The Daily Bits

The blog has sort of gone dormant… but none the less I have taken another look at Firefox 3. So far memory usage isn’t anything astronomical like Jeff’s results.

This is a copy of the development theme that is being worked on for the mac version of Firefox 3. It’s about time to have a native UI on Firefox…

I still have two file menus as I posted before. Bit of a strange thing… I’m sure it’s isolated to me Ah well. Good to be unique.

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Flash version of Super Smash Bros for N64. That was one of my favourite games. This is very authentic with the music and whatnot. Levels and graphics could use some work though…

Play it here.

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I have been programming for about 5 years. I’ve used quite a few languages in that time… some useful, some not too useful. I feel that I just want to get this list out here (like the Star Trek list). Here they are with their uses and listed in order of most to least favourite:

• C++: My first language. Useful with Object Oriented features and the ability to go back and code in pure C.
• PHP: Another one of my firsts. I still swear by PHP for web applications. I have seen code from Ruby on Rails and the time it would take me to learn it to use it effectively would not be worth the effort. I can throw stuff together in PHP rather quickly.
• C: Did my first real C programming last year. Definitely still useful seeing as most games and operating systems are programmed in it. C also works quite well with Unix.
• Java: Out of everything I have probably programmed the most for school in this language. It’s a good language for learning the basics of programming, data structures, and software design. It’s useful because it is very strict when it comes to programming standards. The Swing framework also allows for quick creation of GUI’s.
• MIPS Assembly Language. Once again this one has no practical purpose since a good majority of computers out there use the x86 architecture. It is however a fine language for learning about how the hardware of the computer works.
• Lisp. Lisp is actually still being used in various applications. It was an interesting language and takes a while to get a handle on. There are macros for loops but it is much more fun to use recursion. Personally I don’t think I’ll ever use it.
• Prolog. “Programming in Logic” Prolog can be used as a theorem prover. Personally I don’t see myself using it in this respect. It can also be used to build parsers which is no doubt interesting but I don’t think I’ll be using that either.

So there you have it. Another one of my lists

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Disclaimer: I do not include JavaScript, HTML, or CSS on this list as they are client side interpreted or not compiled.

There is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s third law). This week it’s a flashy friday game/sim that does exactly that. You move around with the arrow keys while shooting bullets. However when you shoot a bullet you are thrown back with recoil. If you fall off the map the game is over. It gets more and more difficult as the objects can fire back at you.

Play it here.

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I just tried playing around with the new VMWare Fusion and Counter Strike Source. I could not even get it to run with and without 3D acceleration disabled. Sure I could install Windows on here but that would simply be a waste of time. Why should I run CS:S with an ATi X1600 when I have a fully featured 7800GT from Nvidia? It would be better than nothing if I didn’t have my native Windows machine. This brings me to another matter…

I was quite astounded when I saw these benchmark results for a home built mac. This isn’t exactly legal by means of the EULA even if you bought a copy of Leopard. Personally I see this as an opportunity for Apple to come up with a sub-iMac mac. Something without a built in screen, but more powerful than the mini.

Make up your mind if it’s legal or not… but nothing beats the simplicity of buying a new mac

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This one’s my favourite. It’s a real slam against Bill Gates… although it is true. Pretty much everyone I talk to (advanced users mind you) are sticking with XP. Most people I know getting Vista are getting it with a new PC…

There are a few more new get a mac ads on Apple’s website.

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Some background info:
Stephane Dion: Liberal leader, elected last December as leader of the federal Liberal party of Canada. Can’t speak proper English.
GST: Goods and Services tax. Instituted originally at 7%, right now 6% going down to 5% January 1.

I find these ads enjoyable seeing as the Conservatives feel the need to put these kind of ads out. The Conservatives have a minority government right now which means that with every vote there’s a chance of the government being taken down. I suspect the point of the ad is to raise awareness that taxes will go up if a Liberal government were to get elected, this is probably true.

Anyways I got a good laugh out of that

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A student by the name of Nick Haley created the latest iPod Touch Ad for TV use.

The idea that you do not have to be a professional to create a good commercial is becoming widespread, in a trend known as consumer-generated content.

You can read more here.

This story surfaced last week.

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“Metric Time (MT) is an attempt to create a decimalized time system for our modern base-10 using world. This is a neglected part of the Metric System (or SI) which has created a whole measuring system based on 10 for mass, distance, volume, etc., but no official decimalized time units for normal day-to-day use.”

Personally I think this is definately needed. It’s quite funny… I was talking to Mike last night about this after the daylight savings change and he had suggested the idea of Metric Time. Definately a good read.

Although we could adopt a stardate type format

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Alrighty. I woke up today and realized that there are soo many good Star Trek episodes. I assume it was from watching an episode last night while Woodcutting called “In the Pale Moonlight“. I’ll be breaking this down into the 4 series that I have seen the most of (The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise). There are 5 episodes that I have picked for each series. Lets begin:

The Next Generation

1. Starship Mine
2. Timescape
3. Descent
4. Time’s Arrow
5. The Arsenal of Freedom

Deep Space 9

1. The Jem’Hadar / The Search
2. The Adversary
3. The Way of the Warrior
4. In Purgatory’s Shadow/By Inferno’s Light
5. What You Leave Behind

All I can say about these is that they were incredibly hard to pick. I’ve picked episodes that I personally like and are significant to the development of the series. There are many many many more from Deep Space 9 that I could have listed but these are the 5 most important.

Voyager

1. Future’s End
2. Endgame
3. Displacement
4. Timeless
5. Relativity

Enterprise

1. Regeneration
2. Cold Front
3. Future Tense
4. Storm Front
5. Carpenter Street

This list was incredibly hard to build. For anyone looking to get into Star Trek I would highly recommend watching any of these episodes. The hardest were Voyager and Deep Space 9. Deep Space 9 is slowly working it’s way up in my book to becoming the best series overall. Originally I was going to make a list with my top favourite 5 of these top 20. That would be just too hard The episodes are chosen by how important they are in the series or if they are just a pure favourite of mine.

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Ok time to do some thinking. This weeks Flashy Friday is a game in which you must use the pieces given to you and build the pinball machine. Not only do you build the pinball machine but you have to make the ball go to a certain spot.

Plat it here.

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No no no… We’re not docking a starship, even though I wish we were This is a post about the customization of the Leopard dock. Upon poking around the macrumors forums I came across an interesting post about the Leopard dock. The dock backgrounds for the 3D glass dock are simple png images which can easily be replaced. Replacing them can transform your dock from this:

To:

Quite frankly it looks better than the original glass dock.

You can also take this pretty far from the ordinary_[1]…

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