/categories/other/ Recent content in Other on Personal Site of Tim Child Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:35:42 +0000 /2009/07/10/loving-alexandros-vasmoulakiss-work/ Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:35:42 +0000 /2009/07/10/loving-alexandros-vasmoulakiss-work/ Just really fantastic imagery: I have to get some of these paintings I think, trouble is he paints them on the side of buildings: Maybe a small one painted in the living room would look cool. More information here: http://www.zap51.com/pheyo/ /2009/07/08/google-chrome-os/ Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:02:11 +0000 /2009/07/08/google-chrome-os/ Wow, Google have announced the release of the Google OS. Although it wasn’t entirely a shock its nice to see that they are promoting something from the ground up. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html Looking forward to trying it out even if I don’t have a netbook. /2009/05/14/bada-table-transforms-into-a-love-seat/ Thu, 14 May 2009 14:58:58 +0000 /2009/05/14/bada-table-transforms-into-a-love-seat/ Bada Table transforms into a love seat.: “ Perfect for small-living spaces, the multi-functional Bada Table from EcoSystems, made of reclaimed walnut, transforms from a sleek table to a love seat with a simple ‘flick of the wrist.’‘Slatted for production soon, future models will be constructed of FSC certified wood. Clever. Via. ” (Via Curbly Recent Posts.) This is very cool. /2009/05/08/bbc-hd-slow-motion-surfing/ Fri, 08 May 2009 15:02:35 +0000 /2009/05/08/bbc-hd-slow-motion-surfing/ This is just awesome: Make sure that you watch it in HD. /2009/01/10/palm-pre/ Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:13:57 +0000 /2009/01/10/palm-pre/ The Palm Pre looks really interesting, not sure it will get me away from lusting after an iPhone – particularly for its OS X integration but I am glad Palm is doing good. Pity they couldn’t do better with the design though, but it looks like it could be comfortable to hold. This is what Scoble has to say about it: Palm did what Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft couldn’t: build a better experience than Apple: “ /2008/01/17/predictions-for-2008/ Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:00:00 +0000 /2008/01/17/predictions-for-2008/ I don’t think its too late to provide some predictions for 2008, so here are mine. 3D Printers We are going to be seeing a lot more on the subject, although they have been out for a while I think this is going to be the year that we are going to be hearing alot more about 3D printers and 3D printing methods, and seeing a lot more things they can do. /2008/01/07/100-things-that-you-didnt-know-about-2007/ Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:03:34 +0000 /2008/01/07/100-things-that-you-didnt-know-about-2007/ For once BBC news comes up with something interesting, a list of 100 things that you didn’t know about 2007: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2008/01/100_things_we_didnt_know_last_3.shtml Some that I like include: Newcastle is the noisiest place in England. Only about half of China’s population can speak the national language, Mandarin. There is mobile phone reception from the summit of Mount Everest. Denmark is the happiest country in Europe; Italy the unhappiest. Cats can be police constables /2008/01/04/windows-mobile-6/ Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:36:44 +0000 /2008/01/04/windows-mobile-6/ I have finally got around to upgrading my HTC S620 phone to Windows Mobile 6 now that its a free upgrade from HTC. Of course I didn’t bother to backup the old SMS that I had on it, but ActiveSync took care of the contacts, calender, email etc with no problem. Now I have to go through the painful business of installing software on it. So here are my picks at the moment: /2006/07/20/top-30-django-tutorials-and-articles/ Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:33:11 +0000 /2006/07/20/top-30-django-tutorials-and-articles/ Here’s a list of 30 helpful tutorials and/or articles on the Django web framework. This was written as an answer to the Top 30 Ruby on Rails tutorials and it is really helpful when you are learning Django. Hopefully this will help it get even more support. read more | digg story /2006/07/16/hellahella-on-apache-2/ Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:00:46 +0000 /2006/07/16/hellahella-on-apache-2/ I have been using hellahella using paster serve and I must say the performance was terrible. I don’t think that it is mean’t to be run for any length of time which is at odds with hellahella, the web interface to hellanzb, which is. I have documented before that I am using hellanzb to manage my nzb files, and hellahella makes it even easier and with integration with http://www.newzbin.com it is even better (how about one click downloads, unrar, par, and ready to view – yes I have it! /2006/07/07/ssh-tricks/ Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:55:03 +0000 /2006/07/07/ssh-tricks/ The article describes in a human language some of the powerful, yet very useful (even for total newbies) capabilities of OpenSSH, such as passwordless login, automatic execution of commands on a remote system or even mounting a remote folder using SSH. read more | digg story /2006/07/05/infrared-photo-gallery/ Wed, 05 Jul 2006 19:06:58 +0000 /2006/07/05/infrared-photo-gallery/ Seen this gallery a couple of times before but thought as I keep going back to it, why not blog it straight from Digg. He says in the comments field that he is using a Filter to get these images, and with a long exposure time it is possible with a Digital Camera, so I might be getting a Hoya R72 for my Nikon D50 quite soon! read more | digg story /2006/06/01/mona-lisa-speaks/ Thu, 01 Jun 2006 06:46:43 +0000 /2006/06/01/mona-lisa-speaks/ Scientists have put together the voice of Mona Lisa based upon her head height and hands from estimates of her overall height. More here: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx /2006/05/29/feeds-now-working-again/ Mon, 29 May 2006 19:54:48 +0000 /2006/05/29/feeds-now-working-again/ My feeds should now be working again, after some time of activity. This was probably due to either the upgrade to WordPress 2.0.2, and not upgrading the plugin or changing back to the old theme. But the feeds should go to the very reliable feedburner now! /2006/05/27/growl-network-port/ Sat, 27 May 2006 19:28:23 +0000 /2006/05/27/growl-network-port/ Been trying to find out what port growl was using, and I think that its UDP 9887. Growl, is a personal notification system for OSX. /2006/04/24/china-india-passing-degrees-fast/ Sun, 23 Apr 2006 23:44:11 +0000 /2006/04/24/china-india-passing-degrees-fast/ This is one to read later… Tech Crisis: China & India pass US in Engineering degrees: “While American youths study to head into law and finance, students in China and India are earning engineering degrees in droves and have passed the US in absolute numbers. If science and innovation drive the wealth and productivity of a society, we have a problem…” /2006/04/23/the-cartoon-guide-to-programming/ Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:13:07 +0000 /2006/04/23/the-cartoon-guide-to-programming/ Great post on Coding horror, with links to some fantastic Cartoons by the legendary Larry Gonick. The Cartoon Guide to.. Programming?: “ I recently found a link to a series of Larry Gonick’s mathematical cartoons that were originally published in Discover magazine: Beauty and the Beasts (neural nets) Prime Time (cryptography) Proof Positive? (probabalistic proofs) Lumps, with Mother Nature (chaotic mixing) Speed (relativity) The Solution (traveling salesman’s problem) Filler Up! /2006/04/23/american-spam-slowing-europe-asia-taking-over/ Sun, 23 Apr 2006 13:42:43 +0000 /2006/04/23/american-spam-slowing-europe-asia-taking-over/ Interesting article on the growth of spam in other countries, particularly Asia. American spam slowing; Europe, Asia taking over: ” American spam slowing; Europe, Asia taking over 4/21/2006 11:20:01 AM, by Anders Bylund The most recent global spam study conducted by Sophos shows China closing in on the US when it comes to relaying spam, and the Asian markets together have put some distance between itself and former spam leader North America. /2006/04/18/10-best-designed-blogs/ Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:52:13 +0000 /2006/04/18/10-best-designed-blogs/ A list by someone (yes, I haven’t taken the time to look at who wrote the article) of some rather nicely designed blogs, but they all seem to have quite interesting content aswell which for me makes them worthy of blogging. read more | digg story /2006/04/03/putting-together-a-budget-diy-lighting-system/ Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:31:23 +0000 /2006/04/03/putting-together-a-budget-diy-lighting-system/ Interesting article on building a DIY budget photographic lighting system. Lighting is one of the most important aspects of photography, but can often be expensive. This article shows how a little creativity and hardware skills can go a long way, without breaking the bank! read more | digg story /2006/03/30/thursday-links/ Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:03:00 +0000 /2006/03/30/thursday-links/ Some more links for this week that I need to catch up on in my spare time, with a slight transport theme for some reason: Wired News: World’s Most Expensive Cars, 2006: “       Of course it has the Bugatti Veyron in there. And if you are interested in cars, do a search for “Audi R10″ in google; A mad turbo diesel Le Man race car. And if you are really bored here some overloaded vehicles: http://www. /2006/03/29/possibly-the-worlds-largest-game-collection-pics/ Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:53:14 +0000 /2006/03/29/possibly-the-worlds-largest-game-collection-pics/ This is quite an amazing feat, even if you are not into video games this collection is quite possibly the biggest in the world. I wish he commented a bit more though. Probably doesn’t get out much. read more | digg story /2006/03/07/thursdays-applications/ Tue, 07 Mar 2006 07:28:41 +0000 /2006/03/07/thursdays-applications/ Should have posted this ages ago. Been finding more applications that are really nice. Firstly WinZip is a pain in the backside so try out 7Zip. It handles many types of files. Adobe Reader is slow and also a complete pain try Foxit. For Mac I am currently trialling Ecto2 and MarsEdit for blogging purposes. I will blog how I get on. And I have switched my newsfeeds from my PC where I was using FeedDemon to the Mac where I tried Vienna, didn’t like it so went back to the old favourite – NetNewsWire. /2006/02/28/technorati-100/ Tue, 28 Feb 2006 21:19:33 +0000 /2006/02/28/technorati-100/ Interesting post about the top 100 feeds this year compared to those of last year. It is interesting just to see who is in the top 100. A lot are really techie feeds which just goes to show the readership of RSS at the moment. http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/Technorati_100_Here_Today_Gone_Tomorrow /2006/02/22/democracy-a-new-platform-for-making-and-seeing-tv-on-the-net/ Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:40:14 +0000 /2006/02/22/democracy-a-new-platform-for-making-and-seeing-tv-on-the-net/ Now this looks really cool. Democracy: a new platform for making and seeing TV on the net: “Cory Doctorow: A new suite of free and open tools let you watch TV, make TV, and recommend TV in a way that’s easier, cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Democracy is a new Internet TV viewer that combines RSS (so you can pull a ‘channel’ of programming), BitTorrent (so you can download TV from indie producers without gonking their site by sucking down all their bandwidth) and VLC, a multi-format player (so you can watch video no matter how it’s encoded). /2006/02/20/distellamap/ Mon, 20 Feb 2006 19:54:45 +0000 /2006/02/20/distellamap/ Wow these are rather nice. distellamap: “Atari 2600 code operations rendered as art. So awesome. via Coudal.” (Via What Do I Know – Enjoying.) /2006/01/26/dsc05189_edited/ Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:19:56 +0000 /2006/01/26/dsc05189_edited/ DSC05189_edited, originally uploaded by timc3. Been working on this postcard for a while now and finally its complete. Started off in Illustrator 10 (yepp no autotrace for me – it was all hand done apart from the cake where I took a profile in to Flash) and then finished off in Photoshop CS2. Photoshop was used to compile the background mostly, and make sure the colour was to the printers request. /2006/01/11/buy-this-book/ Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:53:09 +0000 /2006/01/11/buy-this-book/ Fantastic book created by a fellow humhumer for his son, but luckily for us he printed another 999 copies. he detailed the process here: http://www.secretcreatures.com/archives/dukes-ramblings/book-publishing-advice/ If you wish to buy it for the reasonable sum of $20 please go to http://steamcrow.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=42 /2006/01/03/happy-new-year/ Tue, 03 Jan 2006 13:51:57 +0000 /2006/01/03/happy-new-year/ Horse on ice, originally uploaded by timc3. Happy New year from Norway, we took this photo just after coming back from skiing near Voss. /2005/12/23/thar-desert/ Fri, 23 Dec 2005 08:45:27 +0000 /2005/12/23/thar-desert/ Thar Desert, originally uploaded by ellieandeza. Eric and Ellie look like they are having fun with travelling, though they look dressed more for the cold than a desert. /2005/12/18/bergen-3rd-snow/ Sun, 18 Dec 2005 22:22:03 +0000 /2005/12/18/bergen-3rd-snow/ Bergen, originally uploaded by Jarle W.. Over the last few days we have had the 3rd and best snowfall yet in Bergen. Our Christmas tree is up and looking great (along with Mathildes Christmas tree in our hall way – making 2!), our Christmas lights and decorations. Everything is looking very cosy here. :-) /2005/11/30/firefox-15-is-out/ Wed, 30 Nov 2005 01:18:51 +0000 /2005/11/30/firefox-15-is-out/ Yes, Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is now out! Ready for download, though the spreadfirefox.com site is down ready for the launch of Firefox Flicks. I just beta tested Firefox flicks, and it is basically really going to cause a lot of noise on the blogsphere. Personally it ran really badly on my G4 Laptop – but then many of Flash Apps do. Its going to be interesting to see what gets posted up on that site, particularly when you have things like http://www. /2005/11/28/a-walk-in-bergen/ Mon, 28 Nov 2005 16:45:10 +0000 /2005/11/28/a-walk-in-bergen/ A walk in Bergen, originally uploaded by timc3. Just been for a walk along a path in Bergen, its about -1C and its been snowing at night. /2005/11/27/fireworks-over-bergen/ Sun, 27 Nov 2005 17:21:55 +0000 /2005/11/27/fireworks-over-bergen/ Fireworks over Bergen, originally uploaded by Espen Lodden. Another excellent picture of the fireworks over Bergen /2005/11/27/fyrverkerilysfest-bergen/ Sun, 27 Nov 2005 17:20:05 +0000 /2005/11/27/fyrverkerilysfest-bergen/ Fyrverkeri,lysfest Bergen Originally uploaded by Jarle W.. Great Fireworks last night in Bergen, pity I was in and missed them! Next time perhaps then.. /2005/11/27/flickr-2/ Sun, 27 Nov 2005 17:04:20 +0000 /2005/11/27/flickr-2/ This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing. /2005/11/22/test-post/ Tue, 22 Nov 2005 12:02:32 +0000 /2005/11/22/test-post/ I am doing 43 things. /2005/10/25/the-m5/ Tue, 25 Oct 2005 14:53:38 +0000 /2005/10/25/the-m5/ Not often I have linked to another site for the last 12 months, mostly because alot don’t grab me, but the execution of the M5 is top notch. It also features some old favourites such as The Designers Republic and MK12. Pity I don’t like the music though. The site is sponsered by of all people Coke Cola, some kind of exercise in branding which I think totally misses the spot – I am not going to buy more sugary drinks unless it infused with a high quota of ginger and pertains to come from Jamaica. /2005/10/21/installing-msde-on-windows-xp/ Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:44:23 +0000 /2005/10/21/installing-msde-on-windows-xp/ I was just installing MSDE 2000 release A on my local machine to do a little bit of pre-application testing and after downloading the 43Mb exe from http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/downloads/download.mspx and unzippin I ran setup and got the error: ” A strong SA Password required for security reasons. Please use SAPWD switch to supply the same………” To get around this, instead browse to where it has unzipped itself, and run it with the option: /2005/01/11/give-to-the-tsunami-appeal/ Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:31:45 +0000 /2005/01/11/give-to-the-tsunami-appeal/ The Tsunami in asia was one of the worst natural disasters to happen in recent times, and is unfortunetly only going to get worse even though the media will soon forget about it. Give help by donating to it here: http://www.oxfam.co.uk/what_you_can_do/give_to_oxfam/donate/asiaquake1204.htm If you have an amazon account you can also give through that, so don’t hesitate log in and give. /2004/10/30/updating-the-server/ Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:13:10 +0000 /2004/10/30/updating-the-server/ Well have been running on some old versions of apps now, so I have taken advantage of this saturday to upgrade PostgreSQL to the latest version: 7.2.6 – version 8 isn’t out yet, but then again this is really good enough for what I want to do with it!. I have also updated the apache on one of my box to the latest 2.0.52 release with OpenSSL support for some future projects on this box. /2004/10/26/rip-john-peel/ Tue, 26 Oct 2004 21:44:55 +0000 /2004/10/26/rip-john-peel/ I am saddened to hear that John Peel, one of the most important figures in UK music died today from a heart attack in Peru. He will sadly missed. Read more about it here and leave your tribute: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/news/altnews/041026_john_peel.shtml /2004/10/11/christopher-reeve/ Mon, 11 Oct 2004 08:31:08 +0000 /2004/10/11/christopher-reeve/ Actor Christopher Reeve died last night aged 52. He will be missed. Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3732310.stm /2004/08/25/samba-onto-windows-network/ Wed, 25 Aug 2004 10:26:56 +0000 /2004/08/25/samba-onto-windows-network/ This is a really easy way of mounting a windows share on a debian box. It takes like 5 minutes to install and perhaps less to setup. First as root: Apt-get install samba Apt-get install smbfs Then try the following to get the server mounted: mount �t smbfs �o username=YOURWINDOWSUSER,password=YOURWINDOWSPASSWORD //SERVER/FILESHARE/YOURMOUNTPOINT /2004/06/25/mobile-tv/ Fri, 25 Jun 2004 00:04:48 +0000 /2004/06/25/mobile-tv/ As reported by BBC news, those uncannily up2date Norwegians have been trying out TV on their phones, using a Streaming download service from network NRK. I presume as the users don’t have to have a player that its running from a Java applet, though the Nokia phone pictured does have RealPlayer installed by default. So far the reported take up has been 2000 streams, which seems about right as although the countries new technology take up is high from what I gather from the last Norwegian dinner party I was invited to, its not always technology for technology sake that interests but purely gaining a better life for those involved. /2004/06/24/book-recommendations/ Thu, 24 Jun 2004 23:26:14 +0000 /2004/06/24/book-recommendations/ Been purchasing some new books and some secondhand bExpressions book from OReilly which I throughly recommend. And then I have order several books secondhand from http://www.alibris.com/ and they have been in excellent condition, and you can find some real bargins http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect-home/blogtimc3com-21′ target=_blank /2004/06/21/useful-info-and-techie-site/ Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:41:03 +0000 /2004/06/21/useful-info-and-techie-site/ Found this very useful site the other day that has some interesting articles including these: Windows XP AVI problems Compression Utilities Comparison Serial ATA guide In fact there are alot more interesting articles on there so go and checkout http://www.rojakpot.com /2004/06/20/openswan-network-traversal/ Sun, 20 Jun 2004 17:51:20 +0000 /2004/06/20/openswan-network-traversal/ A while ago I posted that I had managed to get a VPN between Checkpoint NG and a smoothwall personal firewall. This setup was a rather regular one, with Express 2.0 release of smoothwall and r54 checkpoint running on a Nokia with the latest security patches enabled. I’ve actually updated and had an even easier time with openswan on the same setup and for ease of administration through the Smoothwall web gui I installed the modification VPN pack 3. /2004/06/16/firefox-09/ Wed, 16 Jun 2004 17:08:45 +0000 /2004/06/16/firefox-09/ A new release of Mozilla Firefox, 0.9, has been released. If you feel like an early adopter and losing most of your extensions and plugins then go and download it. Its good, perhaps in some ways better than the old version but I am finding some display bugs though this could be down to my PC struggling. http://www.mozilla.org /2004/06/16/gmail/ Wed, 16 Jun 2004 14:19:21 +0000 /2004/06/16/gmail/ woohoo! So someone was good enough to give me an invite, yes its still invite only, to set myself up on gmail so I now have the timchild at gmail address with 1Gb of space. First impressions, its very google like, very fast and very easy to use (unless their DNS servers go haywire and then I might as well post email). The next thing that I want to do is to import all my email from the last 10 years into here so I can nicely index and search on things (a feature that really works! /2004/06/16/internet-problems/ Wed, 16 Jun 2004 14:11:18 +0000 /2004/06/16/internet-problems/ So, you might have experienced some traffic outages or you couldn’t get to google, yahoo, microsoft or apple yesterday. As this: http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1087311151.html arstechnica article explains it was down to Akamai having an outage with their DNS servers, and they provide the DNS for those and other sites as they are mean’t to be highly reliable. Apart from the good side effect that they mean that you might actually get on with something more productive instead of wasting countless hours on the web it just shows how fragile the DNS system and parts of the internet could be. /2004/06/15/smoothwall/ Tue, 15 Jun 2004 00:49:59 +0000 /2004/06/15/smoothwall/ I really ought to remember how to do this, but I am upgrading my home firewall because I was running an older version of smoothwall and I forgot how to put the manual probing of the network card information in. For next time: ne io=0×220,0×300 irq=5,4 I must say that smoothwall is coming on leaps and bounds with each release and if you need a firewalling or sharing solution for your home no matter how much knowledge you have this is a great product. /2004/06/15/dform1/ Tue, 15 Jun 2004 00:45:07 +0000 /2004/06/15/dform1/ As promised here is another great example of some motion content, this time from Anders Schroder. The piece is very simple and stylish and a great example of what can be done with a bit (or should I rather say, alot) of skill with some off the shelf tools. http://www.dform1.com/ Check out all the pieces and he has also done some work for Digital Vision aswell. /2004/06/10/stefan-sagmeister/ Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:59:49 +0000 /2004/06/10/stefan-sagmeister/ In my small amount of spare time I have been catching some great web movies, so over the next couple of days I will be reporting on them! First up, Hillman Curtis has film a nice interview with Stefan Sagmeister for Adobe Studios. Adobe studios have perhaps lost there way a little of late, and I for one can’t find what I am looking for most of the time so if I happen by something like this, it tends to be by chance. /2004/06/10/new-wwft/ Thu, 10 Jun 2004 14:36:16 +0000 /2004/06/10/new-wwft/ New site by the boys at weworkforthem. http://www.weworkforthem.com/ /2004/06/09/new-apple-line-up/ Wed, 09 Jun 2004 16:50:39 +0000 /2004/06/09/new-apple-line-up/ Looks like Apple have been busy, which can only be a good thing. They have launched upgraded processors in their G5′s and apparently according to this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/09/apple_g5_update/ article the dual 2.5 is now liquid cooled. Liquid Cooling once the preserve of super computers has gained alot of followers over the last couple of years (and I am thinking of trying it) but its a completely new thing for a consumer ‘mainstream’ machine to have. /2004/06/08/new-amd-processor/ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 11:38:41 +0000 /2004/06/08/new-amd-processor/ AMD have announced here http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~86164,00.html that they are introducing a new line of processors called Sempron� for emerging markets. There XP processors are still going to be produced and will probably merge with the AMD 64 line. /2004/06/08/venus/ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 11:34:36 +0000 /2004/06/08/venus/ WooHoo! Went out a couple of hours with a couple of workfriends and some binoculars and caught a view of Venus eclipsing the moon. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3784293.stm /2004/06/07/upgrading-the-vpn/ Mon, 07 Jun 2004 11:33:02 +0000 /2004/06/07/upgrading-the-vpn/ In an earlier post I had noted that I was using FreeSwan to create a VPN with a Checkpoint Firewall well I can heartly recommend the new OpenSwan as I upgraded and found this much easier to use. In other news I can say I really don’t like CVS at the moment and I am finding it a complete pain, but again this is all really boring techie stuff. So for a break I recommend catching the new Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. /2004/06/03/happy-bday-zeldmancom/ Thu, 03 Jun 2004 23:15:23 +0000 /2004/06/03/happy-bday-zeldmancom/ His site is nine years old today. That is quite an age in Internet Terms, can’t say that I had a site back then but at least I was online. Or is that a bad thing?! /2004/05/30/regular-expressions/ Sun, 30 May 2004 00:48:19 +0000 /2004/05/30/regular-expressions/ So I was trying to use regular expression properly the other day, but even the basic stuff that I remembered from working with Perl had all but been lost in the depths of time. So I am pleased to come across this little bit of of software: RegEx Coach. Going to be trying it out over the next few days. Oh and if anyone woud like to tell me why there reg-ex isn’t standards compiliant with either POSIX or unix style regex I would be grateful. /2004/05/28/xbox-media-center/ Fri, 28 May 2004 20:59:10 +0000 /2004/05/28/xbox-media-center/ So like alot of people I have modded my xbox, put in a 120Gb disk and mainly use it for watching movies with the excellent XBMC software. Doing a search actually brought back results for this,and its the first time that I have heard about it. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/evaluation/devices/xboxextenderkit.asp So it looks like Microsoft are getting in on the action aswell, and what particularly interests me is the integration with Windows Media Center. /2004/05/25/nasty-xml/ Tue, 25 May 2004 23:35:28 +0000 /2004/05/25/nasty-xml/ If you are going to the humhum radio pages and wondering why they are down this is usually because of older broadcast software sending nasty xml to the server. Bare with us and I will get it sorted. In the meantime just tune in! /2004/05/23/eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind/ Sun, 23 May 2004 17:05:44 +0000 /2004/05/23/eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind/ Saw this film last night and I really liked it, which is good because I haven’t been to the cinema for absolutely ages (much to my Girlfriends horror sometimes) . Michel Gondry was up to form and though there are a couple of bits which might be slightly dragged out its a great film. Jim Carrey, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood and Kate Winslet all give really strong performances with Jim’s being the highlight and showing that he has real versatility. /2004/05/22/humhum-we-go/ Sat, 22 May 2004 12:26:35 +0000 /2004/05/22/humhum-we-go/ Well HumHumFM is taking off! I have a page up at http://humhum.timc3.com and we have had some really great sets from Alistair Stevens, Richard Alexander Caraballo, Peter Dekkers, little_gray, Mark Connelly, Crispin, animoller, David Hamilton and more playing a range of all types of music. Check it out. I am going to build some more pages on to the tool and then hopefully the transistion of players will be more fluid, but so I can’t complain the above people have made it amazing. /2004/05/19/css-arguments/ Wed, 19 May 2004 14:17:42 +0000 /2004/05/19/css-arguments/ Still really nicely balanced CSS argues at Andy’s blog. Just what one needs on such a beautifully sunny day in London! /2004/05/17/talented-work/ Mon, 17 May 2004 23:24:23 +0000 /2004/05/17/talented-work/ Some really great work here, and an inspiration: http://www.rcstudios.com/ /2004/05/17/hum-hum-radio/ Mon, 17 May 2004 12:11:39 +0000 /2004/05/17/hum-hum-radio/ You too can listen here: http://humhum.timc3.com:8000/listen.pls along with the !almost! countless others that have. /2004/05/17/bt-losing-it/ Mon, 17 May 2004 12:09:33 +0000 /2004/05/17/bt-losing-it/ Apparently BT is losing 150,000 customers a month, which is quite abit more than there Ad compaign is saying that they are gaining. I would switch to if I didn’t need a BT line for my Broadband. I know I should be grateful that I can have internet at such speeds, but the fact that I am stuck with BT – who lets face it are less than good at most things really grates. /2004/05/12/humhum-radio/ Wed, 12 May 2004 16:36:03 +0000 /2004/05/12/humhum-radio/ Finally got humhum radio up and working!! I have started to use shoutcast streaming software after testing a couple of the others including icecast the ease of use and setup for shoutcast won over. Who knows I might just use icecast in the future but for now I got shoutcast working within 30mins and have been testing fully for the last 2 days.. /2004/05/12/psp-in-different-colours/ Wed, 12 May 2004 16:33:46 +0000 /2004/05/12/psp-in-different-colours/ Looks like the PSP is going to be available in different colours. All I can say is, just make it available asap!! /2004/05/11/psp-screenshots/ Tue, 11 May 2004 22:24:47 +0000 /2004/05/11/psp-screenshots/ Wow, fantastic. I hope this is real: http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/images/e3_psp_5.JPG I won’t try an embed this picture as this it a great scoop for gizmodo. /2004/05/10/a-bit-late-but-still-good-news/ Mon, 10 May 2004 15:13:33 +0000 /2004/05/10/a-bit-late-but-still-good-news/ Well that post from the Lion King came up abit later, but as they say better late than never and the same can be said for Reuters having RSS news feeds. I think this is excellent news, now all I need is the FT to provide the same and to have a free copy of The Economist sitting on my door every Monday and my news sources will be sorted! /2004/05/10/hello-from-lion-king/ Mon, 10 May 2004 11:45:01 +0000 /2004/05/10/hello-from-lion-king/ MobBlog: In full swing! /2004/05/05/bbc-to-test-downloadable-programming/ Wed, 05 May 2004 17:49:24 +0000 /2004/05/05/bbc-to-test-downloadable-programming/ Its only a test, but we can live in hope that the BBC will go through with making programmes available for download from their site after they have been air’ed. The are increasingly seeing progamming on P2P networks so this is an excellent move. How about if they fixed up your favourite programmes with RSS so you automatically get it downloaded when you want it. The possiblities just keep appearing – http://news. /2004/05/05/measure-the-speed-of-light-with-marshmellows/ Wed, 05 May 2004 13:19:08 +0000 /2004/05/05/measure-the-speed-of-light-with-marshmellows/ This is very funny: http://www.boingboing.net/2004/05/05/marshmallowbased_spe.html /2004/05/04/venice/ Tue, 04 May 2004 12:13:37 +0000 /2004/05/04/venice/ Got back yesterday from a lovely trip to Venice for a long weekend, would recommend it to anyone, and I must say that it is probably one of the best places that I have been too. When you go there, take time to visit the other islands aswell because as a whole there is alot to do when added together. For photos check out: http://share.timc3.com/index.php?view=thumb&dir=Venice /2004/04/28/update-to-my-share/ Wed, 28 Apr 2004 13:10:58 +0000 /2004/04/28/update-to-my-share/ Updated http://share.timc3.com from my own custom file viewer to the EUWDPCpix file brower created by humhum creator pea aka Peter Dekkers. This version allows nice thumbnails (if I hadn’t have used save for web on each of my photos!), and probably a better layout, though I am going to change the CSS once I get home to something more inline with the old style. /2004/04/15/no-more-silhouettes/ Thu, 15 Apr 2004 14:54:10 +0000 /2004/04/15/no-more-silhouettes/ Apple are withdrawing there silhouette ads for the iPod now: http://apple.weblogsinc.com/entry/1252615493759137/ /2004/04/15/new-amazon-search-site/ Thu, 15 Apr 2004 14:51:45 +0000 /2004/04/15/new-amazon-search-site/ In competition with google now? Maybe not quite, but when did they buy Alexa? I missed that.. http://www.a9.com/ /2004/04/14/star-wars-clone-wars/ Wed, 14 Apr 2004 13:37:26 +0000 /2004/04/14/star-wars-clone-wars/ Animation versions of the film, that are actually alot better than the motion film! Go get them here: http://www.pcpages.com/1010101/index.html /2004/04/14/next-windows-release-cutback/ Wed, 14 Apr 2004 10:23:41 +0000 /2004/04/14/next-windows-release-cutback/ During typing in a huge post about the state of windows, Longhorn being cut, Windows Professional edition Firefox decided to crash when I visited http://channel9.msdn.com/ – the first time ever that I have seen it crash. So instead check out: http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1081551191.html http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_16/b3879009_mz001.htm http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/04/09.html#a7193 http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=14 (perhaps IE only for that one!) /2004/04/06/web-standards/ Tue, 06 Apr 2004 15:48:31 +0000 /2004/04/06/web-standards/ The new MACCAWs article is up, find it at: http://www.maccaws.org/ /2004/04/06/ Tue, 06 Apr 2004 10:04:40 +0000 /2004/04/06/ Been meaning to link to this amazing site about a womans (Elena’s) journey on her bike though the DeadZone near Chernobyl for quite some time as it is truely one of the best sites around at the moment. It is as breathtaking as a website can be, an one of the best uses of the internet so far. That hit counter really is going up with some pace. /2004/04/06/football-playing-robots/ Tue, 06 Apr 2004 10:00:44 +0000 /2004/04/06/football-playing-robots/ Or Soccer to you.. But it is great to watch them at http://www.vstone.co.jp/e/rt01e.htm /2004/04/05/bix-light-facade-for-kunsthaus/ Mon, 05 Apr 2004 12:06:00 +0000 /2004/04/05/bix-light-facade-for-kunsthaus/ This is an amazing looking building and light system, you must also check out the RealVideo’s of the display of the building.. “ BIX is a light- and media installation for the Kunsthaus Graz in Austria which transforms the acrylic glass facade of the Kunsthaus in a low resolution computer display – we call it the “communicative display skin”. BIX is not only one of the biggest (900m2) but from an architectural point of view one of the most integrated media facades. /2004/04/04/sending-mail-from-sh/ Sun, 04 Apr 2004 00:47:27 +0000 /2004/04/04/sending-mail-from-sh/ Ever wanted to send email from the shell, but also to give it a Mime type so that the mail reader doesn’t just put your attachment straight into the body of the message ( envoking mail myemail@mydomain.com < myattachment , will include the attachment but won’t split the message up). Well this handy little example will let you from an easy to modify Perl script: http://www.akadia.com/services/email_attachments_using_perl.html You will have install the MIME-lite bits and pieces: http://www. /2004/04/01/zach-gold/ Thu, 01 Apr 2004 12:04:56 +0000 /2004/04/01/zach-gold/ This is really quite amazing display of talent from Zach Gold and I really wish he had more examples on the site but its well worth checking out, probably will put a link into the links section for this. /2004/04/01/cools-robots/ Thu, 01 Apr 2004 11:48:44 +0000 /2004/04/01/cools-robots/ Been loving the Robots of late, including this really rather cool video and the new Robosapian soon to go on sale at http://www.iirobotics.com /2004/03/31/personal-google/ Wed, 31 Mar 2004 11:10:56 +0000 /2004/03/31/personal-google/ New from google labs, http://labs.google.com/personalized/ looks promising though I have yet to give it a decent test. /2004/03/31/mysql-binding/ Wed, 31 Mar 2004 10:19:37 +0000 /2004/03/31/mysql-binding/ Looking around last night for ways to upgrade RedHat to http://www.debian.org (which proves somewhat non-trivial, the easiest way being a reinstall to Debian), I was looking into one of my systems and I found that MySQL was binding port 3306 to the outside IP address. After some looking around, I found that to disable this you had to have a my.cnf file in /etc that MySQL looked at whilst starting. /2004/03/29/007-everything-or-nothing/ Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:51:28 +0000 /2004/03/29/007-everything-or-nothing/ Been playing this on the xbox whenever I get the chance at the moment, which is rarely enough it seems, and I have been loving it, all the way up to the 26th Level then it crashes and I am not the only one it seems which leads me to believe that it has some fairly fundemental flaws in the programming. It hasn’t received the best reviews all over, for instance: http://www. /2004/03/29/more-psp-news/ Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:43:06 +0000 /2004/03/29/more-psp-news/ Some more interesting PSP news about the forthcoming handheld over here http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=55042 /2004/03/25/bd4d/ Thu, 25 Mar 2004 17:16:21 +0000 /2004/03/25/bd4d/ I will be at the bd4d version 2 launch tonight, to celebrate the launch of the http://www.bd4d.com site tomorrow. Check it out in 12 or so hours time.. /2004/03/24/microsoft-being-fined/ Wed, 24 Mar 2004 13:19:15 +0000 /2004/03/24/microsoft-being-fined/ You just have to love this picture don’t you.. /2004/03/24/rss-neighborhood-meet/ Wed, 24 Mar 2004 12:55:03 +0000 /2004/03/24/rss-neighborhood-meet/ Very Interesting little article from a meet of the RSS Neighborhood with a speech from Scoble who made some very interesting points, mostly that I agree with about creating successful RSS feeds and getting traffic. Also some notes on corporate feeds, though I think that I will find it hard to get the digital vision marketing department to buy in to a feed for our customers at the moment. Hopefully when RSS is more mainstream (and I am getting the feeling that the UK is 2 years behind in the up take of RSS) we will approach this in the intellegent way Scoble is describing. /2004/03/18/personal-video-devices/ Thu, 18 Mar 2004 11:30:24 +0000 /2004/03/18/personal-video-devices/ As a follow up, BBC news just came out with this article, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3516504.stm, also talking about Personal Video Devices and I realised that I had forgotten about the Thomsen device the PDP2860 which does do MPEG4 video on the go, but as the BBC article says it just hasn’t been given the shelf space because retailers think that consumers don’t want video on the move. Well why not give them the option and see. /2004/03/18/rss-bittorrent-merged/ Thu, 18 Mar 2004 11:01:40 +0000 /2004/03/18/rss-bittorrent-merged/ Two of the hottest Internet tech’s, RSS and Bittorrent have been merged by Andrew Grumet to produce a syndicated download technology tha RSS feed of your choice. The beta of this is here that uses the Radio Userland tool to kick off your Bittorrent downloads. This pairing of RSS and Bittorrent just goes to push the 2 further into the main stream publics eye though I doubt yet it will push it beyond the acceptance each has got so far until there is a killer delivery platform. /2004/03/18/colour-ipod/ Thu, 18 Mar 2004 10:22:34 +0000 /2004/03/18/colour-ipod/ Rumours are being spread around, mainly from http://www.appleinsider.com about the upcoming release of a new iPod with 50Gb Harddisk, but more interestingly a new 2″ colour screen and video out for static pictures. Personally I am waiting for a device that does video, with MPEG 4, divx and xvid support aswell. I don’t see why they can not. I know that the http://www.archos.com can so this but the screen at the moment is too small and the player not exactly pretty. /2004/03/17/kokoro/ Wed, 17 Mar 2004 10:48:10 +0000 /2004/03/17/kokoro/ I just love this site by Kokoro and I just love the gadgets and the use of English within (though perhaps I shouldn’t be laughing out too loud as my efforts with English arn’t exactly much better and any other language, well you might as well forget it!). /2004/03/17/advice-on-bittorrent-sharing/ Wed, 17 Mar 2004 10:13:45 +0000 /2004/03/17/advice-on-bittorrent-sharing/ To carry on from the last post, Simon Carless the admin for legaltorrents.com has some notes in this this O’Reilly Net article about proper distributing of files and how to torrent.. /2004/03/15/sony-robotic-research-centre/ Mon, 15 Mar 2004 17:26:21 +0000 /2004/03/15/sony-robotic-research-centre/ I know I love robots perhaps more than the next man but this is undeniably cool – Sony are setting up their own intellegent Robot lab. More here /2004/03/15/life-in-microsofts-research/ Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:54:28 +0000 /2004/03/15/life-in-microsofts-research/ I have been reading RSS news feeds for a short while now but this article by Kevin Schofield on his Weblog about life in Microsoft’s research centre is truely one of the most interesting yet. Read it! /2004/03/12/linux-vs-windows/ Fri, 12 Mar 2004 10:41:51 +0000 /2004/03/12/linux-vs-windows/ An intellegent and indepth article about the differences of the two on Linux Insider. I hope by the state of that URL that they arn’t really using Perl on their server though.. /2004/03/12/p900/ Fri, 12 Mar 2004 10:39:33 +0000 /2004/03/12/p900/ Just a quick link into the world of Joi Ito who being the lucky sod that he is gets plenty of stuff to play with. At the moment, he is talking about his new p900 NTT DoCoMo phone. /2004/03/11/checkpoint-ng-vpn-to-smoothwall/ Thu, 11 Mar 2004 16:20:17 +0000 /2004/03/11/checkpoint-ng-vpn-to-smoothwall/ Having a bit of a break from blogging has given me some time to test creating a VPN between Checkpoint NG R54 firewall and Smoothwall Firewall version 2.0 which essentially uses the no-longer in active developmentfreeswan VPN (though I am sure that it is going to still be used for a while to come) as a test to buy the corporate version of Smoothwall. A VPN between Freeswan and Checkpoint has been done many times before, but documentation is rather sparse so I intend to document some findings here. /2004/03/08/mandrina-duck/ Mon, 08 Mar 2004 23:43:18 +0000 /2004/03/08/mandrina-duck/ Just a quick note to say that the new Mandarina Duck web site is lovely. Lots going, full of colour and very vibrant. Excellent work by Nico Stumpo. /2004/03/08/history-of-apple-os/ Mon, 08 Mar 2004 11:23:39 +0000 /2004/03/08/history-of-apple-os/ Interesting little article that’s being linked all over the web so why should I be any different..The History of the Apple Operating System. /2004/03/06/straight-from-the-phone/ Sat, 06 Mar 2004 23:05:41 +0000 /2004/03/06/straight-from-the-phone/ MobBlog: first full test. /2004/03/06/savrow-computers/ Sat, 06 Mar 2004 19:19:54 +0000 /2004/03/06/savrow-computers/ Came across the SavRow site a while ago but in my search for a new case I came across it again and they are making some mighty beatiful computers – and computers cannot often be labelled that not even the G5′s. /2004/03/04/my-head/ Thu, 04 Mar 2004 11:39:30 +0000 /2004/03/04/my-head/ MobBlog: gone. /2004/03/04/glamour/ Thu, 04 Mar 2004 11:39:30 +0000 /2004/03/04/glamour/ MobBlog: meT /2004/03/03/its-us/ Wed, 03 Mar 2004 23:05:20 +0000 /2004/03/03/its-us/ MobBlog: Tim and Jeanette /2004/03/03/the-latest-cron-job/ Wed, 03 Mar 2004 23:03:04 +0000 /2004/03/03/the-latest-cron-job/ MobBlog: Automatic Updates happening now!! /2004/03/03/well-that-should-be-it/ Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:42:48 +0000 /2004/03/03/well-that-should-be-it/ I have now got the Crontab(the process on a Unix box that will do a job at a submitted time) working for the Mobblog so I can of course now send and the blog will automatically pickup any entry every half an hour. Basically an entry in cron is need so this is done by: ssh into your server crontab -e (this will edit the Crontab in Vi or create a new one if needed) /2004/03/03/updates/ Wed, 03 Mar 2004 19:26:23 +0000 /2004/03/03/updates/ Well as you can probably see below I have updated this blog to now include Moblog entries, meaning that I can push entries straight from my mobile phone into the blog including photos that I have taken on my T610 Sony Ericsson. All it took was a script that can read a email box, PHP to be recompiled with imap and GD, plus the phone setup so that it can send email. /2004/03/02/webstandards/ Tue, 02 Mar 2004 14:18:32 +0000 /2004/03/02/webstandards/ Great looking site and linked content at http://www.webstandardsawards.com/ which is aiming to further spread the message of using standards from the likes of http://www.webstandards.org/ and http://www.webstandardsgroup.org/ . I like the way that the site is very clean, and the css is hiding some of the images such as the logo above from casual thiefs.. One of the outstanding sites linked deserves further mention and that is http://www.shauninman.com/. I love the use of Din for the Headline text, and the general cleaness of the site. /2004/03/02/developer-tools/ Tue, 02 Mar 2004 14:12:08 +0000 /2004/03/02/developer-tools/ Well Mozilla Firefox is becoming my browser of choice nowdays and its because of tools like these that the decision is easy. Being able to do just a few of these things from an easily hidable browser bar makes life so easy for anyone involved in web page design I wonder whether I will ever go back to IE. But then again thats what we all said about the move from Netscape to IE 4 or 5 years ago. /2004/03/01/latest-updates/ Mon, 01 Mar 2004 20:27:45 +0000 /2004/03/01/latest-updates/ Well, after a period of neglect I have decided to update the ole’blog abit, hopefully to make it a bit easier to use, though I still think that it has some work to go with this, and just to make it abit easier to use. The list of updates: Search against the blog. RSS 2.0 xml that properly validates. Moblog from mobile phone (still working on this for the images). /2004/02/29/xbox-2-sdk/ Sun, 29 Feb 2004 23:58:06 +0000 /2004/02/29/xbox-2-sdk/ In a quite suprising move, Microsoft have given out the first release of the xbox 2 SDK to developers – but unusually it runs a special ported version of Windows NT on the Apple Mac! In no small part due to the fact that the xbox 2 will be featuring a IBM chip – which of course forms the base of the Power PC architecture. Rumour has it at the moment that the SDK is making use of the ATI radeon 9800 on the Mac until ATI get round to releasing the graphics chip (ATI R500) and drivers that will be making it onto the xbox2. /2004/02/28/grey-album/ Sat, 28 Feb 2004 11:19:37 +0000 /2004/02/28/grey-album/ Well it has been much hyped and the hype is still going on but I still thought that it was worth writing about the album from Dj Danger Mouse because it is a good piece of work and I feel like that it is supporting a worthy cause, without going into the details about the album (you can read about them in this BBC news article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3517661.stm or this http://www.nme.com/news/107642.htm ) but I think that movement that it is having is a positive one. /2004/02/27/channel-4-and-5-merger/ Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:25:09 +0000 /2004/02/27/channel-4-and-5-merger/ Well its in the papers at the moment and of course there is an article on BBC news about the possible talks over a merger of 4 &5. Well the only reason that I am commenting is that I hope that this will enable Channel 4 to have a further outlet to its more creative programming… Already we have a decent, if subscription based FilmFour service, but what about all the cool programmes that Channel 4 is well known for – they don’t often repeat them but this would be a cool way of getting more quality entertainment on 5. /2004/02/27/froogle-from-a-store/ Fri, 27 Feb 2004 10:33:14 +0000 /2004/02/27/froogle-from-a-store/ Froogle looks like it has stepped up to the mark now offering a WML service which of course means, mobile phone access, which of course means shopping comparisons in store while you shop to web sites. Online retail has been held back to a short degree by the quality of preview of a product you can get – the touchy feely part that is still one of the bricks and mortars best selling points. /2004/02/27/sony-delays-handheld-playstation/ Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:52:49 +0000 /2004/02/27/sony-delays-handheld-playstation/ Looks like Sony has delayed the release of the PlayStation handheld. BBC reports.. Actually I am surprised that they have delayed it to spring 2005 in the euro-american markets but then again a launch for Christmas in Japan will gain them mass market share and no doubt anyone wanting it will pay the high import prices and put up with the import restrictions. In the past consoles on import have sold well. /2004/02/25/microsoft-sql-reporting-server/ Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:03:47 +0000 /2004/02/25/microsoft-sql-reporting-server/ On the Microsoft thread again yesterday, better late than never, I came across the launch for Microsoft SQL server Reporting Tools. After watching the launch webcast, it all looks rather interesting. But be warned the requirements for testing it are: SQL server, IIS, Visual Studio .Net 2003 on top of what your OS and other bits and pieces take up – in my case of a working PC almost all the spare space. /2004/02/25/its-a-google/ Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:12:06 +0000 /2004/02/25/its-a-google/ Some interesting articles coming about from http://www.wired.com and http://www.arstechnica.com about http://www.google.com, but nothing that you haven’t already heard if you have your nose to the ground. Throughly recommend googl’ing for the google weblog and taking a feed on your RSS reader. /2004/02/25/microsoft-photos/ Wed, 25 Feb 2004 00:31:23 +0000 /2004/02/25/microsoft-photos/ Some interesting photos of Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond. Amazed by the size, but it is perhaps lacking a little atmosphere? http://www.dylangreene.com/browse.asp?albumID=409&page=1 /2004/02/23/icon-design-for-firefox/ Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:38:21 +0000 /2004/02/23/icon-design-for-firefox/ Wow! This is a great find, how Icon artist Jon Hicks did the designs for firefox and then there is the interview with Jon by Skinny J.. /2004/02/23/skype-conference-calling/ Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:34:25 +0000 /2004/02/23/skype-conference-calling/ Wow, now http://www.skype.com is enabled for conference calling it has turned into a really mature application. If you haven’t heard about it before then you are probably about too as there has been alot recently about VOIP technologies that finally they have sorted out the compression techniques and bandwidth worldwide has on the whole improved. Skype is by the same team that has brought about a popular P2P program and is based upon the same tech. /2004/02/23/top-75-security-tools/ Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:59:28 +0000 /2004/02/23/top-75-security-tools/ Really useful little page from a survey of users favourite security tools for a variety of platforms produced by http://www.insecure.com. Alot of the tools are OpenSource or free to use and are extremely useful. http://www.insecure.org/tools.html /2004/02/21/damn-virus/ Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:58:20 +0000 /2004/02/21/damn-virus/ Well after that last update I found that I hadn’t installed my Anti-Virus software properly and of course within hours of installing everything I caught a particularly nasty trojan and virus. So now a reinstall has fixed it but what a waste of time, needless to say the first thing I installed was anti-virus software and this time the AVG non-commercial licensed version from Grisoft – http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php and I have found it very good so far. /2004/02/18/long-time-no-blog/ Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:13:46 +0000 /2004/02/18/long-time-no-blog/ Well, I have been quite busy, but even so I feel that I have been really neglecting my space here. Anyways I now have my Broadband installed in my new Flat, after much research from the likes of http://www.adslguide.org.uk I have decided to go with Freedom2Surf, as they over a static IP aswell as very reasonable rates.. At the same time I have decided to update my PC and got my hands on a AMD Barton that I will no doubt end up overclocking and some other parts. /2004/02/09/good-food-little-updates/ Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:23:20 +0000 /2004/02/09/good-food-little-updates/ Not having Broadband at home as considerably cut short the amount of time I spend on the Internet and also not having a big tv has cut down on the amount of films that I watch which I suppose isn’t that bad a side effect but its quite a change in habit for me I guess Instead I have been reading the wonderful cooking book by Nigel Slater – Appetite which is more than just a collection of recipes, and trys and succeeds in pointing one towards what really is the crux of food – enjoying it. /2004/01/30/pixar-dropping-disney/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:42:03 +0000 /2004/01/30/pixar-dropping-disney/ It has bugged me (no pun intended) for quite sometime that a company such as Pixar whose complete existance is testiment to John Lassiter’s creative vision and hardwork would team up with Disney in the first place for its distribution and the greater risk of brand and commercialisation stealing Disney would be capable of. But this is now luckly consigned to history. Pixar have made the great (IMHO) decision to drop Disney and stand on their own in the market place, and I am sure that with great films such as Finding Nemo, Toy Story 1 &2 they won’t have any problem. /2004/01/28/warp-bleep/ Wed, 28 Jan 2004 14:06:47 +0000 /2004/01/28/warp-bleep/ In competition with the bigger labels and general bandwagon hangers on (thats you coke-cola) Warp Records have released their own Bleep service. Included are many excellent tracks from forth coming single’s and albums plus classic Warp releases, hard to get releases and more such as AFX – Hangable Auto Bulb, NoW – Smokers Delight, LFO – Frequencies and the great Sabres of Paradise – Sabresonic album. /2004/01/28/more-mini-updates/ Wed, 28 Jan 2004 11:19:10 +0000 /2004/01/28/more-mini-updates/ Cool products from atypyk Have to get me some of those from http://www.magmabooks.com or the other stockists mentioned. Link blatently stolen from the wonderful Carole Guevin curator of the excellent http://www.netdiver.net site. /2004/01/28/portable-media-center/ Wed, 28 Jan 2004 11:18:51 +0000 /2004/01/28/portable-media-center/ Microsoft are working hard on a potential iPod killer, the Portable Media Center which can basically be thought of as the Media Center on the move without the recording capabilities. Creative Labs, iRiver, Samsung, Viewsonic are some of the hardware partners working to bring about a good platform for the software aswell as integrating with a Windows Home network with XP Media Center to transfer your PVR recordings so that you can watch them on the move. /2004/01/27/no-net-connection/ Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:19:00 +0000 /2004/01/27/no-net-connection/ Having moved house I now can hear Big Ben but have temporarily lost my internet connection (aswell as a bag of bolts for the cupboards, if you find them please mail them to me!) for the next few days hence posts will be sparse. In the meantime I would checkout the following: http://www.dform1.com/ showreel http://www.sundance.org/ film festival and Primer http://www.res.com magazine Plus all the usual places Also if anyone has a decent clue as to why if I want a BT phone line, which in the UK is what we need for decent ADSL-Broadband services and a basic television service in this new flat I have such a hassle. /2004/01/27/mini-update/ Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:13:23 +0000 /2004/01/27/mini-update/ Just a short update for now, this is what I have been seeing today: Pixel reviews Valentin MyDoom Virus targeting SCO Lego winner /2004/01/23/killer-games-machine/ Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:03:09 +0000 /2004/01/23/killer-games-machine/ This week Nintendo have been putting the hype about for their latest games machine – a dual screen handheld. Mmmm where have we seen those before? Sarcasm aside, this is a surprise move for Nintendo whom many see as falling behind in the console race behind Sony and Microsoft aswell as the huge online gaming scene that is particularly prevalent in Asia. The Handheld is said to hold two 3″ TFT backlit screens and two processors, and their main selling point seems to be not what I expected – the design, but you use the second screen for a second perspective of a game which is quite unique at the moment for any gaming machine – but is it enough to compete against the much rumoured Sony PSP? /2004/01/20/mozilla-firebird/ Tue, 20 Jan 2004 17:46:25 +0000 /2004/01/20/mozilla-firebird/ Like a lot of ‘web people’ as my girlfriend and friends sometimes like referring me as, I have recently become, in the last 12 months a Mozilla Firebird convert. I have been using it as a main browser at home and at work, on PC and Mac and it is almost a complete IE replacement – and it easily betters Safari in many ways. It of course gets alot of praise for its tabbed browsing, and although it doesn’t seem that useful at the moment to anyone that hasn’t used it, its something of a god-send to those that have. /2004/01/19/new-digital-vision-site/ Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:25:46 +0000 /2004/01/19/new-digital-vision-site/ Finally, after much sweat and tears our web team has launched the latest and best yet www.digitalvision.com and a mighty fine site it is. The old site was well received but past its sell by date, and this really brings us up to a more useable level as much thought had gone into how to create the easiest experience whilst still maintaining the Digital Vision look and feel and I think that it has succedded on almost all accounts. /2004/01/15/renascents-attic/ Thu, 15 Jan 2004 12:59:30 +0000 /2004/01/15/renascents-attic/ Me olde mucka Joost is serving up a storm on his site with his new piece attic. I love the direction and the sketched look of the rendering, and unlike other reviewers I think that the audio is quite suited to the reel.</p Such a Nice bloke too!! ;-) /2004/01/14/national-geographic-shooting-on-digital-cameras/ Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:57:14 +0000 /2004/01/14/national-geographic-shooting-on-digital-cameras/ Being employed by a Stock Photography company I am constantly looking at Pictures and obliviously the technicalities of creating Photography is of interest and beneficial to my position. Up until recently digital photography has been seen as the poor cousin of film but things are starting to change, but I wouldn�t be surprised if one publication will help this change evolve somewhat quicker now. Many see the National Geographic as a benchmark and its acceptance of using digital cameras for one of its main shots as seen in this article will spur publishers to take on the advantages offered by this medium. /2004/01/12/mac-not-by-jobs/ Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:41:33 +0000 /2004/01/12/mac-not-by-jobs/ An article posted on Wired News follows the story by Owen Linzmayers that the Macintosh was not created by Steve Jobs but was the brainchild of one Jef Raskin. Actually I am not really that surprised.. /2004/01/11/engelbart-point-and-click/ Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:35:56 +0000 /2004/01/11/engelbart-point-and-click/ As usual at the moment, I have been quite transfixxed by the latest issue of http://www.wired.com/wired and in particular the article by Doug Engelbart (page 158, or viewable at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/mouse_pr.html ) on creating interactive systems in the late 60s at Stanford Research Institute. The article has interesting information on the first mouse: carved out of wood plus hyperlinks, videoconferencing, wordprocessing and network collaboration. In other words basically the technologies that we are now taking advantage of in our everyday lifes. /2004/01/11/redlabor/ Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:01:18 +0000 /2004/01/11/redlabor/ Looks like my wardrobe might actually get a new addition with the launch of the Redlabor site. Alot of the posters are also quite nice and probably alot nicer in the flesh than most designers output from the likes of Threadless. /2004/01/10/rss-useful-after-all/ Sat, 10 Jan 2004 03:39:34 +0000 /2004/01/10/rss-useful-after-all/ After looking at creating an RSS news feed I thought that I would checkout some readers, not thinking that they would be quite so useful to myself as they are. After downloading an RSS news reader I have been won over, instead of going around the many news sites I do every day I can simply get the headlines, some body content and a link to the article proper Quite simply it is one of the best services I have come accross in along time and I wish the FT, Reuters, PixelSurgeon, DiK and a few others would supply their news feeds like this also. /2004/01/10/rss-news-feed/ Sat, 10 Jan 2004 03:35:02 +0000 /2004/01/10/rss-news-feed/ I have decided that it would be quite cool to create an RSS news feed for this site so that I can update the site and feed it into other applications where I want. At the moment it is quite a basic feed but with time and when the site improves perhaps it will turn into something that is of some use! View it here: http://blog.timc3.com/rss.xml /2004/01/10/rss-update/ Sat, 10 Jan 2004 03:31:32 +0000 /2004/01/10/rss-update/ This is what I wanted to see:- My feed validating through a XML RSS newsfeed validator. That and creating the site a bit easier to maintain I think my conclude my evenings work.. Or perhaps not! /2004/01/08/ipod-mini/ Thu, 08 Jan 2004 02:59:36 +0000 /2004/01/08/ipod-mini/ So Apple have announced the iPod mini, as of yet I haven’t heard much about the response from the expo itself, but the overall response and I share this opinion is that they are simply overpriced at $249. For $50 more, consumers can get the new entry level 15Gb iPod, and in April when they are available outside of the States I wouldn’t be surprised if the pound price would be �249. /2004/01/06/money-scam/ Tue, 06 Jan 2004 16:00:11 +0000 /2004/01/06/money-scam/ What happens when you reply to the Nigerian Money Scam? Well Silicon have been asking the question and decided to reply to it, though perhaps the article goes on alittle too long and the reporter could have delt with it in a slightly more exciting way. /2004/01/06/round-up-of-2003-design/ Tue, 06 Jan 2004 13:02:02 +0000 /2004/01/06/round-up-of-2003-design/ Maki does a nifty little round-up of design styles and trends of 2003. According to him, repeating backgrounds, CSS styles, UL menus and using fonts other Verdana where in then. So what am I to do for 2004 then?!! Check it. /2004/01/05/back-to-work/ Mon, 05 Jan 2004 16:54:12 +0000 /2004/01/05/back-to-work/ Well back to work for another day, obviously a large change from the festive period! First thing is I had a quick look at was a change for Zeldman with a new layout. Can’t say I like it that much, find it abit confusing though I dare say that the CSS and XHTML is likely to be alot more compliant than mine!. A link to http://www.dailystandards.com/ shows off a new site for http://www. /2004/01/02/bootleg-objects/ Fri, 02 Jan 2004 23:38:52 +0000 /2004/01/02/bootleg-objects/ I thought that this would be tacky at first – taking oldschool electronics and updating it with modern components, but you have to check out http://www.bootleg-objects.com/. Hopefully there are more to come.. /2004/01/02/cheap-ipods/ Fri, 02 Jan 2004 23:35:34 +0000 /2004/01/02/cheap-ipods/ Well hopefully they will be announced, and if so I am sure that they are going to be extremely popular, particularly if they have a similar form factor to the existing iPod /2003/12/18/find-books-at-google/ Thu, 18 Dec 2003 12:29:40 +0000 /2003/12/18/find-books-at-google/ Google has launched a new beta service that allows you to search for contents within a book and then pass you on to a retailer. Google is not receiving any revenue from the service as of yet. Get the low down here /2003/12/16/new-winamp-version/ Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:29:16 +0000 /2003/12/16/new-winamp-version/ The best player for the PC (in version 2 guise) has just got an upgrade to version 5. This latest version takes the code from version 2 and version 3 and merges the best bits of both. As usual there is a Winamp Lite (655Kb) version and a Winamp Full (4Mb) version. is taking abit of a bashing from all the traffic at the moment so is going abit slow but I have tested the product and it seems fine. /2003/12/10/sing-it-for-you/ Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:47:23 +0000 /2003/12/10/sing-it-for-you/ This is genius: It makes up songs from words that you give it /2003/12/10/cvs/ Wed, 10 Dec 2003 12:46:48 +0000 /2003/12/10/cvs/ This is a blatent rip of the article in Linux arstechnica but I couldn’t find a way of linking to that one article or keeping the information of a very interesting introduction to CVS They talk about basic building of a system with links to a Open Source Development with CVS tutorial, graphical clients and their personal favourite Windows client TortoiseCVS. All useful stuff. /2003/12/09/usa-more-fun/ Tue, 09 Dec 2003 01:09:19 +0000 /2003/12/09/usa-more-fun/ Reading other users blogs and news sites has shown that the level of new and interesting technology for the home coming out from over the Pond is so much greater than here and with much more competitive pricing. Not only have they had a greater range of home-automation products for many years now because of x10, they are starting to see many of the big computer manufactor’s getting in the on the act, not least Gateway. /2003/12/07/psx-news/ Sun, 07 Dec 2003 20:57:30 +0000 /2003/12/07/psx-news/ Sony have brought out some more news on the forthcoming PSX, according to the bbc news it feature the TV tuner, Harddisk, PS2 internals that we thought it would be. Not included in the box are MP3 playback and CD-R support. The DESR-7000 will sport a 250Gb Harddisk for 99,800 yen, and the DESR-5000 a 160Gb Disk for 79,800 yen. Non-inclusion of MP3 playback might not be so bad, the audio format at its best doesn’t have the fidelity that competing codecs can manage though Sony’s proprietary ATRAC format suffers from not being compatiable in alot of devices including Apple’s widespread iPod. /2003/12/06/latest-update/ Sat, 06 Dec 2003 16:28:56 +0000 /2003/12/06/latest-update/ Well I have changed alot with this latest update, mainly the style sheet. I tired of the old one with its picture and as it was mainly for autumn a winter theme seemed more valid. At the moment I don’t have a picture for the top, perhaps I will render one in 3DS Max, but for now I am liking the change.. Just need to add to the new content areas. /2003/12/04/updates/ Thu, 04 Dec 2003 16:55:40 +0000 /2003/12/04/updates/ Updated the blog slightly to make more of it run from database so that it is easier to manage and update from afar.. Will be doing the new pages soon, so that there is more content… And a Winter picture is also coming.. Not much news from further afield because of being asleep most of the time due to this pesky flu.. Oh Well.. /2003/12/01/a-slow-monday/ Mon, 01 Dec 2003 12:23:34 +0000 /2003/12/01/a-slow-monday/ Well it has started slowely, after re-building my smoothwall firewall box – mainly because another person pulling the power on it messed up the filesystem and bios quite well, and secondly to use RC1 of 2.0 beta release. Also gave me a good opportunity to re-number my internal network. Shown to me this morning is also http://www.strategy.gov.uk which happens to have a really nice PDF of the UK versus the rest of the world… Its nice to see how well we are doing or not as the case may be. /2003/11/24/a-new-day/ Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:17:03 +0000 /2003/11/24/a-new-day/ Due to Redhat basically changing their product line-up , I successfully installed Debian over the weekend on a spare machine and within an hour had the usual system up and running. I was very impressed with the install and with the actual distro itself – the packages are all installed where they should be, without masses of unneeded stuff. Recommended! /2003/11/18/making-up-for-lack-of-posts/ Tue, 18 Nov 2003 13:16:04 +0000 /2003/11/18/making-up-for-lack-of-posts/ Seen some good stuff on the web recently. Firstly a report from the BBCi’s redesign called The Glass Wall, which I found extremely interesting. Then of course is the Macromedia Special reports. Will be looking into providing perm. links in the future. Also take a google for the eyetoy – look s like a great PS2 toy. /2003/11/07/design-or-not/ Fri, 07 Nov 2003 11:55:10 +0000 /2003/11/07/design-or-not/ Another day goes by, and the world redesign another 1000 websites or in this case 53 redesigns for www.useit.com, the home of Jakob Nielsen, in the ReUseIT competition. I am all for a decent redesign of the distinctly under-designed usability site but the entries for this redesign seem really poor. The aesthetics of each entry is barly better than the original and they have no fluidity or balance, the usability – the sites talking point would be no better and indeed in most cases worse and alot put much emphasis on Jakob’s celeribity. /2003/11/05/linkwhore/ Wed, 05 Nov 2003 01:22:01 +0000 /2003/11/05/linkwhore/ More great design links purged from the usual places. http://www.thomaselsner.com/ http://www.ajberni.com/ http://www.creativebehavior.com/ enjoy! /2003/11/04/ibm-xbox2/ Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:13:28 +0000 /2003/11/04/ibm-xbox2/ Well this was something that I certainly wasn’t expecting – a collabration between IBM and Microsoft on the xbox 2. Now this statement doesn’t go to say that it will drop x86 as its main processor, but as reported on arstechnica.com sources indicate this could be true – meaning that it could be sporting a G5 or member of its family.. Apparently this is because only IBM have the technology and knowhow to put this together – perhaps why Nintendo and Sony Playstation are also looking at the chip. /2003/11/03/refreshed/ Mon, 03 Nov 2003 13:06:28 +0000 /2003/11/03/refreshed/ Back from Holiday in Rome and completely refreshed, there are many new developments that I can see, but the most significant addition to an e-commerce site award goes to amazon. Their new search within a book featurea is a fairly significant move forward for the experience and usability of the site, but the integration into the normal search most be commended. /2003/10/24/this-blog-will-self-destruct/ Fri, 24 Oct 2003 16:06:31 +0000 /2003/10/24/this-blog-will-self-destruct/ Un-be-known to myself at the point of Blog entry for Microsoft Office below, Microsoft have come up with the ability for documents and emails to have a limited time period – deleting themselves after a period of time. This new feature brings about interesting privacy issues, including perhaps the yet not taken up opportunity of a hacker being able to exploit the feature. Also anyone with a slight computer knowledge will be able to get around the feature – UNDELETE anyone? /2003/10/24/not-alot/ Fri, 24 Oct 2003 00:46:18 +0000 /2003/10/24/not-alot/ So.. there is not along going on today for me to report on really, spent all day teching along getting search servers sorted but looks like the rest of world hasn’t been upto much. There are still Apple Mac diehards saying that Windows users are jolly lucky now that they now have itunes, but all the Windows can’t hear because they are still listening to the vastly better winamp 2.9 /2003/10/23/latest-sony-aibo/ Thu, 23 Oct 2003 01:07:54 +0000 /2003/10/23/latest-sony-aibo/ The Great new Sony Aibo is available for pre-order from all good retailers near you.. The new little pet is now more intellegent than ever, it can recieve commands via your mobile phone, is able to respond to a greater range of variety of stimuli and better still its the cutest model yet to be released. /2003/10/23/new-alistapartcom/ Thu, 23 Oct 2003 01:07:21 +0000 /2003/10/23/new-alistapartcom/ WooHoo! So it has finally arrived, after zeldman and all have been working hard with the revised, version 3, of the wonderful http://www.alistapart.com/ The latest features include; Facts and Opinion About Fahrner Image Replacement, Sliding Doors of CSS and Random Image Rotation /2003/10/23/new-office-application/ Thu, 23 Oct 2003 01:06:34 +0000 /2003/10/23/new-office-application/ Another year, and another release of perhaps one of Microsoft’s greatest revenue generators, The Office suite of Applications. New features include; Collaboration advances, much improved support for XML, Hopefully increased security, and every Application seems to have had an upgrade. As usual this is being hailed as the greatest release ever, which will of course increase productivity whilst lowering costs etc.. One of the interesting features for me is the greater integration with server products and this alone is one of the ways that Microsoft is far ahead of the competition. /2003/10/23/ffc-to-encrypt-broadcasts/ Thu, 23 Oct 2003 01:05:01 +0000 /2003/10/23/ffc-to-encrypt-broadcasts/ In a move to stop piracy and sharing online, the FCC is proposing to start encrypting broadcasts with a decision to be made in the next few weeks. Now as we have all seen with every type of consumer encryption so far, it remains to be seen how long it takes for this to be broken More at Reuters… /2003/10/23/linus-torvalds/ Thu, 23 Oct 2003 01:04:00 +0000 /2003/10/23/linus-torvalds/ Great article from wired magazine about how Linus became leader of perhaps the greatest free collaboration in the world yet, and how his laid back leadership is paving the way for new companies.