Still As Life

I've been talking about it, so where is it?

The new Still As Life blog?

Well, the design is virtually completed, and setup for Wordpress, I just have a few more small things to sort out in it along with setting up the basis for the second half of the website.

That's right, there's a second half!

Don't all pass out at once, I have been working!

The new Still As Life design is, I am proud to say, in my opinion Web 2.0, though as Web 2.0 is as flexible as any other definition of a design style, that is open to interpretation.

So, I can safely say, it will be alive soon.

Since I'm changing over to Wordpress instead of Blogger, and the file paths will be changing, that does mean a different RSS URL along with other changes, but in the long run, I think it will be very beneficial.

That's all for now, catch ya.

Labels: code, design, internet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The screen shot to the left shows a post that was made on Tailored.com.au by Brendon Sinclair indicating that his blog post that I had mentioned previously had indeed been indexed by Google in less than 6 and a half hours.

As I mentioned in my previous post, it was indexed in 4 hours. However, following up out of curiousity, upon another search now, only just under 4 hours after his new post, it has also been indexed.

"posted by Brendon at 5:25 PM on Dec 11, 2007"

As you can see on the clock on my computer, it is just after 9. While I had performed the search at about 8:50 when I first saw it, I hadn't realised that it was in fact the second post until now, so my time is a little bit off. However I think it is fairly safe to say that Google is indexing frequently updated websites in 3 to 4 hours.

Interestingly enough though, Brendon's following post has not yet been indexed that I can see, though it was made only 10 minutes after the one in the screen shot.

Labels: internet

I have been noticing over the past few days that Google has been indexing my blog within a few hours of my posting. I just Googled for my last blog post and it's not there yet, so it clearly isn't quite instantaneous. However, for a website that is frequently being updated, an index update thats only an hour or two old is clearly quite beneficial for everyone involved.

I had noticed how quick it was updating a few days ago. It was just today that I saw a blog post by Brendon Sinclair on Tailored Consulting about Blogger posts getting indexed almost instantly.

While the circumstances are slightly different and Tailored.com.au clearly has a higher pagerank than Stillaslife.com as well as no doubt getting many more pageviews and so on. Brendon also keeps the blog updated even more frequently than I update mine, so automatically it should be getting crawled more frequently than mine. However I thought I would check this anyway just out of curiousity.

Tailored.com.au has been crawled since his post 4 hours ago. I would like to watch this more closely and see if his website is in fact being crawled as quickly as it seems. As Brendon mentioned in his blog, even if it is only Blogger that is being indexed so quickly at the moment, if Google has found a way to effectively index websites, even within a couple of hours, this really puts them even further out in front of all the other search engines.

I have noticed it has been over the past couple of weeks that the speed has really increased so I wonder if it is something to do with Google's last major algorithm change. I am interested to see if the same thing is occurring on Wordpress and other blogging systems.

As I write this, I have also done a quick search, and now at 3:22, the blog post that was used as a test for this purpose by Brendon is number one when you search Google for "Raymond F. Sinclair".

Labels: internet