Daily Cup of Tech

I recently read 64 Things Every Geek Should Know and I was inspired to create The “Official” Geek “Must Do Before You Die” Checklist:

I have also created a handy PDF version that you can download.

The list can be summed up as follows:

[Logic+Emotion]

Now it’s your turn.  What is on your geek “Must Do Before I Die” checklist?  How far along are you?  Let us know in the comments.

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We often regard technology rather dispassionately.  It is to be used and discarded.  Rarely do we, as a human race, have compassion for our iPod or computer.

Tweenbots are the exception.

An experiment by Kacie Kinzer, a student at NYU in the ITP program, she wanted to see what would happen if she created a small robot and sent it on a journey.  The robot itself is a relatively simple device, basically a toy motor and chassis with a cardboard body.  Each robot was fitted with a small flag that asked whomever helped it to get it to its destination.

Here is what Kacie wrote:

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Kacie had low expectations for what would happen.  But she was pleasantly surprised.

The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

I find it absolutely amazing that not only did this little device survive, it completed its mission!  I think this says a lot more about the state of the human condition than it does about the technology!

Here is a little video of the tweenbot and some of its benefactors in action.

If you were to encounter something like this, how would you react?

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I’m starting to get more and more into building home media centers.  Sure, you can buy a Windows Media Center version but what is the fun in that?

I’ve run across a cool media center software called GeeXboX.  Here’s what their website says:

GeeXboX is a free embedded Linux distribution which aims at turning your computer into a so called HTPC (Home Theater PC) or Media Center. Being a standalone LiveCD-based distribution, it’s a ready to boot operating system than works on any Pentium-class x86 computer or PowerPC Macintosh, implying no software requirement. You can even use it on a diskless computer, the whole system being loaded in RAM.

Despite his tiny ISO image size, the distribution comes with a complete and automatic hardware detection, not requiring any driver to be added. It supports playback of nearly any kind of audio/video and image files and all known codecs and containers are shipped in, allowing playing them through various physical supports, either being CD, DVD, HDD, LAN or Internet.

GeeXboX also comes with a complete toolchain that allows developers adding easily extra packages and features but that might also be used to give birth to many dedicated embedded Linux systems.

One of the cool things about GeeXboX is that it is designed to be completely self sufficient.  There is no need to upgrade your operating system or download the latest codecs in order for the system to work.  All you need is to boot from a livecd and you are off and running.

Of course, what really caught my eye was the ability to put GeeXboX on a bootable USB drive and then dump my videos onto it.  The whole process took me about 10 minutes with 9 minutes being the wait for the download to complete!

Here is how I did it.

Things to Get

First, you will need to get a few things:

1. Empty USB drive formatted FAT or FAT32.  The bigger the better but I would say 1 GB would be a good start but the bigger the better because you can take more videos with you. GeeXboX takes up about 32 MB.
2. GeeXboX ISO.  The current version as of the writing of this post is 1.2.1 and is available for x86 32-bit, x86 64-bit and PowerPC.
3. GeeXboX Win32 Installer.  Version 0.22 available at the writing of this post.

Build the USB Media Player

Once you have downloaded everything and have your USB drive in your computer, start the Win32 Installer.

Click on Next>.

Click on I Agree.

Select Install to drive/partition dedicated to GeeXboX: and click Next>.

Click on Browse and select the ISO that you previously downloaded.  Then click on Process.  This will prepare the ISO for installation to your USB drive.

Once it has completed processing, the Next> button will become available.  Click it.

Select the drive letter of the USB drive on which you want to install GeeXboX.  Read the warning and then click Install.

Wait patiently which GeeXboX installs to your USB drive.  It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two.

Click Finish and you’re GeeXboX bootable USB media center is ready to go!

Add Some Videos

Now that you’re system is ready, all you need to do is put some videos on the USB drive.  Simply drag the video files from your computer to the root of your new USB media player.  Once they are done copying, you’re ready to go!

Boot and Go!

Now, all you need to do is take your USB drive to a computer system, get it to boot from the USB drive (either by changing the BIOS to boot from the USB device first or by using a boot menu).  It should boot into the initial splash screen:

Once it has completed the initial boot, you should get a menu looking something like this:

This gives you complete control over the entire system.

Here is what a typical movie would look like with the menu overlayed:

There are lots of other things that you can do with GeeXboX.  I’d love to hear what you come up with!

By the way, here are some more links to GeeXboX that I have found to be useful:

• Screenshots
• Downloads
• Keys & Controls
• Documentation
• Hardware
• ISO Generator
• FAQ
• Wiki
• Forum

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I found this the other day and, for the life of me, I can’t figure it out. You need to get the red guy to the box with the red question mark. Click on everything as they make interesting things happen.

If you want more space, you can also play full browser.

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