March 05, 2003
Crazy Canuck Weather
Its been an odd week weatherwise so far. First, we had a 40 odd degree swing between noon Sunday and noon Monday (in the wrong direction) and then back again in the opposite direction between Monday and Tuesday. Then, this morning, it decided that we needed more snow. Some pictures from my morning commute here.
MS Agent, Mulberry, Notmad Explorer and more...
I've really started to enjoy using Newzcrawler. Not only does it aggregate the XML that drives my favorite blogs, but it has some great search and OCS functions that I'm really starting to dig. One of its niftier features allows you to use a Microsoft Agent to read entries to you. Microsoft really hasn't done much with Agent over the past few years, but it seems developers are picking up on it nonetheless.As I mentioned a while back, I picked up a new laptop. Great value (even though I sort of swore that I would never buy another Sony product). The Vaio product group really goes the extra mile to provide customers with real utility as part of the package. For instance, the battery meter talks - sounds cheesy, but applications that provide audible cues are tremendously helpful. I've also found a great IMAP client that does a very similar thing - "This message has an attachment", "You've got new mail" - and all customizeable to say whatever I want it to say.
Coupled with Newzcrawler, the Vaio talks all day - which provides me with a new stream of information to deal with, in a very lightweight, non-distractive fashion. Quite useful.
I've also got a new favorite application - Notmad Explorer. I've recently upgraded my Nomad I from the 6gb factory capacity to a much more comfortable 40gb. It turns out that these little guys are really just portable hard drives. While I was looking for instructions that described the upgrade surgery, I came across Notmad. This is a great application that completely outperforms the software that Creative provides with each unit and adds some great new functionality as well. For instance, the NotWeb component allows me to connect to the Jukebox from any PC and stream my MP3s to the remote desktop via the Internet - tres cool. If you've got any Creative MP3 device, you really have to check out this software.