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engadget pointed out this device installed on a bike. the pump in the hub prevent you from ever having a flat tire again. the problem is, that the tire is not actually refilled when punctured by driving into a splinter, sherds or just too fast over an edge (resulting in a snakebite ) but it designed to prevent the tire getting flat from the “normal” air loss. hence you only need to bike approximately 3 miles a month and don’t have to bother that your bike has too low air-pressure, sparing you an excuse.

since my migration to panther i was looking for a decent controller for itunes. the problem was, that my favorite freeware app (PTHitunesnotifier , now a 70$ shareware: youcontrol ) to control itunes did not work on panther. the problem is, that i often want to switch to the next track, because i’m not in the mood to listen to the current one (i have a really broad library of about 1500 songs, which are normally set to play on random, so sometimes the one coming up, doesn’t fit). up to now i could achieve that with keyboard maestro which did the hot-key control for itunes, sparing me the right-click on the dock-icon of itunes and then selecting: “next song”. i can just hit F7 to pause or F8 to skip to the next song, greatly decreasing the change to get distracted from my current task. one thing i was missing though is the announcement of the current song, which was what PTHitunesnotifier did really nicely for me. that’s where synergy comes in handy. it has a nice pop-up window - called floater - which announces the current track (as seen on the left). synergy also has good hotkey-control for itunes, so my F7 and F8-keys have something to do, and features also a nifty menu-bar control , which comes in handy sometimes. the only drawback is that it costs 5€, so it’s not free. but hey, i can start it ten times until it wants the serial, which makes it possible for me to use it for free for nearly three months if i do not reboot too often :-) and then i will gladly shell out those bucks if i haven’t found anything better…

it was not like you will read in the newspaper today! the demonstration was mostly peaceful, except all those kiddies slamming those stickers everywhere and also some that couldn’t handle their urge to spray paroles on the walls of berne. the police was there with a massive amount (as you can see in the insanely brightened pictures below) and acted quite blindfold (endangering the whole demonstration, read more in the media-information ). towards the end, near the reithalle where the demonstration was about to dissolve some kiddies started to throw stuff (mostly empty bottles and small stones) towards the policemen (and also some women). those couldn’t help responding with their car-mounted water guns, so the whole scene got out of control pretty fast. and guess what one will read in the news tomorrow? “big riots around the reithalle” and stuff like that. just about

i wonder if tonight there’s gonna be the same amount of police-officers as this afternoon

me for my part thinks that it’s even gonna be more crowded with those funny straw-shields….

oh, and just in case you wondered, i feel much better (unlike other guys ). my back still hurts quite a bit and the muscles are sore like i’ve done 376397876 pushups, but it’s on the way to getting better. in the morning i visited my osteopath who told me that my back and all the other things are not in too bad of condition. he nearly broke my spine and next monday i’ll go and see him again to decide when i (finally) can/should work again. (have you ever been manipulated by a osteopath? the sounds are mind-wrecking! but the feeling when you walk out of the doctor’s practice makes you want to turn around and go in again :-)

today i called the insurance of the girl that hit me on tuesday and informed them that she did not hit a car, but destroyed a bike (they wrote: “please inform us, how expensive the repair of the motor vehicle is gonna be”). the guy on the phone was really friendly, but also a bit weird: “oh, i cannot believe that your bike (something like this ) costed 2000 swiss francs five years ago, it must be something really expensive then”. well, sure it was, it’s one of my work -horses, you silly! and when i informed him, that i’m also gonna buy a new helmet on the insurance, he also a bit surprised. but hey, i don’t wanna drive with a potentially damaged helmet, it’s just not safe (not that it’s safe in the first place :-)

as you can see in the entry below i’m now able to post pictures directly from iphoto , it’s still bit quirky, but the software i used is still in it’s beta stage, so bear with the author. the photos i blogged directly from my iphoto are from our stay in vienna, one is the town-hall with nina, the other pics are from the restaurant raan , which was more than lovely, i had a vegetarian sushi which was among the best asian stuff i ever ate! a big recommendation if you’re ever gonna go to vienna!

[image via boingboing ]

i’ll be in vienna for the weekend (actually until monday evening). nina won some tickets , so we fly (and leave our eco-conscience at home) and thus we have four full days to enjoy castle schonbrunn (our hotel is near the castle), the hofburg , the prater , the stephans-dom and what else vienna has to offer. and last but not least we’ll meet babsi, a friend i met in ‘97 in australia (i can’t believe it’s such a long time) so i guess it’s gonna be really funny! have a nice weekend.