iPhone’s could Copy & Paste
Why oh why hasn’t Apple done this for the rest of the native iPhone’s applications (mail, sms, notes, etc.)
Sigh…
WordPress iPhone Application
It looks like there won’t be much of an excuse for not updating my blog anymore…
The WordPress iPhone Application will be hitting the iTunes App Store shortly and allows blogging whilst out and about. The app also supports the iPod Touch so you’ll be able to blog in any good (wifi enabled) coffee shops and airports…
Check out the teaser vid on the WordPress iPhone post.
[Update] The WordPress App is out now in the iTunes App Store!! It seems to work fairly well but doesn’t seem to do wysiwyg editing, i.e. all editing is in html mode.
Macbook Pro Hard Drive Upgrade
I have just completed a (forced) upgrade to my Macbook Pro with a 320GB Seagate (ST9320320AS). “Forced” simply because I woke up this morning turned on my mac and suddenly heard a load of clicking sounds!
I can confirm that this model of drive is compatible with the Macs and was actually a little quicker than the original hard drive.
Links I found useful:
ExtremeTech
It’s quite easy to do but it does involve over 20 screws being undone!
WordPress Permalink Rewrite Without The Pain
I was just going around my own business when I came across a plug in for WordPress that allows me to change the horrible default permalink (http://www.wynner.eu/?p=XX) to whatever one you like. Personally I prefer /%category%/%postname%/. Allegedly I should now have a search engine optimised blog. Woo hoo!
Anyways thanks to Dean Lee:/dev/blog for developing the WordPress plugin.
Final Year Project – Dense Matrix Gauss-Jordan Inversion Auto-Optimisation on Multicore Systems
I’ve finally got around to uploading my FYP to my blog, check it out in the pages menu to the left. There’s a PDF and html version for your perusal…
09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
If you don’t understand this hex code then where have you been the last three days?
It is ‘allegedly’ the code that breaks the copy encryption on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs.
Why you might ask am I posting it? Well… When this was leaked on the 30th of April it found itself on a few blog sites and people started Digg-ing the story. Then the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator sent a legal threat to Digg’s operators telling them to remove the story from their site. Upon this becoming known the backlash ensued and one of the greatest uprisings in anti-censorship began. Blogs and websites all over the world have posted this innocuous number as I am doing here to stop the insanity of the notion that a number can be ‘owned’ by a corporation.
Free the numbers!!!
09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
UPDATE: It seems people are now going to ridiculous lengths to keep the number free…
http://www.thenewfreedom.net/wp/2007/05/02/takedown-this/
Firefox 2.0 to be released on Tuesday 24th Oct
Make sure to go pay a visit to GetFirefox.com on Tuesday for the new upgrade to Firefox 1.5. Look forward to being able to save browser sessions (useful when XP asks for you to reboot after patching or installing a program that requires a reboot) and uses less memory than IE7.
If you don’t believe me read the review at PCWorld.com. They sum up by saying:
“Of the two rivals, Firefox remains the better application. Since IE users will have to adjust to a new layout and interface anyway, this might be a good time to give Firefox a try, then watch IE 8 play catch-up again in five years.”
One annoying thing about IE7
I’m sure many of you have weighed up the pro’s and con’s already of Microsoft’s latest browser but I’ve found the one thing that makes it personally too annoying to use. Tabs!
Or at least a lousy problem with them. Right click any link on a website and the only options are to ‘Open’ or ‘Open in new window’. Surely ‘Open in new tab’ would have been an idea. Maybe I’m just too used to Firefox, who knows…
Google embraces accessibility
After the misery of the tokenism I wrote about yesterday and the failures of RTE comes the delightful news that Google has once again come up with a valuable public service.
Fresh from Google Labs is a new accessible search engine that when searched will return websites that are more likely to be usable to screen readers than flash sites or heavily loaded image sites. This for me is a nice simple solution to the problem of making the Internet a resource for everyone (in the English speaking world at least). What is of interest is how this development came about. In August 2005 Google hired a certain Mr. T.V. Raman who was one of the first in Google with a strong knowledge of web accessibility. Now after developing this variant of the worlds most popular search engine it seems Google is embracing this area of the web and is hiring web developers with knowledge of W3C accessibility standards.
For me this is a major development since I was beginning to lose hope for an equal web. I say this because recently I was fortunate enough to be talking to Microsoft in the capacity as an Undergraduate representative. They were looking at selling their warez to students using a web interface. The offers they were pushing were excellent so I’m not knocking them on that BUT there was a slight downside to the meeting. As I often do I asked about what grade accessibility the site was rated at in terms of the internet standards set by W3C. A look of pure confusion and bafflement occurred next by the MS representative. I explained that Trinity has it’s own policy on all websites being rated at least to the AA standard. Again, what was this “AA standard” I was talking about, what had batteries got to do with a website. The next bit was the most humourous though, I was handed a business card and told to contact Microsoft and tell them how to make their website accessible. Ah… ha… Right-e-o then… Major multi-billion dollar global company was uneducated in Internet standards and were offering me a job in fixing their websites…
…and on that bomb-shell I’ll leave you, the reader, to digest that gem!
The HD Con
So you’re young, impulsive, already spending that money you know you’ll be getting from your SSIA/savings/first wage packet… So what will you buy?
If you’re female you’ll (aledgedly) spend it on holidays, clothes, mobile phone etc…
However if you’re male you’ll inevitably spend it on various gadgets and gizmos. And number one on that list this summer… The 42″ widescreen HDTV you’ve been salvating over because the media keep saying it’s the next big thing.
Well sorry to burst your bubble guys but it’s a waste of time (unless you’re an Xbox 360 owner)!
When Sky and the BBC anounced that they were launching HDTV channels you would have taken it for granted that there would be HD content on them…
Well you were wrong! It turns out that in the entire push for the HD revolution someone forget to produce HD quality programs for transmission. According to Sky not one of their programs on their SkyHD channel were actually recorded using HD. That goes too for the BBC. Although the BBC does promise that all their programs will be in HD come 2010.
So the moral of the story is:
If you don’t have an XBox360 then don’t bother getting a “HD Ready” TV. They’ll come down in price every month you hold out until 2010!