Google Earth 4.2 now incorporates space with the Sky option, allowing you to explore the heavens with images from various sources overlaid. Still have to compare it to Celestia though.

So far as I can find out there are two PHP compilers out there: Zend Guard, which compiles your code so that it’s optimised, sped up and unreadable. This is run using an Apache / IIS extension called the Zend Optimiser (free). Phalanger, which is open source and compiles to .NET, allowing the use of Read more about PHP compilers[…]

Like VideoLan, Flumotion from Fluendo offerts a streaming media server based on the GStreamer multimedia framework. Fluendo creates plugins for different formats as well as a DVD player, Media Center and Streaming Java applet (Cortado). The Fluendo Site The Flumotion site

You don’t know what DivX and XviD are? Or you simply don’t care? They are called codecs and this neat little program will download and install them for you next time Windows Media Player tells you it doesn’t have the correct codec.

This programme allows you to log in to your windows PC using your face – you set up a template and then after lock up you show your muggins to the camera and it will let you in. No, it probably isn’t the most secure thing to do at all, but it’s neat!

3dvia.com is a flickr copy, except it hosts 3d models. They’re backed by Daussault Systems of France and hope to be as big as flickr / utube. They use the 3dxml as a standard, which has some slightly better editors for it than Google’s Earth 3D unit editor. Good luck to ’em.

Quercus is Caucho Technology’s fast, open-source, 100% Java implementation of the PHP language. Quercus is a feature of Caucho Technology’s Resin Application Server and is built into Resin – there is no additional download/install. Developers using Resin can launch PHP projects without having to install the standard PHP interpreter (http://www.php.net) as Quercus takes on the Read more about Quercus: PHP in Java[…]

The programme is a really easy to use planetarium, with a fish-eye view for round mirrors so you can project the output onto the inside of a sphere should you want to. You can view the stars and labels from any point at any time on the globe as well as from other planets. It’s Read more about Stellarium Planetarium[…]

One of the PCs is set up as a server, the rest run the client. Like dual-monitor, you can move the mouse to the next computer and it takes over control. You can also share clipboard content over the computers, allthough this is still a bit buggy. So, can you take an IR keyboard and Read more about Synergy: control multiple PCs with one keyboard and mouse[…]

Gaia online is a mix of an MMO (people have Avatars and can walk around in a virtual, Manga-esque world, but there are no ‘enemies’), forums, media and ways to improve your avatar. You get gold by being social – ie. posting on the forums, exploring the world or uploading content. The subscriber base has Read more about Gaia Online new form of social networking[…]

The Register ran a survey among it’s readers and it turns out that Software as a Service is not really taking off yet. The most common apps people use are email and office. MS is the Office king. Doesn’t look like web-based apps will rule any time soon and thin clients are still a stupid Read more about Desktop apps here to stay[…]

With all the talk of Blue Ray and HD being cracked, people seem to have missed Slysoft EasyDVD which removes the copy protection and FBI warning screens from DVDs in the drive, allowing them to be backupped by their lovely CloneDVD software.

According to a study done by Symantec over the last 6 months of 2006, based on metrics such as amount of vulnerabilities and speed of patches. Red Hat came second, followed by Mac OS X. Then there are HP-UX and Sun Solaris!

Palm has finally got off their lazy asses and programmed push email into VersaMail 3.5. Unfortunately you do have to buy the update, but it’s not too expensive: VersaMail 3.5 ($9.99) ActiveSync Update ($2.99)

Using Goops you can connect a GPS to Google Earth and map your trips, colour coded for speed. You can save and share your tracks with others. This works because Google Earth has a cache allowing you to download the area you’re going to drive in and view the areas offline.

This is a nice overview of the different types of search engines out there, some of which are better than google. From the search homepage, AI’s, clustering engines, reccomendation engines, metasearch engines, and differing levels of interactivity, it’s interesting to have a look at what else is out there besides the mighty Google.

JscreenFix flashes red, green and blue over every pixel at more than 60 times per second, leading to stuck pixels becoming unstuck and dead pixels sometimes being reactivated. It requires java and runs from a browser – allways worth a try before RFMming a monitor!

Following Windows Aero, the Mac manager and the Compiz flying cubes, Sun has put out it’s own 3D Java desktop system for free, which means it’ll run on pretty much anything. Get it here.

Having tried to post a torrent without logging in to a tracker site, I found the Beehive – a site that lists a whole load of trackers with additional information about what kind of files they track.

This software real-time distorts projected images so that they fit seamlessly onto 3D objects, which means that the projection only appears on the object at the right angle.

We can’t all have a fingerworks keyboard as they are out of production, but we can install software that uses the keypad to mouse around quickly and effectively. This link has two programmes that allow this for windows, plus a whole load of different links to shortcuts etc.

These sites have news, information and techniques for doing weird stuff in Flash. Some very cool stuff in there. http://www.levitated.net/ http://www.chewinggumfortheeyes.com/ http://www.nanolabs.net/ http://www.ultrashock.com/ http://www.gotoandlearn.com/

Undelete Plus is a freeware proggie that undeletes from NTFS/NTFS5,FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 volumes. Can be very useful indeed!

This site takes a file up to 100MB and spits it out in any one of quite a number of formats. The privacy statement claims they delete the files but keep the emailadress because they mail you the converted file back instead of offering to download it. They also keep your IP address for logging Read more about Zamzar File Conversion[…]

Planet MySQL is a blog centred on MySQL. Loads of refresher stuff and new stuff comes out on this. MySQL Forge is the site for MySQL addin projects and snippets – if you want to add to MySQL or if you want to see what’s being added to MySQL this is the place to be. Read more about MySQL Community Resources[…]