I have it installed, and will be trying it out as much as I can.  Ironically, I don’t normally have very much on my computer desktop, because of the problem BumpTop attempts to solve, but I’ll try to get out of the habit of keeping the desktop clean so that I can think of things in a new BumpTop way.

…my actual physical desktop is usually pretty cluttered, though.
I wish there was something that would let me keep papers, magazines, and bills as organized as in BumpTop.

Things don’t work in the beta exactly like the video below, but the concepts are the same.  In addition to what you see in the video, there are “photo frames” on the walls that can be slideshows of photos on my computer, or elsewhere on the web.

So, you might know about how panoramas are created without a panoramic camera…  Take a bunch of photos on a tripod while panning around a scene, then put them all in something that can interpret the photos as sort of meshing together to create an extra wide photo — a panoramic photo.

Photosynth is kind of like that except it doesn’t work on just 2 dimensions (height and width), meshing the edges of the photos…  it works in 3 dimensions, to create a virtual space by calculating where the camera was that captured the photo (among other magic stuff).  Imagine being in a courtyard, taking photos while turning yourself around.  Load those photos into Photosynth, the software extrapolates the edges and portions each photo has in common, and it creates the courtyard in 3d that you can virtually walk around to examine the features as if you were actually there.

VERY cool stuff, indeed.

It was created by Microsoft Live Labs, and you need to download the software in order to view the “synths” as well as create them.  There’s also a handy guide for tips on taking photos that work best.

Lately, though, things have started to pile up…  Maybe its because it is that time of the year, or maybe it is something else, but suddenly I have a ton of things to do.  So…  I’ve begun looking for help in keeping track of what needs to be done.

This is not a new problem for me.  I bought a Palm Pilot years ago for this reason, but it outlived its usefullness because I don’t always keep ToDo lists.  Sure, I could use it for contact management, but in those days it was easier to just keep a sheet of folded paper with names and numbers.  A few years ago, I tried d-cubed, and found it useful.  It is based on TiddlyWiki.  The idea is that there are tasks arranged into projects that contain actions.  The projects and actions are inserted into a wiki that is self-contained in one file, making it portable to be read offline in any web browser (meaning it works in Linux, Windows, etc.) This is an overly simplified explaination, but that’s the gist.  It really helps with organization of tasks.  d-cubed is a software implementation of GTD (Getting Things Done), which is a method of organizing and accomplishing tasks.  A bit better than just a ToDo list.  I’ve never actually read GTD…  yet.  Using something like d-cubed, I feel I don’t really need to, since its pretty straight forward.

Recently, though, to help in my plight to organize my tasks, I found a better version of a TiddlyWiki implementation in the context of GTD…  monkeyGTD.  Its a pleasure to work with, once I got comfortable with the controls and the terminology of “projects”, “next actions”, and “ticklers”, it helps me organize quite a bit.  I can even schedule a fuzzy type of thing called a “someday maybe/future” task, which is like a task that I might want to do eventually.

…someday maybe/future read GTD, and get even more done…

In fact, I like it so much I have monkeyGTD on a USB key that I carry around with me, updating my tasks, along with TiddlyWiki on the same USB key so that I can keep notes about things that interest me.

This is one of the main reasons Linux people don’t like Windows.  The computer-human interface is limited to a mouse, and the user is forced into a world that is based on finding the correct icon and double-clicking, as well as “Click Next to Continue” and “Are you sure you want to do this? [Ok] [Cancel]“.  Linux users normally subconsciously ask themselves each time “Of course I’m sure, if I wasn’t sure why would I have clicked on it?” There is rarely an instance on Linux where the user types something onto a command-line and is asked “Are you sure?”

For most Windows users, typing on the command-line is not how things are done.  The command-line itself is hidden from view.  Even when it is launched, only the more savvy Windows users know what to type to accomplish anything, because it is remnant of the old DOS era where most things where typed at a C:> prompt.

What if Windows users could type something to launch applications, or find existing opened windows?

Enso is probably the coolest thing I’ve seen, on a Windows platform, in a really long time.  Humanized has taken the concept of a command-line interface and set it free from the window, which makes it a bit better than a terminal window on a Linux platform.  Want to open Mozilla Firefox? Just hold down the Caps Lock key and type OPEN FIREFOX.  A translucent window with no frames pops up informing you “Opening Firefox…” and then Firefox launches.  Want to make a quick calculation in Calculator?   Hold down Caps Lock, and type OPEN CALCULATOR. Up comes the calculator.  Want to go back to Firefox and not have to Alt+Tab your way through all the opened windows?  Hold down Caps Lock, and type GO FIREFOX. Firefox will be brought to the front.

ALL FOR FREE.

Now what would happen if you brought the diversity of vast number of resources on the Internet to bear on this concept?

Mozilla has taken the concept of a command-line and integrated it into the web browser.  Its still in the very early stages of development, but is already VERY useful, especially to a command-line junky like myself.

Ubiquity lets you do tedious tasks within seconds inside the Firefox browser that you would normally spend minutes doing.  Consult your calendar. Check your inbox. Quickly email a friend. Pull up a map of a list of addresses.  Search Youtube.  Translate highlighted text. The list goes on and on because there are new commands being created all the time — and this has only come out a mere week ago!  The actual cool part is that Ubiquity lets you mash and mix things up — insert a map into your email, find lyrics for a song and post them to a webpage, invite someone for a meeting at a restaurant complete with a restaurant review…

They start by introducing a paintball gun robot that fires paint in succession…  The CPU analogy.

Then, they unveil a paintball gun with 2100 barrels to complete the GPU analogy, and paint a somewhat elaborate picture in just under a second.

You want to get into a website that you’ve already registered, but you’ve forgotten your password. In lieu of chatting with someone on the phone or offline, the website asks you a few predetermined questions that you answered when you registered to the website. You know the questions, because most websites have the same set of questions…

• What is your mother’s maiden name?
• What is your first pet’s name?
• Where did you grow up?
• Who did you lose your virginity to?

…ok… maybe not so much that last one, but you get the point.

The problem, though it may not be abundantly apparent, is that your mother’s maiden name is easily obtainable, as well as where you grew up. Most of the things asked to verify your password is a matter of public record, or otherwise obtainable by investigating you.  Essentially, what you know (your password) turns into something other people might find out (mother’s maiden name, high school mascot, etc), in the case you forget your password.

One proposed solution is that these types of questions to verify your identity is replaced by your preferences; in music, movies, colors, type of food, sports, etc.

Enter the Blue Moon Authentication system.

The question, here, is:  Can these things be learned, given a person’s name?

Granted, some things might be actually learned about a person.  A person’s last name denotes heritage and geneology, which might infer food preference, types of movies, etc.  Sites like last.fm actually track a person’s music preferences, and pairs it with  “neighbors” of similar preferences.

Parallel to this, some people answer these types of questions (mother’s maiden name, high school mascot, etc) with purposelly false information, such as “qwerty1234″.  Subsequently, when/if they forget the password and are presented with the question “What is your mother’s maiden name?” to recover the password, they believe they are protected from public records giving this away — qwerty1234 is the answer to all questions, and this is not public record, and therefore useless in attempts to learn the password.  This obfuscating strategy works in a question/answer scenario, but likely doesn’t work very well in the realm of preferences — if you purposefully choose falsely, you may not remember your purposeful false choices upon you forgetting your password.

Quite an interesting problem, indeed, with an interesting possible solution.

If only people could choose good passwords, and remember them…

This is part of a research effort to solve the problem that humans, by nature, choose poor passwords as well as have difficulty in remembering good passwords and/or randomly generated passwords.

Passwords are part of a security system that allow 1 of 3 things:

• Something you have. (Think something like a physical key or keycard)
• Something you are. (Think your fingerprint, or your iris)
• Something you know. (This is where your password fits in. Its “safe” because it should exist only in your brain.)

The proposed solution is to reference a song, image, or other type of digital content to act as the seed of a cryptographic formula. Insert the digital content, apply the proposed hash function, and out pops a password. Granted, you’ll probably have to browse around to find the file used each time you need the password, and doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of when things on the Internet get deleted, its still very interesting stuff.

I haven’t read the entire paper, found here, but one begins to wonder about ways to defeat the method/mechanism… such as learning what song/image someone has used in attempts to gain access as them, or if this is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack since it depends on something you have for a seed.