Apart from the Windows Cloud stuff there were some other speakers and demos that interested me, including a neat use of Silverlight at the Hard Rock Café website which you may have seen before as it has been bounded around as the pièce de résistance of Silverlight 2 since about March this year.
When you click that link you are presented with the Hard Rock Café memorabilia website, in the middle you will see an image that can be ‘Deep Zoomed’ into and each different node (item) can be interacted with separately. The resolution on the pictures of the items is amazing and the detail to which you can zoom in to is awe-inspiring. I have just spent a few minutes reading a contract drawn up for a Beatles performance in 1965, the text is so clear and takes no time at all to...
I travelled across to London yesterday to attend the Microsoft Technet event, ‘Technologies to change your business’, the keynote speaker was Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.
He came on stage at around 13:15 and proceeded to do his usual thing, he’s a great public speaker and very knowledgeable about the company that he is running and what they are doing now and what is coming from them in the future. He must have to read hundreds of updates daily from the R&D labs just to keep up with it all.
During the proceedings, between talking about virtualisation and Windows Mobile he mentioned something, for what I think was the first time, about a new operating system that was going to announced in 4 weeks, which is going to be called Microsoft Windows Cloud, or as he put...
I have been known to bemoan the current state of LCD televisions, in particular the way they just won’t let you control anything. I’ve got a Panasonic Viera type (bought cheaply, I might add) and it constantly adjusts the brightness/contrast for what it perceives to be the perfect picture. This is an “intelligent” feature you can’t switch off, which renders some PS3 games (like Grand Theft Auto IV) unplayable because the screen fades in and out so much. Bah.
So when I somehow managed to get an invite to a preview of LG’s new range of LCD televisions for 2008 in the plush environs of Fulham FC, I popped along and had a look. The presentation was a trifle odd, taking in topics such as LG’s unillustrious origins through to its (frankly terrible)...
After probably six months or so of being out of action, I finally decided to take a look at the bug that was causing comments on Hintofsarcasm not to work.
I realised that I made a decision some time ago to change the name of the comment post script, wp-comments-post.php to something that the spam-bots could not get their hands on so easily and install a captcha.
When I removed this captcha system in favour of a hash based JS plugin I completely forgot that I had set all requests for wp-comments-post.php to redirect to Google, so, after deleting the file and re-uploading it a couple of times, checking out the database and the form I finally got a lightbulb above my head and remembered the redirect. Duh.
So, you can all go ahead and start commenting again. That means you, Dan.
ps....
Believe it or not, I used to be able to develop and program a computer (and yes, I can choose the perfect time). Admittedly, nothing more complicated than BBC Basic, HTML and adjusting a Javascript code, but I did think I’d lost those skills.
I was - and am - a huge fan of the LJ Hook Firefox extension. It basically allows me to add HTML code to a Firefox text entry window via a simple right-click - but it doesn’t work out-of-the-box in Firefox 3.
Tonight, since I couldn’t sleep and am still coughing/spluttering/snorting/having difficulty breathing, I ended up fiddling with the extension, having vaguely remembered reading a blogpost about tricking Firefox into installing old extensions.
And somehow, I’ve managed to get LJ Hook to work - and even slightly improved...
Fair play to whoever runs Cuil’s press relations - they’ve managed to get coverage in pretty much all the mainstream press I’ve seen today, including the BBC. Very impressive, considering the number of companies who have claimed to be better than Google at searching, but doing nothing more than aiming a slingshot to Google’s Goliath.
However, I think the next time before they launch their press releases, they might be advised to do a little more work on the search results and their engineering resiliencce. An ego search for Andrew Wong on Cuil does retrieve my LinkedIn profile - but attaches a picture of a totally different person. and a Chinese athlete. Try to run another search, and then you’re told that Cuil’s servers are over-boiling. Which you...
As some of you will have no doubt noticed, I’ve set my Twitter updates to appear on my blog every 24 hours via Loudtwitter. I set this up partly because there can be weeks that go by when I don’t update my blog - or can’t get my thoughts out in coherent sentences - but the simplicity of one-line blogging updates is probably preferable to an occasional drought of content.
However, I’ve now received my first complaint from a loyal (and uber-important!) reader.
So, loyal subjects and readers, I’ve disabled the Twitter updates on my main blog (although they’ll still appear on t’other blog). If you’re obsessed with the minutiae of my life, you can always follow my Twitter or Facebook updates direct, or let me know what you think!...
Adam Price, Plaid Cymru’s election campaign co-ordinator, sent a mailshot to Plaid Cymru supporters two months ago asking “Are you on Facebook?”. Fortunately, we are not. Here’s why …
Facebook is an American corporation. It exists to make a pile of money. That is the purpose of a corporation. It makes money by providing what is dubbed a ’social networking service’ and saturating users of such a service with advertising.
Nowadays, Welsh politicians of all parties bandy corporate brand names as if they held talismanic political properties. It is an absurd and exploitative relationship.
Why would we surrender our privacy to a commercial proxy to become “involved” with Plaid (or any other Party) ? That is not a means to engage in...
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We got an energy monitor earlier this week and it has made fairly interesting reading. We’ve never been frivolous with our energy usage and do generally switch off lights when they aren’t in use (although I’m better at that than Anna), and don’t leave the TV on standby etc. but having the monitor has made us that extra bit careful.
We thought we probably use a fair bit of electricity simply because ‘living at the end of the line’ means we don’t have gas so all of our cooking and heating comes from electricity. In addition my work as a freeelance web designer means I work from home so as well as having a computer, two monitors and various hard drives etc. running all day long I’m also making cups of coffee all the time and generally using...
Phew, I’ve just climbed down from the telegraph pole after repairing the Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station. A few days ago the humidity sensor failed and was produing a 100% humidity reading despite the fact that this obviously wasn’t the case.
A qucik e-mail to McMurdo who are the UK distributors of Davis Instruments weather stations and the fault was diagnosed and a fix initiated. This was the 3rd temperature and humidity sensor to have failed and the new, upgraded digital versions wouldn’t work with the SIM (Sensor Interface Module) that I had. The answer therefore was to upgrade the SIM board to the new version so that I could also upgrade to the digital humidity sensor.
The parts arrived this morning and I’ve now changed them all over and everything seems...
Sometimes I hate computers!
My broadband connection has been getting slower and slower over the past few days and eventually ground to a halt last night… Couldn’t do anything, not even retrieve e-mails. I’ve been on the phone to my ISP and submitting support tickets etc. but with no solution. In the end this morning I got an old computer, old router and loads of old cables out from the loft. Switched all my other computers, routers etc. off and decided to try with a completely different set of hardware, cables and even different BT outlet socket in the wall.
Connected it all up, switched on and would you believe it, it worked… I didn’t expect that, but now it seemed as though there was a problem with my hardware somewhere.
So, I connected the new (old)...
Leighton Andrews boasts “I am now on Twitter”. Congratulations, bach.
This statement was published via his website (see screenshot, left) .
For us it it provoked an image of a comic conversation between the generations. Something one might hear in a play by Rhondda dramatist Frank Vickery.
“I’m on Twitter” claims the politician. And in reply, the elderly grandmother says, “Oh, poor dab, you must be baad. I’m on Co-dydramol for my knees. I’m still under the doctor waiting for the op.”
Every few weeks, Mr Andrews telegraphs another message via his blog about his latest online toy. In January, the toy of the month was Facebook, an online social networking site.
The constant name-dropping of American brand names eg. You Tube,...
I am now on Twitter, but I remain to be convinced.In the summer I will write more about the value or otherwise of certain kinds of online cmmunications to politicians and their constituents.You are subscribed to an RSS Feed from Leighton Andrews. You can send your views direct to Leighton via...
Since I don’t drive, whether I eat or not is reliant on a supermarket delivering to my door.
As part of an advertising campaign by ASDA earlier this year, statistics from the independent grocery shopping website mySupermarket.com were used to prove that ASDA were cheaper than Tesco on hundreds of items, despite an identical television campaign by Tesco claiming the same about them compared to ASDA just a few months prior. In fact, the Tesco price checker is still online and claiming to have 2274 items cheaper than ASDA, so, with two of the major players sending conflicting messages, who actually is the cheapest supermarket to shop from?
According to mySupermarket comparisons, when shopping like for like, ASDA is the cheapest of the 4 supermarkets (Tesco, ASDA, Sainsburys & Ocado...
An earlier post all about keeping motivated with respect to keeping fit suggested the purchase of some gadgets. the idea being that spending money on them will mean you have to go out for a run to justify the expense, and the new gadget will encourage you out so that you can play with it. Well, I took my own advice the other day when Apple dropped the prices of their iPod shuffles and bought myself one. OK, OK I know, I already had a 30GB iPod video so why do I need a shuffle as well?
Apart from the fact that I couldn’t resist it especially at less than £30, the shuffle is my better for running and cycling with simply because of its size. I’m able to clip it on anywhere and get out there for a run without having to wear clothes with pockets in to fit my bigger iPod or even...
Yes indeed. I've got into that awful habit of making draft posts in blogger - with the intention of completing the post later - but somehow never find the time to go back and finish them off.So if you're wondering why this blog has got more holes than a moth ridden blanket then you'll now understand why. One day I'll get around to putting some context onto the key points I've made in each draft post and I'll publish them - by which time it'll be totally irrelevant of course.I decided to try my luck on the bike again today - the 2nd time this week woooo hoooo - as I slowly build myself up to get back into the 'groove' of my training. I headed off down to Forte's ice cream parlour in Limeslade, a 11.7 mile round trip which took me 44 minutes 19 seconds. That included navigating the TWO...
Ever since starting geocaching I have wanted to dispense with the paper cache description and find a streamlined way of paperless geocaching. As yet there isn’t a GPSr that allows you to simply visit the geocaching.com website, do a search for parituclar caches and then upload all of their details to the GPS device. As far as I’m concerned it is about time that Garmin and Groundspeak teamed up to produce such a device as it would make things so much easier. Of course, I’m sure they will, but no doubt it will be too expensive for me and Mac support probably won’t be great.
However, now that I have a new GPSr things have improved a little. My previous experiences were time-consuming to say the least and not ideal. I had a Garmin eTrex, but no cable to connect it to...
I’ve recently decided to try to get a little fitter again, so as well as buying some gadgets I wanted some software to track my progress (or lack of progress as it may turn out to be). I’ve been looking at various applications for the Mac and evaluating them so thought I’d share my thoughts on some of them here. Hopefully it will give others in my position an idea of which applications will be best for them.
My main objective was to use the software to record any training sessions so that I could look back over time and see improvements. keeping such a journal also helps with motivation. My first port of call was a journal and scheduler on the Nike website. It was very nice, had a nice Flash based interface and did many of the things I wanted it to do, but really I...
The Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station is now back online again.
We had some problems with it in December. First the temperature and humidity sensor stopped functioning properly. A replacement was ordered, but when installed it fried the main SIM board within the sensor suite and everything stopped working properly. I have since got a brand new SIM board and a new temperature and humidity sensor and spent yesterday morning up the telegraph pole installing the new components and getting everything working.
Once the new SIM board was successfully talking to the console I powered up the PC and got it doing its thing, manipulating the raw data and uploading it very minute to the live online display. The data logger still had a few rogue readings stored in it so I had to manually remove some of...
I’ve been doing well with my attempt to get a little fitter, or at least slow down the decline brought on my increasing age! I went for another run yesterday with my Garmin Forerunner 305. I had planned to take it relatively easy and keep my heart rate at around 150bpm, but as usual, the first few minutes of the run saw my heart rate go mad. This time it hit a maximum of 196bpm, much higher than my theroretical maximum of around 183bpm.
I haven’t decided why this is yet, I wasn’t running that hard, in fact I was taking easy, and I have a feeling it may be due to a poor connection between the sensor and my skin. After a couple of minutes (once I have worked up a bit of a sweat and the connection becomes better) everything settles down and my heart rate seems more...
Seeing as James asked for a daily updates as far as my attempts to get fit are concerned, here are the stats from my Mountain Bike Ride around the Pendam Trail at Nant-yr-Arian today.
First the route itself:
My Speed and Heart Rate graph… Max 172bpm once again!
And the summary stats.
After the first lap I then did another lap of the most northerly loop, and on the way checked in on a couple of my geocaches to make sure they were OK. Both caches were fine, but the tree hiding the cache at Blaenmelindwr has been felled and a few people have had problems with the coordinates for the cache at Syfyddrin, so I took some new readings with my Forerunner 305 which has a better GPS receiver than my old eTrex.
I was impressed with the performance of the Foreunner, as it seemed to keep...
As you know my latest gadget which arrived yesterday is a Garmin Forerunner 305, which is a GPS enable Heart Rate Monitor training device. The idea is that when you are out running, cycling or doing any other outdoor activity it tracks your precise position and speed using the GPS and records your heart rate using the heart rate monitor so that you can train effectively, or just look at it out of interest.
For me it is a way of encouraging me to get fit again. I used to be really fit, but marriage, fatherhood, mortgage, increasing age and the need to earn money have all got in the way of that, however recently in a bid to reverse the trend I have started running and mountain-biking. Nothing too serious yet, but the new toy could change that as i am now able to track my progress....
I seem to be becoming GPS enabled in all walks of life these days. It started with a Garmin eTrex that I originally bought to see how fast I could go whilst windsurfing and then started using for geocaching.
I had a TomTom One XL for my birthday which has been working well and is good fun in the car and now I’ve recently ordered a Garmin Forerunner 305.
Well, as usual at this time of year loads of people decide it is time to get fit and shed some of that Xmas excess, and I’m one of them so I have started running and mountain-biking in an attempt to regain some of my fitness. I thought if I splashed out on a GPS enabled heart-rate monitor to track my progress then I would have to keep at it in order to justify the expense.
It hasn’t arrived yet, but I shall write a...
We bought a new home computer in September. I wish we'd bought one a few months earlier, before they all came installed with Windows Vista. I have taken all the steps I can find recommended on the Internet to speed it up, but it still has the habit of switching itself off - particularly in the middle of using Microsoft Word. Ihate the new MS Word interfaces too, and having to remember to save the document in an earlier version so I can read it on other computers.Any ideas, you bloggers out there?You are subscribed to an RSS Feed from Leighton Andrews. You can send your views direct to Leighton via...
Back in early December I'd bought a brand spanking new Canon Pixma MP600 multifunction colour printer, as our old Brother laserjet printer was on its last legs. At the time it was a bargain at £94 from Argos and I was chuffed to bits - especially after reading such a positive review of it in PC Pro magazine.So here I find myself a few weeks on with a constant 'U150 - The following ink tank cannot be recognized' errors, meaning I can't use the darn printer and as a result have an outstanding support call to Canon to "sort it out". My frustation - anger? - is compounded by the fact that a quick search on Google reveals numerous other people having the same problems, which to me indicates a design fault with the MP600 (and the ink tray in particular). Don't these companies test their...
As you know from a previous post the weather station is currently out of action. After some phone calls to the UK distributors it seems as though there is a fault on the main SIM board so it was dismantled and sent off to them just before Xmas.
Unfortunately they will be on holiday until Jan 2nd so the wetaher station will be offline until the New Year. As soon as I get it back I will be up the telegraph pole to fix it and hopefully get things back up and running again… It is surprising just how useful the weather station can be though and I miss not having it, even if only to see just how cold it was or just how much rain we had......
Just when we thought that Facebook could not put a foot wrong, rather like Google of the first five years, they overstepped the mark with Beacon and now James over at The Laboratorium has come up with interesting reasoning to condemn Facebook and Blockbuster for breaking the law by collecting and distributing video rental information in an ‘opt-out’ scheme, incriminating stuff. And if the sums of Mark from Mashable are anything to go by, the two companies could be in some substantial trouble if the any number of people decide to start class action lawsuits....
My work took me to Gloucester today to see how the County Council had setup their call centre. It also gave me an opportunity to have a look at the 'Solidus' system from Sony Ericsson - which was quite impressive I hasten to add.The timing of the trip was a week out however, as last Friday the Osprey's were at Kingsholm (home of Gloucester RFC) for a European Rugby Cup - which would have been an ideal destination post-meeting time. Oh well maybe next time.Our return journey via the A40 (as opposed to the M4 - anything to avoid the toll bridge you see) I got my first glimpse of the new Amazon building on Jersey Marine. It is MASSIVE and a great coup for this area, especially in terms of the economy and regeneration. My only concern however is what 'sort' of jobs will be on offer and...
I woke this morning to see that the weathermen had got the forecast right - with the very first gound frost of the winter to date. The air was noticeably colder and for the first time it actually did feel like winter had arrived. I do like this weather though, bright sunshine, blue skies and a sharp crisp feel to the air.DDWT Junior had a coffee morning in school today, which gave the parents an opportunity to pop along and see what the kids get up to each morning of nursery school (as trying to get the nippers to tell you is like.... well nigh on impossible!).With me deciding to take another rest day from training due to my knee problems, I thought better of sitting behind my desk for lunch and decided to go for a walk into the city centre for a change. This also gave me the...
With TV-Links being raided and shut down in a blaze of glory, it leaves us to ponder the question, who is next?
This weekend, TV-Links.co.uk was closed down in a joint operation between multiple European police forces, FACT, Trading Standards and other government agencies, for being an intermediary to copyright theft.
Whilst “Sin”, from Cheltenham, Gloucs, owner and creator of the website, was spending his weekend at Her Majesties pleasure, police in the Netherlands were pulling plugs on servers hosting the site and coppers in Ireland were busy arresting forum moderators on the same charge, aiding copyright theft, all the while, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the google billionaires who are hosting the material, were undoubtedly sat around drinking cold brewskies in their...
