tracker for laptops

Hey..
The gist of the story is that Students will be able to have 'tracker' software installed on their laptops so that in the event of the laptop being stolen the police will be able to trace its movements remotely.
Just wondering...
a - what software is available for tracking your stuff once its' got nicked..
b - or does it require some hardware?
c - is there anything for free
d - does it actually work
Any ideas welcome..

The 20 Best Simpsons Episodes Ever! (Updated)

Here's a great list of the best 20 episodes of The Simpsons. Number 1 is "Marge vs the Monorail" (series 4, episode 12, disc 3 from the dvd boxset), and I'd definitely agree, it's one of the best episodes, and includes the Simpsons version of The Flintstones, Burns and Smithers dumping toxic waste in a park, and great use of the Axel F music, Mr Burns as hannibal lector, and Grandpa Simpson says "I ain' for it, I'm again' it". It even features Spock!

The list from Deadon feature a large number of episodes from season 4, it could be argued that season 4 of the Simpsons was one of the peaks in the show?

No. 1 - Marge vs the Monorail - Season 4, episode 12, disc3
No. 2 - One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish - Season 2, episode 11, disc
No. 3 - Last Exit to Springfield - Season 4, episode 17, disc
No. 4 - A Streetcar named Marge - Season 4, episode 2, disc1
No. 5 - Lisa the Greek - Season 3, episode 14, disc3
No. 6 - The New Kid on The Block - Season 8, episode 4, disc.
No. 7 - Mr Lisa Goes to Washington - Season 3, episode 2, disc
No. 8 - Homer the Heretic - Season 4, episode 4, disc1
No. 9 - Bart Sells His Soul - Season 7, episode 4, disc.
No. 10 - Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk - Season 2, episode 11, disc.
No. 11 - Kamp Krusty - Season 4, episode 1, disc1
No. 12 - Mr Plow - Season 4, episode 9, discx
No. 13 - El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer) - Season 8, episode 9, discx
No. 14 - Treehouse of Horror II - Season 3, episode 7, discx
No. 15 - 22 Short Films About Springfield - Season 7, episode 21, discx
No. 16 - The Cartridge Family - Season 9, episode 5, discx
No. 17 - Homer’s Enemy - Season 8, episode 23, discx
No. 18 - Homer Goes to College - Season 5, episode 3, discx
No. 19 - Hurricane Neddy - Season 8, episode 8, discx
No. 20 - Homer At The Bat - Season 3, episode 17, discx

The tally:
Season 4 - 7 episodes (35%)
Season 3 - 4 episodes (20%)
Season 8 - 4 episodes (20%)
Season 2 - 2 episodes (10%
Season 7 - 2 episodes (10%)
Season 5 - 1 episode (5%)

Places to buy and sell cars online in the UK...

ebay.co.uk cars 120,000 (and ebay.co.uk classic cars 1,300)
autotrader.co.uk 318,000
pistonheads.com 38,000 - free
gumtree (london) 33,000 - change to your area - free.
classiccarsforsale - 5,900
loot - 565,000

Big list of free software

Fujitsu Siemens launches free laptop for life initiative

"Company promises to replace customers' laptops every three years with a brand new one, for free, as long as certain conditions are met."

Hmmm. Interesting, I thought.

Online malware scanner

Have just been made aware of this useful site. You can upload a file and it'll use a multitude of virus-scanners to examine it and let you see the results. Potentially useful for false positives from your virus detection software, or perhaps if you're writing a virus, to see if existing scanners can spot it. You're not writing a virus though, surely?

Atari Touch Tablet from 1984

I thought I knew about all of Atari's systems, but apparently not, here's photos of the Atari Touch Tablet from 1984 tested with an 8 bit Atari 130XE 25 years later! Wow! (Found at engadget).

Hot UK Deals and Money Saving Expert...

If you're looking to buy something, why not check to see if it's on

HotUKDeals.com or
Money Saving Expert Deals Forum.

Save Tango

Is Tango truly in trouble, or are they just fun, creative marketing people? You decide. And then shut up about it - it's obvious.

Looking for a cheap DVD player with USB and DivX playback?

If you want a DVD player, chances are most now support DIVX playback, but if they don't have a USB socket then you'll have to waste your time writing your files to DVD or CD for playback, alternatively you can get a DVD player with a USB socket and plug in a USB pen drive or USB hard drive*. If you want one of these magic machines from the future, have a look at these:

Cheapest: BIOSTEK - XC-150 USB/MPEG4 DVD Player £20 Pixmania via Amazon UK

Sigmatek - XS-700 Pro DVD Player - £29 Pixmania via Amazon

Cheapest with 1080p: Sumvision PHOENIX HDMI 1080p DVD Player with SD/MMC/MS Slot - £35 at Datakits (excluding postage) or £29 at Amazon (exc postage) - also features SD card slot for photos.

Cheapest branded: Philips DVP3260/05 - DVD Player with USB £39 at Amazon UK

Pioneer DV-310-K - DVD Player With USB Input (Black) - £53 at Amazon

Cheapest branded with 1080p: Philips DVP5990/05 - HDMI 1080p DivX Ultra DVD Player - £55 at Amazon UK

ONKYO DVSP406 DVD PLAYER (MULTI-REGION) 1080p - £67 at superfi

Pioneer DV-410V-K - DVD Player with HDMI Output, USB Input and High Definition JPEG Playback (Black) - £68 at Amazon

* Some struggle to power USB hard drives - I use an LG DVD player, and a Freecom XXS 250gb USB hard drive and that works fine.

Best and Worst of 2008 List

Best things of 2008 :- Lots of great cameras, all cheaper than ever, loads with image stabilisation, and wide angle lenses: Best budget: Canon A590, Sony W130, Best compacts: Olympus 1030SW, Panasonic FX150, Best zoom Pansonic TZ5, Canon SX110 IS, Best DSLRs: Olympus E510 (or E520), Canon 450D, see more here. Expect even cooler stuff next year including Olympus' Micro Four Thirds camera.

Second hand cars are now seriously cheap eg Ford Focus 2005 model (new shape) around £3500 on Autotrader.

Interest rate extremely low - so if you've got the right bank and mortgage type your mortgage could be much much cheaper.

Best technology of 2008: In my opinion is the Intel Core 2 Quad Core - 2.4ghz quad core chip was around £100 at it's lowest price this year - excellent performance and amazing price.

Biggest dissapointment of 2008: Spore - nasty DRM, didn't live up to the hype at all, not worth buying. Oh, and the awful financial market throughout the world.

Reasonable Screen Recording Software For Nowt

Not sure if it'll be useful to anyone here, but thought I'd jot a note. Yesterday I stumbled across a bit of software to record video files of you doing stuff on your PC. The most obvious use is probably to record tutorials with voice overs and stuff. So the above link is to a reasonable bit of free software to do the job. I've not been able to find any help files or anything, so it's a bit of a "follow your intuition" approach, but using their "lossless" video codec, the results can be quite good. Camtasia Studio, I gather is a more polished, sexy non-free product, that seems to get a lot of use by the pros, but for the rest of us, this free product might just suffice.

Addictive game...

fun coconut travel game - best I've seen is 13 seconds 15 coconuts 100%

The IT Crowd - Season 3 - Starts Friday

BoingBoing - if it's anything like the last series then expect to be able to watch it online, on Channel4's website here (or on 4od).

What kind of sick freak...

Came up with regional DVDs, regional DVD players, unlocked dvd players (LG) that can't successfully play a brand new US DVD, region locked Windows DVD playback software (Windows Media Player), and DVD drives in computers that spin up so loud you can't even hear the sound on the DVD!!! Why oh why is the DVD system so full of crap solutions!!!???

Sony Ericsson C905 - 8mp Camera Phone

If you want a decent camera in a phone, then it looks like the Sony C905 is the best option.

American flight security...

"“Maybe if you lit it on fire, he’d pay attention,” I said, risking arrest for making a joke at airport security. (Later, Schnei­er would carry two bottles labeled saline solution—24 ounces in total—through security. An officer asked him why he needed two bottles. “Two eyes,” he said. He was allowed to keep the bottles.)"

12oz Bottles of liquid labelled "Saline Solution" (for contact lenses) are allowed, other liquids over 3oz aren't allowed... link

The fear, the horror, of living in the 70s

Anyone use bloglines?

Anyone else use bloglines? My rss feeds seem to have completely dried up!? (Hence why I'm updating this to see if bloglines changes...)

Monkeys - the answer to all lifes problems...

Monkey serves in restaurant, and sort of a monkey solving a problem: man dresses as monkey to scare monkeys away.