In the winter holidays I’ve got a brand new Sony PSP. It has a big screen for a portable device and it’s designed for playing games but I’m using it mainly for book reading. The primary reader is Bookr for pdf files (and, in the future, lit files after I’ll finish a plugin for it but this will take other 3-4 months at least). The main disadvantage reading on the screen is that you’ll have to do a lot of scrolling as the normal page height is two or three times the height of the visible screen. But there is a very simple solution if you can generate your own files.
If you set the pdf’s page size to a specific value then it will fit on the PSP’s screen. By seeing one full page at a time all you have to do is to flip through them (much simpler than using the stick to scroll while reading). This specific page size can be computed by taking into account that the PSP screen has 130 dpi and that OpenOffice (yes, I’m using it for office work and pdf saving) is using 72 dpi to render to PDF. As the psp screen is 3.69” width and 2.09” height the page size has to be set to 6.67” width and 3.78” height. Optionally you can adjust the font size to obtain a nice looking book for your device… Just check the document, export as PDF and upload on PSP.
18 years ago I was in Paltinis in a 7 days physics preparation camp. At that time I was interested more in physics, chemistry and electronics than computers because they were more accessible to common children. I had computer classes twice a week for the last 2 years at “casa pionierilor” (no good translation comes in mind,it was something like a children club with specific activities on various domains, including automation/computers) but no access to a home computer. So I had far more time for physics and I was part of the enlarged team from Sibiu in preparation for regional and national physics contests.
During 16 - 22 December 1989 there was one of the training camps in physics in Paltinis and the 22nd was the test day. I remember we were gathered in the dining room (the only one big enough to have all of us) from 10am and were writing for the test. A radio was playing patriotic songs in the background and, at one moment, I’ve realized something was different. The song stopped and the speaker announced the Ceausescu has run from Bucharest and the revolution has won (these were not the exact words but this was the idea). We all stop, looked each other and start chatting. Nobody paid attention to the test. And here it comes one of my first thoughts: “now we will have easy access to electronics components”. It was not of freedom (I don’t think I KNEW what freedom was as nobody has tough us about it) but it was about one of my biggest restrictions: the possibility to do something (electronics) as I saw fitted. (Before ‘89 it was hard to find components and to buy what you needed - in the electronics club they told each time to pay attention what we were doing, not to broke/burn components as they are in a very limited supply, expensive and very hard to find - the problem was not in money but in what you could do with them… nearly nothing).
That was 18 years ago… Now I’m away from electronics and I’m working nearly 100% in software with only limited hardware work but I still can’t forgot that thought “now we will have access to electronic components”.
I call it my very first free thought. and it one of the most strong memories from that times.
I’d like to know what was yours first free thought? Anybody?
I haven’t post something useful for a long time now (and I’m approaching the “second failure”). Due to the job load and lack of “inspiration” (please let a comment if you want to read about a specific subject) this status will remain in the near future… (and yes, I have a load of videos to prepare and publish but not enough free/creative time).
To coincide with today’s launch of the Android SDK, Google has announced a two-phase, $10 million contest to spur development on the Android platform. There will be lots of winners with this one: let the coding begin! And it’s JAVA!
The organization responsible for giving out IP addresses in Europe has a message for us: IPv4 addresses will be gone in two to four years, but we have enough IPv6 for everyone.
And a video with this subject, “The Day The Routers Died…”:
For the next few days (up to 3) there will be some issues with the blog. This is due to our provider who’s upgrading the services and will generate some unexpected side-effects
…it just become one of my favorite short stories. Together with “The Star” from A.C. Clarke… Just read it and feel it… the best used 10 minutes this week.
