Random Google page selector
Either I've installed some random extension, or Firefox is now taking you to the top Google search result for what you type into the address bar when what you've just typed in isn't your standard protocol://server.domain/page type construction.
Try the following - search Google for 'Unable to load firmware: 0xFFFFFFFE' (without the speech marks). The top result should be (or at least, is currently) this page on one of Red Hat's many Fedora related mailing lists. Typing (or copying and pasting) the same search phrase directly into the address bar should take you directly to the same page. Neat, eh?
The upshot of all this is that I typed 'random google search' into the address bar (really, I don't know what I expected to see) and found this rather neat web page. Bored at work? Not any more. The wealth of teh Interweb is at your fingertips exactly how it wasn't meant to be. Random, disconnected, rambling and arbitrary. Much like this blog post.
Enjoy..
P.S. If anyone is interested, the problem with my WiFi card was that after upgrading to a newer kernel (gentoo-2.6.14-r5 to be exact), I decided to use the built in support for the card (an Intel Pro-Wireless 2200BG), rather than the drivers/ieee802.11 stack from the Portage tree. This created a problem as the kernel drivers expected version 2.2 of the IPW2200 firmware, whereas the Portage drivers are more up to date and use version 2.4 firmware, which I had installed at the time.
So I unloaded the modules from the kernel, unmerged the old (new) firmware, added the line '>net-wireless/ipw2200-firmware-2.2' to /etc/portage/package.mask and re-emerged the firmware. A quick 'modprobe ipw2200' and a slightly nailbiting '/etc/init.d/net.eth1 restart' later and all is well.
This brand spanking new (old) firmware has the distinct advantage of supporting channels greater than 11, whereas the old (newer) version doesn't. This appeared to have been arbitrarily removed by the firmware maintainer as if they didn't realise that although channels > 11 have been deemed illegal to use in the US by the FCC, there is a much bigger chunk of the world in which you can use these channels. This has been causing me no end of gip at college as quite a substantial part of my bit of that world is the room I have my lectures in - it has a WiFi network running on channel 14 which I use to catch up on email, coursework and Slashdot, or at least, I did until I upgraded to a later version of the Portage driver. Now that I can access this network once more, I shall be shelving my amateur attempt to hack it back into the driver, which was going badly anyway as it gets the geography information out of the firmware which is closed source. Boo.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Firefox optimised for G4/G5 CPUs
It's faster/lighter/snappier. Honest.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Live DOM viewer
So here I am debugging a really fun Ajax type website for my eCommerce coursework when I come across a problem - something isn't working, and I have a funny feeling it's because some invalid HTML is being vomitted out by my code. How do I find it? I can't view the source as it's all dynamically generated.
Enter Slayer Office's Document Tree Chart Favelet. Try it out. You'll love it.
Seems to have a problem sitting over flash though. No matter, I'm sure Pete will chime in with his fabulous new flash-blocking-FireFox-plugin. Pete?
(The project is here, if anyone is interested. Although it is very rough round the edges - expect brakeage. Don't be surprised if it tramples all over your data, runs off with your wife and shags your secretary. Bug reports to the usual address..).
Popularity: 12% [?]
Amazon vs. the Gym
Today, I cancelled my gym membership, and instead signed up to Amazon's DVD rental programme.
I think that's money better spent.
Film parties with the GhettoJector anyone?
If you are a bot attempting to post comment spam, fuck you.
Popularity: 12% [?]
View email replies?
I use Thunderbird as my email client. In general, it's great. Fast, compatible and with the same wonderful plug-in architecture that Firefox has.
Like most mail clients it tells me when I've replied to a message by changing the little envelope icon in the email list. However, how do I find the reply?
Entourage on the Mac has a nice be 'View your reply' type button.
Does anyone know of anything similar to this for Thunderbird?
Let me know, huh?
Popularity: 12% [?]
iMP
So, uh, anyone want to forward me the trial invitation email with the magic sign up link?
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Travelling
Note to self:
If you must insist on moving a week before travelling abroad, when you come across your passport while putting your stuff in boxes, DON'T LET IT OUT OF YOUR SIGHT. YOU WILL LOSE IT AND THEN HAVE TO PLAY THE '4 HOURS TO INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL - WHERE'S THE PASSPORT' GAME.
Right, glad I got that off my chest.
Popularity: 10% [?]
The cruel irony of the pop-up blocker
I tend to listen to internet radio at work, and because I am a bit of loser at heart I quite like Virgin. Most of what they play is pretty drekky, but every so often they'll come up with a real corker. For example they just played the full version of 'Good Vibrations' by the Beach Boys, which is undoubtedly a masterpiece. Unfortunately, they followed it by that irritating James Blunt fellow, not quite so masterful. But now they're playing Bob Marley, and that is just fine by me.
Enough about my lousy taste in music, let's get back on track. They upgraded their player last week and for some reason my computer just spat it back at me. After many frustrations the only way I could get it to work was to download their toolbar and launch it from that. This toolbar has a built in pop-up blocker (fairly handy) and an Ask Jeeves search bar (totally useless).
Virgin's player opens in a pop-up window, so it gets blocked every time I try and open it. That entertained me somewhat.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Oh, the irony
So, you almost make it to Brighton on your bike (okay, Merstham, but then you do cycle back which is almost the distance to Brighton), but get so wet in the following torrential downpour that you have to wait for four days for your shoes to dry out. When you are finally lacing them up, you accidentally spill a pint of water into one of them.
Balls.
Popularity: 11% [?]
We are all going to die
Apple release a multiple buttoned (well, programmable) mouse. To concatenate (and slightly paraphrase) a post I read on Slashdot the other day onto this one, the best rapper is white, the best golfer is black, Microsoft are using PPC chips and Apple is switching to Intel. Pete hears about the mouse and chips in with 'The moon is turning to blood, it's the end of days'.
Crikey. I don't know how much more of this I can take.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Black
As I was cycling into the office this morning I must have hit some glass in the road, as I managed to tear a 2cm hole through my front wheel an into the inner tube. Cue lots of hissing and a very annoyed Alex. Some of the hissing may have come from Alex.
I walked from Camberwell to my favourite bike shop - On Your Bike - to get it fixed. When I picked it up, the make/model on the reciept was simply marked as 'black'. Which made me smile.
For the record, this is my bike:
And yes, it is quite black. But then it did use to look like this:
Now you know.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Why we should all dump broadband
Sit down to work. Ten minutes in, the new mail icon tempts me from the bottom of the screen. I'll just check. Nothing like a few juicy new e-mails. Click a few links. Scan a few websites. Oh 20 minutes has just passed. Better get back to work. Now where was I Start work again. Feel like a reward. I'll just check news.bbc.co.uk. See if anything's happened in the three minutes since I last looked. Follow a few 'related links'...
Half an hour has passed. I feel like I've done something, but actually I haven't. All that's happened is that I've been distracted by constantly rising info urges. I spend most of my day like this, divided between what I need to do and what the internet wants me to do - which is look at it. Constantly.
Hmm. Feels strangely familiar.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4242751.stm
Popularity: 10% [?]
internet Vs. Internet
Ach, I've had enough. I've ignored it for a fair few months, but now it's really starting to grate. Wired has had it's say, even Zeldman has something to contribute, and it seems to be spreading. Far be it from me to place myself in the same lofty sphere as these web stalwarts, but they seem to have missed an important point about the capitalisation of the word internet, and like all good things in life, it's rather simple.
Basically, an internet is a network of (usually otherwise incompatible) networks. For example - if you were having a LAN party and you had a bunch of PCs and Macs running a TCP/IP network running alongside an AppleShare network, but all playing in the same game, however you manage it, you'd have an internet.
The Internet happens to be quite a well known and rather large scale implementation of an internet, but is unfortunately one which suffers from a rather poor choice of name.
An internet. The Internet. Simple, eh?
Popularity: 24% [?]