Wednesday, December 31, 2003

Another VIA EPIA CL10000 review. (read mine at epiacenter.com if you want) :)
Mr Bean, depressed because his film didn't make much money in the US and was laughed at by critics. He continues to recover in his mansions in Chelsea and Oxfordshire.

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

digital cameras. (yes again!) another potentially good camera is the Minolta Dimage E223 from £117 2mp, 3xopt and Video with sound makes it tempting (more info and links), but is it worth the extra £17 (bad reviews of e223) over getting a Fuji A203, A204, a205 which don't have sound and can be bought for £99? Or would it be better to just get an Olympus C-350 (3mp, 3xopt) for the extra money at £139 from amazon.co.uk?

another camera is the Che-ez D'Zign, £79.99 Jacobs, just like a Casio EX-S2 / AGFA / Oregan Scientific (£99 jacobs/gadget shop), 2mp, but the Che-ex apparently does 20cm macro according to the jacobs catalogue.

Sunday, December 28, 2003

grrr windows xp is craptastic!. click start, because you want to get to your programs, you have to go to "all programs", ok that's minor, go to control panel, it's got all the different things in different sections, click "switch to classic view" to get the usual view - why not just have this as the default anyway? want to find a file? click start and then search, a stupid dog comes up and says "what do you want to search for? pictures, music or video, documents, etc etc" when I actually just want to search! I don't want a stupid dog coming up and asking me what I want to search for, I just want to search - if I wanted to search for a specific thing such as images, I'd put the .jpg extension! Another thing, they don't have the "My Computer" icon on the desktop as a default - why not?! Grrr - everything they've added to WinXP is just another step in slowing you down when you're trying to use the computer - and yes I know you can customise it so it's just like Win2000 - but I shouldn't have to - I just don't get what Microsoft were thinking when they made Windows XP - they've made it slower and more difficult to use! They even removed the "quicklaunch" thing from the toolbar (yes i know you can turn it on) - but why remove it from being there as default? It makes using the computer easier! //end rant...

no wait - Windows XP and the stupid Activation! Yes I've just changed the motherboard on the computer - what you want me to re-activate windows!!! WHY!?!? Ok, lets try this then, yes I'd like to do it over the internet - oh but wait, windows doesn't let you get to the desktop to configure you network card and internet connection settings - so you can't activate it over the internet, you have to phone up microsoft and tell them or type in a 50-digit long number, and then they'll tell you another 50-digit number you have to type into the computer...! and then if you change some other stuff in the computer again (like the motherboard, because it might have been faulty) you have to go through ALL this again and this time you manage to try and get onto the internet to activate windows, and it pretends to be working, you think great, this'll be easy, but then after it's checked on the internet it says you have to ring someone up!! GRRR Windows XP I hate you!!
thank yous to all those who've sent happy christmas cards, or presents etc.

in the word's of a great philosopher "i am a material girl, living in a material world" Fuji M603 3mp (super ccd), 2x optical (also does VGA (640x480) 30fps movie recording with sound) £199 seems like a very good deal (review), as another camera (Minolta Digame Z1) that does that is £299 (link) - other good deals i've seen: a203 2mp, 3x opt £99 Jessops, a204 2mp, 3x opt £99 dixons - and the A405 2mp, 3xopt which was £99 before christmas from pcworld, is now £149! haven't really seen any other great deals / sales etc. have you? update amazon have the c-350, 3mp, 3x opt for £139 inc vat now the a205 (2mp, 3x opt) is also £99 (review) according to dealtime.co.uk (eg internetcamerasdirect.co.uk) another deal seems to be the Casio QV-R40 4mp, 3x opt £169 dixons. also saw the AGFA S2 2.0MP rrp £99, for £69 in dixons - also on dixons.co.uk (basically the same as a Casio EX-S2 I think - which was £169, and then it vanished, they don't have macro though),

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Merry Christmas chaps, and a Happy New Year!
B3TA : FEATURES : BEST OF B3TA 2003 hooray. long live b3ta. obvisouly avoid the "man milk vs moo milk" one, and others that may be offensive / wrong etc

Monday, December 22, 2003

Love Actually what other people said "that was light hearted" - "it was a bit corny" - "they were all so perfect" (the people). my thoughts, yes it was a fairly lighthearted film, with some deeper issues they just sort of skimmed over. it was a bit political too (a fake english prime minister and a fake american president were in it) in a pretty naff way, some bits were funny, some were just a bit too stupid. it was quite predictable. heather thought it was good but a bit rude. there were 2 people in it pretending to be porn stars but it wasn't really that funny. could have been funnier i think.
InfoWorld: Open-source group issues Microsoft patch: December 19, 2003: "An open-source software development group posted a file on its Web site this week it claims will patch a recently disclosed security hole in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser that allows online scam artists to fake Web page addresses."
snake but in 3d, pretty good. remember those sony mavica digital cameras that took a disk!? brilliant but flawed, excellent idea, but the disks didn't fit enough images and the cameras were too big :) expensive at the time, but still available on ebay, and still too expensive, yep, especially compared to a fuji 2600 buy now £86 s/h 2mp,3x opt or a Fuji A405 for £99 new from dixons/pcworld (2mp,3x opt). although an old 1.5mp fuji may be the cheapest way of getting a "proper" digital camera (with CCD rather than CMOS) - currently £21 with 5 hours left, or perhaps an old 2.1mp fuji currently £31 with 12 hours left. or perhaps an MX-1700, 1.5mp, 3x optical currently £37 with 3hrs left... or perhaps a 1.3mp, 3x opt olympus?

Shop for Fuji FinePix A204. at Argos.co.uk £99 on sale, 2mp, 3x optical. so equivelant to the newer A405 from dixons for the same price.

Sunday, December 21, 2003

The world's gone mad! postman SUES lecturer for posting TOO MANY letters in a mailbox!. Now what do you think, is this the fault of:

a) the lecturer for putting too many letters in a letterbox
b) the postman for picking up a bag that was too heavy
c) the postal service for having bags that are too large, and expecting post men to pick them up

? hmmm I think it's pretty obvious it's the postal service that's at fault, they shouldn't have such big mailboxes if they don't want their postmen to injure themselves! there's NO rules on a letterbox saying "please don't put too much in me" !!

Saturday, December 20, 2003

Fotopic.Net :: Cameras & Equipment Fuji Finepix A405 is still only £99 at pcworld.co.uk, for 2mp, 3x optical camera. There's sample photos in the link.
Play.com: Precision Mini Digital Camera on Gadgets £14.99 for a mini digital camera. (keyring size). Play also sell a lot of other digital cameras too but the prices don't seem very competitive really.

JillaJang Photos - Life Photos - Joshua Waller - All Ages Have a look at this new page I've done.
Hidden Costs of Mac Ownership: "Still, while many of the applications are cost equivalent, Apple users who want to stay current with the latest Mac operating system release have needed to pay $129 on a regular basis. When Apple released version 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3, each one of the releases cost $129. If Mac software can be expensive, or if tech help is costly, Mac users do not seem swayed from their affection"

Brown Knose: "VIA VP Richard Brown's insights on the IT industry" - good info on DDR2

some more bad pr for apple's ipod's and the faulty batteries.
good stuff about 2003
  1. nelsoncolne, josh for spending so much time finding things to put on it :-)
  2. josh's webserver, /flashcom, webcams, text messages, blogging
  3. flash / shockwave (and beta), simcity is abandonware,
  4. those pictures by that guy : http://www.toothpastefordinner.com | rathergood.com | one word, 60 seconds
  5. computers keep getting bigger (hard drives) faster and cheaper (special mention to toshiba (small hard drives (and even smaller next year)) epia / via (small motherboards)) and quieter and better at using less power.
  6. processors get even more confusing: p4m? amd opteron/athlon 64? ibm g5/970? itanium? All have speeds ranging from 1ghz to just over 2 and perform very well.
  7. anyone just using computers for interesting reasons

Exciting new stuff coming soon:

not so good stuff that happened in 2003 in no particular order
1 microsoft are still one big company with too much power despite losing lots of court cases.
1.1 the virus that created tonnes of work for tech support people and alot of annoyance for average computer users.
1.5 lots of other court cases and patents that restrict the use of really obvious technology, like plugins and erm..
2. Tube crashes, tube strikes, royal mail strike, uk rail travel, power failures.
3. computers don't get any more reliable (your hard drive still dies) (although win xp does have some nice features) (but re-starting and recovering from an unbootable machine seems more difficult) : who are currently the hdd manufactures you rate most? samsung?
4. apple: mac os 10.3 (hello, now no one knows how to use your operating system) mac os X (10.2) (hello, you completely changed how everything works and we can't customise screen fonts or the apple menu) why is the Close button right next to the Maximize button / why is apple w (close window) next to apple q (quit), apple designed laptops (just plain do not last), apple lies (the fastest what for maybe a day, when for the last 2-3 years you've just been telling us that mhz don't matter)
5. mobile phones (inconsistent / illogical user interfaces, poor software, unreliable stuff 'given' to me, really poor support contracts)
5.5 what, it's over? my birthday was just the other day. scary.
just missed out: ebay (fees high, buyers/bidders poor, no customer support)

Friday, December 19, 2003

B3TA : NEWSLETTER : ISSUE 116: "SOD WORK. READ OUR CHRISTMAS SPECIAL" hooray - featured in the b3ta newsletter. my life is complete :) - and in the same day - i get a "frontpage" where my picture is put on the frontpage of b3ta!!
Top 5 Websites (or things) of 2003.
(please make your own post with your own list(s))

1. StrongBad (this guy rocks!)
2. b3ta
3. Cheap Digital cameras, eg Fuji A405, 2mp,3xopt, only £99!
4. Simpsons still going strong (And available on DVD)
5. no hands (rate my kitten)

other cool things of 2003: those robotic vacuum cleaners that vacuum your house while you're out.

Top 5 worst things of 2003:

1. Pop Idol
2. Fame Academy
3. The fact that it's already over, it was only like yesturday that it was january.
4. SCO suing the world for making Linux
5. RIAA suing people for downloading music off kazaa etc. (and walking all over human rights / and privacy) this was a step in the right direction though.

Thursday, December 18, 2003

This site rocks! Check out the other stuff to. Fun for ALL the family, ALL OF THE FAMILY! Gossip...What people were overheard saying on the London Underground: "4. If someone falls into a bath, you fish them out... you don't suffocate their friend."
powerbook 15 inch lemon
white spots:
PowerBook's white spots have owners seeing red
in depth article on white spots .. "not due to technology specific to this generation of Powerbooks, but must be inherent in the LCD screen assembly itself."
[design features: 25-27% faster processor, shorter battery life, weighs more than a 1ghz 15.2inch powerbook]
if you have a webcam, go to my site joshwaller.tk, and click "Flashcom", type in a name, and click login.

a-blast game very good.
500,000 PowerMac G5s.
ibook lemon: logicboard failures (screen glitches, no boot), keyboard magnet, latches, noisy drives..
hits the news
discussion whining hard drive? another class-action?
dual-usb lemon logicboard failure find zach brown they fix his problems. Apple discussions, ibook - displays has endless stories. Some people have more in-depth info on the screen problem, and know what needs fixing

WOW - Watch these little robots! these are very cool!. more info. sony site, very cool!
BBC NEWS | England | Merseyside | Protest Santas cause traffic jams Liverpool.
Review of MUSH (on boringworld.co.uk) "It's not in widescreen, and the sound levels are a bit low, if you don't have amplified speakers, but it is quite high quality compared to your average divx stuff. The mash music was cool, if a little short, probably the highlight, as well as the cat, that cat was cool. It's only 9.05 minutes long but seems longer. it does feature live maggots, i won't spoil what happens to them, and yes you probably should ring the RSPCA about it. There is quite a bit of product placement in the form of PG adverts, i don't know how much PG are paying them, but I'm not sure it was worth it. They tried to gross us out, but they didn't go far enough, there was no eating of maggots shown or drinking of urine. It also features "Hilter" so if you're not that keen on him, you might want to avoid it, it wasn't as amusing as the Hilter featured in Little Nicky."
Found these 2 bits of music on a program (PC), so recorded them to wav and made em into mp3's. sorry about the distortion. but they reminded me of a) c64/ST type chip music, and b) ST/amiga mod's so check em out:

http://82.42.131.178/zabutom.mp3 (1.8mb)
http://82.42.131.178/maktone.mp3 (.9mb)

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

eBay item 2448756945 (Ends Dec-21-03 10:21:29 PST) - Honda CB500T rolling chassis - horrible "There are mental defectives on Ebay who will pay for anything." hooray for someone telling it like it is. anyone who's used ebay to sell stuff will know, there are lots AND lots of MUPPETS out there who like to waste sellers time!! honestly, there should be some kind of test people have to pass in order to get an ebay account!!
merry christmas
pcworld website on a pc is not bad : browsing digital cameras:

pricemegapixelsmake / model
41+1.3, 16megBenQ 1300 (CMOS) (more info)
67+2.1, 8meg SDKodak CX6200 (review)
69.892.1, 8meg memoryJENOPTIK JDC2-1LCD (CMOS!)
711.9, 8meg xdFUJI Q1 (black/silver 74) CMOS (more info)
78.992, 8megKODAK EASYSHARE CX6200
78.892, 16megOlympus D390 (same as C150)
89.893.1, 16meg SD cardJENOPTIK 3.1LCD
90+2, 16meg XDOlympus C-150
99.992, 16meg XDFUJI A405 (3x opt)
99.992, SDAGFA S2 2.0MP
99.992, 8meg smartmediaOLYMPUS C220Z (3x opt) out of stock
104.992, 16meg SD-MMCKODAK CX6230 (3x opt)
142.052, 8meg ?Nikon 2100 (3x opt)*
152.053.2, 16meg XDOlympus C350 (3x opt)

Make sure you check dealtime.co.uk, or reviewcentre, or kelkoo.co.uk to make sure you're getting the best price. (ignore HP, Packard Bell, cameras as they're not real) More digital cameras between 40 and 170 quid.

Best Digital Cameras of 2003. (they recommend the Fuji 2650, which is the A204 in europe, from �136 dealtime, which is probably an older version of the a205, which is probably replaced by the a405 (which has "super ccd", whereas the a204,205 doesn't have super CCD) by dixons/pcworld)

* Nikon 2100 seems expensive since it's been out a while.
did i mention that i find the www.royalmail.com website to be the most annoying website i have encountered all year. did i mention that i have found it to be very annoying on two separate occasions this week? Still waiting for login to work to check a postcode.. royalmail sucks dot com.
More annoying than the odeon. (the odeon will claim they have tickets available online and then not sell you that ticket for love actually, thank you very much)
More annoying than microwarehouse's new website, more annoying than the pcworld.co.uk website, more annoying than the HP website (maybe)
.. still wating for royalmail to log in.. this page cannot be displayed - our servers cannot handle more than one request per year.
Ah, the trick is to push the back button. 'You are currently logged on.. you have 5 minutes to select an option, at which point you will be logged off again'.. got there in the end.

Monday, December 15, 2003

Play with DNA in the comfort of your own home. more details (Those of you who want to do more advanced work will have to buy your own thermocycler, primers, colour labelled dntp's)
Statistics about clover hill, Nelson
OhDear.net - Christmas Single 2003 merry christmas chaps! don't use your credit cards! they are EVIL!!
"free" �800 PCs from IBM and BT - the specs make them sound more like sub �400 PCs though. (if you look at IBM's "thinkcentre", from �411inc vat for a same spec pc as the "�800" pc!) All you have to do is watch adverts every 20minutes, surf the net, and stick a fresh advert cd in every month. wow sounds like fun (not!). come on people out there, wake up! getting your own second hand pc from ebay.co.uk would be better than this! slashdot blah blah blah

part of the terms and conditions: 4) The PC must be connected to the internet at least once a month, and you must maintain an [a crappy] ISP dial-up account throughout the term of the agreement.
400 mice missing - Rescued we presume, by some super intelligent rats.

Sunday, December 14, 2003

Powerpoint makes you stupid [NYTimes]: The Cognitive Power of powerpoint Presented in the Form of a PowerPoint Presentation
40 words: Displaying greater-than 40 words per slide / complex data dificult in ppt, due to low resolution, while (traditional) slides can be more complex. therefore rate of information transfer lower. "PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern age of obfuscation": say nothing, make it look great.
best slashdot comment
ABCNEWS.com : Commentary: Apple Macs Are Vulnerable, Too [ed by matt: slashdotters reply]

- and there's new pictures on my site at joshwaller.tk, so go have a look :)

What Kind of Metalhead Are You? - Quizilla hmmmm??

Saddam Hussien captured! bbc news, live realmedia news24. note b3ta's, tribute.

Ultra small PCs as small as an orange! (functional as well, 400mhz, etc) link (english version), link, link to pic.
Waller Seti Effort: "1) Ben Waller (KiwiNetCafe Nelson) 19096 - 20.183 years9 hr 15 min 31.5 secSun Dec 14 13:05:53 2003New Zealand
2) Matt 2732 - 3.944 years12 hr 38 min 42.1 secSun Dec 14 02:12:25 2003United Kingdom
3) J Waller - www.josh.org.uk 2714 - 4.262 years13 hr 45 min 21.0 secSun Dec 7 22:34:50 2003United Kingdom"

wahey - congratulations matt ! you've over taken me :)

Saturday, December 13, 2003

Items matching ( cube ) seem to be about 4 G4 Cube's on ebay.co.uk at the moment! 2d 15h left, for spares or repair!, 1ghz! G4 cube, and another!.


Pouring coke on the computer didn't kill! it still works! what can i do next? i tried to freeze it overnight, but it STILL works!!
Win 98 Users should upgrade says study.
The largest potential risk to corporations is the probability of an Internet-based security exploit being discovered after January 2004 that can affect a Win9X PC.
Typically, security exploits �due to a code issue within the Operating System and/or the Internet Browser � are reviewed and remedied by Microsoft via their monthly hotfix releases. After January 2004, Microsoft is no longer obligated to supply any security based Hotfixes for Windows 98 users.
Thus, Windows 98 users become increasingly prone to any new security exploits, as security patches may not be supplied. Virus authors & hackers will certainly view any Windows 98 PC as a more vulnerable entry-point into the network infrastructure, being able to exploit security holes that have been subsequently �patched� on PCs with Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc.
As time progresses � and the number of security exploits increases � any Internet-facing Windows 98 PC increases its vulnerability �and opportunity - to attack.

After that the analysis goes into reasons why its a good idea for microsoft to stop supporting old software..
And then says that about 30% of machines are running win 95/98 with more 95 machines than 98.
So if you were a systems administrator with 100 pcs and you needed to upgrade them all to windows 2000 or XP..
1. Why would your company pay for all those licences when their machines 'already work', and pay you to spend the next 3 - 6 months updating machines applying patches ...
2. Wouldn't you have to reinstall all the software too after doing the os upgrade.. how long would it take per machine?

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

"Coke + Computer = Funny:
Ever wonder what would happen if you spilled diet coke in your PC while it was running? Check out this video and you�ll see. Here is �quote of the day�:

�when everything goes black in the vid, that's when the power to my house tripped."


-me quoting hardocp.com, who are quoting me ;)
Kittens lots of kittens.
eBay UK Seller List: www.josh.org.uk cheap stuff on ebay, not long left. :)
Apple price fixing? questions. apple denies it in 1999. here's the original /. article. sign this petition to get apple to reduce european prices. more apple stuff: apple watches you when you're in their stores not that there's any stores in the UK...
BlogShares - NelsonColne kommune i.t. don't ask me what this is about. i just found it. and according to this, nobody likes us. this looks clever

and anyone know why this was the google results for 'nelsoncolne': (cache of nelsoncolne.blogspot.com as Fester's place!?!?! - here's the real "fester's place": link). more on google weirdness here (called Google NACK).

Fester's Place
Fester's Place. This is a political blog, primarily coming from the center
left perspective. I also plan on talking a bit about economics ...
nelsoncolne.blogspot.com/ - 65k - Cached - Similar pages

Here's a pic (thanks uploadit.org):

and here's a screengrab of the cache to look at.

Monday, December 08, 2003

Lindows.com Defends Netherlands Resellers against Microsoft :: osViews :: Tech Opinions for the People, by the People "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, is systematically threatening small Dutch computer companies with lawsuits for offering an alternative product to Microsoft. Their threats are intended to intimidate these small companies, who cannot afford attorneys, into dropping alternative products and leaving Dutch computer users with only the option of purchasing expensive Microsoft software." Microsoft are nasty! Grrr!
Dennis publishing - I officially hate your guts :)

Last time I subscribed to MacUser, then cancelled the subscribtion, I made sure I ticked all of the boxes to say I did not want any mail from any other companies, yet as soon as I had cancelled my subscription, I started recieving junk mail from other companies. I phoned them, and they said the list was from Dennis publishing, I phoned Dennis publishing, and they removed me from the list ! Hoorah!

More recently I subscribed to MacUser (again) for 3 months, making sure I ticked all the boxes that said I didn't want mail from other companies, after 3 months I cancelled the subscription, then about a month or 2 later I got some junk mail from Sky, and some today from MacWarehouse... So I phoned sky, they didn't know where the address came from (!!?!), I phoned MacWarehouse, they said they've recently bought a few lists... So I phoned Dennis publishing and spoke to Jackie (who I spoke to last time this happened) and she said she'd remove me from the lists... I should have asked why I was on the lists, but from these 2 experiences I assume they automatically add you to the lists when you stop subscribing to them...

Sunday, December 07, 2003

Muffinale and another one (The Muffin Tree). AMD right, they should get 'and' changed to 'amd' that way whenever people put "cheese amd ham" it will be an advertisment for 'amd'. read evhead's blog, he founded pyra/blogger. Check out these lego creations if the servers can take the /. ing. the top 10 computers of all time apparently, with rather a lot of mention of commodore/amiga - no mention of spectrum. Large BSOD here on a subway, and what we all really want but can't afford, a quad 2.2ghz opteron system reviewed by aceshardware, shame they don't compare it to a high spec athlon / p4 spec pc to show us how much faster it is compared to them....

Saturday, December 06, 2003


Check this dude out! site dedicated to take the mike out of the nokia n-gage! awesome! there's some quality games consoles on their, it even features an atari portfolio, and an apple newton. sweet!
Intel and AMD face nastiest competitor of all apparently Microsoft may be the next big CPU maker?
I'm selling a load of cheap PC bits on ebay look here, USB2 PCI Card, 3 working AGP cards, 1 Faulty, 2 sticks of 64mb RAM, 1 stick of 128mb funny ram, a 3gb Fujitsu hard drive, and a slot 1 motherboard with a Celeron 500. Get in there my son! :)

Friday, December 05, 2003

Thursday, December 04, 2003

BBC NEWS | Technology | Brazil bets on Linux cybercafes rock on tommy!
Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs who IS the BEST?!?!??? (another quality advertisement, er, i mean article from bbc news website)
MS to charge for FAT file system. What they want more money?
booty licous mp3 playin ghetobox using a via epia.
samsung laer printer �66 inc vat crikey, can you believe it? a laser printer for �66 inc vat!
digitalbackpack presents... DRIVER'S ED see if you can pass this driving test! :)
Intel accelerates its Celeron shift | CNET News.com So Intel have the P3, the P-M, and the P4 (as well as the P4-M), and now they are releasing another Celeron, so there's the Celeron (based on the P4) and the Celeron (based on the P-M). Why not come up with a better/different name?

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

EPIACENTER.com 1u home made case very very nice looking 1U epia system here :)
AC Computer Warehouse - Product Listings if you're up north this christmas, then why not get yourself a 21" B-Grade monitor for �29 inc vat. no really �29 inc vat.

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Trail Rider if it could find the server when you click the link you may be pleasantly surprised to find you're able to play a java remake of the C64 game trailblazer! Woo - I remember playing a PC version of this in Burnley College :)
you can try the new beta of "seti", called "Boinc" - it's quite neat, it's got a little built in benchmark. this is kinda funny, players spent over 3 hours defeating the undefeatable in everquest.

Monday, December 01, 2003