German architect Rolf Disch has built a home, called Heliotrope, that is able to generate five times the solar energy that it consumes.

The way it does this is by rotating itself to follow the rays of the sun throughout the day. The structure features a 6.6 kWH solar panel (called the Sun Sail) on the rooftop that is able to rotate independently from the house to produce more than enough energy for the house to consume. The advantage this provides is 30 to 40 percent more energy generation than that of the traditional rooftop solar panels.

The balcony railings on the roof double as solar thermal collectors that act as water heaters and radiators. On a cloudy day, the house can be heated with wood chips and the solar thermal heating.

Technology within the house is also green, with waste water being re-used after going through a purification system, and rainwater is collected in a rooftop basin. Even human waste matter is turned into compost through the toilet system.

The architect himself lives within the prototype of the house and two other Heliotropes have been built to date, costing $2 million each.

Here is a video tour of the house. Unfortunately it is in German, so for those who don’t understand the language, make what you will of it.

Design wise, this isn’t the most aesthetic house I’ve seen, but with all the green technological advances that make up what the house is, I do think that this house can make a difference. Though something may have to be done about that steep pricetag to make it available for everyone.

Mention the word Penang… your imagination (and mine) would automatically venture to the beautiful stretch of beaches along Batu Ferringhi.

But once you have driven past the Batu Ferringhi stretch and resisted the temptation of stopping by one of the gorgeous beaches, you would reach the end of it and find yourself at the Penang National Park. This would prove to be the start of a hiking venture that few know about and have experienced, though those who have would most definitely recommend this adventure to others!

Take a short walk up the trail and you would find yourself at an intersection, the left takes you to Kerachut Beach while a right turn takes you to Monkey Beach. Take the left turn and hike for an hour or two before you arrive to a secluded beach that is alluring and charming in every way imaginable. Alternatively you could also take a boat to the beach (it’s about RM15 one way per person the last time I checked), but hiking to the beach makes the journey more enjoyable.

Enjoy the gorgeous sunset at the beach, or camp overnight and watch the stars at night as Kerachut Beach is a brilliant camping site (for those who know the spot). It also holds a turtle hatchery site, thus if you are a fan of turtles, this place would appeal to your greatly!

Exhausted after a day of hiking? Time for a huge meal to recharge if you ask me! No one visits Penang without having a taste of the famous Nasi Kandar, thus why not consider a plate! I have tried countless nasi kandar stalls in Penang, but the one that sticks in mind each and every time is most definitely Nasi Kandar Line Clear! Trust me when I say that Line Clear serves the best servings of nasi kandar anywhere in Penang!

Located in an alley in between Chulia Street and Penang Road, the place might not be the cleanest around, but you will forget about hygiene the moment you set eyes on the scrumptious dishes on display! Highly recommended is the Ayam Madu (Honey Chicken) which practically melts in your mouth, and for those that love Fish Head Curry, this is the place to taste the best of the lot!

The same can be said about their chicken curry, chicken kurma, fried squid, mutton curry and all their other dishes! No matter what you take, you would not be left disappointed!

Apparently Nasi Kandar Line Clear has been around since 1947! And if you are concerned about budget, worry not as Line Clear charges extremely affordable prices for their food.

Us tech people need a break too. So why not try out Malaysia’s technology capital? Time to head off to Penang again, what say you?

Here’s a preview of Ang Pao design:

To make your own DIY Ang Pao, download your Ang Pao packet design over here.

Instructions

1. Download Ang Pao Packet Design printable version here.
2. Buy 80 or 100gm of normal paper (not advisable to use thick paper as it is difficult for folding – you can also buy grain paper to achieve the grain effect if so desired.)
3. Open in Photoshop
4. Print in A4 size paper.
5. Cut out using pen knife
6. Fold according to the number sequence as given, then glue the highlighted part.

7. You will get your Ang Pow.

If you like, send Monkey Kong an Ang Pao with some money in it

Android plans to change all that by offering a very solid and robust software for running a smartphone, but because Google is giving it away for free, any company manufacturing phones can make phones for the software. You are no longer limited to buying hardware from a particular company, but you can choose from a wider choice now because as long as the phone you buy runs Android, the experience is going to be the same. This gives the consumer more power to choose the best hardware without having to worry about the software quality. This is the reason why Motorola eschewed using their own (terrible) phone software and instead focused on making a great phone (hardware-wise) then dropping Android into it, for free no less.

I can go on about the benefits and future that Android is poised to bring to consumers in the next few years, and even about Google’s plans to enter the phone manufacturing business by making their own exclusive phone, but I’m not going to talk about that today. Today, we’re going to teach you how to get Android on your Windows Mobile devices.

The tutorial today only covers HTC’s Touch Pro and HTC Touch HD as well as HTC Diamond. Due to some awesome work from hackers, they have successfully got Android to run on these phones which previously run Windows Mobile. The greatest complaint against WM is the extremely annoying LAG. As with their desktop cousins, WM is full of bloat and perhaps inefficient GUI design, leading to much lag when doing simple things like opening menus and viewing information. This lag is nothing major on its own, but imagine it as a prick that keeps embedding itself into your skin, every single second that you are using your phone. Is that how you like your experience with a phone to be?

Installing Android on these devices may or may not eliminate the lag, but it certainly will help somewhat. Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes. But you’ve got nothing to lose anyway so why don’t give it a try?

A primer on how the process works. You download some files and a special program and place it on your memory (or internal) storage. Start your phone and launch the program and the phone will reboot into Android. This method needs you to run Windows Mobile first, then only reboot into Android. There’s no way to directly start your phone on Android currently, but it’s good enough since most people don’t restart their phones that often. It is recommended that you format your phone and memory cards so that there is no clutter that may impact performance.

Head on to this website and locate the latest package for your phone. The author has conveniently packaged everything into one package with instructions to boot. After grabbing the special modified version of Android, you need to get HaRET, which is the Windows Mobile application that allows you to boot into Android. Just get the latest one and you should be good.

The next step is to unzip everything from the Android package & HaRET into the root of your external storage. For the Diamond, you need to unzip into its internal storage root. Make sure your startup.txt file is the correct one. The default that came with the package is for RAPH100. To get the exact model code for your version you can refer to this website (for the Touch Pro). A simple Google search should also show which code refer to which device.

Once all that is done, just start HaRET from inside Windows Mobile. Your phone should reboot directly into Android!

If you need more info on getting network connections to work, this rather complicated post is the only solution for now. Data connection might or might not be important for you, but I think it really adds to the overall experience. Personally I don’t really use much Data because its quite expensive, but if it’s a must then you’ll need to follow the steps from the link.

Anyway I hope you enjoy your new HTC Android phone! HTC will be producing more Android devices in the future, but this way you can assess Android’s performance and usability without having to spend a single cent. Have fun!

And just like their automobiles, not only are their aircrafts ultra-cool, sleek and smart, they pack a real punch under the hood too. Just check out this baby:

What’s so unique about this jet? Well, look closer at the images and you’ll find that its turbo engines are mounted on its wings, unlike conventional jets that fix their engines in the rear. According to their engineers, this minimizes shock wave and reduces drag, making the plane more fuel-efficient and fast.

The jet also features a Natural Laminar Flow (NLF) Wing and Nose, specially designed to decrease wind drag, which Honda claims will help to reduce fuselage drag by an estimated 10%.

And how powerful is this animal? The first fleet of Honda Jets, scheduled to be completed in 2011, will be mounted with the HF120 turbofan, an upgraded, souped-up version of its predecessor, the HF118 turbofan. The HF120, combining cutting-edge technology and superior materials, will enable the jet to reach a maximum cruise speed of 778km/hr or 483 mph or 420 knots – just a jumble of numbers, if you ask me. But to put things a little more into perspective, the jet travels faster than twice the maximum speed of the F1 Honda car (340 km/h) and the speed of a falcon nose-diving (298km/h).

Positioning of the turbofan over the wings also creates more interior space and cargo capacity, allowing the jet to comfortably seat 6 to 7 passengers. And its flight deck is equipped with an open architecture all-glass flat display.

Of course, an important question would be, how much can we trust Honda, well-known automobile manufacturer, no doubt, to come up with an aircraft that they claim is superior in efficiency and performance, compared to others? Well, they’re not exactly new to the aircraft industry. Apparently, they’ve been researching on the jet since the 80’s, which started off as an experimental project for a research program.

Later on, they developed their own HF118 turbofan jet and successfully sent their first plane airborne in 2003. Wanting to get into the commercial market, Honda collaborated with GE Aviation to develop their next generation of superior engine – the HF120 turbojet.

Sales of the Honda Jets began in 2006 and are projecting to make their first customer delivery in 2011. The jets are priced at a cool US$3.9million. Anyone interested?

For more information on Honda Jet, please jump over to Honda Advanced Technology – Tomorrow being made today!

The book teaches you about useful CSS techniques such as making rounded corners, creating navigation tabs, styling web forms and list, designing web page backgrounds with images and so on.

The book costs US$26.37 on Amazon.com but you can download this for free as a PDF eBook. All you have to do is follow @sitepointdotcom on Twitter. If that’s too difficult, you can also simply pop your email address at SitePoint.com and they will send you the download instructions.

Don’t miss out this fantastic download. This CSS eBook is ideal for anyone who wants to gain the practical skills involved in using CSS to make attractive web sites, especially if you’re not the type who likes to learn by memorizing a formal specification and then trying to work out which browsers implemented it completely. The only knowledge you’ll need to have is some familiarity with HTML.

Don’t wait, this free download expires in 8 days, 6 hours and 14 minutes!

The scholarship package comes with a HP Pavilion tx2520au Entertainment Notebook PC absolutely free! And, mind you, that’s not the best part. You get a LUMP SUM PAYOUT and NO BONDING whatsoever!

Really unbelievable, if only I am still a student.

Check out more info here on HP’s website. No, I don’t work for HP nor AMD.

Well, the other day Kitkat wrote a post on viewing The Incredibles in ASCII format. Now you can watch Star Wars 4 in ASCII / text mode format too. It’s not as elaborated as The Incredibles, but the text representations of the characters are funny.

You can watch it here

OR

Type “telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl” (without the quotes) into your RUN prompt.

The first link will take you to an http website (would probably save you on bandwidth) and the second command line will connect your computer to telnet and open the text mode movie in your Command box.

Some sample images from the movie :

20th Century Text

R2D2 and C3PO

Luke Skywalker received his lightsaber from ObiWan Kenobi

Luke Skywalker practicing his lightsaber skills with ObiWan Kenobi

The movie will run until the scene where Luke rescues Lea from her cell or room or whatever. Now if only I have the patient to watch / read through all the scenes till it finishes. One tip though, the http one has rewind and forward controls that you can use to make the video goes faster, well useful in case you got bored. As you might have guess by now, the Command box does not allow you to fast forward or rewind.

I know it’s not in the same episode, but how I wish to see Jabba the Hut in text mode!

So if you are all ready to watch Star Wars in ASCII or text mode, sit back and enjoy the movie!

Media-Convert is a website that helps you to convert your file to another file type; in my case, from an .odt document to a .doc document. It’s a real breezy process too.

1. You just browse for the document that you want to convert.
2. Select the type of the original document (or you can leave it at automatic detection).

3. Then select your choice of output file type.
4. And then click OK.
5. Click Continue on the File Info page.

6. After successful conversion, choose either to download the file in converted file or a zip file.

You can even try to convert movie file types from one type to another, although I suspect that’s gonna take a long time for the whole process. You’ve got to upload it, then they will convert it and then you will need to download it again. It’s probably alright to convert sound or audio files, images, and also text files because of the file size.

Other than doing a file conversion, you can also use Media-Convert capture Website Screenshots and also use it to convert files directly from a given URL. You can also host files with Media-Convert for file sizes up to 150MB.

Another service that you can use is the Send File to Mobile function. You can just upload a file onto the website’s server and then it will return an address for you (or the intended recipients) to download the file via WAP or GPRS on their phones.

I’ve tried converting an .odt file to a .doc file and also a .pdf file to an .rft file. No more worries about getting the right software and the right plug ins or extensions anymore! It’s probably useful if you are stuck in the compute labs or the cyber cafe and you can’t view your files. And if you are, go to Media-Convert now to view your files!

You are using the PC at the computer lab in your college or university and someone sent you a picture that you really like, well, except that there is this idiot in the picture that you would like to cut out before you post it up in Facebook. Let’s face it, it’s a PC in the computer lab, what are the odds that this particular PC will have some simple image editing software? 50% chance? 10%? Or none at all?

Well, it’s not an uncommon situation to be in. To be honest, it happened to me a few times before, but it was my own laptop that has no image editing software. To be fair, I just format the machine and had no patience to download anything via a 56k modem.

But fret no more! Don’t bother with looking and downloading a software off the Internet just to edit a few photos. You can just edit them online.

There are a few image editing websites on the Internet now, and most of them are free of charge too! One of them is Phixr.

Phixr is one of Internet’s most used image editing site. They have a very simple layout and the design of the website made it easy to use too. You can upload a photo from your computer or transfer your photo directly by entering the link of you photo onto the form.

After the photo is uploaded, it will be displayed to you with a few menu buttons that you can use to edit your image. The options provided include photo rotation and also flip, crop and scale, change the picture to black & white or sepia, equalize the colors, brightness adjustments, add texts and speech bubble and a lot more on the website.

You will also be able to undo and redo the changes that you make to your photo. After you have finished with editing you photo, you will have the option to download and save you photo in a few picture formats i.e. the jpeg, png, gif, pdf and also ocr (text format).

If you do not want to download or save your picture, you can also opt to upload the edited photo to your image hosting server or email the picture to yourself or to your friends and family.

I think the best thing about Phixr is you don’t even have to register or login to use the image editing tool. I mean you can choose to login but if you are lazy (like me), you won’t even need to bother. I don’t know about professional image editing capabilities (I’m not a fancy image editor myself), but you can do almost ALL of the basic effects that you can think of at Phixr.

No Download. No Installation. No Login. No Payment Needed. Simply Use It!