Low-cost sensing and communication with an LED

Few days ago I found an interesting site - hackaday.com
It is a news site for computer/electronic geeks.

One post interest me more than others.
It describe how one can make led matrix to input user's multiple touches.
If you'll follow this link, you'll find a charming video how this device works.

Representation of knowledge

I recently was surfing blogs and wandered into wikipedia's concept map and mind maps.

I already tried mind mapping technique before. I agree that this type of knowledge/ideas representation is much more creative and natural than all these lists and tables.

But concept maps become an invention for me. Now I see that concept maps are great way to represent knowledge, thoughts and.. concepts! They also help to organize your ideas and advance them.

I evaluate CmapTools for creating concept maps. It is easy to learn, and it is free!
Mind Manager is good for mind mapping. But it is still commercial :-(

Omni mea mecum porto.

"Omni mea mecum porto."
Everything mine carrying with me.
Latin proverb.

I recently searched the web to find solutions, which may help me to work "directly from USB-drive" at any computer.
And, Wow! I found a whole site full of applications. You can run every of these applications directly from your USB-drive! You need not to install them at all!

I already put on my USB-drive:

• portable firefox - web browser
  
• portable gaim - client for most IM systems (I use ICQ, MSN)
  
• FoxitReader - PDF file viewer (the fast one, not like AcrobatReader)
  

There are also interesting apps that I didn't try yet:

• portable thunderbird - for reading mail
  
• portable miranda - alternative IM client (ICQ, MSN)
  
• XAMPP - an all-in-one web server (Apache, mySQL, PHP and phpMyAdmin)
  

Bloglines

Yesterday I sorted my bookmarks and finally registered at Bloglines.

I used to read other people's blogs using Mozilla Thunderbird.
It was inconveniently because I couldn't mark read items on all computers I work. It was also not easy to synchronize feeds list.

Now I have only one feeds list, and it is stored online at bloglines! Good.

The only minor problems is that Bloglines not very friendly to Firefox and its UI sometimes not intuitive.

Personal wiki in a single file

For about a year I am using TiddlyWiki. Jeremy Ruston created a great wiki system based on a single HTML file. It heavily uses java script.

Another great thing in TiddlyWiki is that you can change CSS, add macros, add and change content in the same way. You just write or edit "tiddlers". Tiddler may include text notes or macro or CSS. It is pretty easy and comfortable

A whole city in a pocket

I'm playing GTA: Liberty City Stories on my PSP when travelling to/from office. It is a great game, especially if you can just take your PSP out from your pocket and then play whenever you want.

I'm posting here too seldom

It is half a year passed since my last post here. Many things happen in this half year.
Now I have a new job. I work in Nival interactive - Russian largest game developer company.
Then, I found many interesting web-games, will narrate about them later.