3 Things I Think I Like*
After a trip to New York City and a little break from blogging, I compiled a couple of items that caught my attention online:
1. USB Monitors
Samsung was showing off USB monitors at the CeBIT conference. Yes, USB; so your CPU does the graphics processing and you hook up the monitor to an open USB port. So multiple monitors without multiple DVI ports or multiple video cards. CPU power is comparatively cheap now, so why not? Looks like it will only work on XP (via special drivers) and eventually Vista. Who knows how it would handle graphically intense applications like games, but if you just want to add another monitor for your system for coding/work functions it should do fine. For more details: http://crunchgear.com/2007/03/16/samsung-ubisync-usb-monitor/, also http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/15/samsungs-ubisync-monitor-rig-all-usb-all-the-time/
2. The Comments on Coding Horror
Jeff Atwood's recently posted about the growing complexity of web UI's and how they compare to desktop/fat client UI's, Are Web Interface's Good Enough?. That's a great topic on its own, but I encourage you to read through the comments. Sometimes comments can just be flame wars and are easy to ignore, but these comments are full of good arguments and were a humbling reminder of how many different technologies are out there vying for our attention.
3. Putting Them on the Record
Via Tim O'Reilly's post on Radar, http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/dear_speaker_ca.html, I learned about the efforts of Carl Malamud to record the streaming video from various Congressional committees and hearings. Carl describes his efforts in an open letter to Speaker of the House Pelosi, http://public.resource.org/dear_speaker.html.
I don't think video of congressional hearings will overtake American Idol anytime soon in popularity, but it seems like fundamentally good information to have around. From a technology perspective is satisfying to see an individual (albeit a highly qualified one) so effectively bury the "it can't be done" excuse. Like I said earlier, you got to put those extra CPU cycles to use.
*For good NFL news and the inspiration for this title, check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/peter_king/archive/index.html.