Still As Life

As I mentioned the other day, I have been playing Jedi Academy again, because it is awesome.

However, it is extremely frustrating to find I have gotten stuck at exactly the same spot I got stuck at the first time I played it and I do not recall how I got past it then.

That is all for now, expect happiness when I figure it out.

Now I will go and wreak havoc on unsuspecting city folk in my SimCity 4 Nation!

Labels: games

Earlier this month I posted some information about downloading video's from YouTube and other video sharing websites that use Flash Video's.

Now I have just come across tooble which is a program for Mac's that will download YouTube and other Flash Video's to your computer and converts them mp4 format for use with an iPod. Of course it will also play on an iPhone, Apple TV, or your computer.

There is a Windows version in the works, but at the moment it is Mac only.

Enjoy.

Labels: software, video clips

As promised earlier, here are some photos and a run down of my Australia Day.

My family had come up the coast for the long weekend, so I went down to visit them there and we went up to O'Reillys in Lamington National Park for the day.

It's been quite a while since I was last up there and it has changed a lot, but it's still a very nice place. In the photo on the left, there's my sister and brother with a king parrot and crimson rosella, with myself in the background.

I really enjoyed the day, as you can see the view was absolutely amazing and there are quite a few houses hiding away up there. To be honest, I would love to live up in an area like that, aside from the lack of a decent internet connection.

I expect, aside from getting a satellite connection, the fastest available would be dialup speeds.

There is phone reception in some places, so mobile internet is a possibility, but I expect speeds would still be limited to GSM which is no better than dialup anyway.

On the way back down, we stopped at this place, a tunnel that had been carved through solid sandstone back in 1901 by the Lahey brothers for a private tramway to haul logs instead of bullock trains. Due to the steep inclines the trams often had to climb, specially geared trams had to be imported for use on it. Apparently $60,000 was spent on it at the time which would be quite a lot really. The line ran from Canungra, a really nice little town that sprung up around the Laheys sawmill. Have a look at the Canungra website for some more info on it.

And this, the last photo, is an Australian mouse. We came across it while we were out in the rainforest, it wasn't worried about people at all and we were able to get to within about a metre of it.

Okay, so it's not really a mouse, I don't remember what the actual name for them is though and it looks like a big mouse, so there you go.

I hope everyone else had a great Australia Day long weekend!

Labels: other

The Payable on Death website has recently been updated to reflect the album art of their new CD, "When Angels and Serpants Dance", which is due out on the 8th of April 2008. There is a sample clip from one of their new songs, by the same title as the album, playing in the background of the website once you enter it. However, there is also a download available from inside the website that is of the full song. So if you want a preview of what the new album is sounding like, get in there and have a listen. It's sounding awesome in my opinion.

There is also a special offer at the moment that ends March 16th to pre-order the album for $9.97 US which comes with a special edition booklet and your name gets printed on the Warrior Wall.

Nice.

Labels: music

I have been playing Jedi Academy again recently as this is one of my favourite Star Wars games, and I have been in a bit of a Star Wars kind of mood. Now, I just saw this trailer/documentary about the making and technologies used in the latest Star Wars game, due out mid 2008, "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed".

If you watch it you'll find out anyway, but the new game uses Havok physics, Euphoria dynamic motion synthesis and Digital Molecular Matter.

So what this means is, you have physics, so everything moves based on physics rather than pre-determined movements, Euphoria gives the computer controlled characters the ability to think for themselves and react to what you do.

An example given in the video clip is that if you throw a crate at someone, they could either duck under it, jump out of the way, or even grab onto it. Such as if you throw a person, or pick one up, they will try and grab onto things. It is described as a sense of self preservation.

Then there is also the Digital Molecular Matter which combines with the physics to give everything different characteristics. It means would will break like wood, metal will bend like metal, a crate thrown into another crate will have a much different result to a crate thrown into something much lighter, like a person.

Anyway, have a look at the video and be amazed. I want this game now. Actually, I want to upgrade first so I can play it when it comes out, but you get the idea.



Also, the game story sounds absolutely awesome, after all, who hasn't always wanted to be Darth Vader's secret apprentice?

Labels: games, technology, video clips

I spent my Australia Day down at the Gold Coast and out at Lamington National Park and up at O'Reillys with my family today, I have photo's, but they are for another post.

Having been out all day, I had already had dinner before coming home tonight, and Rhi had already eaten. However, when I got home, she made Fondue! We were going to have it last night, so we had bought berries and things to use, but it didn't quite happen. Tonight though, it did. After all, the berries needed to be eaten.

I have never had fondue before, but it was absolutely awesome! If you are someone such as myself who has not known about this marvelous idea, it can be done with all sorts of things, I believe it is most commonly done with cheeses. We however had a dessert one.

Melted dark chocolate with coffee and cream mixed in with it into a delicious paste. Then we had our selection of berries, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.

Basically, the chocolate or whatever you have is kept soft and melted and then you use these funny, skewer style forks to dip things in it, in our case, berries, though I think Rhi ended up using her fingers as much as her fondue fork. Thus we had delicious, caffeinated, dark chocolate coated berries! Yum! Almost makes the chocolate seem healthy, what with the antioxidants already in it and all of the berries. Okay, I'm probably kidding myself a bit there, but it's healthier than just the chocolate.

Australia Day recap and photos will be coming soon.

Labels: food

You may recall my post about when I saw The Golden Compass last month. If not, to recap, I didn't think it was very well put together, and was not a good movie.

Rhi loved it, my sister loved it etc, I did not like it.

I just came across a post by Paul Jenkins over at Pauls Blog that pretty much echoes my opinion of The Golden Compass. However, he added another perspective to it that I hadn't even thought of.

He noticed that the story has vast similarities to the original Star Wars story. I find this quite funny really, but it is very true. The story is remarkably similar, except of course, Star Wars was actually good.

For example, as Paul pointed out, in reference to Star Wars, The Magisterium from The Golden Compass is trying to control the world, similarly to The Empire of Star Wars. At the same time, the Gyptians defy them and rescue Lyra. This can of course be referenced to the Rebels of Star Wars rescuing Luke and Leia Skywalker. Luke can use The Force, Lyra can operate the Golden Compass. The most obvious thing though, that I really can't believe I didn't see, near the end of The Golden Compass, Mrs Coulter, the main antagonist reveals to Lyra that she is actually her mother! Oh my! Darth Vader, the main antagonist of Star Wars reveals near the end that he is indeed, Luke's father!

The book was published in 1995, clearly after Star Wars was released in 1977 kind of makes one wonder about it. Ah wells, perhaps I should stop being so cynical.

My apologies to anyone that liked it, but I really don't see what the great appeal of it was/is.

Labels: movies, rants

Powerhouse Music and Technology is a music store that sell musical and computer gear. They specialise in guitar parts, especially pickups, knobs, scratch plates, effects peddles and other guitar modifications.

I have been working on their site since the beginning, including the transition to a Zen-Cart based website.

Zen-Cart provides a vast amount of functionality and automation of things, thus it can almost be used entirely in the place of MYOB Retail Manager style inventory and sales management, it prints invoices, keeps the website up to date with current stock and so on.

Everything is customisable.

It does have a few downfalls, for example, only one image can be used for each product, unless you know how to use FTP and know HTML image tags. If this is the case, than you can put more images in the product description since it allows HTML to be entered in it.

It also does not have built in warranty claim management or return authorization management, so this must all be done manually by email, phone, or any other means.

Powerhouse Music and Technology has recently undergone a makeover. I did not design the original Zen-Cart website for them as they found a template much to their liking. I did do all of the custom graphics and so on, as well as all of the custom code.

Over the past week or so, we have been going through the website and making various changes to the template. For anyone that had not seen it previously, it had a dark grey/blue background and used varying shades of dark blue throughout the website. It was a fixed width and had a plain black background behind the main content area. Boring.

If you have a look at it now, you will notice a few key changes that we have been working on. The first and foremost is that the website has been lightened significantly without changing the colour scheme. It is now a much lighter grey/blue with darker rows alternating lighter product rows so they are easier to read.

The second main change to the website is that the background is no longer a boring plain black that does nothing but emphasise the empty background. It is now a tiled pattern based off the material covering of an early Vox Guitar Amplifier. The pattern does not scroll with the rest of the website so it remains the same no matter where you are or what your screen resolution is. The decision to do this was made because having the website automatically adjust to fit different resolutions, while being based on the current template would take a lot of time and work and would rewriting the majority of the CSS. Thus, something else was needed to emphasise the content.

The background does this perfectly. The colour scheme does not clash with the current colours and even the black material on it's own without the stitching provides a better background than the plain black because it contains various shades. The background as a whole however now emphasises the content and makes the website more interesting, especially on higher resolution screens.

There have been other changes made as well, though not so significant, with the switch from dark to light, the text colour has all had to be changed and in doing so, the link hover colour has been changed to a green rather than a blue, to fit in with the green used in the logo.

The menu has also been adjusted to remove gaps in it that left it seeming empty, which it is far from being.

Finally, there have been a few fixes to widths that had not previously been noticable with the darker background that became apparent with the light background.

The past couple of days we have been gradually working through the site and picking up the colour glitches here and there that have been caused by the change and were missed for whatever reason in the main styles. So if you have a look and notice anything that doesn't quite seem right, such as unreadable text, it would be great if you could let me know.

Thanks.

Labels: code, design, work

The past month, I have been brainstorming and experimenting with idea's on new and interesting (to me) things to do on the web.

So far I have a few things. Of course, high up on the list is to market TerraMedia and Ultralight more, but at the same time, there have been other things come up as a result of that.

Company and product image.

For example, I have been trying to come up with a new and interesting logo for TerraMedia. I did a subject at university first semester last year that was based entirely around product and company image, through logo's, packaging and so on. KIB101, Foundations of Communication Design 1 is the subject. Great subject, I learned a lot doing it. The problem is, I could not get past one of my early logo idea's which I realised after I finished it, that it was very similar to the old Sony Walkman logo which is a trade mark, and while it's not the same, I didn't particularly like the idea of Sony having a reason to come after me. Thus, I ended up with the current logo, which is nothing too special, I like it, but it's not what I would ideally like.

So, this is something I have been aiming to change. I still don't really have anything set in stone yet, but I have some idea's that I am working on since my mind has seemingly been freed of it's mental block at the moment. How long this will last I cannot say, but hopefully for a while yet.

In working on this new logo, I have also been considering redesigning the TerraMedia website, and reworking it to better fit my new marketing strategy (which is at the moment still in it's planning stages, so I can't give you details because it is not yet in an entirely logical structure and will most likely come across as a bunch of babble). I spent a couple of hours with Rhi on Sunday afternoon brainstorming possibilities in this regard, and along with things I have since come up with on top of our combined masses of brain power, I think we have some very interesting idea's that I plan on experimenting with. I'd show you, but that would ruin the surprise.

Rhi is also helping me out with the new logo design which is awesome as she is a fantastic artist! So a big thanks goes to her!

Portfolio.

Next on the list is a possibility I have been throwing around in my mind and have just begun experimenting with using Joomla!

Joomla! comes with a weblinks component when you install it, and that, combined with part of my new marketing strategies has thrown into the works a directory style portfolio. In a way, like a Yellow Pages of web site's by TerraMedia. Of course, there aren't that many at this stage, and it probably doesn't sound like much, but the idea's that are whizzing through my mind regarding this have me really intrigued about setting it up. I have something partially working at the moment. I'm hoping to get it up and running properly within the next couple of weeks.

This also is a reason behind the changes I would like to make in the design of the TerraMedia website. The current design does not incorporate any real portfolio the way I would like, thus it does not have one, which is not a good thing, in fact, it is a very bad thing.

Next up is email.

I have a Microsoft Exchange Server partially setup for TerraMedia. It's still in it's trial phases at the moment, but I am hoping to have it setup properly soon. This will make maintaining my email's, contacts and calendar (why does the spelling of calendar look wrong?) far easier from all over the world, not that I'm frequently all over the world, but you never know.

Once the Exchange server is fully setup and operational, TerraMedia will be offering it as a service instead of our current webmail/POP3 email service, if anyone is interested, pricing will be sorted out shortly. I aim to have this fully operational within the next couple of weeks as well to coincide with my plans.

Blogging.

I am planning on rearranging the news and client information blogs so that they are one and the same rather than two separate ones. I also accidentally blocked myself from allowing RSS, ATOM and OPML feed's from the news page, which is potentially problematic and another driving factor of a new design.

Blogging part 2.

Still As Life is still running off of what is essentially a standard template. Yes, I have changed it significantly. Background image, size, footer, menu etc, but it is still basically a standard template. This I do not like. In my brainstorming for TerraMedia, I stumbled across the foundations of a new design for Still As Life hiding in the dark, atramentous recesses of my mind.

So this is underway as well. I have it in progress, on the Still As Life server, but I'm not going to give you the link because that would ruin the surprise. If you can figure out the path to it though, enjoy and keep in mind that it is still in progress and the colours are far from final.

More Still As Life?

Yes, there is more. Still As Life was not originally intended to be solely the home of the personal blog of me, Matthew Brown. No, it was also meant to be a haven for my fractal gallery. Yes yes, there is my Deviant Art gallery, which does give me unlimited space and bandwidth for free. However, it is not really what I want. I have been tossing around ideas in my mind ever since I first began considering names for this blog. There is actually an installation of Coppermine Photo Gallery setup on this server and has been since I set up the domain. It's just one of those things that never quite went ahead.

Is there anymore?

As a matter of fact, yes! I just don't remember what else there was at the moment, that was actually part of the reason for this blog, so I don't forget everything. Oh well, I'll remember sooner or later. I actually have paper with stuff on it all over one of my walls for this reason as well, however this is one of the things that hadn't made it to paper yet. Though Rhi thinks the paper makes it look like I have gone mad with illegible scribble writing and drawings that look like they are part of the writing and so on. I am happy being mad.

Last but not least, in my creative and un-mentally blank mood, I have been doing some drawing (that does not look like scribble) as well. I have the outlines of a picture that I am quite proud of so far. Hopefully the rest of it will work right and I don't end up with, well, badness.

Labels: code, design, internet, rants, work

I was reading some interesting little facts in an email that I received today. Yay for completely useless but interesting forwards. Anyways, one of the things it said was, "what number do you have to count to before you reach the letter A?".

That's a good question and something I've never thought about before, and if I hadn't read this, I probably never would.

Anyways, when I started to think about it, I got up to about fifty seven and then realised, hey, I could be here a while, I still haven't gotten an A, so I started skipping up in ten's, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred. I gave up then realising that everything from then on is just repeating something that's already been spelled out.

So off I went and read the answer. Lo and behold, one thousand is the first number with an A in it if you spell it out. I then also felt quite stupid for not realising this when I reached one hundred.

And now I have written four paragraph's on something that could be said in one sentence, as well as state the obvious. But hey, you learn something new everyday.

Labels: other

This is a pretty cool idea, though quite pointless really.

A Mac Mini inside a Macintosh 512k!



Perhaps using a colour screen would have made it a little bit more useful. However I suppose in doing so, it would have lost some of it's uniqueness.

Ah wells. Interesting all the same.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

There are a few other websites now live that I have been working on as well.

You may or may not have seen the first two Domain Resorts websites that I worked on, if not, they are:

• Domain Resorts and Residences
• Domain Resorts and Residences Santai

Since completing these two, I have also been involved in working on five other websites for them through Webtrix™ Technologies.

The websites are as follows:

• Domain Resorts and Residences Drift
• Domain Resorts and Residences Beach Shacks
• Domain Resorts and Residences Mainwaring
• Domain Resorts and Residences Pandanus Pocket
• Domain Resorts and Residences North Stradbroke Island

For more websites that I have worked on, have a look at my portfolio.

Enjoy.

Labels: design, internet, work

The Swallow Fashion website has been live for about a week now. This is a website that I have been working on for Webtrix™ Technologies for some time now.

It was a very slow website to develop, however, it has turned out quite nicely. I was not the only person working on this website mind you, it was just one of those ones that takes a long time to get done, for no real reason.

Swallow Fashion have 3 stores in Brisbane city and do just about anything with clothes that you can think of. They mend, make dresses,perform alterations, dry clean, can work with leather and furs and so on.

I might be biased when I say I don't like some of the parts of the website that I didn't do. However, if you know what parts of the site they are, you can probably understand my dislike of them.

Labels: design, internet, work

With all the awe and wonder surrounding the official unveiling of the gorgeous new Macbook Air at the MacWorld Expo last week, another fantastic new Mac laptop has been somewhat overlooked.

The Modbook by Axiotron. This is not an official Apple Mac, however it incorporates the magic of OS X and the same components used in Macbooks with leading tablet technology from Wacom!

That's right, the Modbook is effectively the first and only Mac Tablet! With prices for the basic Modbook starting at $2290 US, it is not much more expensive than the basic Macbook Pro ($1999 US), and only slightly less powerful.

The standard Modbook comes with a 2ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor that can be upgraded, 1gb of RAM, also upgradeable, built-in iSight Camera, optical drive (either combo-drive or SuperDrive), and just in case you get lost, global positioning system (GPS).

It is based around a 13.3" screen, and since it doesn't close like, it is protected by chemically strengthened Axiotron ForceGlass™ to ensure it is as safe as possible from damage at all times.

The screen incorporates digitizer technology from Wacom and the included Axiotron Digitizer Pen is:

• Fast - 133 position updates per second
• Accurate - 20x display resolution
• Sensitive - 512 levels of pen pressure sensitivity
• Efficient - No batteries required

As it is based on a Macbook, it retains the full Macbook connectivity suite, including 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 (two ports), FireWire® 400 (one port), Bluetooth 2.0 and AirPort Extreme® Wi-Fi.

It does not come with a built in keyboard like some tablet PC's do. Instead, you have the option of either just tapping the letters you want on an on-screen keyboard (a little time consuming in my opinion), or just writing like you would on a piece of paper. The Modbook has full support for Apple’s Inkwell® software on Leopard, so writing is no problem at all! Alternatively, you can get a USB keyboard.

The weight and battery consumption is no different to the standard Macbook, so there is no real reason there to cause problems.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog got a demonstration of the Modbook on video which I have embedded below:



One thing I am not quite sure about from the video is that the Axiotron rep indicates that a wireless adapter would be needed. The Axiotron website though indicates that it comes with wireless (as I mentioned above). Either way though, it is still a very nifty and highly useful device.

If I didn't already have a Macbook Pro, the Modbook would be on my list way above the Macbook Air.

By the way, if anyone would like to donate me a Modbook, I would happily accept.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

As promised earlier, here are some screenshots of how my computer runs Unreal Tournament 2004 to compare to how it runs Unreal Tournament 3.

Unreal Tournament 3 is running with all of the settings as high as they go, including running at the highest supported resolution, 1280x1024 at 32bit.

It does not chunk, at all, even in large skirmishes, with Photoshop open in the background and also compressing a video file that I forgot I was compressing when I decided to see if it would allow me to take screenshots today, seeing as how it is picky like that.

When I was trying out Unreal Tournament 3, I had it running with nothing else going in the background and on low settings and it still chunked.

This is to be expected, but I am used to the low quality settings of new games still being around the same, or better than the previous versions so the fact that it was so much worse was a real surprise to me.

On another note, if you are in Brisbane, Gametraders currently have Unreal Tournament 3 for $89.95 with $10 off, or the collectors edition for $109.95 with $10 off. Or they do at Garden City anyway. This may be a nation-wide thing, it may not, definitely worth it though if you have the computing power to do the game justice.

Labels: games

Recently, Sun Microsystems purchased MySQL for $1 billion. A little late I know, but I only just read about it.

There are articles about it on both the Sun and MySQL websites.

With a gigantic customer base, MySQL is a very successful open source endeavour, so purchasing something like this, potentially brings millions of customers, including clients like Facebook and even Google.

Along with such a large client base, comes the potential to really screw up. There are plenty of other database systems out there, both open and closed source with similar features and performance to MySQL, in particular, PostgreSQL. This means that if Sun were to mess it up, there are systems waiting with arms open. For example, on the TerraMedia server, we have both MySQL and PostgreSQL running. Of course, for many larger clients, transferring to a different system would be a lot of work and for many, it probably would not be worth it. However, for smaller clients, or transitioning systems, there is a much bigger possibility.

Added to that, at the Queensland University of Technology students are introduced to databases and taught using PostgreSQL in the introductory database subjects, no doubt this occurs at other universities as well. This means other systems are in a prime position to take a piece of the market from MySQL if things go sour.

Having used both systems though, I can see there are many similarities, so even someone who has only used MySQL could pick up PostgreSQL with very few problems.

However, I can't point out the possible pitfalls without mentioning the benefits.

Sun is a giant in the I.T. industry with a large amount of finances available to back MySQL. Not to mention, Sun has been extremely successful in releasing the Solaris source code in 2005, and the Java programming language in 2006. Thinking along similar lines, you can hardly talk about Sun's support of open source software without mentioning projects like NetBeans and OpenOffice.org. Both of these have thrived under Sun as well.

Additionally, work conditions are not expected to change, including being able to work from home, and Sun have invited the current staff to continue work on the system, including the current leadership and executives.

It is clear to me that Sun understands the value of open source technology and the communities surrounding it and I don't doubt at all, that in adding MySQL to their arsenal, Sun won't screw things up and MySQL will continue to thrive from the added support.

For anyone reading that has heard my theories on the future of the I.T. industry, involving companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and so on, this move by Sun supports my expectations completely.

I will write up my theories one of these days, or copy a chat log about them, or something.

Labels: code, internet, software, technology

As you may recall from the 18th, I made a post about a Microsoft Excel security issue that had been brought up in the Sydney Morning Herald. At the time I could not seem to find anything on the Microsoft website about it. Evidently I was looking in the wrong place or searching for the wrong thing, as Tim over at Spy Journal has found the official Microsoft Security Advisory information under Microsoft Security Advisory (947563).

According to the official Microsoft release:

"Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Excel 2000, and Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac. At this time, our initial investigation indicates that customers who are using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac, or who have installed Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 3 are not affected by this vulnerability."

So basically, the latest version's, Excel 2003 SP3, 2007, and 2008 are all in the clear. Everything else is potentially vulnerable.

Common sense should apply, as with anything received over the internet, if it looks suspicious, it probably is, unless it's me.

Labels: internet, software

This is quite an interesting little device, the Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card.

It's a standard size SD card that can be used in any camera that uses the SD format. It has a built in wireless radio and transmits photo's over a wireless network to a computer, or to any of the supported online photo services such as Flickr, Picasa, Webshots and so on.

Once it has been setup on the computer it all works automatically, making it very easy to have all of your photo's on your computer without having to find and hookup cables, or take the card out and use a card reader, or whatever other method you might use.

It is also compatible with Mac's as of the 14th of January, importing to iPhoto, with Leopard and Safari support.

Of course, they are a fair bit more expensive than your standard SD cards, but the uses may well make them worth it for many people.

Labels: hardware, technology

My computer decided that today, it would take screen shots, so here they are. A couple of screen shots showing just how poorly my computer runs Unreal Tournament 3.

Then of course I got to taking screen shots of Unreal Tournament 2004 to show a comparison in the quality at which they run, and it decided it didn't want to take anymore screen shots, so I suppose that will have to wait until another day.

The images to the left have not been shrunk, I can only run Unreal Tournament 3 at 640x480, and as you can see, my quality comparison to Duke Nukem 3D is not too far off.

The quality settings are pretty much as low as it goes, and it still chunks.

I look forward to an upgrade and being able to turn these quality settings up much higher.

Labels: games

You have no doubt heard by now that Apple unveiled the brand new Macbook Air at the Macworld Expo this week. Given my recent purchase of a Macbook Pro, I have been very interested to see how these compare. After all, the Air is meant to be only 1.9cm at it's thickest point and 0.4cm at it's thinnest. Now my Macbook Pro is about 2.4cm evenly across the whole laptop. So this isn't logically that much bigger than the Air.

I just saw this video with a comparison of the two at the Apple booth and all I can say is wow. I think I would break it if I owned a laptop as small as this:



On the other hand though, I want one purely for the awesome factor.

There are of course a few downsides and at this stage it would not replace the current Macbook lines as it is a different market again.

The Macbook Air does not have a firewire port, or a wired Ethernet connection. It also only has a single USB port. A USB to Ethernet dongle is available, but then there goes your singular USB port. So no doubt a USB hub will be a required accessory for one of these, unless you are in a truly wireless environment, which I suppose, I kind of am. I use wireless on my laptop at uni, at home and at my parents place, and those are pretty much the only places I use it. For anywhere else, I have my 3G modem, which would take up the USB port. So I suppose, it would not be that big of a deal really.

It comes standard with a 1.6ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2gb of RAM and an optional upgrade to a 1.8ghz CPU. As for storage, it comes standard with and 80gb hard drive, the same as the ones used in iPods. The hard drive has an optional upgrade as well to a faster 64gb solid state drive.

So power and storage wise, it is pretty decent. Of course it doesn't compare to the Macbook Pro's which are still the workhorse model laptops.

The things that are, in my opinion, the biggest downfalls for it are the lack of a dedicated graphics card. It uses an Intel integrated GMA X3100 graphics processor which shares 144mb of RAM with the main system memory, and it does not have a built in optical drive.

For many people the integrated graphics card may not be a big deal, but for me, it is.

Apple have provided a solution the the lack of an optical drive with the external Macbook Air SuperDrive. Again, this is connected via USB to the single USB port. The external drive is something you can buy additionally, it does not come with the laptop.

I can understand that the market this laptop is aimed at may not necessarily have such a big need for an optical drive, and ultra-portability is more the key factor in the development of this laptop, but once you add all the things you need to carry around with you, if you need them, a Macbook or Macbook Pro may still be a better option. After all, they are still quite small.

The negatives aside, watch the video and be amazed at the new Macbook Air. Not only at the size of it, but the new functions of the touch pad.

The Macbook Pro (and I assume also the standard Macbook) has a very innovative touch pad system that includes extremely useful functionality such as, tapping with two fingers is a right click, touching it with two fingers and moving them the direction you want to go is scrolling etc.The Macbook Air builds on this with even more functionality such as zooming. Whether all of the functionality is available in all applications, or just in things like iPhoto remains to be seen (by me anyway), but it's just another step along the development path anyway.

Now if only my Macbook Pro could lose some weight and gain some cool aerodynamics such as the Air, but whilst keeping its higher powered components, that would be awesome.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, "Microsoft says hackers have found a way to use some older versions of its Excel spreadsheet program to take over control of people's computers."

They then later go on to say:

"Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Excel Viewer 2003, Excel 2002, Excel 2000 and Excel 2004 for Mac all contain the security hole."

And finally end with:

"The most recent versions of the spreadsheet program, Excel 2007, Excel 2007 SP 1 and Excel 2008 for Mac, were not thought to be affected, Microsoft said."

Now, I have had a look on the Microsoft Excel Developers Blog, and there is no indication of this on there.

Nor is there anything on the Microsoft Press website, in general, or in the Security section.

This leaves me thinking two things.

1. This is either shocking reporting, or they somehow have inside news that Microsoft hasn't released on their website yet.
2. This is a marketing ploy in the wake of the amount of people that find the so called "innovative" ribbon system in Office 2007 painful and confusing to use and find Office 2003 much better in general.

If it is option 2, it would make sense. Office 2007 is quite pitiful really, yes, it does have useful things over 2003, but in general, 2003 is much simpler to use, and I know a great many of your "everyday users" that 2007 is meant to benefit, who spend hours trying to figure out how to do things they could do in 2003 in seconds.

This is a large part of their market that is choosing to either not upgrade at all, or revert back to 2003. So there needs to be some reason for them to spend money to upgrade to 2007. A security flaw that has all of a sudden been discovered in previous versions and not making any comment as to whether it will be fixed or not, that sounds like a pretty good way to motivate your everyday user.

Note that this is purely speculation on my part.

However, I do not think that option 2 is all that likely, if it were, there should be something obvious on the Microsoft website about it.

If anyone knows of anywhere on the Microsoft website about this, that would be great.

In the meantime, I will just assume that this is some very bad reporting on the part of the un-named journalist on the Sydney Morning Herald.

Labels: rants, software

Hehe, this has been really well done:



Yay Blu-ray!

Labels: technology, video clips

Here is another Unreal Tournament 3 trailer, because I can.



Also because I noticed a couple of comments on this particular trailer which is an old one from back when it was called Unreal Tournament 2007. The comments though are only recent.

A user called thekillersfan01 makes the comment:

"this looks good but a rip off from gears of war"

Following in his idiotic footsteps very soon after, glenny112 makes the comment:

"rofl u nubs this is a re run of halo 2 and 1 and also a re write of gears of war!"

I propose three things, one being the following:

Thekillersfan01, you should read the below.

Two being:

Glenny112, you are the "nub." If you knew anything about gaming history, you would be well aware that Halo 2 was released on November 9, 2004. Now, following your illogical structure of referencing Halo 2 first, I will now point out that logically, Halo 1 was released prior to Halo 2. Halo 1 was released on November 15, 2001. Next, is Gears of War. Gears of War was released most recently on, you guessed it, November 7, 2006. Now, taking this into account, let us consider the following. The first Unreal was released when exactly? Let me see. Oh yes, May 22, 1998. The next in the series, Unreal Tournament was released when now? November 26, 1999. That is two games released prior to the first Halo which is the earliest released game of your claims. As for Gears of War, well, not only are there those two games, but Unreal Tournament 2003 released near the end of 2002, Unreal 2, released in February 2003, and then of course, Unreal Tournament 2004, released in March of 2004.

Now, you tell me which one is a "re write" of which.

Sure, I looked up the dates to get the exact day and month, and also to back up what I am saying, but I could have told you the year's those games were released off the top of my head give or take a year.

The final thing I propose is:

Glenny112, didn't you ever go to school? Do you know what spelling and grammar are? It's hard enough to take you seriously when you don't have any idea what you are talking about, let alone when you cannot even manage to type properly.

Now, after seeing the video here, I can understand thekillersfan01 making a simple mistake like that since his YouTube profile indicates he is from the USA. Glenny112 though, according to his profile is an Australian. Now that's just embarrassing.

Labels: games, rants, software, video clips

Well, I just had my first go of Unreal Tournament 3. Let's just say, I am quite the disappointed, in my computer. You may recognize the screen shot to the left as being from Duke Nukem 3D from over a decade ago.

Well, this is better quality than what my computer will run Unreal Tournament 3 at. I tried to get a screen shot of it, but my computer is in one of those "I don't feel like taking a screen shot" kind of mood's at the moment, so I guess I will get one later, if I can be bothered trying to play it again. I suppose I should, even if it is just to get a screen shot of the amazing failure of my system.

For anyone that doesn't know, my computer is as follows:

• AMD Athlon 64 3500+
• 1gb of 400mhz DDR RAM
• ATI Radeon x800 GTO 256mb/256bit (PCI-E)
  
• And the rest is mostly irrelevant.

Now the minimum requirements to run it on Windows are:

• Windows XP/Vista
• 2.0+ GHz Single Core Processor
• 512 MB of System RAM
• NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
• 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

So logically, I should be fine. Logically, my old computer should also have been fine.

However, when I open it up, it tells me that my computer doesn't even meet the minimum requirements.

Odd.

A friend of mine has an almost identical setup to mine and he could play it at higher quality settings than I can.

I think I shall have to have a bit more of a tweak and play around with my background processes and game settings.

Alternatively, I could just upgrade sooner.

For anyone interested, the recommended system requirements for Unreal Tournament 3 are:

• 2.4GHz Dual-Core Processor
• 1GB of RAM
• NVIDIA 7800GTX OR ATI x1300 GFX-card
• 8 GB of free HDD space

Yeah, my rig completely fails there.

Unreal Tournament 3 is going to be available for OS X (Yay), however, to my knowledge, it isn't out yet, please correct me if I'm wrong as I would love to get my hands on it and try it out on my Macbook Pro as I expect it will have a much better chance at doing it justice than my current desktop.

Previously, with most game sequels, take for example Unreal Tournament's 2003 and 2004, you could play 2003 at say medium quality on a computer and then the same computer would only run 2004 at low quality, this is logical right, but low quality on 2004 would be similar to medium quality on 2003. I don't remember exactly how close they are as I haven't played 2003 in some time now, this is just an example. Yet with Unreal Tournament 3, the settings I'm running it on, which I might add, are not the lowest, it is still poorer quality than a game that is over a decade old, and much poorer than it's predecessors.

This really amazes me, and yet, it doesn't surprise me all that much. In the 3-4 years since Unreal Tournament 2004, there have been some major increases in performance in virtually everything.

• Increased processing power as well as dual and quad core CPU's
• Faster and increased quantities of RAM
• Higher powered graphics processors
• Lets not forget, dedicated physics processors.

Unreal Tournament 3 does not require a dedicated physics processor, but similarly to many of the latest games, it incorporates a great deal of physics calculations that its predecessor did not.

I'm looking forward to playing this game on a new computer so I can see first hand the difference that these jumps forward have made in the Unreal Engine 3, rather than just watching video clips and trailers and drooling.

And here is a trailer, just in case you haven't already seen it:

Labels: games, software, video clips

Words do not exist to explain the sheer stupidity and ignorance shown in this video clip. I have seen the first part of this before, but this clip has more that I hadn't seen until today, and I can't help but be dumbfounded by it.



On another note. Whoever did the subtitles, learn to spell please. Thanks.

Labels: video clips

I really hope this video wasn't an official Bush Government video. If it was, it's really sad.

Labels: video clips

Rhi formally moved in this afternoon which is pretty cool.

While we were waiting for our landlord to turn up with her key, she gave me what is meant to be the last part of my Christmas present.

Two boxes of Nerds, Nerds Gumballs, and even Nerds Rope!

Apparently I was meant to get it with the t-shirt that implies I shouldn't be allowed to touch anything still under warranty, and caffeinated soap that I thought was the entirety of my Christmas present from her, but she hadn't had a chance to pick them up yet.

I can't help but think she is hinting at something...

Then of course there is the t-shirt I got from my parents for Christmas. I Google myself regularly, do you?

Thank's heaps mum, dad, Jess, Nick and Rhi!

Labels: other

All I have to say is wow, the same size as two 24" displays, massively wide screen, inverse curves, I want two, and I promise not to violate them so crudely by playing World of Warcraft on them as Veronica suggested.



I would like to say something in response to her saying:

"It's a DLP screen, it's rear projection, but it has a faster response time than an LCD screen."

Yes Veronica, of course it's faster. LCD's are slow compared to their predecessor's, why should this be any different? What rock have you been living under?

If you are going to report on technology, at least know what you are talking about, please.

Anyway, now that that's out of my system, I will take two of these lovely Alienware behemoths please.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

"A failed effort to soften the noise from British military helicopters led to a breakthrough enabling surfaces from mobile telephone screens to car roof liners to be turned into stereo speakers."

How interesting. An article on the Sydney Morning Herald outlines the results of an attempt to dampen noise from military helicopters that resulted in creating noise instead.

By the looks of it, they've created this honeycombed material that actually produces sound, and can be used in all sorts of scenario's, such as on an LCD instead of frame-mounted speakers. This works because it is see-through, and results in the sound being pointed directly at the user who is looking at the screen. So it doesn't affect what they are seeing.

It has been called "SurfaceSound" and looks like it could pave the way for a lot of interesting developments. From the article it seems like the audio quality is quite good, but as a bass player, I am interested to hear how it goes with lower frequencies and the reproduction of these frequencies, even more so, if they can produce the same feel as traditional sub-woofers, or even woofers. You can't just here the bass, you have to feel it or it is incomplete.

Labels: music, technology

According to an article on eMarketer, gift card sales this past year have reached near $100 billion.

"Gift card sales totaled $97 billion in 2007, up from $83 billion in 2006, according to data from The Tower Group cited in The New York Times."

Thats not all. The amount of gift cards that aren't used, or have money left over on them is near $8 billion!

"Tower put that amount at $7.8 billion in 2007."

That's a huge amount of money that is basically free!

So what does this mean? From where I'm sitting, it indicates pretty clearly that gift vouchers are a great idea and are very worthwhile!

Retailers can't lose anything on them since they are paid for when they are purchased. Then if they don't get used before they expire, that's money for nothing!

What a great idea. If anyone wants to give me money for nothing, I wouldn't mind at all.

Labels: other

Since returning home, I've gotten one of my other Christmas presents setup, a new Samsung SyncMaster 940BW Plus 19" wide screen LCD to replace my old CRT and compliment my 9 month old Samsung SyncMaster 940BW.

There is just enough room on my desk to fit them next to each other, almost perfectly, the difference between the two of them is absolutely amazing though.

In case you aren't aware, the all black one is the older 940BW, the silver and black one is the 940BW Plus.

I'm not entirely sure what it is, but the older one pales in comparison to the new one.

I had previously had the old one connected to the video card (Radeon x800GTO) via DVI, with the older CRT connected via VGA. When setting up the new one, I decided to use DVI for it and relegate the old one to VGA (I had thought I had dual DVI outputs but I don't). So I don't know if it's just the difference between the analogue and digital displays, or if it's a combination of that and age (though 9 months doesn't seem like that long really), but the quality difference between the display on the new and old one is amazing, even down to colour clarity.

I have set each LCD to have identical settings in the menu and so on, yet there is still a big difference. This leaves me to believe, that the newer model, the Plus, is remarkably better than the LCD that I once said when I first got it was the best 19" wide screen LCD I had seen. It is marketed as having a 2000:1 contrast ratio while the older model wasn't, and it is also marketed as being a 5ms response rate. I'm not 100% sure on this, but from memory, the older one was 8ms. So this isn't a huge difference.

I suppose I won't really be sure just how much better it is until I do a system upgrade to a video card with dual DVI outputs. That'll be fun.

Excuse the shocking photo, I think the flash being reflected from both sides confused the camera.

Samsung have always made some of the best LCD's, in game and watching DVD's, this is an amazing LCD, as was it's predecessor. If you are deciding on a 19" wide screen LCD, I highly recommend the Samsung SyncMaster 940BW Plus!

Labels: hardware

I came back up to Brisbane from Lismore this afternoon.

I've been watching the Eight Mile Plains Umart store over the past few days since it's just around the corner from my place, kind of. Anyway, I've been watching the online store because I noticed that the prices of hard drives seemed to have gotten quite cheap over the past couple of weeks with 500gb SATA2 Samsung and Western Digital hard drives at $129. Seagate are as usual a bit more expensive. 750gb drives are as cheap as $228 for Western Digital or $245 for Samsung drives.

Even 1tb drives are reaching a decent price with the cheapest at $370 for Western Digital, though 2x 500gb drives are still far better value than a single terrabyte drive. Of course, a terrabyte hard drive in a desktop PC does give one some bragging rights. Not many though.

Anyway, the 500gb hard drives from Samsung and Western Digital are what I was watching in particular. Of the two brands, Samsung are my preference as I have had nothing but good experiences with Samsung hard drives, and some bad experiences with Western Digital. Ideally, I would prefer Seagate, call me a fanboy, but if I could afford a Seagate everytime I was buying hard drives, it would be a Seagate. However, at the moment, the 500gb Seagate's are $56 more expensive at $185. Now, the Samsung drives have been out of stock for the past few days, so I was strongly considering putting in an order for a Western Digital drive, just as I was leaving Lismore though, I was having a look again just to make sure, and lo and behold, Samsung drives were back in stock!

So here I am at home, $129 out of pocket but with a shiny new 500gb SATA2 Samsung hard drive. Can you pick which one it is in the photo?

It was very tempting to buy a second one while I was at it and put them in RAID 0 to replace the current 2x 320gb drives in RAID 0 and rebuild them into a RAID 1 configuration for my server backups.

However, while it is only $129, $129 is still $129, especially when I haven't been working since before Christmas.

Can always pick up another one later anyway.

Labels: hardware

I received a phone call today from Vodafone to let me know that one of my pieces of identification used in my credit check for the application for the 3G modem wasn't acceptable. This is over a month since they told me the credit check was passed. I have also already paid my first bill including effectively a month in advance almost 2 weeks ago. Yet it takes them until now to decide that one of my points of identity was unacceptable, and only unacceptable because it was faxed. Which I was told at the time was okay.

So what do they want me to do? They want me to come in and bring it in so they can photocopy it and FAX the copy to the credit check people.

Maybe its just me but this seems like a complete waste of my time and the time of all of the parties involved.

Apparently it's not a priority so to just drop in with it whenever I get a chance. What if I don't get a chance? They didn't say anything about cutting off my service if I don't take it in, and my account is set to direct debit every billing cycle, so they don't even have to chase me to pay my bill unless there isn't enough money in the account, which there is because it's the account that I use to save money (ironic that the account that is saving money is also the one paying the monthly bills, but hey).

So does that mean I could just not take it in? They wasted 2 hours too many of my time the first time I went in there, so I have no reasonable inclination to want to go in again, let alone the time to go in and have another hour or 2 wasted.

Am I the only one that has this much trouble with Vodafone? Do they sense that I have my phone with Optus and when I get a new phone, it will most likely be with Optus, and I will never purchase a phone from Vodafone, so they make it difficult?

I would think it should be the opposite, try and motivate me to purchase a new phone with them. Oh well, to their detriment, if they didn't have the largest download quota for the cheapest with the most reasonable coverage, I wouldn't have gone with them at all in the first place.

Even my Mac is sad. Or it is when I use its speech function to say sad things....

I suppose it may not necessarily be Vodafone that is the problem so much. I bought the 3G modem through Crazy Johns as they were the only store in Garden City or Sunnybank Plaza at the time that had them in stock. So really, it was probably the people there who should have known better than to say that the fax was fine (though I still don't see why it wasn't anyway), and they were probably as much responsible for wasting my time as the people at Vodafone were.

Either way, I have decided Vodafone are efficient time-wasters and I won't be dealing with them anymore than I have to, nor will they be getting any more business from me outside this contract.

Labels: rants

I've been asked on a few occasions if it is possible to save YouTube video's to a local computer in a usable format.

Usable really depends on the definition of the person. There are a lot of free services out there such as www.downloadyoutubevideos.com or at Tech Crunch, where you paste the link to the YouTube video into the page, and it provides you with a link to download it. Then you have to rename it to a .flv file and play it in a player such as VLC that supports Flash Video files.

This method is all well and good except, a lot of people don't want to download a video player just to watch .flv files, and it really is a fair bit of work to get them this way. There are programs floating around to convert .flv files to .avi or other formats, but I haven't come across any that I particularly like, and again this is a lot of work for a single video file.

There is an alternative though. There is a website called vixy.net that that works similarly to the others in that you paste in a link to the YouTube video and it then provides a download link. This is the only similarity though.

When you put in the link you want, it gives you an option to choose what format you would like from a list:

• AVI for Windows (DivX + MP3)
• MOV for Mac (MPEG4 + MP3)
• MP4 for iPOD/PSP (MPEG4 + AAC)
• 3GP for mobile (MPEG4 + AAC)
• MP3 (audio only)

So you can pick what format you want based on what you plan on using it on. Then hit start and off you go. It is downloaded to their server and converted from a .flv to whatever format you chose and a download link is provided. This cuts out all of the other troublesome steps of the other websites that provide YouTube download links. In particular, it saves you the trouble of converting a .flv to an .avi or .mov or any of the other formats.

Of course because the DivX codec is used for the Windows option, you will need to have DivX installed on your computer, but then, you can play the video in Windows Media Player or whatever other player you prefer instead of being restricted just to VLC. Besides that, many people already have DivX installed so it's not a very big deal. DivX have both paid and free versions. The free version can be downloaded and provides everything you need to run the files from vixy.net.

There is also a free (with ads) download available from vixy.net of a PC based .flv converter if you already have the .flv files you want. I haven't tried this as of yet, but I gather it is based on the same software the website uses. It is currently only available for Windows but there is a Mac version on the way. Keep in mind that it is still only in beta so it isn't going to be perfect yet.

Alternatively, if you have access to a server you can upload the .flv files to, or if you have seen some on a website where the video url is easy to find, vixy.net will accept these links as well as YouTube ones, so it has a solution for a lot of .flv conversion possibilities.

I hope this helps someone with converting .flv files and downloading YouTube video's.

Labels: internet, software, technology, video clips

The Apple homepage has just recently been updated to advertise a new line of Mac Pro computers released yesterday that are described as a "Tower of 8-core power". According to the specs listed in the press release, this statement is perfectly accurate.

The standard 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:

• two 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors with dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses;
• 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory;
• 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 16x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• two PCI Express 2.0 slots and two PCI Express slots;
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR; and
• ships with Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse.

In addition to the standard configuration, the Mac Pro offers numerous build-to-order options including: one 2.8 GHz, two 3.0 GHz, or two 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors; up to 32GB of 800 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory; up to four 1TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm or up to four 300GB SAS drives running at 15000 rpm; Mac Pro RAID card; up to two 16x SuperDrives with double-layer support; NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 graphics cards; AirPort Extreme 802.11n; Apple USB Modem; Apple wireless Aluminum Keyboard; Apple wireless Mighty Mouse; and Mac OS X Server Leopard. Complete build-to-order options and pricing are available at www.apple.com/macpro.

With capabilities of running 32gb of RAM along with 8 3.2ghz Xeon cores, they really aren't kidding when they say these are the fastest Mac's ever made. Previously they couldn't claim this as in some scenario's, the previous G5 PowerPC's still outperformed the new Mac Pro's. This was even shown in the benchmarks on the Apple website. I can't find this anymore to link to it as it appears the performance charts have been replaced with new ones showing the power comparison of the new 8 core beasts. Though one does wonder why they are in some cases compared to the previous model with 4 cores and some compared to the G5's.

I suspect this has come around in part due to the release of 16 new Intel CPU's to the Penryn family of processors that were officially announced on the 7th of January, two days ago.

It wouldn't surprise me if the new Mac Pro's are leading the way for a new line of Macbook's as well. I have heard rumours of an "Apple Portable" but I don't know if there is anything to that or not.

My logic says though that it was only recently that a new line of iMac's were released, now there is a new line of Mac Pro's. That only leaves Mac Mini's and Macbook's/Macbook Pro's. This is purely speculation on my part though.

Labels: hardware, technology

This is a great parody of the iPod ad that is all over the place. Whether you like Apple or not, this is an awesome clip:

Labels: video clips

I have gotten a few months behind on Ctrl+Alt+Del, but I finally caught back up this evening which is most excellent.

With this catching up, I've decided to add a "Awesome Comics" link section to the navigation as well, of the comics I try to keep up with on a regular basis, and also regularly forget about.

Rhi sent me a new comic a couple of days ago called Questionable Content which she found and loves reading.

It's taken me significantly longer to get through the archives than it took her, probably because I've been doing a fair bit of other stuff, and I'm still nowhere near through them, but I have to say, it's one of the best comic's I've read in a while. Jeph, the artist behind it, has combined a lot of witty humour with words and in context's that would often not be understood. One such word that I came across in his comic that I love is defenestrate, which means to throw out a window. How awesome is that?

He has also managed to create a set of characters that I can recognise and relate to which is awesome.

It's definitely not an 100% family friendly comic, no doubt if it were a movie it would get an M15+ rating, but it is far better than a lot of the comics out there.

The third comic I currently have in the list is XKCD. XKCD is definitely not based around the art, as much of it is stick figures. XKCD uses science and creates humour out of it. It is really quite interesting and funny to read. It comes highly recommended from me, as do the other two comics I currently have in the list.

Note: They aren't listed in order of awesomeness. They are in alphabetical order.

Labels: art, internet

This is pretty cool, it's been up for a while now, but GM are using Wordpress for their GMNext website. I've seen some criticism of how it has been implemented, but I think it has been done really nicely.

For more information on Wordpress and Wordpress websites, have a look at the news post on TerraMedia or visit the Wordpress website.

Wordpress is a great alternative to Blogger if you wish to host it yourself as it gives you much more control and functionality. If you don't, Wordpress have a free service similar to Blogger's Blogspot which is also quite a nice alternative to Blogger.

Labels: design, software

Hehe Rhi just sent me this. If you are really bored, give it a go.



If you give up, there are some hints here.

Also, as of today, Rhi and I are officially housemates, kind of.

She moved the majority of her things in today, she won't actually be living there until Sunday though.

I'll be heading back up to Brisbane sometime tomorrow most likely.

Labels: games

The all new Alstonville Pathfinders website is officially live. There are still a few minor changes to be made, such as the addition of the final logo when it is completed and so on, however it is predominately done and ready for use.

It is designed around Wordpress and incorporates an easy to use and update calendar and image gallery.

I might be slightly biased, but I think this is one of the hottest Pathfinder Club websites out there.

Feel free to agree or disagree. I don't mind.

Labels: design, work

As you may have noticed, there have been a few small changes to the Still As Life template.

The left side bar now extends the length of the page, which in my opinion gives the site a much more complete look. I have also added a little footer along the bottom of the page that matches the description bar along the top. I think this helps with the appearance of completion.

These two things are the main template changes, but there is also a new link section in the left side bar called "Cool Tools".

This just has a few useful tools in it. It will no doubt end up getting split into sub-categories and what not. For now though, thats how it is.

Enjoy.

Labels: code, design

I'm a little bit late with this as it was announced over a week ago now, that Netscape Navigator support will end from February 1st and there will be no future development on Netscape Navigator by AOL.

It is interesting to read some of the things in the blog and in the comments about this. For one, I was totally unaware there was still much of a following of the Netscape browser. If you are like me and remember the days where Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator were the two most common browsers, then you have seen things change, many of you probably remember further back than that as well. Since the beginning of the Mozilla Foundation and the open sourcing of the Netscape core, Netscape has gradually fallen further and further behind in its user base.

Given that Netscape came to be based on Mozilla and later, Firefox, it seemed to me that the continued development work on Netscape was somewhat pointless as it, in my eyes duplicated the browser for no apparent reason.

Something I found interesting were, in the blog, and also reflected in many of the comments, was this:

"While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer."

Why is it that Internet Explorer is the only browser recognized as controlling market share? Once upon a time this was true, but a lot has changed. There are other browsers such as Opera and Firefox that claim their own portions of the market, as well as Safari, Seamonkey, Konqueror and so on. Why is Internet Explorer the only target? If anything, Firefox and Seamonkey should have been the primary competitors as they are based on the same core as Netscape.

In my opinion, Netscape shouldn't have been competing with Internet Explorer so much, but focusing on Firefox and determining what Firefox didn't offer, and building on that. Netscape was once a very useful program, but it has been years since I have even considered it. I haven't used it to test websites in a long time as if it runs in Firefox, it should also be fine in Netscape. Perhaps this has been a bit lax on my part, but if I'm not mistaken, they use the same core code, so they should render the same.

In one comment the following question is raised:

"Netscape's rise and fall symbolizes why it is important for all companies to constantly innovate and litigate when others use unethical tactics to hasten their demise.

Both Internet Explorer and Firefox can after Netscape. Why are they still around?

How did they manage to get popular debuting after one of the most important additions to the beginnings of the World Wide Web? We all know about Microsoft's controversial tactics - but how does one explain FireFox?!

Why did Netscape not compete successfully? Was there internal politics?

We should all learn from this!"

I don't know what the level of knowledge this person has is like, or what experience they have had with web browsers. To me though, why Netscape did not compete successfully comes down to the fact that it was no longer needed. It was no longer a mainstream web browser and competitor to Internet Explorer. Opera and Firefox had filled that place. They both came after Netscape yes, but Netscape didn't compete successfully, because it was competing with itself under a different name, Firefox. I expect that if Netscape had not been open sourced when it was, it would have continued to lose market share to Internet Explorer, and when Opera came around it would have added to the mix, just as it did anyway, and take away more of Netscape's user base.

The open sourcing of Netscape gave it an avenue to thrive and evolve into Firefox through the effort and contributions of the global community.

There is no doubt in my mind that Netscape played a significant role in the evolution of the Internet and web browsing, but in the end it's time was up as an entity. AOL made the right choice to "hand the reins fully to Mozilla", after all, they are essentially the same browser.

If you are one of the Netscape fans, AOL have, as their final development salute, created a Netscape Firefox theme with Netscape extensions to go with. So you can have Firefox appear as close to Netscape as it will get.

It is sad to see Netscape drop out of the game, but since Opera joined the game and the Mozilla Foundation produced Firefox, it's days have been numbered.

A salute to those who kept it going for so long is well deserved, and everyone that has worked on it over the years should be proud to know they helped forge the internet as we see it today, by navigating rather than exploring.

Labels: internet, software, technology

We had visitors over this evening for dad's birthday (he's 45 now), and logically, as happens with such a cool plant, the bat plant came up in conversation so off we went to show it in flower. Being dark and all meant it was an interesting mission down to the back garden through multiple spider webs to find it.

I grabbed some more photo's while we were down there as the second flower is open now. The third one isn't out yet, but it should be soon. Sadly I will probably be back up in Brisbane when it does come out, but that's alright.

For whatever reason, I'm not entirely sure anymore, a conversation came up about snakes during the night. Now as we were seeing off our guests, mum yells out that there is a snake, and we all (or me anyway) think she is joking, given the recent talk about all the snakes, and I couldn't see one in the direction she was looking. Lo and behold though, there is this sizable carpet snake sitting up on the drainpipe.

When I say sizable, I mean, reasonable, compared to some of the carpet snakes we've had here, this one is tiny. As far as I know, this is the first snake that we've seen around here in a while as well, so it was quite a surprise to see one at all, especially so close to the house that it was almost in it.

It ended up finding its way up over the gutter and going down the drainpipe which would take it down to the back of the house where it could get out again. I guess with all the wet lately, the frogs are out and about and would make a perfect meal for a growing young carpet snake like this one.

Whenever I see carpet snakes, I can't help but think of the gigantic one we had down the backyard once. It was easily long enough to get close to going from one side of a road to the other, and thick enough to eat a small dog without making much of a lump. Luckily they are non venomous or it would make such big ones all the more frightening to behold.

Labels: special interest

Lismore is one of the last places you expect to see a dozen helicopters, especially all in one area. Specifically, all on one sports field.

Normally there are 2 helicopters in Lismore that are seen on a regular basis, both of these are operated by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter service. Aside from that, there is rarely any other helicopter presence in Lismore. I believe there are 1 or 2 smaller one's at the airport on a regular basis, but I am not certain on that.

However, with all of the flooding and people being stranded and cut off from any supplies in Coraki, Woodburn and surrounding towns, it seems our house is right in the flight path of the helicopters running regular supply and surveillance flights, including the state premier's personal tour of the natural disaster zone. I decided to go and find out where the helicopters were all coming and going from as I couldn't see where they were all coming and going from. The airport has been partially flooded and thus really unusable until possibly this afternoon, and aside from that there are only a few other open level places in Lismore that could be used, the down town sports fields, the various school sport fields, and the sport's field at the Goonellabah RSL Club. I hadn't seen any helicopter activity in downtown Lismore whilst I had been down there so the first place I checked was the Goonellabah RSL, and yep, it has effectively become the base for 12+ helicopters.

There were 8 helicopters on the ground while I was there having a look and taking photo's, a 9th landed just before I left, and there had been another 3 in the air. Whether there are more or not, I don't know.

None of these helicopters were the Westpac Rescue Helicopters, and the majority of them were bigger choppers than any you would expect to see in somewhere as small as Lismore.

The past few days there have been 8+ flights directly over our house each day, some days more. Given that our place is only a couple minutes drive from the RSL, these helicopters have all been quite low already when they have been flying over our place, so they have seemed quite a bit louder than usual.

It really was quite a surprise to see so many out there. It is kinda cool though.

It seems my flood predictions weren't so bad, just not for the right area. Lismore didn't flood much due to the flood levy, but downstream further, Coraki and Woodburn have got it pretty bad. Evidently, the flood waters aren't expected to recede for the rest of this week. Lismore ended up getting within about a metre of the top of the levy to my knowledge.

Kyogle also got some major flooding up river from Lismore earlier that is still gradually receding.

As far as I know there haven't been any casualties or major injuries as of yet, so hopefully things will stay that way.

Labels: other

I was just reading a post by Duncan Riley about the potential for banning of things that are commonplace and acceptable today, purely because of the possibility of porn being received via these channels.

Duncan outlines just a few possibilities, Second Life, Skype, Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, Usenet, BitTorrent, Blogs, Twitter, regular Google searches and Image searches, internet archives including Google's caching system.

In addition to this, what else is there? If Skype has the potential to allow the receipt of porn and anything else deemed unacceptable, which it no doubt does, than logically so does MSN, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and so on. Any other search engine can potentially be used to search for porn as well as Google.

While I don't deny that a porn filter would be a great thing, if it could be done effectively, as I have said before, when you start this sort of mandatory filtering, not only does the question arise about where does the line get drawn on what content gets filtered, but where does the line get drawn on what methods. Duncan even offered up the fact that porn can potentially be received via email as well, and often is in spam.

So what things get filtered and what don't? As BitTorrent is often deemed as a means for illegal downloading, despite the huge amount of legitimate uses for it, the excuse to filter it out would no doubt be jumped at, but what about everything else?

To filter out all of the possible sources leaves us with practically no internet at all, and then at speeds reduced to up to 78% slower than our already slow connections.

Mr Rudd, you and your ministers need to let go of the controlling attitude and stop even discussing this possibility. When it comes down to it, the only viable solution is to let parents teach their kids and teach parents how to use software filters. If you want, provide education about it in schools. Don't try to filter out the vast majority of the internet though.

Labels: internet, politics, rants

If you remember my blog from when I was looking for MSN for Mac, then you will recall that I mentioned Adium as a solution, however it did not have webcam support, so I kept looking for a different solution.

Adium 1.2 was released yesterday, and while it does not yet have webcam support, it sounds like it is well under way. The update has a lot of bug fixes, and adds a lot more usability to the system including adding more usability to the menu items and account management features.

There is much more than that and for full information have a look at the blog and the 1.2 release post.

It sounds like it will only be a matter of months before webcam support is available for Adium. In the meantime though, I discovered a temporary solution, if you want to use Adium. It's called MeBeam and uses Flash to integrate audio and video support. It does however do this through a web browser rather than directly through the Adium application which may not be suitable for a lot of people.

The audio and video quality is quite good, though there do seem to be a few other minor issues at this stage.

So if you like Adium, perhaps this is a solution for you. I will still be sticking with Mercury Messenger though as the webcam support is more to my preference than what MeBeam offers. Adium does sound like it will be very promising though in the near future with the release of Adium 2 which will include audio and video support.

I also came across a plugin for Adium called XBlaze that adds Xfire support to Adium, and as far as I know is the only Xfire client available on Mac. It still has a few minor bugs, but it appears to be updated relatively frequently. This is as good a reason as any for me to keep Adium on my Mac and up to date, so hopefully we'll see Adium 2 soon with full support for audio and video so I don't need another client.

Labels: software, technology

Okay, so perhaps my prediction/hope for a big flood was slightly off as it has pretty much stopped raining and there are patches of blue sky here and there. The weather forecast is much the same through to Tuesday. So unless we are really lucky, it isn't going to flood. Oh well.

Dad has this really obscure plant in his yard called a Giant Bat Plant. They are from Malaysia, and dad's one seems to be really thriving, it's leaves are huge, the full 750mm by 350mm with no trouble at all.

With all the rain and humidity over the past couple of week's, it's not only come to flower, but it is going to have three flowers at once!

It has one fully open now, another will be near fully open tomorrow, and a third one that will be fully open within the next few days as well. These flowers last over a week each, so it will be quite stunning to see once it has all three of them out. The most I've seen it with at once was two and they only just overlapped by a day or two before the first one died.

As you can see in the photo's the flowers are very obscure. They have like a big white and purple leaf over the top of them which opens to reveal these obscure purple flowers and long whisker type fronds.

This flower comes out on a long stem above all of the large leaves.

I think part of the reason it does so well here is because it is a very tropical climate, and where it is located is well in the shade almost all day by a combination of larger tree's and in particular, reasonable sized fern fronds that allow some light through, but not in large quantities. It is also quite humid here most of the year round which to my understanding, Bat Plant's really like. Lismore is also generally quite wet compared to places even only two hours away from here, such as Brisbane, which also no doubt encourages it.

I'll get some more photo's over the next few days when the other two flowers are out. It should be really stunning, as you can probably imagine seeing just one flower.

Labels: special interest