Computers & Mobile

I was looking for something else, but then found this and figured it might come in handy for something- here’s how to control the parallel port with Perl using a module called Device:ParallelPort. Device::ParallelPort is a Perl API that allows low level access to the parallel port of most computers. It does this by using a number of drivers, which can be customized and added to, including Linux (direct and parport), Win32, Script, Dummy, and more. It also contains a number of direct access devices including an example printer and a relay controller card. Link.

Clever! I wonder if this would allowed on a plane. This is a tale of my new daily-use computer. It’s a full-function pc, running Windows XP Pro, with an amd athlon xp 3200+ cpu, 768 mb of ram, 3 monitor ports, plenty of usb ports, and a built in 10/100 switch. And it’s a suitcase. It has a handle. It has two latches. I take it to work with me every day, and take it home every night. All it doesn’t have is a CD Drive. Here is its story. Thanks Chris! Link.

Here’s how you change the Phone Book Widget on Apple’s new Mac OS X Tiger to use Google Maps instead- Hes Nikke on macoshints says…“Mapquest is an aging mapping system and doesn’t fit in with the new shinyness in Tiger. Thats why I made the phone book widget use Google Maps instead”. Link.

On Friday’s MAKE:Audio show we had a quick review of Mac OS X Tiger and now that’s we’ve been banging on it for a few more hours, here are some cheers and jeers. Spotlight search is creepy fast, it’s finding everything almost instantly. Dashboard and its Widgets are fun but take up a lot of memory, not sure if it matters though. The RSS screensaver is also fun, here’s a video of what it looks like. Only Macs that are 1Ghz G4 and above can do join in multi-video chats, but multi-audio seems to be fine on some sub 1Ghz machines here. Even if you bought QuickTime Pro 6+ you need to repurchase QuickTime 7. Overall a great release, it’s living up to all the stellar reviews. Some photos from the Seattle store (4th in line!).

Mac OS X Tiger is out today, so that means we’re going to see a ton of really neat widgets, if you want to get started building here’s an overview…Based on Web Kit technologies, Dashboard Widgets are created using a mix of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. This extends the ability to develop Widgets to a very wide audience. If you know how to create a web page, then you know how to create a capable Widget. Link. We’ll have some examples once we make a few too.