As a modern (read: green) road warrior I find my electronics are often in need of some juice but I have no place to charge them. Enter the Power Monkey Explorer. The Power Monkey Explorer is a combination of two devices: a solar panel and a rechargeable battery.

Using the solar panel directly with my cell phone at WWDC 2008.

The solar panel is about the size of an iPod Touch. Via a suite of dongles that come with it you can plug this solar panel into just about any cell phone, mp3 player, or other small electronic devices that needs charging.

But what about those times I don’t find myself in the reach of sun light, I am, after all a programer and prefer the blue iridescent glow of the computer screen. This is where the Power Monkey Explorer’s rechargeable (weather proof) battery comes in. You can plug the solar panel into this, charge it up, and then use the juice whenever you need.

The single best part of the Power Monkey Explorer is that it eliminated four chargers I need to take with me when I travel.

The Power Monkey Explorer is a rugged device and I plan on taking it with me on all my future travels.

Charging the battery on a quick flight.

WWDC 2008 will be my fourth time attending as a student. So for all the student developers out there here are some tips. The goal of a student is different from those sent by their companies. For us WWDC is an opportunity to get internships or jobs at some of the top software development companies.

For inside the conference:

• Checkin on Sunday, as students we get there a day early, use it to check in. You’ll be glad when you are first in line for the keynote instead of first in line to get your badge.
• Bring a laptop. This is a must, as somebody said last year “going to WWDC without a laptop is like sending soldiers to battle with bananas instead of guns.”
• Put your name on your power adapter and bring your extension cable for it. This is a must for so many obvious reasons, but all I have to say is that I ended up with somebody else’s power adapter, and you do NOT want to find yourself in a session a power adapter that may be incompatible with your generation of laptop. When you are constantly compiling code your battery does not last long.
• Take advantage of the sack lunch sessions. These are usually non technical talks done by invited guests such as Guido van Rossum or somebody from Pixar. These sessions are “big picture” and among the most memorable.
• Take notes, but don’t take notes alone, get SubEthaEdit. Nothing beats collaborative text editing. I actually got a job interview at Apple by chatting with one of my fellow note takers.
• They give you a really nifty bag, don’t use it. Everybody is using that really really cool bag and I know too many people who have lost theirs amongst the confusion. I had to beg for a new bag my first year after mine was taken. Also it’s usually a messenger bag and for all that is going on a backpack is better.
• There is no need to stock up on Odwalla Juice, they never run out and it is delicious, oh so delicious.
• Have several copies of your resumé ready; there is a student job fair. This is a major networking opportunity. I have never left a WWDC without a job interview with at least two companies, one of which was Apple. The old timers will go on and on about how “WWDC is going down hill,” smile and nod, try to steer the conversation on how to get into a mac software company.
• Have an elevator speech ready. You won’t have much time to pitch yourself during an impromptu interview. Practice on your 3 minute spiel on why you are a good fit for an awesome company. Did you do research? do you have a pet project? both of these are good things to talk about in your elevator talk.
• The best session is Stump The Experts. Get there early, it fills up. If you want a t-shirt the easiest way is to ID a walk in song (I have 2 hats and one t-shirt thanks to paying attention to the walk in songs).
• Don’t waste your time playing video games. WWDC has a great showcase of the best of Mac gaming, it is very easy to get sucked in while playing Doom on a 30″ Apple Cinema Display with Bose simulated surround headphones. I missed many manny sessions my first year due to this deadly combination.

For outside the conference:

• Go to WWDC parties. I remember the WebKit launch party was pretty awesome, these are both educational and social opportunities. We are all nerds, we talk about code all the time, just sometimes its nice to do with a beer in your hand. This year somebody made a list of some here. Again these are really good opportunities to meet developers and network.
• San Francisco was made for walking. You have a lot of time on Thursday and Friday as the conference winds down, use this time to see the sights. 
• The Moscone Center has good food, just not always for lunch. If you aren’t going to a sack lunch there are several good restaurants within two blocks of the conference. If you want to skip lunch go check out the Metreon just across the street or Mel’s Diner, on Mission, southwest of 4th.
• The House of Nanking is the best chinese food I’ve ever had.
• Do NOT wear the shirt they give you, or any apple bling for that matter, we all have it, it does not impress anybody there. Graphic tees are cool tho…
• Stop by the Apple Company Store. Last year the Developer Bash was in Yerba Buena Gardens, not 1 Infinite Loop, but its worth catching the train down for. It is the only place you can get Apple coffee mugs, Apple toilet seat covers, Apple… you get the idea.

280slides.com is one of the best webapps to date, and not just in its genre. Not only does it have all of the port and polish I would expect of a full blown professional desktop application but it works just as smooth as one too.

So, what does it do? Well Google Docs and OpenOffice.org should move over, because 280Slides is attacking their turf. It is a presentation suite modeled after Keynote, a desktop presentation application.

280Slides gets media right. Integrated in to the app is the ability to pull media from a “local” library or insert images via an internal search widget. All of this makes for a very robust feeling application that has the power of a desktop app, but fully leverages the power of web APIs.

While it may be styled off of Apple Inc.’s Keynote, 280slides only appears to export to the ubiquitous .ppt format used by Microsoft’s PowerPoint application.

This self-proclaimed “fantasy documentary” looks into the future of non-linear interactive media after getting sick of non-interactive linear television. The paradigm he explores is a search engine anthropomorphized as a butler. The butler, Tom, introduces himself as a desktop application intent on helping Douglas navigate and explore this non-linear hypertext system (not so web 2.0, but hey its 1990). Some might find it reminiscent of Apple Computer’s Knowledge Navigator concept.

From Wikipedia:

Hyperland is a 50 minute long documentary film about hypertext and surrounding technologies written by Douglas Adams and produced by BBC Two in 1990. It stars Douglas Adams as a computer user and Tom Baker, with whom Adams already had worked on Doctor Who, as a software agent.

Obama, not just for YouTube any more. Now you can follow Barack Obama on iTunes in either audio or video formats.

The question was asked on reddit.com “Do we eat too much corn?” Yes, we do. But most of the time you don’t know it. Corn is in everything we consume (think high fructose corn syrup). To enterprising college grads went out to see where all this corn comes from. Their result is the documentary King Corn:

YouTube - President Jimmy Carter - Address to the Nation on Energy