Animoto shows 14 of your photos with wild Ken Burns effects over a 30 second music clip. I made videos for our trips to Sapporo and Kobe.

Jam Studio is an online version of GarageBand. It lets you create your own song backings, by mixing 8 clips, each of one bar, from a library of "40,000". I find it even easier to use than GarageBand, as it includes a section structure, reminiscent of tracker's arrangements, so that you can, say, write the chorus once, and then very easily reuse it throughout the song.

The deal-breaker limitation is that it offers only bar-level sequencing: There is no way to create new melodies. Still, for making backing tracks, this is the easiest method I've ever seen.

Coat salmon steaks with olive oil and lemon juice, sprinkle with salt and pepper, then sear in preheated pan 3 minutes on each side.

• Run cold water on the inside of your wrists. Or apply ice in a washcloth.
• Wet your hair.
• Soak your feet in a bucket of cold water.
• Take frequent cool showers, and afterwards leave your skin and hair wet.
• Take a bath. Every few minutes, let some water out and add cold water.
• Soak your synthetic shirt.
• Spray water on your sleeves and pant legs.
• Spray water on your face and neck throughout the day.
• Wrap a wet towel around your neck or head.

• Open windows and curtains at night; close during the day.
• Stay downstairs.
• Use electric fans. Blow them on ice, wet clothes, or exposed skin.
• Run a fan between the open window and the bed so it will draw in cooler night air.
• Get on an early schedule. Do physical tasks during the coolest hours: 4 to 7 a.m.
• Avoid heaters: Wash your clothes in cold water, then hang them up wet instead of using the dryer.
• Avoid TVs, PCs, lights.

• Sip ice water throughout the day. Avoid caffeine, hot drinks, sugar and alchohol.
• Eat cold food: Fresh fruit, cottage cheese, yogurt, sandwiches, salads, and vegetable juice. Avoid protein.
• Cook with microwave. Avoid burners and boiling which heat your home.
• Spices increase sweat and distract you from the heat.
• Freeze chopped fruit (watermelon or pineapple).

• Stay inside around noon.
• Stay in the shade. Find a breezy spot to sit.
• Wear a hat and a light colored, loose, cotton, long-sleeve shirt.
• Visit an air-conditioned mall, library, church, movie theater, bookstore, or friends house. Work with their wifi.

• Hold ice until it hurts.
• Blow into a glass of ice cubes.
• Take 5-10 deep breaths, inhaling through your mouth, and exhaling through your nose. Stick your tongue out through an "o" shaped mouth.
• Avoid hand fans: The calories spent in moving them make you hotter!

I'm trying plaxo, an adsense-supported PIM with FaceBook-like "connections".

The PIM offers the usual contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes - the exact same services on my ten-year old Palm. But Plaxo's versions are anemic (e.g., tasks lack a context, critical for GTD) and Plaxo is awkward (everything requires multiple clicks; most operations seem much faster at google). Plaxo's saving grace is synchronization with its competitors (google and yahoo calendar and address book) and with desktop programs (Outlook and the Mac retinue). Plaxo doesn't actually sync with your Palm or cell phone, but there is a lite version of the web site, barely usable on networked PDAs and phones (m.plaxo.com). Unfortunately it's still baking: Plaxo doesn't seem to display all the entries on my google calendar.

Plaxo's "connections", a subset of your contacts, are links to other Plaxo members. When those members change their contact information, your address book automatically reflects the update. This sounds like a great feature, but it works only for your friends using plaxo. Plaxo also shows your contact's favorite RSS feeds, which again sounds great - a single list of everyone's activities and photos - but again, it shows information only from those who've already signed up for plaxo, and shows only the first few words of each blog entry - it can't compete with a proper feed reader.

I'm not sure what, if anything, I'll use plaxo for. I already store my calendar and addresses on google's services, and see no reason to switch to plaxo. I could use plaxo as a backup, in case google ever goes down; plaxo could also backup my google data to a PC, in case I ever need to work disconnected from the net. I suppose if enough if my contacts eventually join plaxo, I might use it as a social network, competing with facebook. I'm not holding my breath.

Today we enjoyed our second big NIPCC Skype conference call. Participating were nine of us, including five members near Nagoya (Ernie, Esther, Mineko, Robert, and Chris) and four members at large (cyber-criminalist Yuji in Takashima, club founder Martin in Canada, Alex in the UK, and Stephen in California). Skype made it very convenient to talk with ex-members as well as current members on vacation or traveling all over the world. It was a little awkward to get together all at the same time (Alex had to log on at four in the morning) but I found it a great convenient, even for us living in Nagoya, eliminating our commute.

Technically, Skype's voice chat worked quite well. In our two hour conversation, only a couple times did people drop out, and I was able to add them back in, once I realized they were out. The half-second latency, though, stilted our conversation. We all (well, mostly all) hesitated to speak up for fear of speaking over someone. As a result, just two or three bold men did 95% of the talking. But as a consolation, the text chat was often very active, with a stream of questions, URLs, and sometimes completely separate threads of conversation, all running in parallel to the spoken chit chat. I found the combination stimulating.

Our main technical topic was blogging. Robert encouraged us to visit our NIPCC unifeed which collects all our blogs, photos, and twits. (The same information is abridged text-only on twitter.) Chris noted that only four of us were collected, and asked why some members still don't have blogs. Unemployed Stephen reported he can't find the time! Robert suggested microblogging (such as twitter.com) and del.icio.us as quick and easy, but admits he himself spends hours a day blogging. More than time, a deeper problem is that most members still consider blogs limited to diaries, stream of consciousness, noise about cats. Ernie further maintained that blogs are just one tool, appropriate for some things but not others; good blogs should focus on things (like travel in Japan) and not people; and Twitter is the ultimate narcissistic and uninteresting.

Besides the tech talk, we also enjoyed some catching up with all those who'd moved away, talking about the local weather and work. Martin Green explained how he lives in nature, and maintains a North Canadian public school network. A fantastic idyllic life to those of us still stuck in Nagoya!

All in all, I enjoyed meeting through Skype, and hope that all future NIPCC meetings use something like Skype, at least as an adjunct to physical meetings, so that we can all conveniently participate, wherever we are. (We still have to figure out how to present slides and demo screens.) It's the meeting of the future - today!

Last night, Esther, Robert, and Chris tried ShoePhone. We had hoped to use it for a larger conference call today. But it was a complete failure: None of us ever heard the others.

So today, Stephen, Robert, Ernie, and Chris instead made a 90 minute Skype conference call. (Mineko and Esther were also present, but partipated little. Rowane was on and quite vocal for a short while.)

Technically, Skype worked so-so. Most of us enjoyed very good voice quality, but sometimes we had bad echos, and about half of us experienced catastrophic failures: At some point we lost the ability to hear anyone else, or to be heard. About half of these bugs were repaired by hanging up and then reconnecting. I’d estimate we spent about 30 of our 90 minute conference working on getting and keeping everyone connected.

Socially, the meeting was pretty good. I’ve just read that email, text chat, and instant messaging are less valuable than phone calls, which are in turn less valuable than face to face conversations. Of course email is easier to set up than face to face conversations, so email is potentially enjoyed more frequently. Researchers found that if electronic networking is used to supplement face to face meetings, it adds happiness, but if it’s used to replace face to face meetings, it makes people less happy. In summary,

value & effort: chat/IM < phone < f2f

happy: email or f2f < email and f2f

I noticed this during our conference call. Making the call was much less work than meeting people face to face, which for me involves getting dressed, spending a couple hours on the train, and paying dozens of dollars. On the other hand, I did miss seeing everyone’s body language, and the conference call wastes time getting set up and working out turn-taking.

Our meeting was a free-form Q&A bull session, which worked well for some things. It was a pretty good chance to catch up with Stephen, who, having moved thousands of miles away, we don’t see anymore. Other parts of the meeting seemed to involve an active pair – one person asking a personal question about their own computer set-up, and another person attempting an answer – while the other members seemed to ignore the exchange, perhaps finding it irrelevant. I heard something similar happened at our physical July meeting. But this time, online, sometimes these other members used text chat to discuss unrelated items. I enjoyed having the two channels – text and voice – going simultaneously, but imagine it could be even more stressful and confusing that the typical chat session.

For our future meetings, I’m looking forward to viewing a more structured presentation, with perhaps a concurrent Q&A text chat, and seeing how that works.

One technical thing I got out of the conference was Robert’s advice to use tumblr to collect all our feeds. I set up geeks.tumblr.com to show all our photos and blog posts. Enjoy!

In a large skillet heat 1 cup vegetable oil over high heat. Cook patties 8 minutes, until browned on both sides. Drain briefly on paper towels.

In a small bowl, blend 1/2 c plain yogurt, 1/4 c Dijon mustard, 1 T honey, 1/4 c fresh lemon juice, and 3 T chopped fresh dill. Cover and refrigerate.

To a pan, add 1 c white wine, and 1 pound salmon. Add about 1/2 c water, to just cover the fish. Sprinkle with 1/4 c chopped shallots. Cook covered 10 minutes, until salmon flakes with fork. Drain. Serve with yogurt sauce.

In a small bowl, mix 1/3 c soy sauce, 1/3 c brown sugar, 1/3 c water, 1/4 c vegetable oil until sugar dissolves. Pour into large ziplock with fish, seal, and turn to coat. Refrigerate 2+ hours.

Discard marinade. Preheat grill, lightly oil, then cook salmon 6-8 minutes/side, until it flakes with fork.