Yahoo! App for iPhone/Touch - News

This app is a iPhone front end to Yahoo! services. I have only been using the app for a few days so there is a lot I haven't discovered yet. So let me focus on what I have used.

The app comes with a really cool interface to Yahoo! News. Basically it show the top news headlines, business, entertainment, and sports. All presented sequentially from the top of the page. Each category has options that allow you to drill down further into any topic you want. And at the bottom of the page is a more complete topical listing of news categories which you can select from. So if you like Yahoo! News, you will love this app.

As I see it there are two really cool things about the app.

1. The app is really fast. This is because the app does not try to download everything every time it connects to the Net. Each category page has a refresh button at the top of the page. Tap the button if you want to get the latest stories for that category, only that category is downloaded. Thusly, updates are quick and easy.
2. All the stories are in an easy to read iPhone format. You don't have to wait for a Web browser to load and render the page. Instead, you click a story and boom its there. Very nice.

So anyway, that's it for now. More to come on this app as I understand it better. Also, I expect to write about some other news oriented apps soon.

Glossy Monitors are Evil

Glossy montiors are evil. There I said it. They look great in a store, but unless you work in a cave, they are awful for every day use. The glare from them does nothing but cause headaches and heaven know what it does to your eyes long term.

Anyway, I recently needed a new monitor for everyday use. I found this lovely piece of glass with a nice matte finish. Absolutely a beautiful monitor. If you are like me, and sit in front of a computer all day, get a monitor with a matte finish like this one. There is no substitute.

Free Webex?

Now I know of two companies that offer free Webex alternatives:

1. http://www.dimdim.com


2. http://vyew.com

Featured gadget: Task List and Timer

Name: Task List and Timer
Author: Adam Hotz
Description: Allows you to track tasks and the time spent on them.

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Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer

Web Development for the IPhone

Well after running across all the cool iPhone apps Sunday, it got me interested in what you need to develop for the platform. It turns out most of the development looks to be done in Objective C. Lots of detailed information can be found out on the Apple iPhone developer site.

However, being the lazy dude that I am, that looks like far too much effort to me. So I checked out the Web options that are available for the iPhone. This is what I have found so far.

• Safari Mobile - Apple's official site for Safari mobile development. I know they have some very hot HTML 5 storage options they are implementing in Safari 4.


• iui - A CSS And JavaScript bundle that allows you to create Web applications for the iPhone. Josh Hewitt provides a detailed introduction here.


• jQTouch - A new library for integrating JQuery with the iPhone.

The web options look like a much better option for trying things out.

CSS Thin Table

Here is my write up on how to create a nicely styled CSS table with thin borders. I needed to create a few tables like this for a project at work. It was a lot harder to figure out how to do this than it should have been. I ran into a lot of examples, that never got to the point. So hopefully my write up will help out myself and others in the future.

Here is a sample table in case you are interested

List Order			Book Title	Rating	Author	Remove
1	Top	Last	Book #1		John Doe
2	Top	Last	Book #2		Jane Doe
3	Top	Last	Book #3		Joe Doe
4	Top	Last	Book #4		Jill Doe
5	Top	Last	Book #5		John Smith
6	Top	Last	Book #6		Joe Smith
7	Top	Last	Book #7		Jane Smith
8	Top	Last	Book #8		Jill Smith

iPhone Apps for Sports News (Part I)

Yesteday I was at my niece's soccer game I tried checking the score of the Nuggets game. Well doing that on a web site, or even most of the mobile optimized websites, can be a bit clunky. So this morning, I thought I should check and see if there were any iPhone apps for showing scores. Boy was I suprised! There are several choices and evern a few apps by the sports leagues themsevles

NBA Game Time

This official app from the NBA shows the scores for today's games. In addition, it provides live scores and stats for games in progress. Nice little box scores by team. It also includes the current schedule and standings. Really nice.

mlb.com lite

Similar to the NBA app, but it provides less stats. It still shows the live scores and schedules, who's hitting, pitching, and who is on base. However, it does not provide a box score.

However, they do provide a paid version of the application that provides a lot more detailed information. Stuff like live pitch locations, pitch by pitch commentary, etc... It looks really cool.

If You Can't Beat Them, Out Lobby Them

Check out this story on Engadget. It seems a town in North Carolina got fed up with their cable and Internet providers and formed a public utility to provide the services. So now they have a better service at a much cheaper price. But it seems this could cut into Time Warner's profits so they have begun lobbying the state legislature to outlaw such a consumer friendly service.

Featured gadget: Periodic Table Interactive

Name: Periodic Table Interactive
Author: Rosie Ojo
Description: Periodic table knowledge base of chemical elements, from hydrogen to ununoctium, with video demonstrations from internationally renowned chemist, Professor Martyn.

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Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer

Komodo Edit

Komodo Edit is a free open source editor created by the folks at Active State. These are the people who create the ActivePerl and ActivePython distros.

There are versions of the editor for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is based of the Komodo IDE which is a much more full featured development environment. Anyway, the editor has a really nice feature set.

• Supports the concept of projects and allows you to keep multiple projects open at the same time.


• Tabs for each file you are editing


• Good syntax hightlighting


• Built in HTML preview


• And many more I have not discovered yet.

Definitely worth checking out if you want a cross platform editor.

Java 7 Updates

A quick shout out to my coworkers working on the Java Tutorial. Their Java Tutorial Blog has code examples highlighting changes in JDK 7 (Due out early next year). A good place to check out what is coming.

Now for the Real Talent

To use that old Monty Python line, now for something completely different! I have had a couple of YouTube links sent my way this week. Both links are from the UK TV show Britain's Got Talent.

1. First, the hillarious. Stavros Flatley


2. Next, the amazing. Susan Boyle

I think Susan Boyle's performance is a great example of why shows like this are so popular. People with real talent are given an opportunity to showcase it. Only people who look like Barbie or Ken are given a chance in Hollywood.

Also, check out this great post on the Seattle Post Intelligencer on Why Dreams Matter.

JQuery and PHP Tips

Check out this list of 20 useful JQuery and PHP tips via Digg. Haven't checked out all the links, but I look forward to doing that.

Also, check out the new Digg toolbar. Haven't decided if this is good or bad yet. lol. But, it does seem to make browsing thru the stories easier.

Featured gadget: Tabbed Todo List

Name: Tabbed Todo List
Author: Teodor Filimon
Description: Helps you organize your to-do tasks better by allowing you to put them into tabs/categories.

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Each week this blog features a recently added Google Desktop gadget that looks promising. If you'd like to see all new Desktop gadgets as they're published, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer

Portable Ubuntu for Windows

Check out this post on LifeHacker about a portable thumb drive Ubuntu for Window. Once installed, Ubuntu launches as a tool bar. From this, you can launch all your favorite Linux applications. Haven't tried this out yet, but I intend to. Looks really cool!

Featured gadget: Resource Hog Tracker

Name: Resource Hog Tracker
Author: Prithvi Prabhu
Description: Tracks processes that consume the most CPU cycles, memory and perform the most I/O operations on your computer.

More information | Download gadget

Each week this blog features a recently added Google Desktop gadget that looks promising. If you'd like to see all new Desktop gadgets as they're published, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer

Unix ls and ls -l for Windows

I spend almost all my time in some form of Unix when I work on computers. So when I have to work on Windows, I am constantly typing ls to get a directory list and ll which is my alias for ls -l. Instead of trying to retrain my brain to use dir again, I do the following to the Windows system I am working on.

1. cd \windows


2. edit ls.bat


3. Put the following into the file: dir /w %1 %2 %3 %4
   This makes the dir command ouput more like ls. The parameters (%1 %2, etc...) allow you to add parameters, file wild cards, and such to the command line.


4. Save the file and close it.


5. edit ll.bat


6. Put the following code in the file: dir %1 %2 %3 %4
   The default behavior of dir is like ls -l.


7. Close and save the file.

That is it. Now you have ls and ll in Windows. No retraining required.