Douglas Grant Blog

February 05, 2010

February 03, 2010

Thomas Jung on blip.tv

Thomas Jung on blip.tv

Good TechED Training movies here for ABAPers.

WWII sub found; G. Haven family elated

Amazing - a man I had sailed with completes a lifelong missing. Al Jacobsen was among a handful of survivors when his submarine was lost in the Pacific near the Phillippines. Though he died in 2008, his son finally succeeded in getting previously secret mission files from the US Navy. Jacobsen's ordeal included a 25 mile swim, in which 5 more crewmen of the surviving 16 perished.

February 02, 2010

Kayaking Wizardry - The Makers, Chris Lloyd And Dorbin

Many new methods for launching the Kayak that you never thought of before!

Kayaking Wizardry - This Is What We Do

A unique view of Kayaking from the UK

International Cost of Living Comparison

International Cost of Living Comparison

The decline in the value of the US dollar in the past decade has had a big effect on US purchasing power worldwide. This makes imports more costly for US businesses, and presents difficulties for expats who get their income in USD.

The following chart from http://worldsalaries.com shows the details. For countries like New Zealand with strong currency performance, the cost of living in US dollars increased dramatically. What cost 65 cents in New Zealand in 2001 cost $1.07 in 2005 -- an increase of almost 65% in four years.

International Currency Trends - 2000 to 2008

This chart highlights the poor performance of the US Dollar against most currencies in the period 2000-2008. Most of the decline began in 2004-2005, when US borrowing and record deficits devalued the dollar. This pressured the rates exchange as foreign investors withdrew cash from their own nation's money supply, while the US expanded our own cash balances through this borrowing.

The next post will detail the impact this trend has had on the relative cost of living in USD, in countries around the world.

Sources:
http://currate.com/historical-exchange-rates.php

Exc Chart Currency Trends (USD).pdf - Google Docs, originally uploaded by grantdoug.

Charts the relative currency value of Industrialized nations against the US Dollar since 2000.

February 01, 2010

Hitler's FURIOUS reaction to the iPad

Hilarious! Hitler is FURIOUS with the iPad, via a cleverly subtitled clip of the film "Downfall"

What Is the TPC

TPC

Useful benchmarking service for database and hardware performance. Both OLTP and OLAP supported. "Mission The TPC is a non-profit corporation founded to define transaction processing and database benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable TPC performance data to the industry."

Douglas Grant Blog Post

January 26, 2010

Updated Blog Domain -> http://grantdoug.com

Finally updated my hosting of this blog to the http://grantdoug.com domain by adding the necessary cname, a DNS entries. I had made the mistake earlier of creating a hosted sub-domain, which Google was not happy with. In a moment I will update the Google hosted applications to http://grantdoug.com also.

Advanced search operators : Features - Google Voice Help

Google Voice: Advanced search operators

Check out the Google Voice Advanced Search Commands. Example: to view only voice messages only, type "message:" in the search box, or use url bookmark https://www.google.com/voice#search/message%3A.

Here is the help link and search links listed: http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146756

Advanced search operators are query words or symbols that perform special actions when searching. Here are the advanced search operators you can use when searching in Google Voice by entering the following operator(s) in the box at the top of any Google Voice page, and clicking the Search button:"

from: or to: or with:
- Used to specify the name or phone number of a caller or SMS sender
  - Example - from:amy or from:555-555-5555 or from:"(555) 555-5555"
  - Meaning - Messages from Amy or contact associated with 555-555-5555 number

in:label
- in:sms
  - Search for messages in SMS
    - Example - from:amy in:sms restaurant
    - Meaning - SMS messages from Amy containing the word 'restaurant'
- in:voicemail
  - Search for items in voicemail
    - Example - from:mike in:voicemail
    - Meaning - Voicemails from Mike
- in:inbox
  - Search for items in inbox
    - Example - from:amy in:inbox
    - Meaning - Inbox items from Amy
- in:unread
  - Search for unread items
    - Example - from:mike in:unread
    - Meaning - Unread items from Mike
- in:trash
  - Search for items in trash
    - Example - from:daniel in:trash
    - Meaning - Items from Daniel in Trash

before:YYYY(-MM(-DD)) or after:YYYY(-MM(-DD))
- Search for items before or after specific date
  - Example - in:sms before:2009-05-02
  - Meaning - SMS sent or received before 2009-05-02

message:
- Search all voicemail transcripts and SMS messages
  - Example - message:plumber
  - Meaning - Finds all voicemail transcripts or SMS messages where 'plumber' is mentioned

num:
- Search all messages from or to a given phone number
  - Example - num:+15555555555
  - Meaning - Finds all calls and SMS received or placed to (555) 555-5555

note: or notes:
- Search all notes
  - Example - note:Groceries
  - Meaning - Finds all notes with 'Groceries'

Douglas Grant Blog Post

Google Voice Feature Allows Recording of Incoming Calls

Google voice: Recording phone calls

This feature is a little scary! I don't know when Google quietly introduced this feature. It has an announcement feature when recording starts.

To record your call, simply press 4. You can do it when you first accept a call, or any time after it's started. To stop the recording, press 4 again or hang up.

Your recordings are saved online and you can access them just like you do with voicemail.

Note: at this time you can only record calls you receive on your Google Voice number. You can't record calls you initiate using our Click2Call from our website or the Return Call feature from your voicemail.

Mob Bosses, take note:

There are different laws that apply to call recording, so check your current state and Federal laws before using this feature. To assist in the compliance of these laws, we provide an automated verbal announcement when call recording has been initiated and when it has been stopped."

Douglas Grant Blog Post

Google Voice Blog: Free calling now to Hawaii and Alaska

This is a nice -> Google Voice: Free calling now to Hawaii and Alaska
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 | 8:05 AM
When we launched Google Voice, we offered free calling to the continental US. We've just expanded this to all 50 states by adding free calling to Alaska and Hawaii.

You can initiate free calls to Alaska and Hawaii from your inbox online, from our mobile apps, or by dialing your own Google Voice number from one of your phones and selecting option 2 to place a call. You can also forward calls to your Google Voice number to Alaskan or Hawaiian phones for free.

Douglas Grant Blog Post

January 15, 2010

TiVo Finally Adds Video Podcast RSS Subscriptions

TiVo Finally Adds Video Podcast Subscriptions

I'm checking out this new feature - rss to my Tivo. Not ready for the mass market - it's early adopter stuff. Very little mainstream content out there. Tried this feed from Revision3, which played instantly on my Tivo: HD (30fps).

January 07, 2010

Google LatLong: Explore your travels with GPS in Google Earth

Google LatLong: Explore your travels with GPS in Google Earth

Douglas Grant Blog Post

This is a very cool new google earth feature.

Explore your travels with GPS in Google Earth

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 9:40 AM

Google Earth is a great tool for sharing stories about your favorite hiking, biking, and running trips. Partners such as Trimble Outdoors , Wikiloc, and EveryTrail have created great layers in Earth to explore trails in 3D. But how can you get your own trail information into Google Earth from your Global Positioning System (GPS) device? With Google Earth 5.0, you can now import GPS track information directly from your GPS receiver, quickly and easily. This functionality was previously only available to Google Earth Plus subscribers but is now available to everyone.

GPS receivers that record your position over time are increasingly commonplace. Backpackers often carry units that provide their position on a map while they hike; cyclists and runners wear units on their wrists that can record heart rate and wheel cadence information; and drivers can record frequently visited places and their journeys. Using the GPS import feature in Google Earth 5.0, it is now easy to see where you've been. Telling someone that you're tired after a hike is one thing, but replaying that hike in context of elevation change and the surrounding terrain helps deliver the story of your adventure.

Say you're going on a family climb of Diamond Head in Hawaii. If you bring a GPS receiver along, you can replay the experience. I did when I made this hike with my son, and now you can use Google Earth to replay the climb with this KML file. The replay clearly shows our pause at the entrance sign where we stopped for the photograph in the family album, thegeocache we discovered at the top thanks to the GPS, and lets us remember going through the tunnel of 175 steps when we lost view of the satellites and the line disappears on the map. Whatever your adventure is, you can see it easily in Google Earth.

Here's an example of a drive in Yosemite National Park while I was vacationing with my family over the Fourth of July holiday. You can see our drive past El Capitan - down to the dead-ends and the sight seeing stops - and even animate the winding roads and the walk at Half Dome using the Touring feature while seeing the roads in full 3D context.

Once you've returned from your adventure, getting the data into Earth on Mac and Windows is as easy as plugging in cable from your GPS (typically USB, but sometimes serial) to your computer. In Google Earth, use the Tools->GPS menu to import the data.

Over two hundred GPS receivers are supported, including most outdoor models from Garminand many models from Magellan. Many more models are supported in NMEA mode for realtime positioning of your location in Earth.

We've included the KML files of these trips for you to explore. Click on any point to see motion and position information. Use the new time controls to animate the hike up mountain; see how long it took me and my son to make the climb. Soon you'll be telling your own locationally-aware stories.

Google Earth 5.0 adds support for over two hundred GPS receivers - nearly fifty more than in Google Earth Plus 4.3 - to bring in your tracks so you can add photos, animate into movies, and otherwise help share your stories in the context of the surroundings.

Posted by Robert Lipe, Software Engineer, Google Earth

January 05, 2010

Amazon.com: Norpro Tin Heat Diffuser: Kitchen & Dining

Amazon.com: Norpro Tin Heat Diffuser: Kitchen & Dining

Douglas Grant Blog Post

Heat diffusers / flame tamers are a great idea for use with those wafer-thin backpacking pots, which love to burn your food with high-output backpacking stoves. Not only does the scorched carbon make your meal taste bad, it is awfully hard to scrape out of your stainless steel backpacking pot. This product is reasonably light, and back country chefs love them.

Note the Amazon review, good cooks are passionate advocates of this simple kitchen tool:

"By	One Tree in the Forest (Del Rio, Tennessee, USA)

I grew up with diffusers the same style as these Norpro ones. We had very old gas ranges that produced much higher BTU's than most modern ranges do.

It is very, very, very rare for me to cook without a diffuser--and often if I'm using all 4 burners I am also using 4 diffusers. I would very, very highly recommend that anyone with open flame gas burners get diffusers. I do have "non-stick" sauté pans, but all of my other cookware is Revere Stainless with heavy aluminum cooking plates on the pan bottoms. Without the use of diffusers I am certain that I would be endlessly trying to get burned-on food out of pans. I don't care how attentive a cook you are; it is often impossible to get a low enough flame to cook food without scorching it into the bottom of pans. Sometimes I even use 2 diffusers at the same time on one burner. I do have 3 double-boilers (various sizes) that I purchased when I was unable to find diffusers. Using DB's really slows down the cooking process. Using a diffuser instead of a double-boiler is much, much faster and has only a very slight possibility of scorching food (whereas it is impossible to scorch food with a double-boiler). In the summer-time I utilize electric pans as much as possible. BUT in the winter I use diffusers, welcoming the extra burner heat that keeps the furnace from cycling as often"

In the 80's I bought the first new range I ever had--a pilotless GE. I had often wished I could find diffusers because I like to cook a lot of things very slowly. (Eventually a client of mine was actually marketing a housewares line that included diffusers with the pan area identical to these from Norpro, but that had a stiff folding wire handle--which I very much like for space-saving storage and because I did not have to worry about scorching the wooden handle.)

2009 MEC - Meilleures vidéos d'activités nautiques de 2009

You will wish you lived in Canada. Nice collection of water sports YouTubes from Canada's REI - MEC, the Mountain Equipment Coop.

June 07, 2009

Top 100 Directors of all Time - 2008

Source: theyshootpictures.com. Learn about the methodology used for selection

The director's list is scored, in part, from the film count in the Top 1000 compilation. Maintain your own checklist for the 1000 Best Film list using the the Lists of Bests site.

I was happy to see that there are so many acclaimed directors whose films I haven't seen yet!

My best-list film checklist is http://www.listsofbests.com/list/591/compare/grantdoug.

1	Orson Welles - 8 films
2	Alfred Hitchcock - 14 films
3	Federico Fellini - 12 films
4	John Ford 18 films (the most)
5	Stanley Kubrick - 11 films
6	Jean Renoir - 11 films
7	Akira Kurosawa -11 films
8	Ingmar Bergman -13 films
9	Francis Ford Coppola - 5 films
10	Jean-Luc Godard -13 films
11	Charles Chaplin -10 films
12	Billy Wilder - 8 films
13	Luis Bunuel - 15 films
14	Martin Scorsese - 9 films
15	Howard Hawks - 11 films
16	Carl Dreyer - 5 films
17	Sergei Eisenstein - 7 films
18	F.W. Murnau - 6 films
19	Yasujiro Ozu - 7 films
20	Robert Bresson - 8 films
21	Fritz Lang - 16 films
22	Andrei Tarkovsky - 7 films
23	Franois Truffaut - 7 films
24	Kenji Mizoguchi - 10 films
25	David Lean - 6 films
26	Buster Keaton - 7 films
27	Michelangelo Antonioni - 6 films
28	Roberto Rossellini - 8 films
29	D.W. Griffith - 5 films
30	Steven Spielberg - 7 films
31	Max OphŸls - 7 films
32	Vittorio De Sica - 4 films
33	Luchino Visconti - 9 films
34	Ernst Lubitsch - 7 films
35	Satyajit Ray - 6 films
36	John Huston - 8 films
37	Woody Allen - 8 films
38	Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly - 2 films
39	Jean Vigo - 2 films
40	Roman Polanski - 5 films
41	Robert Altman - 8 films
42	Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger - 7 Films
43	Frank Capra - 6 films
44	Michael Curtiz - 2 films
45	Alain Resnais - 6 films
46	Sergio Leone - 3 films
47	Victor Fleming - 2 films
48	Sam Peckinpah - 7 films
49	Preston Sturges - 5 films
50	Bernardo Bertolucci - 7 films
51	Carol Reed - 3 films
52	Ridley Scott - 4 films
53	John Cassavetes - 7 films
54	Marcel CarnŽ - 3 films
55	Erich von Stroheim - 4 films
56	George Cukor - 5 films
57	Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 6 films
58	Leo McCarey - 5 films
59	Vincente Minnelli - 5 films
60	Douglas Sirk - 6 films
61	Werner Herzog - 5 films
62	David Lynch - 7 films
63	Jacques Tati - 3 films
64	Josef von Sternberg - 8 films
65	Nicholas Ray - 6 films
66	Pier Paolo Pasolini - 5 films
67	Elia Kazan - 6 films
68	Joseph L. Mankiewicz - 4 films
69	Krzysztof Kieslowski - 7 films
70	William Wyler - 5 films
71	Abbas Kiarostami - 6 films
72	Terrence Malick - 3 films
73	King Vidor - 6 films
74	Jacques Tourneur - 4 films
75	Milos Forman - 4 films
76	Wim Wenders - 4 films
77	Jacques Rivette - 4 films
78	Chris Marker - 2 films
79	Eric Rohmer - 7 films
80	Wong Kar-Wai - 5 films
81	Quentin Tarantino - 2 films
82	David Cronenberg - 3 films
83	Joel and Ethan Coen - 5 films
84	Jean Cocteau - 4 films
85	Hou Hsiao-Hsien - 4 films
86	Clint Eastwood - 3 films
87	Jean-Pierre Melville - 6 films
88	Nicolas Roeg - 4 films
89	Robert Flaherty - 4 films
90	Alexander Dovzhenko - 2 films
91	Sidney Lumet - 4 films
92	Brian De Palma - 3 films
93	Jacques Demy - 4 films
94	Raoul Walsh - 3 films
95	George Lucas - 2 films
96	James Cameron - 3 films
97	Andrzej Wajda - 3 films
98	Otto Preminger - 3 films
99	Chantal Akerman - 2 films
100	George Stevens - 3 films

Methodology for Selection."The December 2008 list of the 1,000 Greatest Films of all-time has primarily been compiled by using 1,825 individual critics' and filmmakers' best-films-of-all-time lists/ballots., including: Sight & Sound 1952-2002 polls (530 ballots), Senses of Cinema 2000-2007 (154), Time Out's 1995 poll (109), Nickel Odeon's 1994-1998 polls (100), Steadycam's 1995 & 2007 polls (80), Your Movie Database's (YMDB) Critics Corner (75), El Mundo's 1995 poll (72), Positif's 1991 poll (66), The Cinematheque Top 10 Project (66), Facets' polls (72), Cinematheque Belgique's 1952 poll (52), the 1988 publication, John Kobal Presents the Top 100 Movies (44), PBS's Independent Lens series (44), PopCornQ's 1997 poll (40), The Village Voice's 1999 poll (38), BBC's Calling the Shots series (31), Epoca Online's 2000 poll (28), and 224 other ballots from a variety of sources.".

May 17, 2009

PC World Top 100, 2008

Some very interesting products, some very useful which I hadn't heard of - like Eye-Fi.

PC World 100 Best Products, in Ranked Order

Hulu Review
Apple iPhone Review | Video test | Check prices
Facebook Site
Microsoft Windows XP Review | Check prices
Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Review | Check prices
Flock Review | Download
Eye-Fi Review | Check prices
Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1 Video review
Harmonix Rock Band Video review | Check prices
Wikipedia Site
Netflix Site
Microsoft Xbox Live Site
Apple iPod Touch Review | Check prices
Craigslist Site
Scrabulous Site
Nintendo Wii Review | Check prices
Apple Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Review | Video review | Check prices
Apple HD Cinema Display Site
Twitter Site
Pioneer Kuro PDP-5010FD Review | Check prices
Mozilla Firefox 3 Review | Video review
Apple Safari Review | Download
NPR.org Site
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Review | Check prices
Google Maps--Street View Video tour | Site
Apple MacBook Pro (Penryn) Review | Check prices
Google Docs & Spreadsheets Site
Apple Final Cut Studio 2 Site
Linksys WRT600N Review | Check prices
Flickr (Yahoo) Site
Sony Bravia KDL-52XBR4 Review | Check prices
Intel Penryn News and reviews links
Apple iChat Review
Creative Zen Review | Check prices
Verizon FiOS Site
Pandora Review
Canon EOS 40D Review | Check prices
LG Electronics L196WTY-BF Review | Check prices
TiVo HD Review | Video review | Check prices
Data Robotics Drobo DRO4DU10 4 Bay Hard Drive Array Review | Check prices
Google Gmail Site
Electronic Arts Rock Band controllers Video review| Check prices
Mozilla Thunderbird Review | Download
Dell XPS 420 Review | Check prices
Washington Post Site
Yelp.com Site
Nikon D60 Review | Check prices
The Consumerist Site
AdventNet Zoho Review
OpenDNS PhishTank Site
Western Digital VelociRaptor Review | Check prices
NYTimes.com Site
Motorola MotoRokr T505 Car SpeakerphoneReview | Check prices
SanDisk Cruzer Titanium Plus Site | Check prices
Dash Express Review | Check prices
Panasonic TH-42PZ700U Review | Check prices
Netgear ReadyNAS Duo Review | Check prices
Symantec Norton IS 2008 Review | Check prices
RIM Blackberry Curve 8300 Series 8300 Review |8320 Review | Video review | Check prices (8300)| Check prices (8320)
Vimeo Review
SideStep.com Site
Alienware Area-51 m15x Site
Microsoft TellMe Review
Amazon MP3 Site
Samsung SyncMaster 305T Review | Check prices
Apple Logic Studio Site | Check prices
Gateway XHD3000 Review | Check prices
HP Photosmart C5280 Review | Check prices
USB Safely Remove 3.3 Download
Samsung LN-T4061 Review | Check prices
nVidia GeForce 8800GT Site | Check prices
Cerulean Studios Trillian Download
Creative Aurvana X-Fi Review | Check prices
Olympus SP-570 UZ Site | Check prices
Apple iMac Review | Check prices
Samsung 2263DX Review
Canon Vixia HF10 Site | Check prices
Mint Review
VMWare Fusion Site | Check prices
Apple TV Take 2 Review | Check prices
YouTube (Google) Review
Chestnut Hill Sound George Site
Microsoft Office 2007 Review | Check prices
Intel SkullTrail Review | Check prices
Canon Pixma MX700 Review | Check prices
AT&T Tilt Review
Canon Powershot SD1100 IS Review | Check prices
Vizio Gallevia GV42LF Review | Check prices
Apple MacBook Air Review | Video review | Check prices
Ubuntu Linux Review | Download
The Orange Box (Valve Corp.) Site | Check prices
Digg Site
Asus U2E Review | Check prices
Meebo Review
HP Blackbird 002 LCi Review | Check prices
Partition Logic Download
Palm Centro Review | Check prices
Audacity Download
Lifehacker Site
Jing Project Site