Craig Russell

The Internet is awesome, no doubt, but it can be a challenge to keep track of all the information that’s flapping about these days. I’ve tried various techniques and technologies to help me manage the various streams of information that I like to keep an eye on. I thought I’d share how I go about it. (more…)

When I open up a new document in Inkscape, the first thing I usually do is set up the grids and page layout in mm for printing. This gets pretty boring having to do this with every new document.

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to configure the default template so you don’t have to do this.

1. Open Inkscape
2. Set up your blank sheet however you like
3. Save the file in /home/username/.config/inkscape/templates/default.svg

That’s it!

Given this puzzle from Matt Parker, I wrote a swift little shell script to find the solution.

for i in {1..100}; do
	I=$[i*i]
	for j in {1..100}; do
		J=$[(j*(j-1))/2]
		if [[ $I == $J ]]; then
			echo $I
		fi
	done
done

Not the most efficient solution, but still a fun exercise.

I have just this minute heard about a company, Xtify, which produces a communication framework for sending messages to mobile users based upon their location. This could be seriously amazing!

You know when you hear something and it sends ideas pinging off in different directions like a particle collision? Reading about this gave me one of those moments.

Think about any scenario where you’d want real-time location specific information pushed to you. There’s the obvious stuff, like retailers notifying customers of up-to-the minute promotions and offers. Imagine getting a message from the Deli round the corner, telling you that there’s only two peri-peri chicken baguettes left?

This could really take off for events organisers. Wouldn’t it be great getting info about bands in the signing tent right now? But more importantly not getting the info if you’re on the other side of the site?

But what about calling for help when you need it? In disaster situations, spreading information is essential. You can be told, not where all the heath centres are, but the nearest one to you, right now. This could make managing resources much easier. Messages directing people to the better equipped centres can be sent out over a larger area than the less equipped ones.

These are a few thoughts from a few minutes thinking. My brain’s going to be chewing on this for a while…

Google have launched a handy tool for building Android Apps without requiring any programming knowledge. It’s called App Inventor and is built upon the Open Blocks platform. With it you can create mobile apps simply by dragging and dropping program ‘blocks’ in to place, similar to Lego Mindstorms. The video makes it look pretty simple.

I wouldn’t expect that apps made using App Inventor would be better (faster, more efficient) than their hand-coded equivalents, but I can see that this would be useful for quickly knocking up a demo or for scratching out ideas. It’s clear from the blabber that Google aren’t trying to put developers out of work, this is aimed squarely at educators as a platform to teach about programming concepts. A good thing in my books.

Google will be granting access to App Inventor over the coming weeks, you need to register to get an invite.