Blag

Well.

Finally got around to actually constructing my website and banished all the lorem ipsum and stock placeholder images. 95% of pages have actual content on them too

It looks quite similar to the old ‘under construction’ site, but with a few artifacts as a result of its conversion to PHP and the use of a CMS.

There’s a few rough corners left – 3 pages missing content, and bugs in the LHS pane and horizontal navigation bar but otherwise all is good. The blog and wiki will also slowly start to be tied into the main website, instead of being separate entities, but due to the major design differences I doubt they will eve be completely unified.

Still can’t think of something appropriate to put on the home page though -.-

Anyone who suggests porn will be shot…

Now that that’s over, the blog updates should resume as normal. Well not one every 3 weeks anyway.

After 15 years, the cultural icon “Jane Doe” has finally been identified as a 75 year old schizophrenic woman Elba Leonor Diaz Soccarras from Mexico.

More here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090324/ap_on_re_us/naming_jane_doe and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Doe

Don’t know who she is? Boy… have you been missing out

I’ve avoided commenting on mainstream news/popular internet stories in the past, given that the media + millions of bloggers around the world cover it in enough depth to submerge the Empire State Building.

But someone’s gotta do something about Stephen Conroy. My suggestions -

• Set fire to him
• Roll him up in carpet and throw him off the Sydney Harbour Bridge
• Impale him on top of the AMP tower
• Pour paint stripper on his car
• Drowning in tubs of creme caramel
• Force him to read George Orwell’s 1984 until he admits he is doubleplus ungood
• Leave a dead cow on his doorstep
• Leave a dead cow on his bed
• Substitute him with a dead cow (marked improvement, eh?)
• Stab him repeatedly in the left eye
• Public execution by network cable whipping
• Locking him in a shipping container and feeding his senses with a filtered reality
• Spanking delivered by Mr Rudd himself? *slap* Bad minister! *slap*
• Feed him to EFA’s or GetUp’s army of pit bull terriers (ok, well they don’t really have attack dogs)

Sniper assassination just seems too dull.

Have I left anything out?

Speaking of which, GetUp is about to start a national T.V. campaign to protest Conroy’s clean feed.

*See the bloatware name and shame list for alternatives and description of the problems encountered

Woo! Time for another (brief) rant at my favourite company in the world – Apple Inc.

Why are Apple developers so incapable of making a lightweight, fast and clean version of iTunes ans Quicktime?

They take forever to load, two years to install or upgrade and leave behind more debris upon uninstall that a shrapnel grenade. For f***s sake, installing a bloody antivirus program has less of an effect on your computer than iTunes/Quicktime, no joking. And why does Quicktime always crash? I bounced this idea off a couple of mates who do media/arts at uni, and the general consensus there about Quicktime on any non Mac OS computer is the same – utter crapola. Unstable, laggy, restrictive.

Ironic, their “I’m and Mac, and I’m a PC” ads.

Perhaps Microsoft should insert time delay trojans into MS Office for mac? Or maybe vulnerability exploiters when it detects a Mac user visiting their website?

To Apple’s credit, they got rid of Quick Time Task a while back.

For now, the only reason to keep iTunes is if you own an iPhone/iPod. I’d use Windows Media Player, if it’s library management weren’t so awful…

*Updated iTunes just then. Why of why does it have to restart my freakin PC? I haven’t done that in 14 days and 3 hours now… Even installing Norton, yes Norton Internet Security doesn’t require a restart. Get with the times, Apple!

Blag moved sometime in the past 7 days… betcha didn’t know when

Ok, it was last night, and it took all of about 4 minutes to transition a blog, coupla files and a few databases over. And the DNS propogated incredibly quickly too

So… Blag is now in the ‘Telecom Center’ in LA, California.

*Correction to previous post, Liquid Web is in Michigan, not Chicago

*Blag is moving again. From the Liquid Web datacenter in rural Chicago to the Telecom Center in LA California.

Same domain name and URL  – just a different server though.

Los Angeles is much faster for Asia Pacific visitors. That and the fact I get a lifetime 70% discount for moving

US visitors can suck it up – they start whinging as soon as latency goes above 50ms which is insignifcant compared to the 400-650ms required to get to Middle Eastern countries and the Indian region. As for Europe… Chicago or Los Angeles makes no difference to them.

Speaking of latency, I figured out why Unwired WiFi hotpots are so shit in general… more to come on that later.

*May incur 24 hours downtime.

The Japanese seem to pioneering the way for weird and wonderful USB flash drives – take the Sushi inspired storage devices for example (http://gizmodo.com/archives/sushi-usb-flash-drives-023561.php)

(I’m a too lazy to upload pics, so follow the links (they open in new tabs/windows))

Actually wanted to buy a few of them while I was in Japan last year but couldn’t justify paying the 40% markup to purchase a rice and seaweed adorned flash drive. Also wanted to take a few pics too, but the security guard was giving me the take-a-photo-and-i-will…-politely-gesture-you-to-leave-as-I-don’t-speak-good-English look.

Fosfor has a top 10 list of weird USB flash drives – (http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-drives-ever/)

In ascending order of wackiness

• iDuck
• Sake Bottle
• Sushi
• Mikan Seijin USB Memory
• Big Tiki Drive
• USB Dimsim
• iDisk
• USB Shrimp
• USB Thumb
• Barbie

SanDisk, OCZ, Corsair, Lexar etc etc have all got in on the game and made their own themed storage devices (ducati motorcycles, caution tape, XBOX themed and so on) but newcomer to flash storage manufacturer Lacie takes the crown for style and functionality. Introducing the new Lacie key range: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/lacies-new-sally-struthers-approved-usb-key-drives/

Shock proof, fast read and write speed and some models support expansion via Micro SDHC cards.

Still waiting for someone to produce a Cockroach flash drive though…

Edit: Everything USB has a giant collection of reviews on everything USB related, news articles, software etc. Check it out http://www.everythingusb.com/hardware/Storage/USB_Flash_Drives.htm Not the most complete portal of information nor the most technical, but good for starters.

Mate of mine sent me this photo he took back at World Youth Day 2008. Photo was taken at a school, which had been turned into temporary accommodation for the pilgrims.

I’m guessing no firefighters came across this…

OH&S inspectors anyone?

Woooooah! Long time no post…

Ever wanted to re-experience the magic of having your ears blasted out by the renowned THX deep note? Or perhaps you wanted to be kept on the edge of your seat with yet another Dolby surround sound fly through? Fear no more, for in all its glory and goodness:

THX Trailers – http://www.thx.com/cinema/trailers.html

Dolby explaining why you can’t freely download their trailers – http://www.dolby.com/professional/logos-trailers-trademarks/getting-trailers/index.html

Dolby Digital trailers for download in .vob format – http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/trailers.html

Another trailer fan site, but with a much more extensive collection covering DTS, QT, RM, 007, FullHD1080 etc etc etc… – http://www.demo-world.eu/trailers/

*Side note – uTorrent has a built in Easter egg – Go to Help, About uTorrent and click on the uTorrent logo when the About windows appears