The tree in front of our house, that had been totally bare since we moved in, has suddenly burst into a mass of blossom. I guess that answers both the questions we had about it: (a) is it even alive, and (b) what kind of tree is it?
There’s a few more shots of the blossom in my Flickr stream.
The folks over at Urban Bay Properties have a web page devoted to the neighbourhoods of the East Bay, and right there in the top right corner of the grid is Alameda – represented by this photo. It is worth clicking into the Alameda section too though for an amazing photo of the USS Hornet by takenpictures.
The SEC announced this morning that is was suspending trading in a number of stocks that have been affected by the email stock scams going around. The other day though I received something that looks remarkably like those emails, only it was in the form of a glossy four page brochure through the regular mail.
You can read the whole thing (PDF), but perhaps the most amusing part of the whole four page document is the start of the disclaimer block on the last page:
This is not an offer to buy or sell securities. This four page information package is for entertainment purposes only, don’t rely on any information in it, verify all information from third party sources.
Or, in other words, this whole thing is a bunch of lies we made up to try and pump a stock we invested too much money in. I have already reported it to the SEC. If you have received similar mailings, perhaps drop a line to them at enforcement@sec.gov and let them know you received one too. Perhaps they’ll suspend this one before too many people get burned taking this “entertainment” seriously.
One of those chance shots. I have no idea what she was looking at in the sky above the beach! Just after this she ran off along the beach with two of her friends, so it can’t have been anything that interesting.
This crop is also formatted to be the correct aspect ratio for Moo cards. Haven’t actually tried getting any of these printed yet, but I thought I’d start to add some photos that were the correct aspect ratio in preparation for getting some cards made 🙂
One of three (silent) iSight movies I made of Devicescape-enabled devices connecting automatically to my FON hotspot here at home. To prove that it is connected, I then use the Skype application that I installed on the phone to make a call to their testing service.
This combination of cell phone, wi-fi, Devicescape and a VoIP service like Skype makes for a very compelling solution. I used tihs as my cell phone on our recent trip to Mexico since it allowed me to be on the cellular network in case somebody needed me, but use the free hotel wi-fi network to call home at Skype-out rates.
If you want to check the other two videos I made, one is the Linksys WIP300 connecting and receiving a call, the other is the Nokia 770 web tablet (I don’t have an 800 unfortunately) connecting and then going to a web page.
Can you do better? Make a video of your device connecting using Devicescape and send me the link to it through the comments here (or the Devicescape forums). I’d love to see more 🙂
One of the most annoying things about the early versions of Vista that I was playing with was the continual darkening of the screen and question about whether to allow something I had just asked for. That is what this commercial from Apple is playing off of. Perhaps the worst example of this was having to allow notepad to open each time I wanted to view the source for a web page from IE7. Apart from the fact that by now they should be able to open it inside the browser and display it with syntax highlighting like every other browser, having to approve it every time is really annoying.
For those that haven’t already seen it, the 6 minute presentation that Devicescape gave at this year’s Demo conference in Palm Desert is up on YouTube. I’ve embedded it here for your viewing pleasure too.
You can learn a little about Devicescape‘s hotspot login solution, and see some of the website too, but since it is free, why not just go there, download the software and try it?
This pelican, on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, was none too sure about the camera I was pointing at him, or perhaps it was just me 🙂
One of many flowers on the orchid that we were kindly given for our new house. I have been meaning to get the camera out and take some shots of these beautiful flowers in the sunlight for a week or so now. Today I finally did it.
There are a couple more shots in Flickr.
Check out the third network in this list of AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots in San Francisco, California. Never realised that Waikiki was so close. I wonder why it take United 6 hours to fly there…
