Back in May I mentioned about how I was tracking commercial airliners by direct reception of the mode-S transmissions used in many (but not all) aircraft. I’ve since discovered that you can now track many aircraft online using a free site called planefinder.net.  I have no idea if the tracks are time delayed (I hope they are for security reasons!) and the site is dependant on mode-S hobbyists sharing their data to all (so expect the odd gap), but chances are if you are about to whizz on your hols or business trip you’ll be able to track your flight.

Just for good measure iPhone and iPad versions are also available….

If you are looking for a freebie quick and simple way to capture both the screen and audio output from a Windows PC have a look at oRTipa . It lacks the bells and whistles of the paid for screen capture software but is absurdly simple to use and will output to most popular video standards.

Probably the  best flash demo you’ll ever see in your life.  Click here to view it, turning your sound on will enhance the experience further

I find it quite baffling that many organisations (including the UK Government) are still using Internet Explorer 6 despite the howling security gaps and support dropping by the day.   I could understand it if was because people wanted to use it with their internal intranets to retain compatibility ….  but to allow IE6 to be used for external Internet access too?

On a more positive note a funeral service for Internet Explorer 6 was held last week which was well attended, see  http://ie6funeral.com ,  flicker photos here

Recently I did some work for a friend that involved capturing the whole of a web page as an image rather than just the visible section inside the browser window.  Along the way I stumbled across a great Firefox add-on called Screengrab which makes this a doodle and is platform agnostic.  Click the example below to get  an idea what a captured page is saved as..

Weird, I was joking with a collegue earlier today that Apple’s new iPad sounded like a hi-tech item ladies might use, then I spotted Kira Cochrane’s post on the Guardian Tech blog today which reported MAD TV has been talking about the iPad as far back as 2006…..

Just spent a few days getting some “Winter rays” on the Island of Fuerteventura where it seems to be around 25 degrees even in December and a litre of the local brandy is 7€ a litre…

Anyhoo, the choice of TV in out apartment is a tad limited, the obligatory BBC World, CNN, CNBC and the obligatory  dollop of German, Dutch and Italian channels. Thankfully my Geek travel bag includes an iPod video-out lead and phono-to-scart lead meaning the dearest and I have been overdosing in 2 episodes of Midsomer Murders each eve courtesy of the iPod Touch and an iTunes-enabled netbook I’ve been feeding it with every day.

My point is that any video  iPod is a superb portable video player you can easily hook up to hotel TV Scart or comp video in socket  in most countries enabling you to watch what you consider to watch premium pre-recorded content you’ve already amassed. In my case premium means all of the Star Trek series, Columbo, The Outer Limits and lots of (mostly B-rated) Sci-fi movies grabbed from Channel 5 and late night BBC using eye TV on the Mac though Hauppauge kit for Windows boxes would do the same job.

Although the official 4th/5th Gen Apple video-out lead is circa £30 you can buy a Hong Kong knock off for under a fiver on eBay and a phono-to-Scart adapter for a couple of quid.

(Sent from apartment 237, Player Park Club, Fuerteventura using the hotel’s wiFi which only works by the pool and 3G is very hit’n'miss..)

P.S - interesting to note that Google ads has spotted I’m blogging from a Spanish speaking IP address and placing Spanish ads at times.. clever eh..

A site worth bookmarking or adding to your RSS feed is Giveaway of the day.  Most days the site features free PC or Mac software with licences you might normally expect to pay for.  Often these are the sort of programs you would expect to see as the star freebie ” worth £20″ or whatever on on magazine cover disks, however the download link and registration links are only valid for 24 hours.

From what I can tell these are often earlier versions that have been superseded or perhaps heavily pirated, at least this way you can use the software with a clear conscious effectively following the  try-before-you-buy route though the programs are generally fully featured and not crippled in any way.

Today they are offering Paragon NTFS for Mac 6.5, a utility that allows OS X to read and write to NTFS drives, ideal if you have an externals media drive you share between Windows and Apple machines….

Looks interesting for anyone who wants to share on a fixed Ethernet connection or 3G connection. OK, so you can do this natively in Windows but not with WPA2 encryption on offer.  Currently in beta, download link here ….

A few years ago the tech media was awash with talk of Second Life, a virtual existence in Cyberspace where players could choose just about any lifestyle they’d care to imagine performing virtual commerce including dealing in property and goods, in some instances actually converting newly acquired cyber wonga in to real world dosh.

For years Radio Hams often sat in dark little rooms (affectionately known as radio shacks) communicating with fellow hams across the world thanks to the magic of radio propagation.

In keeping with Second Life there is now a virtual radio environment in cyberspace called Hamsphere where the ionosphere and other factors are synthesised in a very realistic way to emulate many of the atmospheric conditions you might expect to find over a real  HF radio circuit.  Amazingly us hams can communicate to other each in real time over this virtual radio circuit with many of the associated pops, crackles and fading scenarios we’re used to in the real world.

You don’t have to be a Ham to use Hamsphere as there is a receive only option, requirements are a Windows PC with an up-to-date Java installation.