no option of choosing where downloaded files are saved to - something that greatly irks me. Secondly, there is no way (at least that I have found) to select text on a page you are viewing (for instance for copy and pasting). Finally, the greatest trouble with firefox mobile I must say (and this may be a deal break for some) is the startup time. My N900 is over clocked to 800mhz and with no other applications running it takes firefox on average elven seconds to fully load.

All in all I think firefox mobile is the best browser currently available for the Maemo platform and thanks to the browser-switchboard it is the default browser on my device.

Did I miss any key points about firefox mobile? Is there another reason you use it or perhaps do not use it that I don't list here? Let me know by dropping a comment below.

~Jeff Hoogland

Raymond.CC Blog: “Free 1 Year Dr.Web anti-virus for Windows 6.0 License Key File” plus 1 more

Free 1 Year Dr.Web anti-virus for Windows 6.0 License Key File

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 12:01 AM PDT

Dr.Web, an antivirus software made from Russia has released their major update version 6.0 last month. The most significant modification incorporated in Dr.Web products of the sixth version is the completely changed file monitor SpIDer Guard. It provides support of 64-bit versions of Windows and improves performance and efficiency of anti-viruses achieved by optimizing interaction [...]

Modifying Windows Appearance with a Replacement Shell

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 10:41 PM PDT

Despite the fact that Windows 7 is the newest Windows operating system on the block, ever since Windows 95, it has never changed that much. You still have a button to access the start menu, the same toolbar at the bottom, the same taskbar, the same basic interface as the previous Windows operating system. It’s [...]

Interactive Multi-Touch for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Research and Apps by Juan Pablo Hourcade, Thomas Hanson, and Natasha Bullock-Rest, University of Iowa

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 05:58 PM PDT

Dr. Juan Pablo Hourcade heads a team of researchers at the University of Iowa who are creating multi-touch applications and other technologies to support communication, collaboration, creativity, and self-expression for young people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. The picture below is a screen shot of the team's web page that includes a few videos of the team's important work: (Videos can be found on the Technologies for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders webpage.)

RELATED VIDEOS

pymt demo reel from Thomas Hansen on Vimeo.

Multi Touch @ University of Iowa from Thomas Hansen on Vimeo.

RELATED
Hourcade, J.P., & Hansen, T.E. (2010). Multitouch Displays to Support Preschool Children's Learning in Mathematics, Reading, Writing, Social Skills and the Arts (pdf)

Dr. Hourcade is organizing the Digital Technologies and Marginalized Youth workshop on Satuirday, June 12, 2010 at the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC), which will be held this year in Barcelona, Spain.

Other workshops that will be held at IDC 2010:
Interactive Storytelling for Children
Extended Abstract: Interactive Storytelling for Children (pdf)
Designing Tangibles for Children
Play and Technology: How does technology initiate and facilitate physical play?

Dr. Hourcade's publications

STEIM- Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music: Interactive Music + Technology (Video clips and links)

Posted: 26 Apr 2010 01:45 PM PDT

I came across the STEIM website today and was impressed by what I saw on the videos embedded/linked below.

What is STEIM? According to the website, "STEIM (the studio for electro-instrumental music) is the only independent live electronic music centre in the world that is exclusively dedicated to the performing arts. The foundation's artistic and technical departments support an international community of performers and musicians, and a growing group of visual artists, to develop unique instruments for their work. STEIM invites these people for residencies and provides them with an artistic and technical environment in which concepts can be given concrete form. It catalyzes their ideas by providing critical feedback grounded in professional experience. These new creations are then exposed to a receptive responsive niche public at STEIM before being groomed for a larger audience."

"STEIM promotes the idea that Touch is crucial in communicating with the new electronic performance art technologies. Too much the computer has been used, and designed, as an exclusive extension of the formalistic capabilities of humans. At STEIM the intelligence of the body, for example: the knowledge of the fingers or lips is considered musically as important as the 'brain-knowledge'. STEIM has stimulated the design of extremely physical interfaces and is widely considered as the pioneering place for the new live electronic concepts."

STIEM offers a limited number of internships and residencies. Also available are orientation workshops, and guest house accommodations for visitors participating in the workshops who come from abroad.

If I had the chance to visit STEIM, I would definitely want to play around in the Electronicmusicalinstrumentsexhibition (formerly the Electro Squeek Club), "an exhibition in the form of an arcade where visitors can playfully discover the major directions in the tactile approach within STEIM's instrumental objects."
Mobile Touch: Finger Web

STEIM Finger Web from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

SONIC ALADDIN

STEIM Sonic Aladdin from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

Watch for the interesting iPhone app:

STEIM Hotpot Lab #3 from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

Presentations by: Alan Macy / BIOPAC; Jeff Snyder / Snyderphonics
Performances by: Jan Trützschler von Falkenstein; Joker Nies and the Benjolin Orchestra
27 March 2010 STEIM, Amsterdam NL

RELATED
The Benjolin: Build your own electronic fun-box, by Rob Hordijk & Jocker Nies
Making of the Benjolin
STEIM concert curated by John Dikeman: MISSING DOG HEAD & KRK

Why does this interest me? When I returned to school to take computer classes, my first class was computer music technology. I have an electronic MIDI workstation/keyboard and I love sound synthesis.

Command prompt utility to Set and Display time zone in Windows 7

Posted: 27 Apr 2010 03:09 AM PDT

There are some DOS prompt commands available to Set ,Display the Time Zone configured in your computer.

Display Configured Time Zone on your Computer

Do you know how to see the time zone set on your Windows 7 computer in command prompt ? There is a DOS prompt command to display the time zone set on your computer. It is

tzutil /g

Using this simple command we can see the current time zone on your computer. To use this command follow the steps below.

1. Start command prompt

2. Type tzutil /g

Now press enter to display the Time Zone configured in this computer.

How to display the current time zone of a windows 7 computer from command prompt

Set a Time Zone on your computer

To set a particular Time Zone on your computer, you can use this DOS prompt command.

tzutil /s

Type this command in DOS prompt with the desired Time Zone and press enter to set your computer to that Time Zone.

Eg: tzutil /s "India Standard Time"

Set different Time Zone on your computer

View available Time Zones in your computer

To view the available Time Zones on your computer, you can use the following command prompt command.

tzutil /l

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ART BY CHANCE: Ultra Short Film Festival, running on flat panel digital signage in the wild!

ART BY CHANCE: Ultra Short Film Festival, running on flat panel digital signage in the wild!

Raymond.CC Blog: “Free 6 Months Trial Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Activation Code” plus 1 more

Raymond.CC Blog: “Free 6 Months Trial Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Activation Code” plus 1 more

Multi-touch application developed by an all-woman team from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology for the Imagine Cup Competition

Multi-touch application developed by an all-woman team from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology for the Imagine Cup Competition

Raymond.CC Blog: “X/K/Ubuntu 10.04 Releases today – Easy to install, configure, and use!” plus 1 more

Raymond.CC Blog: “X/K/Ubuntu 10.04 Releases today – Easy to install, configure, and use!” plus 1 more

My Top 5 N900 Applications

My Top 5 N900 Applications

Raymond.CC Blog: “Free 1 Year Dr.Web anti-virus for Windows 6.0 License Key File” plus 1 more

Raymond.CC Blog: “Free 1 Year Dr.Web anti-virus for Windows 6.0 License Key File” plus 1 more

Interactive Multi-Touch for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Research and Apps by Juan Pablo Hourcade, Thomas Hanson, and Natasha Bullock-Rest, University of Iowa

Interactive Multi-Touch for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Research and Apps by Juan Pablo Hourcade, Thomas Hanson, and Natasha Bullock-Rest, University of Iowa

Command prompt utility to Set and Display time zone in Windows 7

Command prompt utility to Set and Display time zone in Windows 7

Display Configured Time Zone on your Computer

Set a Time Zone on your computer

View available Time Zones in your computer

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