A pacifier looking like a facehugger would be both cool and good looking on your toddler.

Short:

A baby cap with a princess crown.  A given success.

Long:

Mothers and fathers and relatives and friends to small small babies believe they have to buy cute things to the baby.  A cute cap with a cute princess crown, preferably in pink, or a cute cap with viking horns or dragon back scales would be easy to sell to them.

Short:

A blog about leavened bread with recipies and votes.

Long:

Baking leavened bread seems to be fashion among fathers on parental leave in Sweden.

So why not geek it and create a blog with recipies and discussions.  And as cherry on top – or rather as tasty crust – there is the possibility to send in pictures with bread and voting possibilities.

Votes and discussions about leavened bred and its mandatory machines.  Extrapolate to coffee and ways to get a snack between bed/wash/cry-times.

Ever so often when I swipe a magnetic card (think credit card) in a card reader I have turned it the wrong way.

The solution is simple: install 2 heads.  The same technique can be used for the chip: install one chip reader on each side.

A computer game where both running-around-and-shooting and moving-body-to-a-rythm counts.   Let two people play in team where one moves and one shoots.  It makes couple with different tastes of game able to play together.

What it should look like and behave is not something I have figured out yet.
But hey, capoeira is something like it, and with wii and kinect we should be able to make something up.  Dance electric boogie and send godly laser beams against your enemy.  Dance battles in hip hop style.

Short:

Create a way to run code on the server, code that users can upload.  The server should still be safe from abuse.

Long:

Creating a home page can easily be done gratis.  Just find a company to host your static files.  Angelfire and Passagen spring to mind even though their heydays are over.  Get a gratis account and upload your static HTML and javascript and flash files and images.  Whole games can be hosted in this easy way.  As long as there is nothing changeable on the server.

Making things interactive is a different horse.  For developing web applications we have to use binaries, byte code or script at the server.  Since running code uses resources and can choke the server there are very few gratis solutions.  We must pay to get an account which we then can use up to a certain Mbits of traffic and Mbytes of data and possibly Mseconds of processor use.

On the client we can use javascript and (ab)use most of the client browser power.  Security and resource handling are already built in and taken care of.

Why not extend this kind of reduced power scripting to the server?  Limit processor time, RAM usage and HD space.  I have been thinking about how to limit dotnet or java but come to the conclusion that since the environment isn’t built for it it will be a faulty solution to start with.
If we instead created a new language and environment we could tailor the functionality to the needs.

If then people could easy upload web applications we would get an explosion of ideas and solutions.

Short:

You and your friend buy a NAS each.  You are able to set up synchonizing between the two without too much trouble.

Setting up rsync with or without a guide is too much trouble.  Naming your NASes and telling the admin interface of each NAS to sync to the other NAS is more like it.



Long:

Many NASes have rsync capabilities.  Setting up rsync is not done by your grand parents.  It also means one must open a hole in the firewall which said grand parents are not comfortable with.  That was many words for too-much-trouble.

Instead say you buy a Netgear NAS and send your NAS’s name to Netgear.  Your friend does the same with his.  Now each NAS can call Netgear through your firewall and Netgear can orchestrate the connection.  I still haven’t figured out how the NASes go from talking to Netgear to each other to not wasting band width at Netgear’s.  Is this solved with bittorrent?

Short:

There is need for a site that creates unique IDs.

Long:

Two systems need to create unique IDs for making synchonising possible.  By some reason they have to find this unique ID by themselves, they are not allowed to talk to each other.  GUIDs are perfect for this.
But what if the two systems are people and not machines.  Or what if this unique ID, by some reason or other, has to be human readable?

A possible solution is to have a site which produces new IDs every load.

Go to myuniqueid.com/projects/myproject/ or myuniqueid.com?p=112 and you get 1, 2, 3, 4… back.

We don’t have to log in if the numbers don’t have to be consecutive.  Say that two companies make up the internal project name CowsAreCool.  Both companies still get unique IDs without problem.  One gets 1, 2, 4 while the other 3, 5, 6.  Technically we don’t even need a project name, but it feels cozier to “own” your own project IDs.

Normal modern laptops only have two graphic cards so one can only attach one more monitor.  Why not use the phone as a third?

This third monitor can show RSS feeds, chats, email list or updates like for Facebook or Twitter; stuff you might want to keep an eye on but not spend screen space for.

I have back in the very beginning of the millenium had my WindowsCE PDA in the cradle next to the screen where it showed me the email or chat list.  Very convenient.

Other stuff it could show is log output, compile/unittest/autobuild results.  Let it show memory and CPU usage.  Why not keep Spotify or your favourite music player on it.

It should be easy to use it.  When I had such a working configuration I had my cradle by the monitor and when I dropped the PDA into it things got connected. (well… it used activesync which is one of the worst programs out there so it didn’t exactly connect every time)  Nowadays the cradles are sparse so I only have more futuristic ideas like knocking your cell phone on the monitor and it connects.  Or shake it in a certain way before dropping it on the table to let the phone and the computer understand they are companions.

On a side note I today use a small monitor connected through USB.  It has worked almost without a glitch.  Expensive at around 100€ but, for me, worth it.

This blog contains ideas, ideas and ideas.  Like’em.  Use’em.  It isn’t impossible, it just takes a bit more time.