Slashdot Mirror

I consider the MS Trackball Explorer to be the king of trackballs. Unfortunately they don't make them anymore and they aren't cheap on E-bay (or amazon used as you can see in the link). I absolutely love mine. The Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman is probably the closest to it that is currently manufactured, although with trackballs being cordless isn't nearly that important.

No, that's something like http://www.amazon.com/Canon-600mm-Super-Telephoto-Cameras/dp/B00009R6X9 which is an order of magnitude cheaper :)

I actually prefer the Logitech Marble Mouse, because the trackball is controlled by my index and (to a lesser extent) middle fingers. Considerably faster and more precise than with the thumb controlled ball.

Big drawback is the lack of a scroll wheel on the Marble Mouse though. Best paired with a keyboard that has a scroll wheel on the left side. Best I ecame across in that regard was a Logitech Internet Navigator, but it had unforgiveable function keys that were programmed for weird functions rather than the standard F1-F12 keys. Had to hit a function-lock button every time I booted.

If anyone has a recommendation for a keyboard with scroll wheel (preferrably on the left side of the keyboard so it can be used with the non-mouse hand), I'll friend you.

There isn't? You'd better tell the 1.1 million websites that are returned when googling "java 6".

Look at the software source code and package names, and try typing 'java -version" at the command line.

Better yet, I can open the Java Preferences Application. It shows:

Java Applet Plugin

• J2SE 5.0 32-bit
• Java SE 6 64-bit
• J2SE 5.0 64-bit
• J2SE 1.4.2 32-bit

As well as:

Java Applications

• J2SE 5.0
• Java SE 6 64-bit
• J2SE 5.0 64-bit
• J2SE 1.4.2 32-bit

The book I have from Sun is titled:
"Core Java(TM), Volume I--Fundamentals (8th Edition)" and is for Java SE 6.

Falcon

There isn't? You'd better tell the 1.1 million websites that are returned when googling "java 6".

Look at the software source code and package names, and try typing 'java -version" at the command line.

Better yet, I can open the Java Preferences Application. It shows:

Java Applet Plugin

• J2SE 5.0 32-bit
• Java SE 6 64-bit
• J2SE 5.0 64-bit
• J2SE 1.4.2 32-bit

As well as:

Java Applications

• J2SE 5.0
• Java SE 6 64-bit
• J2SE 5.0 64-bit
• J2SE 1.4.2 32-bit

The book I have from Sun is titled:
"Core Java(TM), Volume I--Fundamentals (8th Edition)" and is for Java SE 6.

Falcon

No, that's something like http://www.amazon.com/Canon-600mm-Super-Telephoto-Cameras/dp/B00009R6X9 which is an order of magnitude cheaper :)

I shared your view on wireless until I got a Logitech VX nano. Uses two AAA batteries and I replace them maybe twice a year, while never turning it off either. Its for notebooks really, but I just dock my laptop and can use the mouse comfortably setting at my desk. I actually prefer it now to my big ol' MX series gaming mouse.

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Cordless-Laser-Mouse-Notebooks/dp/B000TKHBDK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1247188712&sr=8-1

I'm rather fond of this one:

http://www.amazon.com/3M-EM500GPL-Ergonomic-Mouse-EM500GPLLARGE/dp/B00008KWWF

It has a couple of benefits over the EVM:
1) it has a base that your hand can rest on.
2) the main buttons are thumb-activated, which is good if you were getting pain from finger movement.

The main disadvantage is the lack of a scroll wheel, but I've gotten so used to button scrolling that I don't find this to be a problem.

A mouse is a very personal thing, and a new one typically takes some getting used to. Some people will like it, others will not.

p.s. They have a wireless version too now, apparently.

Too bad Amazon does not offer linux distro downloads or openoffice.org downloads...

Amazon Best Sellers In Linux

1 Ubuntu Linux 8.10 by Canonical $13 {#195 in Software]
3 Disney's Magic Artist Deluxe $10
5 Star Trek: The Complete Comics Collection $34
6 Reader Rabbit 1st Grade $12
8 Ubuntu and Kubuntu Linux 9.04 4 DVDs + "Introduction to Linux" DVD $9 [#793 in Software]
13 Archie Comics Bronze Age $14
14 Fedora 11.4 DVDS+DVD Video $9
19 Linux Diversity [Ubuntu, Kbuntu, Fedora, SuSe, Debian] 12 DVDs+Video $24 [#1,073 in Software]
 

OpenOffice At Amazon

The Linux product needs a universal installer if you want to compete with DVD and - in time perhaps - Blu-Ray distribution for Windows and Mac.

The geek may fantasize about "unlimited free broadband" - but it ain't going to happen anytime soon.
 

Too bad Amazon does not offer linux distro downloads or openoffice.org downloads...

Amazon Best Sellers In Linux

1 Ubuntu Linux 8.10 by Canonical $13 {#195 in Software]
3 Disney's Magic Artist Deluxe $10
5 Star Trek: The Complete Comics Collection $34
6 Reader Rabbit 1st Grade $12
8 Ubuntu and Kubuntu Linux 9.04 4 DVDs + "Introduction to Linux" DVD $9 [#793 in Software]
13 Archie Comics Bronze Age $14
14 Fedora 11.4 DVDS+DVD Video $9
19 Linux Diversity [Ubuntu, Kbuntu, Fedora, SuSe, Debian] 12 DVDs+Video $24 [#1,073 in Software]
 

OpenOffice At Amazon

The Linux product needs a universal installer if you want to compete with DVD and - in time perhaps - Blu-Ray distribution for Windows and Mac.

The geek may fantasize about "unlimited free broadband" - but it ain't going to happen anytime soon.
 

Speaking of; What happened to the Happy Hacking Keyboard? I use the http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Performance-Optical-Gaming-Mouse/dp/B0007Z1M50/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1247176341&sr=8-8 Simply because it looks "cool".

HTC Titan with GPS Chip

I've had the HTC Titan (Sprint Mogul PPC-6800) phone since it came out and it has a real GPSOne chip inside for aGPS satelite reception and not just cell tower ID triangulation for fake GPS. Before that I had the HTC Apache (Sprint PCC-6700) that required a separate GPS Receiver connected by Bluetooth and that also worked great since I only had to turn on the receiver when navigating.

Mount and Charger

I use the cheap Arkon CM929-S phone mount to keep my phone in-front of me connected to an air-vent while I drive and also the Motorola Mini-USB Car Charger for keeping my phone powered up during long trips.

TomTom Navigator 6 and 7

I've been using TomTom Navigator version 6 and now 7 installed on this phone running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1, and soon 6.5. I've used my phone to navigate here in the US, Canada, and also in Europe without any problems at all, except for having to copying the 500MB maps to my storage card before I go, since I only had a 1 GB storage card. If I had a large capacity SDHC storage card then I could keep all the maps on it for the entire world.

PPCKitchen BuildOS and Radio ROM Firmware

I've been taking advantage of the phone customization software such as PPCKitchen BuildOS software for creating and loading customized and updated versions of Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system builds on to my phone that allowed me to go from 6.0, to 6.1, and now to 6.5. I've been updating the Radio ROM firmware on my phone with the instructions from XDA Developer Wiki page for HTC Titan to the latest releases to enable GPS functionality on this phone since the original release of the phone did not have the Radio ROM firmware to allow interfacing with the GPS chip until Sprint released it a year after the phone became available.

Little Inconveniences

Since Sprint uses the US only CDMA network cell phone standard I couldn't use my phone in Europe to make calls but I still retained the full GPS functionality. On top of this we use Google Maps software loaded on these phones for locating stores and saving them as contacts so we can then use TomTom to navigate to those contacts. Everything works great except when Google Maps decides to be lazy and not save the zip-code in the address in the contact or when the address line in the contact includes additional numbers such as apartment or suite then TomTom gets confused thinking those are street numbers since they match European address standards such as "16 Main Street Suite 2" to "16/2 Main Street". We then have to manually edit the contact to remove the apartment or suite number and add the zip code, it is a pain and we are waiting for TomTom to fix their software since this bug existed sine version 6 and now with 7.450.

Convenience Through Convergence

My wife also uses the same exact phone since we share the same phone plan and company and she loves the ability to be able to take the car and go anywhere she wants with her friends without worry

"Only a utterly complete fool would think the standalone GPS is going the way of the DoDo bird."

Duh, It's going the way of the dodo bird just like the mp3 player! Cellphones have been doing a great job playing mp3s for years, and who buys a ipod anymore? Anyone? No one that's who!

Plus how are all these soccer moms gonna txt on their phone AND see the driving directions? They'll need 2 phones!

but in all seriousness, I put Garmin 7-day trial on my Blackberry last night to try it out. It's slow and no where near as easy to use as my tomtom. It's great in a pinch or if i'm in someone else's car, but who are they kidding with the $100 price tag? You can buy a full-fledged Garmin GPS for $99, why pay $100 just for the software alone?

Drop the price to $19.99 and we'll talk.

Obviously this isn't the New York Times. I've devoted enough time to this. If you can't find the grammatical and spelling errors yourself, I suggest picking up a copy of Hodge's Harbrace Handbook or checking it out from your local library.

Amazon Best Sellers in Software Updated hourly.

1 Win 7 Premium Upgrade
2 Win 7 Professional Upgrade
3 MS Office Home and Student 2007
5 MS Office Home and Student 2008 - Mac
12 Outlook 2007
17 Street & Trips 2009
18 Win 7 Ultimate Upgrade
30 XP Home Full Version
31 MS Office Standard 2007 Full Version
35 Street & Trips with GPS 2009
36 MS Office Small Business 2007 Upgrade
38 XP Pro SP3 System Builders
40 MS Office Small Business 2007 Full Version
41 MS Office Pro 2007 Full Version
45 MS Works 9.0
50 Windows Live One Care
56 Windows XP Pro SP2 Full Version
79 MS Vista Premium Full Version
95 XP Home SP2 Upgrade
97 Vista Home Premium Upgrade
98 Publisher 2007
99 Access 2007

At any given moment about 1 in 4 of the software bestsellers in software will be Microsoft products for the Windows market. Office 2007/8 has had an extraordinarily successful run.

OS Platform Statistics For June

XP 67%
Vista 18%
Mac 6%
Linux 4%
W2003 2%
Win 7 2%
W2K 1%

The OS stats are from a pro's development-oriented site that shows a 50% share for Firefox. It is not preposterous to imagine Win 7 overtaking Linux before its official launch in October.

Viewsonic are a crap shoot though, 2 of the past 3 LCD I have had have had cap failures, ballast overheating and uneven lighting. The other one I have hacked into a 22" art frame and it has been running 24/7 without fail for over a year. I did add active air cooling on it though.

My main setup uses 3 of these and I have yet to find a better bang for the buck without sacrificing picture quality or refresh rate.

Or,

20" 1600x1200 NEC S-IPS

The smallest 1900x1200 LCD is a 22" Lenovo L220x, AFAIK.

When I was working on my JavaCC book I bought Jukka Korpela's Unicode Explained and it was *extremely* helpful. After reading it I actually felt comfortable using various tools to convert from one encoding to another, discussing multibyte character sets, and so forth. It helped me write the Unicode chapter in my book with some confidence. It was the first time I had used vi to enter Unicode characters... fun times.

That said, it sounds like "CJKV Information Processing" covers some of the same ground. Has anyone read both?

Perhaps because you haven't thought of the consequences of the deep bioethical debates behind it. I preface this by stating that I am a fan of regenerative technologies and think a great deal of good can and will come out of them in time.

Eugenics is a sinister topic that deserves a great pause. There are several key issues and parallels at play:

1) Treatments that increase the quality of life effect the population as a whole in mortality rates, and what established medical industries will it harm?
2) Possibilities this work lead to genetically superior "super men" , opening the pandora's box to designer babies and other man-made chimeras and monsters.
3) Life devaluation issues ex: Will people start blending up of lower class/poor/minority babies just to get their stem cells because life has become so "cheap" and abundant?
4) Can we label anyone a "volunteer" for anything that we want to do research on?

Oddly enough this is one thing that Bush got right for all the wrong reasons. He was correct in giving some time for the application of unproven technologies to sink in and let society stew a little on the ramifications.It was important for him to pick a side and get people to polarize their opinions to help along the public policy.

"Either way the embryo is still dead."

As a species, we have a certain amount of respect for our dead, whether or not you agree with it. There are laws on the books about how the dead must be prepared for burial, how casket vaults must be made around coffins to prevent the ground from sinking. Grave robbing laws came about because of the high demand for understanding anatomy by means of dissection. For a human grave we treat it with respect and attempt to protect it from desecration. Organ donation as a choice has evolved as an important act of volunteerism. One really big reason that people take issue with using a dead embryo is because they were not sentient volunteers acting on their own free will -- hence making them victims, and then adding insult to injury. Whether or not you believe them to be victims doesn't matter nearly as much as the idea that *someone else* might, and throw roadblocks up to block your agenda. There are people out there who believe that the means needs to justify the ends.

  I've read many books on eugenics,genetics, and bioethics over the years but none of them stands out so nearly as well as
When Medicine Went Mad I've been spending several months absorbing the debates and came to the conclusion that it is extremely important in terms of public opinion to do your research in such a way that is ethical, professional, and will not raise doubts or fears about the means in which your data is acquired to preserve and maintain the public trust.

Anyone wanting to appraise the textual variants for themselves could read Bruce Metzger's Textual Commentary on the New Testament. It discusses the reasons for every textual decision which was made in the production of the USB4 Greek text, the main critical edition in current academic use. (Or just read the footnotes in a UBS4 in a Uni library.)

It covers variants like "Jesus Christ" being transposed with "Christ Jesus", so it certainly covers everything affecting the actual meaning. The explanations can be understood without knowledge of the Koine Greek language, or even the various manuscript families -- though of course, that knowledge would help, as it's mostly what is being discussed.

http://www.amazon.com/Textual-Commentary-Greek-New-Testament/dp/3438060108

For the record, Ben Rothke's book (the one mentioned in the article) looks like it's well written for reading the preview. I'm not trying to dog on anyone. I really just want to see better book reviews on Slashdot.

...the book Beautiful Code which was a collection of essays about, well, beautiful code. The chapter "Another Level of Indirection" by Diomidis Spinellis was one of my favorites. There were some misses in there, but overall definitely worth a look.

Another thing - all the author royalties for Beautiful Code were donated to Amnesty International. Not sure if Beautiful Security is the same way, but, neat idea.

But then I remembered "teacher's editions".

Each textbook has a teacher's edition that has all the answers in it.

Ahem. 7 on the first page.
What prevents me from buying one of these rather than the standard edition of the same book?

Windows is for the people that use it. Mac is for the people that use it. But, Linux is for the people that write it.

Microsoft Windows is for the Microsoft shareholders to profit from. Macs are for the Apple shareholders to profit from.

There, fixed that for you.

You can rip me all you want, but just look at all the project managers of various Linux things, and their postings, and the things that strike you is that they are all about "me" first. Stallman, Torvalds, etc, are all pretty self-centered people.

<sarcasm>Me, me, me! Neener, neener, neener!</sarcasm>

I won't speak for anyone else, but the reason that I got into XEmacs project management was that XEmacs 19.14 was a lovely rose ... that smelled bad. Once it was stable, pretty fast and did everything I needed it to do (XEmacs 21.1) I lost interest. If that's self-centered, whatever.

Since I now support IOS[1] and a host of other proprietary CSCO products, does that make me a better person than the evil open source project manager I used to be? Just asking.

IMNSHO you're painting Linus with the wrong brush. I've long been of the opinion that someone should collect up his postings and edit them into a text book. It could be as important as The Bible - Elements of Programming Style http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Programming-Style-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0070342075 , the most significant computer book ever written.

[1] And use XEmacs doing so ...

When I studied math at my college, most of my textbooks were old. By old, I mean there were no new editions whatsoever... for instance, the classic Baby Rudin textbook on mathematical analysis is at least $140, and on Amazon, it says that the last edition was made in 1976. So why does it still cost so much? McGraw-Hill is a pretty huge publishing company, so I figure they still need to make a profit, yet they do not need to churn out any more editions...

Further, while publishers often change the books by an infinitesimal amount, I've seen cases where classic textbooks were practically raped and were changed drastically for whatever reason. Case in point: the freshman level Halliday / Resnick physics textbook. I believe in the third or fourth edition, it was concise and easy to follow, without so much verbose explanations that made no sense whatsoever. Nowadays, it's almost exactly identical to the Jewett / Serway textbook, which seems like it's competing against the Knight textbook for the lowest common denominator explanations possible. But I suppose, if I was the publisher, I would ruin a perfectly fine textbook in order to turn a profit.

The industry is used to having it their own way for too long, and they have to realise that their days of bleeding the customer dry are numbered.

To talk of bleeding the customer dry is lunatic.

The federal minimum wage in 1939 was 30 cents an hour. That would buy you one adult ticket to the movies or a single 78 RPM phonograph record.

Two tracks.

The roadshow production of Gone With The Wind would have been priced at $2 to $5 bucks.

The 78 was disposable. The light-weight tonearm with a diamond stylus doesn't come into general use until the mid or late fifties.

The federal minimum wage will rise to $7.25 an hour on July 24. The average U.S. ticket price for a movie in 2008 was $7.18.

The Video-on-Demand rental is $5.
You can do much better than that with a subscription to Netflix.

Amazon's Best Sellers in Music CDs will only rarely set you back more than $9.99. The mp3 single 89 cents.

The customer isn't paying more for entertainment in real terms than his great-grandfather did.

The IQ test has, built into it, the cultural bias of the white, european, while completely disregarding other values.

Oddly, the most exhaustive research on the matter shows no such evidence in support of that proposition.

You can bet that if the IQ test included intelligence and observations on how nature behaves outside of the constraints of 'the scientific method' the Europeans would have their asses handed to them by the native americans, the australian aboriginals, or any other culture that couldn't give two pig shits about European science or technology.

So, presumably, after 40 years of trying hard, somebody would surely have been able to devise a test that native americans or australian aboriginals would consistently outscore whites and east asians on. Ok, where is it?

Google Checkout and Amazon Payments -- there's your redundancy, both with neither setup nor monthly fees.

USD 272.80

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-N810-Portable-Internet-Tablet/dp/B000Y4AH3C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1246650803&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553572393/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246607203&sr=8-1

See, as someone has already pointed out, there's at least one such tool that's in wide use already: TeX and LaTeX. If you don't like that one, it turns out that HTML, with CSS and a little bit of Javascript, is perfectly capable of doing all the things you want, too. You just have to learn how. Have a look at Lie's Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web (written and typeset in HTML/CSS) and at Prince XML for detailed examples.

I think writing papers using XHTML and CSS 2.1 or 3 is a good idea. Then you can use Prince XML to convert it to PDF. Their site has a nice sample or two of journal articles / conference papers. The quality of the renderer is great. It was even used to create a professional book, Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. What you mean is a EA slave. And as you may know, EA does not design games. It produces money-making "products" (=crap) on a assembly line. ^^

On a more serious note:
1. Find a way to have time and resources to design a game (actual programming will use only very small part of that time!), without selling your soul.
2. Find a way to have time and resources to design a game (actual programming will use only very small part of that time!), without selling your soul.
3. Find a way to have time and resources to design a game (actual programming will use only very small part of that time!), without selling your soul.

That's it. Then read a good book, like the following: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246565495&sr=8-1
And you're good to go.

I must say, that your comment, while good, can a maximum put you at an amateur level of game design.

We here are technical people. But technology is only one of four essential elements (story, gameplay, aesthetics, technology), and only one of may many things around that.

You can not possibly even list them all in here.

As I said elsewhere, I recommend this book above all: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246565495&sr=8-1

I just am in the process of becoming a game designer.

And NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING did advance me as far, as all-encompassing, and as fast, as reading this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246563455&sr=8-1

It is from Jesse Schell, professor of entertainment technology for Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) and former chair of the International Game Developer's Association. Someone who created everything from board games, to MMORPGs to rollercoasters and virtual reality rides!
The book's design methodology was also developed at that center, that was co-founded by Dr. Randy Pausch, of "Last Lecture" fame.
And this all does not matter, compared to the fact that it contains FAR more than just how to program a game. Because actually, programming is just a very small piece of the complex process of designing a real game. It contains pretty much everything. All the areas. All the experience.

I can not think of a better book to start getting serious at making games.

(Now I hope that nobody thinks I am some payed guy because of that rave review of a comment. ^^)

Bad aim, mostly.

http://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Attempted-Methods-Consequences/dp/0786704926

In short, most people shoot in the side of the head and blow the top off. Unless they bleed out, they just end up with massive brain damage. Smaller caliber weapons will tend to deflect around the skull.

As someone who majored in Classics as an undergraduate (before moving on to linguistics), I've gotten a lot of flack in technology nerd circles like Slashdot for spending time in such a field. Nowadays the value of study of the ancient world is seen as offering limited benefits, and the popular image of a classicist is of a bookish loser all alone in his musty, unvisited department. I think that's a pity especially because Classics is a field very ready to use new technology to help us better understand the past. The Oxyrynchus papyri, for example, a bunch of old papers found in an Egyptian garbage dump, have been scanned with state of the art cameras which have revealed whole new texts, including lost works by some of the great classic authors.

So spending time with old inscriptions can still seem a worthy task to the Slashdot crowd. Beyond just using whizbang new technology, the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone for example (see e.g. Parkinson's Cracking Codes ) ought to fascinate the more mathematically oriented of us.

You'll get a lot of decent answers, and I won't try to duplicate any of them here. My addition: amidst many mediocre books about Game Design, there are a couple that really stand out. The first one to come to mind is "The Art of Game Design":

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965

While you are perfecting everyone else's good suggestions, give this one a read...

My wife bought me the book Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!) for my birthday last year. To make a year-long story short, the couple decided to have sex at least once per day for 100 days. The book is actually quite good. Very humorous and not as dirty as you might expect a book about doing it every day might be. In fact, my only disappointment with the book was that it wasn't a sign that my wife wanted to try her own 100 day challenge! (Heck, I'm not greedy. I'd go for a 30 day challenge. Or even a 2 week challenge.)

City

On Amazon

Audio Book

I would say read books (or e-books). I would start with Pavel Tsatsouline. He was responsible with bringing the Kettlebell to the mainstream American. In fact, I recommend you work out with a Kettlebell, as its offers true core strength training and it doesn't do muscle isolation, but works 2 or 3 muscles in one exercise. Isolation is not all its cracked up to be, however, I don't totally avoid isolation, but I try to do what Men's Health calls combo lifts or Kettlebell exercises. I have a bench and free weights and still do traditional exercises. You gotta mix it up or you body gets used to doing the same thing and you stop getting gains.

However, start out reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Bodybuilding-Strength-Training-Secrets/dp/B000QRXTVY

This book talks about how to really get strong by lifting, the do's and don't, etc. It's really an eye opener. It starts off talking about the 5-5-5 program. 1 set, 5 reps -- per exercise, and you do 5 exercises. Do this 5 days a week. You must lift HEAVY weights though for this program. Really heavy. To gauge if it is too heavy or not, you should be able to do 2 more reps or so after doing the 5. Don't actually do them, but if you can just do a few more, you are lifting the max weight for you, which is 70% to 90% of your 1RM (one rep max).

My friends laughed at me when I said I was doing this 5-5-5 program. But my body transformed to have proportionally sized but bigger arms, chest, legs etc, and I even got 6-pack abs -- something I tried for in my entire life. And I did this in only 3 to 4 months (of course I did 30 to 60 min of cardio too for fat burning). I did isolation like chest presses and such, but I also did pullups/chinups. Then, after two months, I swtiched to kettlebell and non-isolation based exercises (cleans, presses, Turkish Getups, etc).
I highly recommend this book.

I will tell you one secret. Its called Janda Sit ups (no you don't need to buy the device on the Internet). A Janda sit up (http://www.cbass.com/HardestSitup.htm) works by getting in sit up position, legs at a 90 degree angle, and then tensing your gluts (butt) and hamstrings -- then doing a sit up. You will find it is nearly impossible to do, so you can cheat my relaxing some tension in those muscles. However, doing this once a day, 5 times, for a few months, COUPLED with cardio WILL get you six pack abs.

Another good book that gave me A LOT of great direction (i read this when I first started working out Senior year of College) is The Men's Health Hard Body Plan : The Ultimate 12-Week Program for Burning Fat and Building Muscle. http://www.amazon.com/Mens-Health-Hard-Body-Plan/dp/1579542298. This book explains all the major muscles, how they work, what exercises work out what, which exercises in one workout give yo more gains, etc. It's a reall knowledgebase for working out. It also talks about when you should eat food, what you should eat relevant to when you work out. It also has create myth busting tips and really really good workout examples for you to follow. Some of them are very tough and tiring, which is why you must eat right (the book also covers).

Hope this helps. Try searching the net for the Pavel videos on Kettlebell. It is a bit over the top but definitely worth it.

I would say read books (or e-books). I would start with Pavel Tsatsouline. He was responsible with bringing the Kettlebell to the mainstream American. In fact, I recommend you work out with a Kettlebell, as its offers true core strength training and it doesn't do muscle isolation, but works 2 or 3 muscles in one exercise. Isolation is not all its cracked up to be, however, I don't totally avoid isolation, but I try to do what Men's Health calls combo lifts or Kettlebell exercises. I have a bench and free weights and still do traditional exercises. You gotta mix it up or you body gets used to doing the same thing and you stop getting gains.

However, start out reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Bodybuilding-Strength-Training-Secrets/dp/B000QRXTVY

This book talks about how to really get strong by lifting, the do's and don't, etc. It's really an eye opener. It starts off talking about the 5-5-5 program. 1 set, 5 reps -- per exercise, and you do 5 exercises. Do this 5 days a week. You must lift HEAVY weights though for this program. Really heavy. To gauge if it is too heavy or not, you should be able to do 2 more reps or so after doing the 5. Don't actually do them, but if you can just do a few more, you are lifting the max weight for you, which is 70% to 90% of your 1RM (one rep max).

My friends laughed at me when I said I was doing this 5-5-5 program. But my body transformed to have proportionally sized but bigger arms, chest, legs etc, and I even got 6-pack abs -- something I tried for in my entire life. And I did this in only 3 to 4 months (of course I did 30 to 60 min of cardio too for fat burning). I did isolation like chest presses and such, but I also did pullups/chinups. Then, after two months, I swtiched to kettlebell and non-isolation based exercises (cleans, presses, Turkish Getups, etc).
I highly recommend this book.

I will tell you one secret. Its called Janda Sit ups (no you don't need to buy the device on the Internet). A Janda sit up (http://www.cbass.com/HardestSitup.htm) works by getting in sit up position, legs at a 90 degree angle, and then tensing your gluts (butt) and hamstrings -- then doing a sit up. You will find it is nearly impossible to do, so you can cheat my relaxing some tension in those muscles. However, doing this once a day, 5 times, for a few months, COUPLED with cardio WILL get you six pack abs.

Another good book that gave me A LOT of great direction (i read this when I first started working out Senior year of College) is The Men's Health Hard Body Plan : The Ultimate 12-Week Program for Burning Fat and Building Muscle. http://www.amazon.com/Mens-Health-Hard-Body-Plan/dp/1579542298. This book explains all the major muscles, how they work, what exercises work out what, which exercises in one workout give yo more gains, etc. It's a reall knowledgebase for working out. It also talks about when you should eat food, what you should eat relevant to when you work out. It also has create myth busting tips and really really good workout examples for you to follow. Some of them are very tough and tiring, which is why you must eat right (the book also covers).

Hope this helps. Try searching the net for the Pavel videos on Kettlebell. It is a bit over the top but definitely worth it.

Get the book. A Whopper has 200 more calories than a Big Mac. There is a whole lot of shit that is supposed to be healthy that isn't. That "lightly sweetened" "strong heart" Smart Start cereal? 10 different kinds of sugar and so many chemicals that it might explode if mixed improperly with other foods.

Lose the carbs. I agree 100% with the parent (I am diabetic). All of it is shit. How much sugar do you think is in a small 12 oz can of soda? 2 teaspoons, 4? Try 10, almost a 1/4 cup of sugar in one can of soda . For carbs, get whole grain bread, pasta, etc. The fiber will help prevent insulin spikes.

Get a bike. $100 will buy you a lot of bike at K-Mart and nothing says "don't steal me" like Huffy. Or got to a flea market at the end of the day when you might be able to pick up one for $5. Use it for all of those short trips that are a few miles or less. You can probably keep it at work too. You will also save a shitload of gas money in addition to getting the exercise.

Aerobic exercise is great, but you need anaerobic as well. And there is no better way to get that than free weights. You need nothing more than a barbell and weights, which you can get at the same K-Mart or swap meet that you got your bike at. All of the fancy, expensive computer controlled machines are shit.

And there is no better weightlifting exercise than parallel squats. They are are a royal PITA, and you have to make sure you do them right. Get Starting Strength and Super Squats. Combine Super Squats with your bike rides and you are golden.

Get the book. A Whopper has 200 more calories than a Big Mac. There is a whole lot of shit that is supposed to be healthy that isn't. That "lightly sweetened" "strong heart" Smart Start cereal? 10 different kinds of sugar and so many chemicals that it might explode if mixed improperly with other foods.

Lose the carbs. I agree 100% with the parent (I am diabetic). All of it is shit. How much sugar do you think is in a small 12 oz can of soda? 2 teaspoons, 4? Try 10, almost a 1/4 cup of sugar in one can of soda . For carbs, get whole grain bread, pasta, etc. The fiber will help prevent insulin spikes.

Get a bike. $100 will buy you a lot of bike at K-Mart and nothing says "don't steal me" like Huffy. Or got to a flea market at the end of the day when you might be able to pick up one for $5. Use it for all of those short trips that are a few miles or less. You can probably keep it at work too. You will also save a shitload of gas money in addition to getting the exercise.

Aerobic exercise is great, but you need anaerobic as well. And there is no better way to get that than free weights. You need nothing more than a barbell and weights, which you can get at the same K-Mart or swap meet that you got your bike at. All of the fancy, expensive computer controlled machines are shit.

And there is no better weightlifting exercise than parallel squats. They are are a royal PITA, and you have to make sure you do them right. Get Starting Strength and Super Squats. Combine Super Squats with your bike rides and you are golden.

Get the book. A Whopper has 200 more calories than a Big Mac. There is a whole lot of shit that is supposed to be healthy that isn't. That "lightly sweetened" "strong heart" Smart Start cereal? 10 different kinds of sugar and so many chemicals that it might explode if mixed improperly with other foods.

Lose the carbs. I agree 100% with the parent (I am diabetic). All of it is shit. How much sugar do you think is in a small 12 oz can of soda? 2 teaspoons, 4? Try 10, almost a 1/4 cup of sugar in one can of soda . For carbs, get whole grain bread, pasta, etc. The fiber will help prevent insulin spikes.

Get a bike. $100 will buy you a lot of bike at K-Mart and nothing says "don't steal me" like Huffy. Or got to a flea market at the end of the day when you might be able to pick up one for $5. Use it for all of those short trips that are a few miles or less. You can probably keep it at work too. You will also save a shitload of gas money in addition to getting the exercise.

Aerobic exercise is great, but you need anaerobic as well. And there is no better way to get that than free weights. You need nothing more than a barbell and weights, which you can get at the same K-Mart or swap meet that you got your bike at. All of the fancy, expensive computer controlled machines are shit.

And there is no better weightlifting exercise than parallel squats. They are are a royal PITA, and you have to make sure you do them right. Get Starting Strength and Super Squats. Combine Super Squats with your bike rides and you are golden.

I thought that market was already covered by Twitter for Dummies -- brought to you by the Department of Redundant Titles Department.

Note: sorry if any of this is badly formatted, I don't post often

Health is a broad topic and it really comes down to what you're actually trying to achieve, 'staying in shape' is a really broad area (gain lean mass, reduce heart risk, age well, endurance, fast-twitch response, weekend athlete, don't throw my back out doing the lawn, etc), however, here's some general advice on overall directions:

Focus: Work can bring you down, and when you're sitting down it can be hard to focus (or the opposite, if you've ever done a 10 hr marathon coding session, looked up and said 'damn'), relax, or keep a stable mental state (depending on your user base) ~ http://www.guidetopsychology.com/autogen.htm ~ is one method of staying focused and giving yourself the reinforcement that will help with the other steps (you can get it down to about 3 minutes front to back by the end of the cycle).

Nutrition: Other than a balanced diet (there's too much info on google to address that here) a good vitamin pack ~ http://antiaging-systems.com/a2z/beyondchelation.htm ~ can go a long way to stabilizing your diet and 'rounding off the rough edges'. I like the chelating package because it helps cleanse some of the crap that gets into the food lifecycle out of our system.

At work exercise: http://www.amazon.com/Isometric-Power-Revolution-Mastering-Lifelong/dp/1932458506 ~ is a solid reference on isometric exercises (many of which can be done at work) - optimally spread out throughout your shift (and some can be done discretely on an hourly basis). There are many isometric references out there so if you find this trend working for you then you should continue to do research until you find a series (with variations) that meets your specific (and evolving) needs.

Day off exercise: 2-3 30m cardio sessions are good, but I also recommend 1-2 yoga sessions as well (or in place of perhaps). Yoga is an excellent method of flushing your lymphatic system and has solid health benefits for arterial plasticity as well (make sure you do your own research however), a good at home example guide is: http://www.amazon.com/Bikrams-Beginning-Class-Second-Edtion/dp/1585420204/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246481279&sr=1-1

You can get the info in the books above on the internet as well, but I like books for my library. The above require the lowest investment in equipment that I've seen and still allow for considerable improvement and variation. There's no magic pill here, you have to really define what you want to achieve and keep learning to adapt your regime to your lifestyle/goals. Keep in mind there's a difference been an 'optimum' workout strategy and 'making a difference'. Doing 5 minutes of isometrics or a breathing exercise or two every hour at work isn't an optimum way to build muscle, but every little bit helps.

Best of luck

Note: sorry if any of this is badly formatted, I don't post often

Health is a broad topic and it really comes down to what you're actually trying to achieve, 'staying in shape' is a really broad area (gain lean mass, reduce heart risk, age well, endurance, fast-twitch response, weekend athlete, don't throw my back out doing the lawn, etc), however, here's some general advice on overall directions:

Focus: Work can bring you down, and when you're sitting down it can be hard to focus (or the opposite, if you've ever done a 10 hr marathon coding session, looked up and said 'damn'), relax, or keep a stable mental state (depending on your user base) ~ http://www.guidetopsychology.com/autogen.htm ~ is one method of staying focused and giving yourself the reinforcement that will help with the other steps (you can get it down to about 3 minutes front to back by the end of the cycle).

Nutrition: Other than a balanced diet (there's too much info on google to address that here) a good vitamin pack ~ http://antiaging-systems.com/a2z/beyondchelation.htm ~ can go a long way to stabilizing your diet and 'rounding off the rough edges'. I like the chelating package because it helps cleanse some of the crap that gets into the food lifecycle out of our system.

At work exercise: http://www.amazon.com/Isometric-Power-Revolution-Mastering-Lifelong/dp/1932458506 ~ is a solid reference on isometric exercises (many of which can be done at work) - optimally spread out throughout your shift (and some can be done discretely on an hourly basis). There are many isometric references out there so if you find this trend working for you then you should continue to do research until you find a series (with variations) that meets your specific (and evolving) needs.

Day off exercise: 2-3 30m cardio sessions are good, but I also recommend 1-2 yoga sessions as well (or in place of perhaps). Yoga is an excellent method of flushing your lymphatic system and has solid health benefits for arterial plasticity as well (make sure you do your own research however), a good at home example guide is: http://www.amazon.com/Bikrams-Beginning-Class-Second-Edtion/dp/1585420204/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246481279&sr=1-1

You can get the info in the books above on the internet as well, but I like books for my library. The above require the lowest investment in equipment that I've seen and still allow for considerable improvement and variation. There's no magic pill here, you have to really define what you want to achieve and keep learning to adapt your regime to your lifestyle/goals. Keep in mind there's a difference been an 'optimum' workout strategy and 'making a difference'. Doing 5 minutes of isometrics or a breathing exercise or two every hour at work isn't an optimum way to build muscle, but every little bit helps.

Best of luck

There are several different training regiments that follow the high impact, low duration approach, but this is the one that I've been using for a while now: http://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Program-Results/dp/0071597174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246480756&sr=8-1 It takes only a few minutes a week and in conjunction with a reasonable diet you'll at least stay in shape.

This is almost as good as WowWee's Bat and Dragon. They're little, they fly with moving wings, and they can hover. $39.99. Available wherever toys are sold. That's the entry-level product; the next step up, the Green Dragonfly, is an indoor/outdoor R/C ornithopter capable of hovering.

Those models doesn't have any onboard intelligence, but some of the other WowWee flying machines have collision avoidance. WowWee has a whole line of flying and robotic toys, and they deliver impressive technology at prices well under $100. Maybe DARPA should outsource.