Livin' the life...

“Swindon is planning a borough-wide Wi-Fi mesh network providing free internet access to all residents. ... According to Digital City UK's statement on Tuesday, users will be able to "seamlessly" move between access points with no interruption to service. The statement suggests the network could be used not only for free web access, but also for air-quality monitoring, free voice calls, wireless CCTV coverage, smart metering communications and telemedicine applications.” Full Story

How cool is that!

Google has taken direct aim at Microsoft’s core personal computer software business, with the announcement of a PC operating system to rival Windows.

The system, based on Google’s Chrome web browser, is designed for all classes of PCs, “from small netbooks to full-sized desktop systems”, and will be available in machines from “multiple” PC makers in the second half of next year, the company said.

Google also promised that the new software would solve many of the frustrations felt by users of Windows-based PCs, from slow start-up times to threats from computer viruses. ...

Google said the Chrome OS would first appear on netbooks in the second half of 2010, and that it was announcing the software now because it had already started discussions with hardware makers that wanted to use it in some their machines.

The new software, based on the so-called kernel, or core, of the open-source Linux operating system, had been designed to run Web-based applications such as those developed by Google itself, the company said, making it the first PC operating system developed from scratch for the internet age. (Full story)

This should be fun..

English has now acquired its millionth word, according to a website monitoring the extraordinary emergence of new English throughout the world, including slang, word-marriages with other languages and the thousands of new terms spawned by the internet. ...

The Global Language Monitor, however, accepts as a word any coinage that has gained sufficiently wide usage: this includes hybrid words in Chinglish (Chinese English), Hinglish (Hindi English), Spanglish (Spanish English), Hollywords (terms created by the film industry), computer jargon and words forged by the internet.

Appropriately enough, the 1,000,000th word accepted as genuine yesterday was “Web 2.0” which was defined as “the next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you”.

Three other terms narrowly lost out to “Web 2.0” in the race the million mark: “Jai Ho!” a Hinglish expression signifying a major accomplishment; “slumdog” (made popular by the film Slumdog Millionaire), meaning a child slum dweller, and “n00b”, a mixture of letters and zeros which is a mocking term for a newcomer in the online gamer community. (Full story)

Web 2.0 .. ha.. sounds rather staged! I think n00b would have been more appropriate, as it’s been around muuchhhh longer!

What kind of company would try to start a new search engine now? Years after most people have grown accustomed to plugging queries into Google or, less often, Yahoo, anybody hoping to shake up that state of affairs had better bring both persistence and a pile of cash to the table.

In other words, it might help to be Microsoft, which launched a search engine called Bing (http://bing.com) on Wednesday.  (Full story)

I .. don’t really see why MS did this, but, I guess we’ll see how it goes. I heard it started quite strong, even coming before Yahoo! in some categories, but I’ve also heard that its ratings are dropping rapidly.. seems users are over the hype? Anyway, we’ll see how it goes!

“Wolfram Alpha, the latest alleged Google killer, is not a search engine. Rather, physicist and software entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram's long-awaited new Web project is a "computational knowledge engine." The difference is important. A search engine tells you where to find stuff on the Web. Type "box office goodfellas" into Google, and you get a list of links; it's up to you to figure out which page to click on to find how much money the Scorsese film made in theaters. Wolfram Alpha, which launched over the weekend, tries to give you a direct answer—ask it the same question, and you get the result without having to look on any other site: $46.84 million. The site's best trick is its sometime ability to make calculations on the fly. Type in "box office goodfellas + box office casino" and it'll tell you that the movies made a combined $89.35 million. Think of it as a calculator attached to a reference library—or your own personal HAL 9000.” (Full article)

Good article! Really clarifies Wolfram Alpha (esp. as it relates to the “vs Google” topic)! I must agree with the author though, even though the concept is quite cool, at times.. it is quite useless in what it “knows”.

Malware 2.0? Social network spam? Mobile computing hacks? Here's an intriguing prediction for top threats for 2009. See ITPro's Top 10 security predictions for 2009.

If you are into any kind of development where drop-down menus are required (online or even on desktop), the Designing Drop-Down Menus: Examples and Best Practices article offers great guidance.

Very useful article - 10+ Best Firefox Addons for Security and Privacy !

5 Great Microsoft Web Services You Probably Don't Use - is a pretty useful article from PCWorld that looks at 5 of Microsoft's better services online. These include Windows Windows Live SkyDrive, Live Sync, Live Mesh, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Microsoft's Virtual Earth 3D. I suggest you especially take a peek at SkyDrive and Microsoft Office Live Workspace. Enjoy!

Here's an interesting article on 13 Predictions for 2009. It's focused mainly around technology matters, and includes predictions on the beloved Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Facebook.

Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software - good article by Richard Stallman for anyone who's still a bit unclear of the difference.

Everything from email, to wikis, to the Internet, and even pac-man. Check out the  Top 25 days in computing history.

Ever wondered how the iPod, BlackBerry, Firefox, Twitter, Windows 7, ThinkPad, Android, Wikipedia, Mac OS X, and Red Hat Linux, got their names? Check out this informative article on CIO.com - How 10 Famous Technology Products Got Their Names. The BlackBerry in my opinion has the best story.

Google pushing Chrome via Youtube - really, it was only a matter of time... I also note that G1 is advertised on Google.com as well.

The first mobile telephone using Google's Android software has been unveiled.

The T-Mobile G1 handset will be available in the UK in time for Christmas.

The first device to run the search giant's operating system will feature a touch screen as well as a Qwerty keyboard.

It will be available for free on T-Mobile tariffs of over £40 a month and includes unlimited net browsing.

Other features include a three megapixel camera, a 'one click' contextual search and a browser that users can zoom in on by tapping the screen.

The handset will be wi-fi and 3G enabled and has built-in support for YouTube.

Users will also have access the so-called Android Market, where they will be able to download a variety of applications. (Source)

A few months, no.. weeks ago we got the Google Chrome web browser, now, Google presents Android. The "online Microsoft" I think is a good name for Google these days! You can check out a video that shows the software in action at BBC here.

Based on that video, the G1 handset looks pretty cool. I especially like the Qwerty keyboard compared to the keyboard available on the iphone. Regarding the zooming however, the iphone wins hands down - pinching and tapping is MUCH more gq!

The Women In Games 2008 conference held at the University of Warwick (10-12 Sept) came to a close today, and all-in-all, it was a grand time. As I was a helper, I only attended a few of the talks, but based on the comments from the delegates, everyone enjoyed themselves and found it a useful experience.

Of particular enjoyment was the conference dinner held at Warwick Castle. We got a chance to do a bit of touring (and wine, and ale sampling) before we had our four course, themed meal of bread and broth, appetizer - a salmon quiche with salad, main - chicken and potatoes, and lastly pudding - custard and apple.. something. While this was served we were entertained by a lord, a jester, wenches, and a laundry lady - all in with the 15th century theme of course!

Anyway, it was a grand time, and I'm sure photos from it will appear online (maybe on Flickr, Facebook) in the next few days.

20 Useful Tools to Make Web Development More Efficient - I'm sure this article will come in useful for us developers. :-)

Yes that's right.. Google now has a browser, and of course it's freely available. Below I've included an excerpt of a very interesting article discussing Chrome..

As of this morning, Google still had not launched Chrome Beta, but it promises to be an innovative piece of software. (We’ll turn around a review soon after it’s posted.) On the surface, Chrome will act like a tabbed browsing architecture similar to pretty much every other browser. But it will treat each tab as a separate process, meaning that if one tab hangs or crashes out, it can be terminated without closing the entire Chrome application. Likewise, each tab will be “sandboxed” to prevent it from accessing files on the user’s computer. In essence, Chrome functions much like an operating system, managing resources and each Web page’s access to the computer’s vital functions dynamically. (Source)

Under duress (*eh hem*), I downloaded Chrome a lot sooner than I would have liked, and my review thus far is that it's an ok lightweight browser. I especially like the ability to see tabs hogging memory and to end them as necessary and, the search function in the address bar (albeit not that extensive).

All-in-all, I'll stick to FF, and probably use this as a secondary browser (IE just always seems so heavyweight!).

PS. I recommend this article - How Google's Simple Chrome Could Steer Web's Complex Future: Analysis - it was well written and very informative.

Nice article: HOWTO: Ubuntu Install From USB - Works For Other Linux Too!

Ever wanted to find a font just like the one used by certain publications, corporations, or ad campaigns? Well now you can, using our WhatTheFont font recognition system. Upload a scanned image of the font [or direct it to a URL] and instantly find the closest matches in our database. If WhatTheFont can’t figure it out, you can submit your image to the WhatTheFont Forum where cloak-draped font enthusiasts around the world will help you out! (Source)

Interestinnngg....

These are just a few quick tips that I stumbled across a few seconds ago to bear in mind when working with CSS in JavaScript.

Tip 1:
Compounded CSS attributes lose the hyphen and the second (third, forth, etc) word have an Upper Case first letter. For example: background-color (in CSS style) becomes backgroundColor (in JavaScript) and text-align (in CSS style) becomes textAlign (in JavaScript).

Tip 2:
Compounded HTML attributes use Upper Case first letter for second (third, forth, etc) word. For example: colSpan, bgColor, readOnly

Tip 3:
HTML "class" becomes JavaScript "className".

These tips were sourced from this web developer forum.

(I must say that I've only validated Tip 1. Feel free to comment on any of the others.)

Techie website Lifehacker reports, "Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth (who we interviewed last year) announced that he's out to make Linux a better-looking operating system than Mac OS X—within two years. An ambitious goal! At O'Reilly's OSCON conference this week, Shuttleworth said:

"I think the great task in front of us in the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something stable and usable and not pretty, to something that's art," Shuttleworth said. "Think of the way the iPhone uses a pure software experience, it abstracts away all the hardware," he said. "You can paint anything on the screen because it's all software.""

Full story here..

Even though this is all fine and dandy, I'm slightly confused as Ubuntu can already be 'tricked out' to great proportions with Gnome add-ons (as I did and displayed a little while ago). I guess Mr. Shuttleworth's aim is to make it prettier straight of of the box?

As the writer correctly states, "If not for these shiny, happy inventions ... the past 25 years would've been a lot less fun"! Check out .. The New Classics: 25 Tech Innovations

My picks are the Gameboy (1989), Realistic Computer Generated characters (1991), Netscape Navigator (1994), Bullet time (1999), Body Motion Capture (1992), Amazon (1995), Polyphonic ringtones (1998) and last but not least YouTube (2005)! What are yours?

Even though this article uses Google search Trends to make its conclusions, I think it is worth a read for those of us who are interested in Linux distros.

See full article -> Which Linux Distributions Are Dying?

Following up from my previous post on this subject, BBC News reports...

Mozilla has officially made history with a new Guinness world record for the largest number of software downloads in a 24-hour period.

The final record breaking 8,002,530 downloads for web browser Firefox 3.0 took place in June.

"The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was key to making this happen," said marketing head Paul Kim.

Gareth Deaves of Guinness World Records called it "an extremely impressive accomplishment".

The official figure was confirmed after logs from download servers were audited and checked to ensure duplicate and unfinished downloads were not counted. (Source)

Congrats Foxy!

I stumbled across the following USB stick lately, I could help but come to the conclusion that this is strictly created for soldiers or well, forest dwellers!

Here's the photo of another more snazzy looking one! It's amazing what USB sticks are being combined with these days. Then again, I guess that follows on quite nicely from the weird USB devices that are available in general!

Goo foxy!

Awesome work - we’re almost there!

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we got more than 8 million Firefox 3 downloads in 24 hours. That’s more Firefox downloads than we’ve ever had in a single day -- an impressive feat indeed!

Please be patient while the good people of Guinness review our World Record attempt. This might take a few days so please check back here. And, a huge thanks for all of your support! (Ref)

Below is my certificate. :-)

I helped!

Probably this would go well on Twitter, but for now...

Right now, I'm downloading Firefox 3.0!

Ah I remember my short stint using Ubuntu.. definitely the best part of that time was the flexibility I had in customising my desktop and making it as "tricked out" as humanly possible. Actually, to the right you can see a screenshot of what it had looked like (note that I'm actually rotating the desktop - aka switching screens - in the photo)! Nice huh?

Anyway! I just came across this post - 10 Most Beautiful Looking Linux Desktop - that presents some exquisite desktop photos that depict how impressive a well-customised Linux setup can look - Apple, eat your heart out!

Remember folks, Linux distros are generally FREE, and if you have Microsoft Windows installed, you can easily dual boot and switch between OSs in a matter of minutes. Why not have a look?

A few moments ago I was attempting to run a .bat file in MS-DOS, but I kept getting a barrage of "Access Denied" messages. As I figured this was because I needed to run it as Admin, I simply right-clicked on the file, clicked Run as Admin, and.. well.. nothing happened!

Well, as per usual, I headed over to papa Google and after one semi-swift search (0.34secs), I found out that to run these type of files, you actually have to run the Command Prompt ('aka' MS-DOS) as Admin (Source)! Once you do this, all the commands you enter into the prompt will inherit this and run under Admin privileges!

.. Ok ok, yes, I agree, this is quite simple, and I probably should have deduced this on my own! But, the point is, it happened, and I'm putting this information out there (again) just in the event that someone else falls into the same predicament!

Back in 2005 5% of the Internet users said they were using RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online (according to the Pew Internet Project).

Feedburner recently reported that they track around 60 million RSS subscribers. Even if we bump that number to 70 million RSS users (counting people that use RSS with other applications or platforms) this would still convert to a meager 5,4% of the Internet users around the world, as of today.

What is the takeaway message? Only a very small percentage of the Internet population is aware of the RSS format and its benefits, and that number is growing slowly over time.

By creating the RSS Awareness Day and celebrating it every year we should be able to get the general public exposed to this format, hopefully increasing the usage of RSS feeds and related applications among Internet users. (Source)

Well.. Happy RSS Day!

A few days ago whilst browsing the Web trying to locate where a quote (i.e. "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion") I had heard earlier that week had originated, I stumbled upon a rather fascinating blog post titled "19 Eponymous Laws Of Software Development".

In that blog post I found the aforementioned quote - also known as Parkinson’s Law or the law of bureaucracy - and a ton of other pretty snazzy entries (not all related to software development). I especially like: Postel’s Law, Pareto Principle, Hofstadter’s Law, Linus’s Law and Wirth’s law. It's a nice article, I suggest you check it out.

Etymology of A Distro..

"On the flipside of things, there is a whole different world of OS names, some are funny, some are insightful, some are romantic, others are cute, some are too small to fill their creators’ huge egos, and finally some are like their proprietary rivals, just boring. So if you ever wondered what your favorite Linux distro means, you will probably find the explanation here. (or BSD, I know they are not the same but I decided to add to the diversity of this article.)" (Ref)

Great article. I have used Ubuntu and Red Hat. What about you?

Here's a very interesting article I read in Friday's Metro.

"The internet has much bigger problems that slowness (Metro, Wed) - the real issue now is the total amount of data we download today.

Thanks to the recent boom in popularity of streaming and downloading video from the internet, we are all downloading far more data than before. BBC's iPlayer has come under pressure from British internet service providers as the chief culprit thanks to its high-quality video and peer-to-peer network causing an unprecedented increase in data traffic.

As a result, 'unlimited download' packages are no longer financially viable for any ISP, even big names such as BT and Virgin. It's just a matter of time before they start tightening limits, hiking up their prices or even going bankrupt." Edward Noad, London SE1.

Even though some of this guy's comments make things sound a bit gloomier than they are, I do believe in certain cases, he does make some valid and rather pertinent points; one good example is unlimited packages!

Case in point: I remember lately some flat mates and I were perplexed at why our Internet connection was going SUPER slow between the hours of 5pm-12am,.. then we got the word of a possible 'cap' on our downloading between that time. Normally that would not be a problem HOWEVER, last time I checked, we're paying for UNLIMITED Internet! Then again, these days, I guess nothing is 'unlimited', companies (such as my former mobile service provider!!) throw in a 'Fair Usage Policy' which, at its heart, is a mechanism to limit your unlimited access.

Ah well, what can we do? BBC iPlayer is an excellent idea. Possibly we need to get this faster Internet in place asap? Or will we have to revamp every 10 years or so? After all this has the perfect makings for a classical cyclic problem!

Wooppieeee!!!

"One of the final hurdles preventing Europeans from chit-chatting on their cell phones while hurtling through Euro airspace has been cleared, as UK regulator Ofcom (akin to our FCC), has given the OK for cell phones to be used on planes, as long as they're above 3,000 meters. (Many of the other approvals required across Europe have already been granted.) ...

Of course, in the U.S., no such plans are underway, though those hopeful for getting Internet access while airborne are in for a treat. This week, the FAA approved plans for American Airlines to offer in-flight Wi-Fi service, and that approval can potentially be applied to any U.S. airline that wants to offer the same type of technology (provided by Aircell). No news on a date when such services will be turned on, but many are hoping to have live Wi-Fi rolled out on at least a few planes by the end of the year." (Ref)

On a more tangential yet similar note though, check out this article: Airliner showers: A very guilty pleasure.

Cell phones, Wi-Fi, showers.. what next?!

I must say, Google is one of the Top 3 sites I visit online. And that's not only because of its market-leading Search, but also its many other cool and fun gadgets. Dare I say it, I actually thought that I had, to a good extent, explored all the "kingdom" of Google! However, today PC world outlines some other things (they call "pranks, goofs, and put-ons") that definitely slipped my eyes. Here are the "best of the bunch"!

11 Pimped-Out PCs: "From the cutting edge in eight-core PC gaming muscle to the retro styling of the Victorian era, these desktops and laptops reach for the heights of extravagant design." (Ref)

Definitely some quirky looking stuff!

As you can see I've included my favourite one in this post! It starts at around $1324 for a configuration with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 processor with nVidia GeForce 8800GTS graphics.

Which one, if any, strikes your fancy?

As the author writes.. "Here are listed 10 categories of devices you can buy to make you feel like a James Bond, from laser beams that cut things to x-ray goggles that see through clothes to CSI grade forensic lab hardware." (Ref)

My favourite two gadgets are shown below.

Laser	Virtual Secret Surveillance

(Please note that it is your responsibility to follow the law in your country with respect to the purchase and use of these gadgets. I neither (a) am endorsing any of these products or (b) accepting any responsibility for your use of them. Use them at your own risk!)

This person's post is simply excellent, exquisite even! (And it's not just me that thinks so, it's got over 800 diggs!) Here's an excerpt..

"Recently, the blogosphere echoed that sentiment with news of “Facebook fatigue”.

1. In January, The Register started by saying “Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes has been saying for months - people are, just, well, bored of social networks.” About Facebook, they added that “behaviour seems much the same; join, accumulate dozens of semi-friends, spy on a few exes for a bit, play some Scrabulous, get bored, then get on with your life, occasionally dropping in to respond to a message or see some photos that have been posted.”
2. A few weeks later, Techcrunch also looking at ComScore data said “The number of people who visit Facebook has been leveling off over the past few months in the U.S., and even dipped by about 800,000 individuals in January. (…) Maybe all that friend spam has something to do with the decline. Will the Facebook fatigue get worse, or is this just a temporary dip?”
3. Adding his grain of salt, Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC added: “The general feeling is that the kids, with their minute attention spans, have already tired of the social networking site and moved on to something more hip and happening. I think the opposite is true - that Facebook’s new wave of older users have decided it is just not worth the bother and are now leaving it to the kids.”

..." (Ref)

Cellan-Jones' comments (above) grab my attention the most and you can check his full post titled, "Facebook - back to the kids?".

This entire FB thing has been quite amusing I must say! But I do wonder if Twitter is.. really the next "best thing since slice bread" to invest in. To be totally honest, I'm more interested in the comments made about FB that I am in the original author's comparison of it with Twitter.

Anyway, in a couple months we will see the outcome (personally, I doubt Twitter will reign, it's quite limited in functionality and prospective audience compared to MySpace, Hi5 and their current successor, FB).  Whatever the grand result.. I'm sure MILLIONS of you out there are can't wait to hop on this cyclic bandwagon whatever tomorrow's new thing will be! No offense meant of course.

Here's an note-worthy article on Portals (eg. Yahoo!) in a "Web 2.0" World.

Abstract..

"Web 2.0 refers primarily to two major paradigm shifts in the way people use the Web: thin client computing and user-generated content. The portal plays a pivotal role in both areas. In thin client computing, data and applications are stored on Web servers, and a user has access from any computer via a Web browser, thus turning the Web into a gigantic application server -- a penultimate manifestation of Web 2.0." Full story here.

"Firefox just reached 500,000,000 downloads. This is an absolutely phenomenal milestone for Firefox. It is sort of hard to imagine what that number means. For some perspective, that’s roughly the audience size of 10,000 Rome Colosseums combined. It would be the weight, in kilograms, of 8,500 Boeing 747 airplanes. In dollars, for $500 million you and 15 of your friends can fly to the International Space Station." (Ref)

Congrats!! (Let's try not to focus too much on unique downloads though folks!)

Maybe missing an "if ($unread > 1)" statement somewhere Yahoo!?

"2008-02-12: Ten years ago, on 10 February 1998, W3C published Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. W3C is marking the ten-year anniversary of XML by celebrating "XML10" and extending thanks to the dedicated communities -- including people who have participated in W3C's XML groups and mailing lists, the SGML community, and xml-dev -- whose efforts have created a successful family of technologies based on the solid XML 1.0 foundation. The success of XML is a strong indicator of how dedicated individuals, working within the W3C Process, can engage with a larger community to produce industry-changing results. "Today we celebrate the success of open standards in preserving Web data from proprietary ownership," said Jon Bosak, who led the W3C Working Group that produced XML 1.0." (Ref)

Congrats! To consider it for only a moment, the amount of 'languages' and specifications that are based on, and associated with XML these days (RSS, Atom, SOAP, XACML, ebXML to name a few) is nothing short of astounding. And to think that XML's not done there either, as it also seems a key component in the realisation of the Semantic Web dream! This definitely has been one of the greatest "giant" steps in technology specs for a while!

Just saw this article on Yahoo! and found it a bit of a 'wake-up call' on the features - or lack there of - of the new, highly regarded MacBook Air. Here's a snippet from the story:

"Here's a look at the accessories you'll need, and their price. Hope you put some extra money aside.

USB Hub (Varies): Apple is anything but generous when it comes to extra USB ports, so I'm not surprised the MacBook Air only has one. ...

Ethernet Adapter ($29): One thing that won't be practical when you travel is the lack of an ethernet jack on the MacBook Air. ...

MacBook Air SuperDrive ($99): The MacBook Air doesn't have an optical drive which makes it impossible to download software or watch movies on your computer. ... " (Ref)

So, yep, it does lack some stuff but if you want them, no problem! As is said above, just add those accessory prices to the $3,098.00 ( ) price tag of the 13-inch 1.8GHz (Ref) and you'll be set!

I'm sure a friend of mine would tell me straight, "If you know Google, you know innovation!" and honestly, I must agree with him, it's just their thing!

Today I'd like to point you to Google's new Experimental Search features.. I won't say much on it here to spoil your fun, so here's the link, march over there and see what Google has planned for you us!

Lastly, my favourite ones are the Keyboard shortcuts and the Alternate Views. (The Keyword suggestions is "old stuff", I'm not sure who cracked that first but Yahoo! has a pretty commendable implementation!)

Hmm, in retrospect, I actually am a bit bored of the same old Google Search! Then again, no, I retract that statement, the search is great. My reservations are with respect to its "old" interface! So I must say, these new "features" are just about due!

"Once again, Mac delivers!". If you're a Mac fan, I'm sure after Mr. Job's annual keynote speech a couple days ago - or more specifically, after feasting your eyes on that sweet-looking MacBook Air - that was your unanimous conclusion. If you're a shareholder however, I'm not sure you'd be so happy. Why? Well, let's read together:

"Apple's stocks took a beating on the stock exchange on Tuesday 15 January following Steve Jobs' annual keynote speech at Macworld2008 in San Francisco. Although shares in the company peaked as the CEO took to the stage they soon started to drop until Jobs announced the MacBook Air where they recovered slightly.
However as the news sunk in of what had been said the shares went south even further hitting $165 before a final rally before 4pm brought them back to a closing $169, down $14.88 (around 6%) at the end of the trading day from $180." [Source]

Oh well, I'm sure they'll be back up soon, after all, "HAVE YOU SEEN THE MACBOOK AIR?!" ...

"A source from Sandringham is quoted as saying: "When she saw William playing a game after lunch she thought the Nintendo looked tremendous fun and begged to join in. She played a simple ten-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural.

"It was hilarious. William was in fits of laughter.

"He was enormously impressed at having such a cool gran. His only difficulty now is prising it away from the Queen's clutches. She showed all the signs of becoming a Nintendo addict."

The Queen is already said to be something of a technical whizz, with reports that she owns a BlackBerry, an iPod and a number of mobile phones." [Ref]

I'm yet to try it!

Here are some articles worth reading for any of you who, well, go online! And, especially those millions of you who can't seem to pull yourself away from social networking sites.

Cyber thieves target social sites: "It is not just the average net user who is a fan of social network sites, so are hi-tech criminals. So say security professionals predicting what net criminals will turn to in 2008 to catch people out.
The quasi-intimate nature of the sites makes people share information readily leaving them open to all kinds of other attacks, warn security firms.
Detailed information gathered via the sites will also help tune spam runs or make phishing e-mail more convincing.

Friendly faces
There was no doubt that 2007 was the year that sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut rose to prominence as millions of people signed up to use them and started posting information about themselves and what they were up to.
But in 2008 these sites will become an attack vector for the hi-tech gangs who are now behind the vast majority of cyber crime." [Full story]

Boom times for hi-tech criminals: "Starting a career as a cyber criminal got much easier in 2007. So say security experts looking back on 12 months in which hi-tech gangs took control of the net's underground.
The economy supporting these groups has matured so much that now everything from virus-writing kits to spam-spewing zombies are available for rent or hire." [Full story]

Finally, here's a noteworthy Glossary which you may find helpful in understanding some of the terms mentioned above.

Following my Top Movies of 2007 post, when I saw these two articles featuring 'Top 10' tech products - Worst and Best, I thought I'd put them up, and let's see what people out there are thinking. Here we go!

Top 10 Worst Tech Products of 2007: Apple TV, iPod Battery Replacement Kit, Microsoft Surface - too expensive and seemingly fragile; a real let down!, NBC Direct, Palm Foleo, Pear Audio "Anjou" speaker cable, Ringles, SunRocket VoIP, Windows Vista and Wireless USB. [Ref] (Some you will have to google to find out what they are!)

Top 10 BEST Tech Products of 2007: Amazon Kindle (Read more), Apple iPhone (can't deny it. This device is a beauty), Asus Eee, Ibiza Rhapsody, Intel Classmate PC, Nokia N95 (tons of features for the $750 USD), Pioneer "Kuro" Plasma HDTVs, Shure SE530 earphones ($450 US though!), TiVo HD, and Vudu. [Ref]

And that's it!

Here are some very interesting technologies and applications I've heard about (and for some, been to workshops on) recently. I'm officially adding them my To Do list!

• Yahoo Pipes
• Silverlight
• Popfly
• Twitter (not really the workshop focus but it was mentioned with respect to Social Networking)

If you've played with any of these already, please don't hesitate to give me your review!

OK! About two weeks ago I took a trip to Birmingham with a couple mates just to check out the shops and such. Now, because I'd been to Birmingham a couple times before, I had a basic idea of the city centre so I quickly got us from the train station to the closest mall (in the Bullring). When we walked in, something strange, that I had never seen before caught my eye... it was a big.. white.. apple (click to see picture of what I saw).

Well! To be honest (even though I'm a Windows fan), I was quite excited at this illuminating apple and what it meant so I immediately broke away from the group and walked into this .. apple.. store.

The first gadget to greet me was a small thing that looked somewhat like a laptop but, a "wee" bit cooler, probably it was the sleek white exterior or the playful looking interface and GUI on the screen! So, naturally, being the Computer Person I AM, I hopped over and browsed it for about 2 minutes BEFORE!! I heard the term.. something'-touch' mentioned behind me!!!

When I turned around to feast my eyes on this device, I heard slight singing in the distance, and bright, bright, lights coming from its direction.. then.. oh then... I saw.. thee iPod touch. ( <- If I were an emoticon that would be me! ) .. And guess what!? I could PLAY with it!!!! Oh it was fabulous! The first thing I did was try to check out some music and videos, but sadly there were none! so next up - the browser! (One thing I always wanted to know was if it really works as seamlessly as the portray in the adverts! With the zooming and typing etc. Also, it's worth noting here that the device uses Wi-Fi access.)

First, I started typing in a URL, and it even had a drop-down of options to choose from and I think a history! After getting the hang of that (I think typing aspect is the biggest -ve, unless you have tiny fingers!), reality set in and I surfed directly to www.jasonnurse.com ! The site loaded pretty quick and was easily viewable and navigable! Next, I tapped once to zoom, used my finger to drag around the page a bit then accessed the blog link with a touch of my finger. Interestingly the blog page loaded great as well! (I did not do a full test obviously though because as I'm sure you can imagine, there were other people were waiting to give Apple's newest device a go.) After accessing one of the posts, I wanted to zoom back out to access another link, so, what do I do? Just.. 'pinch' the screen! Ouuuu. (forgive me but this was just plain cool.)

Drawback? Probably the biggest thing to note is that there's only one button off the screen, so probably 92% of contact will be with the touch screen interface. A problem can arise here simply because the keys are a bit small or because your fingers are too big! Many times I had to retype URLS because I pressed the wrong key!

Otherwise though.. and probably in general, I was/am totally wowed by the iPod touch. If I had the £199 (lowest price - 8GB), that would probably be on the list of potential gifts to myself for Christmas! Alas, at that price.. woo.. I think I rather stick to something less extravagant.. Probably the Resident Evil trilogy on DVD??

By the way.. when viewing a web page, if you turn the iPod touch horizontally, the page turns as well and you can view it landscape.. To return to the normal view, simply return it to its vertical position, even though, for me this didn't work sometimes and I had to get help getting it to work!

Anyway! Nice apple, macBook, iMac, iPhone, iPod touch.. nice.

Here's some rather interesting news!

Apparently, MDA, an industry group that promotes the use of mobile data, says that people in the Briton send over a billion text messages a week! In their report they also noted that persons in the UK sent 4,825 billion texts during September 2007, an increase of 25% on last year! Roughly this translates into 4,000 SMS messages every second, or 70 per person per month. The MDA now forecasts that 52 billion texts will be sent this year!

Amazing ain't it! Oh, and just for general knowledge, the UK is within the TOP 6 of the global league of countries sending SMS messages!
(Post Source)

Looking pass the headlines, I think this article is surmised appropriately by "Google/OpenSocial vs. Microsoft/Facebook". See excerpt below..

Google trys to one-up Facebook as it provides programming tools for multiple social networking sites.

Google will officially join the club of social software development platform providers Nov. 1, when it unveils a set of application programming interfaces that will allow programmers to write social applications that will work on LinkedIn, Friendster and other social networking sites.

OpenSocial is designed to help programmers build applications that reach more of the 400 million users of social networks than they would under the original open developer model, Google product manager Joe Kraus told eWEEK Oct. 31.

The Mountain View, Calif., search vendor's initiative is an answer to the launch of Facebook's highly successful developer platform, on top of which 7,000 applications have been built since the social networking site launched it May 24. (Source)

To be honest, I can't wait to give it a go! I thoroughly enjoy the 'power' that Google gives to developers and users alike. A facilitator of great things, that's where their money is! (eg. igoogle, custom searches, greader, youtube, gmaps etc.)

Since I've hit the UK, both in my flat and at university, I've encountered Facebook junkies (users). I've even been somewhat threatened to sign up or run the risk of not being informed of parties and limes and such! So once again, I have had to open up and face the, "To join" or "Not To Join" question.  In my attempt to decide on whether to sign up or not I came across some intriguing facts reports. The following was adapted from this BBC website:

Facebook has gone viral in the last 12 months, with more than 50 million users worldwide and a user base that is growing faster than great rival MySpace. According to Facebook, it adds 200,000 new users each day. [200,000? REALLY NOW?]

US research reveals that Facebook users come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college than MySpace users.

According to a report, 233 million hours of work are lost each month in the UK due to staff looking at social networks. [THIS... I believe.]

*sigh.. *Resume FB evaluation*.

One thing about researching, especially pondering over books and stats - you can find the most interesting of things! See quote below.

"Blogs have become a part of mainstream online culture. ... Bloggers tend to be male, young, broadband users, Internet veterans, wealthy, and educated." (Laudon & Traver, 2007, p. 408)

Hmm.. let's assess.. me. Male? Tick! Young? Tick! Broadband? Tick! Net Vet? Tick! Wealthy? I wouldn't say so. Educated? Am I? .. HMM! 4/6, not too bad a generalisation at all!

What do YOU think?

In my little time on this planet, I would say that I have met about only two guys who are excellent in the area of web site design and development. I mean, time and time again they blow me away with their ideas and implementations.

The one I'm going to 'big up' in this post is my bud, gingerstan! I'm highlighting him now mainly because he's recently updated his site and I must admit, he's just.. talent. So much talent that I had to post about it! (No he's not paying me.. but if he wants to.. he can feel FREE!) How he implements his portfolio (the flash version especially) and the use of the Google maps, just goes to show how versatile and innovative this bloke really is.

So people, without any further adieu, see usable, valid and aesthetically pleasing Talent.

Gingerstan, if you're reading, great job! To me, it's definitely a step up from the previous site. I'll email you with more detailed comments as soon as I can.

I blogged about this a little while back but unfortunately this was one of the posts that was lost. So.. here is the article again on how to view Postscript files on a pc. (Main programs being Ghostscript and GSview.)

Also, in a comment, Matt had suggested IrfanView as an alternative, so you can check that out as well - http://www.irfanview.com/.

Just came across what I think is one of the shortest BUT most meaningful definitions for the monster dubbed 'Web 2.0'.

"Web 2.0 is a technically and socially driven phenomenon that has made the internet world a platform for communication, collaboration and community learning." (RawSugar)

Impressive ain't it?

Men Are From Google, Women Are From Yahoo.. Nice article.. It gets my recommendation. Here's a snippet.

"On the Internet, as in life, men and women have different motivations for doing what they do. According to a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life, women view the Internet as a place to extend, support, and nurture relationships and communities.

Men tend to see it as an office, a library, or a playground--screw the community, this is about function not family." (Ref)

Hmm.. An office? True.. A library? True.. A playground? .. FUNCTION!!!!! lol

I've been hearing questions about blogging ever-so-often therefore in this post I just give a quick overview into your options to start blogging toDay!

Once you've decided you want to blog, the next question is - are you about free stuff or do you wish to pay? Now this may seem an easy decision - who'd want to pay if you can do it for free?! - but just remember that when you pay, (1) at least there's _some_ guarantee that tomorrow when you wake up your stuff is still there (yea I know, far fetched but still realistic!) and (2) you have the option of easily doing backups (of the SQL database or XML files)!

Now if you've decided on the free route, for a nice blogging tool that only requires you to add content, I suggest using any of the following sites:
- Blogger.com (Google-owned)
- WordPress.com

Setting up an account with these sites is relatively simple and you'll be on your way in no time! Another benefit with those sites is that if you wish, you can register a domain name and then have the domain name point to your free blog as my pal Ramal has done here.

On the other hand, if freeness isn't for you and you've decided to pay for your site, you have the following options:
Under Linux hosting:
- Wordpress (yes, they have a downloadable file as well..)

Under Windows hosting:
- DasBlog (what I use, for now...)
- SubText
- BlogEngine.NET (directly from MS I think)

Please note though that all these software are FREE, you only need to pay for the domain name and hosting then simply install setup one of these software within your hosted space. All of them come with setup instructions as well, so no need to panic!

Before I head off though, I'd like to bring something to your attention.. it's a nice little tool that I think is PERFECT for people who are not into heavy blogging but just like to post links, small articles, random photos etc. It's called tumblr and as they state when defining it, "To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks." (Ref) As usual, you can find more info on tumblr at it's official website or at Wikipedia.

Enjoy!!!

This article was just shared with me, so now I'm sharing with you.

"Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Information Services (IIS) continues to narrow the gap with the open-source Apache Web server, with a survey firm suggesting that the longtime second banana could surpass Apache as early as next year.

Microsoft, which added 2.6 million Web sites in the last month, grew to 36.2 percent of all active Web sites, according to figures released Monday by U.K.-based research firm, Netcraft Ltd. Apache lost nearly a million Web site names, as its share of active Web sites fell to 48.4 percent." Full article..

My comments? .. None really.. But then again, I'm largely a Windows lad, so this may be good news.?

Think about it.. how many things is Google really into.. and how many of those things do you use, anonymously or not.. For me, I use about 60% of the apps Google has made publicly available, everything from Gtalk, Gmail, Gdocs, IG, Gmaps, I've tinkered with. These days when it comes to searching, I hit Google, for an online Office? Gdocs. Videos? GooTube. Mail? Gmail. Unauthorised chat? (*snicker*) Gtalk. If I hear there's a fire in Calif, what else but GEarth??!

Plain and simple, this company is just.. "cooL". And they're expanding by the minute.. both geographically and in the "GLabs". But ok, I know you'd like to know what sparked this sudden.. "praise", (if you wish,).. In summary, it's this article, Google vs Everyone: 10 Markets Where Google Wants to Win.

The write-up compares Google to a number of other popular market leaders in WWW areas such as Chat, Search, Advertising, Video and Start Pages. What I find most interesting though is that no other company has branched into all the areas Google's in. Yahoo!, I imho is the one to come the closest but sadly they fall short in the online Office suit and blogging categories.

When it comes to the competition I think Google has it hardest in the Chat/Communications market. AOL, MSN and Yahoo! Messenger are some big hitters there.. especially noting the IM partnership between MSN and Yahoo!. Either way though, I figure the boys over in pretty G will find some way to push Gtalk.. sommmee way.

Anyway.. enough of Google monsTer for now! Hope you enjoyed!

This is mostly a reminder for me, but in generally, here's a nice way to access files on another PC on your network.

"Start > Settings Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy. In the left column, Local Policies > Security Options. In the right column, find Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts. Double-click on this, then choose Classic.

From another computer, you can now access your current computer's hard drive by: Start > Run > "\\computername\c$" (for drive c). You may then be prompted for a login and password: enter the administrator login and password on the computer you are trying to connect to (If "computername" doesn't work, try using the IP address, i.e. "\\192.168.0.4\c$")." (Ref)

This file access method can work quite nicely with Remote Desktop.

My sister alerted me to this one yesterday and I thought it was a rather cool feature!

As you can see there on the left, as you type, Yahoo! suggests search terms.. Somewhat like Apple's OS X Spotlight and like Vista search feature.

Here's a snippet from the article I found relating to it.

"Yahoo Search has added suggest feature which tries to auto-complete queries based upon what you type. It not only helps you cut down your search time by limiting the number of words you need to type in the search box, but it also comes handy if you excessively misspell words. Previously, this feature was exclusively available on Yahoo Toolbar." (Ref).

Nicely done Yahoo! You guys will have to work on improving it though! I had to type in "jason nur" to FINALLY find me! (lol).

Was just doing some random browsing and found a VERY interesting article that documents an interview with Tim Berners-Lee (yesterday) titled, "The future of the Web as seen by its creator". In this article, Mr. Berners-Lee discusses popular topics such as Semantic Web, Web 2.0 and also Web 3.0.

Techie or not, I think everyone (who uses the Web) should at least give this article a look through.

Captain's log, stardate 20070710, Eastern Caribbean Quadrant.. As I sit here building this web application for work, I am amazed at how "easy" MS has made things for us developers. I mean, dragging and dropping controls, nice pretty configuration screens and tools, directory security by access levels at the click of a couple rectangular buttons.. Does this happen in other languages? PHP? Coldfusion? I remember my stint with PHP and, yea.. it's super flexible and sure, it's free, but man.. I can't imagine developing the apps I do now in PHP.. especially not considering the time frame clients demand!

But of course, I know, there's a price for the beauty of (the l33t versions of) MS tools, and at times the price is as shocking as the tools themselves! But.. really, can one say that it is not worth it? Also noting the amount of tools (more coming in each new edition) and the support from places like ASP.NET Forums?

I'd like to see two development teams build the same web application, one a ASP.NET team and the other a PHP team... I wonder who'd do it faster and which one of them would produce the better quality (reliable, and such) product.

Please note though, I'm not bashing PHP, it's a very workable, free alternative and I totally love the dollars sign ($) to indicate variables .. lol .. I guess the drag and drop of MS tools have me.

Ah Monday, the beginning of another week! To be quite frank, I'm somewhat glad to see the weekend go! It was a tooth short of a totally disappointing weekend! Everything I had planned to do, failed to "come off" and in some situations even backfired! Interestingly as well.. that was going to be my busiest weekend in a while! Had Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon & the evening planned.

Alas! Nothing happened (except Sunday evening) and I'm left to assume it was all for the best.

On the bright side of things, I got to resume my affair with Ubuntu and familiarise myself once again with the cool Beryl packages and generally, Linux's shell commands. Speaking about shell commands though, the techies of you who're familiar with Linux should definitely check out this video. In essence it demos a Text-Based YouTube Video Player for Linux. Thanks for the link Ramal!

Here are some interesting reads...

First, all of us have heard about it and I'm guessing about 70% of my friends have probably used it.. but really, how does Bluetooth work? This article is sure to give you a good idea.

Maintaining a 'good diet' is no longer only a female thing, us guys have recognised that it is a requirement either to keep healthy or .. to help get the body that interests the females, . lol, Anyway! Here's an article that speaks to 3 common Diet Myths. I found #3 especially interesting... and worrying.. as I really had no clue! I.. was living a dream it seems.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be soo greatt!!! Provided you know how to work it! Well for you who want some nice tips/tricks and lack a good CSS book, check out Ten CSS tricks you may not know.

I learned some nice stuff and I hope you do too! Enjoy!

This article from PC World was out for a month or so however, it displays some reallly good 'products', so just in the event that you missed it, here's the link!

My favourite 8 of the 100 Best products are: Google Apps (docs, spreadsheets); Canonical Ubuntu 7.04 (free OS with standard word processing, spreadsheet, email clients anyone? - did I mention that software is free too?); Google Gmail (I like the free POP forwarding the most); Google YouTube (my tube anyone?); Mozilla Firefox 2 (no need to have a genuine copy of Windows to run this baby! - [like with IE7]); Skype 3 (sweet for calling out of Barbados, not calling in!); Yahoo Flickr (great quality! Excellent photos are on here, if I didn't have my own photo site, I would definitely consider this); and Microsoft Office 2007 (it's pretty. ).

I haven't put up anything funny in a while, but I think this makes up for it! Check this out!

X

Enjoy!!

Google Earth's is undoubtedly one of the best FREE, MAP products on the market today. When I was heading to Uni in UK, dad and I used it to find the Uni, determine how far Uni was from my accommodation, plot out routes from my flat to town, friend's houses etc.! Truly, Google Earth is just plain COOL! (That's not only the techie in me talking... .. .)

So.. considering all of the above, my suggested article today is How Google Earth Works from the renowned Howstuffworks.com. It goes through some basic functions of the program, some fun stuff and also shows you how to customise it. I recommend this article for anyone planning on taking a trip (even within Barbados!) or just someone who's interested in Cities, technology or maps. One feature that just blows me away is the 3-D Views.. that you MUST check out! The only concern I have though is.. the amount of free information which is now so easily placed in the hands of .. "bad people".. :\ Mazal Tov to us all!

Just found a pretty "interesting" article on Yahoo! Tech titled Most Common Passwords. I REALLY think you should check it out as even I, a "renowned techie" (ha!), have used one or two of these passwords in the 'past'.

Some of the most common ones to me are:
1. password
2. 123456
3. jason

The benefit of course is that the are all sooo easy to remember which means almost instant access with little "scratching of the head". Hmm.. shoot.. now that I've shared these with you I'm going to have to do some quick password changing!! Probably I'll try.. password with two 'p's this time.

For those of you that are interested in making your password more secure, check out Password Makeover and How to Pick a Genuinely Secure Password. The main reason I've suggested those Yahoo! articles is that comments are allowed and therefore you can get pretty useful feedback from the 'general population'. Enjoy!!

That is the question!

Lately I'm hearing a lot of "loud noises" with respect to Facebook both from friends and from the tech-news community. If you know me, you know I'm rather skeptical about this online community thing but the attention Facebook has been getting has me rather curious! One thing I especially like is that it's a Login only thing, unlike Hi5 or LIKE '*Vibes';, so people have to have an account there to juST see your page.  

So.. in the light of all of this "loud noise", I'd like to know how much of you out there, if any, use Facebook. It'd be great if you replied to this post or drop me an email.. because.. the number of my friends on it will have some weight in the decision of me joining or not.

Check this link for some screen shots on the site interface for members.

I started using Firefox probably little over a year ago and since then, it has been my browser-of-choice. To me.. I would say that it just seems much more "light weight" than IE7 and wayy more willing to be customised.

So.. I would like to share my "joy" with you show this article titled "20 must-have Firefox extensions". This is really a must-peek article for those of you who use FF. Some reallllllyy good stuff! My favourite extensions are: Greasemonkey, Firefox Showcase, Cooliris Previews (which I blogged about already), IE Tab, Firebug, Web Developer and ColorZilla.

"The music-download service Amazon.com Inc. announced yesterday represents the latest attempt by a digital retailer to meet one of the biggest challenges facing the industry: how to sell music that consumers can play on a wide variety of devices, including Apple Inc.'s dominant iPod." (Ref)

So Amazon's to join the market.. 'so what!?' you ask.. Well the main reason I commented on this is because I'm hoping that Amazon makes music downloadable from OUTSIDE the US/UK/CA! This would at least give us persons in smaller regions the ability to get music (or rather, specific tracks) legally!

Anyway, I'll follow this story and hope that Amazon are different from iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody and the rest! (Even though.. I doubt they will be.. )

I was reading an article titled "Why Google Is Making Us Dumber" a couple secs ago and I began to SERIOUSLY think about the truth in this.. The article suggests that because of us not having to remember thing such as web site addresses, capital cities or even conversion factors (because we can easily "google-it") that Google is making us Dumber.

Really, I don't agree with the suggestion that it's making people Dumb(er), but what I do agree with is that it moves a good set of "need to remember" for some of us. Actually, it probably removes some "need to think" too! For example, yesterday I was helping out someone with some code and instead of writing the code myself, I simply "googled-it", showed the person and cited the source. Why re-invent the wheel.. you know? ... 

Anyway, check out the article and let me know what you think. Or at least.. If you don't think Google is making you Dumb(er)... Do you agree it removes the "need to remember/think"?

Iraq.. May 11th: "The bombings at the bridges, which cross the Diyala River, a Tigris tributary, killed 23 people, including 11 police and 12 civilians, and wounded 57 others, including 26 police, police said." (FoxNews); May 13th: "A homicide truck bomber crashed the offices of a Kurdish political party in northern Iraq and detonated his explosives on Sunday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 60..." (FoxNews); Today: "BAGHDAD - Gunmen opened fire on a police checkpoint, and mortar rounds struck an outdoor market, killing eight people..." .. "Two policemen and four civilians were wounded.." (Yahoo!)

Mild-mannered Microsoft asp.NET developer by day and rogue, happy-go-lucky linux anomaly by night/weekends! That's how I'm living my life these days! And I completely dig it!

Over the last couple days I've spent a lot of time tweaking and customising my linux desktop and hopefully soon, I'll publish a screenshot or two. And if you're just a Windows user, I tell you, you WILL be blown away! The freedom in linux is amazing.

Iraq.. May 8th: "A homicide car bomber tore through a busy market in the Shiite holy city of Kufa on Tuesday morning, killing at least 16 people and wounding 70.." (FOXNews); May 9th: "A suicide truck bomb blamed on al-Qaida linked insurgents exploded outside the Interior Ministry, killing at least 19 people and wounding 80..." (MSNBC)

As a blogger one must always wonder about the legal issues behind using pics from other sites, quoting information from other sites etc. Well, while reading some news a couple secs ago, I saw an article titled "12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know", and after reading it and deeming it "worthwhile", I've included the link to it here.

The writer really does some good explaining and most importantly, gives bullet-point tips on how NOT to get yourself in trouble. It's certainly a useful article (and even can apply to forums)!

In my haste and excitement in experimenting with the new OS I forgot to say a huge thank you to John for helping me to setup ScribeFire. I came across John's site whilst searching the Internet looking for an offline blogging client. On reading that he was doing stuff along the same lines as myself (XP/Ubuntu guy) and also using the same blogging tool (dasBlog), I dropped him an email and he was more than happy to help me out!

For information on these blogging clients (ScribeFire, Drivel,
Blog Entry Poster) check John's blog post.

Iraq / Today.. "23 Sect Members Lined Up, Shot Dead in Iraq; At Least 20 Others Killed Elsewhere" (Fox News)

Well, I did say, "by Saturday" ! What can I say..? So far, so good! The Ubuntu upgrade process from 6.10 ("Edgy Eft") to 7.04 ("Feisty Fawn") seems to have gone extremely smoothly. Before I ramble a bit on that though, I'll walk you through what I did in the event that any of you are upgrading.

To upgrade, you're given two main options: "Network upgrade" (i.e. online) or "Alternate installation CD" (i.e. offline). Keeping in mind that this is only Day 2 of this OS version being available and thus, the amount of people that will be downloading it or doing online upgrades (these guys commenting for e.g.), I thought best (for safety and speed) to do the offline install. To do this install you'll have to browse here and grab the Alternate install CD iso (~696mbs). Once you've downloaded this file, burn it (remembering to burn disk image and not a normal data burn - more info) and with Ubuntu 6.10 running, insert the CD and follow the instructions that pop-up on-screen.

Mostly the entire thing is smooth from then on.. The only two things I didn't get were: (1) at times.. this "offline upgrade" seemed as if it was going online for some of the packages.. and (2) someways into the install, a message popped up asking me if to keep or replace my login.defs file. For this, I quickly googled "login.defs" and didn't find any real issue with replacement (as I never edited it) so, I allowed the Replace. These were really the only two prompts I had so that's a definite (y)!

Once that was complete, time for a quick reboot and login (yep, that's right, I didn't have to set up new users or anything) and *taadaa*, I'm on to Feisty! And since it was an upgrade, all my proggies are still there.. my email client is still setup; when I opened Firefox, it opened all the tabs I had from 'last time'; my gaim details (btw gaim seems to be upgraded); xchat details; all still there! (To be honest, I doubt an uninformed casual user would recognise the upgrade as none of the desktop or panels have been changed...)

So.. in a nutshell, that's it! The only thing that worries me slightly is that pc people always say that a clean install is always the better choice.. but in reality, with this stuff coming out every 6 months (unlike Windows for e.g. which comes out every ~3 years), I think it's a bit impractical to clean install, so I really hope upgrading has no gotchas.

Little under a week running Ubuntu and a new version (Feisty Fawn) is out for me to download/install! So far my experiences with Ubuntu have been good more than bad.. getting accustomed to the (cmd line) commands is probably the hardest task.. but the simplicity of finding and installing software matched with the appealing GUI and the "OS freeness" make up for it!

Anyway! So today, Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) is released and unless I hear something horrid about it, I'll try to have it on by Saturday. Right now as I read a digg post, I'm seeing that servers are overloaded with hits to download the OS! My my.. it is really popular! I hope the upgrading process (from version 6.10, that I have, to 7.04) is (a) existent and (b) smooth! I'd dislike to think I would have to format and do a fresh install... not after all that configuration I've done!! We'll see though, we'll see!

Ah, and if you want the download link (torrent) my bud at tech-barbados found it. So you can check that out.

---

Iraq / Today.. "A suicide car bomb exploded in central Baghdad's Jadriya neighborhood on Thursday afternoon, killing at least 12 people and wounding 28 others" (CNN)

Well, I'm just testing out ScribeFire to see if I can post stuff easily from Linux.. The other blogging tools are (n).. for now anyway!

Believe it or not, persons out there are now calling for a Bloggers Code of Conduct! Included in this code of conduct are points such as: "We [bloggers I assume] take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.", "We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person." and "We do not allow anonymous comments."..

Personally, I'm not which sure what side of the fence I am on in this topic. I understand that bloggers should be made to take some responsibility but like someone else had noted.. anonymity is KEY online. By anonymity I mean: (a) If you don't what to disclose who you are, why should you? Especially for anonymous comments.. and (b) Even though someone may know who I am online because I disclose my name for e.g., there's still a "can't touch me offline"-facet associated with the Internet in general.

On the other side however, as a blogger, I believe things like Comment approval should me maintained so a blogger is forced to approve comments before they are made public. Here the blogger should use his/her "good sense" to filter comments. When dealing specifically with blogger content, I can relate to the drafted Code of Conduct with respect to not posting content that is:  "is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others .. is libelous, knowingly false, ... violates the privacy of others". You know..basically, BE CIVIL!

Hmm.. as I look to the side of my blog window I see my disclaimer.. interestingly, these days I doubt you'll find a blog without one, .. some I've seen even declare that all the content is unreliable and readers should peruse at their own peril! *sigh.. I wonder where this topic will end up!

For the last three or so days, I've been constantly jumping between XP and Ubuntu.. and now I'm starting to recognise why del.icio.us, online RSS aggregators and the "My " homepages have grown so much in popularity - no one (except me) only uses 1 pc!

Soo.. now that I've got two "PCs/OSs", I'm thinking that it's time to make serious use of My Mashup project. Therefore.. as soon as I can I'm going to rebuild it to allow easy addition of RSS feeds, bookmarks, interaction with web services and even some MOTDs/QOTDs if I find them!

Then again... I could always use Google homepage.... but really, what fun is that!

Well, since last week I've been thinking about trying out something different besides the same old Windows platform. SO! Yesterday, I did just that! I hopped over to Ubuntu.com, got what I needed and started the install process! Now.. a day, and some serious problems later (yes, serious!), I'm here! Blogging from Ubuntu! (By the way Ubuntu is a community developed, linux-based operating system... Yes, that's correct, I am using Linux!)

From what I've seen so far, it's pretty cool.. I really have to get used to this command line thing though, and also learning some basic linux commands. I'll definitely blog more on it later but for now I'm back to exploring! .. If only I can get this XChat working! *pff!*

There I was, just looking for some photos to report on the Champions League results from Tuesday and Wednesday at ESPNsoccernet. Now if you're a regular visitor there like me, you know that on the first page they usually have a Standings Table from one of the European Leagues.. eg. German Bundesliga, La Liga or if you look at the photo to the right, the Premiership. So as it only takes a scroll, I checked it out.

To my surprise though, this time, the table was totally "knackered" as you can see from the screen shot on the left. Look closely at the points standings.. Arsenal in 2nd with 55 points?? Newcastle in 7th with 37 points??

I haven't a cluuee what went on here.. If they were doing a query to fill that table and ordering by PTs (points), that error shouldn't happen at all.. probably this isn't being ordered? And thus showing up in the default format in which the names are in the data store?

Not everyday one sees stuff like that... hmm, probably it just is that the DBMS made an error.. computers can still make errors... right?

I'm a bit late in posting however, I think it's only fair to say "HAPPPY ANNIVERSARY" to this Blog!

Today's 6 months since I wrote my first post back on October 4th 2006. And.. by now you should be able to tell what I've done to "celebrate" it... yep! A new Blog Design (as you can see on the right)!

This one took me forever to come up with, I'm sure my Dad would attest to the tons of different designs and graphics I flipped through before I got here.

I can honestly say after all that "worK" playing with designs and graphics, I'm completely satisfied with this one. One of my main goals at first was coming up with a nice, lively header (you know, to liven up my sometimes boring posts! ).. Then after fiddling with some graphics, I remembered the photos of Barbados I took back in 2005.. and the one you see above kinda.. fit Perfectly in.. So I ran with that and.. well, *ta da*!

Anyway, as usual, I'd love to hear your comments, and once again, Happy Anni Blog!

Lately online, I've been seeing tons of posts, vids and articles on Wi-Fi (aka Wireless Networks) and how poor the security for them is. Actually, now that I think back a bit I remember a small "talk" in Barbados about a month ago which was appealing to businesses and homes to ensure their Wireless networks were secure.

To secure Wireless networks, there are a number of approaches, some people use WEP, others WPA (considered the better option), well now, I've found another solution which doesn't require you to know any of those "techie TLAs" above at all! In fact, you don't have to be any kind of "techie"!

Ready for this?? ... ... Wi-Fi Blocking Paint !! "One coat of this paint "creates an electromagnetic fortress by preventing airborne hackers from intercepting signals."" (Ref) One question I have though is how or if a cellphone would work while the caller is inside the "protected zone".. From the hint of this Yahoo! article, I'm not sure.. Either way though, I think this is not something we'll see in homes in a while, if at all, businesses, probably... as "hacking" Wi-Fi networks is the craze these days.

So I went from "waP Plans" to "waP on the waY", and now, I'm posting "waP uP and running"!

I'm stating all of this to say that I've finished the wap site and it's available to all (but only from your mobiles). If you've got the net set up on your mobile, type in http://wap.jasonnurse.com .

Mainly, this site is to act as a "central" news point to supply information "on the go". It contains news from Barbados and the World, but not only that - i.e. by location - it has news by genres from Christian to Humour, Science to Technology. All at your fingertips! I've also included 2 other small features which I found "neat" and useful, however I'll leave them for you to find out. . By the way, you can see a pic I took of the site on my mobile on the left.

To ramble a bit on the development of mobile sites in .NET, I must say that it is really quite simple and fairly easy to learn, given the right resources (sites, msdn library, software mostly).

Sadly however, there are some drawbacks I must note.. First, I don't think any improvements were made on the development tools/controls/documentation in moving from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0. So really I can't help but think that I'm working with "ancient" technology.

Secondly, the asp net forum.. to help me through my work on the site, I posted a couple what I consider, "n00b questions"... to this date, I'm still waiting for a reply. Doesn't seem like that "Mobile and Handheld Devices" forum gets much attention at all.

Finally, somehow.. .NET does not recognise my mobile as a mobile device.. This therefore rules out the use of "nice" properties such as IsMobileDevice (for redirects).

Anyway enough of that.. hmm, I think that overall this is my third "Personal Project" thus far... the other two being the Photo site and the Mashup. Three personal projects in a couple months? Hmm.. I can't say that's a bad average.. I wonder what else I'll be able to get myself into now! Well.. besides the updates of the other 3 projects.. *eek*!

I DID IT!! ShutDownDay was somewhat of a smooth run for me.. I can comfortably say that I did not use my pc on Saturday. There was no online chatting, no checking email, no blogging, no developing, pretty good eh? I think so.. I'm sure some people that know me will be quite impressed as I'm always at the pc normally..

Anyway, moving on.. Instead of the pc, I spent Saturday sleeping, watching tv, attending a meeting and also hanging out with some pretty jovial folk. All in all, it was a nice day, got home after midnight too! . Sad to say though, I did browse the net from my mobile a bit, just read a bit of news.. So I can't say that my hands are totally clean. !

I think that's it for now... see you next year ShutDownDay - 24 March!

Think you can go without your pc for one entire day? This is the concept behind the site ShutDownDay.org. The site starts off, "It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible. If they disappeared for just one day, would we be able to cope?"

Well the day for this "great shutdown" is 24 March.. I'm actually considering doing it! 24 full hours without touching a computer ..hmm.. at least.. it's a Saturday..

What about you? Think you can do it? I encourage you to hit the web site, tons of people have already voted on if they could do it or not.. and people have done a number of videos on youtube.

I'm... thinking HARD on it though, probably go to the beach or drive around or visit friends or family or something.. hmm.. they never said I couldn't browse the net from my cell.. lol

Ok folks, I'm here to deliver on my promise and.. finally, release the first version of the 'My Mashup' Project (you can see a screen shot there on your left). I thought that now would be a good time since ASP AJAX has been 'out' for almost a full two months and thus, any release problems would have already been addressed (in forums, blog posts, etc.).

One 'gotcha' about this release though is that you need a username/password to peruse it. I originally intended it for "public viewing" but have decided for now to limit it to persons I know or who request login details. For those of you who wish to view My Mashup just drop me an email or IM me and I'll be glad to set you up.

Truth be told, I am rather excited about this!! I remember, one of my main goals with this project was to make postbacks (or more simply, page refreshes) a thing of the past and.. I've successfully done that but still have been able to produce what I think is, a very interactive and useful web site/app.

I'd be glad to hear what ALL you people think especially the techies amongst you. Two things to note though:

1. Before you view the site, check the Release Notes (there's a link at the bottom). 
2. The Project seems to like "a bit" of your bandwidth.. I'm not sure but ADSL is required suggested. For those of you who check the site, please let me know reaction times etc. Thanks.

FINALLY! I've gotten around to setting up http://wap.jasonnurse.com - my mobile access site. Don't.. go rushing there now though, I've only parked a temporary page! I hope to get around to this rather soon as I already have a good set of ideas.

By the way... look out for a certain Project to be finished and accessible rather soon!!

Heys! As you would remember, I had some problems with my PC lately so I had to reinstall a lot of my programs. In continuing with those installations, today I headed to the Mozilla site to reinstall Firebug (.. helps a lot in my JS debugging).

As I browsed though the listing of Add-ons searching for Firebug, I stumbled upon what I consider a pretty cool addition to the FF list of beauties i.e. Cooliris Previews.

I could ramble a bit about it here as I do with most programs however I think that I'll let the official site handle that job. I really don't think I'd do it justice.

Anyway, it has my full recommendation! (until I find something amis ..) Well done Cooliris Team!

Wait... as I read a bit more on the Cooliris site, I noticed the following statement, "We are about to release the IE7 version for Previews." (Ref) ! IE users, be happy! (Darn.. this IE thing messes up the topic of this post.. oh well.. ) 

It's Friday!!! and tons of things are flying through my head I'd like to ramble a bit on.

Firstly, youtube. When I joined up on youtube, my idea was to use it to hear music and view some music videos.. especially putting on a playlist and chilling out while doing work or whatever. Of course youtube can be used for tons of other things.. like learning to break into houses, pcs, watching football highlights etc. However, my main thing was music.

Now a couple days ago, I saw a post on tech-barbados titled "YouTube Asked to Remove 100,000 Music Video Clips".. something about some company called Viacom and youtube.. I read it a bit but, brushed it off.. until earlier today when I go to my tube to listen my playlist and I keep getting:

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom International Inc."

!! Even when I go to listen to this bIG tune -> "Rihanna - Unfaithful".! Ah well. I wonder how youtube is taking this though, it can't only be me that goes there for the oldest & latest music! There must be some traffic drop-off..

I just had an issue with IIS V5.1.. I was trying to access an ASP.NET 2 site via localhost and I got the following error: Failed to access IIS metabase.

To be honest, I had a long day so I'm glad that Dad helped me out with this one.. He came over and found a site which explains this problem and also gave a simple way to deal with it. In "two twos" (as us Bajan's would say - this means.. "in a quick manner"), the fix worked and the site was up and running!

If you ever have this error, I recommend this guy's blog post on it.

In essence though, it seems to be an issue with IIS and ASP 1.1 and 2.0.

My PC seems to have some type of cancer thus I haven't been on MSN or blogging from Sunday. Right now it is undergoing heart and brain surgery, I hope to have it back up soon.

PS. I would've taken pictures... but... it's too gruesome to show online.. :\

Found this site while browsing..

Top Web Tools for College Students

Personally, of these I've only used Wikipedia but I can definitely see how the others could come in handy, whether you're a student here in Barbados or anywhere else in the world.

Hmm.. I think it's about time I gave Del.icio.us a twirl though.. This weekend!!

When I first started thinking of creating my own blog, one of the main things I wanted was the ability to backup my blog and have a copy so that if anything went wrong, I wouldn't lose my stuff (you know, the entire 'going concern' concept). This is one of the main reasons I chose not to go with Blogger, LiveJournal or any of the rest. Even though they made things so simple and possibly even let you implement your own template.

Anyway, moving on from that, I recently received an article via RSS that addresses the topic of backing up data on Blogger. I think it's a great find and if I had known that before, I probably would have went with Blogger. Here's the article, enjoy!

Yesterday while walking through a store in Bridgetown, I came upon a book about mobile devices (pdas, smartphones, pocket pcs and the lot). As I flipped through the book, I started to have a really good understanding of the value of these devices. I mean, imagine a handheld device that can be with you virtually anywhere that can play media, take photos, hold your daily planner, let you view documents in Word, Excel, Outlook, let you browse the net and email and of course, make calls. To me, it's just darn cool! (Until someone steals that device.. then... its a darn nightmare! )

So based on that review and some stuff I've been looking at lately, when I got home I started to do a check on some of these devices. Some of the nicest ones I've found are the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 (only good one that has a camera), Palm Treo 750 (seeing it for £408.79) and HP's number, the HP iPAQ rw6815 (for £328.99).

Looking at these devices though, I think the touchscreen is a big +ve that the last two mobiles have over the Blackberry. Also, that Blackberry's screen isn't that big either... to be honest, I mostly included that due to its great features and not the size at all. After scanning the features of the other two though, I think it's the HP that grabs my attention more.. sadly it only has Bluetooth v1.2.. but the other features definitely make up for it!

Before I jet off,... while browsing the mobile phone sites, I had a little surprise as I found two updates to my moto! Now Motorola has the SLVR L7e and the SLVR L9. They are rather similar in design but at least in the L9, the camera has been bumped up to 2MP, Bluetooth is now v2.0, 20 MB of internal memory and an FM radio. Sadly the USB is still v1.1.. I guess that was pushing it??

I expect the next few months to be busy (work-wise) however, noting the fact that I refuse to continue development of my Mashup project until I'm completely satisfied with MS ASP.NET Ajax, I've decided to do a WAP site for jasonnurse.com.

This site is to be accessible from most reliable mobile devices (especially my moTo) and will contain what I consider, good stuff to have 'on the go' (i.e. when mobile). I'm not sure what else to put on there but I'm also going to try to make my blog viewable (it isn't viewable now, it has too much page content I believe), and just generally, to make a good WAP site/interface.

One downfall I noticed already which may not apply to all mobile devices, will be that there can be no JavaScript (as I don't think my mobile supports it). This is a big limitation but I'll work with it and see how things go.

I'm also going to try go setup http://wap.jasonnurse.com as the place for this site.

One of the best Christian sites I've seen online is Crosswalk.com (hence why its included in my Navigation list to the right of the page). Well now, they've updated their site and I must say I like it! It surely is no easy job to fit all that content on one page, and I think they've done a pretty admirable job!

If you've never checked out this site, I definitely recommend it, it has almost everything one can think of (as a Christian site) and even reviews movies, covers various versions of the Bible and *drum roll* .. has a WAP site!

Crosswalk.com people, have a view!

I just had this chat with a friend on MSN, I thought it was a bit 'fun', or at the least, 'interesting'.. so I thought I'd post it. (OF course I got the person's permission first! I'm a 100% legit character you know!). Enjoy! ... I did!

Jason says: mate, I'm online so much
Jason says: I mean, is there another world out there? Really?
Jason says: *jason starts to refLect*
benedict says: lol, there is, but, I've heard that you can't block and delete ppl that bug u
Jason says: , blasphemy!
Jason says: so u have to.. co-exist?!
benedict says: yehhhhhh ... pretty much
Jason says: how... 'cave man'-ish
benedict says: and when people give you viruses ... a system scan doesn't help
Jason says: !!! What a scary place to live! Online may definitely be the place to be! At least if anything happens here I can go and buy new internals/peripherals! . Those poor poor real-world people!

It's a dauntless task however, I really try to keep up with technology.. whether it be the latest cool, portable gadgets (eg. the Apple iphone I blogged about) or the latest non-pc related stuff (eg. this new in-car alcohol detection system by Toyota which I wrote about on this forum I frequent).

Either way, today I've been amazed again while reading the 'techie news'. Check out the following...

This is the Zink. The idea here is the towards developing the technology that makes printers small enough to fit in digital cameras!! (Yes, that's right! P R I N T E R S!)

How crazy is that!

Plus... As CNET News notes..

"The portable printer from start-up Zink is about the size of an iPod. It prints 2 x 3 inch pictures, but larger formats will be available in the future. The printer has no ink cartridges, which enables the small size. Crystals in the special paper change from transparent to colored when heated." (Ref)

Now this.. is just cool. .. To be honest though, I'm not sure I see this taking off as a big venture because why would I really want a picture so small? Hmm.. passport photos? ping pongs? That's the only way I can see this being used as opposed to just getting a "proper digicam" and a photo printer. I guess we'll see as time goes on though.. we'll see!

Until then, be amazed!

Today was a pretty cool day indeed! Why? Well mainly because of two reasons...

1) I finally dragged myself down to my mobile phone service provider and signed up for Internet access on my phone and;

2) Liverpool beat West Ham 2-1 AT West Ham. Goals coming from the in-form Dirk Kuyt and also the robot man, Peter Crouch. This win puts Liverpool within two points of second place Chelsea.

Ok but enough about football, I HAVE the net on my phone!! How cool is that! Since I got home, I've been trying stuff out and I already have a nice listing of (mobile) Bookmarks. If you're looking to get this done as well, the cost is 26c/day for Card customers and (I THINK) $8/month for Bill phones. (Oh and of course this is the rate for my service provider i.e. C and W. I'm not sure about the Digi rates but if you desire I may be able to check those upon your request.)

Also worth noting is that after the lady tinkered with and handed me back my phone (it is set up while you wait), she told me it should be on in about an hour. This... is relative I guess, but probably she was being a bit generous with the time... because I still could not access any sites for about 2 hours after. Of course by then I was beginning to get a bit... disappointed but what I did next was to turn off my phone for about an hour then when I turned it back on, I got the GPRS little icon on my screen and I was "cooking with gas" (i.e. it was working).

So in a nutshell I suggest you wait for about an hour (or whatever time the CSR suggests) then turn off your phone for 30mins and then turn it back on. Hopefully that should do the trick! You can always use www.jasonnurse.com to test it out, I won't mind at all.

Anyway, so thus far I've hit a number of sites including the just mentioned www.jasonnurse.com. Truth be told however, I don't like how it's displayed. Therefore, I actually think I'm going to reconsider that design or probably try to implement a WAP/mobile site. As for this blog site.. it doesn't show at all, I believe this is because there is simply too much content on the page to display on my 1.2" x 1.5" screen.

Ok, so I'm done commenting on that for now but I hope to take some pics and show you how stuff looks on the phone.

Well I blogged on it a day ago but I came across this video just now which I think is pretty nice, so I posted again.

Seriously though, this device is mad cool so I don't think this will be the last post on it either. I mean if you're a techie, even an MS techie, you simply must appreciate this coolness.

Video Title is "The iPhone Up Close"

PS. Yea I don't really see this phone being in Bim... at least for a couple years. And you should note the end of this video and certain things like the exclusive contract to that specific cell phone provider, the difficulty in the keypad and the 500,600 US $.

Well after reading my friend Rommel's blog, I finally took his lead and headed on to the Apple site to check out the iPhone. My reaction? "mannnn, this is soooooo cool". For those of you who haven't checked it out I refer you to this page and I tell you, prepare to be "wowwed".

I won't say much on it here as Apple does a great presentation in that link I just mentioned but that is as it says "a revolutionary mobile phone". My only question is though.. Do you really use your finger? As opposed to say.. a nice stylus?

Oh and I'm sure by now you must be thinking... but what price are we talking about here... Well, I've done some checking and Gizmodo reports that "The iPhone: Price - $499 4GB, $599 8GB" and also that it ships in June 2007 (Ref).

So folks, you have some months in which to save some cash, you can probably cut back on those PizzaHut trips (for the UK/US folks) and for the local people in Bim, well.. you're being quite wishful that the iPhone will (1) get down here (2) be even in the range of $1000, $1200 Bds and (c) it will be supported by either C&W or Digi.

Anyway, happy hunting! I'm still quite amazed by the "coolness" of this device... The only question now is if it works as seamlessly as is shown on the Apple site. :? ESPECIALLY those "Built-in Advanced Sensors"... I mean "The proximity sensor detects when you lift iPhone to your ear and immediately turns off the display" ? "An ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s brightness to the appropriate level for the current ambient light" ? "iPhone’s accelerometer detects when you rotate the device from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display" ? (All these quotes come from the Apple iPhone site) Those are.. big things... and I really really hope they work well.

It's Friday night and I'm... busy... I'm listening to some Three Doors Down and in the middle of developing the "My Mashup" project. This mashup thing is pretty cool, the entire concept is honestly just beautiful. I can't wait until I get to show you guys and gals!

Sadly though, because I'm so MS-oriented, my work on this project is being held back because MS hasn't released the final version of ASP.NET AJAX yet. And I refuse to go do something greaT then a version with major changes to the one I have is released. So just hold on a bit folks. I will try my hardest to make it worth your while.

Still on the "Projects" topic, I have made what I consider significant headway in the (WinForm-based) IRC client I have been working on. Right now, it handles colors, multiple windows, multiple channels, the usual mIRC commands and some other stuff. Now to some of you this may seem trivial as mIRC handles all this stuff already. However, to me, it's rather novel because it's something I worked on from "almost" ground - up. From the creation of the connection to the handling and formatting of raw IRC commands from and to the server.

Considering what I've done with that IRC client and the fact that I think it has potential, I've toyed with making it "open source". This I think may help development of it (there's tons of stuff that needs to be added - yes I have a lengthy To Do list) and make it even better. Also, I've done a considerable amount of searching online and there are really no "open source" VB.NET clients readily available. So... I may be onto something. We'll see though, we'll see. For now though I'll hang on to the c0d3 for safe keeping.

Oki, well I'm going to press on with My Mashup,.. I would like to find 2 or 3 more APIs to throw into the mix! The more... "Mashed up" the better. :-) .. *jason cranks up the Kaiser Chiefs*

The WWW is a beautiful thing. Today's multi-featured cell phones are a beautiful thing. Combined... *sniff they make me want to shed a tear!

Ok Ok, moving on from that, today I had the pleasure of browsing the WWW on a friend's cell phone and to be quite honest, I marveled at that capability. I checked Nation news, MSN, Sports news... and for the fun of it http://jasonnurse.com . Surprisingly, my site doesn't look too too bad on the small screen of the mobile. The graphic on the main page was shrunk quite nicely (even though illegible) and the content displayed great (with the exception of a lack of color and a questionable CSS application).

Seeing this in action and well, because I'm "technology-oriented", I can't wait to see how viable it is for me to sign up for the browsing capability on my phone. By viable here, I mostly mean the service cost as luckily my phone is Web-reaDy. So far I've heard $8 Bds a month and 26c a day.. I have no clue which is correct but I dread calling the 1-800 customer service number to confirm. I can't handle the million rings or the 10th-rate music.

Any of you know for sure, just let me know, it'll be greatly appreciated.

And, for you non-Bajan persons reading, yes... in Barbados, browsing the WWW on your phone is still 'novel' and hardly to be taken for granted.

Now I think about it though, I understand why while doing my MSc in the UK that so much emphasis was being place by lecturers and research community on the adaptation of content for small devices. Why check news online (from your pc) or sit and watch the news, when you can use your mobile 24-7 to check it out? See... The... Future!

As a 'semi-loyal' member of the Moto family, when I saw this article, I though best to give it a read. Basically the article shows various ways to 'enhance' your Motorola SLVR phone, and bring it close to what the writer calls, 'iPhone' capabilities.

I found some of the stuff quite interesting but personally, I think I'd only try changing the face and sorting out the videos with this Nokia Multimedia tool. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Update: That Nokia tool doesn't convert .wmv or .flv files... thus far I've successfully converted .avi, .3gp, .mp4. Also, it converts to .3gp and .mp4 (only from what I see).

Well, simply put, I'd say that Youtube is the place for videos (aka vids), whether you're looking for comedy, music vids, science + tech or even sports clips of the latest Liverpool game! So with all that considered and also because I'd like an easy way to keep track of the vids I like besides weighing down the load time of my blog, I've signed up!

So far I've already started working on various playlist and a huuugee favourites collection. But, I hear you ask, could this mean I'm going to start uploading vids as well? ... Wellll.. for some reason, I doubt it, for now I'll leave that to my pal Ramal! By my count, he's got 5 up already and its only been a month!

Now... I'm sure some of you mischievous persons would like to know what's the URL for my account, you know .. to have a peek at what videos I'm checking out.. Well, you'll have to guess because I'm not telling!