And they call me an Engineer

If you are like most Americans, not only do you have money deposits at multiple financial institutions, but you also have credit cards, 401k account and perhaps a stock market account.  If you’re like me, you hate having to flip through multiple paper statements or web sites trying to get the big financial picture.  You can use an installed application like Quicken or Microsoft Money, or you can try something fresh in the financial scene — Mint.com.

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I’ve always wanted to go to Italy.  It don’t know what it is exactly, but the place just seems cool.  Rome intrigues me with all the history and amazing sites.  I’ve always dreamed of a month-long European trip with at least a week in Rome.

But now I don’t have to go.  I’ve already been there.  Recently, Google updated their Street View feature with images of Rome.  And now with additional features just released today, Google allows me even more of a feeling of “being there.”  The only thing better than this for exploring Rome is to actually go there (which I must admit, I still dream of).

View Larger Map

Remember to view the original post if you can’t see the above embedded Google Maps Street View.

Have you ever wanted to see what Rome was like in ancient times?  Time travel would be nice, but until that happens, you can use Google Earth.  Google recently announced a new layer in Google Earth that allows you to “go back in time” to see what Rome was like in 320 AD — in 3D.

Check out the Colosseum or the Roman Forum or any number of ancient structures.  For you architects, this is a great opportunity to see what these old buildings really were like.  They even have full interior on some buildings.

View the following video for a fly-by as well as more details on the project.

Second Life (an online virtual 3D world) has been around a while now.  It’s incredibly popular and even has its own economy.  You can enter Second Life and “live” a life completely different from who you really are.  It’s somewhat of a game, but it mimics real life as much as possible. Companies (mainly IBM) have been known to hold virtual meetings or conferences within the Second Life universe.  But the main problem with Second Life is you have to download a rather large installation program and have to have some decent hardware to run it.

Second Life is about to get it’s first real competitor, LifePlace.  Not only does does the virtual world look more amazing and real (and slightly unsettling), but all the visual imagery is rendered “in the cloud.”  There is no installation.  You will visit LifePlace through a web browser and all the rendering is done on the server side.  So even if you don’t have amazing hardware with the latest and greatest graphics card, you will still be able to partake in the amazing world to be. You will even be able to stream it to a mobile device (the video below was captured on a Palm Treo). The technology is developed by a company called OTOY.

Gizmodo and TechCruch both have articles about LivePlace, but it’s the video that really does the talking.

Remember, if you can’t see the embedded video. View the original posting.

In celebration of the Olympic Games that start today in Bejing, China, Google has created a widget that contains a medal tracker as well as event and venue information. All built on their mapping technology. 

And here it is:

[If you don't see the embedded map, view the web original post on the site]

Be sure to come back often to see how the medal tally plays out.

Have you ever been on vacation and wanted to know where the closest LDS Church is?  How about moving to a new area and wondering to which ward you belong, to which building you should go and what time are services?

The IT team for the church has just released a beta version of their new mapping application.  This will eventually replace the current “Meetinghouse Locator.”

Check it out.  It’s nicely done.  Even if you don’t know an address, you can “Place a Marker” (click the icon on the top left of the map and then click on your desired location) and it will figure it all out for you.  It provides surrounding meetinghouses and all the wards that meet at each location as well as contact information.  It will also identify to which ward that location is assigned (even gives you language and YSA wards).

Under the hood, it can either use Google Maps or Microsoft’s Live Maps.

Well done guys!

Today will be a day of infamy fame, err… it’ll be cool.   Ok… maybe not that amazing, but it might be cool.  The Mozilla Foundation has just released the latest version of Firefox. What does version 3 give you?  It’s faster, sleeker, consumes less memory and gives more functionality.

Today is special because they want to set a new Guinness World Record for the most downloads of a software product in a 24 hour period.  It started at 10AM PDT and is still going.

If you aren’t using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, then shame on you.

Not only is Firefox a better, more secure and faster product, it’s also open-source. Which means several things.  Firstly, it’s free!  Yay! Secondly, it’s free!  You may say that I just said that, but there are two different uses of the word free.  There’s free when speaking of price, but there is also free when speaking of speech.  Internet Explorer is free (price), but not free (speech).  Firefox, although it is developed by Mozilla, can be changed, re-written and distributed by anybody.  In fact, there are a few other projects that liked what Mozilla started with, but didn’t like the direction or a trademark and so they started their own version of Firefox (renaming it).

Although there are offshoots, Firefox reigns supreme in the browser war as the “other browser.”  Internet Explorer has had a foothold for many years, but Firefox is changing that.  And this version brings us that much closer.

So go get it.  Let freedom ring!

When Dwight D Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, in 1958, I wonder if he had any inkling of what kind of an impact that action would have on the world. Not only did the act create the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but also DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency).

DARPA later went on to contribute significantly to the creation of the Internet and several other technologies we use each day (like GPS), but let’s focus on what came from NASA research.  Everyone knows the many accomplishments of NASA in regards to space exploration; Apollo Missions, Moon Landing, International Space Station, etc.  But what about all the other technologies we use that have come from NASA research?

From HowStuffWorks.com comes a countdown of the top 10 daily used products that have come from NASA research.

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I’ve reviewed the iPhone in the past and although I love the device, it has it’s problems and I have my pet peeves.  One of the cons I mentioned in my review was a lack of third-party applictions.  And although I am waiting with baited breath for the iPhone SDK (promised by end of February), which will bring third-party apps, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the online applications inspired by the iPhone.

Within the first few days oh having my iPhone, I went looking for the scriptures online.  But not just the scriptures. I wanted something that was optimized for the iPhone so I wasn’t waiting for several minutes in Church for a verse to load.  I found a decent application at MountainMighty.com ScripturesApp.com.  This little site provides not only a the scriptures formatted for the iPhone, but handy tools like bookmarks, community bookmarks and searching.  Just recently though, they outdid themselves by adding the current Elder’s Quorum and Relief Society lesson manual as well as the words to the hymns.  I’ve been wanting the hymns for a while and although the manual is available on lds.org it’s much more bulky and hard to navigate.  So thank you Chuck!

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Ratchet up the stocker fears.  Google has just released Street View for Salt Lake (including Utah and Davis Counties).

Some of you may recognize the following locations.  I’ll post about the fears and privacy concerns later.

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