Sunday, July 13, 2003

Police Sunglasses for sale!.
IBM Busy downloading the web. Yes all of it. "It is an operation made up of about a 1000-node Intel Linux cluster and half a Petabyte of storage, according to Carlson." more people with big hard drives.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

More Windows Security Issues They even effect Windows 98. (as well as Win NT4 , 2000 , XP etc)
Laptops vs Normal PCs Laptops are cool, they're small, portable, but aren't much use [as they may get too hot, or wear the fans out] for things that require 100% CPU time 24/7, such as SETI or UD, as they're not really designed for that kind of use. Also they're a bit too expensive compared to general PCs. Here's information about a new VIA C3 Laptop CPU and motherboard, and also an $800 Linux Laptop. You could get a Dell 2ghz celeron laptop for $749 though. Laptops may not be suitable as a full time replacement for your desktop pc.

But if you want a smaller PC, you could always get a Shuttle PC [starting at �150 inc vat for case + motherboard], then you could have a fast CPU, and use it 100% and it'd still be small. So basically, whilst it would be cool and convienient to have a laptop, I think with the compromises that have to be made, it may be more useful to have a Shuttle PC, as you can still have a high performance in a small package.

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

nada (software) | very nice (mac mods very impressive, especially ze cube) | very funny (pic)
Got a spare machine doing nowt? Or not using your CPU to 100%? Why not do UD, and help find a cure for Cancer?. (Also, why not join this team?)
AMD Athlon 64 release date Sept 22nd wooo! here's some pricing information. I wonder whether you'll be able to do dual CPU systems with them, or whether you would have to buy an Opteron for that. VIA release new mobile 11watt CPU. Also, something maybe more relevant to us "old-skool" AMD'ers, a Gadget (another link) that lets you use the latest AMD Barton CPUs on old KT133/266 motherboards. (some people say that a new motherboard would be cheaper than this device though)
You know how there's "hot" mail [hotmail.com] and "yahoo" mail [yahoo.com] - I think Royal Mail [royalmail.com] should do web based email too :)

Monday, July 07, 2003

"I have this final say in my tree. It is special in that a lot of people trust my tree. So some people will not use it if it is not my tree. That is a minority. But most people end up using various appendages. My tree is really not. Yes I have the final say on my tree. There is always this forking but there is always this joining. There is more forking than there is joining. But that just means that there are all these dead branches that not end up not being interesting. My branch is to some degree, you could think of it as the trunk of the tree. People try to join back into my tree."

Torvalds on Linux, SCO and IBM article [silicon valley]
steve says:
wots bruce almighty?

Matt says:
a film

Matt says:
Theres this bloke, and he goes down to a cookie store

and at the cookie store, theres a lady and a man, and the man likes to pick his nose

and the lady had recently had the environemental health people coming around,

and they said there were rat droppings.

and she said no they are chocolate chip cookies.

i mean chocolate chips,

so anyway they cleaned up the shop and they needed to attract more customers

so they decided to make the biggest cookie in the world.

And our friend Bruce, he's gone to the cookie store to report the story,

and interview the lady.

but after he's done the interview, he misses the meeting where they decide whether to put it on tv or not.

and they decide not to.

so he's not very happy.

but his wife thinks its a very good story. but he's still not happy. he wants a better job. he wants to be the 'anchorman' the one that says the news and stays inside and reads the autocue.

but his enemy at the news station, gets the job of being anchorman, while he is reporting from niagara falls

Bruce is very upset and tells the other guy what he thinks of him

so Bruce gets sacked.

and then he tries to help a homeless guy that's being bullied.

but he then gets beaten up too.

he starts to ask God why all this stuff's happening.

And God gives him a phone number and an address for him to contact him.

They get together, and Bruce gets the opportunity to have a go at being God for a while.

Bruce doesn't do a very good job.

But they all live happily ever after the end.

steve says:
what is the parable of the story?

Matt says:
That Gods doing a fine job, but he can't mess with people's will, and he cant force anyone to love him.

and that some of our prayers aren't good. We don't always need what we ask for.

And that there's nothing wrong with a bit of manual labor.

And Bruce is only interested in his career unless he is hit by a truck, which turns his priorities right around, so then he settles into his regular job.

Steve says:
interesting but what does the cookie represent?
Matt says:
"that's the way the cookie crumbles." that was his saying at the end of the news reports.

Maybe i didn't really get the deeper meaning.

steve says:
maybe the cookie represents his life. built up high and strong but yet it quite lacks its whole being and is missing its centre ingredient of a chocolate chip rich taste. In time because the cookie is happy where he is and does not self assess his own life or have vision. The cookie gradually is taken away and fades. smashed in time with other things and cramped out the cookie fades and the perfect circle cycle is smashed beyond repair. Yet only at the end does bruce realise this and through realising what was stolen from him does bruce redeem himself and it is as if a new circle has begun. he has a pathway set beck towards the route that God has sustained. The crumbling of the cookie is the same paul had on his vision and therefore bruce sees differently. Infact he becomes rededicated,rebirthed in God and ready to follow christ unto the end

Train crash drama somewhere between Burnley and Hebden Bridge.
http://www.baddesigns.com/ A scrapbook of illustrated examples of things that are hard to use because they do not follow human factors principles.
BBC News decide to write about the Mac G5, nearly 2 weeks after the thing was announced!
"Adobe Systems plans to announce new versions of its video-editing software Monday, including a Windows-only application that marks another high-profile defection from Apple Computer's Macintosh operating system. " - Which is interesting, considering they were at the Apple Keynote thing. But I guess it makes sense since Apple are now making that kind of software for the Mac themselves. Doesn't really sound too good for Apple "I think you're going to find that more and more--if Apple's in a software market, third-party vendors are going to skip it.", well in one sense, it's good in that Apple make the money from selling software, but in another sense, they're driving away software support, which is bad. Adobe also endorse the Intel P4.
the 118118 experience some silly videos.

Sunday, July 06, 2003

The Country of Estonia believes having the Internet is a human right. Also, here's a 16mb vid from the 90's about why you shouldn't copy games. (it's a bit scary and it's got some guy rapping, it's 9minutes 37seconds.)

Movies: Steve of [H]ard|OCP says this: "I have seen some horrible ones like Charlie�s Angels, but the BEST MOVIE of the summer so far is Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Went to see it last night and it was money well spent. Lots of good laughs and great action stuff too. If you are wondering what to go see this summer�go see T3."

I watched Sweet Home Alabama last night, and it's pretty good. Romantic love type film that's pretty interesting. I learnt that when lightning strikes sand it creates a beautiful glass sculpture. The girls seemed to like this film a bit more than me so it might be more of a chick flick. Elvyn, the Texan, says that the Alabama parts [in the film] are exactly like the real Alabama in America. [sorry reworded]

Saturday, July 05, 2003

Movie Reviews Bruce Almighty : Very funny. Even people who don't like Jim Carrey much would probably like this film. Quite a lot of very very funny bits that just have to be watched. Don't watch the trailer, it'll probably just spoil the best bits. Basic story, Jim Carrey thinks God's being mean to him, so Jim get's the be God for a while.

Shallow Hal Brilliant, very funny. Highly recommend this, it's out at blockbuster to rent. Got some good morals thrown in too. Basic story, an average looking guy sets his women standards too high, but someone makes it so that he see's people's inner beauty...
how can they release a new game called "the italian job" for the new film "the italian job" when there is already a game called "the italian job" available here [PC Game only �9.99 at PC World] based on the original film.

PS - (mini review of the original PC game) The PC Game is pretty cool. I don't think the driving handling is as good as CMR2/3 or Driver, but it's definitely fun and the plot sections make it more interesting. It's also got a good range of cars you can drive, such as the original mini, and a Land Rover. (you can download a demo here)
August may be a very good month for AMD:
They start selling 4 processor 'servers'
They start selling 2ghz opterons
The compilers available make opteron code run a little bit faster (34% faster than existing code compiled on their last compiler)
(of course it would be nice to see real benchmarks - this one suggests a 1.4 opteron is faster by a little or a noticeable gap than a p4 2.5ghz.)
- and with intels continuing competition with AMD (intel release 3ghz xeon July 13, 2.8ghz Xeon, 30 june), we should be able to get cheaper chips.
Did you download service pack 4 for windows?? hmm. can you guess what I'm going to say next? That's right. there are service packs now available for your service pack, otherwise known as patches. to infinity and beyond

Friday, July 04, 2003

NASA benchmark the G5 againt "dual 1ghz Xserve, a dual 1.25 ghz Powermac, a Pentium4 2 ghz, and a Pentium4 2.66 ghz" Story found at /.. Why not include an some AMD systems? Here's an interesting post. 6369497
woo lovely puppy dog sings pop song video - dude on fire don't try this at home kids! more top notch stuff in the b3ta newsletter. here.

Thursday, July 03, 2003

What do you think matt, would it be possible to use an Apple ADB Keyboard on a PC? For example the Apple keyboard that comes with the 4400...
Hoorah! dot.tk give you a Free domain, WITHOUT advertising, IF you turn off the pop-up / banner add, in the dot.tk settings for your site. Hence joshwaller.tk is now working and is pop-up / advert free!
Cheap HD's 160gig for �85 + vat !! Eee I remember when I were a lad, it cost �150 for a 3.5gig hard drive! Eee them were the days, when ya had to sell your grandma just so you could afford one!

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

Too funny: SPAM : Hormel has filed a lawsuit against Spam Arrest LLC. for endangering "substantial goodwill and good reputation" of their meat product, Spam. If Hormel wins, it could be bad news for umpteen companies that make use of the word spam in their name."
- the comments are funny:


Its a "meat-like substance"

Ok, enough! SPAM is not just "meat like." It's meat! Not the best parts I'll admit, but calling it a non-meat is just wrong.
...
The labeled ingredients on the original SPAM are chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, sugar and sodium nitrite.

A Hormel official once stated that the original source of the name SPAM was "Shoulder of Pork And haM".
...
Ok dude, you expect me to believe that there is some magical animal that contains both pork and ham?
Just thought I'd let you know, I needed to reboot my firewall / router, and now my IP address is: 62.30.21.182.
1.1ghz IBM 750GX / G3 cpu. http://www.aceshardware.com/ "Typical power dissipation is under 8 W at 1 GHz and the chip is pin-compatible with the 750FX." There's more details here. I'm not sure it actually means anything to anyone, not even the 3% of the world that uses Macs, unless Apple decide they want to use it in upgraded ibook - the only Mac still using a G3. (edit - apparently the FX is the G3 in the iBooks, so it may mean quicker iBooks.)
i've come to the conclusion that all pcs (runing windows / linux) are rubbish, and all users are thick. it's a bad combination. but it gives IT bods an annoying but potentially well payed job. gosh and we could end up working till we're 70! great.

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

microsoft bob? no really check it out. windows for warehouses? os/2? GEM? surely I'm just making it all up! I'm not. Toshiba? Making a 17" laptop? It's true. I've seen the 17" Powerbook in person, and even though it's probably the most "attractive"/"nice looking" 17" laptop you can get, it still just seems too big. Toshiba's laptop just looks wrong too - Why have a mainly silverbody, and then have a black keyboard? Why are PC Laptop makers so good at making laptops look rubbish? *cough*Compaq*cough* etc - edit : Another 17" laptop, which looks nicer and uses the extra space for a numeric keyboard.

Monday, June 30, 2003

google zeitgeist still most popular os: 1st: win98 2nd: WinXP 3rd: win2000. IE6 most popular browser... etc.
Cpu / server / 64-bit type news AMD should have released the 2ghz Opteron CPUs but they haven't yet. Apple have bargain 64-bit workstations with good performance, AMD could be there too. And there's a look at the Top 500 Supercomputers with more and more systems built from standard desktop/workstation chips in PCs. [all links from theinquirer.net] I wonder why they don't just use Via Epia systems for servers like I do.
Lesbian couple from Merseyside buy sperm over the internet in order to have a baby.

Thursday, June 26, 2003

Geek alert ! Via stop producing P4 mother boards, to concentrate on thier mini form factor boards.
new google toolbar with built in pop-up blocker and image search. and something about blogging. but i haven't tried it yet. ars technica is quite spiffy too, with a good balance of news stuff that's actually interesting. and microsoft.com have sort-of* release service pack 4 for windows 2000 which you can get here [129mb]. *when going through microsoft.com and looking at service packs it doesn't seem to be listed yet... apparently there's 669 fixes in it! That's pretty good value for money eh?
While I'm on the subject, why does Apple UK charge more for Apple's than Apple US? Here's a table showing the current prices: Note the difference, ranging from �171 extra, up to �504 extra! Just for Apple to get the Macs to the UK so that we can buy them!!

appleUS store price ($)UK � (conversion)UK store price (�)difference
g5 1.6199911971549352
g5 1.8239914361849413
g5 2x2299917952299504
ibook 12.1 800 g3 cd999598799201
ibook 12.1 900 g3 combo12997771049272
ibook 14.1 900g3 combo14998971199302
eMac 800 G4 cd799478649171
eMac 1000 G4 combo999598799201
eMac 1000 G4 super1299777999222
iMac 15" 800 G4 combo1299777999222
iMac 17" 1000 G4 super179910761449373
G4 1250 combo1299777999222
g4 2x1250 combo15999571239282
Vaguely interesting artile, it's called "No wonder people don't buy Apple Macs" the inq.

Personally I think it all comes down to price. Simple as that. In every situation of life, when someone makes the descision "I need to buy a new computer", whether in business, home, education etc, they think, well "what do I want it to do? - just the basics, internet, office stuff, maybe some games..." and then before they actually go to buy a computer they think "how much money do I have?" and already the Mac is out of the question... this guy sells some interesting products (all of which are cheaper than the cheapest Mac)... this guy also thinks Apple should lower prices of their low-end macs details here. especially considering they still sell G3 based machines (the ibook).
www.joshwaller.tk new domain. feel free to visit it. it might even work with that name and then your folder / file(s) etc. [edit - no it turns out you can't, and you have to use the "real" address of the server] also have you noticed this blog things been converted to the new blogger?

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Apple Spec Int and FP numbers. here. AMD Opteron Spec Int and FP numbers. 2CPUs Int, 2CPUs FP (I won't bother comparing 4 CPUs against 2 Apple CPUs, even though Apple seem quite happy to compare 2 G5s to 1 P4). Also if you look at the figures for the 2x Xeon 2.8ghz: Int 19.6 FP 14.7 on AMDs site vs Apples Site 2x Xeon 3.06ghz: Int 16.7 FP 11.1 you wonder why Apple are "flavouring" the benchmark results.

AMD Dual Opteron 244 Int : 26.8 FP : 26.7 vs (note Opteron is running at 1.8Ghz)
Apple Dual 2Ghz G5 Int : 17.2 FP : 15.7 vs
Intel Dual Xeon 2.8ghz Int : 19.6 FP : 14.7 (from AMDs site)
Intel Dual Xeon 3.06ghz Int : 16.7 FP : 11.1 (from Apples site)

If you can be bothered, you can confirm the AMD, and presumably Intel, results at spec.org/cpu2000. and while i'm at it: some people wonder when Linux will have more market share than Apple....?

Other sites that question the Spec scores : apple guy [slashdot waffle], AMD Zone [the inq.]. and some more comment about the performance of the G5 from a mac person. if you're not completely bored by it all yet, then there's a fairly good post here about it. and some semi-amusing pics here.

Monday, June 23, 2003

New Apple G5: some thoughts. graphics dual 2ghz G5 faster than a single P4 3ghz. (not a very fair test) in Quake 3 !!! (tee hee. it's a bit of an outdated test - i mean great if you like playing a 4 year old game all the time, but a mac that probably costs twice as much as a PC). expansion am i reading this right? you can only have 2 hard drives in there? 500gb, so that's 2 x 250gb hard drives, you could easily buy 4 or more 250gb hard drives for a PC and easily have 1Terabyte of HD space, (probably for less than the mac). performance this is quite impressive though, even the single 1.6ghz G5 is faster than the P4 in specific things. (what you do have to note is they're showing you things where the Mac wins, and they aren't going to show you were it doesn't win...)

unfortunately they still want too much money [G5 1.6 $1999 �1549 / G5 1.8 $2399 �1849 / Dual G5 2.0ghz $2999 �2299] and at the moment the store is still selling a Dual G4 1.25ghz machine for $3274!! (more than a dual G5 2.0ghz machine!) - If you watch the keynote, Steve says about how they're the only one's in the industry who do handles on the computers, well quite a lot of pcs are significantly smaller [dell from �409*] than the mac, so you don't need handles, because you can just carry it with one hand... *you can probably fit 4 of these in the space the new G5 would take up... note how they don't compare their G5 to the dual or quad AMD Opteron 64bit systems that are already out? (perhaps servers aren't personal computers though... but then there is the Sun Ultrasparc I - 64 bit. Introduced: 1995 - they don't mention that when they proclaim on www.apple.com that their G5 is the first ever 64bit Desktop Personal Computer...)
Atari make Ikaruga for the gamecube "a pixel-perfect adaptation of an original arcade game, which appeared on the Dreamcast more than a year ago" screenshots here... <sarcasm>proving that they're hip to the latest trends in game styles.</sarcasm>
"Daddy? - What's a Dreamcast??"
Live coverage of the Apple WWDC Keynote speech where Steve Jobs says things like "FreeBSD 5.0 and IPv6 will be in Panther!" and "8 weeks ago, iTunes Music Store. 5 million songs sold" you should be able to watch the video here sometime after 8pm uk time.
only 2% of people care about looks over price/performance so apple will never gain market share in the long run..
some people on the internet think the web guy got fired for leaking those apple pics. and that's why there's a web job going at apple. seems a bit mean. is this the new mac case? (people think it's a fake and that instead it will be a honeycomb grill). Also the 3.2Ghz P4 is out, with Inquirer thinking it will be the last one before the Intel P5. [which is just a 32-bit son of P4 chip, that has more legroom / scalability "Q3/Q4, based on its architecture but capable of higher frequencies"]

Friday, June 20, 2003

Apple accidentally release details of the new 64 bit machines avaliable on monday - dual 2.0ghz..
"the Power Mac G4's listed specs as including "1.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz, or Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5 Processors; up to 1 GHz processor bus; up to 8 GB of DDR SDRAM; Fast Serial ATA hard drives; AGP 8x Pro; three PCI or PCI-X expansion slots; three USB 2.0 ports; one FW800, two FW400 ports; Bluetooth & AirPort Extreme ready; optical and analog audio in and out."
"apple's new low-end professional desktop Mac will pack a 1.6 GHz PowerPC 970-- which, according to just about everything we've managed to read about the chip without falling into a deep, deep slumber, may well blow the doors off the dual 1.42 GHz G4s currently perched in Apple's top spot."
"the top of the line looks to house dual 2.0 GHz 970s, which, in addition to absolutely crushing any prior Mac performance-wise, might very well give the zippiest Wintel desktops a run for their money. What's Intel up to now, in terms of clock speed? 3 GHz? So even if we completely ignore the Megahertz Myth (like, you know, pretty much everyone else does), Apple's actually going to ship a processor that's two-thirds the clock speed of Intel's fastest. When was the last time that happened? And the fact that there are two of them in there, well, let's do some Joe Shmoe Math, shall we? Lessee, 2 + 2 = 4, and 4 = 3 + 1, so... Apple's top system must be "one faster" than the Wintel! The company's success in the marketplace is assured!"
apple's go faster soon. 2.5ghz by 2004, 4-5ghz by 2005... I wonder what speeds Intel and AMD are expecting to be at by those times? they accidentally posted the specs on the web. and here's where it says wahey, back to the days when apple claim to have the world's fastest computers...
it's friday again, which means my inbox is treated to the wonder that is the b3ta newsletter here's some funnys: man vs shed, bendy legman. er that's about it.
Lib Dems beat BNP in Burnley by 11 votes.

Thursday, June 19, 2003

linux not ready for business more details in this opinion article. here's a quote:

"However, Linux is in many ways a throwback to more primitive systems. Not only is it repeating the mistakes of its predecessors, it apparently is introducing a brand new set of problems, having to do with intellectual property."

hire electric cars in leeds for �1 per hour. sweet.
also memory management in mac os 9 and below is pants too. more here.
usb 1.1 renamed to usb 2.0 on some computers, just for the sake of it. more details here goes to show what a messed up marketing mess some of the computer marketing world is. why don't they just start calling 256mb ram sticks, 512mb ram sticks and get windows to tell you, you have twice as much memory... etc.

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

multitasking on mac os 9 and lower is a bit poor. anyone know how this compares to windows 9x ?
psycho politician wants to destroy computers..
A US senator wants to develop new technology which would remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music tracks. Hackers have wanted to do the same thing to US senators (computers) for years, but haven't yet succeeded.

and Microsoft sue spammers Microsoft said on Tuesday it had filed lawsuits against 15 alleged spammers, accusing them of clogging its computers and those of its customers with more than two billion unsolicited e-mail messages. [what i reallly reallly don't understand is why they can't pay some real programmers to just block stuff coming from these 15 spammers]

and finally Slammed! An inside view of the worm that crashed the Internet in 15 minutes.
- basically a piece of ms software was reprogrammed by a virus to send out lots of packets of UDP (ie; another kind of data to tcpip) **** to other MS sql servers and (because of the amount of data,) swamped the internet. If you know assembly you can learn from the 376 bytes that took over the world. And all because c strings end with a 0. doh!
win a celeron (4) 2.4Ghz cpu here 10 to be won, you can enter once every day. and apple decide to stop that "ibox" apple cloner way to go apple. (the big meanies)

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

google dance. find your search positions on all 9 google servers.

mushy peas close A1 give peas a chance. another funny
lovely mp3s from all those classic games on the atari st and amiga. over here once again shows that atari ST games players were let down with poor quality sound when compared to the amiga.... whilst we're on the subject of all in one pcs (such as the amiga and st) there's people trying to sell em again zerofootprintpc - funny that, I always remember people complaining about the all in one case of the atari falcon...
Pants window smasher detained
That bloke who went around in black underpants smashing windows with a shovel (I'd call it a spade) will be kept in a psychiatric hospital.

Monday, June 16, 2003

does anyone know of any free HTML web page / site making programs? or worded differently "Know any good free software to create web pages?" obviously, Frontpage, Dreamweaver etc aren't free...
woo. psychodelic desktop wallpaper, and screensaver. lovely jubbly. (set to 16bit colour screen and turn off activ desktop)
"I paid a premium for Apple equipment, because of the quality of equipment, lifespan, and service I used to get. Now I have lower quality and lower service, at a higher price." full details and has no support because he didn't buy "AppleCare" - sounds like worse treatment from Apple, than you would get with Time, at least with Time you pay a low initial cost for the PC, and then pay some money for extended "care" (eg �200 for 3yrs support) - with Apple you pay a rediculous amount for the Mac (probably twice as much for the Mac, than a Time PC would cost - eg - cheapest mac - �649.00 for an eMac - 800MHz PowerPC G4, 128MB SDRAM,40GB Ultra ATA drive,CD-ROM drive,ATI Radeon 7500,32MB DDR video memory,56K internal modem is a joke!) and then �139 for 3 years support. Sounds even worse than Dell, who the majority of the time include 3yr support as standard, and if they don't, they only want an extra �129 for 3 years support. The chap, who is also responsible for the mikado website ends the article with "Everything I do can be done on a PC, faster and cheaper."

Sunday, June 15, 2003

PCs. You may have a 3000Mhz CPU, and an 800Mhz FSB, and 1GB of ram, and the fastest graphics card money can buy, but your hard drive is still slowing everything down, which is why I think it's important to spend as much money as possible on a fast IDE hard drive with 8mb cache, and 7,200rpm. (or maybe think about SATA, or SCSI) more about performance here. some of the other stuff on that site's quite good too.
"Three years ago, it had to pay US$90,000 because 8 percent of its Microsoft software was "noncompliant," or pirated. Microsoft subsequently ran a press release and an ad campaign around Ernie Ball's infringement. Infuriated by how the company was treated, Ernie Ball executives decided to clean house." they are moving to Linux, but is linux going to stay free forever? especially considering all [sco vs. everyone] the lawsuits [open group vs. apple] and issues [gpl vs. sco] going on.
some apple news slashdot, and the reg, "Microsoft will not create a new version of Internet Explorer for Macs in a move that leaves Apple users in an uncomfortable spot." apparently..

Friday, June 13, 2003


colin mcrae rally 3 is out for the PC today! and play.com have it for �17.99 (rrp �35!, you save �22) details here. you can download the pc demo of colin mcrae rally 3 from codemasters site. the ability to smash up your car lots has improved...

you can get colin mcrae rally 1 and 2 for �4.99 each from play.com as well.
wow! some people build some mini-itx stuff into robots to play football : check it out here!

Thursday, June 12, 2003

how safe is linux. someone asks in this article here. who knows? not me, as i haven't read the article yet. and i've put my epia 800 webserver into an apple 4400/200 case. you can see the bad pictures of that here, on my site jillajang. hopefully i'll get some better pictures up this weekend.

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

smoking endangers your life in burnley - stop pressing enter so much.
Did you see how damaged this plane was.. cyprus to manchester flight .. just an ordinary little flight. - stop pressing enter after every post matt!

Monday, June 09, 2003

Tea Review. ilovetea.blogspot.com. go there now. if you've had an invite, make sure you join. can you let me know aenon's email address then i can invite him too :)

Friday, June 06, 2003

useful tools : http://network-tools.com/ and http://www.infosyssec.com/infosyssec/ipsectools.htm lots of stuff. the b3ta newsletter is out, and it's got a spectrum thing. here.
lovely jubbly, keyboard and mice. and apparently the apple ergo keyboard were right good. the Apple dude, won a design award. more details he designed the original iMac, iPod, iBook etc. ps. i hate smooth scrolling in internet explorer (you can turn it off by going to tools, internet options, un-select "use smooth scrolling")
watched james bond. die another day. last night, was rather good. he kepts saying, my names james bond, or bond, but he never said "the name's bond, james bond", like he used to do. lots of action, exciting fast high speed car chases, on ice! that was cool. ignore the scientific, yeah right as if that would happen factor, and you'll enjoy it. interesting twist at one point to. lovely jubbly.
chicken farming there's innovation there. lovely story.

Thursday, June 05, 2003

PCs... where's the innovation? okay, you get new processors, they go faster, you get new OS, it looks better, is more "secure", and more "stable", but does it mean HP Printer drivers work 100% of the time? no. can you buy a load of pcs, plug them in to a network, switch on and watch them configure themselves for the network, for email for the user in front of them, and automatically setup the nearest network printer for the user? no. can you buy a new 30ppm colour printer plug it into the network, and all local pcs automatically configure themselves to use it? no. does a PC automatically contact it's manufacturer, eg Dell, when the hard drive is faulty to get Dell to come out and replace the hard drive? no. load of crap, there is no innovation in the PC sector at all.
the internet. it's a bit boring. same old stuff everywhere. nothing new to be honest. you get fresh "funny" animations / videos. you get stories about technology, and reviews of hardware. you get chat on message boards and forums. repeat week after week. maybe television is better? what do you think?

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

electrolux. the world's first robot-vacuum cleaner! http://www.electrolux.com/

and modern day (uk) gamer documentary : more here - 75mb divx download. 9 and a half minutes long. i personally found it quite interesting.
ya know what. this internet malarky's not free anymore. they're shut down my www.josh.org.uk website! and they want MONEY to re-activate it! my ass!

Sunday, June 01, 2003

well, i've setup smoothwall, which means my internal network (and the webserver) in the green zone, is infintely more secure, as it's a firewall as well as a router... but the only problem is that i can't figure out how to grant access to the webserver. anyway, here's a diagram of the network.