Links

Places on the web that are of most interest to me:

  • PubMed. The premier site for literature searches in biomedical science.
  • Slashdot. Feel the pulse of today's most pressing issues in science, technology, and rights in the digital age.
  • OSNews. Another geeky news site geared towards articles around the web that concern the "future of computing."
  • Pybliographer. Need a bibliography manager in Linux? Look no further, this program is jam packed with features and competes with many current commercial software packages.
  • Using LaTeX for your thesis proposal and dissertation (from http://www.rpi.edu/computing/software/latex/thesis-info.html [Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute]). This is an excellent starting document for those of you wanting to learn more about LaTeX. By all means, spend the time now to understand this wonderful package and it will save you lots of headache and heartache in the future when you need to whip out a scientific paper, review, or book.

The following are links to my family and friends' web pages:
  • Hieu Vu. My brother is a graduating Chemical Engineer. He's has a number of experiences in the field and is looking for a job, can you help him out?
  • Tone's "The World from Mine Eyes". In need of a good chuckle?
  • Jeffrey T. Mason. He's a childhood friend who has always had a passion for radio and music. He DJs in the Chicago listening area for a popular dance (WKIE - 92.7/5) radio station. Check his site out and listen to him live on the Jeffro Show, 7 pm to Midnight CST.
  • Dragonsfolly.com is my cousin's site. It has excellent prose and sci-fi fantasy fan fiction. Check it out for an interesting read.
  • Pham-Tom Designs is a friend's design company. Browse his pages if you need art design for your website.
  • Color Negative is yet another friend's design company. Browse his pages if you need art design for your website.
  • Minh Pham is a close friend who happens to be a real estate broker. His passion is motivational speaking. Please peruse his site if you need a speaker for your next conference or meeting.
  • Oanh Le is in the IT field in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area (soon to be in the New York City area). She has more than a few years of on-the-job experience under her belt. Follow the link if you need a consultant for contract work.
  • Looking for a snazzy pair of sneaks? Swing on by to gotkickz? and order "two per of those er force ones." In fact, do your holiday shopping early, tell them I sent you.

Some recent deals and news

Channel: dealnews - 7 most recent deals.

  • PetSmart printable coupons: $5 off $15, $10 off $40, $15 off $50. PetSmart printable coupons: $5 off $15, $10 off $40, $15 off $50 PetSmart stores cut $5 off purchases of $25 or more, $10 off purchases of $40 or more, or $15 off purchases of $50 or more via these printable coupons. They're among the best coupons we've seen from PETsMART in recent months. Coupons end May 18.
  • L.L. Bean Super Deluxe Sling Pack for $11 + free shipping. L.L. Bean Super Deluxe Sling Pack for $11 + free shipping L.L. Bean offers its L.L. Bean Super Deluxe Sling Pack in six colors for $10.95. With free shipping via coupon code "2373230", that's $18 off and the lowest total price we've seen. Features include a single crossover strap, MP3 pocket with storage port, and more.
  • Haier 37" 1080p Widescreen LCD HDTV from $800 + $50 s&h. Haier 37" 1080p Widescreen LCD HDTV from $800 + $50 s&h Costco.com offers its members the Haier 37" Widescreen LCD HD Television, model no. HL37E, for $799.99. (Non-members pay $40 more.) With $49.99 for shipping, it's the lowest total price we could find by $192. Sales tax is added where applicable. Features include a 1920x1080 (1080p) native resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, 1600:1 contrast ratio, 550 cd/m² brightness, 8ms response time, NTSC, ATSC, and QAM tuners, and HDMI, component, S-Video, RCA, and RF video inputs.
  • CP Technologies LevelOne 802.11b/g USB 2.0 Adapter for $23 after rebate + free shipping. CP Technologies LevelOne 802.11b/g USB 2.0 Adapter for $23 after rebate + free shipping Buy.com offers CP Technologies' LevelOne 802.11b/g USB 2.0 Adapter, model no. WNC-0600USB, for $53.24. This $30 mail-in rebate cuts it to $23.24. With free shipping, it's the lowest total price we could find by $19. It provides 802.11b/g connectivity at up to 270Mbps. Deal expires May 31.

    Of note, open a Google Checkout account for $10 off and pay $13.24.

  • Amazon.com: Two Blu-ray movies for $30 + free shipping. Amazon.com: Two Blu-ray movies for $30 + free shipping At Amazon.com, buy two select Blu-ray Disc movies and get them for $30. (Discount appears during checkout.) Plus, free shipping applies. After discount, most bundles are less than if each title were purchased separately elsewhere. In all, 40 items are included. Some notable titles:
    • Black Hawk Down for $14.95
    • Pan's Labrynth for $19.95
    • The Departed for $19.95
    • 300 for $19.95
    • Crimson Tide for $20.95
    • see all 40 movie titles
  • Portable Beach Chair & Umbrella Set for $28 + $9 s&h. Portable Beach Chair & Umbrella Set for $28 + $9 s&h BrylaneHome.com offers this Portable Beach Chair and Umbrella Set in three colors for $39.98. Coupon code "BHDISCOUNT" cuts it to $27.98. With $8.99 for shipping, we couldn't find a similar bundle for less elsewhere. It comes with two chairs, cooler, compact beach umbrella, carrying tote, and more. Coupon ends July 3.
  • Whynter SNO Arctica 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner for $280 + $20 s&h. Whynter SNO Arctica 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner for $280 + $20 s&h newegg.com offers the Whynter SNO Arctica 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner, model no. ARC-10D, for $299.99. Newsletter subscribers can use coupon code "EMCAFBFBD" to drop it to $279.99. With $19.99 for shipping, it's the lowest total price we could find by $49. Features include a stainless steel finish, easy clean filters, and remote control. Deal ends May 21.
Channel: Techbargains.com

Channel: xpBargains.com deals RSS feed

Channel: Cell and Molecular Biology News, Books, Tools and Resources

Channel: Slashdot

Channel: OSNews

  • *Wired vs Wireless: Sometimes There's No Substitute for a Cable*. In a June 2003 Wired Magazine interview, Martha Stewart said, "Bill Gates' house, for example, is totally out of date now. He built it right before wireless happened. The big tunnels for all his wires - he doesn't need any of that stuff anymore." The article wasn't about networking, or even technology, but I was struck by that statement because it was echoed by several people when I was explaining that I was running many thousands of feet of cable in OSNews' "house of the future." "Is all that cable really necessary now that there's wireless everything?" people said. As much as I respect Martha Stewart's business and design acumen, neither she, nor those people who talked to me, know what they're talking about. When it comes to networking, there's no substitute for a wire, when a wire's available. -- This is the latest entry in our 2008 Article Contest. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
  • The Rise of Contextual User Interfaces. Read Write Web has an interesting article on the concept of the contextual user interface. A contextual user interface - as the name implies - is an interface which adapts to the current wishes of its users, the context. The interface will change according to the actions the user takes; present a set of minimal options, and show other options as the user goes along. While the article makes some good points, it also contains some generalisations that I find rather debatable.
  • Introducing QGtkStyle. There is a group of consistency freaks out there (like myself) who are not very fond of mixing Gtk+ with Qt applications. The reasons for this are not just graphical, but also behavioural; Gtk+ applications behave differently than Qt applications (menus are different, layout is different, etc.). Trolltech obviously can't tackle the behavioural side of this issue, but they can tackle the graphical one. This is exactly where QGtkStyle comes into play.
  • OpenSolaris: Shows Promise, Needs Work. Last week, on my country's Liberation Day, Sun released OpenSolaris 2008.05, the much awaited first official fruit of Project Indiana. It delivers many of OpenSolaris' major features, such as DTrace, ZFS, containers, and more, in a Linux distribution-like package. The goal is to allow more people to experience Solaris. A few reviews have since hit the web.
  • Moonlight Hits the Internet. On his blog, Miguel de Icaza announced the first public releases of Moonlight. Moonlight is the open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight, the company's Flash competitor. Moonlight is not yet free of bugs, though.
  • 'OLPC Could Be the IBM Global Services of Laptop Programs'. Back in November of 2006, I wrote a piece about the One Laptop Per Child Project. I was afraid that the project's focus on creating a whole new paradigm (the Sugar UI) would ultimately intervene with the actual goal of the project: teaching stuff to kids. Ivan Krstic, former director of security architecture at OLPC, wrote an essay in which he heavily criticises the OLPC project.
  • Opera Mini 4.1 Released. Opera Software announced the availability of Opera Mini 4.1 for cellphones, which introduces the following new features: Opera Mini 4.1 is up to 50% faster than Opera Mini 4.0. The new Opera Mini will automatically suggest URL completions, making address input easy and intuitive. Web pages can be saved for later off-line viewing (newer Java implementation required). Opera Mini 4.1 gives you quick access to the word or phrase you want in Web pages. Images, ringtones and other content can be downloaded without leaving Opera Mini. You can test Opera Mini 4.1 from within your browser too (if you scroll all the way down on the mobile page of OSNews you can select between our desktop and mobile version).
  • Office 2008 SP1 Released, VBA Support To Return. Microsoft has released the first service pack to Microsoft Office:Mac 2008. The company also said that sales of Office:Mac 2008 have "soared", and that it is "selling faster than any previous version of Office for Mac in the past 19 years". Microsoft also had a surprise announcement about Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) support.
  • Grape: a New Desktop. Rethinking the desktop metaphor, or even improving it in any significant way, is a daunting task, and few dare to take the risk. The end result is that the desktop metaphor that we use today barely changed over the years - which is quite unique for the computing industry, as normally, things change very rapidly.
  • Fedora 9 Released. The Fedora Project has pushed out its 9th release. The release announcement is one of those fancy story ones, without much actual information, but an earlier email by Fedora project leader Paul Frields had some more interesting things to say.
  • Windows XP SP3: Problems, Performance Gains. Windows XP SP3, the final service pack for Windows XP, was released to manufacturing a few weeks ago, and popped up on Windows Update about a week later. Even though the service pack is rather light on actual new features, it still caused a few problems for some users. Despite these problems, some benchmarks show that while SP3 delivers better performance compared to XP SP2, Microsoft seems to have solved many performance issues with Vista, turning the company's latest OS offering into the better choice for gaming - according to ExtremeTech.
  • A History of the Amiga, Part 7: Game on!. Ars Technica's Jeremy Reimer has published the 7th instalment in their series on the history of the Amiga platform. Part 7 deals solely with gaming on the Amiga, detailing various classic Amiga games that in one way or the other pushed the envelope. "The Amiga started out its life as a dedicated games machine, and even though it grew into a full computer very quickly, it never lost its gaming side. The machine's 4096-color palette, stereo sampled sound, and graphics acceleration chips made it a perfect gaming platform, and it didn't take long for game companies to start taking advantage of this power."
  • Running X Without Root Privileges. The X Windowing System is the graphical backbone of most UNIX-like operating systems (and OpenVMS) - despite lots and lots of criticism, the system has withstood the test of time. Despite its age, development on X has not slowed down - in fact, it only seems to have picked up. A few weeks ago, we had kernel-based mode setting, and today we have the X server running as user instead of root.
  • Microsoft To Discount Windows XP for ULPCs. Last week, we reported on a peculiar price difference in Australia between the Linux and Windows versions of the Asus Eee PC 900, the new model in the Eee line. The Windows model was 50 USD cheaper than the Linux model - the Linux model did have a bigger hard drive, but interestingly, the version with the smaller hard drive was not available as a Linux machine. This gave rise to speculation that Microsoft had been putting pressure on Asus to favour Windows XP over Linux. It appears Microsoft's assault in this segment of the market goes deeper than just Asus and the Eee alone.
  • Anatomy of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux). Linux has been described as one of the most secure operating systems available, but the National Security Agency (NSA) has taken Linux to the next level with the introduction of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux). SELinux takes the existing GNU/Linux operating system and extends it with kernel and user-space modifications to make it bullet-proof. If you're running a 2.6 kernel today, you might be surprised to know that you're using SELinux right now! This article explores the ideas behind SELinux and how it's implemented.
Channel: CNET News.com