| Smartphones |
[Oct. 25th, 2009|10:54 am] |
It'll soon be time for me to get a new phone, and it's clear that the smartphone market is now mature enough for it to be the obvious choice. This is what I'm currently thinking; I'd be interested in your thoughts too.
( I expect this to be boring for many people ) |
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| Incredibly minor thing |
[Oct. 17th, 2009|09:56 am] |
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but does anyone have a use for a 200G SATA HDD? Going to landfill if not... |
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| Coming out day today |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|03:32 pm] |
I was going to write something like: "Bi. Poly. SMer. Transvestite. Too busy to write more; check my interests."
But that's a bit minimal even for me, so here are some very rushed thoughts on the topic.
I've found that coming out needs to be a continuous process - I came out as bi at the pub immediately after my job interview at LShift but by the time I started people had forgotten. And I came out as poly at my previous job when my boss read the appropriate copy of The Big Issue, but then he left and it never came up again.
Of course both examples pertain to work; we'll assume my friends know everything anyway. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 14th, 2009|11:02 pm] |
Not wanting to boast or anything, but I just want to tell you that this photo was taken through the window of the bus at 50mph on the way to the airport. :-p
There are a few other photos but not many, I was too relaxed to pick up the camera much of the time... |
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| That anonymous commenting thing |
[Aug. 25th, 2009|07:13 pm] |
As done by so many others (baaa, baaa).
Comment if you'd like to say something to me. Post-BiCon-related or not. All comments are screened. IP logging off. Say what you like.
ETA: I just had an anonymous comment that I would have loved to be able to reply to! Do consider signing a name, although that is in no way needed... |
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| Printing XXL |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|07:33 pm] |
I want to print out a line drawing at a very large size. The drawing in question is simple black-and-white (it's a copy of the comic book panel of Maggie and Hopey I had in West Ham if you remember that), so spot colour would be fine. Ideally about 2m x 2m.
I can't find anyone who will print something that big on paper. Print shops seem to max out at around A0, which is rather a lot too small.
There are companies that print advertising onto plastic banners - these guys were the cheapest I could find at £81 + VAT + delivery for 1.8m square. That seems expensive though, and it's much "more" (process colour on a relatively robust substrate) than I need. Also I don't know if they're printed in a way that looks good close up.
Anyone got any ideas? Rasterbator and similar chop-it-up-into-A4-pieces suggestions will not be considered</jwz>. |
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| Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant (ClickOnce) Firefox Extension |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|12:11 am] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ms_katonic mentions that Microsoft have added a little bonus to the .NET framework via Windows Update. It's a Firefox extension that enables the use of Microsoft's technology. Others have been talking about this for some time, but that was the first I heard of it.
So, what's the damage?
Well, obviously a lot of people are concerned that Microsoft would install an addon of any nature without asking. To my mind that's somewhat rude of them, but not atypical of the Windows desktop, which often feels like a battleground for warring corporate interests anyway. There's a certain amount of panic over the fact that OMG you can't uninstall it, but really that's more of a limitation of Firefox - any addon installed system-wide gets its "Uninstall" button greyed out (c.f. the "Ubuntu Firefox modifications" and many others). However, Microsoft could certainly have made the uninstall process easier.
But that's not really the point - the point is, how dangerous is ClickOnce? Which really boils down to: is it sandboxed? Well, yes and no. Wikipedia says "ClickOnce employs CAS (Code Access Security) to ensure that system functions cannot be called by a ClickOnce application from the web, ensuring the security of data and the client system in general.". That's a sandbox, this is not ActiveX, so we're fine, right?
Looking a little deeper though, the picture is more worrying. Yes, there's a sandbox, but it's perfectly possible for an application to request privilege elevation, all the way to the user's privilege level - the user will just be prompted with a single dialog. For reference, here's the dialog for a signed application which requires no privilege escalation and just wants to add itself to the Start Menu, and here's the dialog for an unsigned application which requires privilege escalation in order to add your machine to a botnet.
In case you're having trouble telling them apart, the difference is in the shape of the icon in the lower left hand corner.
The trouble is, there's a large segment of the population for whom either dialog may as well say "If you want to tech the tech, you need to tech the tech with the teching tech tech. Tech the tech? Yes / No". And they have the right to expect their machine won't get compromised either, especially after that nice friend or family member installed Firefox for them and told them they were now safe.
So yeah, remove the addon if you're running Windows. But by being the sort of person who removes the addon, you're pretty much the sort of person who's perfectly safe with it installed. Ah well. |
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| Paid account extension |
[Mar. 17th, 2009|01:28 pm] |
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A couple of days ago someone gifted me an LJ paid account extension. Thank you whoever you are, but if you're at all able to let me *know* who you are, I would really appreciate it. don't feel you need to comment, just send me a mail. |
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| Free technology! |
[Jan. 17th, 2009|04:18 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
Please comment if you would like any of the following and are prepared to take them away:
- Mission m73 floorstanding stereo speakers (large!)
- Gale centre speaker
Hauppauge NOVA-T PCI freeview card (Windows disks lost, works great with Linux / MythTV)Generic 17 inch TFT monitor (1280x1024, VGA only)
Please please please only comment if you are actually prepared to actually come here and actually take the item. I don't want to be "reserving" things for people for six months, I am trying to get rid of them. That is the point.
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| Tower of Babel |
[Jan. 6th, 2009|08:45 pm] |
So, I now have a cron job which backs up trishpiglet's and my LJ twice a week.
Just one thought: all these backup tools produce different file formats don't they? |
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| Geek: Sun and VirtualBox |
[Aug. 9th, 2008|11:47 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch | ] |
http://www.virtualbox.org/debian/ => "Sorry, we cannot provide a Debian/Ubuntu repository anymore. Please download your desired package from the Sun Download Center!"
You know, I've specifically championed VirtualBox over VMWare because Innotek bent over backwards to make it easy to start using it. A confusing and messy website is not equivalent to an APT repository.
Sun, please please try to stop loving your products to death. |
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| Objective historical evidence |
[Aug. 7th, 2008|09:26 pm] |
I promise not to turn into ciphergoth, but...
Someone on wildeabandon's LJ posted a link to the objective historical evidence for the bible.
I am absolutely stunned at the emptiness of the arguments found therein. Let's look at the article The Evidence for Christianity, since it's the featured article on the site. It's of intermediate difficulty, a quality that it shares with myself.
However, I'm more at an entry level when it comes to theology, so I'm going to summarise what I think yer man is saying, and then if you want you can tell me I'm wrong. The paragraphs are handily numbered for the purpose, although not in a very clear manner (I assume because Microsoft Word works in mysterious ways).
( BEWARE! THEOLOGY! )
Read along with the original for the best effect... |
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| John Barrowman |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|10:26 pm] |
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Oh my god! The science, it burns! |
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| Thoroughly de-Sparkled |
[Jun. 30th, 2008|10:10 am] |
We had a lovely weekend at Sparkle - not the life-changing event that I think many people have for their first BiCon, but fun all the same. More details and of course photos in a later post.
Unfortunately when we got back we found we'd been burgled. TV, laptop, SLR and Wii are all gone. Forced entry, rear window, some time Saturday.
The laptop was backed up and the insurers are so far being cooperative, so we're not too badly upset, but you can imagine it's not a great deal of fun. The police are not helping with my mood by telling us not to touch anything but being very slow to send the forensics team.
Sympathy comments are appreciated but by no means expected. Comments telling stories about unpleasant burglar behaviour or police uselessness will be Considered Unhelpful and probably deleted. |
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