33 things to do in Houston for $2 or less

Yahoo article:  33 things to do in Houston for $2 or less

Sucker!

Yesterday I was visiting a friend two streets over from where I live.  After we got past the normal, “how are you doing?”, “What’s been going on?”, “Can I get you something to eat/drink?” phase, my neighbor says, “Did you send a guy over here last week?”

To which I responded, “No, of course not.”  Then I thought back to last week.

Last week I was pulling in the drive way and there was a guy walking away from my house.  When he saw me pull up he walked back and address me, “Good afternoon”.  He was going around selling those coupon books.  I really didn’t want one.  But I thought why not.  So, I got one.  Then he said that his boss was wanting to keep track of people he sold the book to.  And had a form for name & address.

Now putting these two events together, I can only assume that this guy then went to all my neighbors, and said that I had sent him there…

Having trouble deciding on a DVD to watch?

You need to check out http://www.reelzreview.com/

A friend of mind created this “mashup” that brings all the information about a DVD into one easy to see screen.  Trying to find out more about a movie, then check out Reel Reviews.

The power of the Internet in your car

Autonet Mobile is offering a device and service that will let you connect your wifi devices to the internet from your car.

Costs:  $595 for the device and $39 per month.

Speeds:  download: 600-800Kbps; uploads 200Kbps

Range:  within 100 ft from the car

Service area is not mentioned.  But it does say 3G and 2.5G (EVDO and 1xRTT) are both supported and that this provides nationwide travel.

The one thing I would like to know is how much energy the device uses and about what it would take to power it while the car is off.  This could provide residental access too, since your car is probably at home when you are at home.  Plus it could provide access when you are at family picnics, swim meets, etc.  It actually might be more interesting to not have it mounted in the car but in a portable device so it can be a hotspot where ever you are….

got an Amazon Kindle!!

I got an Amazon Kindle for my 11th year marriage anniversary as a gift from my wife.  The more I play with it, the more I like it.  I’m going to try to keep from buying a physical book again.    It is really nice.  I really like the ePaper.  It is very nice to read.  It is light, the battery lasts a long time.    Take a look at their site: Amazon Kindle

I’ll post more when I get a chance…

Hosting an Internation Chessmaster

This week my sons are going to chess camp and we have the honor of hosting on of the teachers.  He has a rating greater than 2300+ and is an international chessmaster.  I played two games with him and was white the first time..

First game:

1. e4     e5
2. Nf3   Nc6
3. g3    Nf6  (I think this is the point that he started getting the advantage… the rest of the game goes poorly)
4. Nc3    Bc5
5. d3      Ng4
6. Be3     xNe3
7. xe3     xBe3
8. Nd5     Bh6
9. h4       d6
10. g4       xBg4
11. Be2      o-o
12. Nh2     xQh4+
13. kf1       Bh3+
14. Kg1      Qg3++

The second game I did a little better, but it took longer to loose…  (I ran out of paper and it did not seem constructive to write it down anyway, so I don’t show the checkmate.  leave a comment below if you think you know how the game ended and what moves were made.

Game 2

1. e4      c5
2. Nf3    Nc6
3. c3      Nf6
4. e5      Nd5
5. d4      xd4
6. xd4     e6
7. Be2     Be7
8. o-o    o-o
9. Nd2     d6
10. Ne4      xe5
11. xe5      Qc7
12. Qd3     xNe5
13. xNe5    xQe5
14. f4        Qc7
15. Kh1     Bd7
16. Bd2     Bc6
17. a3       Rd8
18. Qg3     Nf6
19. xNf6     xBf6
20. Bc3      xBc3
21. xQc3     Qe7
22. Rf2       Rc8
23. Qa5      b6
24. Qa6      Bb7
25. Qa4      Qh4
26. Rf1        Rc5
27. xQa7      Rc1
28. xQb7     xQf2
29. Qf3       xRf1
30. xBf1      xQf3
31. xf3       Rd1
32. Kg2       Rd2+
33. Kg1       xRb2
34. h4         Ra2
35. h5         xRa3
36. Kf2        Rc3
37. Kg3       Rc5
38. Kg4       b5
39. d3         b4
40. Bb1       b3

.,,….   after several more moves… white loses..

Houston is #1 on the Kiplinger 2008 Best Cities list!

When clicking on the link to the Kiplinger 2008 Best Cities list, I was thinking, “OK, where do I need to move?”

But it looks like I’m already there!

http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/2008/05/2008-best-city-houston.html

Looking for a way to create PDFs programmatically that have Hindi

Trying to automate the creation of PDFs with the Hindi flashcards for http://www.ISpeakHindi.com.  I am open to anything that can run on Windows or Linux.    I prefer something that would run on Linux so I can put it on the webserver.  So I am focused on looking at solution in PHP or Ruby.

I found a wonderful PDF creation library for PHP, but it does not support unicode:

http://www.fpdf.org/

I found a “not quite ready for PRO” version that has been internationalized

http://acko.net/blog/ufpdf

I could not get it to work with the Hindi characters, i.e. क ख ग घ etc.

I found PDF::Writer for Ruby, but still no luck..

In the process of looking for this, I found this Ruby on Rails screen cast in Hindi:

http://www.fromjaipur.com/?p=4

About ISpeakSindhi.com

Have you heard of Sindhi?  Or about a place called Sindh?  Well, that is actually where Meena and Nariandas are from.  And Sindhi is their first language.  Almost a year ago when I had registered ISpeakHindi.com and ISpeakSindhi.com, my plans were to develop ISpeakHindi.com, this site, as far as possible.  It would have very sophisticated podcasts, with exercises and quizzes.  There would be a very good Hindi/English dictionary.  There would even be a “language course configurator” that would determine what your purpose for learning Hindi is, how you learn best, how much time you have to learn, etc. And it would recommend a course to learn Hindi and track your progress.  After this, I would then take what we did for Hindi and apply it to Sindhi.

Well, almost a year has passed.  ISpeakHindi.com is not near as far a long as I thought it would be.  But we are still making progress.  And it is serving its main purpose of making sure that I learn Hindi, and that I meet other Hindi speakers.  But it is still far, far, far off from the dreams I have.. Don’t worry, we will get there!

But the domain for ISpeakSindhi.com is up for renewal.  And I have a deal with my wife…use them or loose them.  So, I must start making progress with ISpeakSindhi.com.  If any of you are interested in learning some Sindhi, or know somebody that would, then please visit: http://www.ISpeakSindhi.com It will be much slower.  We plan to only do one very short, basic podcast a week.  Maybe just introduce a word or a phrase.

What we do with free time and the future

Good article worth reading:

http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

Here is an excerpt:

”

I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she’s going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, “What you doing?” And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, “Looking for the mouse.”

Here’s something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here’s something four-year-olds know: Media that’s targeted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.”