Seems like Japan has an amazing underground water system that’s reminiscent of a game or sci-fi movie. Apparently the photos are not CG, even though they look extremely vector-like. I wonder if I can get a tour.
NYC to LA in 20 Minutes
6,500: Speed, in miles per hour, attained by NASA’s “scramjet”, the first jet aircraft to go Mach 9.6, or 2 miles per second
20: Number of minutes it would take to fly from New York City to Los Angeles at that speed
That from the most recent Time issue about NASA’s scramjet that can fly at speeds up to Mach 10 and recently broke the speed record.
I’ll be flying from Dulles to San Fran soon and that will be a 6 hour flight - wish I could hook myself up with a scramjet!
Is Google Taking Screenshots of My Desktop?
I’ve been using Google’s Desktop Search for a few weeks now and I really like it. It’s made finding lost emails much easier, and it’s come in quite handy more than a few times while wading through my masses of Word docs.
The cached web page feature is also pretty nice, but I noticed something odd about it today. I thought it just displayed the cached html, but the thumbnail next to one of the search results showed the pop-up dialog from my firewall.
Does this mean that Google is taking screenshots of my desktop? Why do I care about this? Well I’ve authorized the program to cache my web pages, but I didn’t authorize it to cache random pop-ups on my desktop. What if something I don’t want cached pops up?
I’ll have to dig into this a little deeper to see if this is actually the case.
Update: Franci has a good list of other things potentially wrong with Google Desktop.
Ringling Bros.
So I went to the circus last night! You know, the three rings and the elephants and the trapeze artists. There are some (poor quality) pics on my moblog if you’re interested.
It was really fun. My favorite parts were where they ride the motorcycle’s around the big metal ball and Crazy Wilson by defying the laws of gravity and common sense atop the gyroscopic Pendulum of Pandemonium! It kind of makes me want to quit my job and join the circus.
Feeling a Little Down?
Sleep in late today? Feeling a little down? Your self-esteem not quite up to par? Find somebody that likes you.
Looking for Some Mac and Cheese in Chicago?
In case you get a craving, CitySearch has a listing of 5 places to try for Mac and Cheese in Chicago. The last one on the list, Stanley’s was recommended to me recently.
Comment URL’s
I’ve made a slight change such that if you post a comment and include a URL in the box provided, your name will link to that URL.
Carry on.
Rampant Google Speculation
So I’ve decided to join in the Google speculation that people love so much.
I stumbled across a blog entry today about the power of Google off of Scoble’s link blog (I so need to implement one of those…I’ve already got the sql script to export my favorites) and it got me thinking.
What if Google redefined the way that we interact with our filesystem? They already have to some degree with Google Desktop Search, but what if, similar to what Kunal was saying, Google designed a new File Manager? And instead of organizing your files by drive (C:) and folder (Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\My Pictures) you could organize your files by category, or by search term? You can already do this with email using GMail and it has proven to be quite successful. How hard would it be to make an intuitive user interface (what WinFS is supposed to be?) to your files? The file manager known as Explorer is one of the weaker parts of Windows. I personally prefer Servant Salamander and it’s dual-paned functionality, not to mention all the great shortcuts and other user enhancements (easy zip viewing, ability to copy filename paths by hitting Alt+Insert…).
How could Google make file browsing easier? Currently this is how one would find something using Explorer: “Where did I put that picture of so-and-so? My Documents? No. D:\Temp\Pics? No. \home-server\homes$? No. Comeon…”. Now imagine using Google’s file manager: “GDesktop->Pictures->Last 20 pictures…FOUND!” Amazingly easy to imagine…I love productivity and usability enhancements.
Outlook Macro to Save Attachments From All Selected Items
I recently used one of those scanner/copier/fax/do-it-all machines in the office to scan in several documents. Each time you scan in a document or set of documents, they get e-mailed to you as an attachment. To my knowledge, Outlook doesn’t have the ability to save attachments from several messages at once, so I wrote this macro. It will prompt for a foldername, then save all attachments from all currently selected items to that folder. Without further ado:
<div class='bogus-wrapper'><notextile><figure class='code'><div class="highlight"><table><tr><td class="gutter"><pre class="line-numbers"><span class='line-number'>1</span> <span class='line-number'>2</span> <span class='line-number'>3</span> <span class='line-number'>4</span> <span class='line-number'>5</span> <span class='line-number'>6</span> <span class='line-number'>7</span> <span class='line-number'>8</span> <span class='line-number'>9</span> <span class='line-number'>10</span> <span class='line-number'>11</span> <span class='line-number'>12</span> <span class='line-number'>13</span> <span class='line-number'>14</span> <span class='line-number'>15</span> <span class='line-number'>16</span> <span class='line-number'>17</span> <span class='line-number'>18</span> <span class='line-number'>19</span> <span class='line-number'>20</span> <span class='line-number'>21</span> <span class='line-number'>22</span> <span class='line-number'>23</span> <span class='line-number'>24</span> <span class='line-number'>25</span> <span class='line-number'>26</span> <span class='line-number'>27</span> <span class='line-number'>28</span> <span class='line-number'>29</span> <span class='line-number'>30</span> <span class='line-number'>31</span> <span class='line-number'>32</span> <span class='line-number'>33</span> <span class='line-number'>34</span> <span class='line-number'>35</span> <span class='line-number'>36</span> <span class='line-number'>37</span> <span class='line-number'>38</span> <span class='line-number'>39</span> <span class='line-number'>40</span> <span class='line-number'>41</span> <span class='line-number'>42</span> <span class='line-number'>43</span> <span class='line-number'>44</span> <span class='line-number'>45</span> <span class='line-number'>46</span> <span class='line-number'>47</span> <span class='line-number'>48</span> <span class='line-number'>49</span> <span class='line-number'>50</span> <span class='line-number'>51</span> <span class='line-number'>52</span> <span class='line-number'>53</span> </pre></td><td class='code'><pre><code class=''><span class='line'><font color="#000080"><b>Public Sub </b></font>SaveAllAttachments<font color="#808080">() </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>olTask <font color="#000080"><b>As </b></font>Outlook<font color="#808080">.</font>TaskItem </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>olItem <font color="#000080"><b>As </b></font>Outlook<font color="#808080">.</font>MailItem </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>olExp <font color="#000080"><b>As </b></font>Outlook<font color="#808080">.</font>Explorer </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>olApp <font color="#000080"><b>As </b></font>Outlook<font color="#808080">.</font>Application </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>olAttach <font color="#000080"><b>As </b></font>Outlook<font color="#808080">.</font>Attachment </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>objWord <font color="#000080"><b>As Object </span><span class='line'> Set </b></font>olApp <font color="#808080">= </font>Outlook<font color="#808080">.</font><font color="#000080"><b>CreateObject</b></font><font color="#808080">(</font><font color="#800000">"Outlook.Application"</font><font color="#808080">) </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>Set </b></font>olExp <font color="#808080">= </font>olApp<font color="#808080">.</font>ActiveExplorer </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>cntSelection <font color="#000080"><b>As Integer </span><span class='line'> </b></font>cntSelection <font color="#808080">= </font>olExp<font color="#808080">.</font>Selection<font color="#808080">.</font>Count </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> <font color="#008000"><i>'Declare a variable as a FileDialog object. </span><span class='line'> </i></font><font color="#000080"><b>Dim </b></font>fd <font color="#000080"><b>As </b></font>Office<font color="#808080">.</font>FileDialog </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> <font color="#008000"><i>' Start word if necessary </span><span class='line'> </i></font><font color="#000080"><b>Set </b></font>objWord <font color="#808080">= </font><font color="#000080"><b>GetObject</b></font><font color="#808080">(</font><font color="#800000">""</font><font color="#808080">, </font><font color="#800000">"Word.Application"</font><font color="#808080">) </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>If </b></font>objWord <font color="#000080"><b>Is Nothing Then </span><span class='line'> Set </b></font>objWord <font color="#808080">= </font><font color="#000080"><b>CreateObject</b></font><font color="#808080">(</font><font color="#800000">"Word.Application"</font><font color="#808080">) </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>End If </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> </b></font><font color="#008000"><i>'Create a FileDialog object as a File Picker dialog box. </span><span class='line'> </i></font><font color="#000080"><b>Set </b></font>fd <font color="#808080">= </font>objWord<font color="#808080">.</font>FileDialog<font color="#808080">(</font>msoFileDialogFolderPicker<font color="#808080">) </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>With </b></font>fd </span><span class='line'> <font color="#808080">.</font>InitialView <font color="#808080">= </font>msoFileDialogViewList </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>If </b></font><font color="#808080">.</font>Show <font color="#808080">= -</font><font color="#FF0000">1 </font><font color="#000080"><b>Then </span><span class='line'> </b></font>Path <font color="#808080">= </font>fd<font color="#808080">.</font>SelectedItems<font color="#808080">(</font><font color="#FF0000">1</font><font color="#808080">) </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>Else </span><span class='line'> MsgBox </b></font><font color="#800000">"error" </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>If </b></font>objWord<font color="#808080">.</font>Documents<font color="#808080">.</font>Count <font color="#808080">= </font><font color="#FF0000">0 </font><font color="#000080"><b>Then </span><span class='line'> </b></font>objWord<font color="#808080">.</font>Quit </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>End If </span><span class='line'> Exit Sub </span><span class='line'> End If </span><span class='line'> End With </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> If </b></font>objWord<font color="#808080">.</font>Documents<font color="#808080">.</font>Count <font color="#808080">= </font><font color="#FF0000">0 </font><font color="#000080"><b>Then </span><span class='line'> </b></font>objWord<font color="#808080">.</font>Quit </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>End If </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'> </b></font><font color="#008000"><i>' Loop through the selected mail items and save the attachments </span><span class='line'> </i></font><font color="#000080"><b>For </b></font>i <font color="#808080">= </font><font color="#FF0000">1 </font><font color="#000080"><b>To </b></font>cntSelection </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Set </b></font>olItem <font color="#808080">= </font>olExp<font color="#808080">.</font>Selection<font color="#808080">.</font>Item<font color="#808080">(</font>i<font color="#808080">) </span><span class='line'> </font><font color="#000080"><b>For Each </b></font>olAttach <font color="#000080"><b>In </b></font>olItem<font color="#808080">.</font>Attachments </span><span class='line'> olAttach<font color="#808080">.</font>SaveAsFile Path <font color="#808080">& </font><font color="#800000">"\" </font><font color="#808080">& </font>olAttach<font color="#808080">.</font>FileName </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Next </b></font>olAttach </span><span class='line'> <font color="#000080"><b>Next </span><span class='line'> </span><span class='line'>End Sub</b></font></font></span></code></pre></td></tr></table></div></figure></notextile></div>
Hope somebody out there finds it useful!
MSN Search Beta Doesn’t Know How to Count!
I’ve been playing around with the MSN Search beta and noticed some odd results. If you do a search for Damon, there are 2,979,578 results. Even though there are several search pages at the top of the page, there are only five at the bottom. And oddly enough, when you hit the fifth page, there are apparently only 49 search results. What’s going on here, Microsoft? It appears your search engine doesn’t know how to count!
