I’m currently working on a Halloween light-show project to add a little technology to this year’s display. I have a programmable light controller from D-Light Designs that allows a program called Aurora to tie light patterns in with music and video.

In the above video, I’m only using 7 of the 16 channels on the controller to do an initial test run using a light and music sequence available from Wowlights to make 5 gravestones come alive to the song “This is Halloween”.

I plan on adding at least two “singing” pumpkins over the next few weeks, and then move the display outwards to fit in with the rest of our annual Halloween decorations.

I had a chance to talk technology with Robin Swoboda on Thursday’s Fox 8’s “That’s Life …” this week.

We all have seen what can happen when a computer crashes and valuable work is lost. Many people swear a few curses towards their PCs, but then resolve themselves to the idea that this is just “one of those things” you have to accept when it comes to dealing with computers.

What if, however, those computers are touch screen voting machines and that lost data are votes in a national election?

This is a question that faces Premier Election Solutions, the company formerly known as Diebold Election Systems, which recently admitted that a programming error in their voting equipment has been responsible for dropping votes in some of the Ohio counties that use the devices.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the company had originally claimed the issue stemmed from an incompatibility between software on the voting machines and anti-virus software installed to protect them. However, in August, the president of the company sent a letter to Ohio’s Secretary of State confirming that the problem is with a programming error that under the wrong conditions can lose votes when the system memory cards have their contents uploaded.

Because the admission comes just a few months before the November election season, it’s unlikely that the programming error can be corrected in time. This has resulted in guidelines being issued jointly by Premier Election Solutions and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to Ohio counties on how to work around the issue in the meantime.

The issues with the touch-screen voting machines raises another issue, though, which is how to handle what is a technical issue using the already understaffed polling station volunteers in Ohio. Equally important is the lack of tech-savvy volunteers willing to man those positions.

This has lead to widespread calls for technically-inclined citizens, especially in Ohio, to reach out to their local Ohio County Board of Elections to help reduce the technology problems that may negatively impact every voter’s right to have their vote count.

This story also serves as a good reminder for all of us to start the discussion in our communities about how much impact technology may play within future elections and how we can help our counties and states overcome those issues.

Google has just released their first public beta for Google Chrome, a brand new web browser based on the Webkit codebase. Currently, only Microsoft Windows is supported with an available download, though there are links to register for updates for Linux and OS X.

For a detailed, though entertaining, explanation on why the company is working on their own web browser, visit the Behind the Open Source Browser Project comic.

Exactly how much of an impact the release of yet another web browser will have is still undetermined, but if any company can make it big, it would probably be Google.

The 2008 Democratic National Convention has just passed and the Republican National Convention begins this week, which means there will be a fair number of speeches you may have wanted to listen to, but just couldn’t find the time.

If you have an iPod or iPhone, Apple is making most of those speeches freely available for download through iTunes. Selected speeches from the 2008 DNC convention are already up, and the RNC should soon follow.

If you’re a member of the audio book club Audible.com, the Election 2008 links on the main page will take you to the same content.

August marks a very special anniversary for Apple in that ten years ago it introduced the first iMac to the PC market.

Walking through the PC aisle today with all the different and colorful design choices available might make it easy to underestimate the impact the “Bondi Blue” iMac made. However, 1998 was time where most computers were designed as boring beige boxes more at home under a company desk than in your home.

The idea of a simple to setup all-in-one home PC had been attempted before, but the iMac really cemented the idea that a personal computer could be an experience versus a simple device.

Beyond the outward design, the iMac turned heads with a number of technology decisions that were controversial at the time, but are now standards. Some, for example, balked at the lack of floppy drive, but now many see the iMac as one of the death knells of those drives. The iMac also dropped several common Macintosh ports in lieu of utilizing USB connections, which at the time were very uncommon.

The release of the iMac also signaled a revitalized Apple. Steve Jobs had just returned to the company, which had been dealing with years of poor sales and struggling stock prices. However, the release of the iMac, designed by a team led by Johnathan Ive, sold nearly 800,000 units in the last half of 1998 and brought Apple back to profitability.

In the decade that followed, Johnathan Ive and his team continued to innovate with the Apple line, including iPods and iPhones, but the iMac in particular went through some of the most striking changes.

Those changes also swept through the rest of the PC industry and consumers responded positively by basing buying decisions on design as much as performance and functionality. It’s precisely because of those striking designs that consumers can walk through the PC aisle and find a computer that not only fits their lifestyle needs, but their fashion tastes as well.

The September 2008 issue of Reader’s Digest hit newstands this week with an article entitled “13 things your computer guy won’t tell you …“

I supplied several tips and received a name check for it, though I would point out that everything I contributed are absolutely things I tell my clients about.