By now you’ve probably seen the news – MIX10 is happening in Las Vegas in March and registrations are now open – sign up before January 15th and you save $600 off registration and get a free night at the Mandalay Bay (the new location for 2010)

MIX is a conference about designers and developers so the call is open for content – and once the submissions are in you’ll be able to vote on the sessions you want to see.

Of course, you’ll want to show your support so there’s a simple way to add some bling to your blog

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://blog.offbeatmammal.com/samples/mix10/mix10bling.js"></script>

if you define two variables in your javascript before you call the random blog bing script then you can over-ride the width and height - just like this

<script type="text/javascript">

var bling_width=120;

var bling_height=160;

</script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://blog.offbeatmammal.com/samples/mix10/mix10bling.js"></script>

In our house we have way too many cables (just ask my wife!). While a lot of the cables are just regular mains leads (though we try to optimize the way we use those) there’s quite a few wall warts for charging cellphones and the like.

While it’s not going to solve every problem there are a couple of mains chargers that also provide USB power – from iGo and Belkin for instance – but they still require cables. Well, I think my wife would approve of this idea – a mains outlet with built-in USB connectors (that only draw power when something is plugged in).

The TruePower UCS is available pre-order for only $10 – due in early 2010 as soon as it gets final UL approval.

It can be installed to replace any standard dual wall socket and provides standard mains power as well as 5V DC 600mA power to both the USB outputs.

This should help with some of the clutter though it doesn’t help with all the other transformers for the cableTV set-top box etc it’s a start.

Of course cable free power charging like the PowerMat is the real answer to the cable crunch but I suspect it’s a while before we can cut all the cords.

After seeing the Azure cloud hosting in action for Be A Martian (launched at PDC) I thought it would be an interesting experiment to take a small project that I was currently hosting on a traditional virtual server and see how easy it was to deploy to the cloud and what the results were.

Rather than detail the steps here I’d recommend you have a look at this great tutorial that outlines exactly what you need to do to get from File | New to opening the site in IE and seeing it run in the cloud.

While it’s not as easy as taking your existing .Net files and just uploading them to a server (and the SQL Azure process is a little complex compared to a normal SQL at the moment) but once you’ve gone through the process once I suspect, like a lot of things, it’s less challenging.

From a very quick play with the three main players I think Google’s App Engine is an interesting place to play but with fairly restricted language and database choices you do need to be comfortable with their offering to dive in and although it’s been around for a while I don’t know of any large projects deployed for real with it.

Amazon’s AWS has been around for a while and offers familiar environments to both .Net and open source developers and there are many real world examples of sites using EC2 and S3 to help them scale. While more flexible in environment than App Engine the Windows and SQL Server options offered in EC2 are pretty outdated at the moment.

Azure is very much the new kid on the block and is certainly still a little rougher around the edges than the others (for instance some of the database functionality doesn’t work with the current RTM SQL Server Manager tools, and there is no option for automatic scaling, you have to manually request new instances – which while great for managing costs isn’t so good for dealing with unexpected spikes). It’s certainly aimed more squarely at the professional developer rather than a hobbyist but it’s also very flexible – supporting both Visual Studio (as you’d expect) and Eclipse for development, and languages such as PHP and Java in addition to the .Net staples.

I suspect that whichever flavor you end up trying (and I’d recommend trying all three to get a feel for the options available and what features you might need to make your project shine) a lot of websites from simple blogs to enterprise critical projects are going to end up running as virtual instances in a robust, scalable and distributable environment.

At PDC this year Vivek Kundra announced the launch of a new site from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that a couple of folks I work with were heavily involved in (and I got drafted in to help out which was amazing fun).

Tim and Marc from Microsoft, the folks from JPL and the MondoRobot team are very smart. Real smart. Seriously… how often do you get to talk with folks who think nothing about sending robots to another planet just because they’re curious?

Because they understand that kids (of all ages… 5 to 50, 9 to 95) are curious as well they came up with a really smart way to combine that thirst for knowledge with the huge amount of data that they’ve yet to analyze and combine them in fun and new ways.

Hence Be A Martian was born. A site that allows anyone view documentaries on the Mars rover missions, explore the surface, ask questions and help with the process of scientific discovery by looking at images and finding craters or helping line different pictures up… and it’s only the beginning.

The site is presented using Silverlight – which allows a slick user experience – and the data is hosted using the Windows Azure Platform to allow it to support the scale required efficiently.

You can do anything you like without registering, but … if you do register then you can earn points for various tasks to enhance your reputation on the site. You can check out my profile and see how I’m doing.

Oh, and don’t forget… a little curiosity goes a long way. In fact, Curiosity is going to Mars in 2011… by helping map craters today you’re helping improve NASA’s understanding of what the Rover will be facing when it gets there.

It’s been a little quiet here lately. Not because I didn’t have anything to say but because I’ve been rather busy on a very exciting project. Sunday Night Football.

One of the cool new technologies used for NBCs presentation of the Beijing Olympics was a technology that became known as Smooth Streaming and has now been made available for on-demand content through the Expression Suite and IIS Media Services 3 add on to Windows Server / IIS.

Put simply Smooth Streaming allows you to encode a file into small (2 second) chunks at multiple bitrates (from low quality right through to genuine 720p HD and beyond. IIS delivers those chunks as simple HTTP traffic and the client is able to adapt on the fly to the users playback conditions (CPU load, graphics card capabilities, network throughput) to deliver the best quality experience possible. One huge advantage of using HTTP chunks is that they are just like the web pages and images that we’ve had years to work out how to deliver well - so no complicated server set up, and you can use an existing Content Distribution Network (CDN) without having to roll out any complex new technology. Akamai, Limelight and Level3 are all supporting it today and others are adding it in the near future. You can see an example of it in action at SmoothHD.com.

However we’ve taken it to the next level and are delivering live Smooth Streaming. Using heavily optimized hardware and very efficient versions of the encoder we are able to deliver a live broadcast in the same way. We can now deliver seamless mixing of content, switching camera angles, Picture-in-picture (PIP), ad insertion and all the other features you would expect from a high end interactive broadcast.

Sunday Night Football on NBC is the first time we’ve shown this off and it’s getting rave reviews – not just from the broadcasters and technology pundits but also real PC and Mac users who are getting an experience that they’ve, literally, never had before. 720p HD video, full screen with play by play data, the ability to pick from 4 alternate camera angles, game stats, live interactive chat and a selection of highlight clips all delivered in seamlessly in the same player.

It’s been a huge effort behind the scenes with a shopping list of partners – NBC Sports of course, the IIS Media and Silverlight teams for the server and client technology, Vertigo for the amazing player they built on top of those technologies (on the cutting edge once again), iStreamPlanet for the transcoding using a mix of Inlet and custom tools, Akamai and Microsoft’s own Edge Computing Network (ECN) for content distribution, DART for ad serving (yes,that company owned by Google supports this technology – first announced at MIX07), Conviva, and Omniture for reporting to tell us how it’s performing and of course the fabulous DevDiv BizDev and DPE Media Evangelism teams that I’m part of to pull it all together. Behind the scenes I’ve also using FogBugz to help track and support issues.

The project has involved a lot of late nights, a lot of travel (I think I spent more time in New York, Stamford, San Francisco, Point Richmond and Las Vegas in the last few months than Redmond) but I hope you have a chance to check out SNF Extra 8pm ET / 5pm PT / 6pm CT) sometime this season and enjoy the fruits of our labour.

After several months though I still don’t understand the game! But that’s okay because now we have to take all the lessons we learned here and go on to make NBCs delivery of the Vancouver Olympics even better!

This isn’t a Craigslist personal ad, or a plea for someone to beat me into shape (I have one already, though sometimes I think he despairs of me!)

What I’m looking for is a handy bit of technology that can come with me to the gym and help keep me on track and motivated by recording what I do, telling me where I’m improving, suggesting ways to improve where I’m losing ground and – for those long hours on the elliptical – keep me entertained.

There are a new generation of small tablet devices coming on the market. Better battery life and performance than my rather lackluster Samsung Q1U. Some running Windows 7, others running embedded operating systems such as Android. Hopefully they will spur the development of niche variations (though an important factor for a Gym Buddy would be resilience ... perhaps Panasonic need another model in their ToughBook range!)

The other thing we’ll need is folks like Life Fitness, Nautilus, Precor etc to be happy to agree a standard for two way communications between equipment and Gym Buddies and accessories like Polar heart monitors and pedometers etc need to get in on the game as well. Something like ANT or another low cost, low power radio and a simple pairing mechanism is all that’s needed.

Once paired the Gym Buddy can share your personal details (weight, age, gender) and required program parameters with the device and during the exercise record your performance (both from the machine but also accessories such as your pedometer or heart rate monitor).

While you’re exercising your Gym Buddy could keep you entertained – don’t forget it’s a fully fledged computing device. Your music (tempo synchronized to your exercise routine of course) or a video (both could be sourced via a service like Zune Pass so there’s always a mix of fresh and familiar content). Email, an RSS reader, the Web, New York Times or an eBook reader or simple mind games so you can multi-task… exercise your brain at the same time as your body. As long as they have simple on-screen controls (or voice command assuming you’re not huffing and puffing too much) – much like an in-car GPS or the Origami / Centrafuse type of interface. If you have wifi and a VoIP client I guess you could even take calls… but is that socially acceptable (fine if you’re working out at home of course)

Sure, there’s a lot of equipment in a gym that doesn’t have a brain in it that can talk wirelessly to the Gym Buddy but a Tag or a QR code on the device to identify it and a camera on the Gym Buddy and we’re all set… wave the camera at the Leg Curl machine, load up the suggested weight, watch the technique video and then record reps and sets (or confirm you hit the suggested goals).

Some exercise you won’t want to lug even a rugged ultra portable with you so the ability to sync devices (eg Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor watch, S1 pedometer or G1 GPS) back to the Gym Buddy when you finish would be a must. It could even create opportunities for new devices – swim lap timers etc. that can communicate wirelessly to the Gym Buddy.

For gyms and personal trainers there’s a business model here – they would be able to deliver personalized programs that their clients subscribe to. By getting better information about exercise and eating habits etc they would be able to further optimize those programs and add more value.

All this data needs to go somewhere… luckily with services like Health Vault it’s now possible to upload and store your exercise history just in case you drop a 20Lb weight on your Gym Buddy for suggesting just one more set of sit-ups and one less frosty beverage after your workout.

On a small scale I’ve been doing this for a while. My pedometer records steps to Health Vault, and I record my Elliptical sessions via Twitter to GtFtr.com but these are all discrete systems and require me to keep motivated.

Isn’t that a pretty important job for a Gym Buddy…. (oh, and if anyone is developing something like this and wants a willing victim to try it out please get in touch!)

Meantime… can someone tell me why my pedometer has a battery? Surely these things could be self winding from the kinetic motion I generate during the day?!

Frame by frame, the scanner’s spidery arms reach down, grasp page corners, peel them back. I’ve never seen anything at once so fast and so delicate. The arms—I can’t tell if there are four or eight or sixteen—stroke the pages, caress them, smooth them down. This thing loves books.

It could have been a description of me (well, apart from the number of arms) but it’s actually a description of a book scanner from Robin Sloan’s short story Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store which I stumbled upon recently.

The story really caught my attention and left me wanting more.

That’s when I discovered that there was an option to help that. Robin is using Kickstarter to solicit patrons for his first full length novel. If he hits his target our contributions (hopefully including yours) will go towards the costs of publishing, distribution and promotion.

By contributing to Robin’s project you get a copy of the book as well as an inside peek into the creative process. The premise of the story intrigued me: “Imagine a Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century. All the really good cases are on the internet. And Holmes is a woman, and Watson is an A.I., and San Francisco... oh, poor San Francisco...” so I decided to pledge.

Even if Robin’s work doesn’t grab your attention you should check out Kickstarter to see if there are other projects where you can support and become a patron.

Although I have integrated my Zune into my Mustang it’s not a very sophisticated solution – it’s still based around the original factory stereo and the only GPS is when I borrow it from the other car and try and balance it on the dashboard!

I had looked around to try and find a good entertainment, navigation and general auto optimized solution but while there are some solutions based around either entertainment or navigation or PC-centric car PCs with interfaces from companies like Centrafuse that require a fair amount of customization and don’t have good navigation solutions.

What I want though is something that combines the best of those worlds on a flexible enough platform. To do that I imagine it would need to be based on a Windows Embedded platform – companies such as PortalMedia supply fairly nice Windows machines that fit into a cars Dual DIN socket which gives the full flexibility of running XP (or presumably Win7) which would make development easier, but I wonder if a lighter-weight OS such as the specific Embedded version (Standard or Professional) or some other lightweight real-time OS might not be a more appropriate platform. At the end of the day as long as it’s reliable and performs well I should never have to see it.

So what do I think is the minimum that a system like this needs to provide to be worthwhile (and while I’d like to see it available as an affordable aftermarket install option there’s no reason it couldn’t be a standard offering as well)

Entertainment

• At the very least it should have hard drive storage and the ability to play back locally stored music with the ability to load content from a USB device (Flashdrive, iPod, Zune etc) or an inserted CD (though if supporting a CD makes the hardware more complex I can live without that)
• FM/AM radio and ideally HD radio and XM/Sirius support. Unlike some of the existing CarPC solutions this needs to be fully integrated into the front-end and treated no differently that other audio sources
• Over the air streaming of services such as Pandora or Last.FM (perhaps via something like the SqueezeNetwork) though the ability to pre-cache locally would be good (though possibly more difficult). Streaming music from a home server would also be a great feature as well as the ability to sync new music, playlists and listening data via something like Live Mesh would be a great capability
• Support for video playback should be restricted to rear screens only while in motion, if video or digital TV signals are displayed on the front screen it should only be when the vehicle is parked.
• Use of multiple screens, wireless headsets etc would offer the ability to entertain the kids with a movie in the back while the driver listens to music of their choice. Options like this would create scope for premium units or upgrade options.

Automotive Data

• Most modern vehicles support either ODB-II or CAN-Bus for logging anything the engine management controls and can be used to record fuel levels and consumption, braking or acceleration, what gear was selected, temperature of oil and water etc. The system should be able to integrate this data and display additional information and alert the driver to sub-optimal conditions.
• In addition to ODB-II and CAN-Bus many vehicles support Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS). Sometimes the display can be a simple warning light on the dashboard if one of the tires is below pressure but more sophisticated systems can display pressure and temperature of each tire (as well as the spare) and alert the driver to low/high pressure or temperature warnings to help keep them safe.
• The system could be used to monitor service intervals as well as track when the vehicle is re-fueled (prompting the driver to enter cost etc to keep a log book). Similar to the way music is synchronized this data could be shared with your mechanic or a fuel price monitoring site to alert other motorists to good deals (coupled with the navigation system it could even track price trends for specific garages)

Navigation

• Similar to any other GPS device the built in navigation capabilities would be pre-loaded with basic maps and offer route selection at least on par with some of the best systems available (optimize for distance or time, show junctions in plenty of time to make sure you are in the right lane etc) but by being integrated into the vehicle the scope can be expanded.
• Places of Interest (POI) data and map updates, as well as current traffic conditions could be downloaded in real time – so traffic jams, road-works or even speed cops are made available instantly. Similar to how Dash works route and speed information could be shared with a centralized service to help optimize that real-time traffic data.
• Integration with the automotive data and live fuel costs would allow the navigation system to determine the optimum fuel stops for a journey and direct the driver accordingly.
• The integrated nature of the system would allow the navigation system to automatically mute/pause the entertainment when it needed to make an announcement.
• The navigation system can be used to alert the owner if the car is driven outside a pre-determined area (similar to LoJack or for ring-fencing someone who is borrowing the car) or simply to broadcast location for social networking purposes.
• Using wireless connectivity routes can be planned on a PC and sent to the car, or a trip can be recorded and sent back to an online account for later review or sharing.

Common Framework

• All user interface should have optional speech control for hands and eyes-free use.
• Bluetooth connection to users phone for data and hands-free operation.
• Ambient sound level detection allows system volume to be automatically adjusted.
• WiFi support for when in the range of a hotspot. Use something like DeviceScape to automate connection and log-in.
• Simple integration of back-up cameras, parking proximity sensors or blind-spot warning devices help make the driver and those around them safer.
• In-build amplifier and “plug and play” installation into existing car wiring loom

Enthusiast Platform

• Some owners demand more from their car and take them to race days or join road rallies. By extending the navigation and engine management logging and supporting synchronized recording of other data a complete experience using additional inputs (accelerometers, cameras, microphones, compass, high sensitivity GPS array etc) could be recorded and played back or shared.
• As the system is connected to the engine management it could be used (under carefully controlled situations) to re-flash the engine management system to cater for specific conditions (eg during the week I want a regular octane, economy tune but for a track day I want a high octane, high performance tune) or hardware changes (for instance if I change the gear ratios or add a different air induction system then the tune will probably need to be adjusted accordingly)

I guess it’s quite a lot to expect in a single unit, especially with a really simple user interface that it no more distracting than a more traditional GPS or car audio system when you’re travelling at highway speeds, but there’s no technical reason that a platform like this can’t exist today … if there’s anyone out there building one I have an 07 Mustang that I’m more than happy to try integrating it into :)

One of the many neat new features of Windows 7 are themes. If you’ve installed Win7 to try it out you should right click on the desktop and select “Personalize” and check out some of the options (if you’ve not got the Release Candidate to try out you should grab it from here).

I’ve been using the excellent theme pack from my old boss Mike Swanson and it gets quite a few comments from people who stop by my office or see me running it in coffee shops.

Today I was reading Hugh’s post on Cube Grenades and it got me thinking. I already have his art on my business cards and an original print that will be hung in my office as soon as I can get it there and it got me thinking…

I already have the gapingvoid widget on my blog and it provides an endless stream of conversation pieces so I wondered if I would be able to combine the idea of themes and social objects (and share it in the cube grenade spirit).

A quick search found Long Zheng’s post on RSS powered desktop slideshows and from there it was just a matter of finding the RSS feed for Hugh’s widget and so for you to enjoy I present my Gapingvoid Cube Grenade theme for Windows 7 – just download it, unzip and double-click on the theme file (the “clean one features less adult language) to install it. You should see your desktop background go black and after a few moments it’ll start downloading images for the slideshow (set to rotate randomly every 30 minutes). If you click on Personalize on the desktop you can adjust the timing and change it from “fill” to “tile” or other layout options.

Enjoy, and please share and create your own themes with your favorite content :)

(Update: the download now contains two theme options, the default and a “clean” one that only features cartoons with less adult language)

Back when the internet was a new wild untamed frontier small businesses flocked to sites like the now defunct Geocities to mark out their territory on the web.

They were often instantly recognizable amateur hodge-podges of clipart, blinking text and inexplicable music clips and while some evolved over time to their own domains and added pointless Flash intro page animations many watched the new Web 2.0 wave coming and decided it was too hard and have become detritus, abandoned to entropy.

That hasn’t changed the fact that small businesses looking to get started on the web need a platform. Often they can’t afford to go to bespoke developers, and they don’t need a complex CMS or integrated back office (when they do need those things, then they can probably justify the cost)

A couple of years ago there were a few second generation platforms appearing that allowed people to host sites that were more than just a Blogspot or Live Spaces blog – they provided layout tools and themes and pre-defined blocks of functionality and you could even make them appear on your domain not on someone else’s sub-domain (a friend of mine once described that as “Trailer Park Hosting” and I’ve never quite shaken that image).

Office Live from Microsoft is one such platform offering a one-stop shop will integration into back end facilities such as email and document management. It has free and premium offerings with varying levels of functionality and support.

Weebly is a simpler alternative that doesn’t try to offer as much but does provide a lot of flexibility and is really easy to get started with.

Both platforms provide themes to set up basic layout for your site, though at Weebly you have a lot of control over the underlying HTML and CSS – with premium accounts you can make quite significant changes to the layout and look of your site. Weebly offers an affiliate scheme so satisfied users can get a small reward for recommending them – that helps offset the (reasonable) premium costs.

While Office Live tried to provide everything you need in one place (though some functionality – for instance adding a blog – requires using a couple of different Microsoft services) Weebly instead allows you to include either pre-defined components from other services (a Flickr slideshow, or a Google Maps for directions, Nabble forums, or pre-defined Miniclip games as well as Google Calendar and Paypal integration) as well as some of their own services (they have an integrated blog for instance – which doesn’t support Windows Live Writer yet so the downside is you have to edit it online)

Both provide a “one stop shop” if you want to use your own domain name to host your site and both are adding new features and functionality – though it pains me to say Weebly is probably the more agile of the two.

I was surprised how functional and easy to use Weebly was. It’s had great reviews in Time, TechCrunch and others – and my wife can use it which can’t be a bad thing!