April 26, 2005

Freakin' Auction Listings

Freakin' eBay listing spam

Every time I search for stuff these days and it happens to be remotely saleable, I seem to get tonnes of freakin' auction listing pages in my search results. I'm talking about the [very often poorly designed] pages people have made with a shit load of eBay auction listings on them that barely match my search query anyway, grrrr.

Man, if I was looking to buy something on eBay, I would be running my search query on freakin' eBay! I really wish Google would add an "exclude auction listings" from my results checkbox somewhere—that would make my day!

Great hall locations: Computing  |  Talked about by: 0 Fraggles

April 20, 2005

iPod's, Podcasting & iTunes Phones

I have say podcasting is rather cool, there is some really interesting content out there. Podcasts are like an audio magazine subscription that automatically updates with the current issue as they are released.

Also, on the topic of serious coolness Motorola is developing an iTunes phone—that's right folks, an iPod and a cell phone in one device. Bloody brilliant if you ask me :)

Podcasting

 A regular downloadable radio show to which listeners subscribe using software such as iPodder. Podcasts enable subscribers to receive shows as feeds (in the RSS format). Software such as iPodder can be set up to send these shows directly on to subscribers' MP3 players. Podcasts can also be heard using your computer's media player, so they're not exclusively designed for portable devices.

The term podcasting was invented by Dannie J. Gregoire, who registered the domain name podcasting.net, discovered and reported on by Dave Slusher of the Evil Genius Chronicles and made popular by former MTV VJ and Dutch weblogger Adam Curry's original ipodder script.

A RSS pioneer Dave Winer describes succinctly the technology used to pull digital audio (e.g., especially MP3) files from websites down to computers and devices where the audio can be played back at a listener's convenience. The recovery of MP3 links from distributed weblogs and distribution of the aggregated list using RSS had been demonstrated by Stephen Downes's Ed Radio, launched June 9, 2004. Podcasting was developed, according to Curry in August, 2004.

Motorola iTunes Phones

 The phone syncs with a computer and the iTunes Music Store like an iPod does, and incorporates an iPod-like interface for navigating and playing digital music, said Ron Garriques, a Motorola executive vice president.

Motorola iTunes Phone Presentation

But a Motorola representative clarified on Friday that the phone shown during the keynote was not the actual iTunes phone that is slated for release this year. Instead, it was a Motorola E398 equipped with the iTunes functionality for the demonstration.

The upcoming phone is the first of many Motorola devices that will support iTunes this year, said Garriques, also president of Motorola's personal devices business. He didn't provide product details for the phone or say when it would be available.

Still, the demo at CES bolsters rumors that an iTunes-compatible Motorola phone would be launched this month, possibly at the Macworld Conference & Expo that opens next week in San Francisco. Last month, an Apple executive revealed that the phone was due in the first half of 2005.

Great hall locations: Music  |  Talked about by: 0 Fraggles

April 7, 2005

Slip Into Something More Comfortable

Windows XPOne of the best features of recent Microsoft installers, is the ability to Slipstream Service Packs and Hotfixes into the base install CD, so when you install the application or OS it's already updated. I'm getting ready for a reinstall of XP, and found the following link while downloading updates and drivers last night—sheer brilliance.

Automatically Slipstream Windows XP with SP2 and All Critical Post-SP2 Hotfixes with a Single Command.

I used the console cmd file, since I don't have Cygwin (a unix runtime environment for windows), and I used Easy CD Creator to burn the result back to a bootable cdrom. The cdrom boot sector settings for a Windows XP are below, and if you need it—here is a XP CD boot sector file.

  • No Emulation
  • Load Segment: 0x7c0
  • Sector Count: 4

Great hall locations: Computing  |  Talked about by: 0 Fraggles

April 3, 2005

Departure Lounge

Air Tahiti

Well not even close... Every year before I head back to the northern hemisphere from our little corner of the south pacific, I start having these dreams about missing my flight. The usual scenario is it's 30 minutes, an hour, whatever to departure and I haven't packed and am nowhere near the airport...

In last night's instalment I end up at the Hawaiian Airlines terminal, but I'm not even going to Hawaii. Some how I'd mixed up Hawaiian with Air Tahiti, and what use would all this French I've been learning be there, they don't even speak French in Hawaii?! After finally arriving at the Air Tahiti terminal, I end up pleading with the attendant to be able to take the next flight, however it's a no go...

I wonder if any of this has anything to do with me watching "Air Crash Investigation" on tv before going to bed, hmmm... maybe. Normally when I fly wear my merino wool sweater and long pants. I think I'll invest in some wool pants too after watching last night's episode.

Shearing Wool from a Sheep

When planes crash they invariability catch fire, since the wings which contain the fuel tanks are almost always damaged. In this episode everyone survived the initial impact, but 80% of them got moderate to serve burns from the resulting fire.

Wool has a natural resistance to burning, a low burning rate and can self-extinguish. Wool has been used in fire fighter uniforms for years; the London Fire Brigade only replaced wool in their uniforms with more modern fabrics as recently as 1989, which gives you some indication of its effectiveness as a fire-retardant.

Surprisingly, the idea of a plane crash doesn't really scare me—since air travel is one of safest forms of transport. However, if I am involved in a crash, I want to be covered head to toe in wool, lol.

Great hall locations: New Zealand , Tahiti , Travel  |  Talked about by: 0 Fraggles