Have you met ASIMO?

I’ve seen this eerie but very cool, fluid, smooth robot of Honda’s creation several times the past couple of months on TV. I say eerie because his/her/it’s movements are eerily human like. So in case you have yet to see ASIMO in action, or even if you have, here is Honda’s latest commercial featuring him/her/it.

Honda Worldwide | run/

(Man with all the he/she/it references, I’m starting to feel like Will Smith in I, Robot)

Stop Internet Explorer

I think most of you know my feelings for Internet Explorer run deep and true, basically, it stinks. Here’s a website that let’s you know in detail the biggest problems with IE.

StopIE: Help stop Internet Explorer, the worlds most popular and worst internet browser – StopIE.com

I can concur with the wasted web developer’s time. I’ve learned from personal experience that for every hour spent on the initial design and implementation of a standards based web page (by standards based I mean global community standards, not Microsoft “standards”), it takes 2-5 hours to hack your compliant code so it works properly in IE. Just dump the lame browser already.

Windows Freeware

Here’s another effort of mine to help out the less fortunate of you who are stuck in the dreary world of Microsoft Windows.

nedwolf – Free Software – Windows Freeware

Hopefully some of these programs will help you through the next couple of years. By then, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to install OS X on any PC. Those of you waiting for the OS formerly known as “Longhorn”, now known as “Vista”, will unfortunately have to wait even six more months after that.

Excited about viruses? You can already get Vista viruses now (sorry, didn’t mean to bring down and already “cheery” post).

LEGO crazy

Here’s a new one for me, this guy is a “professional” lego designer…

Eric Harshbarger’s LEGO pages

You may be scoffing now at the professional tag (I’ll admit, I did too at first), but go to his LEGO page, click the portfolio link at the bottom, and you’ll be able to see tons of different “models” he built with LEGOs. I only scanned through a few, but the Nativity Scene and the Song Of The Angels are downright impressive. Unfurtunately, it appears he’s scaled back his LEGO creations this year for “other” things.

Essential Resources for Google Maps

If you haven’t made the switch to Google Maps, then you are seriously missing out. Not only does the site work great for directions, but there are a ton of “hacks” that people have come up with to utilize the Google Maps API.

Essential Resources for Google Maps

Of particular interest I think is the CheapGas link that’s first on the list. It’s not up to the second accurate, but checking Ann Arbor’s area this morning yielded results I know were accurate as of Monday.

Finally, a few tips…

  • Finding addresses at Google Maps. If you wanted to map out Big Bird’s address for instance, you’d type the following line in the “search” field:

    123 Sesame Street, New York, NY, 10012

    The street address and zip code (without the city/state) also works most of the time.

  • Click the “Satellite” button at the upper right of the map to access satellite imagery of the area if it’s available. Click the “Hybrid” button to overlay the main streets with their names on the satellite images.
  • Click and drag on the map, it will go where you want it to go without reloading the whole page.