Trick or Treat More Efficiently with Halloween Candy Code [Friday Fun]

Give your kids a piece of chalk before they head out to demand candy from strangers, and they can let other kids know which houses are worth visiting and which have angry dogs or cheek-pinching personal space invaders with the Halloween Candy Code. For anyone obsessed with John Hodgman or Mad Men, you'll instantly recognize this as a whimsical derivation of "hobo code" or "hobo sign." Laugh now, but see if you aren't warning away other tramps with pictographs carved in trees after a jealous spouse runs you off for trying to cage more than a square meal. Where else might sub-literate messages scrawled near a threshold be useful? I know I could have used some help navigating cube farms in my days as an office temp transient.

October 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Windows Azure Offers Developers Iron-Clad Lock-in

snydeq writes "Microsoft's move to the cloud is certain to create a whole new kind of developer partner, Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes. But as much as Microsoft ISVs will likely go along with the shift to Windows Azure to keep revenue streams going, the kind of lock-in they will experience will be worlds away from what they face today. Rather than being able to ignore the new version of a key framework, developers will have no other option than to update their code to suit Microsoft's latest platform. That kind of lock-in will leave customers in the lurch, subject to their vendors' bottom lines, as ISVs that can't afford to rework code to keep up with Microsoft's latest platform will begin dropping services, and customers will have little choice but to accept the new terms of service their vendors send along."

Stats: Android Market is No App Store Killer, But Not a Dud Either

When the iPhone 3G debuted over the summer and Apple simultaneously launched its App Store, more than 10 million mobile applications were downloaded in the first weekend. With Google’s G1 and accompanying Android Market launching last week, lots of analysts (and developers and carriers thinking of supporting the device) are wondering how it stacks up. While similar to Apple, Google is making it fairly difficult to figure out specific numbers, mobile ad network Medialets has done some analysis of the data that is available to provide us with some approximate figures and trends.

Google reports the number of app downloads in buckets – for example, we now know that Pacman and The Weather Channel’s applications have been download between 50,000 and 250,000 times so far. In all, by looking at these buckets, Medialets surmises that there have been between 667,000 and 2,900,000 applications downloaded from Android Market. Since Android Market started allowing anyone to submit applications earlier this week, the number of apps available has more than tripled, from the 50 or so listed at launch to 167 as of today.

What are people downloading? From the looks of it, games and lifestyle apps are proving very popular:

So what to make of these numbers? While the range of total downloads is broad and even at the high-end doesn’t come close to matching the iPhone app store’s debut, it seems like a decent start given the G1 and Android did not have the huge advantages that Apple did going into launch.

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Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Google Opens Android Market to Developer Submissions
Google Android Market Goes Live With 50+ Apps
First Complete Software Suite to Operate on Google Android Surfaces
Google Clues Developers in on Android Market
Google Android SDK is Live
Google Android Debut Set for September 23. No Surprises.
Handango Gives Android Developers Two Ways to Make a Buck

October 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Create New Folders in Explorer with a Shortcut [Featured Windows Download]

Windows only: Reader Juliana created a simple but extremely useful AutoHotkey script that creates a new folder in Explorer with a quick keystroke of Ctrl+N. If you're an AHK user, you can download the script source here and just copy and paste it into your own AHK script. (This is a great compliment to the Better Rename script, for example, which brings Vista-style renaming to XP.) If you're not an AHK user, you can still add the shortcut sugar to Explorer by downloading the executable (linked below). It may not change your life, but if you're a shortcut lover, it certainly adds a much-needed feature to Explorer.

October 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Meet T.W.E.R.P.

From the Make: Flickr Pool comes the T.W.E.R.P., a ThingamaKIT housed in a 10" Mad*L vinyl toy.

Things I've Made

More:

October 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Verizon considering crazy cheap Storm pricing?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Any Storm hopeful in the colonies who's taken a gander at Vodafone's pricing scheme this week is probably strongly considering packing a couple duffel bags with the bare essentials they need to survive and moving to the UK to strike out on a new life -- a life filled with cheap Storms. Not so fast, though -- is it conceivable to think that Verizon could go the same route? At first glance, you might think that the Storm's cachet as RIM's flashiest, highest-end device to date would be enough to lure in customers by the droves at any price, but with the enormous price pressure placed on the industry by a $199 iPhone 3G in a heavily-overlapping target demo, rumor has it that Big Red's looking at a severe subsidy to meet or beat its crosstown rival. Analysts are thinking (wishfully, we suspect) that a $99 Storm isn't entirely out of the question if Verizon wants to sell an insane number of 'em through the holidays, but just how long would it take to recoup that kind of loss?

Verizon considering crazy cheap Storm pricing? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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October 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

ASUS and Intel Launch Collaborative PC Design Site

Jupix writes "There's an interesting new community by ASUS and Intel called WePC. It enables anyone to post their dream PC including not only function, but form as well. You can draw up your dream and describe it in words, and also fiddle with some predetermined properties. No doubt the two companies are looking for common configurations so they can implement them in future products, but according to the press release, even individual designs may get the two companies' backing."

Best of Maker Faire - Maker Shed round up…

Here's a round up of all the items that have a discount which are part of our "Best of Maker Faire - Maker Shed" sale... A lot of folks who weren't in the Austin, TX area last week for Maker Faire Austin 2008 and wanted some of the deals we had at the Maker Shed Store, so - we put the most popular items out here with a nice discount or free shipping depending on what you order... Click read more below to get the big ole' list...

October 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

HALLOWE’EN

GREETINGS. This is John Hodgman writing at the witching hour (5:48PM EST).

It is Hallowe'en, and thus time to CRACK THE CRYSTAL SKULL at last.

Please see the enclosed video.

That is all.

October 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Enable the New Netflix Silverlight Player on Your Mac or Windows PC [NetFlix]

We told you that Netflix was adding Watch Instantly support for Macs using Microsoft Silverlight earlier this week, but now the official Netflix blog details how to enable the new Silverlight player on your account whether you're a Mac or Windows user. Just follow the opt-in link to get started with the Silverlight player. The catch: Once you enable Silverlight on your account, it sounds as though you can't go back to the old Windows Media streaming. That might deter you for a couple of reasons. First, not all movies are available for streaming with Silverlight, and it's still a touch buggy. More importantly for me is that the Silverlight switch would break my Xbox 360 as streaming Netflix player (at least until the fall Xbox update). If you give it a try, let's hear how you like it in the comments. Thanks Joe!