Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Geekstuff

Juha Saarinen

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 09:22:15 +1300

Yes... I think you have to be less diluted in your Fennicity than I am to fully appreciate the humour :).

Reeves and Mortimer, Triggerhappy TV etc though...

Hamish

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 09:17:11 +1300

Oh, but so much more than a band.

We've got a bunch of their more recent books – (Viralliset Palat 2001, Varallisuus On Ilomne 2001 & Virallisuus Tai Henki 2002)

Juha Saarinen

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 09:05:46 +1300

De-obscuring Alivaltiosihteeri...

Paul Capewell

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:55:39 +1300

Nice!

What a strange little device.

I'll do some more homework now.

Russell Brown

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:15:47 +1300

On the subject of Geekstuff, Russell, what of Chumby?

Funny you should ask. They've recently asked everyone with a prototype Chumby to update it over the air. The update was smooth (my son did it) and it makes the Chumby work a lot better, the touchscreen especially.

There are new…

Hamish

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:47:40 +1300

Oh, Juha, palindromes? That is the very height of Finnish geekdpm – my wife is Finnish and a big fan of Alivaltiosihteeri :P

Juha Saarinen

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:25:55 +1300

Well, llew... (nice palindromic opening there); did you have to put FREE TIBET and REMEMBER TIANANMEN SQUARE all over the place?

andrew llewellyn

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:00:57 +1300

Since I checked it out, I seem to have had quite a few visitors from mainland china, coincidence?

Ben Austin

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:43:48 +1300

Love that website, I'm not sure whether to be happy or angry that my site is apparently kosher.

I'll go with happy as I have friends in mainland China.

Juha Saarinen

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:27:16 +1300

I am polite! It's teh funny that gets me into trouble.

andrew llewellyn

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:25:50 +1300

See! I told you you have to be more polite to Keith & Tze Ming.

Juha Saarinen

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:00:19 +1300

Unblocked! That was fast. Is it because I's be such a nice and influential person or did someone pull strings?

Juha Saarinen

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:52:29 +1300

This is geeko-political, but you'll be pleased to know, everyone, that The People's Republic of China approves of Public Address. It is available in the Middle Kingdom for public consumption, it would appear.

Not so with my blog and Geekzone though... :\

andrew llewellyn

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:43:49 +1300

Do I need to do anything to get it up on the blog

or will it just happen in its own sweet time?

Maybe :)

Simon Grigg

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:00:50 +1300

Vista...My understanding is that with both XP and Win 95/98 there was a clear public move to quickly upgrade existing machines which led to the mass surge of the OS after release. This clearly is not happening with Vista...I actually don't know a living soul whose rushed out and bought…

Peter Cox

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:52:31 +1300

Cool. So I selected my gravitar and feel empowered by a sense of individualism. Do I need to do anything to get it up on the blog or will it just happen in its own sweet time?

matthewbuchanan

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:40:45 +1300

On Safari slowdowns, seems Dave Hyatt has already fixed the underlying issues in recent nightly builds, and that Macenstein have re-run their tests and confirmed huge improvement:

Just wanted to let you know that as per your request we ran our tests again using your latest WebKit builds, and the…

Paul Capewell

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:14:59 +1300

On the subject of Geekstuff, Russell, what of Chumby?

Tom Beard

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 09:12:54 +1300

Dell are still selling XP machines, but you have to find the link that says "Do you still want to buy a computer with XP?" before they'll show them to you. Most of the high street stores (even Quay computers, which I used to think had a bit more nous…

tim kong

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 22:43:41 +1300

RE: mystery Telecom spam

Don't know if it's the same one – but I got email from Telecom telling me that

"In accordance with instructions received, your Telecom account is no
longer subscribed to Bill Online. The invoice(s) for this account will no longer be
delivered to you electronically. Your…

Murray

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:03:41 +1300

Love the new "Scoopit" buttons on each PA post footer.

Hamish

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:19:53 +1300

FYI, RB & Matt – Planet of teh Journals seems to be munted right now – hasn't updated the 'last posts' gadget since 22 Feb

Juha Saarinen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:18:47 +1300

(Type 58008 into a calculator. Turn calculator upside down.)

Hamish

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:15:04 +1300

Yeah?... Well "58008" to you.

Bwahahahahaaa...

Ben Gracewood

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:30:23 +1300

I am also ambivalent about Vista. Had it on my desktop for a while, but it was just a slow dog, even with 2GB of RAM on a Core2 Duo (Vista 'experience' score of 5.2 or something).

I am excited about Windows Home Server however. Just got in on the…

3410

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:19:07 +1300

Geez, it's hard work keeping up to date with the requirements of geekiness. What the hell is "1337"?

Elite. N00b. LRN2133TSP33K. LOLZROFFLECOPTERS!!!~~~~

Yeah?... Well "58008" to you.

Juha Saarinen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:06:56 +1300

Elite. N00b. LRN2133TSP33K. LOLZROFFLECOPTERS!!!~~~~

3410

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:04:05 +1300

Geez, it's hard work keeping up to date with the requirements of geekiness. What the hell is "1337"?

JP Hansen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:26:08 +1300

Speaking of George Lucas and Digg;

Dig vs. Digg. Calling LucasLegal...

merc

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:09:02 +1300

I have a star remover machine...

Juha Saarinen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:32:35 +1300

Man, this really is the Internet... there are some nastily prurient people in here!

I like it.

JP Hansen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:31:05 +1300

Yeah, I feel like a star-bellied sneech.

Hadyn Green

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:28:01 +1300

Prestige Hadyn, you got it or you ain't.

Well there is definitely a class system building here

And what sort of condoms do you buy, anyway?

That may be a whole different comment stream

andrew llewellyn

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:28:00 +1300

And what sort of condoms do you buy, anyway?

The "to scale" ones from Lucasfilm that resemble R2D2.

JP Hansen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:25:14 +1300

It's based on this icon that I use on a number of messageboards;

http://www1.theforce.net/jc/icons/thephantommenace/tc-14.gif

And what sort of condoms do you buy, anyway?

JP Hansen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:23:32 +1300

I use mine for discounts on meatball subs at Subway.

andrew llewellyn

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:23:11 +1300

I smirk at your gravatarless... ness

Hey, JP, I just noticed (and I say this with the utmost respect) that yours looks like the standard baby's dummy gravatar, with a condom on it. Is that just me?

andrew llewellyn

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:20:44 +1300

Prestige Hadyn, you got it or you ain't.

Hadyn Green

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:45:51 +1300

So what else can you use the Gravatar for?

(please be there this time)

Nais

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:41:06 +1300

RB I'm with you re new tab auto-launching in Firefox.

JP Hansen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:11:58 +1300

I smirk at your gravatarless... ness.

noizyboy

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:41:34 +1300

hmph.

noizyboy

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:41:23 +1300

now?

noizyboy

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:40:23 +1300

dang.

noizyboy

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:40:16 +1300

come in ... gravatar.

Russell Brown

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:16:52 +1300

More insight on Safari slowdowns:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/2/28/7259

Not simple.

Juha Saarinen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:01:43 +1300

Works fine in FF, Opera and Maxthon. IE7 loads _blank in a new window, just to be like that.

Russell Brown

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:57:29 +1300

Gravatars make PA System slow to load, especially for threads with multiple pages of comments. I think if you're going to have avatars, they need to come from the local server, or an Akamaised one.
For me, Gravatar is 200ms+ away but Telecom's Global-Gateway likes to drop packets en route,…

Juha Saarinen

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:27:23 +1300

Gravatars make PA System slow to load, especially for threads with multiple pages of comments. I think if you're going to have avatars, they need to come from the local server, or an Akamaised one.

For me, Gravatar is 200ms+ away but Telecom's Global-Gateway likes to drop packets en route,…

Hamish

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:59:04 +1300

Not really – Noel Leeming's are selling notebooks for $999 that'll run Vista on 512 Mb. It's not advisable – but with 1 Gb and a cheapish video card it should be sweet.

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:56:34 +1300

No, I can safely say it doesn't need 4GB. 1GB is fine, 2GB is better. Due to the way x86 processors work, it would be a waste to get more than 3GB of RAM for a 32-bit OS.

Get a 64-bit OS however, and you don't have to worry about…

Jason Kemp

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:28:27 +1300

I heard that Vista likes 4GB of ram to be useful. Its looking like more reasons to get a Mac after all. I went and got a Gravatar to try out – looks like it is all working now.

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:20:49 +1300

Safari is considered harmful

To productivity, at least. Fascinating read, I had no idea.

Murray

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:56:10 +1300

obnoxious. that's the word I was looking for. :)

Hamish

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:43:26 +1300

I'm just posting to see if my Gravatar finally got updated..

.. And yes, there is a good reason _blank was dropped: it's an obnoxious way to link – especially since you've all got a 'open in new window/tab' button a mouse click away.

On the topic of Mac browsers…

Robyn Gallagher

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:41:38 +1300

I was looking at this discussion at work and there were far more Gravatars showing up here than I can see now at home. Caching, perhaps?

merc

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:47:20 +1300

Dude, I run a 2001 "Icebook" G3 with dual boot, OS9, and 10.2. That would make me very low-fi, or retro even. Though Safari never cut it for me, due to the fact that I have to use a PC at work and I like to run the same browser,…

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:15:14 +1300

Oh, and for all you disgustingly rich and odious Mac users out there, Safari is considered harmful

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:12:57 +1300

NOOO!! BUCHANAN! NOO!!

Not to use reams of Javascript to hack around a single, very useful attribute.

Murray

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:55:37 +1300

And Russell, if the user is "forced" to open links in a new tab/window, that's not an "option". Personally, I prefer to choose myself when I want to open a link in a new tab, by holding down ctrl in Firefox (or I use shift in IE ).

I sort…

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:53:21 +1300

But I've just realised that links in these forums only open in a new tab in Firefox. In Safari, it's a new window. Any one know why?

It's just a design thing, the developers of Firefox have (rightly) decided that in a tabbed world, "_blank" means new tab, not new…

merc

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:46:55 +1300

Dam, I should have known better, but for a moment there I was cyber geek.

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:43:04 +1300

Russell means add target="_blank" or similar tag :)

Yes, that's what we use over on PA classic, where us kids are still allowed to fool around with real HTML ;-)

But I've just realised that links in these forums only open in a new tab in Firefox. In Safari, it's…

JP Hansen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:36:59 +1300

"i t0tally pnwed u. u r so a n00b and i am so 1337."

That's complete gibberish. It should read;

"i t0tally pnwed u. u r so teh n00b and i am teh 1337."

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:32:11 +1300

Russell means add target="_blank" or similar tag :)

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:27:41 +1300

Russell, if you're using Safari you can hold down the Apple/Command key when clicking a link to achieve that effect.

Dude, I'm not a total n00b. But having open in a new tab as a default you don't even have to think about seems right for Scoopit. If there was…

merc

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:00:16 +1300

It does and I now feel like a cyber geek...

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:57:19 +1300

I find that very pleasing here.

Russell, if you're using Safari you can hold down the Apple/Command key when clicking a link to achieve that effect. Not sure if Firefox has a similar keyboard shortcut.

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:51:41 +1300

CY2008?

Whazzat?

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:49:42 +1300

Heyho chaps..
Not a word hereabouts about scoopit. But hey... its generating traffic and thats what matters. Thanks Russell!

Can you offer the option of having story links automatically open in new tabs, so I'm not going away from Scoopit? I find that very pleasing here.

Simon Grigg

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:48:59 +1300

but so will SP3 of XP be

it seems to be a way off

David Hamilton

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:32:49 +1300

I think we should have avatars editable by everyone, like wikis. Wakatars? Wavatars? Wikitars?

Wikatars?

That would be great, except for the inevitable arguments about how to most correctly represent someone. Expert opinion would of course be ignored in favour of that guy who sat behind you in high school…

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:18:07 +1300

I think we should have avatars editable by everyone, like wikis. Wakatars? Wavatars? Wikitars?

Gareth Elliott

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:15:42 +1300

I signed up a few weeks ago. My account works and I have associated an avatar.. i guess now......

i wait....

Hadyn Green

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:55:08 +1300

I lied I'm a little upset

Hadyn Green

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:54:40 +1300

ignore me
just testing my gravatar that I signed up for a little while ago

ps. I will NOT be upset if it doesn't work

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:36:47 +1300

Vista SP1 should be cool, but so will SP3 of XP be.

Alastair Thompson

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:15:18 +1300

Heyho chaps..

Not a word hereabouts about scoopit. But hey... its generating traffic and thats what matters. Thanks Russell!

What amazes me about vista is that it is not showing up in logs even thoough it is getting so hard to buy a computer without it.

All Dells now comes…

Peter Darlington

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:44:52 +1300

Vista is in some ways better than XP but you'd have to try it to appreciate why.

I've been using it on and off for a couple of months but in a VMWare environment Aero is out of the question as the VMWare graphics driver gets a Vista performance score…

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:41:06 +1300

Actually, can I take the nice words about PressDisplay/Reader back? It costs money, is slow and doesn't render things as well as the MS/NYTimes Reader. And they want you to pay for that? Nah.

Curse of the Dead Donkey has been placed on it.

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:31:53 +1300

OK, too much multitasking here... I was talking about PressDisplay and PressReader above, not just the latter.

Of course, if I had had an edit button... :)

Juha Saarinen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:12:59 +1300

Longhorn = not Vista, but the new server OS to replace Windows Server 2003. Gather some people are using it as their desktop OS, just as with WS03 (which is the code-base Vista was keyed off from) as it's nice and fast and secure.

I'm probably seeing more Vista hits…

Kyle Matthews

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:55:21 +1300

I just checked the stats on the sites I'm involved with and Vista is just hitting 1%....not good for Redmond surely, after a month or so. The overwhelming attitude I've encountered is "why bother, what does it offer", and the hardware specs are off putting for most. Releasing a new…

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:40:17 +1300

And YouTube?? We can?

For YouTube, just paste in the clip's URL, don't bother with the "embeddable" code they offer, we do our own take on it.

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:38:19 +1300

Why do people get so abusive because a free service isn't working very well?

I agree, although there are some paying customers too (premium accounts) and I could see why they might get more irate. Still, mostly out of order.

And YouTube?? We can? Images?

Yes to YouTube: been happening…

Simon Grigg

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:31:59 +1300

Read the first post in that Slashdot thread I linked to ..

that was hilarious:

__Delete this file, Cancel or Allow?

Cannot delete file 'File 47'
It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.

Undoing modifications, 35952…

andrew llewellyn

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:29:57 +1300

"Ditto. I signed up about a week ago, but so far there's no sign of my Gravatar here. :("

Robyn, mine turned up reasonably quickly after that – suggest you check back & see if you associated your chosen picture with your email – it's easy to miss.

merc

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:27:45 +1300

I blame the welfare state...

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:24:48 +1300

If you read the latest thread in Tom's Blog the comments get progressively more snarky.

More like deranged. Why do people get so abusive because a free service isn't working very well?

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:18:30 +1300

... and the Cancel/Allow prompt when you try to do anything tends to put you off doing anything.

Read the first post in that Slashdot thread I linked to ...

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:15:15 +1300

Heh. Urban Dictionary sums it nicely:

"i t0tally pnwed u. u r so a n00b and i am so 1337."

Peter Darlington

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:09:37 +1300

BTW – does that default picture remind anyone else of the top of a baby's bottle?

I think it's great. I want everyone to get a Gravatar so that I'll have this unique grey silhouette icon next to my posts. That would rock.

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:08:16 +1300

Also, yay for the geeky.

Reader Paddy Free offers the following chunk of ultimate geekiness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjYokQXM-gA

Peter Darlington

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:07:35 +1300

We see about 0.5% for "Codename Longhorn", but Vista itself doesn't seem to be anywhere. Anyone reading this in Vista?

I could do, I have it in a VMWare image on my laptop but I'm just not loving it enough to open it up. Disk contention is an issue with…

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:06:46 +1300

this silvery C-3PO

Ah, so that's what it is. I was thinking Oscar runner-up...

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:05:38 +1300

Damn. Transparently portable avatars are such a great idea. But they obviously need better resourcing than Tom currently has ...

If you read the latest thread in Tom's Blog the comments get progressively more snarky. It seems those who signed up immediately when 2.0 was released had their images cached…

JP Hansen

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:55:12 +1300

I was quite suprised the other week when this silvery C-3PO (actually TC-14 from The Phantom Menace) started showing his face by my comments. Something I signed up for a year or more ago and subsequently forgot completely about.

I bet now I've said this, I won't get the damn…

andrew llewellyn

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:39:48 +1300

BTW – does that default picture remind anyone else of the top of a baby's bottle?

andrew llewellyn

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:38:52 +1300

First I neglected to associate the gravatar with my email address...

However, completing that step doesn't seem to work anyway.

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:38:35 +1300

"Poo! Where's my gravatar!??"
Ditto. I signed up about a week ago, but so far there's no sign of my Gravatar here. :(

Damn. Transparently portable avatars are such a great idea. But they obviously need better resourcing than Tom currently has ...

Paul Capewell

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:36:48 +1300

Ah cheers Russell... :)

Should be interesting to see how that all goes then. I use Xtramsn almost exclusively for the TV3 video news, so I'll keep an eye on the two sites tomorrow.

FletcherB

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:36:30 +1300

Paul said "Whats the story with Yahoo!Xtra? What with Xtra and MSN being buddies and all... "

Russell has mentioned it in his blog and Listener column in the past months.

Short version- contracts expire. Sometimes you renew them with the same "partner" and sometimes you go elsewhere.

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:36:21 +1300

But the the idea of installing Vista hasn't occurred...not even in passing. I had a Longhorn release on an old computer a while back but since re-formatted it for my daughter with XP.

Our Nielsen NetRatings technical module is seeing 0.66% of our traffic coming from Vista systems (that must…

Robyn Gallagher

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:35:54 +1300

Poo! Where's my gravatar!??

Ditto. I signed up about a week ago, but so far there's no sign of my Gravatar here. :(

andrew llewellyn

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:35:05 +1300

One more try... (hey, just ignore me here)

Russell Brown

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:34:04 +1300

Whats the story with Yahoo!Xtra? What with Xtra and MSN being buddies and all...?
Sorry if I missed something fundamental!

You did. Xtra and MSN parted company late last year when their existing agreement expired. Xtra is now in bed with Yahoo (and will presumably be a customer of Yahoo's…

andrew llewellyn

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:31:02 +1300

Poo! Where's my gravatar!??

Simon Grigg

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:30:50 +1300

the odd thing about Vista with me, is that I installed every DOS version on the day of release, rushed down to Whitcoulls for Win95 at midnight (admittedly only 200 metres at the time), installed Win98, Win98se, frigging Millenium, win2000 and XPpro, all more or less on the day of…

andrew llewellyn

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:30:41 +1300

Bingo! (Maybe)

Paul Capewell

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:29:35 +1300

Oh also: pressdisplay is really great – there's something about reading a paper in the proper format, that you can't buy in your own country easily/at all.

Paul Capewell

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:26:10 +1300

Whats the story with Yahoo!Xtra? What with Xtra and MSN being buddies and all...?

Sorry if I missed something fundamental!

Also, yay for the geeky.

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:09:17 +1300

Yep, seems Tom at Gravatar is still having issues, regrettably. Try this URL for the registration part of his site, which appears to be working.

Public Address

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:09:17 +1300

Discussion from blog post.