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So what is The Leviathan?

And even more importantly what are the Leviathan Chronicles? Well, in short it’s a podcast. But it is so much more. When you first go to the website you are greeted with an extremely compelling user interface that takes you into another world. Once you read the description of what it is… a struggle between secret government (black box) agencies and an entire race of “immortals” that live in a science community thousands of feet down at the deepest reaches of the ocean… then you will want to listen.

So what will I hear when I listen?

Just hold on to your seat, that’s all I have to say. The production quality of this podcast is through the roof! If you close your eyes and use your imagination you’ll think you were in a movie theater. The sound effects are very good, the voice acting is phenomenal and it is all brought together so that you aren’t bored at any point during the episode.

So what’s the story like? Is it any good?

Yes, yes and yes! I’ve listened to several episodes now and am inextricably caught up in the action. The government, conspiracy theory stuff reminds me a little of the Alias TV show in the early seasons (when it was still good). The immortal, other world type themes reminded me a lot of The Matrix; a battle that isn’t seen by everyone yet is fought all the same. While they share similarities with those other properties The Leviathan is a completely original and compelling story. I simply compare it because that’s the way my mind works so that I can find points of reference.

So what are you waiting for?!

Seriously, if you are into science fiction then you need to check this out. Not only that but since it’s a podcast you can listen to it wherever you can’t really read. I personally have been listening to it while jogging, but you could listen to it on the way to work or on a flight… anywhere!

Build Seamless, Fully Functional Forms with No Coding
Collis Ta’eed provides and excellent tutorial on using the Wufoo site to generate web forms with no coding. There are lots of pictures and code samples.

JDK 6 Update 7: Java VisualVM Included
Geertjan Wielenga gives an honest review of the latest Java Development Kit’s new features, including a visual tool for peeking into your virtual machine!

Dive Into Python
Thinking about jumping into some Python development? Well Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers and you can download a FREE e-book version online. Pretty sweet.

5 useful Google search tips you might now know
Roshan Bhattarai gives us 5 really simple Google searching tips.

Google Launches Lively to Create a Virtual World Across Social Networks
Mashable gives a great review of a new product from Google (huge surprise). It’s called Lively and is a new social network built around the concept of creating virtual avatars. Second Life for Google anyone?

I have recently discovered Hulu. I’ve not been much of a sit down and watch T.V. person for quite some time. I work from home so if there is a choice between being productive or “vegging” out in from of the television I usually end up back in front of my computer. The advent of World of Warcraft hasn’t helped that situation out much either. Anyway, one show that I’ve missed for a while is The Office. I watched faithfully during the first season and then dropped away from T.V. for the most part. Well, you can watch full episodes on Hulu for free! Yay!

The interface is very nice and unobtrusive. The player can pop out into a separate browser window if desired or it can go fullscreen. There is also a “dim the lights” feature that masks the page that the player is embedded on so that you can focus on the player without all the eye strain of a stark white web page. Ok, so they have my favorite show and a nice, easy-to-use interface… but do they have other decent content? Sure! Some of the other cool shows you can watch include Arrested Development, Family Guy, America’s Got Talent and Dilbert. Want more “blasts from the past”? Well, then you can check out episodes of Fantasy Island, The A-Team or Airwolf (yeah remember when flying a helicopter was cool).

Huh? I thought music was sound… not color. Well, ever heard of the blues? A site called Guitarati (no it doesn’t really have anything to do with guitars) has presented the world with a slightly new interface for selecting music. They assert that all music can be associated with a color. So who determines what color Jimi Hendrix singing All Along The Watchtower is? You do! As you browse and find music on the site you can make color suggestions and the aggregation of all of the people that pick colors for a particular song determines its final color.

Sound strange? Well, I thought so too but it is amazingly accurate… sometimes. Go ahead and check it and see if the music that the site picks doesn’t match the color that you selected. Heck, even if it doesn’t make a lick of sense it sure is a cool and different interface.

Books Giveaway: Comment and Win!
That’s right… Smashing Magazine is giving away books on web design and programming. All you have to do is comment on the post and you could win one of eight books.

A beginner’s mootools - create draggable and resizable elements
Nice beginners tutorial on creating dragable and resizable elements on a web page.

deviantART: 30+ Brethtaking Artworks
Looking for some new awesome desktop wallpaper? This is a great list of some really nice images.

Building a medium to large scale Flex App using Cairngorm
This is a really nice four part series on creating Flex applications using a MVC framework called Cairngorm.

Aspect Oriented Programming in JavaScript
Here is a really cool discussion (and some downloadable code) on using aspect oriented programming in JavaScript.

Cell phones are for the most part proprietary in their platforms. Sure you can write J2ME applications for them. BlackBerry phones also have an API which you can utilize to write custom applications. It’s the actual operating system though that you really can’t get too. Don’t care? Well, then this review isn’t for you. However, if you like to slice and dice things and hack your way to hardware euphoria then read on.

OpenMoko.com is building an open platform for cellular phones. Why? To support what they are calling ubiquitous computing. Ubiquitous computing means more than computing wherever you wander: It means knowing the locale, weaving seamlessly into the local fabric, and vanishing.

So how can you jump on the bandwagon and begin to help building the next open cellular platform? You’ll have to actually buy a Neo1973 phone (pictured above)… boo! Yeah, it would be nice to be able to get a software simulator so that you can poke around for free. Not only that but at the time of this writing they were sold out of the phones so you’d have to wait until they became available again.

The consumer hardware is reported to become available “by years end.” I certainly hope so. Why? Well, I’m not so sure I’ll be jumping on the OpenMoko bandwagon, but I fully support openness in technology and competition. Openness means that more people all over the world can participate and help to make better products. Competition means… cheaper for me! If you want to check out the hardware and software specs and see some more pictures of the new open phone (Neo1973) you can go here.

Google Shell Online - goosh.org
Any *nix lovers (and Google lovers) should definitely check this site out. It’s basically a shell interface to Google… on a web page. Awesome!

Not An OS
Tim Bray vents his frustration about people calling the internet the “Web OS” and generally comparing the internet to an operating system. Preach on, brotha!

Learning ActionScript 3.0: A Beginners Guide Free Ebook
Free Ebook! Get your free Ebook! Isn’t that the chant of the internet for the past several years? Well, here is one that teaches ActionScripting. Hey, it’s free so it can’t hurt to check it out.

The Essence of Software
The title reminds me of Essence of Emeril, but that’s food for another blog! Paul W. Homer presents a new Wiki project to bring software engineers together and create the ultimate blueprint of software development. Go check it out… and contribute!

Embed Google Earth In Your Site
Brady Forrest gives a quit and dirty how-to and embedding Google Earth into your site! Easy and simple.

Are you in the market for a CMS (Content Management System) for your next big idea? Or are you just looking for some easy to use software for a personal blog? Well, look no further! OpenSourceCMS most likely has what you are looking for. This site is created for the purpose of hosting many if not all of the free and open source CMS software systems on the internet. The kicker… they allow YOU to administer them and basically kick the tires for a bit. That’s right!

Every wanted to see what it’s like to run Drupal or Joomla? How about WordPress or Textpattern? They have a ton of different platforms that you can try out in categories such as Portals, Blogs, e-Commerce, Groupware, Forums, Image Galleries, Wikis and more. All you have to do is find one that you’d like to try out and click on it. There will be some general information about the platform as well as links to both the front page and the administration page. And of course the login details for the administration page are listed right there for you to use. This is a very cool site for trying out different systems and not having to spend your own time performing multiple installations.

What Science Fiction Can Teach Developers
Casey Charlton gives some insight as to what science fiction can teach developers. It is a very interesting read ending a the statement, “most documentation is totally and utterly worthless.”

OpenID: Does The World Really Need Yet Another Username and Password?
Jeff Atwood gives a very well written analysis of OpenID providing both pros and cons of this attempt at solving the “login explosion”. He also gives an extremely easy to understand explanation of what OpenID is and how it works in a practical sense.

8 steps to my personal Firefox setup for productivity
Eric Wendelin writes a how-to on setting up Firefox 3 for max productivity in the Java / Web Programmer arena. This is mainly a personal preference thing, but I found some pretty cool ideas here that I hadn’t seen or thought of before.

Google App Engine Announces Pricing Plan, APIs, Open Access
ReadWriteWeb gives the skinny on some upcoming announcements from Google on the Google App Engine. Included are pricing plans for usage, new APIs and no more lines… no more waiting!

Mashable’s Guide to Upcoming Web 2.0 Conferences and Events
Mashable author Tamar Weinberg brings you a guide to the upcoming Web 2.0 conferences of 2008. Get that early registration in now!

Managing and applying database changes with LiquiBase
Federico Cargnelutti gives a quick demonstration of how to use LiquiBase, an open source, DBMS-independent library for tracking, managing and applying database changes.

Fibonacci Functions
DeWitt Clinton writes a very interesting article which analyzes the differences in several programming languages by comparing implementations of the fibonacci algorithm.

TuneGlue: Cool Music Discovery Tool… That Seems Hidden
Mashable.com covers the TuneGlue music discovery site, which has been somewhat off the radar for the past year. I personally went and checked this site out and it is very cool. It’s one of those sites that you can easily spend an hour on just playing with the interface.

ScrnShots Upgrades: An Interview with Co-Founder Derek Kehler
Mashable.com covers the ScrnShots web service / tool. This is a pretty cool utility which combines taking screenshots with a personalized bookmarking service.

Social Media U: Take a Class in Social Media
Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb provides are very nice how-to of social media. She covers things such as personal branding, web 2.0, blogging, YouTube, wikis and more. If you are new or a veteran you are sure to find some hidden gems here to take you one step further in this social networking world.