my window on the web

Windbelt electrical wind powered generator

A few years ago Shawn Frayne came up with an ingenious way of generating electricity on a smaller scale than wind turbines by using vibrations rather than rotary power. His invention, called the windbelt, works by oscillating a pair of magnets through a metal coil at the end of a belt which vibrates as wind passes over it. This physical phenomenon is know as aeroelastic flutter and it's the same principle that caused the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to collapse. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph wind, making the windbelt 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines.

Shawn Frayne talks about the windbelt

Free subversion repository hosting accounts

Rails Code

I've come across a few subversion hosting services which offer free accounts so I thought I'd share the links. Most of these seem to offer a limited free account and a range of paid accounts. If you're working with subversion a lot and you come to rely on them then you may want to upgrade in the future - at least you can try them out first for free. However, if you're developing one or two projects on your own you may be happy to stick with the free account. These details are for the free accounts only, and most offer a lot more for the paid account (for example, SSL access, more users, repositories, etc.).

Service Storage space Active projects/repositories Users SSL
Beanstalk 100mb 1 3 No
ProjectLocker 500mb Unlimited 5 Yes
Slik SVN 10mb 1 1 Yes
Springloops 100mb 3 Unlimited No
Unfuddle 200mb 1 2 No
XP-Dev 500mb Unlimited Unlimited No

These details are only up to date as of when I submit this post so make sure you have a look through the links to see what you're getting. If you're looking at hosting an open source project you may want to look at Google Code (http://code.google.com/projecthosting/) and SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/).

Firefox not checking spelling as you type

Firefox has a handy feature which can check your spelling as you type in forms. To enable this go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Browsing and check 'Check spelling as I type'. If this still isn't working you may need to install your dictionary (even if your dictionary is listed under Tools > Options > Content > Languages). To do this, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3 and download your language, install and restart Firefox. You should now have many squiggly red lines in your forms as you type (ok, maybe that's just me :o) ).

Firefox spell checker 2

Atlantis silhouette during solar transit

This image shows the space shuttle Atlantis in silhouette during solar transit on Tuesday 12th May 2009. Pretty cool!

STS-125 Atlantis Solar Transit (200905120002HQ)

Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)

Thierry made this image using a solar-filtered Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 5D Mark II digital camera. Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)

Spotify world of music

Logo SpotifySpotify is an online music service which allows you, much like Last.fm, to stream music to your computer via a downloadable app.

You can play individual tracks or build, share and collaborate on playlists. The free version allows you to listen to unlimited music with the occasional ad. They come up about once every 4 or 5 tracks so it's not too intrusive. You can also buy a day pass for 99p which gives you an ad free service for the day or sign up for a premium account and get unlimited ad free listening for £9.99 a month.

So far I'm very impressed with the service. It has almost everything I want to listen to and the best bit for me is that you can build custom playlists and share them with people or collaborate and build them together.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E High Definition (1080p) SD Video Camera

I've been looking through some of the little HD SD-based camcorders recently and I came across the Hitachi DZ-HV565E in Argos. However, this video camera seems to be a bit of a mystery online, there just isn't much information about it, I couldn't even find any test footage on YouTube.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E

Outlook calendar problem - all appointments recurring forever

I came across a strange problem with Outlook Calendar recently where every appointment which was added to the Calendar and then edited suddenly repeated forever! A scary concept! It seemed to be related to a piece of software called 'OutlookAddinSetup'. From what I've read (http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/29012397/re-recurring-calenda...), this seems to be something which comes installed with Dell computers. After I uninstalled this program (from Control Panel, Programs, Uninstall a program) the problem has stopped and events only occur once. If anyone knows what the program is supposed to do please drop a comment below :)

CodeIgniter 1.7.0 Released

It's that wonderful time again! CodeIgniter 1.7.0 has been released, so it's time to upgrade.

http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/installation/upgrade_170.html

Upgrading looks fairly straight forward - here are some notable changes (http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/changelog.html):

Diggnation - Live from London, 10th October 2008

I went to the Live Diggnation at the end of the Future of Web Apps Expo. Excellent show - I really hope they come back again next year! :) (video below)

Future of Web Apps Expo - London 2008

Flickr Picks #1: Autumnal selection

Here's my first "Flickr picks" picture selection. Every now and then I'm going to pick some photos from Flickr with a particular theme. I thought some nice autumnal pictures would be a good place to start as it's one of my favourite seasons for taking pictures (winter being the other).

The great thing about autumn is not only the colours from the leaves but also the moody weather - rain one minute, sun the next - it really creates a stunning atmosphere.

Double Bows
Double Bows
by Nicholas_T