allofmp3 bigger than itunes

Story here (on boing boing) about allofmp3 - selling more than itunes apparently - and due to be shut down? - but still currently operating...

Have a Green Christmas - Gift gen dot com Christmas Present Idea Generator Etc

Gift Gen - suggests presents based on price, age, character, sex, could be handy if you're stuck for ideas.

FYI: Last post days are 19th Dec for 2nd class, 21st Dec for 1st class. But you'll need to check with the website in question to see what their last days are.

Metro have a news item on "giving africa an animal" - World Land Trust say it's "grossly irresponsible", Animal Aid say it does "not diminish poverty" due to the fact that "all farmed animals require proper nourishment, large quantities of water, shelter from weather, and vetenary care" which is something places like Africa lack (they lack them for people, let alone animals).

Some more links to Green Christmas sites:
www.oxfamunwrapped.com (give an alpaca or plant a crop allotment)
www.worldlandtrust.org (give an acre of land)
www.presentaid.org (give a community tap for £45)
www.goodgifts.org (cool things like a years supply of tea for £15, or save a penguin)
www.climatecare.org (a carbon offsetting company)
www.nigelsecostore.com (eco balls £30)
www.naturalcollection.com
www.ecocentric.co.uk
www.britisheco.com
www.greenerstyle.co.uk
www.ecogadgets.co.uk (sell "eco balls" £35 for around 1000+ washes, saves you heaps of money and is good for the environment)

Christian Albums CDs in the UK Cheap Cheep!

www.acorndirect.co.uk (based in Guernsey) sell cheap christian CDs, for example "Passion Everything Glorious" is £9.99 including postage. Wesley Owen sell the same CD for £12.99, and Amazon sell it for £13.99 as a "US Import".

Get the new AVG Free

If you're running AVG 7.something and not 7.5 - then you might get messages saying "this program is going to run out, please buy me!"* - when in actual fact, all you need to do is download the newer free version 7.5 from here and do a manual install (repair installation).

* paraphrased by me

Cheap cars on ebay.

Hey, if you're interested in buying a car, especially a cheap one, then ebay seems to be the place, with a 2002 model Proton Impian selling for £1550 (cost new £13000, valued at £2500+ by parkers), whereas a similar age Ford Focus is valued at £3500 - £4200 (cost new £12495). Knowing that some cars depreciate more than others, I've setup this ebay search that shows you all these cheap cars for sale. I guess they're like the modern day Lada, but better.

Cheap Cars on Ebay.

Alternatively you can search for "Buy it Now" cars under a set price, for example, under £250. This search gets you some good results, such as a Mk2 Golf for £100.

blogger beta gone live

blogger have started to let you convert your normall blogger blogs into the new "blogger beta" style of blog -

this has many advantages namely: tags* (used on technorati and other sites, and used for searching on certain topics), much quicker publishing, neater archive display, integrate other site's RSS feed onto your blog easily, private blogs etc etc.

however, there are some dis-advantages: you need a google account to logon. plus it's a bit of an unknown as to how well it will migrate over the current design, although I suspect it shouldn't cause any problems.

I've been using blogger beta for this: The Ricoh Caplio R5 Blog and it's been great!

So to summarise: I think blogger beta is quite good, but we need to make sure everyone is happy to move over to blogger beta with this site and has a working google account before we can move over. alternatively we could simply not move over, as what we have now is currently working.

*example tags for this post would be: blogger, beta, tags, etc

Update: Turns out we can't upgrade this blog yet as this kind of blog can't be converted yet: "A very large blog. (More than a couple thousand posts + comments.)"

Asteroids Revenge

a game in which you avenge the death of your fellow asteroids.

CutePDF

Free PDF writer, lets you print any document to a PDF File. Get it here. Recommended.

Zune Bad, Babies Good

apparently the zune is really crappy. suntimes.com:

"Yes, Microsoft's new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. I've spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.

"Avoid," is my general message. The Zune is a square wheel, a product that's so absurd and so obviously immune to success that it evokes something akin to a sense of pity."

In other exciting news, we had a baby. details here (with links to lots of pics).

Buy Nothing Day

Interesting idea for Christmas - stop buying stuff! It junks up the world causing major environmental issues, and we have 10 times as much stuff as other countries. We (the western world) consume 86% of the world's products! Found at http://blog.iamnotashamed.net/. Another interesting Christmas thought here: Chistmas is not your birthday.

boinc machines

At BOINCstats, they have lists and lists of information about which types of computers have contributed how many units in recent days. And part of my interest was actually seeing where my processor is relative to other processors, just to see what I can expect. One of the things that's interesting for me though is that the mac pro machines (which all get the same identity on the lists, whether they have 2ghz or 3ghz processor) are very near the top - as can be see in this list. (check that the list is sorted by average credit per cpu, and then look at the fourth item down) or have a look at this list where you can see a fair few machines which regularly average above 2000 credits per day! That's 10 times faster than my Intel P4 @ 2.8ghz.

A Big list of Essential PC Software

Matt said I should do a big list of all the software needed for a Windows PC in order to protect it from the internet, viruses, spyware, adware, malicious software, etc. Whilst it may seem slightly excessive, in my personal experience, it's pretty much essential!

here it is.

If anyone has any suggestions please let me know! (I thought I'd already done something similar, but not to the same extent)

PC World can't fix your PC

"Computing Which? magazine visited seven PC World outlets and 13 independent stores. The experts deliberately created faults. On half the computers they deleted a file that helps to start up the Windows operating system. On the other half they loosened a cable connecting the hard disk to the rest of the computer.

The research identified 'staggering' differences in the level of know-how and charges. Correcting the simple Windows software problem triggered price quotes from £20 to £260, while the bill for fixing a loose cable ranged from £10 to £139.

One London branch of PC World misdiagnosed the software problem as a corrupted hard disk and quoted £350 for repairs. A member of staff even advised buying a new PC which could have cost more than £500. Another PC World branch in Oxford misdiagnosed a computer with a loose cable as having a corrupted hard disk and quoted £300 for a repair. "

Obsessed with shreddies?

this site has some great info on shreddies, and many other great things.

Solid State Digital Speedometer

Coolest speedo ever? Austin Meastro Vardan Plas. Even has a "Convert" button. Am I the only one that has always wanted a digital speedo? If you own a ford fiesta there is a "trick mode" where you can get the car to display the speed digitally instead of showing you the mileage and the time. Instructions here.

Other cars with digital speedos:
Check out this Fiat Tipo bad boy here. (another pic here)
Citroen C4 central digital speedo.

greenmyapple.org

"We love Apple. Apple knows more about "clean" design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned? A cutting edge company shouldn't be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That's why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple." watch their ad here.

Portable Atari Jaguar

Ben Heck has taken apart an Atari Jaguar, and made it into a portable console with built in joypad, screen, and stereo speakers. He says the 64bit console has a 32-bit bus, and is not a 64-bit machine as Atari were claiming at the time...

I escaped from the Dungeon of Stinkygoat! - I killed Stickofjoy the cockatrice, Cannonstar the leprechaun, Fuseball the nymph, Aureo1e the leprechaun, Dudewhoisrandom the leprechaun, Quinling the leprechaun, Duke Otterland the leprechaun, Stereotypist the orc, Hirosama the goblin and Alarm Fil the floating eye. - I looted a Figurine of Hukkax, a Figurine of Matt303, the Dagger of Postcardstohell, a Figurine of Dhau, the Sword of Nicolyrezk, the Crown of the Stony 1, the Crown of Lezek, the Shield of Deanoc, the Sceptre of Sack , the Armour of Zagreb2, the Sceptre of Nerfboy, the Sword of 4zumanga and 194 gold pieces.

Play it here - my score was 544.

Scott Adams has his voice back...

If you read the Dilbert blog, then you might know that Scott Adams lost his voice 18 months ago and hasn't been able to speak since (except in a public speaking context), well he's got his voice back through ryhme!

More links: NZ Herald. Boing Boing.

AMD and ATI become one. Germany requires Internet License!

AMD and ATI are now one, and if you go to ati.com you end up at ati.amd.com.

Some worrying news from Germany: Germany brings in TV license fees for the internet -

"And, just to really rub salt into the wound, the follow up of shock troops comes with the realisation that you’ll be charged this license fee no matter what you use your internet device for! Yep, that means you business users, who never surf the net, have net access for information and email only, you get charged. Likewise, home users in the ex-Eastern Germany, who are just unwrapping the latest 486DX2, are going to be hit with the charge too." more details at the inquirer.

Firefox 2

Download here. It seems good so far.

Does it remember your open windows like Opera?
Yes it can pick up where you left off just change it in tools>options>main and change "when firefox starts" from "show my homepage" to "show my windows and tabs from last..."

Apple iPod 5 years old...

Engadget has it in pictures showing every model except the latest 5.5G Photo/Video iPod, and Gizmodo list 10 reasons why they hate the ipod. Hoorah!

If you like Darkplace, and IT Crowd

then you might like Man to Man with Dean Learner (played by Moss from the IT Crowd), and the makers of Darkplace. The spoof chat show (sounds like 'Knowing me, knowing you, with Alan Partridge') is hosted by a millionaire playboy, and guests are played by co-creator Matthew Holness. It's on tonight at 11.05pm on C4.

Rover History in Video Form

1959 (to 2000) - Mini (Montage?), Mini (Spike Milligan), Advert (1988)
1977 - (Leyland) Rover 3500
1980 - Austin Rover Mini Metro (Batman Spoof)
1984? - Austin Rover (Metro, Maestro etc) Feat. Noel Edmunds.
1986 - Rover 800
1995 - Rover 400
2000 - Rover 25
2001 - Rover MG ZR (MG version of 25)
2003? - MG Rover internal press video (includes two TV ads, one for MG Rover, one for MG ZR (25) and MG ZS (45), also features MG ZT (75), City Rover, SV-R etc).

Other stuff:
Rover 200 / 25 / Streetwise / MG ZR Story.
MG Z Cars on Top Gear (25 ZR, 45 ZS 180, 75 ZT).
Top Gear reviews the new City Rover.

Link

The iPod's genesis.

History of Computers

in the form of TV adverts. link.

google buy youtube

Link - Google have bought youtube.com for $1.65 billion in stock!

Car for sale

Skoda Fabia 1.4 W Reg Green.

Kip Hawley

"Kip Hawley continues to harass his fellow Americans with an absurd theater of ID checks, shoe removal, and now Ziploc™ 'security'. Meanwhile, serious security concerns are ignored: air cargo is not screened and there is still no point-to-point baggage matching."

Flu, hernia, or police more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda

HSBC have a go at other banks for increasing security

"HSBC has criticised competitors using two-factor authentication, claiming that such tactics encourage hackers to target banks that haven't implemented similar measures." Link "Banks that have chosen to beef up their authentication systems are exposing unprotected rivals to attack, the financial services group claims" - Guess who haven't implemented a more secure system? HSBC.

The mess that was / is Rover?

The brand that was Rover belongs to BMW currently and the company was half bought by two chinese firms (one owning design rights to the 25 (now around 11 years old), and the 75 (now around 8 years old), the other owning MG - ie MGTF - both companies are owned by the Chinese state.). Now Ford want to buy the name "Rover" from BMW to "protect" the Land Rover brand.

Nobody is really interested in the 11 year old Rover 400/45 because it was long overdue for a replacement and was based on the Honda Accord and there are obvious copyright / design rights issues.

Slate.com

Slate - an interesting news, politics, culture, blog website with an interesting splattering of religious material. (including blogging the bible)

Apple announce ITV (and other stuff)

Erm yeah, Apple announced a load of stuff yesturday, such as new ultra small mp3 players, and updated nano's and ipods etc. Mainly fairly boring. Apart from a new device called iTV - surely Apple realise that ITV already exists? And you'd think that since apple are so protective of their own names such as 'POD' - surely they wouldn't go round nicking other people's names? Maybe it's just a prototype name anyway...

New iPod Shuffle here. £55 for 1gb.
New iPod Nano here. £99 for 2gb, £169 for 8gb.
New iPod here. £189 for 30gb (11mm thin), £259 for 80gb (14mm thick). Includes gapless playback, new games (inc Bejewelled, Pacman, Tetris etc!) Games can be added to older ipods.
New iTunes 7 with video. Free download.

Free Computer Maintenance

So when was the last time you made a complete backup of all your data? Or when was the last time you scanned your computer for viruses? When was the last time you scanned for spyware, adware or other stuff? When was the last time you updated windows? are you running WXP with SP2?

Free Virus Solutions: AVG, Anti-Vir, Avast
Free Spyware/Adware Removers: Ad-Aware, Spybot, MS Defender
Windows Update: here.
Free Backup Software: Setup automatic backups

From today's Metro: "Police called to a stable found a naked man covered in olive oil and oats being licked by a horse. Alfred Steven told them he was living out a lifelong fantasy. The 69 year old from Santa Barbara, California, was charged with trespassing, animal cruelty and sexually assaulting an animal."

I guess the next time he's where-ever-old-poeple-hang-out could be a bit awkward. It might sound a bit like this:

Eve: So hows life? OH GAWD don't look now, it's Alf!
Elsie: Er, why, what's wrong with Alf?
Eve: Don't you know!? He feeds horses oats!
Elsie: ... so what's wrong with that?
Eve: He uses olive oil!
Elsie: ... do horses dislike olive oil?
Eve: No! He's naked covered in olive oil and oats making the horses lick him!
Elsie: Oh!!!

Anyway, is it really cruel to feed a horse oats?

Old skool baby. Fisher Price PXL 2000

Link - "Back in 1988, Fisher Price introduced an insane video camera for kids. Crafted in thick rubber-coated plastic, it shot horribly lo-fi videos on audio cassette tapes. If you've ever seen the original Game Boy camera - it's a lot like that."

beta blogger, blogging at work, video, apple

blogger have a great article on blogging in the workplace. microsoft, dell, and other large corporations have welcomed blogging* (excluding apple, who hate the internet and all apple fan sites), yet posting the wrong stuff (even when working for microsoft) can get you fired like this guy. thankfully there are some ways to address the issues 1. is to host your own blog on your own server and make it private, or 2. wait till the new version of blogger is out (currently in beta) as it has the ability to make your blogger invite only. other new features include the ability to categorise posts so for example this post could be categorized as "Web Tech", while other posts could be categorised as "US / UK Spelling differences", or "Apple" etc. Annoyingly you can't be logged into both beta and normal blogger at the same time. Check out a beta blog I've just setup here.

blogger ends there article with this:

"If you end up getting yourself fired for blogging, deep down you must have really wanted out of that job. If that's the case, keep blogging. With your newfound status as one of only a handful of people in the world who have been "fired for blogging," you should be able to grab some headlines. Fan those flames! You could wind up on Oprah with a million dollar book deal. Theoretically."

* I wonder, by the time we all have blogs, whether we'll decide that reading and writing is boring and watching and speaking is much better, and we'll all migrate to youtube?

PS - Apple announced some new imacs and mini macs.

nine million

there are 9 million children who are refugees. 9 million. what does that even mean as a number? the entire population of london, homeless?

Australian Police Confused by Commodore 64

The kidnapper who held captive a woman for 8 years used a commodore 64. story here. police say they are finding it difficult to get the data off the computer, and may face data loss. the article doesn't mention the fact that commodore 64s use external means of data storage, ie. tapes, etc. but surely the police will have figured that out? boingboing don't seem so sure...

Message to Dell

"Can you address the issues we are still facing daily with GX270s (and some GX280s) with bulging capacitors - probably 50% of our current PCs out of over 3000 are GX270s - currently for every single PC we have to phone up, spend half an hour diagnostics with dell for them to arrange a motherboard replacement - in each instance we (myself and the Dell tech) knows that the problem is resolved by a motherboard replacement - this fixes 100% of the GX270s we've had problems with, yet this is taking hours of productivity (per incident) away from the staff we support and from us as IT support technicians - surely there is a quicker solution to this problem?"

This message is regarding faulty capacitors used in Dell Optiplex GX270s (and GX280s): More info here. and was posted to dell's official blog.

Link

Water bomb exploding in slo-mo.

Stop Junk Mail, Spam, and Telemarketing Calls

Stop junk mail: www.mpsonline.org.uk, or email optout@royalmail.co.uk (a postman has been sacked after informing his customers of this service!)
Stop junk phone calls: www.tpsonline.org.uk
Stop junk email: www.dma.org.uk

Pleo gets Mar 07 Launch Date

Hooray - just in time for my next birthday! :D

Acid Rave Music on the Up

According to the Sunday Times Style Magazine RAVE is Going Up in the world: New tunes, new renegade parties, new Day-Glo... yay! Here's a rave website.

Ricky Gervais Microsoft Videos

Episode 1, Episode 2

911 Cover Up

Hermann Goering. Hitler's Reich-Marshall at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII said: "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Film here about 9/11: Google Video. Wonders why there were no remains of a plane crashing into the pentagon, why the twin towers collapsed when fires have never caused towers to collapse previously, why a 3rd wall street building collapsed several blocks away. etc. entertaining video about recent terror alerts in britain / US regarding flights.

The IBM PC - 25 Years Old

Engadget have written an interesting piece on their first PCs. Mine was a 486DX 50 with 8mb of ram and an 80mb hard drive second hand for a whopping £325 from Butts, Bits and Bytes (How did they get away with a name containing butts for so long?), who are now called 3B Systems.

Pheobe's Songs, Lisa Simpson's Poems

Lisa's poem about her cat:

"I had a cat named Snowball
She died! She died!
Mom said she was sleeping
She lied! She lied!
Why oh why is my cat dead?
Couldn't that Chrysler hit me instead?
I had a hamster named Snuffy
He died..."

Could Pheobe in Friends be the real life grown up version of Lisa Simpson?
Pheobe's Songs

Biased media in the UK? Never...

Interview on Sky News with some interesting opinion / facts about the Lebanon / Isreal thing. Death toll: Isreal people dead: 244, Lebanon people dead: 1076.

Borat the Movie

Ali-G is making a move: Borat Trailer - here he is on the Conan show.

www.channel4.com Live, Free, TV

www.channel4.com let you watch channel4 live. you just need to register and then you want watch live tv! (if you live in the UK) I checked with Channel4 and you DO NOT need a TV license to watch it!

Apple Mac Pro Quad Core Announced

Did you notice? Apple announced the new Quad Core MacPro - it feature 2x Dual Core Xeon CPUs with 4MB Cache per CPU (8mb total), with speeds up to 3GHz. The CPUs feature SSE3 which is pretty good. (Like MMX but on steroids with actual benefits rather than pretend benefits)

All your snakes are belong to us

Merry-go-rounds - the silent death trap.

According to people who worry too much merry-go-rounds are potential death traps because IF you get a moped and put it's back wheel on the merry-go-round and spin it at high speed with people on board, then they fly off at high speed like rag dolls, POTENTIALLY crashing into the moped and NOT the soft ground that surrounds the merry-go-round. West Sussex council have so far made no plans to get rid of the offending MERRY-GO-ROUND but may be forced to if it hears of similar incidents.

You can watch the video here of the seemingly WILLING participants. I say: If idiots want to find new ways of potentially killing themselves, then let them!

internet explorer downloads

download the FULL version of Internet Explorer here - includes all the old versions like 5.5 sp2 (suitable for an old Windows 98 PC). avgfree demands at least ie5 for example, and windowsupdate doesn't even attempt to work on older versions of ie. (that's if it's still available for win98 machines).

Apple Love

"A stupid little detail in an Apple app nicely illustrates the extreme attention to the fine points of user experience that makes people fanatical about the company." Wired News.

Here's my version: "A stupid little detail in an Apple app* nicely illustrates the extremely poor documentation and implementation that makes people frustrated with Apple software."

* Microsoft Entourage is the app in question. Getting the application to open other users shared calendars is the part that has extremely poor documentation. (You need the latest version of Entourage with SP2 for it to even think about working - and the exchange servers need at least SP2). The method of the madness is that it doesn't work simply by looking up the person in the address book, no, you have to go into the advanced properties and use the full alias of the username @ the root/parent domain of the organisation in order for it to work properly. For example instead of using jo.blog@centralblog.com you have to use blogj1@blogger.com where blogj1 is the actual username** on the (exchange) system, and blogger is the parent domain. Thankfully this is documented on the Internet, here, although it is noticeably missing from any Apple or Microsoft pages. And does anybody ever answer mac support questions on the internet to a point where a solution is provided? No, never in my experience.

** The stupidness of the exchange / active directory (AD) implementation of usernames is that you can have blogj on the system twice in AD, once in the blogger/centralblog domain and again (as another person) in blogger/otherdomain - yet exchange doesn't like this one bit at all, and will give the second blogj a DIFFERENT alias/username, such as blogj1 !!!

Cats Carrying Fish

Video - "Which cat can carry the largest fish? Only Japanese television can tell us."

Cute cats video. Mario Brothers tune played on an 11 string bass.

Are Electric Cars the Future?

There were/are several new electric cars at the british motor show. The Smart EV (70mpg, 72 mile range, from £15000), the Mega City Nice (40mph, 50 mile range, rentable London), and the Reva G-Wiz (£7000). All fun names apart from the Smart. The G-Wiz has the following benefits:

"Drive electric & save over £8,000 per year
* up to 600 'mpg' equiv.
* exempt from road tax
* exempt from (C) charge
* free parking in London
* free charging in London
* lowest insurance group
* 100% tax write down for business
* lowest rate company car tax at just 9%
... and cut your emissions impact by between 74% & 100%"

More about electric cars here.

Wouldn't it be great if...

You could get the "Saturday" or "Sunday Papers" on-line - you know, the massive Sunday Times, or Observer, or Guardian etc. I mean the internets great, but you don't get the wide variety of stuff shoved in your face like you do with the Sunday Papers - for example by flicking through every page you get a quick snippet of news that you might find interesting, you'd get some random article about someone famous in one of the magazines, you might get a small section on a car, and you'd get some highlight on a TV program on in the next week that you should watch... I know you can probably find all this information on line, but it's not been pre-packaged for you. You see the thing is, that there's so much random content that when I look through I find a number of interesting articles to read, but the next person who reads it would probably find a completely different set of interesting articles...

Saying that... these sites are quite interesting (and produce the main sunday papers):
Guardian Online
Guardian News Blog
Observer Blog (Guardian / Observer are the same thing)
The Times Online (you can read the current issue online, but it's a big list of text links)
Telegraph (website down?)
The Independant

Win a Digital Camera worth £200

Courtesy of DigiCamReview. Sweet!

Intel Core 2 Duo Finally Available

Well, the Pentium M descendant, the Intel Core 2 Duo, has finally entered the desktop market. It's even quicker than the Intel Core Duo that's been in laptops etc. And prices are very competitive for top of the range Intel chips - being priced less than the single core Pentium M chips...

You can buy motherboards from around £100 at scan.co.uk and chips are likely to be available on the 24th of July from overclockers.co.uk, with speeds up to 2.9ghz!!! Prices of dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 chips seem to have dropped dramatically as they appear considerably slower than the new Intel chips.

Have you noticed? (Seti Changes)

If you do Waller Seti Effort - and you were using the old optimised clients then it might have stopped working. If it did stop, you might need to uninstall and delete all your boinc / seti folders and re-download the latest version. The new version seems better optimised. And seems to give the following results:

Pentium M 1.8ghz - 20 - 29,000 seconds
Athlon XP 2000+ (1.667ghz actual?) - 31,000 seconds
Apple G4 1.25ghz - 45,000 seconds
Celeron 749mhz - 81,000 seconds
Via C3 Nehemiah 1.2ghz - 117,000 seconds

These numbers are very vague as the new "enhanced" seti results seem to fluctuate quite wildly. Results from the Pentium 4 and Athlon CPUS seem to better now than in previous versions.

Kitty is SO two faced!!

NBC10 have published a photo and video of a kitten with two faces, two mouths, two noses, 4 eyes - "The kitten was born Wednesday morning in Ohio. It has two mouths that meow in unison, two noses and four eyes that have not opened yet." (found at Boing Boing)

ipod transmitters legal in November

FM radio transmitters are due to become legal in the UK from November - these devices can be used with ipods in order to listen to your ipod in the car by tuning the FM radio into the ipod transmitter. story here.

Mac vs PC

So have you seen the Apple adverts for the Mac featuring a PC guy and a Mac guy? Well, here's some alternative versions featured on VH1.

How to be Happy

Pupils at Wellington College, Berkshire, will soon be taking "Happiness Classes" / "Positive Psycology". Some of the following tips provided by Metro are:

1- Money doesn't make you happy - don't spend on gadgets, spend on holidays and memories instead.
2 - Say thank you - keep a gratitude journal.
3 - Go to the gym - 30 minutes of excercise a day may help beat depression.
4 - Eat fish, turkey, chicken, beans, avocados and bananas - they all contain an amino acid that will boos serotonin.
5 - Have a laugh - join a laughter club: www.laughteryoga.co.uk

The Best Rock/Pop/Rap/Hip-Hop Album Ever! 2

The Best Rock/Pop/Rap/Hip-Hop Album Ever! 2 (now on YouTube)

Link

Some geezer has recreated Pac Man in the real world using crickets.

Link

Google can be used as a virus scanner.

Websense is involved so I am immediately a little skeptical but hey, if it works, it works.

Chinese Man Invents Robots

This one carries him on a rickshaw. Others serve tea and light cigerettes. Unfortunately he's having to sell some as one of them caught fire and burnt down his house. BoingBoing.

10 years late?

Marantz have released a new high end dual tape casette deck. Looks very swish.

You know how 10 years after something has died (like the Atari Jaguar, or Sega Megadrive, or Atari ST, or Amiga) a company releases the best ever program or add-on for the system ever, and nobody buys it because all the machines are already in the bin... well I can see some parallels now with the Marantz tape deck...

except for the fact that we still have all our tapes lying around, loads of older cars still have tape decks, and CDs (and DVDs) are much more scratch prone than we were led to believe by all the CD marketing people! Fact: You leave your CDs in your car (or your mates car) for a period of time, and you get back a scratched CD that doesn't play properly!

Update: Someone's released a new game for the Atari 2600 via BoingBoing

Link

Turn your Windows desktop in to an interactive Mario leve.

Microsoft Windows Vista Pants Rating

Okay, we'll start with a Pants rating of 5/10, i.e. we're assuming it's mainly pants. Every time someone writes something positive about it, the pants rating will go down, and every time someone writes something negative about it, the pants rating will go up.

Positives:
Tom's Hardware give it the thumbs up. (-1)

Negatives:
Deleting shortcuts in Vista takes too many steps (+1)
Vista takes longer to boot than XP. (+1)
Pants versions available. (+1)
MSNBC (Microsoft NBC) Say it's pants. (+1)
Computerworld - 20 things you wont like in Vista. (+1)

Updated (27/06/06) Current Microsoft Windows Vista Pants Rating: 9/10 - Almost ULTRA Pants

Foxconn Admit to breaking Chinese Labour Laws

"In what would seem to be a 180-degree reversal from last week's vehement denials concerning the Daily Mail's "iPod City" exposé, Hon Hai Precision Industry's Foxconn factory has now come forward to admit that it has indeed been in violation of Chinese labor laws. Even though the company -- which was accused of underpaying and overworking employees -- had initially threatened to take legal action over the story, ChinaCSR is now reporting that a Foxconn spokesperson has publicly copped to the fact that its workers are forced to be on duty an extra 80 hours a month, which is 44 more hours of overtime than Chinese regulations allow (or 1.5 to 2 extra hours per day depending on the length of their work week)." engadget.com

Jonathan Ross

There's a big stink about Jonathan Ross' interview of David Cameron (leader of Conservative party): a - because Jonathan Ross was rude and suggested David Cameron masterbated to Margeret Thatcher when he was younger, and b - because other conservatives don't think Mr. Cameron should have been there.

BBC end their article on it in the following way: "A BBC spokeswoman said 27 complaints had been received about the programme, with four related to Ross's interview with Cameron."

So what were the other 23 complaints about? Are they not news-worthy? :)

In other Jonathan Ross related news, he's now being paid £18 million by the BBC - is this the best way to spend people's TV license fee's - spending such a big chunk for one program / person?

Happy to pay more for greener PCs?

BBC News are reporting that we'd be happy to pay an extra £64 - £108 / $117 - $197 for an environmentally friendly PC with fewer chemicals. People in the UK were willing to pay the £64 extra, whilst people in China were willing to pay an extra £108 according to a Green-Peace report.

Okay, this raises some questions, 1. What were the base prices for PCs. Ie were the UK PCs £400 to start with meaning people would be happy to pay £464 total price? In China, what is the base price of a PC, £200? Less? More? 2. Can people in the UK / China afford to pay this much extra for a PC, ie, the study is a theoretical study, when it actually comes to the crunch when people are handing over money for a new PC, will they be as happy then to part with the extra dosh? 3. Poor US people can't afford cheap PCs, how can people in China afford an extra £108 for a PC when wages for a lot of people are around £15 per month?

Even if there are environmentally friendly PCs available for an extra £64/£108, what will stop budget manufacturers continuing to produce the cheapest PC possible? (You know the people who try market £300 / $300 PCs in Walmart / Dell Newspaper Offers) - And how about paying more for products that aren't manufactured in sweatshops?

Link

iPod powered laser system.

What will they think of next?

Futurama Season 4 only £11.97 Delivered

From Amazon UK/Jersey. All the other Futurama, Family Guy and Simpsons seasons are dirt cheap too!

Sexed Robots

Wow. Robots that wander around looking for another robot to have sex with. Have a look at the video on the site. They are great. Via Boing Boing.

Link

The cloud appreciation society.

No,really.

The Bad People List - Updated

FAI - steal take money off poor people to the tune of $1500 extra for a $300 PC. Why don't people just buy a second hand PC or save up $300 for an emachines from Walmart?

Foxconn / China.
McDonalds.
Carol Vorderman.
Apple.

Foxconn (Apple, Dell Manufacturers) Deny Sweatshop

Engadget have details stating that Foxconn have denied the claims of them running a sweatshop called "ipod city", where people work 15 hours days. Foxconn state that they pay the government required minimum wage. Apple say they will investigate the claims.

Did you see the program on BBC2 on Tuesday at 9pm about Women in China, some of the women worked 8am till 8pm in factories and weren't allowed to talk all day. Naturally they hated there jobs but had no choice but to work there in order to make enough money to live. The program stated that China has the highest suicide rate for women in the world. So perhaps even though companies do follow China's laws regarding labour, perhaps the laws aren't enough to prevent intolerable conditions?

Batteries Included

Batteries Included is an awesome blog about the batteries that come with stuff. "This site is a gallery of batteries — those strange, off-brand batteries that are included when you buy remote controls, toys, and other consumer electronics." And if you wanted to know what's inside batteries, then this site seems to cover them all. Image uploading to blogger totally doesn't work with opera. so here's a link to a pic.

PS - They do battery recycling in my area now, when they give up paper recycling bags, they also give us battery recycling bags. Neat!

Linkage

TiVo on your mobile.

To watch the World Cup in ASCII enter: telnet ascii-wm.net 2006 in to the command line shell.

Alan Partridge The Movie (2007)

Movie expected 2007!. He's even got his own my space account.

Boing Boing: Man lives on monkey chow for less than $1 per meal

Boing Boing: Man lives on monkey chow for less than $1 per meal

Wired News: A Sixth Sense for a Wired World

Wired News: A Sixth Sense for a Wired World: "What if, seconds before your laptop began stalling, you could feel the hard drive spin up under the load? Or you could tell if an electrical cord was live before you touched it? For the few people who have rare earth magnets implanted in their fingers, these are among the reported effects -- a finger that feels electromagnetic fields along with the normal sense of touch." Gross, but cool. via BoingBoing.

Stuff On My Cat

Stuff On My Cat. It's like pictures of cats with like, stuff on them.

Spore - Best game in the world ever?

Spore is a new game like: Populus, Sim City, Civilisation, ECO (the old Atari ST game), all rolled into one freakin' awesome game. It's due out Q4 2006.

It starts with you creating your own life form at a microscopic level, and it evolving into a creature you control (like ECO), then you control a tribe of your creatures (like Populus), then you build a city (like Sim City), then you conquer other peoples (like Civ), and then you travel space setting up other planets and civilisations...

There's a long (35minute) walk through of every single mode in the game on Google video here from 2005 - it's definitely worth watching. For more recent videos see the links on the right to see how the graphics and interface have improved.

Is it a Mac or a light sabre?

Court rejects Apple bid to bust blogs - Engadget

Court rejects Apple bid to bust blogs - Engadget: "a California appeals court decided against Apple today in the company's bid to force bloggers to turn over sources who leaked information about the Apple product codenamed 'Asteroid' way in 2004 (remember that?). This follows an earlier ruling where the trial judge sided with Apple, after which the EFF intervened and appealed the case. Apple had argued that the websites in question, PowerPage and Apple Insider, were not entitled to the same rights as traditional journalists -- and even if they were, they still didn't have the right to protect sources who leaked trade secrets. But the appeals court roundly rejected both notions as contrary to California's reporter's shield law and the state Constitution, effectively stating that it wasn't Apple's place to decide what constitutes 'legitimate journalism,' and that Apple could have investigated the leak of trade secrets themselves without drawing the websites into the mix."

favourite comment about the above: "Apple now think that they're so special that we're all dying for leaked info.. Sorry to say but Apple is soooo insignificant in the PC market it's not even funny and the whole ipod craze will be a short-lived fad as mobile phones start having Gigs of memory.

They should be happy that we even bother."

Not related to the article above, but related in that it's apple related: Steve Jobs says: "Buy a new ipod every year" link.

PC World test the new black MacBook - pictured above - the comments are funny. Someone points out: (paraphrased) Why should we have to pay a premium for a black coloured laptop that looks just like a PC laptop?

Google coming to a Dell near you...

BBC News - Google have outbid Microsoft in order to win a deal to put the Google software and homepage on Dell computers... apparently the deal could have cost google billions of dollars. Good news for anyone who buys Dell, in my opinion, Google is the lesser of two evils when it comes to software and homepages. I'd much rather see a google page instead of MSNs site. Both Dell and Google can make money out of the deal - most likely through google ads - apparently this made firefox a load of money when people used the firefox google homepage search.

Happy Friday Everybody!

"There was a moment, as George Bush watched Tony Blair fielding questions on Iraq, when the president's eyes actually seemed to be shining with affection and respect. Of course, it may have been a trick of the harsh television lights." awww...

Windows Vista? Is it pants? How pants?

"Windows Vista Starter - Because of the unprecedented pirating of Microsoft Windows, this low priced version offers a legal alternative to using unauthorized copies. It will be severely limited, for example only allowing a user to launch at most, three applications with a user interface at once, will not accept incoming network connections, and physical memory is limited to 256 MB." From here.

Double-U-Tee-efff? In the words of Ali G: What the Chuff is that? (in reference to a wildebeast) Okay, I can accept that someone may only wish to use a couple of programs, say Email, Internet and Word maybe, although that would be majorly annoying, "sorry you can't open your mp3 playing software, because you already have too many programs open", but limiting phsical memory to 256mb? are they [microsoft] the most retarded company in the world? do they wish to make every computer in the world into the slowest thing ever?

And Windows Vista Beta 2 Sucks - I'm thinking that we need a pants rating like for example, seriously sucky, worst thing ever, would be a pants rating of 10, and a pants rating of 1 would be "this product is somewhat pants". 5 would be "this product is pure pants".

We're having a baby!

Here they are pictured with a digital camera. Click to make bigger. Baby name suggestions welcomed.

New MacBook

Available in black or white. Seems to replace the ibook. Link. 13" widescreen, dual core. From $1099/£749 (roughly more than double a basic (single core) Dell Inspiron 1300 from £349).

Apple Clones are Back

Dodgy ones made out of Pentium 4s and an Intel version of OS X. With fresh fun names: PowerPC G6 Macintosh and Apple G6 Macintosh-Clone Computer.

Guy Kewney interview

Oh wow. This is just the best tv. ever. The BBC interviewed someone who they thought was Guy Kewney, only it was "Guy Goma", a Business Studies graduate, in reception because he was applying for a high level IT job with the BBC - when a studio manager mistook him for the expert. He answers all the questions - he assumed the whole thing was some kind of initiation prank.
Anyway, head over to the bbc website and you can watch the video in realplayer or wmp.

wanted: sheep

Aparently the best thing for keeping grass short would be sheep. link.
Quote: It currently costs about £2,000 and takes up to 180 hours to cut the grass at the tidal barrage on the River Ouse.
By my powers of deduction the people that cut the grass are paid over ten pounds an hour before tax. I expect the farmer will not be paid so well for supplying sheep.

Skype is great skype is fab. It lets you talk to your mates on the internet for free. You can do video calls too if you've got a webcam. joshwa 429 is my username if you wanna look me up.

this post sponsored by youtube.

cool beatbox dude. avi file, right click, save target as, or alternatively watch it on you tube. really pleasing to watch with all the facial expressions. and have you seen the pokemon music video (10 million views) - it's very funny. did you know youtube spend about $1 million a month on bandwidth? great video showing the evolution of dance - features mc hammer, and big butts :)

random links disease

voices. carol vorderman is bad. mac dude gets enough donations, and buys his mac - it only took him 2 days less than a month!

Another independant Computer Manufacturer Dies

Silicon Graphics have filed for bankruptcy. I guess it's because people can do graphics on Windows / Linux generic boxes these days.

Pentax *ist DL Digital SLR Review

Matthew Waller has written a review of the Pentax *ist DL Digital SLR at DigiCamReview - the 6 megapixel digital SLR is one of the cheapest available, available for around £400 with kit lens. The Pentax is one of the smallest digital SLRs available, and has some of the smallest lenses available, including a pancake 40mm (~61mm equivalent) lens. With Digital SLRs available for around £400 - can you see yourself buying one in the near future? Or does the price, and size put you off?

Seti at Home Enhanced! What? Where? When? Why?

Official Details. What? - Key facts: Takes more processing power, ie work takes longer to do, as it is processing more data. "Credit" is calcuated differently based on "actual number of floating point operations done". Optimised versions will be available as it's all open source, BUT they aren't available yet. When? - the data / program will be dished out automatically. Why? - the eternal search for nothingness in space continues...

Where? - Post sponsored by: Waller Seti Effort (official stats), Onestupid Seti page, Joshwaller.co.uk Seti Benchmarks.

Acorn Computers to be reborn as laptop maker - Engadget

Acorn Computers to be reborn as laptop maker - Engadget - Four laptops from 12" to 17". Probably just rebadged, as per nearly every other laptop in the world, but cool name for Acorn fans.

Apple MacBook Pro Bad

Apple put too much thermal paste on, and now want to sue websites who provide evidence - whats worrying are the official instructions actually state to use a whole tube of thermal paste per cpu! Apple have faulty batteries as well. So there. ;)

Sell your old phone for money... (plus more thrifty-ness)

Martin's Money Tips tells you how to sell your old mobile phone for maximum profit.

Need an old/cheap/free computer? Build your own out of wood.

Shane Beales - Living Genius

A chap I know, Shane Beales, is a flipping musical genius. You can sign up to "Project 52" for £20, and you'll get 52 songs, 1 per week. Each one is a flipping gem! Rather than buying some pap for £15, and enjoying 1 out of the 15 tracks, why not spend £20 and enjoy all the tracks? (even if you don't enjoy most of the tracks, with 52 tracks, you've got a VERY good chance of finding 15-20 tracks you absolutely love!). There are 2 free songs to give you an idea of his music style...

MacBook Pro is "Bitchin"

"In regards to the recent 17-inch MacBook Pro's release, Jobs let everyone know, "Everyone wants a MacBook Pro because they are so bitchin’." Thanks for that, Steve. Jobs also mentioned the possible demise of the CRT in their lineup, due to environmental concerns and their general lack of bitchin-ness."

Quote from Engadget, Steve Jobs at MacWorld. Also in these articles Steve Jobs says Media Center Apple should be soon.

Atari UK promotion...

When I first read this, I thought it was talking about an Atari branded laptop... unfortunately it's just a Rockdirect laptop with some Dungeons and Dragons graphics on it, used to promote Atari's new computer game... perhaps one day Atari will produce Atari branded hardware again...?

New ultra efficient car...

157mpg deisel engine car pictures on the site - super aerodynamic.

Intel Core Duo (2.16ghz overclocked to 3.4ghz) beats overclocked P4 at 7.2ghz link.

Waller Seti Effort Stats

With lovely pie charts, graphs, and figures. Link. Team's world rank is no. 780 - pretty impressive!

2 seater mini

mini with only 2 seats. Wonderful.

Apple - MacBook Pro 17"

Apple - MacBook Pro 17" Released Only £1999.

map of the internet!

funny pic: here.. would be fun to see how other people see the internet.

150 Mac Minis and a Tour Round Microsoft Mac Division

They have 150 Mac Minis, and use KVMs, and Apple Remote Desktop to remote control them, using Apple's 30" screen, they can monitor 50 Mac Mini's at a time. (Pictured). For testing purposes they keep every single Apple Mac revision every released. This tour shows you heaps of pictures of it and it's a great read! (hmmm blogger image uploading doesn't seem to work with opera...)

Other Tech related stuff: Earth Day today - how to recycle your computer, and another link - how to recycle your computer. New Linux PC only costs $146 (AMD 400 mhz/800mhz Godson 2C processor, a 40-gigabyte hard drive, and 256 MB of RAM and running a Linux variant called the Thinix OS.). Rumour that next major Mac OS X will let you run Windows Apps natively in OS X. Intel Core Duo tested, results say It's the best CPU ever!.

Windows Updates Gone Wrong - You may have noticed loads of Windows updates recently, apparently they are bad... they are to do with Internet Explorer, and can break it's ability to work with add-ons, such as videos in windows etc - in my case, IE will crash after watching a video. Well, you can undo the damage Windows updates have done, with this patch here.

intel iMac - a bit like a laptop

Unsurprisingly (but possibly worth knowing), an intel-apple that can run windows software runs windows (application) software at about the speed of an intel-laptop by dell or similar. see here (Macworld.com). Note how these aren't game tests, also note that the laptop is better than the desktop.
Now see here for some game tests. Looks like the graphics card in the iMac is pretty good too, beating nVidia GeForce 6600 in Far Cry. whatever that means.

On a slightly related topic.. assuming you were waiting for Photoshop to be re-released for Mac OS X on intel, wouldn't it make sense for many people to make the switch and go to using the windows pc version full time.. The last copy of Photoshop we have comes with an either OS installer CD, so would work fine on the PC.

The Smudge of Ashen Fluff: Sia - Breathe Me video

The Smudge of Ashen Fluff: Sia - Breathe Me video - "an amazing clip created with 2,500 Polaroids, proverbially making this video worth 2,500,000 words."

The Great Giant Creme Egg Petition Petition

The Great Giant Creme Egg Petition Petition

Lenovo Droping IBM Faster Than Expected

You know how Lenovo (big Chinese PC manufacturer) went and bought IBM's PC division - well they've been releasing new IBM branded and Lenovo branded laptops for a while now... and foolishly they are going to drop the IBM name from there products... How stupid can you get? IBMs are well known to produce good laptops year after year after year, in fact, if you buy an old laptop, then a very good choice, is an old IBM laptop... getting rid of the IBM thinkpad series will give Lenovo less brand recognition than companies like Acer and ASUS, (Acer and ASUS produce decent OEM (no-name) style laptops that are generally reliable, as they tend to manufacture stuff for everybody else, including Apple). So when the IBM Thinkpad brand is gone, who will be left with a good name in the laptop market? Toshiba and Dell from the looks of things...

read more | digg story (updated link)

Help me become a switcher!

I love the name of this blog: Make me switch. This guy wants to get a mac, but he's broke, therefore he figures that the 1 billion people on the internet must have enough spare change to give him enough money to buy a mac. Why oh why didn't I think of this? Oh yeah, I forgot, I am happy in my PC world. I like the bare faced cheek of this guy and can see him being successful (assuming paypal don't steal his money).

weird picture

weird picture (worksafe!) here. I hadn't seen this one before.

America to attack Iran?

New York Times Article suggesting that America are likely to use Nuclear weapons in order to disable Iran's nuclear power, and other military, and chemical targets.

Gospel of Judas?

Apparently it's surfaced after 1,700 years. Quite interesting stuff.

"For that reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers. The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus, but as his most favored disciple and willing collaborator."

Deeply troubling? I don't think it really matters how Jesus was betrayed, Judas was chosen with God knowing that Judas would betry Him - because Jesus needed someone to betray Him, whether Judas was asked to or not, how does it matter?

"At least one scholar said the new manuscript does not contain anything dramatic that would change or undermine traditional understanding of the Bible."

If anything, these historic documents simply add more proof and evidence of Jesus' existance - just like historic books treat historic records of Ceasar as fact.

Comment from Digg: "There is no claim that this work was actually written by Judas. That is part of the point the theologians are making, namely, that this and other gnostic works show that early Christianity and its precepts were debated even as early as 200 AD. That doesn't mean that the events that are recorded actually occurred."

Apple - Boot Camp

Apple - Boot Camp - Apple now let you install Windows on Intel Macs.

30years of Apple, Pursuit Force

Engadget have put up a list of the good, bad and ugly from Apple over the last 30 years. Good read.

And if you're into car games, then this looks very cool! Pursuit Force. It's like a modern day Chase HQ.

Gone Digital Yet?

What digital camera do you own? If you don't have one, then check this out: 4mp, 3x optical zoom £36. If you have one but want to upgrade to a brand new, latest model, then have a look at these: £109 white, £99 silver (exc vat + post) - Sanyo 6mp, 3x optical zoom, 3" screen - Sanyo make digicams for 3 of the top brand manufacturers!

Konica Panoramic Cameras (at Lomography 3.0)

.Lomography 3.0~ / _ Konica Minolta photographic are no more, as of tomorrow / today (31st). There are some GREAT deals on their digital cameras, the Dimage Z5 (5mp, 12x optical zoom, proper anti-shake CCD, 2" screen, £199 or less!), the Z6 (6mp version around £206*), the Dynax/Maxxum 5D DSLR with proper anti-shake CCD, etc. Plus, these COOL, retro panorama disposable cameras have appeared on Lomography.com. Pretty cheap too, for serious panoramic photos :) Go back to film! :D

* more megapixels isn't always better than less megapixels! (aparently the Z6 is worse than the Z5)

Best of Digg

Solving Sudoku with SQL
Autistic or Just a Geek, take the test
33mhz Powerbook running as a webserver
42 really is the answer
freak accident, lake loses 3.5 billion gallons of water in 3 hrs
Camera + GPS + Google Maps

OMNIZERO.2 trounces at Robo-One - Engadget

OMNIZERO.2 trounces at Robo-One - Engadget - proper fighting robots. Video as well! (direct link to video of fighting robots here)

Digital Camera for Sale

Anyone know anyone wanting to buy a digital camera? £120 for a Casio Z120. Let me know!

london uses photo text messaging to beat grafitti, junk, burnt cars etc.

apple (beatles music label) sue Apple computer company for the third time.

SETI@Home in financial trouble!

Commercial support for SETI@Home has largely disappeared, and has largely run out of current funds. They need to raise $750,000 to keep running for another year. Without donations, the project will be forced to shut down.

read more | digg story

poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

pooh sticks real-world community game.

no way. that is frikkkin amazing.

norfolk news. mini.

Music Videos Scrambled Hackz

engadget - dude gets music videos, enters then all into a database, speaks into microphone, database finds the nearest match to what the guy said or sang, plays it back. cool video to watch featuring the legend MC Hammer.

portable urinal for long journeys

holds 1.25 gallons (gizmodo). i had this idea about 3 or more months ago, although my idea involved a container built into your pants that you could empty the next time you go to the loo. :)

Is it a cat? Is it a rat? Is it a kangaroo rat? You decide. After watching the video, it basically looks like the cat (and kittens) have adopted a small kangaroo rat.

Too much stuff?

"Unashamedly "disposable" cheap goods, you could argue, are turning us into traders rather than curators of our possessions. It is another victory for capitalism: we have internalised the unsentimental stock control of the modern retailer. Juliet Schor, an American economist and leading critic of the bargain boom, thinks this new form of ownership is less pleasurable than the old one. "The psychologically satisfying process of personalisation that occurs when products are acquired and retained, is truncated," she writes in a recent essay. "Attachment is briefer and there is the constant pain of divestiture [getting rid of things]." What individual possessions represent to us is, she says, "more externally driven" - by marketing and advertising - and "less under the control of the individual consumer"."

Interesting article over at BoingBoing. Original Guardian Article.

It makes you wonder where things are heading, if you can buy a brand new Dell laptop for £289 with DVDRW, etc (£336 for 15.4" widescreen), and a multi-region DVD player for £20, then what will happen to the second hand market, especially for cheap stuff like DVD players... (should I buy one with MPEG4/DIVX playback, or a free scart lead?)

Guinness Surger - Gizmodo

Guinness Surger - Gizmodo Watch the video here it's Very cool.

Laptop advice?

Dead laptop - please advise.

BMW 318 Traps Driver at 130mph on the A1

From Digg. BBC News article with link to radio interview. What to do if it happens to you. This comment explains the steering setup.

1998 BMW 318 Automatic - accellerator sticks, whilst on the A1, brakes burn out so car gets stuck at 130mph until he crashes into a roundabout. Walks away with a few scratches. Guy has spikey blonde hair.

Link

Cool three dimensional street artwork.

Where have you been - UK edition

Hey, did josh post something about countries he'd been to? Here's the England, Wales and Scotland edition. link

Apple officially declares the end of the iMac G5

"With immediate effect, the following product and it's relate configurations are "End of Life" (EOL) and no further orders can be taken," Apple explains. PowerMac G5 is still around - until they announce new Intel versions I guess...

read more | digg story

I really like this

This is a map of all the places I've visited:


create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Link

VEOH started as a site to host home movies but now hosts free legal video downloads - old movies, music etc. Currently in Beta.

Link

GP2X is a mobile device designed for game console emulation.

Microsoft Origami - Whats the Point?

Microsoft have invented this "new" thing called Origami - it's like a Tablet PC only without the keyboard (Think Atari Stylus, 1991), and it's smaller. But not as small as an Apple Newton (1993).

What is Origami, here's what they look like, and here's another one with specs.

They feature a 7" screen, and to be honest, I don't really give a crap. I'm just posting this because it's technology related, it's something new, but really I don't see any point in them. The TabletPC wasn't especially successful, and was MORE useful than an "Origami", because it could be a normal laptop too with a keyboard, these new Origami things, would you buy one? I know that no, you wouldn't actually buy one, but would anyone buy one? They have GPRS available to them, so could be used as car-sat-nav systems BUT so can any cheap mobile phone with the right kit for MUCH cheaper.

It's like a product but without the reason. We all know why we have a toaster for example. Perhaps if you wanted to watch DVDs in your car on the 7" screen? Can you think of uses for the Origami that can't be done by something else, cheaper / better?

"Industry observers note that Microsoft appears to be breaking considerable pricing ground with Origami, but they note that it's still unclear what the specific use of Origami will be, or which, if any, existing devices it will replace. There is some thought that its initial incarnation might appeal primarily to gadget aficionados, rather than mainstream consumers." more blurb, background info, etc.

joshwaller.co.uk blog: Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter

have you tried: Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter

"Always good to see wallpaper scrapers being used where they belong… in the kitchen."

eggs bacon chips and beans. the blog, which became the book*, which became the bbc news article. * the book was also stacked right next to this book in one store.

Link

Biological imaging algorithm found to solve Sudoku puzzles.

All of them.

CD-WOW Offer?

Did the CD-WOW offer work for you Phil? I hasn't worked for me.

I drew this pig:
Click to view my test results

A Brief History of Handheld Video Games - Engadget

A Brief History of Handheld Video Games - Engadget Features the Atari Lynx. Sweet.

10 Ways Dick Cheney can Kill You

old now, but funny. background

YouTube - Real Life Simpsons Intro

YouTube - Real Life Simpsons Intro - This is cool.

Boing Boing: Long-lost Penn and Teller videogame for download

Boing Boing: Long-lost Penn and Teller videogame for download: "The most infamous part was 'Desert Bus,' a 'VeriSimulator' in which you drive a bus across the straight Nevada desert for eight hours in real-time. Then you drive it home. Also, I'd read the bus veers to the right, so you can't just leave the joypad propped up. The rumor was that if you won the game, you got one point."

Internet Explorer 7: Beta 2 Preview

Don't install IE7 Beta2 - it's rubbish. It doesn't even display (some) webpages properly. Tabbed browsing in it is crap, and it's just generally very crappy. IE6, Opera, Firefox, and Flock are way better. If you did / do install it, here's the uninstall instructions. You'll need them. Internet Explorer 7: Beta 2 Preview

Apple - Mac mini

Apple - Mac mini - now with added intel dual core or single core pentium m. The previous Mac Mini used the old G4 chip - which was crap compared to everything newer (G5, AMD, Intel etc) - so the upgrade is pretty significant, especially as the Pentium M based chips ABSOLUTELY ROCK. £449 for 1.5ghz Single Core / £599 for 1.66ghz Dual Core.

Episode Six The IT Crowd is downloadable

Boing Boing: Episode six of awesome sysadmin sitcom The IT Crowd is downloadable - various sources there. you can get it directly from channel4, and you may be able to get it here in the future. Bittorrent may be the quickest?

Link

If you would like free KFC (I'm a vegetarian but I still can't imagine why anyone would eat it) then you must decipher the hidden messages in their adverts.

google pages..

yeah. new. exciting. haven't tried it yet: Google Pages (beta)
Matt.

This is a trip, This is not music

If you remember the tune, then you might be interested to know that the original lyrics are from 1988. The version I know is from '92 - it's by Acen, Trip II to the Moon (pt 3)

science : next generation.

hey. was spending too much time online today. so on the bbc you'll see that ibm have managed to do the etching on the silicon to about 20nm.. well anyway 3x better than what we have now. i could say what that all means but as far as i understand it, just means faster processors, maybe more memory in the same space.. you know.. progress progress progress (ie; cheaper smaller mp3 players, better 3d and video for mobile phones..)
and also (separate topic).
they (sorry, the police/investigators at crime scenes) can figure out what your last name from your dna (so long as you have the last name of your father), and that will help them narrow down who done it.
So if your name's smith, this won't affect your life in the slightest.

Boing Boing: Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop

Boing Boing: Video explains the world's most important 6-sec drum loop - very good well worth listening too. (not much to watch!)

blogger went wrong

blogger seems to have deleted a couple of posts from their database.

i spent a good while editing this post only to find that it reverted back to the way it was 8 months ago.

Adam added this post only to find it vanish the next day.

Whats really weird is that the web page is actually there on the blogspot server, but the edit posts database shows the old version (in my case) or no post at all (in adam's case). Very annoying none the less! And now that I've posted this, another post about the 5th episode of the IT Crowd being online now, has vanished!

Blogger Status has the details...

Spaced (Quotes)

Right, I frikkin love Spaced (box set series 1 and 2 used to be around £20), best comedy ever. There's some great quotes online at IMDB. There's been rumours that they may do a 3rd series - although I'm not so sure. Anyway, buy it! You can get it from Play (£18) if you're lucky. You may be able to find it on ebay as well.

PS - If you're a fan of "The Peep Show", then checkout The Mitchell And Webb Situation, out on the 20th Feb, it's got the same guys from The Peep Show doing stuff before The Peep Show exsisted.

Switch from Firefox to Opera

So Firefox 1.5 - it's slow, uses lots of memory (currently 87mb), always trys to save stuff to your desktop*, crashes more than previous versions, and is using 45-71% of my CPU simply because I'm trying to download 4 things at the same time!

It's known to have memory leak problems, and people have even written articles on how to fix the problems. But I think I'd rather switch to opera for it's tabbed browsing goodness, it's nice download manager, and it's lovely "I remember where you were last time you used me" feature.

* yes I know you can get round this, but I don't like how it defaults to your desktop

Will Apple Adopt Windows?

Column from PC Magazine: Will Apple Adopt Windows? - Interesting speculation that could put Apple in direct competition with Dell (World's no.1 PC seller).

Free 3D game - Rumble Box

"Rumble Box is a fast paced 3D action beat-em-up with a unique premise: all of the characters are made of simple objects which stay around in the level even after the character is defeated. The objects pile up, changing the gameplay landscape and altering your combat tactics. This is the most fun I've had with a PC game in quite a while..." Apparently this games great, it's free, and it's a fairly small download (11.5mb), works for me :)

read more | digg story

14+ money saving computer user ideas

"Below are some money saving ideas focused on the internet and computing. All of these are ones we've tried ourselves or are in the process of trying. Some really good tips here, I just saved myself $30 per month." (working link)

Here's some more, from the comments on Digg.com:
"1. Build your own computer
2. Use freeware/open source software
3. Split the cost of the internet with your neighbors using wireless (And screw the cable company if this is against their TOS)"

read more | digg story

Awesome Good free Simcity clone

"LinCity-NG is a City Simulation Game. It is a polished and improved version of the classic LinCity game. We have created a new iso-3D graphics engine, with a completely redone and modern GUI. For windows, linux and in source." Windows people can download it here. (39mb)

read more | digg story - It seems good, but if you already own SimCity 2000 or SimCity 3000 why not just stick to them?

Best Thing in the World EVER!

Video of Quad-Bike / Transformer (Robots in disguise) Real life, working robotic transformer, that turns into a walking robot! This thing is FREEKIN AWESOME! (Sorry exclamation marks are justified this time!)

Atari At Death's Door (again)

"35% decline in sales, the CFO just resigned, the bank ended its credit, the stock plummeted. This looks like the end for Atari." (again - note this isn't really Atari, this is Infogrames, who bought Atari from Hasbro simply to use the name)

read more | digg story

Intel 64 bit Chips - Intel Shows Off Its Quad Core

Intel Core Duo is 64bit apparently and Intel gave the first glimpse of a quad-core chip coming next year! (link below)

read more | digg story

THE IT CROWD!

Episode Four Online! (argh! using exclamation marks is contageous!) I don't want to spoil the surprise but highlight this if you don't care too much: the smiley one out of the mighty boosh is in this episode / episode 4,.

Interesting Links from Digg and Boing Boing:

I so want one of these, check out this video of it in action.

Matrix based on Dark City?

"Antitrust Case Against Apple Approved!!!" - A new ruling has paved the way for an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. (too many exclamation marks again) Link: read more | digg story

this is rude but makes me laugh everytime the little dudes pixelated wang flicks the bread up!

Top 30 mistakes made by new Mac users

"So Macs are easier to use than PCs? Bouncing off a post from The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Dan Warne has summarised the top 30 mistakes made by new Mac users. Surprisingly, quite a number of the mistakes can be traced back to usability problems in Mac OS X itself."

Why do people think that Mac OS X is flawless?! Why is it so surprising that it's not perfect?

read more | digg story

Helicopter shots of Mexico City neighborhoods - stunning and unreal.

A former Mexico City helicopter pilot has posted a stunning gallery of his aerial photos of the city and environs. Some of these photo's are amazing! Found at Digg, the only problem I've spotted with digg headlines is excessive use of exclamation marks - this one had two, which is two too many.

read more | digg story