Archive 26.6.2009 - 1.8.2009

Masters of Photography - I should add Cologne to my list of travel destinations for the near future. It would be great for a nice Sunday.

Discworld Cake - Terry Prattchett would be SO proud!

Flickr: Boy Obsolete's Photostream - Drawings on coffee cups.

There’s No App for That « Riverturn Blog and Talk Back - one of the reasons why I did not renew my iPhone developer account. Because even if I ever wanted to put one of my little hacks into the App Store, the way Apple treats iPhone developers makes me sick. I have no desire to deal with such nonsense, there are definitely more interesting things to do.

fabricate - a very interesting make tool in Python that automatically finds module dependencies in a language-independent way.

Ricoh GR Digital III Announced - sounds like a sensible product maintenance of the GRD from the GRD II. However, I don't know if it's worth switching - you first have to see the results. 3/4 stop more light alone is not so exciting (the change from 2.4 to 1.9), but the better display, for example, would be exciting.

Welcome to Self — Self - the power of simplicity - I must have had this before, but here it is fresh again, because there's a lot of action at Self lately. The new versions for the Mac are particularly charming (even if they don't behave like Mac programs at all). However, due to the crappy keyboard code, it's not usable with non-US keyboards - apart from clicking around and looking, not much is possible, you can't even get square brackets or pipe symbols or similar ...

Olympus E-P1 hands-on impressions - and this was one of the main reasons for me to put the E-P1 aside for now - at least as the sole Micro-4/3 camera. I had the impression more often that his assessments of cameras pretty much match mine. (and for those wondering: yes, the GH1 is comparable in terms of noise, but there were other reasons for the GH1 - 4/3 is better than a super-zoom compact in any case, and I need something as compact as possible with a lot of focal length for the vacation)

RubyFrontier Documentation - worth a look, might eventually renovate my nanoblogger blog. Found on Schockwelle.

The Online Photographer: Olympus E-P1 PEN Review - I'm out of the running with this camera (the Lumix GH1 is the one for me), but maybe it might interest one or two others. However, I do find it a shame that Olympus has once again delivered a compromise device, where some of the compromises didn't have to be.

wxMaxima - because there is a good OS X version. Thanks to the Schockwellenreiter for the link.

CAS | Jasig Community - SSO server with plugin structure for authentication and a wide range of client libraries.

Franke & Heidecke to close - ouch. Just found out. No more Rollei cameras. After the Samsung buyback, there were still hopes, but that's it then.

pam_python - write PAM modules in Python - not entirely uncool for coupling various systems for authentication.

Python PAM - this is a PAM client in Python that can access a PAM infrastructure.

SSO free of charge - Article on how to use CAS.

Toolserver Framework for Python - so I don't lose the slide deck again (Oldie, but Goldie), here's the link again. Menno, 2004! That's the Stone Age!

Amazon deletes purchased Kindle eBooks - a good example of why online DRM is even more disgusting than the already stupid offline DRM. And why all the talk from Amazon about "super customer-friendly" is just talk.

C/Y Adapter für 4/3 - and remember this one too, because with the 4/3-to-Micro 4/3 adapter, I could then attach my GH1 to my Contax macro equipment. Much more comfortable than with the Canon at the moment, just because of the live view and the movable screen of the GH1.

Lumix Digital Cameras - G Micro System - H-F007014 - oh, so many toys and so little money ... (and a 20/1.7 is also already announced, that would also be very interesting)

Accessories Digital Cameras - Other - DMW-MA2M - ok, I'll probably only be able to afford that by Christmas because of the vacation, but I think it's planned then. On the one hand, I can use my super-nice 90/4 Elmar (which is of course beautifully small), on the other hand, I could get a decently bright lens that is still compatible. With bright 50mm lenses, manual focus is completely sufficient, and on the GH1 (that's the one I have) it would be a great combination. But I'll spend the vacation with the included rubber lens.

One bug to rule them all - JavaScript, cross-platform. Wow.

[pypy-dev] ANN: psyco V2 - Psyco is alive!

Tablet-Netbook from Asus for 450 Euros - doesn't sound so uninteresting. Could you also install OS X on it like the little 901?

django-queue-service - simple Queueing System based on Django. Could be very interesting for projects in the company.

GitX - a graphical interface for git on OS X. I'm actually a Mercurial fan, but for some things git is quite practical (better support for binary data, for example).

Google veröffentlicht freien NX-Server - interestingly, some parts are written in Python!

jQuery Visualize Plugin: Accessible Charts & Graphs from Table Elements using HTML 5 Canvas - ok, das ist definitiv cool.

MetaPython Documentation - hadn't I seen that before? Never mind. Hygienic Compile-Time Macros. For Python.

pudb 0.92.2 - Console debugger for Python. Looks quite nice.

robey's kestrel at master - loosely ordered, reliable message queueing. In Scala. Sounds very interesting, could be useful for some projects, especially since it simply uses the memcache protocol for access, so many clients for various languages are already available. Scala and its ecosystem of projects is becoming increasingly interesting to me.

simple-build-tool - an interesting build tool for Scala that doesn't rely on XML orgies. I find Maven somehow terrifyingly monstrous - and quite honestly, editing XML files I consider an imposition.

SUMMON: visualization prototyping and scripting - maybe for the rider of the shockwave. Data visualization in Python. With OpenGL.

Judgment: DSL-Sharing via WLAN violates competition law - well, that should probably be the end of FON in Germany (at least if the judgment holds). Well, it never really took off here anyway.

MS Lofoten - starting from August 19th, I will be sailing with the ship up and down the entire Norwegian coast!

Coffee reverses Alzheimer's - well, that will surely please the rider of the shockwave ...

Dead Media Beat: CompuServe - CompuServe is done.

Dev Thoughts: Scala: Program like you mean it. - interesting article about some of the nice features of Scala.

Dispatch → Guide - Library for accessing web services (RESTful) from Scala.

In our own interest: Power outage in the data center stopped heise online - well, I would have expected something different from Heise.

iPhone to Get SMS Vulnerability Fix - autsch. autsch. autsch.

NetBeans 6.7 focuses on Maven and Kenai integration - in connection with the Scala support for Netbeans (unfortunately not yet for the current version) it could become more interesting than Eclipse for me in the long run.

agile42 | How to install Agilo for Scrum - might become interesting at work (some people are talking about Scrum). And since Agilo is based on Trac, it would be quite fitting.

CSS Homer, animated - some people just have too much time ...

'Misty caverns' on Enceladus moon - Foundations for possible life on a Saturn moon.

OCaml-mindstorm - control the NXT robot brick from OCaml. Nice!

Olympus E-P1 London Launch & Hands-on - interesting because of the handling comparisons with the Ricoh GRD II and the Sigma DP2.

pygowave-server - for those who don't want to wait for Google to see their Wave in action, someone has simply started a Python server as an open source project.

PyPy Status Blog: JIT progress - and there's also some activity at the PyPy front again.