I've been using iTunes since getting my first iPod in late 2004, a first-gen gold-coloured 4GiB iPod mini that IBM sent me as a freebie for taking part in a Linux on PowerPC outreach programme. It required iTunes for Windows XP to be installed on my Dell Latitude to synchronise music from my laptop to […]
After reading some interesting stories of what life inside virtual worlds could be like in the future, I was inspired to do a bit of writing of my own from a different perspective on Second Life. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Neuro slowly opened one eye, looking towards the red light blinking plaintively on his aging […]
I got a letter addressed to "The Occupier" from Virgin Media this morning. It's the latest in many advertising missives that I'm convinced I'm only sent because someone has surveyed the street and spied my Sky minidish attached to my back wall. So this one I got this morning has listed ten reasons to switch […]
I have a cheap dedicated server running Ubuntu Linux — the 8.04 LTS "Hardy Heron" release — with Kimsufi , the budget arm of French hosting company OVH . All their Linux servers (and FreeBSD servers too, I think) are provisioned with their own custom, static kernel. This, they say, makes it "secure". It also […]
For the last couple of years, I've fallen more and more back in love with Macs. One of their foibles is that Apple have decided the standard British English, or UK, keyboard layout should not match that of every other computer manufacturer on the planet. Various characters are just in the wrong place, such as […]
I've been playing about with OS X on a Dell Mini 9 netbook. A major hassle is that it only has 8GB of on-board disk space (albeit on a lovely silent SSD). I bought a 16GB Class 4 SDHC card to use for my home directory, but it turns out OS X only automatically mounts […]
(With apologies to Monty Python) Four well-dressed men sitting together at a LUG meeting, surrounding a laptop running Ubuntu 9.04. First Yorkshireman (1Y): Ahh ... Very passable, this, very passable. Second Yorkshireman (2Y): Nothing like a good install of Ubuntu Jaunty, eh Gessiah? Third Yorkshireman (3Y): You're right there, Obediah. Fourth Yorkshireman (4Y): Who'd a […]
I was flicking through the iTunes Store this morning and noticed something odd ... some words in reviews and track titles had asterisks in them as though they were swear words (e.g. 'b*ll*cks'). But they didn't appear to be swear words. iTunes uses allmusic for the bulk of their album and single reviews, so luckily […]
As someone said on IRC this morning: "the FSF appear to have come up with the perfect plan for how to look like a bunch of annoying, smart-arse tossers ". Has the Free Software Foundation gone nuts? Update 13:30: I don't seem to be alone on this: popey , mgdm , ZDNet , Slashdot . […]