Musing and Gadgets

I have been looking for a way to search Friendfeed and Twitter when certain topics become popular, or to see what a certain user has been posting. Nothing has quite satisfied me, you can search friendfeed, but you have to be on the site, which can be inconvenient. I thought I had found the answer with Google Custom Search Engine. Now I am not sure, since I can’t seem to figure out how to limit the date range it searches

The set up is fairly straight forward. The first thing you do is go to your Igoogle page and click on more (this is assuming you have a google account) Under Explore and Innovate you will see Custom Search, click on it, then click on Create a Custom Search engine. It will then take you to a page that allows you set your search parameters, including keywords, sites you want to search and language

In my example I used Smugmug as the site, pictures, photos and videos as keywords. After you agree to Terms of Service, you click next and you can preview, I used the term Old North Church to test it. With the following result It works really well in a case like that. Where it falls short for me so far is for searching sites like Friendfeed or Twitter, the search itself works fine, the problem is there is no way, that I can see to set parameters. For example if I want to search for Robert Scoble’s post on Friendfeed for the last 24 hours, I haven’t found a way to do it. You can search for Robert Scoble, but you get all of Robert Scobles post since he started using Friendfeed in no particular order. Although, I sure this would be helpful to someone, it is not what I am looking for. I am sure there is a way to limit the date range, I am just not sure how. I am going to keep messing around with it till I figure it out, because Custom Google search has a lot of potiental

Update to this post: if you add as_qdr=d to end of url and hit return, your search will be limited to the last 24 hours. If you you use d10 you limit the search to the last 10 days. You can also limit by week or year by using w or y. Found the answer at Ask Dave

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I don’t use itunes or a pod catcher to get my podcast, instead I use Feedly , which is a firefox add on. For me its the best way to do it. The only problem is how to get the podcast into Itunes. To that I have set up a program through Automator. The first thing I do is use download them all

to download the podcast to my podcast folder. At that point I have attached the following automator action to my podcast folder

The files then go into Itunes and are ready to be sync to my iphone.

. It is a simple program but it does what I want.

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By law the government has the right to search your suite case at the airport or border at anytime and for any reason. The question that is being asked now is whether your laptop is a suitcase or is it something more. Homeland Security has decided that your laptop is a suite case that can be searched and seized at anytime and kept for a reasonable time. Many privacy and freedom advocates say no, the laptop is something more. That for most people increasingly the laptop carries the most personal information and should not be searched or seized without probable cause.

Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Homeland security says that it is necessary to fight terrorism and child pornography. Almost everyone would agree that these are laudable goals. However there is nothing that stops them from seizing the laptop for any reason. A lot of people will say if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. The problem with this line of thinking is it assumes that the government will always be benevolent. This unfortunately is not true, if you think it is then you should read the history of the civil rights movement or the House on Un-American activity of the 1950’s

In our attempts to fight terrorism we must be careful that we don’t give up the very freedom we are trying to protect. Original article found at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Daily Breakfast 512 - Sardines and Google Juice

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Most of the podcast, I listen to are technology related, there are a few exceptions and one of then is the Daily Breakfast . A show that is produced and announced by Father Roderick, a Catholic Priest located in the Netherlands. The Daily Breakfast is a part of the SQPN family of programs. The program runs about 30 minutes and is available Monday through Friday. Each show starts out with what happening in your world, where someone who has called in will tell the latest happening in their world. These can run anywhere from observation about a local fairs, to news about a visit by the Pope. He then talks about the latest sci-fi movie that he has seen or wants to see. The movies are always reviewed or previewed based on his Catholic Faith. This can lead to ongoing conversation, like if there are aliens what does it mean for a Catholic. He also talks about his favorite American and British TV shows, like Battlestar Galactica, Hells Kitchen and others. He usually does a section about food or episode about exercise. The one section that, is about the Catholic faith, is called the peculiar bunch, where he talks about why Catholics do certain things, like go to the confession, light candles to name a few. This is done, in an educational but not preachy way. The show ends with a thought of the day. The Sqpn network its self has a multiple number of podcast related to the Catholic faith, from both the view of the layman, but also Priest and other clergy. It was started about 2005 by Father Rodericks. Some of the shows are more for those who are deeply immersed in the Catholic faith or others are more for the novice. If you are Catholic, curious about the Catholic faith or just want to listen to something thats educational but fun, then I would recommend the Daily Breakfast.