Tuesday, March 25, 2008

PicLens, Full-Screen Slideshows for Image Sites

PicLens is a browser add-on that detaches the images from a web page and lets you explore them in interesting ways. The add-on, which is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, works for a small number of sites: image search engines and photo sharing sites, as it requires to understand the structure of a web page.

PicLens, Full-Screen Slideshows for Image Sites

Monday, March 24, 2008

Scaling Laws In Biology And Other Complex Systems

Life is very likely the most complex phenomenon in the Universe manifesting an extraordinary diversity of form and function over an enormous range. Yet, many of its most fundamental and complex attributes scale with size in a surprisingly simple fashion. For example, metabolic rate (the power required to sustain the system) scales as approximately the 3/4-power of mass over 27 orders of magnitude from molecular levels up to the largest multicellular organisms. Similarly, time-scales, such as lifespans and growth-rates, increase with exponents which are typically simple powers of 1/4. It will be shown how these universal quarter-power scaling laws follow from fundamental generic principles embedded in the dynamics and geometry of underlying networks, leading to a general quantitative theory that captures essential features of many diverse biological systems. Examples will include animal and plant vascular systems, growth, cancer, aging and mortality, sleep, DNA nucleotide substitution rates. These ideas will be extended to discuss social organisations such as cities and firms: to what extent, if at all, can we think of these as very large organisms and therefore as an extension of biology? Analogues to metabolic rate and behavioral times in cities scale counter to their behaviour in biology. Driven by innovation and the creation of wealth this has dramatic implications for their growth, development, sustainability and pace of life which, left unchecked, potentially sow the seeds for their collapse. Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist whose primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics, especially those concerning the elementary particles, their interactions and cosmological implications. Prior to joining the Santa Fe Institute as a Distinguished Professor in 2003, he was the leader, and founder, of the high energy physics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he is one of only approximately ten Senior Fellows.

Scaling Laws In Biology And Other Complex Systems

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Google's Design Guidelines

1. Useful: focus on people - their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Fast: every millisecond counts.
3. Simple: simplicity is powerful.
4. Engaging: engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Innovative: dare to be innovative.
6. Universal: design for the world.
7. Profitable: plan for today's and tomorrow's business.
8. Beautiful: delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Trustworthy: be worthy of people's trust.
10. Personable: add a human touch.


Google's Design Guidelines

Saturday, March 15, 2008

DVD Flick

DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks as well as subtitles of your choice.

DVD Flick

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Searchme, Inc.

Searchme lets you see what you're searching for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you'll see pictures of web pages that answer your search. You can review these pages quickly to find just the information you're looking for, before you click through.

Searchme, Inc.

YouTube Chromeless Player Example page

YouTube Chromeless Player Example page

Monday, March 10, 2008

Beta.BookLamp.org

Beta.BookLamp.org: "BookLamp.org is a system for matching readers to books through an analysis of writing styles, similar to the way that Pandora.com matches music lovers to new music. Do you like Stephen King’s It, but thought it was too long? The technology behind BookLamp allows you to find books that are written with a similar tone, tense, perspective, action level, description level, and dialog level, while at the same time allowing you to specify details like... half the length. It’s impervious to outside influences - like advertising - that impact socially driven recommendation systems, and isn’t reliant on a large user base to work."

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Google Calendar Sync for Microsoft Outlook

One of the most popular requests for Google Calendar was synchronization with mobile devices and Outlook. After launching a sync tool for Blackberries, Google Calendar now offers a small utility for synchronizing events with Outlook.

By default the synchronization is bi-directional, but you can change this when you install the utility or from the options dialog. The only significant drawback is that you can only synchronize your main Google Calendar, but a future update should remove this limitation.

Google Calendar Sync for Microsoft Outlook

Monday, March 3, 2008

[object HTMLImageElement]

It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the 'mirrored' website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.

http://www.httrack.com/