Today I upgraded my ipod touch to the 2.0 firmware. Whilst the only main difference form the 'January Upgrade' that I also purchased is the addition of the 'Apps' section to the ipod, I still think the upgrade is worth the $12.99 (AUD). This is because of the free 'Remote' application that lets you control itunes remotely. It looks exactly like the normal player on your touch and is super responsive over wifi (Great for parties as music selection can be 'passed around' or as host you can maintain control ).

Pros:

• Remote app is really good
• Better email support (exchange)
• I am sure some more useful apps will come along

Cons:

• $12.99 for a firmware update!

My friend is part of SOAK (Smart Operational Agriculture Kit) and needed some help putting together a demonstration sprinkler for the project. We ended up with a 'sprinkler without water' which can be activated from .NET (we did consider spraying onlookers with water :) ). The main electronics is a serial port controlled switch built using a TIP41C transistor which is activated from a 'Switch' class in C# .NET. The SOAK team then wrapped the class in a web service for use with their project.

Switch Features:

• Uses serial port loopback to automatically detect the com port
• Low Part Count
• Can be controlled over the web

Scroll to bottom for video.

With all the recent 'scares' that your keyboard has more bacteria than a toilet seat you might be wondering what to do. Luckily KFC has your back as their finger wipes are perfect for cleaning your keyboard. Best of all KFC provides their wipes free so all you have to do is pick some up next lunch break! In reality if anything bad was going to come from dirty keyboards it would have by now (go news propaganda :P).

*Wipes will not turn your keyboard into a fancy new mac keyboard. 

If you haven't tried out Microsoft Office's OneNote application you should. It is the best way to take notes on a PC that I have come across (Great for Brainstorming etc.). But to the point; I was using it the other day and discovered that when you search it also searches the text on any images you have inserted into your page. OneNote automatically runs OCR on any inserted images. How cool is that!