Posts Tagged: data

1
Sep 08

Google Chrome and some data to go with it

Internet — Comments

Just read through the comic that announced Google Chrome. Comic? Google Chrome? Google Chrome is the name of the long rumoured browser that Google has been developing. The comic was sent out via mail today and describes the main features of the browser really well. Seeing as I’m hacking web based app’s more and more, Chrome seems to be ideal. In fact if it had bookmark syncing I’d give it a serious trial instead of Firefox. But then again, it’s not out yet and for all I know it could be rubbish. Doubt it though – could be another step forward for browsers, our most used app. *Update – official announcement on the Google Blog and admission that info leaked early. Beta available tomorrow. For Windows only initially, Mac and Linux to come.

So…data. Often the biggest problem in putting together mashup’s and web app’s is finding good reliable data sources. I’d posted before on where to find data sources and the good news is there is some movement in the UK. From the rather excellent Katy Lindemann is a post on freeing our data and how Show Us a Better Way is fronting a government initiative to free up data, mashup the data and has already made gigabytes of data available. The site also links to many web data sources, many that I hadn’t seen before. Time to get the thinking cap back on…and maybe download the iPhone dev kit again.

9
Apr 08

I Need Data

Internet — Comments

So with Google App Engine announced, iPhone SDK’s and me hacking more and more at work my thoughts have been turning to projects in my own time. Totally daft as I have little time, but that seems to be the way. The more I need to do, the more I want to take on. Flawed.

Anyway, a lot of these projects need data which can be difficult to find. Thinking back to Forza Leagues last year, finding stock icons, flags of the world and some other bits and pieces wasn’t always easy. So when I read this post on why we need a Wikipedia for Data it just struck a chord. How great it would be if there was a general site for free to use data. ReadWriteWeb also have a great resource for Open Data sources. I know someone who would love to get hands on easy to use TV listings and movie times.

14
Feb 06

No Room

Technology — Comments

I’ve been dithering for months now on how to sort out my storage ‘issues’. Thats digital storage I should add. Should be easy. Done it before – remove the current hard disks and replace with bigger ones. Pretty cheap, straightforward and after a wee bit of hassle I’ll have a massive amount of storage space.

However on so many fronts it doesn’t work for me. I want to access the data on the drives from any device. Xbox, 360, PSP or laptop. I also want it to be independant of a PC. My current desktop PC is so noisy and has too much oomph for just simple storage. I’m also going to replace the dekstop this year, probably for a laptop so any investment in the desktop now would be a waste (hasn’t stopped me before). The reason for the laptop is that I never use the desktop for games and I would gain from the extra portability.

I’d been swaying towards getting a NAS device so that my data is available on a network for any device to connect to and use but I just can’t find one that meets all my needs or that I’m comfortable that it’s a reliable solution. The 360 wouldn’t see that data either as it’s on a NAS device – it needs a bit of pc software to see media shares and to see video it needs Media Centre. Bah.

So – I’m plumping for a temporary solution. I’ll dig out the old desktop PC which is a lot quieter than the current one and either set it up as a normal PC with network shares or as a NAS device using NASLite. At least that way I’ll have more disk available and I’ll be able to stream on the Xbox. Long term solution is still a grey area. Might wait for more details on the PS3 and also make a decision on laptop first. Also need to factor in a proper long term backup strategy for all this data – it’s getting quite sizeable. As well as every new home having a solar panel it needs a server too, not as standard but definetly as an optional extra. I’m sure there’s a business opportunity there for someone with bigger balls than me.

Anyway – I’ll report back on data dilema’s once I get round to doing something. Hopefully some helpful geek will post up some other options.