The Author – Bart Busschots
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May
31
Two Titans Meet – Gates & Jobs On The Same Stage At The Same Time
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The All Things Digital conference has always been able to draw the big names. However, this year they have out-done themselves. Bill Gates with Steve Jobs in one interview. I’m very jealous of Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast podcast who was there live! (she took the picture opposite). I was talking to her over ICQ/AIM/.Mac earlier today and she was very impressed by the interview. She felt she was present at a historic event. I think she’s right. However, the great news is that the good people at the the D conference have put the videos on the web so we can all share in this great event!
The whole interview is well worth watching but it is long (7 parts averaging about 15 mins plus a prologue running at about 8 mins). What impressed me most is how well Bill Gates came across. At the time of the Vista launch I saw him do quite a few media interviews and he never really came across very well. Today he was relaxed, witty and interesting …. though his voice still reminds me of Kermit the frog 🙂
One other point to note is that I think Steve gave us a hint as to at least one thing we’ll see at the WWDC, the next generation of .Mac. I sure hope I picked up that hint right because .Mac is well over-due a major over-haul (see .Mac – The Devil is in the Implementation).
[tags]Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, All Things Digital, .Mac[/tags]
May
31
What Happened to Journalistic Standards on the Web?
Filed Under Security, Computers & Tech on | 3 Comments
It’s hot news in the mac world today that Apple have not yet patched Windows File Sharing (Samba) on the very latest OS X. This is unforgivable since they released a security update this week and a fixed version of Samba has been available for weeks now. That was the blog post I wanted to write this evening but before I did I wanted to read the actual Symantec advisory that I see quoted all over the place. Surely, if there was any proper journalism on the web all online articles referencing the advisory should contain a link to it so people can read it themselves? None that I have found do. So, I went to the Symantec site to see if I could find it there. Not a hope. I used Google to try to find the original everyone is quoting. No joy. I don’t feel comfortable reporting on what Symantec supposedly said in an advisory based on second-hand information. Others on the web don’t seem to be as picky as me. Shame really.
[tags]journalism, standards, symantec, usability, Mac World[/tags]
May
22
Apparently You Can’t Say Bad Things About The Dead …. Really?
Filed Under Polemics & Politics on May 22, 2007 | 1 Comment
I get very grumpy when a person who has spread hate and misery in the name of God dies and people suddenly feel the need to say all sorts of nice things about him and pretend he never blamed 911 on gays and pagans. It’s OK not to be sad when some people die! Not all people are good! Some people are right royal sh*ts! And I’m not going to pretend to be sorry to see the back of them! Anyhow, I could rant on and on about all the really crappy things Gerry Falwell has done in the name of a supposedly loving God but I know I could never do it as well as Bill Maher, so I’ll let him do it 🙂
May
22
A Non-Scientific Contrast of PHP & Perl
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech on | 11 Comments
It’s no secret that I don’t like PHP. In fact, I dedicated an entire article to explaining just why I don’t like PHP last year. Recently I’ve found another reason to dislike PHP. The GD image manipulation libraries SUCK! They are so insanely and needlessly complex. All I wanted to do was write a simple command-line script to read in a folder and edit each JPEG image in the folder to resize it, insert a Creative Commons logo, and the URL to my website. I’m currently working on uploading some of my photography to my website and doing this manually for all my photos is just not an option, it would take forever! So, I started writing a PHP script because I know PHP can do these things thanks to the DB libs. That turned out to be a bad idea so I ran home to Perl 🙂
[tags]Perl, PHP, GD Libs, Image Magick[/tags]
May
21
Would Somebody Think of the Color Blind People!
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech on May 21, 2007 | 3 Comments
If you design stuff please bear in mind that not all of us are blessed with perfect color vision. When you’re developing your color schemes please make sure they are still readable to the color bind. Don’t worry, it’s trivially easy to test this with a great free tool called Color Oracle. BTW, even if you don’t have an actual need for this tool it’s still fun to play with 🙂
What’s really nice about this tool is that it’s available for Mac, Linux and Windows so everyone can play! I’ve only tested the Mac version and it works like a charm. It adds a simple menu bar icon to select which kind of color blindness to simulate. When you select a scheme your screen colors change so simulate what a color blind person would see. I really like that the change is very temporary, just click the mouse of press a key and everything goes back to normal. You can also set up hot-keys so you can very quickly check your interface works for color blind people with just the press of a single button. There is no excuse now for developing an interface that color blind people can’t use!
[tags]color blindness, software, freeware, OS X, Windows, Linux[/tags]
May
20
A Good Night for Observing Planets
Filed Under Science & Astronomy on May 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Having set myself the challenge of observing all the planets with a pair of 10x50mm binoculars I bought in Lidle for €19 this year I got to tick another one off my list today, Jupiter. I now just need Mars and the two difficult ones, Uranus & Neptune. Although Jupiter is the only one I get to cross off my list today I did get to observe many more planets, in fact, I observed all the planets bar the three I’m missing!
May
18
First Light of my New Nikon D40
Filed Under Photography on May 18, 2007 | 5 Comments
My new Nikon D40 Digital SLR arrived today. My first impressions of the camera are excellent. It is easy to use, ergonomically well designed, and it takes great pictures. What more could you want from a camera!? Because I bought it over the net the only manual that came with it is in German so needless to say I haven’t read it! But, TBH, I saw no need to read it because in just a few minutes I was taking pictures as if I’d owned the camera for years. The UI guys obviously did something very right with this camera.
Needless to say I just had to put the camera through it’s paces so here are the results of my first experiments (not original resolution obviously).
[tags]Photography, Nikon, D40[/tags]
May
17
Microsoft Start to Crack
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 17, 2007 | 4 Comments
It’s no secret that I’m no Microsoft fan. Their business practices annoy me and the way they treat their customers like criminals makes my blood boil. I mean really, what exactly is the genuine advantage consumers like you and I get from ‘Genuine Advantage’? I’m a big fan of open source. I like the openness and the community and I think that approach leads to better software in general. Having said that I’m no Linux zealot. I do use it both at work and at home and do run it regularly as both a desktop and a server OS. However, I’m also a dedicated Mac user. One thing I do not own is a Windows machine. Linux and OS X all the way for me!
This week Microsoft provided me with yet another reason to hate them. They are now threatening to sue open source users for supposedly using their patents. Leaving aside the fact that I find software idea patents objectionable and a bad idea and that I think the American patent system is a disaster, this all strikes me as a great big load of FUD. MS are not naming the patents. They are just making threats. They are trying to use fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) to scare people back to MS software.
[tags]Micorsoft, Litigation, Patents, Linux[/tags]
May
15
And Award for the Worst Door-to-Door Canvasing Goes to …
Filed Under Polemics & Politics on May 15, 2007 | 11 Comments
Well, what with the election being just around the corner the door-step brigade are out in force. I just had Fine Gael at the door and can’t believe their ineptitude. These people sure didn’t leave me with the impression that they had the where-with-all to run the country. Here’s how the exchange went:
Me: So why should I vote for Fine Geal?
Fine Gael: Ah … sure why not?
Me: *stare in amazement*
Had they been able to follow that up with any sort of real answer I wouldn’t mind. But instead they just gave me some literature. When I started asking questions they looked at their copy of the register, realised that only one male was registered to vote in the house, and that he was a Fine Gael member. They then got suspicious and stopped answering us! Instead they then asked to speak to people by name. I pointed out that none of them lived here anymore. They told us we obviously couldn’t vote because we weren’t on the register. I pointed out that all it meant was that we would not be voting in this constituency but they didn’t seem to care. They couldn’t get away quick enough.
All in all a poor show. What makes parties think that sending out plebs with no ability to discuss policies with potential voters around to smile and make small-talk will win votes?
[tags]Ireland, Politics, General Election, Fine Gael[/tags]
May
13
A Look at the NoScript FireFox Add-on
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on May 13, 2007 | 2 Comments
I have been warning of the dangers of JavaScript on the web for quite some time now (see related articles at the bottom of this article). I have also always said it is unrealistic to expect people to turn JS off completely. Hence, my advice has been the same, use FireFox, and use the NoScript add-on. However, I’ve never actually done a proper review of NoScript, until now.