January 14, 2007
January 10, 2007
apple iPhone
Apple - QuickTime - Macworld 2007 Keynote
OMG! They plan on bringing the new iPhone to "Asia" in 2008. I hope that means Australia.
Finally a phone with a cognitively friendly interface.
Minimal hardware buttons. It is all touch screen. Touch screens can be a worry, but they say they've got a new and improved touch screen technology - 'MultiTouch'
January 09, 2007
SteveNote Bingo
Tomorrow is a religious holiday for Mac nerds. CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, is giving the keynote at Mac World SF - us nerds like to call it the SteveNote.
Tomorrow morning i'll get up, download the video of the keynote, and play SteveNote bingo. If you want to play along, here is the official bingo board:
September 05, 2006
Another big apple announcement
Here we go again
AppleInsider | Apple to roll-out iTunes movies and 'one more thing'he charismatic leader and co-founder of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs, plans to summons the worldwide media to a special event next week in which he'll usher in a new chapter in the company's digital media strategy, AppleInsider has learned.
Although the semi-official word out of Apple Americas is that invitations to the event have "not been sent" out, a seemingly inadvertent leak out of Apple Europe last week pinned the affair for Tuesday, September 12. It will be hosted by Jobs in a yet-to-be disclosed California location and beamed via satellite throughout the world.
Jobs will have much to talk about during the event, sources familiar with the chief executive's plans have said, including new iMacs and a much-anticipated update to the iPod nano. But the real push, they say, will be tied to the big screen.
August 09, 2006
Crisis over
I'm so happy! My MacBook is back from the hospital.
August 08, 2006
Steve Jobs Apple Keynote
I love a Steve Jobs presentation. There was one last night at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. You can watch it at the above link.
The new Mac Pros look amazingly powerful. Quad Intel Xeon 3ghz processors in a great enclosure. But since i don't do much video editing anymore, it's certainly not something I need at the moment.
The rest of presentation was a preview of the new Mac OS X Leopard. The features that I liked:
TimeMachine (a complete backup and restore solution). Very nice. It backs up everything for you, although they didn't explain how you manage hard drive space doing that.
Spaces, allows you to move between multiple virtual desktops and reduce clutter. Looks good. But i'm not sure that i'll be organized enough to use it.
The new text-to-speech engine sounds amazing. It's starting to sound really human. Listen here.
Some of the new iChat stuff is spectacular. But is it any use if you don't pay for a .mac account. .mac should be free
August 07, 2006
The Graphing Calculator story
A few years ago I discovered that there is a little program hiding in Mac OS called Graphing Calculator. It was very helpful for year 12 maths, and it's recently come in handy for statistics at uni.
I just read a fascinating article about how it came to be.
It was a canceled project, but the programmers who got fired kept showing up to work. They broke into Apple each day until the software was finished.
The Graphing Calculator StoryI used to be a contractor for Apple, working on a secret project. Unfortunately, the computer we were building never saw the light of day. The project was so plagued by politics and ego that when the engineers requested technical oversight, our manager hired a psychologist instead. In August 1993, the project was canceled. A year of my work evaporated, my contract ended, and I was unemployed.
I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up.
Would that kind of thing ever happen at Microsoft? I think not.
July 24, 2006
Online Calendar
I'm an early adopter with all this web stuff. I like to set up all these little things for 2 minutes that it seems cool. It's not necessarily that useful.
In that tradition, i've put some of my personal calendar online via this link, or the link on the sidebar on the blog front page.
July 12, 2006
Apple satire
So, I know i go on about how much I love being a Mac user, and how i denegrate everything Microsoft. This video from youtube, is a take on recent Apple adds running in the US. Rod sent it to me. I think he might be sending me a message.
July 11, 2006
MacBook health scare
The house feels very empty today.
My 7 week old MacBook has gone to the computer hospital, and it looks like he will be spending a week or more there - for surgery.
It all started on Sunday, when he blacked out all of a sudden. We were surfing the net, when suddenly, without warning, he had a total power failure.
On Monday morning, the problem got worse, with power failures nearly every 15 minutes. We rang Apple tech support and they gave us some over the phone first aid, but it didn't work.
So today, he was admitted to the computer hospital.
Apparently, a number of others have been struck down with similar afflictions as I discovered on the Apple support forums.
June 30, 2006
Motion runs on MacBook 1.83Ghz
Is it just me, or is it quite amazing that Motion runs on a MacBook?
June 21, 2006
Patent giveaway - The Sleep Remote
Here is a free idea for any inventors out there.
A TV remote control that detects when you fall asleep and pauses the video/dvd/tv so that you don't miss anything.
Falling asleep during a narrative can be quite traumatic. You wake up with such a sense of confusion and discontinuity.
It could also be hooked up to the ratings system, to give TV stations a better idea of what is actually getting watched, rather than what is slept through.
I give you this idea for free, and ask only that you send me a few free units once they start being manufactured.
June 09, 2006
MarkCam
I was considering setting up a live streaming webcam in my room. However, I got a bit worried. I don't want to get caught with....err....my pants down.
So i decided to test out a semi-live cam. It updates only when I tell it to.
I'm doing it with my MacBook's inbuilt isight camera and an automator workflow that takes the photo and uploads it to the server.
It's over on the sidebar of the index page on this blog.
Not that exciting for you all. It doesn't really contribute to the entertainment value of this blog. But, I enjoyed setting it up.
May 21, 2006
MacBook on its way
I ordered my new MacBook today!
May 20, 2006
Selling like hotcakes
ArsTechnica.com has a very comprehensive review of the new MacBooks. They like it, but mention one worrying thing. The MacBooks seem to run very very hot.
Apple MacBook : Page 4The system would step the speed of the processor up to 1.833GHz until the processor crossed a threshold of approximately 82�C at which point it would step the processor down to 1.667GHz. When the processor dropped below 80�C it would speed step back up to 1.833GHz and the cycle would continue. As expected, this would cause the system's fans to rev up to their full speed and overall, the machine was very noisy at this point.
I think that most people would agree that a machine running over 80�C is not operating properly. This is especially true when there are several examples of users applying the thermal paste properly, resulting in maximum temperatures of 64�C. 63�C is the idle temperature of the 2.0GHz MacBook in my possession. That should say a lot about whether or not Apple has remedied the error in their manufacturing process.
At high temperatures, it is very likely to be crashing all over the place.
Hopefully, if it proves to be a problem, the warranty should cover it in the first few months. I can't abandon getting one at this stage.
May 18, 2006
The familiar itch for Apple bliss
This morning I am experiencing a familiar itch.
Apple just announce its new MacBooks, the new line of consumer level notebooks, based on Intel Core Duo chips. They are replacing the ancient iBook G4 line.
It looks like an amazing machine for the price. And suddenly i'm in the market.
I was sure I was going to wait for the new Intel towers. Usually, my policy is to make a giant leap to the most powerfull mac available. However, it occured to me that since i'm not doing a lot of video editing anymore, maybe i should rethink my stratergy.
The MacBooks have 2Ghz dual core processors, which will be a huge jump from my G4. I've already got plenty of external hard drives, and a big monitor. This MacBook could act as a pseudo desktop if I plug it into my existing equipment, but i'll have the added advantage of the portability. It will tie me over for a couple more years.
I'm going to do it. I am. I'm going to do it. I'm excited.
April 11, 2006
Nintendo DS' Brain Age to make brain "brainier"
QJ.NET - Nintendo DS - 24/7 Coverage of the Latest Nintendo DS News - Nintendo DS' Brain Age to make brain "brainier"
Nintendo is about to evolutionize gaming. Brain Age, a DS game borne on the research of Ryuta Kawashima, is set to develop the IQBrain Age (what does IQ stand for again?) of the player (now parents wil surely love this! You wish). Japanese-neuroscientist Kawashima has theorized that rapid activity by the brain thru simple yet continuous problems is better than concentrating on a single, complex feat. Even better than, let's say, reading a book (Parents: What a letdown...).
Applying that principle, Brain Age was created. The game includes nine different tests, ranging from absurdly basic questions to insanely tricky ones. Simple math problems are a norm but from time to time, a real fiend-of-a-task pops up, like when it flashes a grid of numbers for one second, then hides the digits, you are then to place them back in their former position in the grid, in ascending order. After the game is played, the game will then determine your "brain age"; 20 is the best you can have, because that is supposedly the age the brain is at its best, (I doubt that, cause I'm 20, uhm, nevermind). Ironically, as you play the game longer -- which means as you grow older -- your brain age gets younger, now I have a gift for my botox-loving aunt.
When this, and Brain Train for DS, comes out in Australia in June it would be fun to run a little experiment with an appropriate sample size and an appropriate measure of improvement.
PS. According to Dr K, brains are at their fastest at aproximately 25, not 20.
April 06, 2006
New Apple software lets Intel Macs boot Windows
Wonderful!
Macworld: News: New Apple software lets Intel Macs boot WindowsApple today introduced Boot Camp, new public-beta software for Mac OS X that lets users of Intel Macs boot directly into Microsoft Windows XP. While the move may contradict previous statements by Apple, the company said they still have no intention of fully supporting Windows on the Mac.
“After we released the Intel-based Macs we had a lot of customer requests asking if it’s possible to run Windows on those machines,” Brian Croll, Apple’s senior director of Software Product Marketing, told Macworld. “We decided we would help it along by creating Boot Camp.”
The software, available today as a public preview version of a feature from the forthcoming Mac OS X Leopard, includes an assistant application to aid with drive partitioning and the installation of Windows drivers for Mac hardware.
February 28, 2006
fake fake ipod - the saga continues
The fake ipod saga just gets weirder. The rumour now is that the 'how I created the fake ipod image' video, is itself a fake. Meaning, that the original image could still be real.
But come on, this is just getting rediculous
February 27, 2006
It was a fake ipod
Earlier this week I posted an image of what was thought to be a new ipod or tablet mac. Watch this amazing video, demonstrating how the fake image was created
fake.mov (video/quicktime Object)
It's hillarious, and makes me feel like a real sucker.
February 24, 2006
Fake new ipod or mac tablet images do the rounds
Whenever an apple announcement approaches, we see thousands of fake images claiming to be of the new upcoming gadgets. The above is rumored to be a new video ipod or a mac tablet. However, that serial number looks like it's been cut off something else, and the cable doesn't have a mac aesthetic.
Still, I can't help but get a little excited. I'd much prefer a small mac tablet over a new Palm PDA.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/23/is-this-the-video-ipod-or-mac-tablet/
February 23, 2006
Google invents googlepages
Just saw this story and went a tried it out. It's a fantastic service. It walks all over Apple's iWeb application.
http://pages.google.com/
Google Page Creator dynamic web page editor - LifehackerFresh out of the Google oven, Google Page Creator is a dynamic web page authoring tool and publisher that lets you set up a web page at yourgmailname.googlepages.com.
Aimed at making creating a web page “as easy as it is to create one on a word processor,” get your Google Pages started by signing in with your Gmail account. Then say hello to 100 megabytes of free storage space and what sounds like virtually unlimited bandwidth. I played with Pages briefly, and except for the two three times it crashed Firefox 1.5 running on my Mac, it’s impressive and immediately usable (of course, not for you hand coding types.)
February 18, 2006
Finally, I can use nintendo wifi
The following post is uber geeky, but it brings me so much joy, so I can't help but share.
Last night I was listening to Leo Laporte's Security Now podcast, and they were talking about static IP addresses. So this morning, I was poking around my router configuration, and I thought i'd try out my nintendo DS's wifi connection again. I gave my DS a static IP, and then set that IP as the DMZ, and what do you know it works! Now I can play Mario Kart online with japanese kids!
I'm so happy.
I think the Netgear customer service people did tell me about static IPs and DMZ config, however, I hadn't done it all at once until this morning.
If you want to play Mario Kart with me, my friend code is 536936 453759
February 08, 2006
Apple announces 1GB ipod nano
Apple has just announced this morning a 1GB version of the ipod nano. It retails for $196.90 AUD (with the academic discount). I reckon that is a fantastic deal.
1GB is tiny, but if you're only used to listening to discmans, then its still enough of a step up to be good for a newbie. If you use smart play lists in itunes to automatically keep a range of different songs cycling through your ipod, then you should be able to avoid getting too board.
February 04, 2006
SuitSat dies after two short orbits
In an earlier post I alerted you to SuitSat - a NASA satellite made from a suit and broadcasting a message on 145.9 FM (or something like that).
If I got you all excited, I do appologise, as it apparently didn't work.
Reports from amateurs around the world indicate that only a few with very powerful antennas were able to detect anything being transmitted from the ill fated satellite. NASA television is reporting the batteries have probably failed or have frozen after just two orbits.
read more | digg story
Ah well, I couldn't find a radio that could go to 145Mhz antyway.
February 01, 2006
The history of the internet, looking back from 2014
EPIC 2014 is a fantastic web documentary and piece of web art set in 2014. It looks back on the history of online media, and tells the story of how the web will develop over the next few years.
It makes good use of Flash - simple but effective. It reminds me a lot of the shows I used to see at the planetarium, in that it's visually augmented audio.
January 28, 2006
I got a NewsVine invite
Last night, I listened to Amber Macarthur and Leo Laporte's podcast about Newsvine.com. It's a new social news website that people are getting are excited about.
Like digg.com and del.icio.us the content is prioritised by means of user votes - no editors. However, unlike digg and del.icio.us, it's not just a swamp of user submited stories. Newsvine has two streams of news: 'the vine' - user submited stories, editorials, and comments....and 'the wire' - hard news from Reuters, AFP, etc. With it's emphasis on serious, hard news, it's positioning itself to compete with BBC News online, CNN, MSNBC etc. The collective intelligence of the system is the secret sauce, not necessarily the main draw card.
Alas, it's in private beta at the moment. It's invite only.
So I check my email this morning, and what do ya know, I had an invite waiting for me in my inbox. I do love being an early adopter. I also have 20 invites of my own to bestow on those I deem worthy.
I'm really liking NewsVine so far. It's beautifully designed and feature rich. However, it'll take me a couple of weeks to decided how useful it is.
January 27, 2006
Blog redesign was way too easy
I've been putting off doing a proper redesign of my blog for ages. I've been tinkering with bits and pieces for ages - a tag cloud here, a new banner there - but i didn't think I had the time to create a whole new look.
Clearly I was in a very 1998 frame of mind. I didn't realise that now that I use CSS, I only have to adjust a couple of things and it will flow through my site. So I used the default CSS styles that came with Movable Type and changed font sizes, colours, borders etc.
I like the result. I took up 32Signals.com's suggestion to use big text. Hopefully it will encourage me to write better entry titles and to keep my entries concise. It also occured to me that if I put my email addy in an image, I can let people email me directly without risking spam.
Oh, and i'm changing the name back to "I sound like a camel"
Common Mistakes Made by New Mac Users
Common Mistakes Made by New Mac Users - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)1) they close an application's windows thinking the program has quit.
2) they'll download Firefox and then run the browser from the disk image and then not be able to throw away the disk image because the program is still running. See number 1.
3) .exe files lie scattered around the desktop from aborted downloads of Flash Player or some screensaver-cursor-spyware doodad.
4) untitled folder. untitled folder 2. untitled folder 3. untitled folder 4...
5) Using Safari's Google search field to get to hotmail.com.
6) Desktop Picture or Wallpaper is not a synonym for Screensaver.
January 24, 2006
ipod batteries
Yesterday, Adam and I were talking about iPod battery performance. I just came across this little article which gives some handy stats to keep in mind.
How to accurately determine your iPod battery life# Fifth Generation iPod (iPod with video) 30 GB:
* Music playback time: Up to 14 hours when fully charged1.
* Photo slideshow with music viewing time: Up to 3 hours when fully charged.
* Video playback time: Up to 2 hours when fully charged.# Fifth Generation iPod (iPod with video) 60 GB:
* Music playback time: Up to 20 hours when fully charged1.
* Photo slideshow with music viewing time: Up to 4 hours when fully charged.
* Video playback time: Up to 3 hours when fully charged.# iPod nano
* Up to 14 hours of music playtime when fully charged1.
* Up to 4 hours of photo slideshow with music viewing time when fully charged1.# iPod with color display: Up to 15 hours of continuous playback time1.
# iPod mini (Second Generation): Up to 18 hours of continuous playback time1.
# iPod (Click Wheel) and iPod shuffle: Up to 12 hours of continuous playback time1.
# iPod mini: Up to 8 hours of continuous playback time1.
# Older iPod models, including iPod (scroll wheel), iPod (touch wheel), and iPod (dock connector): Up to 8 hours of continuous playback time1.
January 18, 2006
arcproductions.org hosting renewed
So I just went ahead and renewed arcproductions.org for another year. Maybe we'll get rid of it next year. In the meantime we can still find a new domain name.
I also renewed chunkyboat, obviously.
January 17, 2006
One final suggestion from Netgear
In regards to your queries about the Netgear WGR614v5:
The Nintendo DS is still in testing with Netgear routers.
Please try setting a static IP on the Nintendo DS, instead of allowing it to obtain IP addressing details automatically.
Please note, if the SPI firewall is disabled, and the DMZ is set to be the IP of the Nintendo DS, there is effectively no firewall in the router for this device.
Kind Regards,
NETGEAR SUPPORT AUSTRALIA
January 11, 2006
no ibook for me
i watched the steve jobs keynote address via the hotel internet here in sydney this morning. two cool products an intel imac and a 15 inch intel macbook pro laptop ( a replacement for the powerbook). but no new ibook, so i'll have to wait a couple more months.
January 08, 2006
Pandora.com
Music stores recomend one music based on very broad categories or genres. Amazon.com and other such online music outlets make recommendations based on common purchasing patterns (eg. people who bought this item also bought...).
But, I've recently learned of a new music recommendation engine. It was discussed on one of Leo Laporte's podcasts, Inside The Net.
Pandora.com has anylised millions of songs - popular and otherwise - and tagged them based on their musical 'genome'. Musicologists examine each song and log them based on numerous music attributes - major or minor, acoustic or electric or mixed, strong or mild use of harmony, etc.
Pandora.com, to my continued astonishment, will stream me endless music in the style of any song or band i choose to enter. By giving thumbs up or down to songs the stream becomes increasingly better at predicting my taste.
Here's the interface explaining why i'm being played a particular song:
It's free, aswell. Although, I have signed up for the deluxe version.
I think you'd best just go and listen to a stream i have customised based on the style of the group 'Zero 7' - http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh7033193
I love pandora.com so much I sent an email to the creator:
Dear Tim,I signed up with Pandora as I was listening to your interview on Inside The Net, and i'm absolutely loving it.
One suggestion I came up with was that it might be cool to be able to create a station based directly on one or more of the music genome tags. It might be an opportunity for users to learn about music by selecting a tag (say 'extensive vamping') and then listening to what that might include.
Anyway, thanks heaps for the service.
Mark Brown
and to my surprise i got a reply:
Thanks a lot for the kind words and feedback, Mark - much appreciated.I've shared your thoughts with the team. I'm pleased to see that you're interested in such detail around the music - our insane amount of analysis will not be in vain... The music genome definitely has the power to do what you're asking, and the idea of allowing users to specify particular musical attributes to hone their stations is something we're contemplating. We want to implement it in an elegant way that doesn't complicate the UI too much. We're going to be releasing a steady stream of new features over the coming months, so stay tuned. These comments really help us prioritize what we do.
Good to have you as a pandora listener.
Cheers,
Tim
Anyway, just go and try it. Be one of the trend setters.
January 07, 2006
Commenting fixed, again
I fixed the commenting on the blog again. You can now leave me comments no worries, so please do.
The problem was a third party comment filtering plugin that I had installed.
January 05, 2006
My router still doesn't work
So I followed Netgear's instructions, and my Nintendo DS still wont connect. Dead end.
brail day
Google was in brail this morning. I think that is pretty cool. Perhaps it's international vision impairement day or something similar.
January 04, 2006
my router might be fine after all
As I've mentioned before, i've not been able to get on nintendo wifi with my DS and my netgear router. I wrote to netgear and got a really swift response, which is damn good service.
1/4/2006 12:37:00 AM Dear Mark,Thank you for contacting Netgear Online Support.
In regards to your queries about the Netgear WGR614v5:
Please firstly make sure that the WGR614v5 is running the most recent firmware release. The most recent firmware release is a beta release 1.09 available from http://kbserver.netgear.com/release_notes/d102774.asp .
Ensure that a restore to factory defaults is done on the router after doing any firmware changes. This is done by holding down the reset button at the back of the router for 15 seconds and allowing the router to reboot. You will then need to manually reapply the login details for your internet connection.
Try toggling the UPnP option in the router. You may also like to try setting the Nintendo DS as the DMZ. This is an option in the "WAN Setup" menu item in the router. To enable this, enter the IP of the Nintendo DS into the DMZ field in the router. This will forward all ports to the IP of the Nintendo DS.
Kind Regards,NETGEAR SUPPORT AUSTRALIA
I haven't tried out their suggestions yet, but I will tomorrow.
January 03, 2006
Quicksilver
I just started using Quicksilver again. I downloaded it months ago, but hadn't taken the time to work it out. Now that I've read the helpfiles and worked out how to use it I am loving, all my files, all my del.icio.us bookmarks, all my apps, mp3s, todo list items, scripts, and much more is only an F12 away.
And from the looks of it there are more goodies hidden away.
Eye Buds
The photos of a guy using this device look kind of stupid, but still, I think this would be cool to use.
EyeBud can turn video iPod into big-screen TV for oneBellevue-based eMagin Corp. has developed a wearable headset system that plugs into Apple Computer's portable media device and displays video from it in front of one eye, using optical technology designed to give the picture a higher resolution and make it appear larger than on the iPod's screen.
However, since it's only for one eye. You'd have to close the other eye, or otherwise the image would be transparent over the real world.
January 02, 2006
commenting problems
Appologies for everyone who has been trying to leave comments on this blog. There is something wrong with the comment form, which I will attempt to fix over the next few days.
December 30, 2005
Psychology of tagging
You may have noticed that recently i've gone crazy on tagging. I tag everything on this blog, I have a tag cloud here, and I also use del.icio.us.
A tag in del.icio.us led me to this fascinating article about the psychology of tagging. Here's some of the diagrams, but read the article:
A cognitive analysis of tagging
In summary, tagging is fun, useful, and easy because it's only a two step process, unlike categorisation.
RFID chip yourself
How to implant an RFID chip into your hand. Stupid, yet cool.
December 29, 2005
Toast
I got Toast 7 for christmas, and I finally just worked out how I can easily rip DVDs and compress them onto 4.7GB DVD-Rs. Actually, I was able to rip them before, but I had no easy way of shrinking them....so now I can finally back up all my star trek (and burn adam's dvds? ;-)
Toast 7 is great. You should get it.
size counts
This is one of those simple webdesign tips that I should make into a personal golden rule
A design and usability blog: Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)And then there’s the positive side effect of big text: less text. The bigger the text the less you write and nearly every corporate website could use less words. Better words are more important than less words, of course, but less words would be a great start.
Paragraphs look taller dressed in larger font sizes which encourages writers to optimize the sentences and strip out the extra words that don’t add value. Small type sizes encourage people to write more than they need to to fill up the space.
writeboard
Wanna do some collaborative writing?
Last night I was listening to Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur on the Inside The Net podcast. They were talking about Writeboard.com - an online collaborative writing tool. I've just tried it out and it is great.
I'm going to see if I can get the monkeys to use it, but it could have arcproductions uses too....or just for fun.
Check it out.
Collaborative writing software online with Writeboard. Write, share, revise, compare.Write something...
Write a business letter, copy for your website, a marketing brochure, or a product description, or a weblog post, or a song, or a poem, or an idea, or an essay, or a book chapter, or whatever else you might normally write in your email program, text editor, or word processor.
Unlike a Word document that's stored at your office on one computer, you can get to your writeboards from any computer in the world with an internet connection and a modern web browser.
...share it...Want to collaborate on some copy? Want to pass a memo or letter by someone else for editing before you send it? Want to work with your business partners on some text for a proposal? Want fellow students to contribute to a group paper? Want to collaborate with a client on wording for their project?
Sharing writeboards is easy — simply enter someone's email address and they'll get an invitation with a link to view and edit the writeboard.
...revise it...Writeboard makes editing easy and safe. Every time you save an edit a new version is created and linked in the sidebar. This allows you to write without fear of deleting something, overwriting something, or losing a better version of the document from last week.
Writeboard encourages you to explore ideas wherever they may lead. Don't like what you wrote? Just click a previous version and you're back to the way you had it before.
...compare it.Ever want to know what changed between two versions of a writeboard? Simple. Just check off two versions and click the compare button. Everthing that was deleted will be grey and struck, everything that's new will be highlighted green.
This is especially useful when you are collaborating with multiple people on a writeboard. Now you can see what others have changed or added to their versions of the writeboard.
December 22, 2005
spamed out
I had all the things to blog about this morning, and too my horror, i couldn't access my blog. It turned out, chunkyboat was spam attacked. Here's my discussion with the server support:
Q: Dec 22 2005 00:25 Mark Brown: Hi,When I tried to access the movable type software installed in my cgi-bin this morning i got a 500 server error. I'd been using it the day before with no problems, and I can't remember changing any settings, permissions, etc.
The script that i was trying to access was http://www.chunkyboat.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi
the search script gives the same error
http://www.chunkyboat.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=testOther movable type installations on my other ICDSoft accounts (eg junkyardmonkeys.com.au) behave normally.
I don't want to reinstall the whole thing unless i absolutely have to.
Any ideas?
A: Dec 22 2005 00:41 Support 31: Hello,There were too many hung processes for your account (they were started about 8 hours ago) and you had reached the maximum allowed processes count. A hosting account cannot run too many processes at the very same time for server stability reasons. The hung script was "mt-comments.cgi". We terminated the processes.
The issue may have been caused by a spam attack against your blog. Scripts also may hung this way if they try to connect to a remote host for some reason (to fetch an RSS feed, to check for a blacklist, etc.) and this host is not reachable. Badly coded scripts (which have no timeout limit) hang forever waiting for the remote host in such a case.
Best Regards,
Support
Q: Dec 22 2005 05:05 Mark Brown: Thank you for your response. I think that a comment spam attack is probably the likely cause as i've had a lot of trouble with comment spam. Movable Type has plenty of filters, but they still use up processes i suppose.Can you suggest any way that I can protect myself against this in the future?
A: Dec 22 2005 05:18 Support 54: Hello,To prevent spam to your movable type blog (respectively to reduce the chance of such problems again) you may try adding image protection (CAPTCHA) when posting comments for example.
You may check the following article we found on Sixapart's website on preventing spam attacks to your blog:
http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/comment_spamDo not hesitate to contact us if you need further information.
Best Regards,
Support
It's funny. I imagine 'Support' as having a friendly but borg like collective voice
December 21, 2005
Silicon keyboard
Convenient Gadgets :: Indestructable KeyboardThe Virtually Indestructible Keyboard, a silicon-based flexible computer keyboard, features a unique combination of durability and soft, comfortable feel. The washable, " roll-able" keyboard has been called ",the best thing to happen to typing since the backspace key".
December 20, 2005
Junkyard Monkeys site now uses Movable Type
I've been setting up a movable type system over at the junkyard monkeys site. The idea was that it would take the pressure off me to have to update the site myself, the others can just post their own entries. Furthermore it will make it easier to re-style when a new show comes along. The new site will go live in the next week or so.
One interesting thing that I discovered while creating a 'backstage' area, similar to what we used to have at arcproductions.org, was that you can put a little 'edit this entry' link on each post. In effect it creates the functionality of a little Wiki.
Movable_type is so handy. Playing around with all the tags, creating little automated menus, and all that fun fiddly stuff has me quite obsessed. Between renovating my blog, and doing the JM site, i'm wasting a lot of time.
Adam, I wonder if movable type would be of any use for et al?
December 17, 2005
Blog updates
A new banner has been added to this blog. I really like the image, but i'm not to sure about the new name of the blog. I keep on misreading 'pop' as 'poop'. I need to redesign the colours of the blog too.
I've also added tagging. I love tagging. it's a revolution in information management...well, maybe not a revolution, but it does resemble, in some of it's qualities, how human memory works. There's tags under every post, as well as a mini tag cloud in the index side bar, plus a complementary full tag cloud in all it's glory on a seperate page So I hope all my readers find them usefull, both of you.
December 14, 2005
Pentop computer
I heard about this on Engadget.com. It's weird but cool:
So basically, it's a computer without a screen, and without any buttons. It's a pen, and you control it completely by writing.
For example, if you want to schedule a reminder, you write the letter 's' and then circle it, and it will say via it's speaker:
"Write the date"
so you write out the date, then it says:
"Write the time"
and you write out the time, then the event name, and at that time and date it will speak your reminder.
It's also got a calculator, music, notepad, games, etc. It's aimed at kids, and the website is terribly obnoxious, but it's a cool idea.
Adam, go to the website...you'll appreciate the acting.
December 11, 2005
Google Earth
Guess who has the secret beta of Google Earth for Mac OS X. Go on, guess.
December 09, 2005
Dharma: Mac Apps on Windows
This is really exciting. But does it mean that Windows apps will run on Mac? I don't really understand, but it's exciting.
Rumors suggest that Apple is developing Dharma, an engine to allow mac apps written in Cocoa to run under Windows.
read more | digg story
December 06, 2005
New movable type, new blog template
Over the last couple of days i've updated the movable type software on Chunkyboat.com to the latest version. This new version is so much better. It has completely solved the comment spam problem overnight.
For the moment I'm just going to use this default template. Eventually I'll design up a nice new one, using all the CSS i've been learning lately. But I really like this default template, it's so nice and clean.
I took the liberty of resetting Ren's Journal to the same template. I hope she doesn't mind. I'll do the same with Jenko's and Adam's too. Maybe it will get them back on the blog train. I've backed up all their entries too, which I should email to them, incase they want to move to blogger or something.
December 03, 2005
Effective E-mail
Heard this talked about on the KFI Tech Guy podcast. These are some really good tips. I will do my best to follow them, i hope other people will too.
How To Write Effective E-mail
* Use a subject line to summarize, not describe.
* Give your reader full context at the start of your message.
* When you copy lots of people (a heinous practice that should be used sparingly), mark out why each person should care.
* Use separate messages rather than bcc (blind carbon copy).
* Separate topics into separate e-mails up to a point.
* Combine separate points into one message.
* Edit forwarded messages.
* When scheduling a call or conference, include the topic in the invitation. It helps people prioritize and manage their calendar more effectively.
* Understand how people prefer to be reached, and how quickly they respond.
How to Read and Receive E-mail
* Check e-mail at defined times each day.
* Use a paper response list to triage messages before you do any follow-up.
* Charge people for sending you messages.
* Train people to be relevant.
* Answer briefly.
* Send out delayed responses.
* Ignore it.
The edit suite at "work"
Last week I took some photos on my phone while I was at "work". Final Cut was taking bloody ages to render something, so I thought i'd show you the edit suite that they have there. It's a really pretty nice system - not the most high tech suite in the world, but great for what it is - certainly the best thing i've used. I'm actually pretty pleased with myself that my showreel finally got me some real work...