My entries as of late are making me look like a regular Google fangirl. But I can’t help that people keep creating cool apps with Google APIs, and I have to pass them on. My latest find is GMaps Pedometer. GMaps Pedometer uses Google’s mapping functionality to record distances travelled in running or walking workouts.

Basically, zoom into your area and start recording. Double-click points along your workout path and GMaps Pedometer will highlight your path and keep a running total of distance travelled as well as the distance between legs (points) on your path.

There are so many uses for neat apps like Celestia and Google Earth — from the educational to the creative. On the creative end is Harry Love’s use of Google Earth to record the Tour de France.

Be prepared with lots of RAM, a fair amount of processor speed, and a good video card.

All the speculation as to Google’s master plan can now cease since someone has finally captured proof. The Master Plan was documented on the first floor of Google building 43.

You’ll notice that rogue scientists, weather control, spy satellites, and Internet 3 are all part of “the plan.”

It was really only a matter of time before an ambitious someone made Google maps mobile. Mobile GMaps is free software for J2ME-enabled mobile phones and devices that displays Google Maps and Keyhole satellite imagery.

The FAQ gives a list of supported phones.

Okay, here’s my full geek disclosure for today: I really don’t know anything about podcasting. There, now you know. Sure, I’ve heard bits about it, but not having an iPod until recently I hadn’t bothered to read much on the subject. Thus why I found Justin Labo’s Beginner’s Guide to Podcasting on CNET useful.

It includes the basic rundown of podcasting as well as notes on helpful podcasting sites and tools like iPodder.NET and Propaganda.

Apparently, Science Magazine is turning 125, and they’re celebrating with a special online collection of articles.

In a special collection of articles published beginning 1 July 2005, Science Magazine and its online companion sites celebrate the journal’s 125th anniversary with a look forward — at the most compelling puzzles and questions facing scientists today.

The collection includes, among others, staff essays on 25 big questions facing science in the next 25 years.

Have you been wondering how to write a hello world program in Octave or Vatical or Snobol? On the very, very off chance that you have, you might find The Hello World Collection handy. The collection includes hello world programs in 181 languages from popular to obscure.

In an attempt to make computer animations and illustrations look more realistic, researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have developed Moxi. Moxi is a brush-and-ink style paint program that uses the model of pigment particles in water flowing onto paper. Basically, it shows the detail of paper absorbing water and pigment moving through water.

The simulation is based on mathematics — the lattice Boltzmann equation to be exact. The researchers believe the work could be used practically in the next one or two years.

[ via ACM TechNews ]

Want to give your fancy digital shots a little retro touch? Might I suggest the Polaroid-o-nizer? Just give it the url of an image you want to “onize”, change the tilt degree or background color, if you wish, and Polaroidonize away.

I can’t be alone in the thought that estimating project deadlines is hard. Well, picking a date isn’t hard, but picking a realistic, mostly accurate date is. Bert Webb, of Open Loops has written a helpful post on just that subject, including a nice equation for estimating a realistic deadline. If only I had always known it was as logical as an equation…

From what I can tell, BitPim is not a new app as the original release dates back to 2003. However, there’s a new update out dated June 2005. BitPim in a nutshell:

BitPim is a program that allows you to view and manipulate data on LG VX4400/VX6000 and many Sanyo Sprint cell phones. This includes the PhoneBook, Calendar, WallPapers, RingTones (functionality varies by phone) and the Filesystem for most Qualcomm CDMA chipset based phones.

If you’re like me, you have every intention of keeping a backup of your phonebook, but the reality is that it doesn’t happen. Now I just need to get myself a USB to Serial cable so I can start using it (and make that backup, of course).

Okay, so I’m not the first one to this party, but I have to say that Cake has definitely piqued my interest. And, besides, why should Ruby On Rails have all the web hype spotlight? The official informational byline:

Cake is a lightweight framework for rapid development and easy maintanance of PHP web applications of any kind and level of complexity.

Anyone know of new apps developed using this framework?

I spend way too much on the Internet so I expected to have heard of most of the the sites and services listed. However, I was surprised to find some cool ones listed that I didn’t know about. A couple:

• SwapThing.com – Swap things, just like the name says
• Kayak.com – Search 100s of travel sites for the lowest prices, all through one interface.
• WireFly – Compare cell plans

Of course, there’s nothing earth-shattering on the list, and I believe it would be better targeted toward a non-Internet addict audience.

The web app YubNub may have been created for the 24-hour Rails Day programming contest, but it’s a great concept. YubNub is essentially command line for the web. For example:

After setting it up on your browser, you simply type “gim porsche 911″ to do a Google Image Search for pictures of Porsche 911 sports cars. Type “random 49″ to return random numbers between 1 and 49, courtesy of random.org.

Of course, YubNub is extensible as you can create your own commands. It is also somewhat a small part of a bigger idea.

…[O]n a bigger scale, YubNub is the realization of a very big idea: the URL command line of the web OS.

Some would have you believe that video games are evil. But, as Jane Pinckard’s article notes, one can learn a lot of life lessons by playing video games. An example lesson:

2. Always, always be moving. This is most true in multiplayer. Don’t hang around waiting, because even though you have the sniper rifle, they might have the shotgun. You’re just asking to be sneaked up on. This is a great technique to apply to the office. Walking around, everyone sees that you are there, but you always look busy, on your way to doing something else. They can’t pin you down to ask you to do stuff.

The articles also kindly includes images demonstrating important lessons.

With the impending release of the XBox 360, you may want to do something with your first gen XBox besides just send it to Shady Pines. Hack A Day has compiled a good set of links with various semi-retirement options ranging from installing XBox-Linux to using it to build a cluster.