neoporcupine

Windows 64bit scripting host forced into 32bit

2012-01-20T08:11:00.001+10:00

Error: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified Code: 80004005 Using Windows Script Host (WSH, CScript, VBS) to access Microsoft Access database files will bring this error up in 64 bit Windows. You need to force your script to run in 32 bit mode. The following script attached to the top of your script should detect if you are in a 64 bit

Australia likes foreigners

2010-12-18T16:24:00.001+10:00

Babies are the major increase in the Australian population. These babies are not contributing to the economy! Apparently they get taxpayer money in the form of a "baby bonus" the year they arrive! They are unskilled, have no intention of seeking employment, can't speak the language, ignore our customs and will eventually compete for our jobs! Do you realise how much it will cost to train these

Energy Companies in Queensland

2010-10-23T12:52:00.001+10:00

Energy billing companies appear to be on the march for a hard sell. If someone like the deplorable Integral Energy comes to your door, you should NOT give them anything, avoid their request to see your bill and ask them to leave. Given this sort of hard sell practice, I would strongly encourage anyone with this company to transfer to a different one, as there are PLENTY to choose from. Integral

Start up Windows software optionally

2009-12-21T20:03:00.006+10:00

There are plenty of good software programs that will do this for you, but if you don't want to trust anyone else then you can write it all yourself. Start NotePad and customise the following script to point at the software you want to load optionally.' Ask if you want to optionally start a program RunMyProgram "Pidgin", "C:\Program Files\Pidgin\pidgin.exe" 'RunMyProgram "Skype", "C:\Program

SAS - How merge (mal)functions

2009-06-17T16:48:00.008+10:00

The normal MERGE statement in SAS simply fouls up on MANY to MANY relationships. You are far better off using SQL but even then there are pitfalls. Check the examples below. Data setsSetASETA Alpha Beta Desc 1000 1 Ax1 Bx2 2000 2 Ax1 Bx0 4000 3 Ax2 Bx1 4000 4 Ax2 Bx1 5000 5 Ax3 Bx2 5000 6 Ax3 Bx2 5000 7 Ax3 Bx2 SetBSETB Alpha Gamma 1000 11 1000

Audio Books

2009-05-26T22:19:00.006+10:00

Audio books are much better than I thought.I have occasionally listened to radio readings every now and again, they were on at strange times and were usually serialised into timeslots that I could never arrange into consistent listening sessions. I borrowed the star wars trilogy dramatisation on CD from a friend and was blown away by the show in audio.A number of years ago I spotted some free

Shutdown Windows Later

2009-04-21T23:48:00.004+10:00

at 23:45 shutdown -sFor when you want to leave the computer on but have it shutdown at some later point in time. Just open up a command prompt (click "Start" (and "RUN" in XP) and type CMD and tap enter) then type the above command tap enter. Yes you can close the CMD prompt dialogue.To get this to work in Windows Vista you are going to have to get the command prompt to run as administrator.

Save the whales, again.

2009-03-08T08:48:00.001+10:00

The International Whaling Commission had placed a moratorium on whaling since the mid 80s with an exception for scientific studies which Japan has been abusing ever since. Norway just ignores the moratorium and hunts under its own regulations. The moratorium was to allow for the conservation of whale stock because of over hunting.During the 18 year Japanese scientific whaling program there were

Microsoft Access SQL bug

2009-02-06T13:32:00.002+10:00

There are many bugs in Microsoft Access. Here's one that I found today.LEFT JOIN a table to a query where the query has a literal in the SELECT clause will replicate the literal for non joined records.Table1KeyMyText1A2B3C4DTable2KeymyNum110320Query1 Introduce a literal.SELECT Key, "XYZ" AS myLit, myNumFROM Table2;KeymyLitmyNum1XYZ103XYZ20Query2 The bug.SELECT Table1.Key, myText, myNum, myLitFROM

Climate is cool. Or is it?

2009-01-05T18:57:00.020+10:00

Fun with numbers. Here are some hypotheses and testing with actual data. In fact the data that most sceptics prefer, good ol' University of Alabama in Huntsville. Hypothesis (1) : Warming due to CO2 is approximated as 3 times the log of the ratio of carbon dioxide levels. Hypothesis (2) : Temperatures in 2008 have returned to 1983 values. Problem: (a) 1983 has a nasty little peak in it thanks

No to Australian Clean Feed

2008-11-06T10:47:00.013+10:00

The "Clean Feed" sounds like a really good idea. But it is not.A plan is afoot in Australian Federal government that is going to make the internet worse for nearly everybody to stop a tiny minority of pervs who will easily bypass these measures anyway. A large investment and inconvenience for no effect other than being seen to do something.The "Clean Feed" will slow your internet access down,

Microsoft Access Runs Slow

2008-10-16T16:47:00.005+10:00

*** Check the printer (see below)Why MS Access?Ugh. Most of the research that I am involved with has the requirement that data be collected in isolated settings. Which means no internet, no network, no support and sometimes not even any power. Still, the principle investigators would like data to be entered on site. I like using a web front end on a nice enterprise rated database management

Blog Reading Level

2008-09-27T19:31:00.004+10:00

Apparently if you are reading this blog then you must be a genius. However, I think if you are a genius then most likely you aren't wasting your time reading blogs like this. I'd like to apologise about the text reading level and thank John Dvorak for pointing the CriticsRant site out.

Digg destroys accounts without warning or investigation

2008-08-21T19:07:00.009+10:00

Imagine trying to log into your Digg account and you read something like:An unknown fatal exception has occurredWhoa! Something blew up. If you think you reached this error in error please do not hesitate to contact support.Interesting. Better contact the aforementioned support. They got back to me very quickly with:Your account was removed for mass comment spam. Due to the nature and severity

TardApp

2008-07-10T20:53:00.003+10:00

New app for FaceBook!Install TardApp now!It's fun, it rates you and your friends, and your friends rate you, and their friends rate them. Sends random huge offensive images, sounds and videos to your own SuperTardWall and to your friends' SuperTardWall, automatically, periodically, over and over. Notifying you via email every time.Add the app now!Wait you can't use it until you request all your

Australian iPhone Nightmare

2008-07-03T17:26:00.014+10:00

Australia and the great iPhone 3G data rip off. Greedy Telcos exploiting iPhone hype.The announcementGreat hubbub surrounded the release of the new iPhone 3G and the wonderful announcement that it would be available for sale in the finest land to ever grace the face of the planet; Australia. The new iPhone is just like the old one but has 3G compatibility and built in GPS.The ConcernExciting

Vista cycle of life

2008-04-16T16:28:00.003+10:00

I have had Office 2007 for quite a while now but a workmate pointed out the SmartArt and I thought I would have some fun while we tried to repair his Dell M1330 that was infested with Microsoft Vista. Thank you Dell. There are plenty of articles around the net stating that Vista is slow, incompatible and buggy. Recently there have been articles stating that Vista marks the decline of Microsoft,

Windows XP is running slow

2008-04-15T17:21:00.008+10:00

Being a computer geek is somewhat like being a doctor. People will approach you from out of the blue, seeking advice on what ails them. The most common question I am asked is about a mysterious slow down. I have a list of items I usually run people through but, people being people, will forget mostly everything by the time they get back to their systems. For these people, and my own reference, I

Do Not Call Register

2008-03-20T15:17:00.007+10:00

I loathe the practice of cold call telemarketing. The Australian Do-Not-Call Register is absolutely awesome. Unfortunately the government lets charities through, which I handle by politely stating that I have a personal policy to never respond to this method of marketing, and hang up. I donate to World Wide Fund for Nature, Green Peace and the Salvation Army off my own bat, I don't need any help

Printing Ink Costs & CISS

2008-03-02T10:46:00.017+10:00

SizeSnapFishHarveyBigWBigPhotoOfficeWrksCISS4x6"0.190.250.190.120.190.208x10"3.954.953.846.998x12"3.955.953.847.994.951.0010x15"9.9514.959.8411x14"13.9513.9512x16"15.9515.95A319.9512x18"19.9516x20"22.9529.9522.95A234.9516x2434.9520x24"24.9524.9520x30"39.9569.9539.95Prices at 2 Mar 2008 in Australian dollars.I have to admit to not printing my photographs much anymore, I have a Flickr account and

Digg Analysis

2008-02-22T14:24:00.018+10:00

Update: check DiggAnalysis for the latest statsDigg is a social news site that initially grew in popularity from its roots of a geek fanbase who poured in the science and technology articles. Digg works by having the users of the site submitting items they found interesting and if they are marked as interesting (Dugg) by enough users then the article will appear on the front page.Some whiney

NeoOffice Impress me not

2008-02-11T18:17:00.004+10:00

I was asked to give a talk on an exciting new data warehouse system for use on a new project I am consulting for. Unfortunately the system was still under development by a group half way around the world who were too busy to talk to me. Fortunately my boss decided to send the request around to various supervisors of the developers and they responded with some information reasonably promptly;

Windows Desktop Search

2007-11-12T14:41:00.000+10:00

I installed Office 2007 to get the new Outlook, Word, Powerpoint and Excel. To avoid complications with the large number of clients I work with, I didn't install the latest version of Access, sticking with Access2003.The main reason I installed Outlook was because I was told how the search facility was much improved. In my experience, Outlook's search facility is the worst I have ever used; a

Toys

2007-10-27T09:19:00.000+10:00

I had a birthday celebrating a numeric amount that is evenly divisible by 10. Western culture increases the significance of this even simply because of the nature of the number being evenly divisible by 10. Well 16, 21 and probably even 18 has their own reasons for attracting importance. 21 detracts a lot from 20.I elected not to have a large party with all the friends and so forth. In fact, I

Sugar vs Artificial Sweeteners

2007-05-22T18:56:00.002+10:00

Looking at my eclipse mints tin, I noted that it didn't have the usual nutritional information on it, was probably on the plastic that I tore off to get to the minty scrumptiousness contained within. So I checked out Wriggley's poorly constructed browser specific web site to see what made these mints sweet (I sent them a note to sack their web monkeys who are Microsoft whores that are alienating

I am not an actor

2007-05-03T07:30:00.000+10:00

Since high school I became aware that I am not an actor. That hasn't stopped me from criticising actors, nor should it; just because I can't bake a decent soufflé doesn't mean I can't tell if one is bad. However, a friend started a film project in a genre that required low standards of acting; a Z-grade science fiction film in the traditions of Ed Wood. Unfortunately I don't think my skills even

Word DOC to HTML

2007-04-05T17:27:00.000+10:00

It seems that whenever I try to find some simple piece of shareware or freeware ... especially freeware, on the internet using a search engine, I get a list of pages that invariably don't have what I want in their list of dodgy, overpriced software. I aso get for my trouble, at least 50% of the page splattered in eye wrenching advertisements that turn me off even casually browsing the

University courses equivalent to primary school

2007-03-16T18:12:00.000+10:00

You sign up to a five year course that requires you to excel at your schoolwork or have achieved a really high GPA in your past teriary study. You are told the job prospects are not so good, the pay not so good and the suicide rate is very high.The first couple courses have members of the pushy student association come in and take up lecture time with some lame singing antics. They extol the

Car Insurance

2007-03-12T12:42:00.000+10:00

There seem to be a lot of dodgy car insurance companies out there. Over my life I have heard some quite nasty things that certain companies do and I like to spread the info to make sure people have informed choices. Now to be fair, the info that I provide is just my experience and may be the result of talking to a person who has had a particularly unfortunate time with the company. Internal

Blogger index

2007-02-20T17:05:00.002+10:00

I have been a little frustrated with the template limitations and design of blogger. I have checked out and started a Vox account and have been very impressed by what they have to offer but the customisation is even more restricted even though you have way more gizmos to play with. I still like Vox and will probably maintain the blog because of the community feel to it.My main beef with Blogger

Europe: my guide

2007-02-16T17:52:00.000+10:00

Long time no post - well I went to Europe for a while. This is my second trip to Europe, but this time we were determined to see more places over a longer period than the first two week trip allowed. I thought I would share some tips. You may want to check out my photo collection hosted by the wonderful people at Flickr or on my .Mac website while it still lasts.European capitals are expensiveBut

Electronic Arts

2006-11-18T11:36:00.000+10:00

In Brief:* Electronic Arts make it difficult to sign up and use their facilities* Electronics Arts makes it difficult to get updates for their software* Electronic Arts has a faulty feedback script, they don't want to hear from you* Electronic Arts install spyware on your system (except, possibly, Australian versions)* Electronics Boutique is a rip off in Australia* Australian middle man

Mac articles now at Mac Tech Switching

2006-11-05T13:30:00.000+10:00

I have been "invited" to submit articles over on a new Mac blog called Mac Tech Switching so I will probably post none (or very few) Mac based articles here from this point.My first article was about a list of laptops that met the minimum specs required for my place of work. One of them happened to be a MacBook Pro, which also happened to be the cheapest. I thought this worthy of reporting as

70% of casual gamers are females 40+ years old

2006-10-03T11:32:00.000+10:00

"Quality" analysis and reporting not at all influenced by marketing or complete rubbish?. 70% of casual gamers are females 40+ years old by ZDNet's ZDNet Research -- "Middle-aged" women rule the $458 mln US online casual game market, Real Networks and PopCap found. 70% of casual gamers are females over the age of 40. Are these just lies fudged for marketing?I can't see how this is a ZDNet

Spam junk email

2006-09-20T03:00:00.000+10:00

Freaking junk email, otherwise known as spam has been a growth industry from the early days of the internet.How do these evil junk emailers get your email address?* Your ISP might stupidly post a list of their clients' email addresses (yours) on a web page* You sign up for any service on the net, and they request your email address as part of registration* You give your details to a company like

Anti Virus Software

2006-09-01T01:52:00.003+10:00

Anti virus software has been with us since the days of DOS. For the Microsoft Windows people the virus scanning software is pretty much essential for a multitude of reasons.There has been a claim that at one stage the virus problem was solved. The operating system would make a check sum of every file, securely store this file, and check every program before you ran it to make sure that the file

Aug 2006 Apple Developers Conference (WWDC)

2006-08-09T09:40:00.000+10:00

Uninspiring journalist, Leander Kahney, whines about not being pandered to at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Because Leander didn't get any toys he writes some drivel along the lines of "Steve Jobs' keynote speech on Monday was the most uninspiring he's given in recent memory. It hints at the trouble Apple will be in marketing-wise if he ever steps down."I watched the

I am Spock

2006-08-07T13:55:00.000+10:00

My whole life philosophy has now been justified thanks to this online quiz. Yes, I am Spock. This very slow site seems to go up and down, so you may not be able to have your identity confirmed and must continue to live in self doubt until the sysadmins bring their straining servers back up again.But no! Waiting for the system to come back up is heretical. The people must know which Star Trek

Green Tea

2006-07-17T21:15:00.000+10:00

Green Tea contains all sorts of good things, like ... green. And tea.Well apparently there is bunch of catechin polyphenols, notably epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) which is a powerful anti-oxidant that can prevent / cure / who knows what for:* Cancer* Alzheimers* Rheumatoid arthritis* High cholesterol* Cardiovascular disease* Impaired immune functionThe FDA of the USA hasn't done any research to

iTunes AppleScript Podcasts, Skip and Bookmark

2006-07-09T21:30:00.000+10:00

I have moved all of my iTunes content over from my laptop, which was mostly podcasts, and all of my music from my home desktop to my iMac. The podcasts I listen to have taken up a huge amount of room (16Gig) because I don't like deleting things, so my laptop thanks me for the free space, and my iPod is now connecting directly to another piece of Apple hardware to get it's updates.I have found

Refresh Finder Plug-in AppleScript

2006-07-08T15:37:00.000+10:00

I find there are plenty of annoyances with Finder, which is the very limited file browser that comes with OS X. I have already mentioned the bug about changing the colour of the background in a previous post. There are far more usability issues I have with Finder that I ever had with Windows Explorer (or File Manager).One issue that I have contended with recently was finding "Refresh", the

Automating iSight

2006-06-21T01:08:00.004+10:00

So you have this iSight camera built into your Mac and you want to make it take images on demand. My first thought was to get Automator to do it all, however Automator does not have access to the camera at this stage. As soon as Automator has a camera action then the task will become much more simple and you can toss out the mess of scripting below.What follows is a number of experiments to take

Switching to Mac

2006-06-18T20:11:00.000+10:00

Thanks to putting in a tonne of overtime hours for a particular project, they agreed to fund my purchase of any equipment that I might need for home use. Hurrah! I suggested and have received a sweet 20inch Intel Core Duo iMac. Which explains the lack of pretty much everything else that I have been doing lately. The shipment was delayed a couple times, the people at Infinite Systems were quite

Flickr and Blogger

2006-05-20T13:19:00.000+10:00

Bribie Island Birds in Sunset. This is an example of clicking "Blog This" in Flickr and having it automatically create a blog entry in Blogger. This shows how services from Yahoo can integrate so smoothly with services from rival company: Google. A symbol of peace in our time.So after configuring Flickr with my Blogger information, everything is all set to have my "Bribie Island Birds in Sunset

Linux

2006-05-15T12:51:00.000+10:00

Linux is an alternative operating system for your computer. This means that you can start Linux instead of Windows. Why would you want to do that? Well many reasons, the major one being that Linux is free. Other reasons include: Linux claims to be more secure, more stable, more open (you can download the source code for the operating system), less resource intensive; as a method to recover/

Brisbane Lions Losers

2006-05-13T16:20:00.000+10:00

The Brisbane Lions, Australian Rules Football team has not been doing very well the last two years and now things seem to be just getting messy. I am a member of the club and really don't mind the losses so much. So far this year we have had one win out of six games, but some of the matches were quite entertaining for me even though we lost. A star of the Lions side is Jason Akermanis. Jason

Caring government gives tax break to needy rich

2006-05-10T08:33:00.000+10:00

For too long the rich have suffered at the hands of the poor, but oh how the tables are turning now. Take that you evil poor people. Draining valuable money from the coffers of the wealthy for petty things like food, rent, health and education while the rich go without a luxury yacht, second holiday home and ivory back scratchers. Don't you people realise that spoiled snotty kids are extremely

Ultraviolet Tattoo

2006-05-01T20:31:00.005+10:00

Not that I want a tattoo particularly, but if I did then "Blacklight reactive ink" is what I would want it done in. Glows in UV light but is invisible in normal light! Apart from finding somebody local who actually does this, there would be the matter of picking the right design; Apple/IBM/Commodore logo, Quake logo, circuit diagram, Escher drawing, biohazard, radiation symbol, "THX1138", a

Bottled water = Snake Oil

2006-04-23T18:34:00.002+10:00

I went into BiLo across the road and noted down the softdrink, fruit juice and water prices (23 April 2006), dropped them into a spreadsheet for a quick comparison of what the various liquids cost per litre (the last column). The cheapest beverage was BiLo softdrink at 52 cents per litre. The most expensive was Evian at $2.96 per litre. That is Evian spring water, no juice or carbonation. This

YouTube

2006-04-20T20:16:00.000+10:00

YouTube is a phenomenon. Anyone can post their video up on the net for anyone else to watch. 99% of the content is complete rubbish, there are only a couple gems, ah but what gems they are.And the Evil Easter Bunny is just a great tribute to amatuer film. Kevin Smith did a great spoof of the junk on YouTube included in his Clerks II Behind the Scenes Special which should be rated not suitable for

Poetry

2006-04-11T18:45:00.000+10:00

When you're feeling mellow and creative and you don't have a camera then poems can be an easy outlet for those creative juices or even a distraction with the sweet endorphin burst at the end when you think you have done something particularly clever with words.Throw in some math and you get things like poems based on the fibonacci sequence and more rules to better "fibs". Slashdot it and the

Make your own comic online

2006-04-08T11:05:00.001+10:00

Back in the days when we were first thinking about POP1, we wanted to have a cartoon featured. None of us had even a modicum of artistic skill but we all thought we were fairly witty. This simple online tool Strip Generator allows you to create very basic comic strips without much fuss. There are some shortfalls, like you can't change facial expressions and there is only a very limited set of "

Interesting Links

2006-04-05T22:01:00.000+10:00

Just browsing about and realised I should share the links I think are interesting. Places I regularly go to and new places that seem fun.DiggSign up for this. It is a tech (etc) oriented news site that is user driven. One of the really neat features is that you can "digg" an article and it adds it to your digg bookmarks which you can later go back and investigate in more detail. Since using Digg

CommonWealth Games

2006-03-21T20:13:00.000+10:00

The Commonwealth Games are a joke. Foxtel wants to sell you special packages to watch everything on at least seven channels of coverage, Channel 9 are stuffing in as many advertisements as they can and showing only the highlights of all events except swimming, and making absolutely no use of their other digital channels which could be showing events in full - they want you to pay extra via foxtel

Civilization IV

2006-03-04T20:30:00.000+10:00

I had spent many hours developing civilizations back in the dark days of computing of the early 90s. The game "Civilization" came out after the other hit; "Sim City" had started to lose its shine. The games are similar, but different enough to warrant buying and playing both. If I cast my mind back even further, there was a textmode war game that I spent many hours on called Empire which had a

The Face Transformer

2006-02-13T20:37:00.000+10:00

Apologies for the extra long image down the side but I thought that the output of the transformer software was so very cool that you would have to see it for yourself, and these are probably the only pictures of myself that I am truly happy to have on the internet. Hurrah for digg popping up little gems of goodness such as this.Take an image of yourself looking straight at the camera, upload the

MENSA Intelligence Test

2006-01-20T12:18:00.000+10:00

Oh yay, another test. However, this test is kind of brain stretching for a while, and the positive feedback you get from striving to be in the genius category is rather happy-making. Note: there are mistakes in the questions (see below)I got 31/33 without looking anything up, just sitting for half an hour, occasionally pushing my fist into my forehead. For some questions I just plugged through

Queensland traffic signs

2005-12-29T14:51:00.000+10:00

Being the Christmas holidays I have managed to do quite a bit of traveling around the south-east corner of Queensland over the last week or so. I have traveled to and through many areas that I am not familiar with and so I had to rely on brief glances of maps before leaving and traffic signs while on the road. Unfortunately, traffic signs in Queensland are terrible. Being a long time resident of

Privacy and Fly Buys

2005-11-27T14:27:00.000+10:00

In Australia, like elsewhere, there exists a system where you get "rewarded" for using credit or buying at certain retailers. Usually this consists of gaining points for money spent using a particular credit card and/or dealing with specific companies who participate in these programs. Sounds reasonable. As long as you don't change your purchasing habits (ie: spend more) then you seem to be

Microwave popcorn kills!

2005-11-22T21:53:00.003+10:00

"Eating microwave pop corn may expose people to chemicals that break down to produce PFOA, a suspected carcinogen."Some background is required here for the uninitiated. Teflon (a brand name of Dupont) is a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) that is supposed to be safe, but when heated to very high temperatures is known to give off toxic gasses. One of these toxic gasses is perfluorooctanoic acid (

RIAA President: Sony Has Acted Very Responsibly

2005-11-22T19:57:00.000+10:00

The impartial and well informed president of the Record Industry Association of America (read USA) says:"The problem with the SonyBMG situation is that the technology they used contained a security vulnerability of which they were unaware. They have apologized for their mistake, ceased manufacture of CDs with that technology, and pulled CDs with that technology from store shelves. Seems very

Eggnite

2005-11-19T16:49:00.000+10:00

I was wandering about the local shopping centre last Thursday, doing nothing in particular. Noticed a whole pile of cylindrical cannisters with pictures of a glowy round thing plastered on the front. Said cannister proclaimed to the world that it contained an Eggnite. "What is this thing you earth people call 'Eggnite'?" I hear you say. Eggnite is an egg shaped blob of translucent plastic that

Moon

2005-11-16T07:57:00.000+10:00

Fun with digital cameras! Nice full(ish) moon rising last night, so I haul out my 10 inch dobsonian mount telescope, place my Canon IXY700 into a barlow and focus. I can only get the focus right if the camera is in the barlow and I have full zoom (including digital - yuk). I snap a dozen shots or so of mediocre quality images of small parts of the moon. I decide to pack up, but would have a look

Picasa

2005-11-15T13:00:00.000+10:00

The garbage bins are just a demo pic. I could have chosen something a little more appropriate, but this was the last image I took on my camera.Picasa is anything but garbage. Picasa is amazing! Google bought the Picasa software and is giving it away for free. Picasa indexes all the photographs on your computer, no matter where they are. Excellent for technologically challenged parents /

It's a Sony DRM disaster

2005-11-06T12:27:00.000+10:00

This is like Christmas. There is a very special feeling in the air: the smell of a big company having their butt kicked is a sweet one indeed. The fact that this big company happens to be Sony is just so extra special. Glee! Initially I didn't want to post this because it was too obvious given my Sony sentiment expressed throughout my Blog (indeed the previous item about the iTunes Store).

Apple iTunes store open in Australia

2005-10-26T13:42:00.000+10:00

Yeah baby! The rumours were mounting a while ago and this week the rumours started pumping harder - online music sales in Australia via Apple went live 25th October 2005. Sweet!I realise that we already have online music sales via other companies but I will be damned if I am buying anything from BigPong/Telstra/MSN when I don't have to. I explored a couple crappy smaller online sales places but

What SciFi/Fantasy character are you?

2005-10-20T20:07:00.000+10:00

What sort of Sci-fi/Fantasy character am I? Well I never really thought about it much. Spock (Star Trek) is a little cold but I admire him immensely. Q (Star Trek) became a better character as the various series rolled by. I could also identify with anything that was trying to kill the Voyager crew (Star Trek) - I wanted them all dead too. I also admire Avon (Blakes 7) for his sarcasm and cold

iPod Nano and iTunes

2005-10-15T22:50:00.000+10:00

You've probably heard at least some of the hype about the iPod Nano, very small, very light, feature-full little beasty. Exceedingly popular, with the whole of Hong Kong seemingly sold out as soon as they got them for at least one month after the iPod Nano debut. Joy. Well yes, the iPod Nano is all that but this device can also keep you slim and help you run faster and further. "Yeah right." you

Buying a camera

2005-10-05T17:16:00.000+10:00

Say you're going overseas for a trip and stopping in Hong Kong or Singapore for a night and you think that this might be a good opportunity to buy a camera. Good idea! You can save yourself a couple hundred dollars and get all the extra wotsits for your camera in one go. Mind you, if you are after a cheap camera then you aren't going to save that much ... and maybe you are better off buying

Photoshop

2005-09-14T15:09:00.000+10:00

As a long time user of photoshop and similar programs (gimp, iphoto, paintshop pro, photoplus etc) I have to say that I spend way too much time editing images. Somehow I have so much fun when altering people's faces and scenes. From subtle lighting elements through to changing the landscape; got a road: change it to grass; powerlines become blue sky; acne is a thing of the past. Sure, the

Bad Science

2005-09-12T16:02:00.000+10:00

Ben Goldacre's web site Bad Science has some wonderfully insightful essays on science in the media and the abuse of science by irresponsible researchers. I'd write more but I would just be repeating Ben's stuff and you could already be there reading right now. So scoot! There is a lot to read. You may want to get a cup of nice tea first or warm milk. Mmmm, polyphenols and tryptophan.

AFL: Brisbane Lions

2005-09-11T19:30:00.000+10:00

AFL (Australia Rules Football Leage) is a far better game than Rugby League/Union where the ref has too much influence and skill/strategy is secondary. Soccer doesn't seem to draw much of a crowd in Australia but appears to have the same referee dependence and low scoring issue of Rugby. Grid-iron/US-football appears to be girlie.Anyways, my alleged team, the Brisbane Lions, have had their butts

Serenity

2005-09-01T23:50:00.000+10:00

This is the movie you were looking for ... when you went to see star wars. Exceedingly entertaining and should put a whole horde of people onto the Firefly series that got stopped because marketing screwed up. Go see it ... when it comes out at the end of September 2005. So very highly recommended.

This is not the movie you were looking for

2005-08-22T12:39:00.000+10:00

Move along.Finally, the movie where we find out how do the Sith get revenge, and what are they seeking revenge for! We went to see the big movie at midnight on opening night with all the other nerds. There were plenty of seats available so I'm imagining that most fans will see it later, or are waiting to see if it sucks like the first one. Or it could be just the demographic of the cinema we went

Stupid tests

2005-08-19T00:17:00.000+10:00

Why do I do stupid tests that I am 95% confident (P<0.05) don't mean squat? It's because of my strong emotional side needing to be defined in a world where self image is everything and yet is so hard to detect above the noise that swamps your senses every freaking second of the day. Of course, my intellectual side tells me that the definition of self is moderately pointless as I am a squishy meat

Consumables (ink, toner, bulbs)

2005-08-05T13:09:00.000+10:00

A couple years ago I had wanted to do some printing at home and found that my Canon BJ-30 had bitten the dust. Sad. I never really used the printer much but when I had it always produced crisp pages. The cost of ink really hurt though, which soon found me with alternate brands and refill kits. Seems that a lot of the ink from refills would end up over my fingers. That wasn't too bad because the

Humour in 3-space

2005-07-25T12:48:00.000+10:00

OK, so I took this test that Narbenfarkle promoted on hist site. Hmmm. Unsure I would self assess along these lines. Be warned that you will probably be spammed for life after registering this test so use Mailinator or a junk email address. Neoporcupine is: the Shock Jock (52% dark, 43% spontaneous, 44% vulgar) your humor style:VULGAR | SPONTANEOUS | DARKYour sense of humor is off-the-cuff

So many companies want me to blog with them

2005-07-13T14:36:00.000+10:00

Everyone is after me to add content to their company's blog site. I am guessing that they believe the content is free to them and they can slip some advertising in and around the blog. In return you get free blog space. Not that anyone ever reads blogs that much.I first started blogging on a personal web server running on my own personal computer. The page was accessed only by a couple workmates.

Cold Callers

2005-05-03T16:08:00.000+10:00

There is a fix for cold callers. You don't need to be rude. Just explain what you believe and they go away. It doesn't take long. "I have a personal policy where I never give money out to cold callers, sorry." If they persist, which none have to date: "Please don't try to talk me into compromising my values." Any further and you say "I think you are being rude now, I am hanging up." Do the same

Wasting time

2005-04-27T15:41:00.000+10:00

Sometimes I do things which relate to my work that I am sure is wasting time, but I work so damned hard at it that it doesn't feel like wasting time at all. In the end I come out with something productive but it isn't the core business of what we do here. I still feel pleased with myself.Somebody asks me about images available on our server. I mention that there are a lot of people who have left

Curry

2005-04-04T19:40:00.000+10:00

Man I make a mean curry.Friends will claim that I pile on the chilli when I use it, and I have to admit that I have calmed down with the demon spice.My curries have always been tasty and never painful. Not that I would shy away from a painful curry, I can handle that challenge. I certainly wouldn't want that sort of thing regularly. When it comes to making my own, I like the tasty level. Ya, mix

Web Cams

2005-01-11T13:51:00.000+10:00

Web cams rock. You can set up some simple security in your house with software like Home Watcher or just take periodic simple snap shots using Cam Commander. You can also video chat using Yahoo Messenger or Microsoft Messenger. If you have a permanent broadband connection, like cable or ADSL, then it isn't too hard to have your web cam up and going all day. You will, of course, need a web cam.

Sharing is bad

2004-10-08T10:48:00.000+10:00

If your neighbour asks you if he may borrow your lawn mower, you shouldn't let him. He should get his own mower and pay the mower company the money they deserve for designing, producing and marketing their product. If you bought Simon Singh's "The Code Book" and know a friend who would love it, you should not loan him your copy. If you like Hootie & the Blowfish and have purchased a copy of their

Olympics

2004-08-26T22:33:00.000+10:00

Every olympics I spend a lot of time in the rec.sport.olympics news group. There are the usual morons who post such low level garble of dreary prose that I just have to join in and set them on the road of self recognition of their lowly standards of verbal description, and comprehension. OK, I flame. But it is all good fun and I make sure there are plenty of smiles around. At least on my side

Microsoft

2004-08-26T21:54:00.000+10:00

People who know me will know I have been rough on Microsoft from pretty much Windows 3.0. Before then the software they made was well known amongst the computer savvy as being second rate, or barely adequate. But Windows 3 started Microsoft down the route of bringing the PC to the mass market. The mass market didn't know anything about crap software. Microsoft made the operating system so the

Brisbane Lions

2004-08-08T18:06:00.000+10:00

The Australian Rules football club known as "The Brisbane Lions" have to be the top team playing. They have been playing extremely well and looked a certainty to win the premiership for the fourth time in a row. Three weeks ago they were a few points away from being FOUR times the opposition's score. Lions' supporters were over the moon. Other club supporters: not so happy. Nothing looked like

Doom 3

2004-08-08T17:47:00.000+10:00

Yes, I am a big fan of ID. I was one of the geeks who played all of the Wolfenstein levels you could find, I played the various Commander Keen releases too damnit. I was one of the idiots waiting for ID to release the original Doom, which they couldn't because the site they were supposed to release it on was clogged with slobbering geeks awaiting the download. I played a huge number of add on

Fahrenheit 911

2004-07-28T22:18:00.000+10:00

If you live in the USA - you suck. "Bowling for Columbine", "Super Size Me" and now "Fahrenheit 911" have pointed the finger firmly on the USA sucking and sucking hard. You should also check out Ron Suskind's article in Time, a long read but adds to the flavour of the conversation here.To start with, I read Dave Kopel's rebuff to the movie in question. If everything that Dave says is true about

Pizza recipe

2004-07-23T20:23:00.000+10:00

My girlfriend, Dragonfly, and I were cruising back to my place before we were to go out to the movies. We were going to have a quick dinner of whatever I might have about the place to avoid paying exhorbitant restaurant prices. I usually can cook up something like rice and steamed vegetables and some lightly pan fried fish in less than 30minutes. Throw in some spices and nice sauce and you

Garfield

2004-07-20T00:57:00.000+10:00

Disappointing barely begins to cover what high hopes had been dashed by this movie. I am a huge Garfield fan and watched this movie with great anticipation. I think I might have smiled once during the movie. I may have been thinking of something else. Like how nice the world outside the cinema is. I guess there must be someone who appreciates dancing dog movies.

Too wordy?

2004-07-19T00:37:00.000+10:00

Do you think my posts are too big? Well I have two words for you but this post is probably already too large for you.

Digital photo printing

2004-07-18T20:40:00.000+10:00

MegapixelsThis is a big hobby horse of mine. Well, photography is a hobby of mine, but the horse I ride is about people insisting that they have a huge number of megapixels. I looked carefully at the pros and cons before purchasing and have been ever so happy with my decision to stay with the lower megapixel camera but better optics and better reviews. The same sort of reasoning would apply today

Presidential power

2004-07-17T00:35:00.000+10:00

A long time ago I used a speech given by George Bush the Second (President of United States) in a parody. It was an extract from one of his really dumb speeches. Hmmm, that doesn't narrow it down any. I used a speech that GBII made just after the collapse of the world trade centre. We were having some problems with network hackers because the bozos who were configuring the machines had left the

King Arthur

2004-07-17T00:28:00.000+10:00

I managed to get a chance to view this film. I love fantasy, myth and the whole arthurian legend. Don't bother with this one.

Dreamweaver

2004-07-13T13:29:00.000+10:00

Dreamweaver sucks and rocks. I hate how it crashes and hangs, and changes templates. I love how it find all sorts of different things wrong with your code and can optimise the complete rubbish that comes out of Microsoft products. Dreamweaver is also excellent for site wide updates, using libraries, templates, search and replace with REGULAR EXPRESSIONS (wooohooo!) I had our IT support install

Lunch time

2004-07-13T12:40:00.000+10:00

Finalised a web site that I have been working on intensively for the past couple weeks. The site owners are extremely happy and relieved that all the information is finally out. I am the second web monkey to work on the site, the first guy had to go overseas and was given an out of date set of source material to construct the site from. Basically, the content had to be rewritten, but the site

C#

2004-07-13T00:17:00.000+10:00

Started to develop a tiny application in C#, a console program. I did this because Delphi Personal edition doesn't seem to have any databased connectivity. Such is life. My experience with C# is ... null. C++ is also null. C however, I have programmed in extensively, both at University and then on one or two projects afterwards. Toxic. Everyone has been talking about .NET and C# and how much

Weblog open for reading

2004-07-12T22:58:00.001+10:00

I was driving home listening to Radio National. They were talking about "Blogging" which always seemed like a great idea to me, allows you to vent your ideas and views to the world as well as record your life in some detail for others to ignore in the future. I had something like that going on my work machine, and on a personal web page that I scrapped. I wrote an ASP script for POP1 but the host