Yesterday I hit the 9,000 mark for number of downloads at MATLAB Central. What makes it a greater achievement is that I have programmed in MATLAB for only 13 months and started publishing code no earlier than May this year. See my MATLAB page for more details.

Alex King started a thread which discussed a Web-based project he initiated. That project led me to thinking about a Web-based Palm Desktop — one which can be accessed from any machine and then synchronised over the Internet. Here is my (non-contextual) message on Alex’s site:

Hmmmm… actually, I was talking about off-line HotSync^TM. I don’t think I will ever find a Bluetooth connection point so I can’t rely on remote task lists solely. Maybe I am missing something though. What I suggest is the following:

Have your package modified to work as a partial replacement for Palm Desktop. This way users will be able to edit lists remotely. Then, when returning to a machine with a cradle, the users can Sync. the changes made on-line. In other words, make it a portable Palm Desktop.

I truly believe that UseNet attracts an audience far smaller than it should. Considering the enormous number of regular Internet users, probably only a small proportion is aware of the existence of global forums. Many choose to participate in very small forums like the BBC or various phpBB-like sections. They are missing out on access to gurus in various fields. A countless number of questions I had were competently answered in return to my involvement (see archive). If you haven’t yet become a part of groups relevant to you, I urge you to do so now.

November 13th (yesterday) marked 8 years since my grandmother passed away. Below is a picture of the two of us.

While listening to the radio today, I heard Teresa May‘s name mentioned. Since I had a short conversation with her 4 years ago in Zermatt, I decided to look up her biography. Wikipedia revealed to me that I was discussing my career with the future chair of the British Conservative Party.

Here is a snippet from the site:

She joined the Shadow Cabinet proper in 1999 as Shadow Education and Employment Secretary, and since then, under Iain Duncan Smith had been in a variety of shadow cabinet posts, notably chairman. She is perhaps the most prominent woman in the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher.

This morning I was told about a free light-weight program that can use memory cards to secure data in between HotSyncs. It was given the awkward name Red Feline Backup. I would like thank its author by providing a citation.

Picture from Red Feline Backup

My grandfather told me about Skype last night. Little did I realise that this Internet telephony package is available to almost all platforms. It’s about time…

Picture from Skype