dan2k3k4

So I found the shell of a bed bug at home last night, however after researching about them, it seems the only solutions that work are to wash everything at 60 degrees celsius and destroy/incinerate your mattress :(

Is there any advances in technology to help detect and exterminate bed bugs? It seems like a huge problem in every major city...

It's great that we're working on various methods against mosquitos which are far more dangerous than the bed bugs but I assume that with the amount of people living and working in cities, they would surely be willing to spend on bed bug research or products?

We have various machines that a few of us need full access too, however these machines are only accessible by TeamViewer and have a few programs running that also have their own set of login login details.<p>Originally, one person kept all information in Excel as a passworded file and shared it with others, but now we really need to move to something more secure that can be accessed and updated by multiple people at the same time.

I have just obtained my B.Sc in Computer Science however I've spent most of my time with Java. I'm currently looking for jobs and wondered whether I should try to get into iOS development (via internship or similar) or to try and find a job with Java development.

Personally, I would prefer to be involved in something new. However as far as I know, most internships pay very little and I'm concerned how I will get by with all the different expenditures (as well as being in debt with a student loan, though that's only 2% or something from your pay-check providing you earn more than 20k per year).

What do you guys think? Is iOS development still growing or is it "too late" to jump into that game? I have some minor Android development too but I haven't found a company for that yet in the regions (Geneva-Lausanne, Switzerland) that I've been looking.

I've had these ideas saved up for over 3 years now, I add new ones every now and then but I haven't gone back to remove ones that exist now. Anyway, since I doubt I would have much time to work on them, I figured I would share them here.

@-- ideas and scribbles

twitter app to plot tweets by the number of followers (x) and following (y) a person has

-- bar graphs, scatter graphs, pie charts -> compare number of tweets for search term 1 against term 2

-- -- weight the tweets by the number of followers a user has

-- -- -- those tweets have a higher chance of being read by more people

music app to generate good musical flow based on trends that someone likes

-- analyze a selection of songs: the tempo of each one, the different instruments used etc.

-- -- recreate new songs based on users selection

-- -- -- new songs will hopefully be good for the user, they can rate song

-- -- -- -- this helps improve the algorithm

using css3 or html5 or something, find out how to make text appear as if it's flying towards you

-- similar to stars in space screensaver, except with text, make a whole webpage just from that

-- -- users will watch the text fly towards them and read it

-- -- -- if people can use mouse to zoom in and out of the text that would be good

a smile goes a long way, but how far?

-- a web app where people post a picture of themself smiling

-- -- all pictures will be geo-tagged, try get location via app if picture is not geo-tagged

-- -- -- allow people to view a global map of where the smile has gone, maybe circular pixel growth

-- -- -- -- app could be applied to other things, not just 'upload picture of smile'

-- -- app will auto crop and zoom in on smile via algorithm (maybe)

-- -- -- only allow a limited number of links that can upload a picture

-- -- -- -- once someone uploads a picture they gain a new link to share

-- -- -- -- -- this link is now the new link to upload a picture

twitter app game - complete the tweet

-- the app will grab tweets from the public timeline and then display them to the user with words missing

-- -- the user will have to select the correct word from a list of 4-5 different words to complete the tweet

-- -- -- the app would randomly remove 1 or 2 words and then use a theasaurus to display similar words in the 'pick list'

-- -- -- -- the app should ensure the tweet length is no more then 140 chars long with each word from the 'pick list'

-- -- -- -- -- else it will display different words in the pick list or remove a different word or select a different tweet

-- -- -- -- -- -- app will never pick a tweet with a link inside it, or with rude words (unless people tick adult-version)

social public ideas website

-- allow people to post ideas with some sort of "open-source license" attached to each idea

-- -- maybe allow different types of licenses

-- -- -- hopefully, more ideas posted = more people stepping up and changing the world

-- -- -- -- simple interface, people should be able to post an idea as easy as it is to tweet

-- -- -- -- -- add trends and stats for different idea topics

relationship match - facebook app

-- grab a users friends and get the relationship of each friend

-- -- if a user is single - add to singles list, if not - add to not single list

-- -- -- check each day and update the singles list

-- -- -- -- show recent singles (past X time) in a display area

-- -- -- -- -- might be fun for people who want to hookup over facebook

data visualization tool - allow users to input data set and add rules to how they want it displayed

-- for instance a user could input various numbers and set the output as a 2D graph

-- -- then add rules where each odd number divisible by X must show up green

-- -- -- or each number that repeats itself more then once must start to become larger

-- -- -- -- or for each number that follows a number larger then itself

-- -- -- -- -- must have a line that connects with the preceeding number

-- -- -- -- -- -- the possibilities could be endless but also quite pointless

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- however could be fun to view random crazy visualizations

twitter tool to analyze when a user should tweet to get the most coverage/views

-- take the users' followers and analyze each follower to find out the average time they tweet

-- -- take all times and find out the best time the user should tweet

-- -- -- certain followers could influence the time if those followers have more followers then other followers

-- -- -- -- or if a users' follower interacts more often with the user, then this could have a larger effect on the time to tweet

dream job maker - website

-- users would log on to the site, input what they like/don't like in a job

-- -- then input where they would want to work

-- -- -- input as much details about the dream job as possible

-- -- -- -- then the service would analyze everything and work out whether the dream job is feasible for that person

-- -- -- -- -- it would provide the likely chance of gettting 'that dream job' and provide the best location for pursuing the job

using sound to draw

-- depending on the pitch, level, or even recognition of the sound - the application would draw something

-- -- it would draw in a certain direction, with a certain brush, with a certain size, and even a certain shade of colour

a fun infographic generator

-- so maybe you drink a lot of coffee and drive a lot, then write a lot of code, and eat

-- -- what if you could just fill in a weekly schedule and throw in a few times when you went somewhere on holiday

-- -- -- then the tool will generate a large picture with small images of how many coffee you've drunk this year

-- -- -- -- and how many miles you've driven (with a simple "equivalent to driving to moon and back" or something)

-- -- -- -- -- it is aimed to be fun and presented in that way

-- -- -- -- -- -- users could save the image and post it on facebook

the smart TV remote

-- software that records when a user switches channel

-- -- from which channel to which channel

-- -- -- which time and date

-- -- -- -- then learn the user and automatically switch channels after completing the learning process

turn last.fm artists into facebook likes

-- don't want to like each artist you listen to on facebook, then use this tool to import all of your artists

-- -- tool would simply get a last.fm user account and get the artists they listen to

-- -- -- then take a facebook account and for each artist

-- -- -- -- find artist on facebook and like

-- -- -- -- -- if not found - skip and warn user at end

music powered energy - tweaking the learning experience for a new instrument

-- link a piano to a device which is set to throttle your electricity in a certain room (i.e. kitchen)

-- -- the more you play the piano notes correctly according the current selected song on the device

-- -- -- then the more electricity is allowed to pass through into the kitchen to cook your meal

-- concept could be used for other things like throttling the broadband for the next 2 hours

-- -- or you have to correctly play a song to be able to log into your computer

what would text look like in a graph - simple web app for fun

-- take each characters' hex code and map it to a 2d or 3d point on a graph

-- -- each point could be coloured to show the direction of the text

-- -- -- multiple instances of the same character could show as a larger point

thesis generation type web application

-- generate aims/thesis titles using a set of noun-verb-verb-noun algorithms

-- -- app would randomly select different words and generate the title

-- -- -- it could be improved with AI by reading titles from ACM, IEEE etc.