Category Archives: Uncategorized

This article seems to think so. Standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Linux distributions from “niche” open source vendors, are offline more and longer than either Windows or Unix competitors, the survey said. The reason: the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation. And there’s the rub. Open-source software suffers greatly from it’s lack of […]

When you buy software off the shelf, you’ll use it for a number of years, and then decide that it’s too old. It’ll get creaky and slow, and the formats it uses will become obselete. It won’t be supported on newer computers, and newer versions will become available. Eventually you’ll upgrade. The great thing is […]

This is my limited memory of the post which Blogger lost. Google have just launched an online spreadsheet application, Google Spreadsheets. It’s all over the Blogosphere, so I thought I’d add my two penn’orth of limited viewpoints.My first problem with the application is right there in the middle: Formulas. Is that a word? Formulae, please. […]

Dr. Crippen makes a really good point in this post. Unfortunately, it occurs half way down the page, so I reproduce it here: The journalists have just discovered (see the BBC report here) that no one knows the optimum treatment for patients with early prostate cancer. Doctors have been saying this for years but have […]

Point 1: The term “Web 2.0” was originally coined by O’Reilly – the computing book people – in this article. Since then, they’ve tried to obtain a “service mark” (trademark) on the term. Point 2: The term “Web 2.0” is used throughout the web. In this sense, it is clear that O’Reilly cannot pretend to […]

… but I think that this is interesting. Biased BBC are making a big fuss over this article in the Times. THE BBC has persuaded the creator of the 1970s television series M*A*S*H to turn his fire on the Bush Administration. President Hillary Clinton is in the White House, and George Bush is on trial […]

Thanks to PCWorld.com, the 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. AOL at the top, no surprises there. Interestingly, RealPlayer came second worst. I still wonder why the BBC insist on using RealPlayer for their online streaming service. Is it because they want us to break our computers?

Today I’ve had to turn on comment moderation. I didn’t want to, as I think it kills the conversation (not that there is much). But unfortunately, some f*cking spamming halfwitted tw*t has added 250 comments advertising his stupid product, which are going to take me about a week to remove. The worst part of it […]

I finished my exams on Saturday. That’s right, with a paper at 9:00 on a weekend. Following my Sunday afternoon off, I’ve been launched straight into project work, having spent nine hours in the department today. Somehow I thought that finishing exams would be quite nice, and that I’d be able to relax. Not so, […]

Some inane chatter to celebrate my return… I just noticed today that I’m currently reading 50 different blog feeds. In fairness, I must confess that one of these is a test for my new CUGCR website, but I still think I’m doing quite well.

Down at the bottom of the sidebar I’ve added a whole heap of buttons to let you subscribe. If you’re an existing user of Yahoo! or Gmail then it’s a doddle. Even if you aren’t click one of the buttons, and it’ll show you the feed experience you could be having. Blimey, I sound like […]

Apparently, Yahoo! have been getting themselves into all sorts of shady dealings with spyware vendors. And now they’re being sued, by the chap who wrote the post behind the first link.

Now I’ll admit I haven’t always given Firefox a good press. But sometimes I think they don’t set themselves up in the nicest way. The religious fervour of Firefox fans goes to the levels of extremism. Yes, maybe you like it. But it’s a web browser. Get a life. I had mixed feelings, therefore, reading […]

Somebody today said to me in the pub that he didn’t believe that I read every blog in my sidebar. So I thought I ought to show how it’s done. Here is a screenshot of Bloglines which I use to subscribe to RSS feeds: In the left-hand pane is a list of every blog I […]

This post at Harry’s Place discusses a feature in the independent giving credence to the old conspiracy theory that “The Jews control the world.” The theory itself, of course, is self-evidently nonsense (if it were true, the Palestinians would have been nuked long ago). What is disappointing for me is that the Independent has fallen […]

I’ve finally installed it. It’s shiny. I like. I lost the links toolbar for a while, but I’ve found it now. Perhaps the most exciting thing was that it told me my security settings weren’t tight enough, but rather than just leave it there, it told me which specific setting was wrong (I was permitting […]

A while ago, I said (while discussing browser extensions for Internet Explorer): There’s extensive information about how to go about coding these yourself. The only thing that’s missing seems to be a real drive to produce these things. The only ones I’ve seen have tended to be produced by big companies, e.g. MSN, Google, Yahoo […]

… those who can’t, teach. I was thinking about this today while watching a BSM driving instructor trying to park. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t impressive. Why do people allow themselves to be taught by monkeys?

In a sense I feel that this ought to be somehow exciting, and that I should have something really important to say. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I’ll just link to videos of people putting CDs in a microwave.

…Animal Farm was once banned in the US, according to this list. How ironic that a veiled satire of Stalinism was banned due to Communist overtones. It’s also worth reading the original preface, which was cut from many versions of the book. It’s often quoted by those discussing freedom of the press. The discussion of […]