Have you ever wanted to boost your Wi-Fi signal? Obviously something like that satellite dish on the left is going a little extreme, but in a sense, it follows the same principals of what I'm going to explain right here.
Now, if you can get your hands on one of these "skimming spiders" (preferably clean) it just so happens to be the perfect shape for a pretty good Wi-Fi antenna.
First of all, you need the "parabola" shaped dish, which is conveniently present in that stainless steel skimming spider on the right. Next, you'll 
need a USB extension cord, because if you try to squeeze this thing right next to the plug, trust me, it's just going to be a pain. Of course, you'll need a USB Wi-Fi adapter to actually recieve the signals with (any one will work).
And you'll need a piece of small plastic pipe (PVC) or some garden hose to insulate the adapter and the extension wire from being damaged or slipping loose from where you want it to be.
Last but not least, you'll need a mathematic equasion! Don't run away yet, it's really easy. Just 3 easy steps:
1. Find the diameter in milimeters and multiply that number by itself (Diameter 
to the 2nd power). (The diameter is just the measurement from the left side to the right side, or just the width of it, not the circumference.) As you can see to the right. Ex: for a 128mm Diameter you would multiply 128x128 = 16,384mm
2. Now you find the depth from the rim of the bowl, to the lowest point in the bowl (In a straight line from the center to the center). Let's just say it's about 32mm deep. Then multiply that by 16. Ex: 32x16 = 512
3. Finally, divide the answer from step 1, by the answer in step 2.
Ex: 16384/512 = 32mm
Now, that means the signals will be focused 32 milimeters out from the center of the dish... So you want your USB Wi-Fi adapter's reciever to be in that general area (the closer the better). Here's a link incase you really wanna get technical about the "Focus" of the dish.
You can always turn on some kind of Live Wi-Fi signal monitoring app and make minor adjustments until it's as good as it's gonna get.
Finally, you don't have to go with just a cooking utensil, that's just a general idea to show you how wide the spectrum is. The best would be something solid, or a mesh with closer weaving... Because the holes aren't actually the key, just the dish shape. The bigger the better, too. Here's an idea for you if you want something REALLY GOOD:
Aluminum WOK LID. LOL! Or, a metal mixing bowl. Anything metal with that particular shape, as long as you use tha
t formula to figure out where the Wi-Fi adapter goes, it should work fine. Plus it's easier than trying to find that special Wi-Fi card that accepts a pigtail connection for one of those fancy antennas that probably cost a ton anyway. Alright, that's all for tonight... Morning...
This flash based game engine uses action script 3, xml, etc. They provide the core engine as open source (free) and then they offer premium components to add functionality to your game (which you have to pay for). There's going to be an Editor made with flash and a networking premium component for enhanced networking. They provide simple networking already.
The core engine comes with a default game setup so you can start with something and just edit and change until you have what you want. It has 2d physics, sprite or swf-based 2d rendering, tile maps, pathfinding, and flash UI capability... So, out of the box, you can make a nice 2d game with simple networking and physics.
I might reconsider this over Alternativa Platform. Depends which one comes out on top. But it's already open-source, which is always a plus.
The image on the right is an example game made with the engine.
Today I was poking around with the idea of installing something other than Ångström on an OpenPandora. There are a few nice candidates I ran across:
Maemo - This was one a lot of people over at the OpenPandora Forums post talking about Maemo on the pandora. Seems the discussion came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be worthwhile to try very hard to port Maemo over to work on the pandora, even though there is a new version of Maemo coming out soon, which will use much less closed-source applications and will support ARM architechture as well as OMAP3 (which OpenPandora uses)... All in all, it's by far the closest match.
- Ubuntu MID Edition - This one had me a little bit excited at first, but then I realised it was designed for x86 architechture so it wouldn't work on a pandora. BUT! I love the fact that it's made by the people who make Ubuntu. They have released Ubuntu 9.04, which supports the ARM CPU, so that gives me hope when it comes to them porting MID Edition over to the ARM architechture... Anyway, this would be my dream OS for a pandora, for a couple reasons:
1. It supports Adobe Flash.
(But I know it can't be supported even if ported to ARM because the Adobe Flash package isn't open source, so it wouldn't be able to be ported over itself) But you know what that means, Alternativa-made games would work on it. :D
2. It supports Java.
Not just JavaScript, but actual Sun Microsystems Java. That is something Maemo doesn't have, AFAIK.
3. It's Ubuntu.
So you get all the support and applications that Ubuntu does, because of the large repositories. You also get the steady updates and the friendly community forums they have.
In my personal opinion, if I flipped open any screen and saw that desktop glowing back at me, that would just be the icing on the cake. Even though, I'm only listing ALL of the OSs I would want to see on a UMPC, this one has got to be, by far, my favorite so far. - Moblin - This one is actually being developed by Intel, but it's open-source, which is kind of surprising. Sadly, it only supports Intel ATOM CPUs (obviously, since Intel is making it) which means not ARM or others.
Here is an intro video they made talking about it's features... Looks really sleek and comfortable to use. Well, that's about all for today. See you tomorrow!
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