As seen on Stargate

I am a fan of Sci-fi series Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis and they use some pretty cool gadgets that are actual consumer computing products. The Dell desktop and laptops are a common sight as well as other more futuristic gadgets. The Tapwave Zodiac featured on a few of the series was one reason I got one. The latest SG-1 episode even has a pair of Zodiacs used to store the cure for the Prior plague (see screen cap).

Another neat product is Motion Computing's Tablet PCs. I have yet to see any of these in the local retail shops and they look gorgeous. Its featured in Stargate Atlantis and is often seen used by Dr McKay in tablet form within a bump case. Its also found in its desktop dock with keyboard in Dr Weir's office.

Got Tomorrow-ed

Hmm... I was wondering why there was a sudden surge in the number of hits to this blog. Upon checking my StatsCounter, I realised it was tomorrow-ed. No wonder... LOL

Talking Moose

I found this recommendation for a text-to-speech synthesis app called 'Moose' which is free.

Its based on a similar application from the old Macintosh called Talking Moose. Once installed, you may choose to make it speak the text from its app or highlighting your text from other apps and running it from the command bar. It can also be set to occasionally spew random quotes and even tell the time. Though the voice used is a robotic one, it is surprisingly clear. It can even read numbers as "thousand" or "millions" and even "billion" instead of individual digits.

It doesn't seem to work very well on my Zodiac 2, it keeps switching off after telling the time when I power it up and even randomly powers up and tells the time. I should say this is quite useful since my under-utilised Zod is now a talking clock, I press power and it tells me the time.