Floating Desert Palms

This IKONOS satellite image was collected on July 16, 2004. The image shows this man-made island that lies off the coast of Dubai in the Persian Gulf. The island is being built from 80 million cubic meters of land dredged from the approach channel to the Emirate's Jebel Ali Port. When complete, this resort will have approximately 1,200 single-family and 600 multi-family residences, an aquatic theme park, shopping centers, cinemas and more. Photo credit "Space Imaging Middle East"

Space new image of the day

Google Map looks the best.

Ultimate Method to Make Gmail Default

Neither Gmail Notifier nor Google Talk nor Google Toolbar works consistently to make Gmail the default email client. GoogleCity » GMail Default Email Program / Start Menu looks promising, but than adding "Google Gmail" in the Internet options, it doesn't work.

Hack: Window Registry Edit to make Gmail the default mail handler should work but the file paths are not updated, so I have corrected and optimized it. Somehow it seems that a local file (dll / exe) is needed to direct email requests to a web mail and in this case gnotify.exe of Google Notifier is needed. If Google Notifier is installed, simply download this registry file and merge by opening it. Change the paths before merging if Firefox or Google Notifier are not in their default directories, or if Firefox is not used.

It should work for the default browser "send link", browser initiated email compose, mailto links and commands, plus change the email icon in Windows XP start menu to Gmail (this can be removed afterwards). "Google Gmail" is chosen in the Internet options, and emails are directed to the more secure https Gmail.

Civet

Deers and civets are commonly seen around campus, but this was the first time I watched a civet so closely, because it was dead. It was on the roadside near my home. It seemed not being hit by car though.

Pandora.com Comes to Campus

Meet Tim Westergren, founder and CEO of Pandora.com. Hear how he took his passion for music and "street" knowledge of business and made it his career. Presented by the Career Center and the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Yahoo! LAUNCHcast has been around for 6 years and ranks music by user ratings, while but Pandora, a start-up company, hires music experts to categorize music in the Music Genome Project. I haven't used the former but Pandora should be better, at least since the former cannot be opened in Firefox and the latter run on Flash. Zhu Min and I often let this free online music box open now.

Got 3 clothes from Tim too.

Built my 1st Space Ship

Star Wars Millennium Falcon Puzz3D (857 pieces) "donated" by my roommate since it was too challenging. He got it from another friend who obviously didn't build it too. Fun activity during the fall break!

There are hooking holes on the surface invisible here for hanging from the ceiling. Don't have wires yet.

See Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo (left to right) in the cabin?

My 2nd Userscript - Close Websites

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6110

Auto close tabs of unwanted sites. Simple one line script takes advantage of GM to automatically detect your given sites and close them. Just change the included pages to whatever you want to close.

Every time I connect to the Internet, I am redirected to a login page (https://wireless-gw.engin.umich.edu/login.pl) where Firefox fills in the password for me and AutoLogin (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/750) press the login button, and then an unwanted page (http://www.bluesocket.com/) appears which is immediately closed by this script.

Thanks to http://www.interwebby.com/blog/2006/02/04/3/ and ‘zenith’.

My 1st Userscript - Callto: Linkify (for Skype)

No more copying and pasting phone numbers to Skype. SkypeOut directly from your online contact list (say Gmail contacts) without any manual synchronization or addition to your Skype contact list.

Looks for phone numbers in pages and makes hyperlinks out of them. When clicking on the link, your Skype will ring and be dialing the number / link you clicked on. Works for all of these patterns:

800-555-1212, (800) 555-1212, (800)555-1212, 800-555-1212, 800-555-1212, 800 555 1212, 800.555.1212, 800/555/1212, 8005551212, +1 (number), + (international number)

Yes, when it works the above will become: 800-555-1212, (800) 555-1212, (800)555-1212, 800-555-1212, 800-555-1212, 800 555 1212, 800.555.1212, 800/555/1212, 8005551212...

Area code is needed and call to US and Canada by default. SkypeOut from US or Canada for free at least till the end of 2006. Skype to another country by changing defaultPrefix but it is not free.

Skype Web Toolbar (http://www.skype.com/download/skypewebtoolbar) has similar function but makes all websites load much slower. This script makes perceivable delays only when loading lengthy javascript pages, say Gmail all contacts list, but you can choose to disable it at that moment.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6111

My Grape on Fire!

http://www.pmichaud.com/grape/