Why not try out my freshly re-installed webserver at http://80.193.33.22/ with new bigger hard drive.

do you know there are people out there that want to ban comic sans the font!. good on em i say, it's the crappest font in the world

huh!?! microsoft to pay AOL $750 million. AOL to USE IE for 7 years. MS to HELP AOL distribute CDs with new PCS! How is this a resolution to MS's anti-competitive-ness? it's win,win for Microsoft, apart from the money going to AOL, MS get IE used by AOL, instead of Mozilla or Netscape being used (which is rediculous considering AOL own Netscape), and MS get IE put with all PCs, in the form of the AOL CD... sheer craziness, especially how we already get WAY too many AOL CDs on the front of nearly ALL UK PC magazines... enough is enough already, I don't want another AOL CD, I've already chucked 12 in the bin this year alone!

"In its lawsuit, AOL alleged that Microsoft used anticompetitive business practices to ensure the dominance of its Internet Explorer browsing software over Netscape's software" - Are AOL really that stupid? To claim MS killed netscape, and then to decide to use IE in AOL, instead of netscape!!?! It sounds to me like AOL are the one's trying to kill Netscape now! anyway, /. waffle more and more. most interesting post basically says : who cares which browser is the best, IE has 90% market share, and as if the general user cares enough to change browser. don't be daft.

Redhat 9 is out, you can download the 3 iso CD images from redhat.com, and PC Pro has this to say about it : "This is the second version of Red Hat's Bluecurve interface, and in terms of visual appeal it's superb - more elegant and refined than Windows XP's Luna and more subtle than Apple's Aqua." It's requirements are a bit hefty, requiring a p2-400 machine with min. 128mb / recommended 192mb Ram and min. 475mb of HD space... it includes : httpd 2.0.40 - Apache HTTP Server, httpd-devel 2.0.40 - Development tools for the Apache HTTP server, httpd-manual 2.0.40 - Documentation for the Apache HTTP server. plus much more stuff.

ASDA at the moment, have "Vivitar" Digital cameras, for �120 for a 2.1 mega pixel camera and �140 for a 3.3 mega pixel camera. They also have a "jentopik" 1.3 mega pixel camera for �68. (with a TFT screen in the back). Whether they're any good or not I don't know, but it's good to see prices of digital camera's coming down more, so they can start competing with standard cameras more. Then there can be a fresh interest in PCs, and more will be sold.

http://www.whatismyipaddress.com/ could be useful to someone somewhere out there. also i've setup a webserver here : http://62.30.21.232 so see if you can access it. if there's anyone out there? i know matt's in spain, but there must be other people out there with internet access?

there's another Joshua Waller out there, and he's doing computer science, and knows about asp and .net.

bob goes to africa. (bob geldof, goes to ethiopia, to raise awareness of the 14million people facing starvation).

an illegal rave. gang violence in nelson, lancashire! between 2 asian gangs. (update: 25 people charged) and talk of people in liverpool, wearing pyama's in the street! bbc website. what is the world coming to? (that link should work, but if it doesn't, you should be able to find the link here). more craziness : cheese chasing.

broadband for all using hot air balloons. details at the beeb.

random website generator. some of them are potentially useable.

matrix thoughts and philosophy...

PS2 super computer, using a cluster of 65 machines running Linux. also here you can read about how the PS2 is faster than a P3-600!. you need the linux kit from sony. more thoughts at slashdot.org (including about how nintendo are considering using the Gamecube, (with it's faster CPU), for the same kind of clustered super computer - but this could just be made up by some guy)

AMD to sell more 64bit CPUs in one go, than Intel have sold in 3 years!

i've added a link to a very funny 40mb movie on the left. about learning disco.

mac adds now. eee. who's been talking about macs on here then? is there anybody out there?

this is great. i love it. go there now. best thing ever. *FACT* check out the atari's on this page

the matrix reloaded - too many adverts. too many trailers for other films, notably : terminator 3 - looks ok, but maybe not spectacular (looks like they've concentrated on special effects a lot - someone else commented "perhaps they should have just stopped with the second one"). the hulk - looks ok-ish, but a bit too cartooney / computer generated. cinema far too hot. screen too small. generally films seem to concentrate too much on special effects, and it's getting to a point where i think we'll start getting a bit fed up of them, because they can basically generate any image they want, and just render it on a computer / farm etc. anyway...

some thoughts about the matrix reloaded. if you are watching it, and haven't seen AND understood the first one the I don't think you'll cope AT ALL with the second one. it gets much deeper (perhaps too deep, especially as it goes without explanation), but doesn't really (this is where i spoil bits of it) answer the questions you want answering, but maybe that's the point?

the "product placement" ,eg, ducati, and the cars (didn't really notice any others, which is more than i can say for other films) isn't too bad. but there is a lot of the film where it does seem like it is just a load of special effects adverts - some of them are Very impressive, but it'll come to a point where I don't think we'll get anything additional or new in the special effects arena without yawning (because we already know they can do everything). Some parts of the film (you can watch the agent smith (x100) fight in the trailer) look just like certain parts of 3dmark benchmarks.

this film links far too heavily into the other films, whereas Lord of the Rings 2 (for example), I think, could quite happily be watched without first having seen the first one, and you'd still understand what's going on. Fight scenes are good, and do have you on the edge of your seat... which is good. Overall I don't think it's really a feel good movie... but if you loved the first Matrix, you've no choice really, but to watch this one... I'll leave it at that, I don't want to spoil it too much. Overall I have mixed feelings about how "good" the film is, but I think once I've seen the 3rd I will know how I feel about the 2nd. (because it's tied in so much).

be careful when flying kites

has blogger been really slow today or is there just some image that's taking ages to pull off a server.

I'm changing my name to Josh and posting about tea, Drinking tea may ward off tooth decay and bad breath, according to scientists. One that note I'm having a cuppa.

Rail signal computer trial
- basically they have a single track with trains going both ways in wales, they want to put some 'position locators at 1 mile intervals' on the sides of the tracks, which are then read by some on-train system which sends the trains location to a control center. The control center then tells the train to slow down if it's catching up with another one.
the system called ERTMS 'will enable trains to travel safely closer together at high speed'
'dependent on mobile phone technology'
'long term - could save the rail industry hundreds of millions of pounds each year because thousands of line-side signals will be made redundant'
'less signal workers will be needed, any job losses may be balanced by the creation of hundreds of engineering posts needed to install the system.'
'could eventually result in trains being driven by the new technology rather than drivers'

post your jokes here..

iraqi p.o.w. interrogated with metallica, barney, and sesame street. to make them talk.

Are you a Bogan? find-out over at onestupid.org

All things bright and beautiful... All creatures great and small...
"Full Speed FPU - the Nehemiah has a full speed floating point unit for the first time. The Ezra-T has a half-speed FPU. Floating point calculations are used heavily in 3D rendering, multimedia, and streaming applications."

Very detailed review of the new Via Mini-ITX motherboard featuring the 1ghz Nehemiah CPU, at mini-itx.com. There's also a review of a mini-itx (17cm x 17cm) P4 motherboard at hexus.net, which is pretty amazing, because the space needed just for the heatsink looks like it takes up most of the space!

some interesting webstats. it says that some of the most common things searched for in search engines (don't know which ones) are: google, yahoo, hotmail, hotmail.com, www.hotmail.com... etc... hmmm some people are a little bit thick if they're searching for www.hotmail.com, rather than just typing it in the browser... but perhaps they are accidentally putting it in the wrong box, because the cursor might default to the search box rather than the address bar...

hp/Compaq laying off people in Australia. and kicked some guy out for a website. also, a compaq sucks website. spazurebots.com er i mean seizurebots.com.

Dan's been thinking, and as most people with even just a slight ounce of intelligence will realise, especially when it comes to computers, most people are idiots...

"Why the heck do so many people report just "feeling better" when they use an LCD?
My theory is that those people were just running their CRTs at the default 60Hz maximum compatibility refresh rate.
That's what I'm thinking.
No kidding."

read the article.

todays happenings from around the interwibble* inner secrets of AMD Opteron and teaming up with IBM. very interesting. the Euro "�" starts doing well, and suddenly Britain seems more interested in joining it, and The Matrix Reloaded makes loadsa money! details here. Have you booked yet?
*seems an appropriate name for the internet.

all about ebay, worth more than Gap and the Sears company combined. a good read. and here you can watch some blue tits, live! watch here. lego apple on ebay for too much money as per usual, but very interesting :) [added some links to the side as well]

"Why is the Close button right next to the Maximize button, meaning countless times I've accidentally closed something important when I just wanted to make it bigger on the screen?"

more interesting stuff about why computers suck. link here. and new games that might require better pcs as per norm. Sims 2 will be coming out soon, which will be cool, coz I wanna buy The Sims 1 cheap.

Hard Drive Size
Hard Drive manufacturers rate the capacity of their Hard Drives differently than DOS or Windows does. Under DOS or Windows 1 K is really 1024 bytes and 1 M or Meg is 1048576 bytes. But to a Hard Drive manufacturer 1 K is 1K.

so 120gb is (in manufacturers terms) 120,000mb, 120,000,000kb, 120,000,000,000bytes if everything was in 1000s but it's not, it's 1024.

if you divide 120,000,000,000bytes by 1024, you get 117,187,500Kbytes (real),
if you divide that by 1024 you get 114,440Mb (real),
then if you divide that by 1024 you get 111Gb real gigabytes. (which is what windows is telling you, as the real GBs)

which is why you're loosing some of your "120gb", and only getting 111gb. because the manufacturers of Hard Drives like to inflate their hard drive sizes.

basically -
1 bit = a single digit, either 1 or 0
8 bits = 1 byte, a combination of 1's and 0's
1024 Bytes = 1 KB (kilobyte)
1024 Kilobytes = 1 MB (megabyte)
1024 Megabytes = 1 GB (gigabyte)

matrix and religion. bbc news republishing stuff about the first matrix, because the second one's coming out. gets a bit blah blah blah near the end.

GIANT microbes. "We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes - only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, and Stomach Ache."

they're not stuffed animals are they though.

pretend you're working
"If you're a boss, and you send e-mails at all of hours of the night, the subtle message you're sending employees is, 'I'm working, why aren't you,' " says Anne Warfield, a career coach in Edina, Minn.
It all sounds messed up to me, it doesn't send that message to me, it says the boss is a stupid work-aholic that is expecting too much from their employees. more blah blah blah at slashdot.org.
this one's funny :
- I generally come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumbergh can't see me. And after that I just sorta space out for an hour.
- Space out?
- Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working.

IT pros 'need better communication skills', to which I say F-Off you nosey bastards. No really I say d'uh ;-)

Intel CPU sales at 80 % of the market dick AMD, I'm suprised that AMD sales are so low, I thought that they had been making in-roads.

added links section. hope it works. any suggestions, just add them to the template (if you have rights) or post them in the comments below. eee, i've changed the font(s) too.......

i was on my way somewhere interesting on the interwibble, but i forgot where it was, anyway i found this it's got links to stuff about the 970 CPU. i suspect matt will be interested. i'm not sure if anyone will find this interesting, but i'll post it anyway, this is about people pirating tunes from the apple website, and this one is about Microsoft wanting to be everywhere (in governments and education) here's a quote:

"Under NO circumstances lose against Linux," he said, saying that in cases where the deal involved governments or large institutions there was a special fund available which could be used to offer large discounts, or even to give Microsoft software away" [emphasis added].

cursor bunny game

so people with broadband - what firewall do you use? ZoneAlarm or Sygate Personal Firewall - both free? I say what firewall do you use, because you'd be chuffin mental if you didn't use a firewall with an always on internet connection!!

even though i still think apple are likely to gradually go the way of Atari / Commodore / Spectrum / Sega / Oric / sam coupe / NEXT etc - apple getting newer, faster 970 (IBM G5?) chips might just help them hold on to their 2.1% market share for a little while longer...

go an live int north. that's what i say. and so do the bbc. you'll have more disposable income what ya can spend on sweeties because you haven't had to spend all your wage on yer house. aye, you're much better off, oop north.

tomorrow i get broadband (512k �25 per month from blueyonder / telewest) installed! woohoo! those of you who have broadband, can check out the tunes for the matrix reloaded soundtrack over here, and you can get all the trailers and tv spots over here. if you ever wanted the standalone quicktime installer, so you don't have to re-download it everytime you want to install it, then you can get it here: standalone quicktime installer. (i needed to install this to get the sound working on those trailers!)

Badger rampage injures five

46-year-old mother of two could be the country's first "mum racer".

She gets a green sticker for having a noisy exhaust, $150 fine and have to do wof check, and the very next day the car passes its WOF without any changes to the exhaust.

Thought "do you know the term Boy Racer" it meas some young guy with a Jap import usually a turbo with a blow off valve. They do laps around town on a friday and saturday night. Have drag races, and go incredibly fast some times.

The cop they call 'cash register', gives out an amazing 100 speeding tickets in an 8 hour period, thats better than one ticket every five minutes. Maybe they should have called him a speed camera.

Honda Dog Car

here's an Apple vs MS thing at slashdot.org, which i might want to read, but then again it could be all the same old rubbish over and over again. (some comments do look interesting, "August 6, 1997, Microsoft agreed to purchase $150 million in non-voting Apple preferred stock" plus the comment directly below, which states that it was because MS ripped off Apple code). //here's the article they refer to at NY Times but you don't have to sign up.

tin can internet for free in australia. none of this capitalism mumbo jumbo down under!

also, have a look at doom3 benchmarks at http://www.hardocp.com (site seems a bit slow today) on the fastest equipment available, a P4-3GHz, 800mhz FSB, 1GB Dual DDR ram, and the latest graphics cards, the NVIDIA GeForce FX5900 Ultra, and the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb, at 1024x768 (no AA/AF etc), you're getting about tops 80fps, at 1280 x 1024 (again, no AA/AF) you're getting tops 50fps, and at 1600 x 1200 (no AA/AF) you're getting at max 40fps! compare that to an average PC, (XP2400, with a Radeon 9000 - a "budget" card) where you get 60fps at 1600 x 1200 in Quake 3. Next, look at the shear SIZE of the latest NVidia Graphics Card over at the Hexus review (page 3 and 4).

To summarise, the PC they're testing with Doom3, has a very fast CPU, and the fastest graphics cards available (WAY faster than a Radeon 9000) and it struggles hugely with Doom3!

The capitalist revolution?
something you already knew but doesn't get admitted much :
"capitalism" as we know it is failing us as individuals
blah blah blah.. customer support research costs loadsa money and comes up with a pap automated system.. which is a symptom of a larger problem.. "Managers are at the centre, preoccupied with their own interests .. But their path has become corrupted, they are insulated and have become a source of governance catastrophes." .. senior managers at American Airlines.. granted themselves bonuses while negotiating to cut the pay of other staff. .."US companies are driven to please their shareholders ..

all this means is that workers get paid minimum possible (where skills / training not required much).. and companies like apple are concerned more with profit than a customers satisfaction.. ok so that wasn't really what the link was about..

The link is a bit about how if you go into some kind of 'relationship' or partnership with a collection of companies selling you an integrated solution, you maybe get a bit more control over the whole deal. don't see how myself.

anyone find anything interesting to read on the internet? i'm finding it very very boring today. (the internet)

apparently google will index blogs seperately from the rest of the internet. right google index 3billion webpages. i think they should just get rid of the 1.5 billion that are probably a load of crap.

got stuck under a rock? chop yer arm off to get away. *ouch* thanks to phil for pointing out that he wasn't doing it to eat it :)

more about the distorted world apple zealots live in. over here. mac share 2.1%? aac encoding from Apple complete tosh. etc etc. Apple doomed? like I said a while ago. :) another story about apple, and the iMac. and if you think you're PC hasn't crashed enough lately (like my w2k pc at work or home that never crashes) then use crashit.

also, it was the local elections here in Liverpool, UK, and guess what, last year 27% of the electorate (people who could vote) voted, this year 21% voted, while 79% stayed at home not giving a crap about who won the election. That, as a pecentage is nearly how many people use Google, over all the other web search engines out there! Chuffin Nora. The BNP got a pitiful amount of votes, which is good, in fact I think it should be illegal to run such a blatantly racist political party.

Whats for dinner?... Thursday spam day.....

Hotmail has new anti spam features, look in : Mail Display Settings : click : Remove images until messages are reviewed

Brilliant, now if outlook didn't download messages to delete them.

So whats Bill Gates middle name?

"Dressed in a shirt monogrammed with his initials WHG"...

Please guess in the comments below, not cheating and looking it up!

I'm going for Hugo.

infrogrames change their name to ATARI. details. good points : infogrames was a crap name, and difficult to spell, bad points, i doubt they will actually do anything interesting with the Atari name, such as release some hardware. atari.com aparently "the Atari legacy of innovation lives on..." um... where?

some interesting surfing for if you're bored. (i can't promise you'll enjoy them) hippo girl. switch to linux (you've probably seen this one before). this is meant to be pong (requires shockwave - doh! - it's a weird cross between ten pin bowling, breakout/arkanoid and pong). webwar is cool. oh and there's a switch to mac thing here that might wet your whistle.

simply put /input type anything\ (with angle brackets instead of the forward and backslash) in a html webpage and internet explorer will crash. if it's in the body, you're okay, if it's not, then it'll crash. details. more details. and just for you, an example, that will crash your web browser if you're using IE. click here to crash ie. (will open in new window)

apple bad - when screen breaks on guys 17" powerbook, they blame user, leak user information on internet, then damage the laptop further when he sends it to apple for repair. more apple bad-ness, but a different story.

where do we put the links to our favourite website on this blog thingy?

A woman who has a boy out of wedlock is much more likely to marry the father than if she has a girl. Blogworthy ? (My new word for the day)

Britons seek the strangest sites
hey it wasn't me alright: monkey origami / Zebra races / Staffordshire bull terrier portraits (well maybe the last one was I cant remember)

The world's largest record labels are quietly financing the creation of programs that, if deployed, would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who download pirated music. How is that different to writing a virus? A virus that just deletes suspected copied music files. If the RIAA run a program on a machine without the owners premission are they tresspassing? Stealing thier CPU time?

More spam news, "But (when), asked how to unsubscribe from his e-marketing lists, (he) did not directly answer." ... and ... "If you post your email addresses on the internet, you're going to open yourself up to being emailed," Bit of a no brainer that Josh should take note of. Back to the Mp3's four college students reached settlements, ranging from $12,000 to $17,500 each, for file sharing on a universtitys internal network.

apple sell music and apple give away broken mobile phones (and get lots of free publicity) but one day we hope they learn how to deliver mp3s via gprs etc. for a much lower price

burnley

MAY FOOLS DAY

Did any one else think it was Friday today?

Was I the only one who rang the guy that works Friday and asked him where the hell he was.