DavidBreyer.Com

Google has released Google Earth into beta. This amazing, and free, program let’s you zoom down to anywhere on Earth. It has numerous layers, such as Crime Stats, Census, 3-D buildings, roads, schools, parks, etc.

From the web site:

Google Earth puts a planet’s worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. View exotic locales like Maui and Paris as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, schools, and more.

Here you can see a view of the Cincinnati riverfront, with 3-D buildings and highlighted roads.

There are several levels to Google Earth, ranging from free (for home use), Google Earth Plus, and Google Earth Pro. Each level increases the number of features, but also increases the price.

Google Earth gives the user some features not found in online mapping tools. Google Earth will let the user mark and store custom locations on the map. The software even includes the ability to email a screen shot through Gmail or another email program.

It appears that this product replaces Keyhole, which Google purchased last year. Keyhole was a subscription only service. It’s good to see Google give us a free version of the software.

All images are said to be taken in the last 3 years. And images are updated on a rolling basis. Based on the look of it, my neighborhood pictures are around 1 year old.

On a side note you will need a fairly powerful machine. Google recommends the following:

More specifics about what you need to run Google Earth…

Minimum configuration:

* Operating system: Windows 2000, Windows XP
* CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® PIII 500 MHz
* System memory (RAM): 128MB
* 200MB hard-disk space
* 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 16MB VRAM
* 1024×768, 32-bit true color screen
* Network speed: 128 kbps (”Broadband/Cable Internet”)

Recommended configuration:

* Operating system: Windows XP
* CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® P4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
* System memory (RAM): 512MB
* 2GB hard-disk space
* 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 32MB VRAM or greater
* 1280×1024, 32-bit true color screen
* Network speed: 128 kbps (”Broadband/Cable Internet”)

The first software update to actually be released early. That’s right, this update to iTunes wasn’t expected until next month. This update was promised by Steve Jobs himself and adds podcasting support directly within iTunes.

Manage Podcasts. Select subscription options and download your favorite podcasts automatically.

The last few updates have been adding new features like this to iTunes. 4.8 added support for Quicktime videos. Fueling rumors of a Video iPod. And 4.7 added support for PDF files. iTunes makes a great way to manage your PDF library by the way.

The entire feature list for iTunes 4.9:

iTunes for Mac & PC.
iTunes, the #1 music download store and jukebox software, now makes podcasting as easy as iPod.

• Music Store
  - Best Selection. More than 1.5 million tracks and 1,000 independent labels with 30-second previews.
• Shop Easily - Shop Easily. Buy entire albums or single tracks. Give gift certificates or set an allowance for the kids.
• Find music fast. - Find Stuff Fast. Search for any artist, song, album or podcast on the store with virtually instant results.
• Discover Music - Discover Music. Browse Billboard and radio station charts, music videos, and free weekly downloads.
• Manage Podcasts - Select subscription options and download your favorite podcasts automatically.
• Share Your Taste - Share Your Taste. Send a friend music links in an email with cover art or share an iMix with everyone.
• Listen to Audiobooks - Listen to Audiobooks. Choose from more than 11,000 best-sellers, classics and radio programs.
• Import Music - Import Music. Gather all your music in one place in AAC, MP3 or Apple Lossless format.
• Party Shuffle - Create Playlists. Generate lists of your favorites. Dig deep into your library with Party Shuffle.
• Share Music - Share Music. Let the whole family listen to your collection in any room on Mac or Windows.
• Burn CDs - Burn CDs. Burn any playlist. Create CD inserts with mosaics of cover art and track lists. Make backups.
• Sync with iPod - Sync your music, podcasts, audiobooks and photos; enjoy them on the go.

As always you can download the latest version of iTunes at Apple.com.

Sadly, Apple chose not to support BitTorrent, so I stil have to use iPodder for my downloading my podcasts.

Well I have been putting this off, but I finally broke down and bought myself a copy of Battlefield 2. I just got tired of playing the same map over and over in the demo. Now normally I would order something like this online, but I went for the instant gratification and purchased the BF2 from EB Games in the mall. While they had plenty of CD edition, I lucked out and got the last DVD copy they had. The clerk mentioned that they would not be getting anymore DVD editions in-stock. Why is it that game companies are resisting the move to DVD? I had to wait several weeks from the release date before I could get UT 2004 on DVD. Everyone had the CD edition, but the DVD was sold out. Who wants four, five, or six CDs for a single game?

Well it’s time to install BF2. Now I just need a new video card to go with it.

And if you are interested, Amazon has the DVD version of BF2.

BATTLEFIELD 2 PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

The award-winning Battlefield franchise invades the high tech frontlines of modern warfare in the new sequel, Battlefield 2™. The game brings the intensity and excitement of Battlefield 1942™ into the modern era with enhanced team play and the latest, most technologically advanced vehicles and weapons systems available to man.

In Battlefield 2, players will choose to fight for one of three military superpowers: the United States, the Chinese, or the newly formed Middle East Coalition. Armed with the latest modern weaponry, players can take control of any of the game’s 30+ vehicles to engage in major conflicts with over 64 players in some of the largest online battles on the PC. Additionally, persistent character growth allows players to rise through the ranks and attain the ultimate rank of General.

An all-new game engine and physics system brings the modern battlefield to life like never before. The new material penetration feature measures weapons’ ability to fire through barriers based on their composition and players will need to know the difference between concealment and cover in order to survive.

Battlefield 2 features immense, richly detailed, destructible environments, from city streets to remote forests, in some of the most notorious hot spots around the world. Each map in Battlefield 2 adjusts in scale to support the number of players in the world, providing the ideal vehicle- to-player ratio and an optimized gameplay experience.

Enhanced team play features allow players to enter the action on the front lines as part of a formal squad, or work behind the scenes in Commander Mode to direct the strategic assaults of their teammates.

Soldier kits now affect vehicles that players utilize on the battlefield. For instance, the medic kit can transform a vehicle into a mobile aid station and the support kit can make helicopters into flying ammo dumps.

KEY FEATURES

* Online multiplayer action with up to 64 players on the PC.
* All-new gameplay engine brings the immense locations to life complete with realistic physics and dynamic lighting.
* Maps scale to the number of players engaging in battle for a unique and intense experience every time.
* Take control of over 30 land, sea, and air vehicles, including tanks, helicopters, hovercraft, fast attack vehicles, and fighter jets.
* Choose to battle as U.S., Chinese, or Middle East Coalition troops, each with their own unique arsenals.
* A variety of soldier classes including Assault, Sniper, Special Ops, Combat Engineer, Medic, Heavy Weapons, and Anti-Tank units.
* New state-of-the-art weapon systems, including wire-guided missiles and laser designated bombs.
* Material penetration feature makes sure players know the difference between cover and concealment.
* Character Persistence and Growth. With in-game success, players increase their rank from recruit all the way to General and unlock new weapons, medals, and more.
* Join a squad or select the new Commander Mode to assume the strategic role of a battlefield commander directing his forces.
* Full in-game community support including, buddy lists, stat tracking, live chat rooms, and in-game clan creation.
* Voice over IP supported with headset.

Seems Alienware has systems shipping with the new Nvidia 7800 graphics card.

For mind blowing graphics, you need the fastest frame rates possible and impressive image quality. The new NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 GTX, now available on Aurora 7500, and ALX systems, is the graphics card with the power and innovation to deliver the absolute highest levels of performance.
Extreme Graphics Performance for Gamers

With the GeForce 7800 GTX, you can enjoy stunning visual effects at incredible speeds when running the latest graphics-intensive games on Alienware desktops. Featuring the new CineFX™ 4.0 engine, Alienware systems with the 7800 GTX shorten the time required to deliver complex textures and blending quickly. Get ready to experience tremendous graphics performance increases with all the latest games.

This is a general social survey of the greater weblog community being conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our goal is to help understand the way that weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other. Specifically we are interested in issues of demographics, communication behaviors, experience with weblogs and other technology, and the meaning of various types of social links within the blogosphere.

The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete, and we are asking anyone with a weblog to participate. The larger the sample of individuals we can get, the better our picture of the community will be.

Help the blogging community and take the survey. Once you are done you can check the results.

YubNub.org is more than just a strange name. It’s the first social search engine. While the default search is Google, certains commands will let you search other sites as well. You see YubNub is also the first command-line search engine. For instance typing “wp” before your search criteria will let you search Wikipedia.org. (i.e. “wp Cincinnati”)

There are an entire slew of commands. “gim” for instance will search Google images. And simply typing “ls” will give you a list of commands.

Popular commands:

gnews - Searches Google News
cnn - Searches CNN
am - Searches Amazon
weather - Gets weather for zip code
flk - Searches Flickr

Now where this site gets really cool is you can create your own commands. I did say it was social right? Just type in “create YOURCOMMANDNAME” and if it isn’t taken you will be able to create your own command with that name.

For instance I created two new searches. “cincy” will search Cincinnati.com. So if you type in “cincy reds win” it will bring up all articles from the Cincinnati Enquirer, WCPO, CiN Weekly, and The Post. The second new command is “dwb”. It will search this blog. So if you type “dwb yubnub” you will find this post.

Commands I Created:

cincy - Searches Cincinnati.com
dwb - Searches this blog
redbooks - Searches IBM redbooks

Do you YubNub?

According to a Euro RSCG/Columbia study, 51% of journalist read blogs. But despite using blogs for researching and referencing facts (43%) and finding sources (36%), only 1% of journalist said blogs are credible. Why would you use any source you didn’t deem credible? And it’s a little ironic that this is being reported in a blog. I find this number to be extremely low. And would count blogs (in general) as being just as, if not more credible than traditional media.

The study also says that journalist use blogs for finding story ideas and sources. This particular interesting since I was interviewed based on a article on my blog. (And yes I will keep bring that up, since it’s the only time I was ever mentioned in the newspaper without the words, “Still at large.”)

A good example of the media using blogs for sources and content is Open Source. An NPR show which defines itself as “Not a show about blogs. It will use blogs to be a show about the world.” Where they interview blog writers about political/social events. I particularly like the way Open Source defines a blog:

A blog is a way of thinking. It’s a way of recording the argument you are having with yourself, admitting that you may be about to be wrong, and ensuring that, when you are wrong, you make your wrongness available as a public record. A blog is Socratic that way; it knows that it does not know.

How long until blogs replace mainstream journalism? Well that’s anyones guess. But I think it will happen, as I read more blogs than articles in print. So there you have it, my 1%.

Microsoft has been good at giving away some really good books lately. This latest is trying to prepare developers for Whidbey, namely Visual Basic 2005. Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers is not an overly technical book by any means, but seeks to prepare VB 6 and VB.NET developers for VB 2005. I think Microsoft has hit a wall trying to get VB 6 developers to move to .NET.

But anyone who thinks they will be moving to Visual Studio 2005 might want to check out this free download. My only complaint is that each chapter is a separate PDF file, instead of being one PDF file.

From the site:

Get a focused, first look at the features and capabilities in Microsoft Visual Basic 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and .NET Framework 2.0. If you currently work with Visual Basic 6, these authors fully understand the adoption and code migration issues you’ll encounter. They’ll step you through a quick primer on .NET Framework programming, offering guidance for a productive transition. If you already work with .NET, you’ll jump directly into what’s new, learning how to extend your existing skills. From the innovations in rapid application development, debugging, and deployment, to new data access, desktop, and Web programming capabilities, you get the prerelease insights and code walkthroughs you need to get productive right away.

Chapter List:

• Chapter 1 - Microsoft .NET Framework Primer for the Visual Basic Developer
• Chapter 2 - Language Enhancements for Visual Basic 2005
• Chapter 3 - Visual Studio 2005 Integrated Development Environment
• Chapter 4 - Building Datacentric Applications
• Chapter 5 - Constructing User Interfaces
• Chapter 6 - Building Web Applications
• Chapter 7 - Microsoft .NET Framework Enhancements
• Chapter 8 - Deploying Applications

Sure G4 is the new MTV, full of mindless garbage. The Whip Set anyone? But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. With these links YOU TOO CAN recreate the experience of having actual INTELLIGENT content to watch (or listen to.)

These are placed in order of how I rank them.

1. This Week In Tech - The end all be all of tech podcasts. No more needs to be said. You know what this is, everyone knows one this is.
2. Open Source - Open Source will not be a show about blogs. It will use blogs to be a show about the world. Deep stuff. This NPR show features a mix of technology, politics, and society in general. [Updated!]
3. Call For Help - This show is only available in Canada (for some odd reason.) So we are lucky some kind soul records and seeds each one. (BitTorrent required.)
4. CommandN - A show by Amber MacArthur (from the new Call For Help) that showcases latest web sites and technology. Very well done, and released on a regular basis. Keep it up! (P.S. Please setup an RSS feed so iPodder can automatically get these. Ask and you shall receive. Let’s thank Brian for the RSS Feed to CommandN. BitTorrent required.) [Updated!]
5. MacCast - Mac only podcast full of great information. I routinely listen to this podcast, and I don’t even have a Mac (yet.)
6. Systm - A Kevin Rose original, only two episodes have been released. Let’s hope they get more out soon.
7. From the Shadows - I haven’t actually watched these, but they are by Yoshi (of TSS fame), so they must be good.
8. The Broken - Another Kevin Rose show, which went defunct after 3 episodes. He says more will be released, but only time will tell. And I actually have problems getting to this site today.

Let’s hope more content like this springs up. With the current success TWIT, I would say people are clamoring for this stuff.

Google Sightseeing is a place where you can submit landmarks and other areas of interest in you find in Google Maps.

I decided to make a list of Cincinnati landmarks as seen from satellite.

• Kings Island See on Google Maps Read about in Wikipedia
• Kenwood Towne Centre See on Google Maps
• Chamberlain Park, Deer Park, Ohio See on Google Maps
• Downtown Cincinnati See on Google Maps Read about in Wikipedia
• Newport on the Levee See on Google Maps
• Rookwood Pavilion See on Google Maps
• Hyde Park Plaza See on Google Maps
• Hyde Park Observatory See on Google Maps
• Ault Park See on Google Maps
• Mt. Lookout See on Google Maps
• Hyde Park Square See on Google Maps
• University of Cincinnati See on Google Maps
• Union Terminal See on Google Maps
• Speed boat on the Ohio river See on Google Maps
• Suspension Bridge See on Google Maps
• Cincinnati International Airport See on Google Maps
• Kentucky Speedway? See on Google Maps
• Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden See on Google Maps