Pan Admun Republic of Western Blog

From "My tagged link dump":

• 5 Great Alternatives to the Twitter Interface (LostInTechnology)

I've been spending the past little while trying out NP_PicasaGallery to integrate PicasaWeb photo album to my site.

Admun Photoblog

Ultimately, I'd like to setup a photo blog using PicasaWeb. This way, I can upload pictures from my G1 and automatically show them on my blog.

I'm still tweaking the setup to see what I can do.

From "My tagged link dump":

• Get Satisfaction - A on-line customer support forum service that tied users and developers directly to foster customer satisfaction
• On the savannah, where the gnu roam... (Free Software Foundation)
  - On GNU's open source project hosting service Savannah, and other alternatives like Google Code, Sourceforge, and Lauchpad
• 37signals - A company with an array of web application for small business software, collaboration, project management, and CRM (basecamp, highrise, backpack, campfire)
• Launchpad - A on-line project hosting service by Canonical (aka ubuntu)
• SourceForge.net - One of the first opne source project hosting service
• Picasa - A on-line web album and photo management software from Google
• Coppermine Photo Gallery - A web gallery sysyem written in PHP+MySQL
• Plogger - A open-source photo gallery system written in PHP

From "My tagged link dump":

• Eucalyptus - A open source cloud computing infrastructure similar to Amazon's EC2

From "My tagged link dump":

• Scaling Digg and Other Web Applications (High Scalability)
• MemcacheDB - A distributed key-value storage system designed for persistent

From "My tagged link dump":

• Why Google Employees Quit
• Google your energy usage? (Linux Home Automation)
  - Indeed, I'm interesting to see the device they will be using. I know there are few players already competing in this space i.e. Grid-net, eMeter

Just upgrade to v3.40. Yeah!

see: http://nucleuscms.org/item/3051

From "My tagged link dump":

• Stallman vs. Clouds (Linux Journal)

The truth is it's just too far from San Francisco to get to a ski hill to prepare for Level 2. However, I continue to practice my crave turns and other stuffs as much as possible, whenever I have a chance.

Fortunately, I was able to go up to Northstar and Sugerbowl 4 times so far, plus 4 half days up Camp Fortune when I was back to Ottawa.

Note to self:
- Toe side turn still need more knee bending to maximize edge on snow, remind self to assume cowboy stands, and to rotate shoulder more to complete the turn fully
- Need earlier turn initiation, ez10 suggests to rotate shoulder slightly before pivot. However, I've a tendency to lean out too much and skid out on heel side.
- Still pretty static when on edge into the turn
- For moguls, need to bend knee more and absorb the bump. Since I do not have the ability to turn so quickly and align to the mogul, I have to adapt to the terrain by go through a few bumps before making a turn. This provides enough time to make the turn to happen

From "My tagged link dump":

• 轉載：基督不丟石頭 - 梁文道 (Uncle Ray)

From "My tagged link dump":

• Whitix - A new OS designed for desktop PC
• The BoxeeBox Cookbook (DeviceGuru)

From "My tagged link dump":

• JNode - A Java OS written mostly in Java

It's end of January again, and I happened to be back to Ottawa for some personal matters, R&R, and friends visiting. Like clockwork, Burton is once again doing demo at Camp Fortune. Last time when I tried their board I ended up bought a used 2005 Shaun White pre-production with no graphics, which I still like a lot after 3 reasons later.

Even I like my Shaun White a lot, but I still keep an lookout for new toys. I was toying the idea of a 149cm Custom, just so I can do more spinning type of tricks without compromising a solid and poppy ride. But as usual, the demo has nothing shorter than 150-ish. So, I just ask what they'd recommended for a stiff but short(er) deck. There is a 151cm Women Supermodel that seem fit my requirements, so I take it. After all, there is also a Men Supermodel. If I like it, I can get the Men's without being called a sissy.

Since I bought my Shaun White, one thing I complained is the fact that the board is much heavier than what I demo. This hampered my progress to learn and master some hop and spin tricks like half-cap. I know my metal Ride RX binding has a lot to do with that..... but when they handed me the feather-feel Supermodel w/ Lexa binding, that hit me that I NEED Burton binding for my next board!

This board is using ICS "The Channel" binding mechanism. It's just so incompatible with the rest of the world, but I think there is a good justification for this closed system; It allows very fine adjustment to the binding angle and stand width. I often thinks I can use a bit more fine-tuning to the stands on my Shaun White. (p.s. I am a open system kind of guy. I opts for a Google G1 rather than iPhone 3G)

After a few runs and some binding tweaks, I settled down with a good enough setting to see what I can do with this deck. The first thing I noticed is this board can turn! Even through the board is 151cm long, it feels like a 145cm board a friend of my had. The first time when it does that actually scar me a bit, the board just turn so fast and even more effortless than my Shaun White. The demo guys told me this is probably because of the Tapered shape of the board (vs Directional sidecut on the SW), which the tail is narrower than the head. The Supermodel has only a slight Tapered shape (10mm), as compared to some other boards on Burton's line-up with much narrower tail (upward to 40mm).

The Supermodel is constructed with I-beam inside, which create a stiff but yet poppy characteristics. However, this board did not feel as poppy as my Shaun White. It might because I can turn quickly with the Tapered shape, so I rely less on the reactive pop from the board to make the turn easy. For sure the solid and stiffness of the edge is still there that bite into the snow, which is another property I appreciate from my Shaun White.

The conclusion: This board is fun to ride with. Now I will get one when possible (~$440 on ebay), and this time with Burton binding!