Time: Encrypt your messages online with an Enigma

German web site “enigmaco.de” has made a Flash version of the well known WWII encryption devices available online that encrypts or decrypts text. Have a try…

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Time: Visualize the Blogosphere

Swedish company PrimeLabs is providing a new screen-saver called “Twingly” that visualizes worldwide RSS feeds on a globe in real time…

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NASA: World Wind 1.4 released

NASA has released a new version of their virtual globe software called World Wind. Also called by users of the software the “Google Earth killer”, this release brings many new features that are not available in other globe software packages. Besides being able to fly-over the Moon and Mars, the software also allows to layer additional images from other servers over the surface of the globes. Other new features include a timer to simulate and synchronized the Sun’s position when using Sun Shading, to create time lapsed or reverse running movies, a WMS Importer and an Anaglyph 3D mode to see World Wind in true 3D with Red/Blue-glasses that are often given away for free…

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Second Life: Best quote on what it is

We documented some background information on Second Life a few weeks ago. Now Robert Scoble has provided us with the best definition from an interview he has done last week at LIFT show in Geneva:
He was interviewing Sister Judith Zoebelein, who manages the Vatican’s Web site and asked her:
“… do you think we’ll soon go [...]

Stupid IT Moments (1): Disjoint Twins

Web log The daily WTF reports on a computer idiocy occurred with the Sun Life Canada insurance.
The software to register children did not allow to enter the same birth date for two children on one cover plan. Ever heard of twins?

…As the recent father of twin babies, Philip B. was relieved to learn that his [...]

Video: Wardriving meets Mainstream

What was once considered an underground way to get free bandwidth - driving around with a computer in a car and trying to find unprotected or otherwise “open” wireless Internet access points aka “war driving” - is now more and more being covered by mainstream media. This time it’s BBC 3 with their…

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Web Browsers: Vulnerability comparison between IE and Firefox

The “Washington Post” has an interesting comparison of security vulnerabilities for the two most used web browsers - Internet Explorer and Firefox. The report states that during 2006 Internet Explorer was unsafe for 284 days while Firefox was unsafe for only 9 days. To calculate the unsafe periods the report uses statistics on how long it took…

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Second Life: Finally some useful numbers and it’s 20,000 not 2 Millions

Linden Labs Second Life really had it the last days. First the press stops praying and hyping and gets a bit more critical - see this “Boing Boing” article to name just one - and then their whole system came to a halt yesterday and is now slowly coming back up again. But what we were really waiting for and couldn’t find was that someone puts that whole hype back in line - so we provide you the figures ourselves…
…[see figures in article]…
…We think its time to get back to real life and see “Second Life” as what it is - just one of many online games with some success. On the charts with the Asian figures alone you would have problems to plot the numbers for Second Life as they are so much smaller than even those from games with medium success. And that’s after all the hype and massive increase in user numbers for Second Life…

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Map yourself on the Internet

The web site map-o-net has created a nice tool to show your or other IP addresses on a fractal chart. Great idea to visualize unused addresses as green grass…

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India: Santa Claus on the beach

The Indian sand sculpture artist Sudarsan Patnaik has with the help from 15 students created the largest sand sculpture in India…

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