Uh oh – GoogleFight is something I’d already forgotten about, somehow… http://www.googlefight.com

Someone make it stop. Three of us are here are running battles to see who wins, Greg Hughes or Brandon Watts? Matt Hartley or Brandon Watts? (by the way, Matt’s blog here and Brandon’s blog here) Hmmm…

More fights:

• Hotdog vs. Hamburger
• Jason Calacanis vs. Chris Pirillo – a close one
• God vs. the Devil – Phew!!!

Heh…

What is WeatherBug? As a piece of software, it puts the weather on your desktop. It’s live, updating every two seconds. NOAA doesn’t do this – they update every 15 minutes at best. As a company and a bunch of people, here is how they describe themselves:

“WeatherBug is the ultimate geek-ified company. We are about creating cool and fun technology, teaching children, and saving lives.”

RSS weather feeds accessible by ZIP code will be available in July – that will be cool. They will also be shipping WeatherBug for the Mac.

Controversy – because what would a good conference be without it? Lots of discussion here at Gnomedex about the presentation in which this company is being highlighted. About how WeatherBug used to have spy/adware, but that was a long time ago, and now it doesn’t – Seriously. It doesn’t. Also, the fact that I am writing about their product at all (actually I am mostly interested in the 2–second differentiator) is exactly what some people are complaining about here, because Steve Rubel (according to some of the crowd) used this presentation as a vehicle to do PR for one of his clients. So what. Decent example of PR, short time to fill, interesting info.

Whatever. Heh. I still like the every-two-second data update thing. That’s sweet.

If you live around Portland, Oregon or somewhere kinda-sorta nearby so you can get here, and if you're interested in coding, put the PDX Code Camp event on your calendar. It's free, but you need to register so they can plan for you to be there.

What is Code Camp?

Code Camp is a new type of community event where developers talk with—and learn from—fellow developers. All are welcome to attend and speak. Code Camps have been wildly successful, and we’re going to bring that success to Portland.

An original Code Camp organizer, Thom Robbins, wrote a six-point manifesto: Code Camps are (1) by and for the developer community; (2) always free; (3) community developed material; (4) no fluff – only code; (5) community ownership; and (6) never occur during working hours.

What can I expect at the Portland Code Camp?

Two full days of talking about code with fellow developers, on the scenic Reed College campus. Sessions will range from informal “chalk talks” to presentations. There will be a mix of presenters, some experienced folks, for some it may be their first opportunity to speak in public. And we are expecting to see people from throughout the Pacific Northwest region.

To create a little structure, we’ve proposed a variety of one- and two-day tracks including Hobbyists, Mobile and Tablet PC, Architecture and Patterns, Databases, Web Development, Client Development, Games Development, Tools, Methodology, XML and Web, and “Alternative Lifestyles” (Ruby on Rails, Python, Squeak, etc.)

Watch this site for more details and schedule as we firm things up.

Microsoft's released a new build of their Microsoft Antispyware beta software. Several improvements are included. The expiration date for the beta software is also extended through the end of the year. Download here.

From the MS web site description:

In this second beta refresh (Build 1.0.614), we’ve made other enhancements to the detection and removal capabilities, including improved Winsock LSP removal capabilities and support for long descriptions of categorized software. In addition, we have also extended the Windows AntiSpyware beta expiration date to December 31, 2005.

Existing users of the beta (Builds 1.0.501 and 1.0.509) will receive a software update that extends the expiration date and includes the enhancements to the detection and removal capabilities. The second beta refresh is also available for download through this site.

Microsoft’s announcement yesterday about support for RSS built into Longhorn has been followed up with the posting of the actual specification.

Overview

The Simple List Extensions are designed as extensions to existing feed formats to make exposing ordered lists of items easier and more accessible to users.

The term “list,” as used in this document describes an ordered collection of items with similar properties. For example, a photo album may be described as a “list of photos.”

And it’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, which is cool.

Phillip Torrone (often known simply as “pt”) is a geek’s geek. He’s been showing various hacks and stuff between presentations here at the Gnomedex conference.

This guy could do a conference on his own if he wanted to. He’s funny, likable and has lots of fun ideas. I like the hands-on kind of things, the practical stuff. Not that all of it’s actually practical or anything, but even if it’s just goofing around, it’s nifty.

He’s done a few 15–minute demos showing all the stuff you can do with a hacked Playstation Portable. He showed how you can modify a eBook reader with new firmware to break the bad DRM they put on it back in the day, so it can be a usable device today. He even has an old-skoool analog phone (with a mechanical bell and all) that has GSM phone guts built in, and there’s more to come.

But hey – you don’t have to be here to see this cool stuff. You can see pt’s stuff in/on Make: magazine (an O’Reilly thing), and there’s a Make:blog site, as well. I am subscribed to both. Highly recommended. If pt is publishing, it’s cool and fun. You should go there.

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