Category Archives: Internet

Internet

Today, I…

…asked a ninja. Thought my question was amusing, but the askaninja autoreply made me laugh more…:

The Ninja will read your question carefully and then decide whether or not it’s interesting and funny.

If it is, he’ll answer it and look forward to killing you soon.

If it isn’t, he’ll still kill you, but he won’t enjoy it.

In the mean time, please go to http://askaninja.com and connect with your fellow ninjas and pirates.

So you’ll know where I be if I stop taking calls. I’ll tell you what the question is when I know if he makes the episode or not, which we’ll discover in the next two-three weeks (it’s seasonal, so suspect that he’ll want to run it in the next few weeks or never).

Internet, Technology

Birthday admin (a tech story)

I love having big birthday bashes, no matter how irrelevant the occasion – in this case my 26th, which, other than being the 5th anniversary of my 21st, is completely pointless.

The tech story (how do I always find one?) – is that I’ve been using Google spreadsheets to manage the dinner reservation (it involves tedious working out of set-menus in advance) — it’s very useful. 5 years ago the concept of an online-only service would have driven me nuts, but am actually finding myself moving away from the ‘thick client’ MS model – and there are two key motivations for it.

    1) I need to access the content from multiple locations, usually at least home and work. Being online makes this easier.
    2) I really, really can never be bothered to wait for my Office apps to load. Even on quite fast machines. It’s why I so often end up taking notes in ‘Notepad’.

So here’s my guidance for MS in their next release of Office.

    1) Provide a pared down, simpler, SAAS, web-based version of all the apps online.
    2) FIX Windows Live Mail so it is as quick and easy to use as Gmail
    3) Work out some clever integrated online storage scheme so that people can store large amounts of data securely online

If you do all that, reduce the license fee and provide the basic versions for free or a low subscription cost, you might make Google nervous. With broadband everywhere, and rumours of Mesh cities popping up here, there and everywhere… More people will be happy about moving online for basic software needs.

Internet, Software, Technology

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live WriterSo I’m checking out Windows Live Writer; in fact this post, and the post before it were written using it. For those not in the know, it’s a ‘super exciting’ (thanks for the tip, Simon ;)) WYSIWIG blog editor. Well, it seems more than that and I’ve only been using it for five minutes – it’s a highly extensible blog publishing application, integrating with a number of blogging engines (including WordPress).

The community around it is impressive; its been around for all of a month and already there are numerous plugins (including one for Flickr, which is already up, running and more stable than my Tantan plugin). I may add more Flickr images to my posts than strictly speaking necessary in the days to come…

In short; excellent. Try it out if you find you’re not a fan of your blogging engines normal back-end. Expect it to do the standard MS trick of inserting random crap into your HTML if you edit in rich text mode, though. One of those inevitabilities.

(ah, I see there’s a problem with the Flickr API that’s messing with theTantan plugin. I should fix that…)

[tags]microsoft, software, internet, blogging, technology, windows, wordpress, flickr[/tags]

Internet, Music, Software

The Public Betas

The studio post public betas recording session Yesterday I initiated a new concept for Saturday night entertainment (well, new for me anyway) – Chris and Tom came around for a few beers and some collaborative creative development.

What, prithee (underused word), is collaborative creative development? Well, apparently its when friends sit around drinking and discussing ideas for, in this case, a song. Chris and Tom being some of the erm, more technologically literate of my friends, this ended up having a moment of epiphany involving Family Guy, and open-source internet browsing. And so the Public Betas were born.

I’ll upload the output once we’re done with the post-production work (and possibly after I’ve found someone else willing to record the vocals), and Chris is working on the music video and myspace page. ‘The FireFox love song’ – coming soon to all good record stores…

We’ll be an internet sensation any minute now.

It was a very entertaining (and different) evening. The latter portion of the evening, once my fingers were too sore to pick up another guitar and we’d lost interest in the song, was spent looking up cool stuff on YouTube, the whys of the mentos/diet coke reaction, and discussing why the ‘sudo make me a sandwich’ webcomic is funny. It was entertaining…

Internet, Miscellany, Technology

The Moodatron ® 1000™

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A miracle of modern invention, the Moodatron ® 1000™ is a bluetooth-enabled mood-broadcasting presence enabled device, capable of detecting your current state of mind and providing that information directly to your favourite instant messaging application or even Livejournal! An online community site, www.mood.ron can even aggregate your mood, plot it by time of day and compare it to other people with similar moods to you! Find your fellow mooded friends, and date them!

On the move? The Moodatron ® 1000™ is compatible with your bluetooth enabled mobile phone!

Invented by geniuses with white coats and electrodes, the Moodatron ® 1000â„¢ has been decribed by fuzzy dolts around the world as “the greatest invention since ‘what I’m listening to’ plugins” and “a must have for all people with no need for personal space!”

The Moodatron ® 1000™ will hit the streets shortly after the first order has been placed. The R.R.P. is £20m. It is not Mac compatible.

Feeling pissed off? Tell the world: get the Moodatron ® 1000™ today.

(so that’s my crazy web 2.0-ified purposeless invention; inspiration struck after about a week of thinking of amusing things to do with the presence information options in Google Talk and MSN Messenger. No, no, I’m not a complete geek. Why would you say that? Shut up, or I’ll shoot you with this phantom zone gun!)

Internet, Observational

Procrastination

I’m going to go right ahead and define procrastination as searching for things on eBay you don’t really need and only sllightly want. The funny thing is, as I’ve remarked before, I hate shopping. I just like having… stuff. I might have to tell Firefox somewhere not to let me access the ebay.co.uk domain…

Ah, self-discipline through needless technical jiggery pokery. Or is that just another form of procrastination, and I should just find some willpower. Who knows?

Comics, Internet, Technology

Marvel comics advocate Netscape?

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You remember Netscape, right? They were around before Microsoft destroyed them with Internet Explorer and their pioneering ‘Navigator’ and ‘Communicator’ internet browser software bloated itself to death. ‘Bloat’ here being the technical term for what happens when you include tonnes of features in an application that no-one needs, reducing its performance, increasing its complexity and killing its appeal.

Well, in one of the more recent issues of ‘The Amazing Spider Man’ – (I think it’s issue 533 – ‘Civil War’) – loads of people go out and Google something (yes, Google – the page is illustrated with almost complete accuracy) – using a Netscape browser.

Bizarre. You’d think those geeks would be loving Firefox or something, but apparently not… Marvel, you’re a strange bunch!

Internet

The greatest ego in the universe

It’s not me; but be warned: most of the links in this message point at content that might offend the weak-spirited.

I thought I’d fling a pointer at Maddox, one of the most amusingly offensive people on the Interweb. Noel pointed me at him ages ago, back in ’98/99, but an interview with him by the nice folks at B3ta reminded me of his unique brand of “cynicism and arrogance,” as B3ta puts it.

I don’t really know the purpose of his site, so don’t ask me, but a lot of the stuff on there is funny (for various reasons) and reading about some of the mail he gets gives an alarming insight into the eclectic (and unstable…) make-up of the people out there. Be safe online, people.

The interview on B3ta in particular is very funny…