Right, oodles to post about, but I’ll start of the fun and games with some more linkage (as Ciaran might say; I haven’t full managed Lyner-speak yet, it is an arcane language.) to various things that have recently amused me.
Click to expand and see the rest of 'Linkage!'... »Right, oodles to post about, but I’ll start of the fun and games with some more linkage (as Ciaran might say; I haven’t full managed Lyner-speak yet, it is an arcane language.) to various things that have recently amused me.
Firefox
The all-new, gleaming, spanking, Firefox 1.5 web browser!
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
If you’re not running Firefox as your web browser, then you should be. Firefox is a great browser, remarkably fast, safe from attack, sticks (by and large) to the web standards and is by far the best browser out there for PC, Mac or Linux, it really is. If you’re still using Internet Explorer on Windows then I hope you have a good reason for it. If you’re using Mac OS 9 for some reason then use Netscape 7, which you can get from this site (go to the bottom of the page and follow the links – it’s a bit fiddly but well worth it). Don’t use IE for Mac, there is NO GOOD REASON.
I’ve been using Firefox for some time now, having been tempted by finding it on my PC at work after coming back from my travels last year; Tony had been using the PC before and although I was suspicious at first (Tony’s fingerprints were over most of the projects and everyone kept telling my how wonderful he was, always a bad sign) I decided to give it a go and lo and behold! It was good. This latest release is even better than the last and so, go and at the very least try it. You’ll experience the Internet again.
Climate Change
It seems that, once again, we’re doomed!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4485840.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1654803,00.html
The recent thinking has been that in Europe we’re going to see a sharp climate drop before we see any warming, which will be as destructive over the short term, though nothing Europe hasn’t had before over the last few hundred years (something I read a couple of years ago referred to the fact that in the middle ages, it was cold enough for Denmark to walk over to Sweden (across the frozen sea) and set about them.). Personally, I really do think that it’s a game of brinkmanship that the US is playing with the rest of the world that’s going to decide the fate of the world at large, and moreover all of us will ultimately lose out, because this is probably the biggest challenge we (collectively) have ever faced. If you’re not as cynical as me (quite likely) then you might want to get over to www.combatclimatechange.ie and do something about it. I’m wearing the t-shirt as I type this!
Oh no! Java is doomed
Again, Java is finished! A new dawn awaits for programmers!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/30/beyond_java/
That is rubbish. People are still programming in C and C++, and they’ll be programming in Java for years to come so I reckon it’s just hype and hysteria to sell a book about nothing at all. More on this in a later post.
$100 Laptop
A wireless portable for people who need food, clean water and sanitation!
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051128-5639.html
It’s great idea, and I hope it flies, but I still question the usefulness of handing out a laptop like this to people who need various other things much more than they need a cheap laptop. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great piece of technology being used in the right way, but maybe the money could be spent more wisely?
They’ll be on sale to the rest of us too, and I’m sure the money will go to funding more projects like this.
Terrorist website competition
The winning entry gets to mastermind an attack on a US Military base!
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/12/01/story232992.html
Really, that is exactly what this is about. Frightening and yet bizarrely funny, in a Monty Python kind of way. It won’t be so funny when people start getting killed though.
More Daleks
More zany Dalek humour!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/01/dalek_thespian/
Sort of funny in a way, but a bit over-cooked. It won’t be for everyone.
XBox 360
All your console are belong to Microsoft!
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/xbox360.ars
I really haven’t been getting up to much recently, have I? There was a possibility of my heading out to the XBox 360 launch party last night, though I never heard any more about it so that was fine, I got to read about the new console from Microsoft instead. It’s a detailed review of the first of the next-generation game console/multimedia/network devices, the others being Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s… thing. They all, interestingly have very similar hardware inside, and all are aimed at the Internet and connectivity. A little something for the stocking filler, maybe?
I’d better get on and get some real posting done, with big colour photos and perhaps some innocent pornography before I get accused of time-wasting…
Click to collapse this story... »The thing about doing lots of stuff and having an eventful week to write about is that because it was eventful and involved lots of doing stuff, I didn’t get around to writing anything. That is bothersome. Jacob Nielsen, who is not well known outside of web-design circles but famous and infamous in equal measure [...]
Click to expand and see the rest of 'Trains, weddings and a room'... »The thing about doing lots of stuff and having an eventful week to write about is that because it was eventful and involved lots of doing stuff, I didn’t get around to writing anything. That is bothersome. Jacob Nielsen, who is not well known outside of web-design circles but famous and infamous in equal measure inside it for reasons I’ll explain shortly, recently put up his 10 points for good blogging (blogging is what I’m doing right now, writing a diary on the web) and one of those was to post regularly. If you post infrequently and erratically, he says, people are much less likely to repeat visit and of course repeat visits are what you want. He’s right, but he doesn’t get out much I’d say.
Nielsen made his name by making a lot of noise about how web sites should be designed in order to be usable; there was a time when web sites were a hit and miss affair because people didn’t understand the technology, tried to force it do things that it wasn’t meant for, didn’t understand how people were using it, all sorts of factors that have largely been eliminated by a sort of Darwinism.
So, no regular posts this week. Last week, the government published it’s transport plan which is a big event for me because as I’ve said before (and damn it, I’ll say it again!) I’m an infrastructure nerd and one of the things that bothers me most about this country is that it has terrible transport infrastructure. It’s a hell of a plan; 34 Billion euro over 15 years, which is apparently 9.5 million every day as of last week. Straight away we got… 20 new busses for Dublin. 20. Out of the 180 that they need to get people moving, they authorised 20. So more on this later. It’s a lot of money for winning an election. My money. Incidentally, today was my second trip out to Blanchardstown by train this week, and the second time that they had trouble with it resulting in delays and over crowding…
I had a good chat with Tee via MSN and tried to help her videos and photos and the like. She’ll have photos to post on the Interweb now, yay!
Rik the Belgian came over to visit for a couple of weeks, as I write this he is no doubt recovering from a hang-over on the Aran Islands somewhere.
Tee’s brother Joseph got married on Thursday to Diana, so they had a big party on Friday. The O’Reillys really can party, and Diana’s family and friends from home (who are all Croatian) know a thing or two about that too. I have plenty of photos to prove it. A good night, I stuck to my moderate drinking principle, with some… oddness in it (and I’d expect no less, particularly since I was there and Tee wasn’t) and I also played the videos she made which was emotional. In spite of the diabolical sound, which made most of what she was saying sound suspiciously like ‘Rarr rah rarr rerrr rar’. We need a bigger speaker…
The next day I went to see a room which I subsequently got in Blanchardstown. I’ve had interesting reactions from my friends. It’s not far from town, it’s a nice area, it’s all good… And yet, I could have moved to say, Swords or Newbridge for all the positive responses I’ve had. Garret (who believes everyone should live in Rathmines, and to prove the point he bought a house in Rialto, next to Beirut) has even started to try to see the positive side of it! He actually believes it’s that bad that he should be supportive! After a good initial mocking of course. I expected that.
Saturday night saw myself and Rik go to Dmitry and Alex’s party, which was great. I work with them, they’re a great pair of guys (both Russian) and know how to rock the joint, with the able help of our work colleagues as well as Tanya, Sarka, Vlad and Diana. I have a lot of photos from that too; I didn’t drink much but everyone else did and anarchy ensued (as usual). Rik drank so much that he got sick and I had to make sure he got back to town ok. He might have learned a lesson there. If you drink with Dmitry, don’t try to keep up.
I finally finished the Javascript Gallery software I’ve been writing for Keith (which, although Tee doesn’t know it yet, will also be making an appearance of sorts on her site too) and I’m very happy with it. It’s not perfect but it’s good lesson in Object Orientated Programming. I managed to find the last of the odds and ends I need to make sense of the Image manager I’ve been working on for Tee’s site so now it’s full steam ahead on that. I’ve also been moving slowly but surely into my new home. In fact, I’m posting this on the wireless broadband connection here from my bed.
I truly am a nerd-like being.
Click to collapse this story... »