Arvind's Journal

Kayking down the St Croix

2007-05-31T20:23:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, a bunch of us went kayaking down the St Croix river. It was a beautiful ride down with lots of wildlife to see along the way. I didn't collect any GPS data on this trip, but used Google My Maps to mark out the route. The embedded version shown below was created using My Maps Plus. As always, there are plenty of pictures on my

Biking to Lake Elmo

2007-05-27T22:33:00.000-05:00

I have been meaning to post this for a while. On our bike ride to Lake Elmo, I collected some GPS data intending to plot them on Google maps. I looked at a few existing solutions for this and tried using www.mtbguru.com. The interface on this website was quite painful and I finally settled on using www.everytrail.com. This site is a little better, but is still a little buggy. An embedded

Want your email printed on soybean sputum?

2007-04-01T11:23:00.000-05:00

Just use Gmail paper. Free printing of your emails on "96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum" that actually saves the environment. And those wonderful photos that are attached.... printed on glossy soybean paper. The service doesn't currently support printing mp3 or wav files, but this is Google right... they'll figure out a way. Or maybe you'd like some free wireless internet at home. Easy..

HOWTO: Disable the "Show Passwords" feature in Mozilla Firefox

2007-03-07T19:36:00.000-06:00

Mozilla Firefox has the feature that allows you to store your passwords for you. The passwords are encrypted and stored on your computer. However, in case you forget your password, you can open up the Preferences/Options menu and see your passwords under the 'Security' tab. This isn't a security problem as long as long as you have a password protected account on the computer and log off or lock

Back from SoDak

2006-09-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

Just got back from an awesome dirt-biking trip in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I have uploaded some pictures that can be viewed here And here are a few videos... Attempting a jump over our little hill: Craig nearly landing over Meredith: And here is one of Bryan showing off his hill climbing skills:

Google's April Fools Jokes

2006-04-01T07:18:00.000-06:00

It looks like Google has done it again with their April Fools jokes. This year they have launched 'Google Romance' a website that uses Google's Soulmate Search™ program to find you a Contextual Date™, that they would pay for. By the way, the Soulmate Search™ program uses the latest psychographic and search algorithms to "bear on the problem of hooking up our users" :-). I guess I should sign up

Advanced Legged Robots

2006-03-13T12:49:00.000-06:00

Developing walking and climbing robots have always been the ultimate challenge for robot locomotion. A couple of DARPA-funded programs have come up with some very interesting results. One of them, dubbed BigDog, is being developed by BostonDynamic and is touted as the mosts advanced Quadruped robot on earth. (See www.bdi.com/content/sec... ). Check out this video of this

Coffee anyone???

2006-02-19T15:36:00.000-06:00

After few weeks of toiling away after work.... alright sometimes during work as well, I've completed what has easily been my toughest woodworking project yet. I've been meaning to get a coffee table for a while now and after watching a few shows on the DIY network, decided to draw out something that I thought I could build. A few modifications later, here is what I came up with... The

Lab cleanup time

2006-01-05T14:00:00.000-06:00

I've spent the last few months building stuff for a portable traffice surveillance system for rural intersections. It has been a lot of hardware work with building the equipment that goes at each sensor station, and with 18 different stations, lab space has become quite tight. Sure tools and parts are strewn all over the place at the lab, but I never have trouble finding what I need. But today

Dance for me

2006-01-02T00:33:00.000-06:00

Moneydance launched a new version of thier software a few days ago. It sure does have a nicer interface and a more functional report generation tool than the previous version. I had been a Quicken user for a while and loved the simplicity and power of the tool. But when I made the switch to Ubuntu earlier this year (well I guess it is last year now), Moneydance as the Linux option didn't

A New Year... Hopefully happy for most

2006-01-01T23:44:00.000-06:00

Mike Tice is probably not going to be saying that after receiving the news less than an hour after the game today that he would no longer be coaching the Vikings. Now Tice probably isn't the smartest head-coaches around; most times he does have the 'duh' look on his face. But he did have a lot of heart; and no matter what, he was always there pushing the team along. He ended his coaching stint

My first Post!!!

2005-12-27T23:36:00.000-06:00

This blog is finally up!!! I have been meaning to start blogging for quite a while now, but never got to doing it. Now I plan to constantly (alright maybe not constantly; I might get in trouble at work for that) post stuff on new gadgets and technologies, and maybe some stuff about life in general. I also finally got to updating my homepage. After three years of using the same template, I got