Google Releases Chrome OS Open Source Project

According to the Official Google Blog, Google has released the first cut of the Google OS source code. The code is open-sourced and Google is hoping that the open-source community gets behind this and helps to develop this product.

The following video describes the background behind the Google OS project and some of the drivers.




Stay tuned for more.

Update

After watching some videos about this announcement I am a bit disappointed in the approach Google has taken with the Google OS. Although the idea of an OS that makes use of the 'cloud applications' is a good one I think that for users in Australia it will be a disappointment due to the lack of a persistant network connection that is reasonably priced.

Most Australian cities do not have good coverage of wireless hotspots and the use of the 3G network for this device would be very expensive. It would also compete directly with Google Android.

Maybe in a couple of years we may find that the wireless networks are more ubiquitous and this type of device  will be more useful. Until then most users will require a netbook that is able to be used without a network connection.

CNET Interview with Eric Schmidt from Google

An interesting interview with Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google. Discussions about Google OS, Google Search, Android and Google's motto of 'Do No Evil'.

Using JAK and Google Geocoder Part 2

In this second post about using JAK and Google Geocoder I have included a new application that processes a CSV file containing a list of descriptions and addresses. It uses a library from http://ostermiller.org/utils/ which simplifies the reading of CSV files.

The following code snippet shows the usage of the CSVParser class from OsterMiller.org.

String addresses[][] = null;
try {
   CSVParser csv = new CSVParser(new FileReader("restaurants.csv"));
     try {
         addresses = csv.getAllValues();
         } catch (IOException ex) {
         Logger.getLogger(Main.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
         }
   } catch (FileNotFoundException ex) {
      Logger.getLogger(Main.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
      }

Once the string array has been loaded with values we can iterate through the array and use the Geocoder class to find the latitude and longitude of each of the addresses in the file. The code below shows this process and the adding each of the placemarks into the KML file.

for (int i=0; i<addresses.length; i++){
  try {            
      location1 = Geocoder.getLocation(addresses[i][1]).toString();
      } catch (IOException ex) {
         Logger.getLogger(Main.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
      }
      final Placemark placemark1 = document.createAndAddPlacemark()
                  .withName(addresses[i][0])
                  .withDescription(addresses[i][1] + addresses[i][2]);
      placemark1.createAndSetPoint().addToCoordinates(location1);
      }

The full code for this project is here. I hope that you find it useful.

Create your own font

Would you like a font that matches your handwriting? Try this new service from FontCapture. It will create a TrueType font from your own handwriting. All it requires is a printer and a scanner.

An example of a font created by this tool is shown below.



Edit: this service is no longer free. The font costs between $9.95 and $14.95 to download. (24/08/2010)