Notebooks of Scott

I just added a new page to my website. Now visitors can email me, and I don’t have to expose my email to spambots. Check it out Here and maybe even drop me a line.

I created a simple email form and used Recaptcha to secure it. Recaptcha is an awesome service that provides secure Captcha images and processing for free. The cool thing about this particular service is that instead of generating random captcha images, Recaptcha uses words from scanned books and uses the results to help create digital copies of those books.

Yesterday (today still for me, since its 1am and I haven’t gone to bed), was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing. 40 years ago, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Mike Collins left the Earth atop the massive Saturn V rocket and hurtled more than 200,00 Kilometers into the pages of history. After achieving lunar orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin flew the LEM Eagle to the surface of the Moon and became the first men to set foot on another world, marking the success of a decade of hard work.

Nothing compares to the scope of the achievement of all the men and women who labored for almost a decade to make this moment and the subsequent moon landings possible.

It was very fun to follow the mission on WeChooseTheMoon.org.

This is the end of the Finding Nemo ride at Disneyland California. I took it from the monorail station just above the ride.

Today was the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 and it will be the anniversary of the moon landing on Monday. To celebrate this historic event, Nasa and the JFK Library have created a site called WeChooseTheMoon.org. It is an animated recreation of the flight from start to finish in real time. It is quite awesome. Check it out.

One of the things that I love about the internet is the wide range of information that is available. The only problem is that it is also widely spread, and I am too lazy to looking for it myself. So I have been trying to find a way to create a dashboard on my computer that didn’t require my going to a website to see it (a la Netvibes or PageFlakes). It has taken me a while, but I recently noticed that Google Desktop allows its Gadgets to be placed anywhere on your desktop. Viola! Instant dashboard. On top of that, it is right there when I turn on my computer.

I am seriously considering trying Yahoo! Widgets and Adobe Air as well. Just for comparisons sake.

Update: I tried out Yahoo! Widgets. It is by far a more aesthetically pleasing set up. However, I could not find an RSS reader that could parse anything but perfect XML, and there are few perfect XML files. So until I can find one that does so, I’ll stick with Google Desktop. Interestingly enough, neither Google nor Yahoo have created an RSS reader widget for their programs. I would have thought an RSS reader would have been the first thing to create.

My mom and sister went out today to visit my cousin, and while they were out there they got me a small spider-like robot from HexBug. Its a cool little toy that you can control with a remote, though it can be creepy to watch. Its pretty cool.

I have just published my first lens on Squidoo. It involves Garden Railroads. Check it out. Garden Railroads