iCal <3's Google Calendar

...and there's an easy-import app to prove it...

Coords Clipboard (Adding RMNP to my Photo Map)

Chapin Creek Trailhead on Old Fall River Road will be the designated set of coordinates by which the Rocky Mountain National Park photo gallery shall be identified.
According to Google Earth, that's here (DMS format):

• 40°26'5.14"N
• 105°43'46.67"W

Or, in photo map friendly terms, converted courtesy of the FCC:

• 40.434761
• -105.729631

HPV Record -- 82.3 MPH

Story on Wired

Only 5.7 MPH more, and he can fire up the flux capacitor...

Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta -- Experiences

Opera Mobile 9.5 gives my T-Mobile/HTC phone the slick zoom capabilities of the iPhone's version of Safari. Yeah! The beta seems to have some memory-management niggles, which are further exacerbated by the fact that the beta doesn't really deal with expansion card memory quite right.

But, I've still started using it as my default, and look forward to seeing what the Opera team can do to address some of these issues...

Bought the BionX...

Back in this post, I mentioned the hub motor and regenerative charging system that is the BionX PL350. Well, I have now officially ordered one, which will be used to retrofit my old early-1990s steel frame Specialized Hard Rock.

At this point in time, the trike isn't really on my list. But, since I've already been treating the old Specialized as a cargo mule, the latest consideration is adding an Xtracycle Free Radical to the mix, and really optimizing it for this role...

Le Tour with a Google Spin yet Again

The Calendar Page Turneth off of June and onto July:

• Fourth of July - Check
  
• Wimbledon Finals - Check
  
• Tour de France - Check
• Google Maps tie-in - Check
  
• Bastille Day - Later in the Month
  

Forget the Electric Scooter, Check this out

Vectrix, the makers of the electric scooter that I would love to have, are threatening to start producing something that would easily cause me to cease caring about the scooter. Check out their Electric "Superbike" and attempt to deny the coolness...

The E-Bike / Recumbent Trike Post

First, some levity -- courtesy of an oldie but goodie: The Onion's Bicycle Safety Tips

Then, ways to spend some hard-earned cash:

1. A KMX Karts recumbent trike -- I like the Viper (for $1799)
   
2. A BionX PL350 E-Bike conversion kit (for $1650)
3. All of the above!
   

Physical Remote Flash Photo Hack

The image fulgurator is a pretty slick little science project. It uses a slave trigger, a quality flash unit, and a converted camera-cum-projector to alter flash photos in real time...

Map Update and Blogger Annoyance

Updated my Photo Map with Grand Canyon and Zion place markers.

Tried to log into Blogger with Opera 9.5, because it was open at the time. Doesn't work, so I had to open Firefox.

Distros and how they got their names

"Etymology of a Distro"

Gmail, IMAP, and Windows Mobile - Fixed

I've been using IMAP to get my Google Mail on my WM6 phone since I got the phone, and when I first set it up, there was a note on the Google Help page that explained that some HTML-formatted messages might not render properly. Well, that was true at the time, but I also noticed a couple weeks ago that it had been fixed (no more blank messages that I have to go look at in the browser!), and finally found the Gmail blog post that confirms that the fix is official.

*NIX Cheat-Sheet-o-Rama!

http://www.scottklarr.com/topic/115/linux-unix-cheat-sheets---the-ultimate-collection/

Encryption for your cell

KoolSpan's TrustChip SD Card gives you a 256-bit encrypted channel for you cell conversations. But, you've got to have one on both sides, so save your pennies for gifts for everybody you want to talk to...  What can I say, I'm not a big fan of the uber-simple for the man, PATRIOT ACT enabled, non probable cause requiring wiretapping that has become vogue, and think that "the public" should rebel by strongly encrypting even the most mundane communications possible.

For example, the ASCII armored block below represents the text above after encrypting it to a freshly generated and rapidly discarded GPG / PGP key that also has a one-day expiration period. I copied and pasted through a text editor, so there is no hyperlink or markup in the plaintext. (Using my own key and providing you the plaintext would be a bad security practice.)
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
Comment: Encrypted with GPG
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=iB87
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Since I don't really expect anyone else actually reads this blog, maybe I could make all my posts look like this, but encrypt them to myself using my own key; then I could have a private blog that lives in public. I bet that qualifies me as a "person of interest" under the terms of the aforementioned law...

Practice Safe GPG/PGP!

Another funny strip from xkcd. Only makes sense to us crypto types, but inside jokes can still be funny -- if you happen to be inside.

Finally added latest placemark to Photo Gallery Map

Having just received my new copy of CoPilot Live 7 for my new WM6-Pro phone, I had GPS on the brain again. This caused me to recall that I hadn't added a Tampa-related placemark to my map of photo galleries. So, as the screen grab below indicates (if you have super-human eyes with action-movie approved secret government fractal-based near-infinite real-time zoom capabilities), I picked a spot near the pier @ Clearwater Beach to receive the "honor." I have also downloaded a couple of geo-coding toys, and realized that my Garmin Edge 305 bicycle GPS device can also serve quite nicely as a datalogger... Watch out for a future geo-coded project of some sort...