Author Archive

Mars on Earth or vice versa

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

The other day there was a dust storm in Australia that was the biggest in 73 years. It made Sydney look like it was on mars and made other places go pitch black. (more…)

Ubuntu 9.04 is a PAIN

Monday, April 27th, 2009

I upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) yesterday and soar I have found four things I commonly use are broken/”fixed”.

  • nmap is broken in a way that makes it hard to read the output
  • Nautilus will not allow me to replace a folder with a child folder
  • Pidgin’s buddy window window plate shows on all workspaces even though the buddy window does not
  • Comix will not open archives inside of archives any more
  • I will probably find more in a day or so, but so far I just have complaints (I see no speed increase)

    Offline reading

    Sunday, December 14th, 2008

    I just added the ability to read this blog offline if you have Google gears. I am planing to use the ability of Google gears to attempt to guess your current location ad display the weather in your location. Of course if you do not have gears installed you could still enter your location manually.

    nothing here

    Saturday, November 1st, 2008

    (more…)

    Why did Javascript/AJAX mop the floor with Java, Flash and Silverlight? Or, why open standards eventually win

    Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

    It’s not always true that the neatest, most advanced technology ends up winning most of the market share. There are other reasons which get in the way. Sometimes, the less advanced solutions end up winning — and evolve in order to become more solid and established. An example of this is Javascript/AJAX, which has conquered most of the web-based client programming — despite the fact that there were competing technologies which could (and maybe should) have easily won, purely based on technical merits. How did that happen? (more…)

    5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

    Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

    The 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:

    • iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can’t be on everyone’s phones.
    • iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.
    • iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.
    • iPhone won’t play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.
    • iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don’t spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software — like the FreeRunner. (more…)