Inflatable Buildings + More

Wednesday 24 May 2006 at 07:40 am Neat - Wonderful Inflatable Office Space. If you've ever read the Julian Mays 'The Saga of the Exiles' series you'll remember the fantastic 'pocket' buildings that could be easily carried and inflate anywhere.

More on the greatness of Nintendo - New Mario Is Best DS Game Ever. I'd love a DS - my GBA is great fun but it would be nice if I could find some good shooters for it - something like these crazy Japanese bullet-hell games.

Nifty - Seenonslash. Amusing comments seen on slashdot. Slashdot itself has become a fairly dull place with a really bad signal to noise ratio for the past few years. Its nice to see the meta-meme pulling something humourous come out of it. The rubber-chicken comment (even if apocryphal) is great.

Fast OS switching - OS X on a MacBook running OS X, Ubuntu and Windows XP. Nothing new to VirtualPC or VMWare users but still pretty funky.

iTunes like audio player for Linux - Banshee.

Very cool - Business card circuit board complete with prototyping area. And I thought cdrom business cards were neat.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) - Pictures of the pre-production version. No crank handle and its orange not green.

Microsoft may consider following their own advice and implement UAC.

For ska fans - Two tone keyboard.

If you like the keyboard launch capability of Quicksilver but don't use the other features you may like the simplicity of Namely.

The Onion AV Club declares the worst show on TV. Sounds evil. Not just bad but evil.

Useful - Skype RJ11 Adaptor. Skype sounds cool - people actually use it too. I always find this type of thing gimmicky (anyone remember CU-SeeMe back in '92 ?) but Skype seems to have real momentum.

Momus - The Dead Formats Society. "Archiving represents both attempting to preserve something to be remembered and leaving out something to be forgotten."

A comparison - Mac vs PC development for the same application. Phanfare developed a Mac and Windows client for their service and this is one developers view of the Visual Studio .Net IDE and XCode IDE.

I See Dumb People + More

Friday 19 May 2006 at 10:00 am OK so I know that this is really only something that appeals to a jaded IT support person but this t-shirt is genius - I see dumb people. Yes I know its patronising but sometimes you just have to vent . . .

This type of single purpose device is really appealing - especially when Nokia provide ongoing soft-updates - 770 Tablet. The new update apparently provides a better onscreen keyboard and GoogleTalk - some nice screenshots over at this 770 community site.

The last free version of PGP was 8.1 - some useful information on where to get it and how to use it over at tinyapps. Some good stuff over here at pgpi.org too. As someone else pointed out (Tim Bray?) - in this day and age everyone should encrypt and compress attachments. Digital signing is also one of those things that we should do (but most of us don't).

A first look at the new MacBook over at Macworld. The keyboard still seems a little odd - I remember years ago when the Duo PowerBook had all sorts of keyboard issues - my Duo 230 went through 2 of them. I guess we'll see what people think over the coming months.

Looks quite different - Managing Tasks & Processes in Windows Vista.

On an artistic note - Jim Woodring has a blog (he did the art for one of Bill Frisells albums I like.

Also Nina Paley updates her Flash series 'Sita Sings the Blues' - essentially tales from the Ramayana animated in Flash with a blues soundtrack. Pretty awesome.

Via Boing Boing - video footage of the John Cale & Lou Reed performing Heroin & Femme Fatale in Paris in '72. Includes Nico too.

Nifty - Ren & Stimpy creatorJohn Kricfalusi teaches you how to draw cartoons using examples from classic Warner Brothers cartoons.

Reminiscences - a brief Metafilter note on email applications. I'd forgotten about the 'email to fax gateway' or 'web to email service'. Or even the webs precursors Archie & Gopher.

Interesting and depressing - Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2005 compare with the Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2004. Chem & Pharma companies seem to feature prominantly.

On a final down note - My Lai II. As per one of the comments in the thread - 'what a cluster-fuck'. Seriously. Stop pissing about in other peoples countries and pretend its for their own good.

MacBook Released + More

Tuesday 16 May 2006 at 1:00 pm Finally - MacBook. Silly name but a nice looking machine. Available in black too. Time to upgrade my iBook I think.

True - How email responsiveness can help your professional reputation.

Useful - Shell 'Bang' commands.

Handy - Apps which run off your USB key. Includes a portable XAMPP - a full apache, php, sql install.

View and compare web font styles with Typetester.

Amusing - Everybody says get a Nintendo Wii. Its almost as if Microsoft & Sony are telling people the Wii will be more fun and cheaper but ours will do more stuff (that most people will not use...)

Might be good - 300. Frank Millers graphic novel '300' is being given the movie treatment. Its about the 300 spartans fighting to hold back the persians at Thermopylae. If you're interested in ancient history and this particular event you have to read 'Gates of Fire' by Steven Pressfield.

Network Security & Monitoring Tools + More

Friday 12 May 2006 at 12:58 pm Handy - Network Security and Monitoring Tools.

Looks good - Selenium - Firefox automation extension. Handy for repeating operations on websites or for testing new sites.

Coverage of the Nintendo Wii Event at E3.

Engadget interview Computer Console God Shigeru Miyamoto.

Images of the Opera Browser on the Nintendo DS.

AnandTech also goes to E3 and provides coverage of Nintendo Wii and Dells Gamer Hardware.

Viral Marketing Proposal to create some Exchange vs Notes video clips.

I'd love to see someone use these phrases - Japanese Gangsta Rap Translation Guide.

Recently the micro vs monolithic kernel (essentially Tanenbaum vs Torvalds) debate reared its head again - heres a pro micro take on things.

Useful - Linux How-to Guides. Covers a variety of topics and each one is mercifully short and to the point.

One mans quest to purchase Sun and HP gear - The Sun Doesn't Shine on Me. And how Dell kicked the other vendors asses with a superior sales model.

A great idea - Four Day Week.

Handy - CSS Templates and Guides.

Part two of an essential series - The Heart of Your DRBC Plan. DRBC is Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity.

Launchbar / Quicksilver knock-off for Windows - Launchy. Its free and its means I can minimise my mouse activity and launch apps via the keyboard.

Why a great programmer is worth 50 good ones + More

Saturday 06 May 2006 at 09:01 am Interesting - Why a great programmer is worth 50 good ones. It must be tough wrangling developers and software projects. Sure one shit-hot programmer is worth 50 good ones but what happens when the person leaves ?

Handy Linux/Unix tip - Advanced 'find'.

Amusing - List of Sci-Fi Cliches.

The Guardian Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies

The Onion AV Club covers this summers new releases - Dire state of this years upcoming Movies.

Wow - Fast network gear! 30Gb/s on each port!

Nostalgia - Pressplayontape is a band which plays Commodore 64 game music. Load "*", 8, 1

Amusing - Panic Ripoffs. Panic make great OS X software and this page collects some interesting rip-offs of their software art.

Amazing sketches - Human Camera.

It had to happen - Pimp My Laptop. Certainly catchier than 'a sticker for your laptop lid'. Not as nice as the Colorware stuff either.

Handy - OS X Automator Tips. Don't think I do anything often enough to automate though.

Two nifty (and small) Linux boxes - KuroBox and the SpaceCube. The SpaceCube in particular almost looks like you could use it as a key-chain fob.

Two tools to help you keep an eye on your server / network health and well being - Zabbix and Monit/Munin.

Beatiful images from Nasa - Stars & Galaxies Wallpaper.

Interesting - What do you put on your USB key ? Hadn't thought of putting a contact address on there before - makes sense if you mis-place it though.

Office Space paraphenalia - Damn it feels good to be a gangster. Gear looks a little tacky but like the plethora of 'Vote Pedro' t-shirts it does appeal to a certain kind of person

Top Ten Lies Software Engineers Tell + More

Wednesday 03 May 2006 at 09:45 am Amusing and probably very true - Top Ten Lies Software Engineers Tell. I love # 9 - "We can do this faster, cheaper, and better with an offshore programming team in India".

Looks like Dr Who's K9 will get his own show.

Another in the ongoing series - My Sysadmin Toolbox. Apt-cacher sounds really handy if you don't want to run up a full Debian repository mirror.

At last - Catapult - record video direct to your iPod (or any other storage device) from your DV Camera.

Security - Hacking apps that will run from a thumb-drive. Ideally someone would put these into a Qemu DSL image - run your own mini-hacking distro via USB stick.

Living space in a double decker bus.

Nintendo - The glory is the game. I'm not much of a gamer but by all accounts Nintendos focus has always been fun gaming over fancy technologies (cf Sony PS3 & Microsofts Xbox).

Crooked Timber posts about blogs and languages. Amazing to see the prevalence of Japanese & Chinese Language blogs. I guess it would be naive to think otherwise given the relative populations and Japans hi-tech society.

Excellent - Mac version of the Lego Mindstorm NXT will soon be available and open-source. Years ago I used LabView for instrument virtualisation with a DAC card in a Mac IIci for my Uni honours project - it seems a no-brainer to leverage it for Lego.

Free online book - How to find lost objects. I'm forever losing useful things - mainly my pocket knife and my glasses.

Drunkenbatman continues his diatribe against the dire state of OS X security and Apples lackidaisical - Everything is under control. Not.

An excellent article on the ease of use of ZFS over RAID for an end-user rather than a server admin - Why use ZFS for home ? Pertinant given recent discussion over the possibility of porting ZFS to the Mac.

Reasonably terrifying - The Attack on Iran: Why now?. Why ever ? Not entirely sure why using the 'big-stick' approach is ever likely to work given the nature and success of internal insurgency within Afghanistan and Iraq. The US better have a smarter approach to dealing with Iran than invasion or the world will become a much much scarier place.

Social Pressure + More

Wednesday 26 April 2006 at 1:38 pm Great post on the evils of Social Pressure over at Gaping Void. I'd blow it up and print it out to stick on my wall but its sure to offend someone

Rob points to a WebOS article over at zdnet in his blog with some pertinant comments. ArsTechnica points to the same article and links to another web based OS project that actually covers the basics rather nicely - Is there a WebOS in your future.

Some annoying suprises in Microsofts Vista OS - Endless Security Warnings. I guess they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Warning the end-user of suspicious activity is always a balancing act between annoyance and security.

Wonderful architectural concept - library built from discarded aircraft bodies.

Interesting - Perils of publishing.

I could only answer 50% of these questions without having to think to hard about the answer - Scientists offer 10 basic questions to test your knowledge.

Geek heaven - A tour of Microsofts Mac Business Unit.

I used to spend an inordinate amount of time playing the first old Mac game on this page over the rudimentary PhoneNet network - Spectre. And then it was superceded by my Bolo addiction

Rob Janoff - Invented the Apple Logo.

Can't see this being acceptable for anything but the geekiest small companies - BYOL - Bring Your Own Laptop. Maintaining standards is hard enough without having to support unknown hardware/software too.

Interesting - How a manager treats a waiter gives a true indication of what they're like as a person.

Interesting - Microsofts web servers move to 64-bit.

A review over at ArsTechica for Silent Hill - The Movie. Almost sounds reasonable. The first two games were fantastic for creating a creepy atmosphere - like almost every game to movie translation its never going to be as good as the original but at least they've made a decent effort.

Post on the dire state of Mac OS X Backup Software. Does have a recommendation for a product which would appear to do the job quite well though - SuperDuper.

William Yeagerinvented the multi-protocol router back in 1980.

Handy - OpenBSD Tips.

The first release candidate for the fancy new Windows shell/scripting environment is available - Windows PowerShell RC1. Its development name was 'Monad' and the first Microsoft product to use it extensively will be Exchange 12 (eg it won't be in Vista).

Interesting - Datacenter Do's & Don'ts. Related - Xen in Action. Both articles found via OSNews .

Stupid User Tricks + More

Saturday 15 April 2006 at 08:14 am I've seen some of these before - Stupid user goofs - Eleven IT Horror Stories.

Interesting - Breaking firewalls via SSH.

Have your favourite web pages emailed to you via ToRead.

Handy - I want a freeware utlity to . . .

This car is amazing - Wooden Cadillac.

Google released Calendar.

Caught on slashdot but still worth a read of the linked article - The world's most modern management - in India. It almost sounds like a call tracking / incident resolution system for an organisations management team. Genius.

Bootcamp + More

Friday 14 April 2006 at 07:29 am Lots of commentary around Apples 'Bootcamp' release allowing you to run WindowsXP on the new Intel Macs - from Daring Fireball and
John Siracusa of ArsTechnica.

Fantastic - Neatpatch. Tidy your rack cables away in their own horizontal drawers rather than coiled up or hanging loose in your comms rack.

A new twist on USB memory - Inflatable USB Memory Stick. The more you add the bigger it gets.

Now sporting dual DVI for multi-monitor goodness - New Sun Rays. If only more people would accept network computing into their lives it would make an admins job much easier

Funky - Wireless SCART Plug. Grab the output and fire it off to another SCART device wirelessly.

Possibly the ultimate tree-house - Tree Sphere.

Another useful guide to DFS - Configuring and using DFS Replication. Modern SANS can do this type of thing without being tied to a particular OS too (eg cache & replicate data).

Fascinating - Core Wars. Evolution in action via a glorified game of 'Life'.

Be sure to scroll all the way to the right as this is one *long* page - Evolutionary timeline webpage.

Looks useful Basic guide to procmail.

Useful - Getting started with Nagios 2.1. I believe the confg stuff changed radically so it didn't seem like a simple job migrating from an older version the the new one - this basic guide helps recreate some of the basics though.

TiddlyWiki + More

Wednesday 05 April 2006 at 06:44 am Keeps getting better and better - TiddlyWiki. Really useful if you want to keep a wiki without a webserver on your desktop or memory-stick.

Why Worse is sometimes Better - Why Blosxom Sucks.

All your South Park needs - Mr Twig.

Escellent article - Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning. Islands of replicated information (and service) sounds like the way to go.

Linux server with a complete web-interface - Zeroshell.

Genius - How the Apple RDF is generated. The truth is revealed.

All open-source proponents should be backing these guys - Linux fiddles while OpenSSH burns. OpenSSH is one of the most useful multi-faceted tools in any OS arsenal.

First trailer for the Simpsons Movie. Short and sweet but it looks good. Hopefully it translates to a longer format.

Interesting - Art programs drops OS X and moves to Ubuntu. Some nice open-source draw, paint and DTP apps linked in this article.

Handy - Solaris CPU Caps. With increased virtualisation the ability to put resource limits on systems is more important than ever - although as many have pointed out the system schedular can usually take care of 99% of this unaided anyway.

New IM bells and whistles in this SametTime 7.5 Preview.