Yes, this article is a little out of the box but I’m pretty sure that most of tech geeks (and sci-fi fans ;) would be interested in this matter, that’s why I wanted to share the info. Additionally, IF true, this project would in my honest opinion become a revolution easily comparable to the birth of the internet. Some time ago I’ve read about a brand new concept of a microwave engine designed especially for spacecraft propulsion. A bunch of smart heads from the UK lead by R.Shawyer invented a simply looking yet very complicated (from the view of mathematical and physical theories) prototype of a propeller that uses microwaves to generate thrust and by doing so compensate the power of gravity…

Does it sound like a crazy sci-fi stuff to you? It did to me until I found out that the SPR Ltd. company standing behind the project gained a fund of L125.000 from the UK government for further development and improvement. I seriously doubt British government would invest such a pile of bucks into some kind of trickery. Moreover, despite all criticism and disbelief at the beginning, the scientists have proven their prototype worked exactly as presumed by mathematical calculations supplied by Dr. Richard Paris, prof. of math on the University of Abertay, Dundee. Their project is also supported by a large theory explaining the idea in the language far beyond my comprehension (I didn’t really even try to understand that stuff :).

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Tags: Antigravity, antigravity engines, emdrive, engines, power, superconducting
Categories: Science

Web 2.0 and new technologies coming along with it caused a big boom of advanced online services that were often able to substitute software installed on your own computer. Taking security and privacy concerns aside that naturally arise when using such services on the web people got used to it rather quickly and several web 2.0 applications saw a huge burst in users shortly after they could be used by anyone.

Thanks to AJAX and similar technologies many complex personal web-based desktops have started to appear lately. After creating an account on such sites you could create your own virtual computer and access it from anywhere by simply connecting to the Internet and using your default browser. I tested two example services in the last days: The first service that I would like to mention is a service called OSX Mercury that is a completely free service.

Although this service looks very nice and interesting I didn’t actually test it because I was disappointed that the only supported browser is Firefox; I use Opera. That’s why I did not test it but if you’re a deep-rooted Firefox user, give it a whirl. The site seems to be down as of know due to a large amount of users that wanted to use their service.

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Tags: desktop replacements, unix virtual desktop, virtual desktops, web 2.0
Categories: Online Services, The Web

It’s been a long time since Wildbits started to provide an amazing and free music identification software called Tunatic which helped me many times identify a song I loved. This happened for instance when I recorded Internet radio streams without information about the artist or the song name. I bet you’ve happened to be in such situation too.

In that moment, you’d give “anything” for an advice that could lead you to the song you have in your head and want to hear it again and again. Tunatic identifies songs automatically by comparing them with other audio patterns. However, there’s a limited number of patterns and it often happens that it just doesn’t find the song you’re looking for.

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Tags: identify song, music, music identification, songs, tunatic, watzatsong
Categories: Knowledge, Music and Video, Tools

Yesterday I was looking for a way I could create some nice buttons for a website of mine. I needed people to pay attention to that button and make it stick out so that it would not be overlooked. Instead of downloading a utility for that purpose, I found a fine online button generator that let’s you create original buttons for your website or for other purposes as well. Of course it is possible to create buttons in Photoshop or similar programs but I bet it would take you much longer if you’re not a pro. And beyond that, not everyone can afford such programs.

This online service let’s you create shiny buttons to look just the way it’s “cool” now. Each part of the button is customizable, including the size, background, all colors and roundness of your unique piece. It’s good to set rendering speed to “zippy” for preview and “wicked slow” for the final rendering. At the end you simply download the result as a zip that includes jpg, png and gif files. When putting the button on a website it looks best along with a hover effect achieved by using CSS.

The example button on their site doesn’t show the best of this service in my opinion, for another example take a look at the button I’ve made for a friends website.

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Tags: button generator, buttons, glassy buttons, online button generator, photoshop
Categories: Online Services, The Web

A great feature called SpeedDial has been recently added to Opera. It’s a solution providing quick access to your “Top 9″ websites and it’s faster than using Bookmarks. However the limited number of sites that you can add does not make it a universal feature to speed up surfing in general.

I have been using Opera for a very long time but did not know what the so called Nickname feature for Bookmarks was all about. I’ve been ignoring them or filling them with nonsenses until I understood what they are for and how useful they can be. I wouldn’t mention it if I wasn’t concerned there’re still many of you who have never taken advantage of this feature, especially if you are new to using Opera.

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Tags: firefox keyword, nicknames, opera, opera bookmarks, opera keywords, opera nickname, opera tip
Categories: Browsing, firefox, opera

I’d like to share my experience with an uncommon navigation device I bought few weeks ago. There were two reasons why I started to consider buying a tablet. At first, I wanted to try something different than the old-style mouse. I also needed it to be more precise than the mouse so that I could use it for some web graphics and drawing (I assume you have tried to draw something with mouse and know what I mean).

The second reason was that when I used to work with a mouse daily I started to feel quite serious pain in my forearm through the last few months and that required some changes. I finally decided to buy Wacom’s low-end device called Volito2 and I must say I really like it.

For the very low price you get a nicely featured equipment with pleasant specs. At the beginning I thought that a 127×92mm wide active area is too small to work on but when I actually held the stylus (pen) and had to move my hand around the pad, I found out that it’s actually big enough. Despite all the positive aspects tablets are not suitable for all applications (i.e. some types of games) but they’re still very handy for common navigation.

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Tags: mouse alternative, mouseless, penabled, tablet, tablet hardware, tablet pc, wacom
Categories: Hardware

I’ve been using Opera’s integrated RSS reader for a long time and it sure is a fine enhancement. But I still feel that it’s not so ultimate and it misses some things. Especially it’s interface could look a little better and have few more features. For example, in Opera you can’t display the news from all sources at once, well-arranged in a nice interface, instead you always have to click the source, read some news and then switch to the next one and so on. This is a little clumsy. However, Opera is mainly a great browser, not an RSS reader.

Short time ago I found a nice online RSS aggregator called Rootly. Important thing is that you can customize your account very well. You can use their feed presets or even better insert your own feed addresses and create unique tabs. Rootly then collects all the news for you and displays them in a very clean and well styled interface.

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Tags: netvibes, news aggregator, openid, root, rootly, rss aggregator, rss reader
Categories: Online Services, Tools