Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Now Would'ya Look'it That!

USB Ultrasound device coming to a Windows Mobile phone near you?

Did I ever mention that I worked with these two professors on a Capstone project at Wash U? We developed a USB-powered harmonic ultrasound system. Prof. Zar had the imaging software and Richard was the professor for the hardware design class. It was my by far my favorite hardware class at Wash U.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Tasks for the desktop

I've been looking around for a nice Google Tasks widget for the Dashboard but so far have only found this neat AIR based widget.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

This American Life Live

The show was great. It's really interesting to see radio performed. It makes me excited to take advantage of the weekly tapeings of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and possibly catch a performance of Prairie Home Companion sometime. Here's an excerpt from the show description in case the website comes down.

Ira Glass will host an actual episode of the radio program, performed onstage by some of our favorite contributors. Dan Savage, Starlee Kine, and Mike Birbiglia will tell stories. David Rakoff and Dave Hill will conduct a ‘special investigation.’ Plus a new cartoon by Chris Ware, additional visuals by Arthur Jones, and a very special appearance by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

App Engine

One of the things I've been thinking about all week is how I could build a quick and easy site for everyone to share memories about Grandpa. I've wanted to experiment more with App Engine after SXSW and the Google developer day. Last night I combined the two and created an App Engine site where memories can be saved and photos can be uploaded. It's in really rough form with a few bugs due to half implemented features, but hopefully I'll have time to actually finish it off (or at least work on it some more).

It's written in the Python version of App Engine, but I just signed up for the Java version as well.

http://michael-lanyon.appspot.com/

Monday, April 06, 2009

Grandpa passed

My Grandfather passed early this morning.

UPDATED:
Early Saturday morning Grandpa passed out from what we later found to be a mild heart attack. Thankfully Grandma was awake and heard him fall. He was taken to Skokie Valley Hospital and was being moved to the ICU when I found out what was happening. Erin and I went to see him on both Saturday and Sunday. Early Monday (like 2:30am) he passed.

He was in good spirits on both Saturday and Sunday, talking about the price of gas and what the weather was like. At one point Grandma was going through some of the hospital's things and found a really large comb. Grandma exclaimed, "Look at the size of the comb. Now all you need is the hair!"

Thursday, April 02, 2009

On A Mac Now

So it's official now, I'll be getting a Mac for work. A MacBook Pro arrived from the Toronto office for me today. Nate's just begun to set it up, but hopefully I'll have it for the weekend. I've only used a Mac for short spurts before, so it'll be interesting to use it like I'm gonna keep it.

Sweet!!!

Check out Israel and Egypt photos here
Check out my Egypt photos here