The crux of the whole thing is that she has an umbrella in her hand.. so why the bag old lady? Why??!!

This is a quick example using only vanilla PHP.  There are more dynamic ways to do this using RSS classes built into PHP addons, which I won’t go into detail here.  Instead, we will just use vanilla PHP, and parse the XML by hand.

On to the code, I take 3 arguments here, number of posts to return, the RSS URL, and an optional max number of characters to return.

//get most recent rss
//get most recent rss
function recent_rss($display=0,$url='', $description_limit = 0) {
	$itemArr = array();
    $doc = new DOMDocument();
    $doc->load($url);
 
    foreach ($doc->getElementsByTagName('item') as $node) {
        if ($display == 0) {
            break;
        }
 
    $description = $node->getElementsByTagName('description')->item(0)->nodeValue;
 
    //if limit passed in, truncate string
    if($description_limit > 0) {
		$description = substr($description, 0, $description_limit)."..."; 	
	}
 
        $itemRSS = array (
            'title'       => $node->getElementsByTagName('title')->item(0)->nodeValue,
            'description' => $description,
            'link'        => $node->getElementsByTagName('link')->item(0)->nodeValue,
            'pubdate'     => $node->getElementsByTagName('pubDate')->item(0)->nodeValue
        );
 
         array_push($itemArr, $itemRSS);
 
        $display--;
    }
    return $itemArr;
}
 
//example use
$recent_post = recent_rss(1, 'http://houseplansblog.nelsondesigngroup.com/index.php/feed/', 0);
var_dump($recent_post);

Now, Here is a quick and dirty XHTML example showing how you might implement this on a page. (Note the use of the preg_replace to get rid of weird characters that get into the RSS sometimes)

<div id="rss_container" style="width:250px;">
 
	<div id="rss_title">
		<a href='<?php echo $recent_post[0]["link"]; ?>'>
			<?php echo  preg_replace('/[^(\x20-\x7F)]*/','', $recent_post[0]["title"]);?>
		</a>
	</div>
 
	<div id="rss_pub_date">
		<?php echo $recent_post[0]["pubdate"];?>
	</div>
 
	<div id="rss_description">
		<?php echo $recent_post[0]["description"];?>
	</div>
 
</div>

Dear Windows 7,

First, I want to thank you for confirming my hatred for all things that slink out of Redmond, Washington, you have my gratitude. For a few hours there, I really thought I was going to bury the hatched with Microsoft, but then you showed me the truth and for that, I owe you one.

After you finally installed (and what took so long, were you on the phone with your Grandmother? Sheesh!) I thought I was looking at Vista RC2 with a snappy task bar.

The new taskbar was pretty neat, keeping all the instances together under one icon and letting me “pin” it there as a shortcut for the future. But then I realized something horrible; I have no control over this taskbar! My two-year old daughter is easier to control than this taskbar!

Unlike the taskbars in KDE, I can’t re-size you the way I want, I can’t center you, I can’t even figure out how to make you semi-transparent! I would forgive you that, if you could do the snappy things that the Mac’s taskbar does, but you don’t even seem to be giving it any effort at all!

I’m not impressed with your Start menu either. Was Vista’s menu so awesome that you decided to copy it? Sorry, but it’s not that awesome.

Your “Search programs and files” feature looks like a nice way to cut through the clutter of the “All Programs” menu, but it’s not. I deleted the “Internet Explorer” icon (cause I really don’t like viruses, sorry!) and had to find the stupid program manually in the Programs folder in order to use your website to download an update manually. That’s not helpful at all.

Let’s talk for a second about the Control Panel. Was it necessary to remove a link to the Control Panel from the Desktop right-click menu? And speaking of the right-click menu, just how is it all that different from Vista?

Now, I know you aren’t in charge of the whole “Gadgets” feature, but who else am I to hold responsible here? You took a wonderful idea (from Mac again!) and cut the legs out from under it.

I mean, I love being able to find third-party gadgets online for free and all, but why couldn’t you integrate your gadgets with Google’s gadgets like everyone else? Is that a “upgrade” you have planned for later? If so, you should find something else to fix, ’cause I can get Google’s stuff on my own, thank you very much.

Finally, I am very happy that, unlike your sister Vista, you don’t ask me a thousand times if the latest app I installed can have access to my computer, my hard drive, my internet connection and my saved passwords file (I only have one password: “God”, without the quotes of course).

Instead, you do have one of the most asinine habits I’ve ever encountered: I installed Hulu Desktop today. It installed fairly quickly with no warnings, but when it started to run, you stopped it and told me that it may not have installed correctly.

You then offered to reinstall it the right way, if I wanted. I did want, and the installation went just as smoothly as before and this time the program ran.

My question to you is this: Why the hell didn’t you install it correctly the first time instead of making me do it twice?!?

I swear, dealing with you is like trying to keep a brain-damaged monkey from humping a telephone pole; it’s frustrating and doesn’t seem to accomplish anything.

In the end, I wish you all the luck, but for now I think I’ll take my laptop and go see what KDE4 is up to. Bye!

Sincerely Yours,
A Friend (NOT!)

Each of the 48 cores are fully programmable and are connected via a “2-D mesh” that is capable of speeds up to 256Gb/s. It is this “mesh” that allows Intel to compare the chip to so-called “Cloud Servers” which use hardwired networks to share a workload.

One of the most important aspects of this experimental chip is the concept of “islands” that was introduced. While things get a little complicated here, let’s just point out that Intel has introduced a new concept of how power and frequency is modulated. The end result is that this chip can function on as little as 25 watts and a maximum of 125 watts at full power.

This can be compared to today’s dual and quad-core processors, which run at around the same wattage. That is a serious decrease in wattage compared to the increase in computing power!

You may be asking as to why this prototype is more important than the 80-core test chip known as the Terra Core unveiled three years ago. Well, the answer is that this “prototype” can actually be used, while the Terra Core was more a proof-of-concept.

The 48-Core example contains fully-functional x86 IA cores that are actually programmable. Yes, for you Linux aficionados out there, you CAN use this prototype to boot a kernel!

Intel is planning to release a six-core processor next year (codenamed Gulftown), the 48-core prototype is still too expensive to manufacture commercially as yet.

To my friends at Intel: When you guys are done playing with your new toy, can I borrow it for a couple of years? You know, just until I can get my Mom to buy me one?

The truth is, I’m a bit of an anarchist, I always have been. I visit Piratebay on a regular basis, and I don’t pay a monthly Usenet fee for the news articles. However, when it comes to the case of Psystar vs Apple, I’m all about the big guy: Apple.

For those of you who have been living on a deserted island for the past couple of years; Psystar is a so-called ‘Mac-Clone’ retailer. They sell computers that run the latest Macintosh software.

It all started back in 2005 when Apple decided to start using Intel brand processors. Before this, they had pretty much locked their OS to their hardware and it was next to impossible to get it running on any other machine.

After the Intel switch, downloads for the Mac OS from Apple’s own download page pretty much went hysterical for a while. With a little tweaking, anyone could have a Mac on the cheap.

At average prices somewhere between 2 to 3 times higher than PCs, Macs have always been one of the most expensive personal and business computing solutions available. After the switch, Apple was able to offer cheaper hardware, but the catch was that their proprietary system was now open for pirating.

Then came Psystar, they started selling Mac clones straight from their website, believing that they had found a flaw in Apple’s Terms of Use for the operating system.

It turns out, they really just thought that Apple’s terms were unenforceable. Their whole legal position was based on the fact that they never thought a judge would side with Apple, based soley on the grammar they used when writing their TOU.

Now, we hear that Psystar settled with Apple for the princely sum of $2.7 million (US). If, as they reported, they have to date sold 768 clones, this means that Psystar has promised to pay a little over $3,000 (US) for each unit sold.

Okay, so maybe I don’t understand the math that Psystar is using to justify themselves to their stockholders, but it looks to me as if they are in serious trouble, financially.

Legally, the settlement came with a clause that says Psystar won’t be paying anything until all appeals are finished. Which could take several years. In this way, they were able to stop Apple’s Cease-And-Desist request to the judge and continue to sell their products.

Psystar is now claiming to be selling Mac-Ready PCs, without the OS. Purchasers will be able to download their own copies of the Operating System and install it manually. This of course could never catch on, but then only selling 768 units to begin with is not exactly stellar either.

The good news is that Apple finally seems to be making progress with protecting their property. Technically a hardware company since its inception, Apple has constantly worked to produce an operating system that will take full advantage of the latest hardware available.

To take their work, which is basically offered for free to Macintosh owners, and try to make a profit from it is just this side of sleazy. Psystar can tell their shareholders whatever they want, but as of now, they don’t have a chance in hell of pulling a profit.

In 2006, the electronics world was rocked when US regulators announced a probe into possible price fixing by the world’s leading LCD manufacturers, a probe that eventually lead to convictions against the companies, who eventually paid large fines for their actions. Several of the companies plead guilty to the crime of price fixing, though Samsung was never charged and cooperated with investigators.

Mark Durrant, a spokesman for Nokia, has stated that the company filed the suits here in the US and in the UK, against both LCD and CRT manufacturers. He noted that Nokia hoped to avoid a years-long battle and would settle out of court.

For the hardware manufacturers, this is a turning point in their recovery from the turndown in profits they have suffered since the initial investigation in 2006. Weathering this battle with Nokia is crucial to their continued operations.

Since Nokia is the undisputed champion when it comes to cell phones, this could very well be the worst thing that could happen to these companies for a long time. Even should they manage to settle this battle outside of a courtroom, they have already lost the battle with the guilty pleas in 2006, opening them up for even more lawsuits from other manufacturers in the near future.

Watch for Nokia’s stock to rise for a few days as copies of the lawsuits finally make it to the desks of the LCD manufacturers, but I predict a major problem for Nokia in the near future. Everyone knows they have been losing market share since the iPhone arrived to blazing angelic trumpets, but this is not the way to regain it.

It is a well-known ploy in the business world: If you can’t make money from sales, find someone to sue. Unfortunately, companies who sue their own suppliers soon find themselves having a hard time finding contracts with them after the smoke clears. Maybe this is just the first of the death knells from the Finnish giant.

In Michael’s own words, “I want a dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web.” And he was prepared to unveil the end-product on November 20th in San Fransisco when he got a “bad news” email from the hardware manufacturer he had partnered with.

I encourage you to read the whole post before continuing, but for those who don’t wanna, I’m gonna summarize it all and then bitch about it for a while…

Hopefully, you read the post already. If not, here’s a rundown:
Michael, represented by TechCrunch, had been working with Chandra Rathakrishnan, the CEO of a partner company called Fusion Garage. Despite shared working conditions, including using space in TechCrunch’s very own offices and actually sharing some employees, Fusion Garage was considered a separate entity.

Then came along a mysterious third-party company who wanted to buy out TechCrunch and Fusion Garage. That’s when things get really confusing from Michael’s perspective. Suddenly, Fusion’s shareholders didn’t see the value in continuing to work with TechCrunch, since they already had the working physical models and all of the blueprints to them.

In on quoted email, a shareholder wrote: “We still acknowledge that Arrington and TechCrunch bring some value to your business endeavor…If he agrees to our terms, we would have Arrington assume the role of visionary/evangelist/marketing head and Fusion Garage would acquire the rights to use the Crunchpad brand and name. Personally, I don’t think the name is all that important but you seem to be somewhat attached to the name.”

In other words, “Hey, thanks for the idea and all the hard work you put in, but we can take it from here and really don’t need any more assistance from you. Bye-bye!”

This is a nightmare scenario for startup firms everywhere. You spend months, even years, getting your initial capital secured, work 16 to 18 hours a day meeting personally with the heads of companies who like your ideas and finally settle down to business with a group that you feel has the same goals and vision as yourself. Then, overnight, they take your product and run.

The saddest part of the whole story is that no one owns the IP for the product outright, both firms share the copyright. Without patents or patent application receipts, Michael has nothing to show that the whole project was his idea from the start.

So Fusion Garage is free to take their part of the project, which is pretty much the whole damned thing, and run. And it is all perfectly legal, as far as copyright laws are concerned.

In the end, Michael and TechCrunch could have saved themselves a whole ton of grief with the proper contracts, but instead it appears as if they relied on a gentleman’s agreement.

I imagine that if Fusion Garage moves ahead with the release of the gadget, TechCrunch has at least a civil case they can pursue, but is it really worth the money it will cost to get the lawyers involved? In his own words, Michael stated that he never expected the device to be a huge money-maker, so a lawsuit may just be too futile to pursue.

It looks like TechCrunch has wasted their time and money and Fusion Garage has taken advantage of a fat little sheep.

Take this as a lesson learned from the mistakes of others: No “partnership” is equal on both sides. In today’s business world, you can’t trust even your own brother to stand with you when the stakes get high enough. Copyright your work, patent your hardware, and for God’s sake, require contracts with your partners and employees.

But is it enough? The economy, despite official projections, is still suffering. The entertainment industry, which includes the sub-genre of Video Games, is suffering right along with it. Historically, this has not always been true during times of financial turmoil.

My Dad grew up during the Great Depression era, and I have heard many stories about his everyday life during those times. He was quick to point out that people flocked to the movies in those days, that being the chief form of entertainment. For roughly the price of a soda and a candy bar (twenty-five cents), you could attend a matinée that often featured several movies in a row.

At the start of the Great Depression, Hollywood nearly collapsed before they retooled and came back stronger than ever. Focusing on musicals, the industry regained its footing, soon becoming the one bright spot in many dreary lives.

Today, the entertainment industry is once again feeling the sting of an economic downturn: Console sales are down thirteen percent, gaming giant Electronic Arts is once again laying off workers after losing another $391 million vs last year and Nintendo has reported a 52% drop in profits for the beginning of 2009.

In the face of all of this bad news, are the unexpected Halo: ODST’s 1.5 million units and COD: MW2’s strong, out-of-the-gate performance enough to put a shine on the tarnished $19.5 billion dollar industry woes?

In my opinion, no. As the console dies down, social gaming is increasing. Facebook and MySpace are both enjoying a large increase in gaming from their prospective sites: Zynga’s family-friendly “Farmville” has an estimated 67 million users. Not too shabby for a free-to-play browser-based game, eh?

Escapism is the word often used to describe the influx of movie goers in the traumatic 1930’s as people sought to forget their daily woes by watching cheap, feel-good musicals at their local theater. Perhaps the same word could be applied to the growing social-gaming scene today.

Looking for a financial tip? Now would be a great time to buy into advertising-supported free-to-play social gaming companies. Trust me, they’re the next big thing…