Tiny USB Camcorder

Someone asked me if there was a USB mass storage device video camera that was small enough that they could carry it on a key ring. The Philips GoGear Wearable Digital Camcorder is just that and also works as a still camera and MP3 player. You can find more details and reviews about it at amazon.



It's not going to replace a real digital camcorder but if you want something small enough to fit on a keyring then this fits that requirement, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Convert SVG to PNG Without Antialiasing

Someone on Slashdot asked if there was any way to convert SVG vector graphics files to PNG raster graphics files without having fixed width lines blurred through the use of antialiasing.

The ImageMagick convert untility provides many useful image conversion tools and will convert from SVG to PNG. The way that convert deals with antialiasing is a little confusing however. The person who asked the question stated that they had already turned off antialiasing by calling:

$ convert -antialias a.svg a.png

Unfortunately "-antialias" turns antialiasing on not off. To turn antialiasing off you need to use "+antialias" e.g.:

$ convert +antialias a.svg a.png

Have you ever had any problems converting SVG files to PNG?

I hope that that clarifies a point of confusion, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Lightning in a Blizzard

Someone asked me if it was possible to have lightning in a blizzard. My initial thought was that thunder and lightning would need a mix of warm and cold air that would not be compatible with snow formation. Having never heard of lightning in a blizzard I was intrigued and looked into it in a bit more depth.

It seems that there have been documented cases of thunder and lightning snow storms although they are quite unusual. If you do an internet search you'll probably run across some articles documenting the strange phenomenon. Have you ever experienced a blizzard that had lightning?

Thanks for the interesting question, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Measure Body Fat

Someone asked me how I was able to estimate my bodyfat on my Ben's Workouts blog. There are many ways to measure bodyfat, one of the most accurate being the use of underwater weighing scales. Since this is impractical for everyday use the next most accurate, and slightly more practical, is the use of body fat measuring calipers.

I opt for the most convenient option, in my mind, without losing too much accuracy. I use a Tanita weighing scale which works by measuring the electrical resistance in your body as you stand on the scales. I'm not all that interested in the accuracy, I really just want a basic general idea, and the Tanita scale that I have is ideal for that. These scales are available from numerous stores, including amazon here.

Good luck with your own fitness routines, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Track Website Traffic

Someone asked me how they could track who was vistiting their website and where they were coming from.

There are many many solutions which provide web tracking, many are even free. My favorite is StatCounter, which I have used for quite a while and have been very happy with:

http://www.statcounter.com

If you want to buy a book with additional advice on how to increase of manage your website traffic then you may wish to check out these available from amazon.

Have fun discovering where people are linking to your website from, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Cicada versus Locust

Someone asked me what the difference is between a cicada and a locust. Initially I was surprised by the question, as I have always seen them to be two completely different species of insects, however, it seems that many people refer to cicadas as locusts.

Since there is obviously some question about what a Locust is let's first settle that. A locust is a type of grasshopper, more specifically, a locust is a short horned grasshopper. A long horned grasshopper is known as a katydid or, more commonly, just a grasshopper.

In parts of Australia, and the USA, cicadas are often known as locusts, however, a cicada is an entirely different type of insect than the locust or the grasshopper. The cicada is related to the aphid and comes in two varieties; the annual and the periodical cicada. The annual cicada has a lifecycle which repeats annually, i.e. they breed and hatch once per year. The periodical cicada may have either a 17 or 13 year lifecycle and spend the time between breeding buried in the ground until billions of individuals hatch in unison. This gives rise to the name thirteen year locust and seventeen year locust.

The confusion over what a cicada is seems due to the possibility that when Christians settled in the Americas the periodical emergence of billions of large ravenous vegetation eating chirping insects drew parallels with the biblical stories about plagues of locusts and consequently the cicadas were referred to as locusts. The periodical cicada uses the "safety in numbers" survival strategy and each brood hatches in such large numbers that they simply cannot all be eaten by predators so it is easy to understand how people viewed their appearance as a plague.

Rather than attempting to explain the difference between a cicada and a locust I will direct you to glance at a couple of cicada pictures:


Books about cicadas on amazon
Images of cicadas on flickr
Images of cicadas on google images

Then contrast those images with a couple of locust pictures:

Books about locusts on amazon
Images of locusts on flickr
images of locusts on google images

Did you know that some people call cicadas locusts?

I hope that that was as fascinating for you as it was for me, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Focus RS8

Someone asked me if a hot hatch could beat an Italian Supercar on the race track. The answer is "Yes" if the hot hatch is a Ford Focus RS8 and the Italian Supercar is a Lambo Gallardo.

The Ford Focus RS8 is a European Ford Focus RS with the Cammer V8 engine crammed into the space where the 4 cylinder engine used to be. This V8 puts out 450 horsepower in its RS8 incarnation which propels the stealth supercar to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds.

Personally I'm waiting for the Caterham CSR to reach the USA, since it runs 0-60 mph in just 3.1 seconds and sell for a pricetag of around 50k USD, which is approximately half the price of the Focus RS8, although the Focus has a roof, a boot, and seats 5.

Do you have a dream car?

Have fun dreaming of fast cars, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Share Linux Data

Someone asked how they would go about sharing a directory in Linux with multiple PCs. Since all the computers would be running Linux the obvious answer is to use NFS. Had any of the computers been running MS Windows then the answer would have been ti use Samba.

In order to share a directory using NFS you must first ensure that you have NFS installed and running. I won't go into the deatils as to how you would go about installing NFS since it's depends on which Linux distribution you're using, if you need help with this please let me know your distribution and I'll answer that as a seperate question.

Once you have NFS installed you need to edit your /etc/exports file to add the name of the directory that you intend to share and the constraints as to who you will allow to access the shared directory and what access rights they will be given. There's a good NFS howto available here:

http://nfs.sourceforge.net/nfs-howto/

If you would prefer a book then amazon has a good assortment available here.

I hope that that answers your NFS questions for now, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Baby Haircut Myth

Someone asked if it was true that you could shave a baby's head in order to encourage the hair to grow back thicker.

After much research where I found accounts of many people claiming that this really does work I established that this is just an old wives tale. When the head, or anywhere else for that matter, is shaved it does not cause extra hair to grow to replace the hair that has fallen out. Unlike the case if the hair were plucked, follicle root and all, the existing hair merely continues to grow from the existing hair folicles. Hair is dead tissue and removing the dead tissue will not effect the living hair follicle.

This does not mean that other hair follicles may not also also "sprout" new hair, however, these would have "sprouted" anyway even if the other hair had not been shaven. Consequently, when the hair grows back to the length which it was before the shaving took place it may indeed appear to be thicker and, if new hair follicles "sprouted" new hair, it may actually be thicker. However, the thickness is due to the natural additional active hair producing follicles and has nothing to do with the shaving process.

To see this in perspective it is useful to think in terms of a timeline. Lets say that a baby reaches their 1st birthday, has their head shaved, and then, 6 months later, they appear to have a thicker head of hair than they did at 12 months of age. For the sake of this example let us imagine that this baby's hair grows at 6 inches per year. Had the baby not had their head shaved at 12 months but rather maintained monthly haircuts which kept the hair at a length of 3 inches, i.e. 6 months worth of growth, then at 18 months the unshaven baby and the shaven baby would have identically full/thick hair.

Unfortunately this myth, or old wives tale, will continue to persist since the only definitive proof against it would be to experiment on a baby such that one side of their head would be shaved and the other merely cut to a constant length. The problem is that those who believe the myth would be worried that their child would grow up to have asymetrical hair growth. Consequently, the believers would probably not wish to submit their child as a test subject. Those who do not believe in the myth would probably not want their child to look ridiculous for 6 months simply to prove a point and so without test subject the experiment would not take place.

Something which may lead to increased hair growth in a baby's hair is increased blood flow to the hair follicles, by massaging the scalp for example, and also ensuring that the baby is eating a nourishing balanced diet with adequate supply of B vitamins and Omega 3 oil. There are all sorts of interesting books about hair available from amazon here. You'll find a number of hair related myths on Snopes.com here:

http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/hairgrow.asp



If you would like to try shaving your baby's head to promote thicker more vibrant hair please be my guest, I doubt that it would do any harm, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

WiFi External Hard Drive

Someone asked if I knew of a WiFi external hard drive which works just like a USB external hard drive except for that that it's WiFi.

A few months ago I had asked myself the exact same question, as a solution to the limited internal storage capacity of the Zipit Wireless Linux WiFi IM device, available from amazon here. The problem with the Zipit, if you want to run your own customised version of Linux on it, is that it has very little internal storage space. The solution which I found was an external WiFi hard disk from ASUS called the WL-HDD 2.5, the 2.5 is in reference to the fact that it uses a 2.5 inch hard drive.

The WL-HDD is actually a complete PC, running Linux, which allows it to not only act as a USB external hard drive but also as a wired and wireless file server through 100 Base T ethernet and 802.11g respectively. In addition to fileserving the WL-HDD can also act as a WiFi Access point. There is also an opensource alternative Linux firmare which you can install on the device which provides even more features. The WL-HDD is available from amazon here.

Have fun with WiFi and remember to secure your WiFi traffic, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Giant Burrowing Wasp

Someone was wondering what species a giant wasp-like insect was that they had seen around their house in Texas. The insect was about an inch and a quarter long, the diameter of the abdomen was almost as wide as their little finger and colored in a yellow and black stripe pattern. Also, the creature appeared to be digging a burrow.

Cicada Killer Wasp Pictures on Flickr.com

This insect is most probably a Cicada Killer. The female has a sting which she uses to paralize cicadas which she then carries back to her burrow where the cicada becomes the first meal for her offspring when they hatch from their eggs. Cicada killers are beneficial insects, as they feed on the annual cicadas which have an appetite for vegetation, however their shere size makes them more than a little frighening. If you would like to eliminate wasps from your yard amazon has numerous wasp solutions available here. I have found that simply keeping the area of ground damp where the wasps are burrowing forces them to take up residence elsewhere. Since they're beneficial insects I prefer not to kill them.

Do you have Cicada Killer Wasps in your garden?

Good luck with the wasps, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

EVDO VOIP

Someone asked if VOIP, Voice Over IP, is possible using an EVDO cellular/mobile phone data network.

The answer is yes, there is a WAV file sample of a demonstration telephone conversation available on the internet using Vonage with the compression setting dialed down to 50Kbps. Note that 1xRTT does not provide sufficient bandwidth for VOIP. The same site which tested VOIP over EVDO also successfully tested iChat video conferencing over EVDO and offer a video of the demonstration:

http://www.evdoinfo.com...

Have fun playing with VOIP through EVDO, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

TiVo Caller ID OSD

Someone asked if there's a way that they can add a telephone Caller ID OSD, On Screen Display, using their TiVo. The answer; is "Yes".

The full details how to do this are specified in a book written by ExtremeTech called "Hacking TiVo" available from Amazon.

Good luck adding features to your TiVo, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

PVR Caller ID

Someone asked if there was a PVR available with the ability to display telephone Caller ID information on the TV when someone calls your phone. The answer is; "Yes, and the PVR is called MythTV".

The way that this works is though an OSD, On Screen Display, overlay which appears on the various MythTV frontends on each TV in your house. The easiest way to set this up is to use it in parallel with the Asterisk PBX system which only requires 3 lines worth of configuration to add MythTV TV telephone Caller ID OSD functionality, however, you can also display phone Caller ID information sourced off a modem device.

The MythTV plugin which does the work is called MythNotify, just do a search on the internet for it and Caller ID and you'll find all sorts of information about how to go about setting it up.

Good luck setting up TV OSD telephone Caller ID, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Shooting Star Meteorite Composition

Someone asked me what shooting stars are made of. The scientific term for Shooting Star is Meteor or Meteorite. Meteors come in various shapes, sizes and origins. The origin of a meteor can be calculated based upon its composition, i.e. what it is made of.

In general meteors originate within our own solar system and are often composed of material similar to either the earth, the moon, the planet mars, or asteroids. The vast majority of meteors burn up as they enter the earth's atmosphere at which point we see them as shooting stars. Of the meteors which have landed intact, the biggest, in Hoba Africa, is made of iron. On average, based upon the numbers of meteors which have been recovered after landing on earth, iron based meteors are larger than rock based meteors.

Some scientists believe that a meteorite found Alaska contains nanobacteria, a microscopic form of bacterial life. This is particularly interesting due to the fact that the meteorite originated from the planet mars. If this meteorite is proven to contain nanobacteria then perhaps there is life on mars, albeit not in the form of "little green men".

Have you seen a shooting star?

Good luck hunting shooting stars, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Strobe LED wheel lights

Someone asked me if you can buy a kit which uses a strobe effect with an LED to create the illusion that your car wheels were moving at a different speed than they were really moving.

I found a patent for this idea, so I'm sure that many people have thought about doing it, however, the only commercial implementation that I have found is hokeyspokes for bicycle wheels although MHT wheels had an automotive demo at SEMA and are supposed to be releasing a version to the market mid 2005 under the DUB brand.

There are several valve mounted LEDs which flash but it's not clear if these flash at variable speed depending upon the rotational speed of the wheel nor is it clear exactly what visual effect these provide.

UPDATE UPDATE!

Dub Custom Wheels now supplies the PimpStar LED persistence of vision, POV, custom wheel. The features include animated LED action as well as the display of multiple static images while the wheel is in motion. More details available at customwheel.com:

http://customwheel.com/custom_wheels/product_info.php/products_id/1687

Have fun adding LEDs to your wheels but make sure you check the local laws relating to vehicle lights, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com