I had thought it was just a generic word for robot, or the name for the latest phone from Verizon.

Apparently, "DROID" was mentioned once or twice in that "Star Wars" movie and if someone wants to use the term in an official product name, they've got to clear the rights with George and company.

Say you're a phone company like, oh, I don't know, Motorola. Now say that you've got a new Android handset coming out for Verizon and you'd like to call it the Droid. In order to do so, you've got to clear it with Lucasfilm. Now, say, you get permission. All of your ads and such, from here on out, will have to carry fine print that says something to the effect of "DROID" is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies.

So what apps would you want on your Star Wars inspired Droid phone? Here is my short wish list;

• Midichlorian Counter
• Droid Identifer
• Tauntaun Opener
• Trash Compactor Deactivator
• Natalie Portman's Cell Number

I found a neat trick with google today. Entering a search like

time+<placename>

will yield the current local time at that place.

So, by entering in my search of time San Jose, CA Google returns

(At least it did when I did my search at 19:21 EDT)

Microsoft announced Friday their new 'M' language, designed especially for building textual domain-specific languages and software models with XAML.

The new language is to be a part of Microsoft’s new Oslo development and service-oriented strategy, incorporating features from XAML while being textual and domain-specific. M is to be used directly with 2 other components to be released with M along with Visual Studio 2010: Quadrant, a tool for building models visually, and a repository for storing and viewing models in an SQL database.

They say it's also supposed to be cross platform, Let me clarify that statement. By cross platform we mean that this is portable to both Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Vista.

And that is just exactly what I need, another sub par language to learn... Like "D" also from Microsoft.

Being unable to find any decent templates for Adobe Illustrator CS3 CS4 I had to make my own. So I (or anyone else) won't have to go looking I have posted it here.

NOTE:
I don’t design in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF. On most days I don't design at all, if I don't have to so, YMMV!

Calculating the Gigabytes
First of all, you have to find out the total GB of data a single T1 connection can transfer, assuming that there’s no overhead or packet loss. (If you have stats for your packet loss or overhead, just subtract the overhead from the amount of data that can be transferred and continue with the equation.)

Assuming the optimal, a T1 connection can transmit data at 1.536 Mbps. To translate that to Bytes per second you divide by 8 (since there are 8 bits in every byte), and you find that a T1 can transfer data at 192 KBps. Multiply that by 60 seconds in a minute, times 60 minutes in an hour, and you will find that a T1 can transfer 691.2 MB (or 691,200 KB) of data per hour. Multiply that number by 24 to get to 16.589 GB per day.You need to multiply it by 30 days to get 497.664 GB monthly transfer.

Here’s the Math:

• 1.536 Mbps / 8 = 192 KBps (or 0.192 MBps)
• 0.192 MB * (60sec * 60min) = 691.2 MB/hour
• 691.2 MB * (24hours * 30days) = 497,664 MB (or 497.664 GB)/month

I had to do this myself just recently and figured that I would just post it here for future reference.

Josh is having a contest over at UsefullConcept.com

Its time to hold a contest!  One winner, and anyone can participate.  All to promote my RIAdventure cruise this February.  (social cruise for CF/Flex/AIR geeks and family from Miami to Bahamas)

The questions you have to answer are:

1) List your top reason someone should go to RIAdventure.
2) List your top reason you want to try out WOW (world of warcraft).

and my answers were:

I got this one...

Why should some one go to RIAdventure... cuz I'm gonna be there! (along with other top developers in the industry)

My top reason to try out WOW... All the "cool kids" are doing it... and I'm just a lemming.

Every now and then I have to do some RegEx stuff and I am not a big fan of pulling out reference manuals, and RegEx Cheat Sheets. Instead I have used a bunch of different online Regular Expression testing tools and I like the one that gSkinner.com has put out above all others.

Check it out, They also have a desktop version built in AIR.