Clockwork Active Media Systems

Apple's Swedish Connection

posted on 12/4/05 by Chuck Olsen

Ever wonder how Apple came up with the Command key symbol? Me neither, but here's the story. The Swedes use it to indicate an interesting feature or attraction. Over 20 years later, there's still a little Swedish campground in our shiny new Macs. More computer history: The first video game Continue Reading | Add a Comment

Good Question

posted on 12/6/05 by Chuck Olsen

How was Napoleon important to the development of the modern computer? That kind of question is typical of James Burke, host of the well-known Connections television series. You'll be able to find the answer to this and many other trails of connected thought on his forthcoming KnowledgeWeb project. Burke and his collaborators are creating a database with "almost infinite number of paths of exploration among people, places, things, and events." A smart web within the web. Continue Reading | Add a Comment

Just Plain Cool

posted on 12/7/05 by Chuck Olsen

Check out this video of Xmas lights sequenced to music. It's freakin' cool. Continue Reading | Add a Comment

Web Development as acted out by toys

posted on 12/12/05 by Martin Grider

Step 3: Wireframe,
originally uploaded by pingmag.

PingMag recently posted an article about The Web Development Process. It's pretty standard as far as process goes, but what's interesting are these cute illustrations. [Via Matt.]
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Form Mailer SPAM: Exploit, Example.

posted on 12/14/05 by Matt Gray

Mailing a form's fields to e-mail address(es) is a common problem; unfortunately, deploying single-script solutions can often create a vulnerable webserver. Read on for a quick case study of a single PHP script that was hijacked to send SPAM.

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10 for X

posted on 12/16/05 by Chuck Olsen

10 for X: Ten software titles for Mac OS X you must have Some familiar apps here, but a few I've never heard of. I often end up using TextEdit to jot notes down when talking on the phone, or for ideas that (occasionally) pop into my head. Of course TextEdit offers no organization for notes, so I'm checking out Notational Velocity which automagically saves and indexes anything you write. Continue Reading | Add a Comment

Web 2.0 Roundup

posted on 12/18/05 by Chuck Olsen

For my money, the biggest online developments this year were podcasting and vlogs. Anyone can create and distrubute media, globally, for free. Pretty big deal I'd say. iTunes support of podcasting and videoblogging was of course a huge boost to bringing media-casting to the mainstream. Does that qualify as Web 2.0? I don't think iTunes itself qualifies, but rich services such as Odeo and Mefeedia are innovative and user-driven - tasty Web 2.0 qualities. Meanwhile... Top Ten Web 2.0 Moments of 2005 Top 10 Innovative Web 2.0 Applications of 2005 The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005 Five Reasons Why Web 2.0 Matters Web 2.0? It doesn't exist Web 2.0 Dead? Is content king? Continue Reading | Add a Comment

Video: Geek Stoplight

posted on 12/23/05 by Chuck Olsen

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That's right folks... TechEvangelists is videoblogging! We aim to document and explore whatever tickles our tech-art fancy, including interviews with both under-the-radar tinkerers and your favorite Web 2.0 luminaries. For our debut video, we turned inward to our own Matt Gray (bio | blog). He bought an old stoplight on eBay and, out of sheer boredom, decided he wanted to control it with a computer. A party machine is born.

Matt promises to provide a step-by-step outline after the holidays, including schematics and the script controlling how the stoplight responds to music input.

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Internet: The Great Equalizer

posted on 12/29/05 by Martin Grider

Recent Survey results from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveal that the gap between number of male and female users of the Internet is closing. Young women (between 18 and 29) are actually more likely to web surf than males of the same age. Surfing through other news stories that cover these results is also kind of fun. Continue Reading | 1 Comment