How We Found the Missing Memristor

IEEE Spectrum: How We Found the Missing Memristor:

"Memristor is a contraction of “memory resistor,” because that is exactly its function: to remember its history. A memristor is a two-terminal device whose resistance depends on the magnitude and polarity of the voltage applied to it and the length of time that voltage has been applied."

Anders Hejlsberg Video on C# Dynamic

Charlie Calvert's Community Blog : Anders Hejlsberg Video on C# Dynamic

Query: How to Cut Styrofoam

How to Cut Styrofoam | eHow.com - Brief list of various methods

Hot wire foam cutter - Instructables.com: Step by step design using yardsticks for frame.

Foam Cutter - A more polished design using a nicely built spring loaded frame and a custom power supply.

Rocket Team Vatsaas Hot Wire Foam Cutter - PVC frame and a model railroad transformer.

YouTube - DIY hotwire cutter for styrofoam shaping - Using a car battery charger. Not pretty, but it works in the video.

Your Single Best Action For Saving Money

The Simple Dollar - Your Single Best Action For Saving Money:

I like the quote from Mary in comment #21:

"...the best way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket!"

It's a reminder that, no mater how good the price, if you buy something you're not saving money.

Windows Vista Secret #10: Open an Elevated Command Prompt in Six Keystrokes

Tim Sneath : Windows Vista Secret #10: Open an Elevated Command Prompt in Six Keystrokes

Faustian economics: Hell hath no limits

Faustian economics: Hell hath no limits—By Wendell Berry (Harper's Magazine):

"The general reaction to the apparent end of the era of cheap fossil fuel, as to other readily foreseeable curtailments, has been to delay any sort of reckoning."

Kaxaml

Kaxaml:

"Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a 'split view' so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content (kind of like XamlPad but without the gigabyte of SDK)."

The 62.5% Solution

How to size text using ems | Clagnut : Typography : CSS techniques

body {font-size: 62.5%; /* Resets 1em to 10px */

Saw this technique used in the CSS for a WordPress theme but didn't know just how it was setting 1em to 10px. This explains it.

24 ways

24 ways - web design and development articles and tutorials for advent

Hadn't thought of celebrating Advent with web design, but why not? It's a geek thing.

PNG8 - The Clear Winner

SitePoint Blogs: PNG8 - The Clear Winner: "While there still may be times when full transparency control in all browsers will demand the PNG32 hacks, personally I think PNG8 should become the default choice for web transparency effects."

Amanda Ripley - Attitude: More Important than Exercise

Amanda Ripley - Attitude: More Important than Exercise:

This all reminds me of a fantastic quote by the theologian Charles Swindoll...

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home."

Free CSS Templates

Download free CSS templates - Free CSS Templates:

"All of my templates are free for any type of personal or commercial use (provided you follow the license) so you do not have to pay me anything to use them. All I ask is that you link back to my website in some way. I also update my site with new templates regularly so check back for even more free CSS templates."

PDFsharp

PDFsharp:

"PDFsharp is the Open Source library that easily creates PDF documents from any .NET language."

pyPdf

pyPdf:

"A Pure-Python library built as a PDF toolkit."

NolaPro

Accounting & Business Software | Free Web-Based NolaPro

NOTEPAD++

NOTEPAD++

Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.

I have been using Notepad++ for several months. It works well for editing XML as well as source code and plain text. Looks like it can go well beyond basic editing too. There are many features and plug-ins that I have not explored.

Note-to-self: Hold Alt+Shift to enable column selection mode.

PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions:

"The PCRE library is a set of functions that implement regular expression pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics as Perl 5. PCRE has its own native API, as well as a set of wrapper functions that correspond to the POSIX regular expression API. The PCRE library is free, even for building commercial software."

RingCentral CAPTCHA Strikeout

I tried to sign up for a ringcentral.com account today but either I am dyslexic and still can't see the mismatch or their challenge-response system is broken. I did call the number and spoke with a gentleman (from his accent I assume he is in a foreign call center - but I only assume that) who offered to sign me up but didn't seem concerned that there may be a problem with the web site. I didn't pursue it further and I didn't sign up. If their web sign up system is broken I'm not sure I can trust the web-based tools they provide to manage account features.

I had TimeSnapper running at the time so I went back and looked at my attempts. These are screen clips from three different attempts to submit the form:



This is the dialog I got each time:



This was disappointing because it looks like they have a decent service. I may try again later. Maybe I am wasting time clipping screen shots and writing about this but I think this is something businesses need to be careful of. A poor challenge-response system kills confidence. I think the worst part is that this happens at a point where the customer has already decided to buy. Do you really want your web site to change their mind?

Stack Overflow

Jeff and Joel have Stack Overflow up and running. I haven't used the site yet, just looked at it briefly, but I plan to check it out as development questions come up.

Bad Finance 101

Bad Finance 101 - A Programmer's Guide - O'Reilly Broadcast:

"O'Reilly's focus has long been on programming issues (or programmer issues) and that focus remains very much in place. However, it is worth understanding how the grief playing out on Wall Street will have a very significant impact upon the IT industry within the next four to six months, even despite the fact that up until now the contagion seems largely to have remained contained in the financial sector."