Having kicked off a mac vs. pc flame war on work’s IT mailing list this morning, I was delighted to see the following irony play out on screen. As the good folk debated the weight of downloads and updates, Microsoft AutoUpdate launched and proceeded to tell me I needed 150Mb. of sealing wax to plug …
Category Archives: tech
taking back the tubes
A short while ago, I posted about my frustration with imrworldwide.com, a site that seemed to be slowing my browsing experience. After a little investigation, I realised that this was no more than a market research company’s “spyware”, javascripts that serve no purpose other than to track and report on my movements. They certainly don’t …
great service #5
I’ve saved the best ’til last. Remember the days before mp3s?… how about CDs? yes, who had a great collection of vinyl? Who’s still got one? Well, I don’t. I got rid of most of my collection long ago, but there are a few faves hanging around in the cupboard and one day I plan …
a blockage in the tubes
I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets frustrated by slow loading web pages. I don’t mean the consistently slow ones from low budget sites, but pages that load quickly for a bit, then practically stop for a while – sometimes a looong while!, then maybe resume and finish. Pages from prominent, high budget …
your very own babelfish?
Who has read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and not thought a Babelfish would be a pretty cool thing to have? Ever since I first came across speech-to-text technology about 15 years ago, I’ve imagined an electronic Babelfish – a pair of glasses with a ‘head up’ display and a directional microphone coupled with some …
I didn’t know you could do that!
Just discovered a feature of flickr I didn’t know about – short URLs. Every Flickr photo page has it’s own embedded short URL. Much smarter to use the built in tool than using bit.ly or tinyurl etc. Well, it would be if you knew it was there! There is some documentation about the short URL …
and the winner is…
For a few years now, Web Directions conference has incorporated The McFarlane Prize, which recognises excellence in web development. Although a relatively small prize, it is hotly contested, peer reviewed and any sites that are shortlisted (let alone those that win), have achieved very high levels of excellence in coding, usability, design and accessibility (that’s …
looks like spam, smells like spam…
So, come on Google – mark it as spam! Does that screengrab look like spam to you? Sure looks like spam to me, and I’ve been dutifully marking dozens like it as spam each day for weeks, but still they arrive. Come on google, how hard can they be to spot?
watching my bandwidth…
Like most people who have broadband, my account doesn’t have excess charges, just ‘shaping’ – dropping back to crawling ‘dial-up’ speeds until the end of the billing period. It is just horrible and I really do my very best to avoid it. Obviously the best way to avoid it is to keep a close eye …
OVI store – a competitor?
Nokia today launched it’s OVI store, an attempt by the company to jump on the tidal wave of success that is the Apple Store (along with about a half a dozen other imitators). Many industry pundits are touting it as some sort of competitor, but I’m afraid that’s an uphill battle, and one they’re never …
commbank goes mobile
I don’t know exactly when they released this, but the Commonwealth bank have just gone mobile with both a mobile and an iPhone app. I’ve just had a poke around the site on my nokia 6120 and it’s excellent. Does everything I need smoothly and easily – they deserve a big thumbs up. If there …
Women’s Semi Final, Australian Open 1992
Every January when the Australian Open Tennis is on, I fondly remember back to 1992 when, working for XPress Group, I was lucky enough to be handed a Press Pass and a Nikon F2 camera fitted with a new Kodak DCS-1 back. The camera, in turn, was connected to a ‘luggable’ hard disk with (B+W …