Archive for October, 2007

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Twice

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

I’ll be posting twice today because yesterday was the first time since launching the site that there wasn’t a post on weekday! I’m hoping two posts today will make up for it, but I will seperate them by a few hours. Today I wanted to post about Apple’s new Leopard operating system… From the reviews I have read there’s very few things negative to say about the upgrade from Tiger, and of these few things most are visual and probably easily rectified in the near future.

This version of the Mac OS will be the first I use, as I haven’t got my Mac yet. I decided earlier this year that I would wait until Leopard was out before buying my Macbook. It worked out well as I was expecting a bit of extra cash around the same time. For various reasons I’m not getting the cash until January, and it has been rumoured that the Macbook Pro line gets updated early in the new year so I’m going to hold out again - but it’s not far off!

Better Late Than Vista
A Leopard flavoured DaveToon from Blogography.

Update: I could give you my excuses, but I wont. I didn’t post a second time and will try to make up for this by bringing you uninterrupted service whilst I am in Florida next week!

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Free fonts

Monday, October 29th, 2007

Continuing the current trend of short posts, here are some cool fonts, one of which I used for my online photo gallery. I’m quickly using up all of my draft entries with a single hyperlink in, so you can expect a decent length post again soon!

Posted in Free resources, Links | No Comments »

More free icons

Friday, October 26th, 2007

I’ve been saving this for a lazy day, and I almost forgot to post today so check out these cool free icons at Smashing Magazine. Hopefully I’ll be back to the full length posts next week!

Posted in Free resources, Graphics | No Comments »

Link love 2

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

It feels like a Friday today for some reason… Today I thought I’d share a few sites I’ve found using StumbleUpon recently. I’m going to be away from 4th-9th November so I’m looking for anybody that might be interested in guest blogging for any (or all) of those weekdays. Let me know.

Sunrise, Sunset Calendars and Local Time - Useful for finding out when the sun will set/rise in your location. I used this recently for taking some photos of the setting sun over Primrose Hill.

Stop Shooting Auto! - Another site related to my photography, this one I found and almost immediately added it to my feed reader. It’s a well written blog aimed at demystifying the complexities of your digital SLR.

Daily Color Scheme - This one’s a great resource. Unfortunately it hasn’t updated in over a year, but there’s an archive of colour schemes for use in web design.

Zoomed in food… - Yet another photography one. These are inspiring close up macro shots of food with tiny models of people. These kind of photos make me want to buy expensive lenses!

EasyUbuntu - On my list of things to do is ‘Install Ubuntu’. I came close recently when I tried installing it to my USB flash drive, but didn’t get far. When I do look into this again I’ll probably be revisiting EasyUbuntu, which claims to make the process easier. I’ll try it the ‘hard’ way first though!

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Javascript countdown then redirect

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Today I needed to write a simple piece of javascript that counts down and then submits a form. This could easily be adapted to count down before redirecting to another website. Below is sample code that you can add to any page, which counts down from 10 and then displays a message to the user. The countdown is displayed on the page.

Add this to the <head> section of the page:
<script>
<!--
function startCount() {
var countfrom=10 // this controls what number to start counting from
var countnow=document.getElementById('mySeconds').innerHTML=countfrom+1
countAction(countnow)
}

function countAction(countnow) {
if (countnow!=1) {
countnow-=1
document.getElementById(’mySeconds’).innerHTML=countnow;
} else {
alert(’BOOM!’);
return
}
setTimeout(”countAction(”+countnow+”)”,1000)
}
//–>
</script>

Add this to the <body> section:
<p>This page will self destruct in <span id="mySeconds">10</span> seconds...</p>

In order for the counter to start you will need to call the function startCount. You can do this when the page loads by adding onload="javascript:startCount();" to the <body> like below:
<body onload="javascript:startCount();">

Example: Click here to see this in action.

Posted in Code examples, Javascript | No Comments »

Run Ubuntu Linux from a USB pen drive

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

I recently purchased a 4GB SanDisk Cruzer USB flash drive, and decided to try running Linux on it. I’ve not succeeded yet, as Linux always seems to come up with challenges for me, but the guides over at PenDriveLinux are a great place to start. It’d be even better if they explained each step as I’d find it easier to learn rather than just follow instructions. I think the issue I’ve currently got is with hardware compatibility, but I’ll keep trying and let you know how I get on.

Posted in Gadgets, Hardware, Links, Software | No Comments »

Free secure online storage

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

If you need to share large files between computers with an Internet connection there’s a better solution than e-mailing it, and a cheaper solution than sorting out web hosting. You can use a service like divShare.

divShare offer unlimited storage totally free and make their money by offering the option to brand your media files when they’re viewed directly from their service. They claim that it takes just 15 seconds to sign up, which I decided to test - it took me closer to 10 seconds! They have a very clean interface and I’m certain I’ll be using them to share photos from my upcoming trips!

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Laughter

Friday, October 19th, 2007

A couple of cartoon jokes I’ve enjoyed recently. Sorry if you don’t get the first one, just trust me that it’s funny.

Exploits of a Mom
Thanks to xkcd. My new favourite site. :)

Dilbert - Wally watches YouTube
Thanks to Scott Adams (of course), creator of Dilbert.

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All I need now is your password…

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Have you heard this before? For some reason in order for the IT department to provide me with a work laptop they need to know my username and password. This is totally wrong and you should never be required to disclose your password to anybody - despite what they tell you. The only thing someone can do with your account details that they can’t do as an Administrator is pretend to be you… In my particular instance it’s so they can set up my Exchange profile and VPN access. These are things I have no problem in doing myself.

If there is a real need for an Administrator to access your account then they can have your password reset, login, and then provide you with the password so that you can reset it. Slightly more hassle for them, but there’s an audit trail that would protect you if they used your account for anything illegal or against company policy.

Anyway, in order to get my laptop today (I’ve been waiting forever) I changed my password to the lame one they set up when you first get an account and e-mailed the guy back with it. I was suprised when I didn’t get some sarcastic comment back, but instead I got:

I should have known :)
Seems to be eveybodys

Lost for words… Oh, and fortunately I did at least confirm that the guy worked in the IT department before sending the e-mail. I’m sure that if I sent an e-mail to everyone in the building asking for their usernames and passwords I’d get 50% success, and of those probably half again have the same password!

Posted in Security | No Comments »

Stickies for Windows

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

I like to do lists, but haven’t found one I want to use online. I think it may be because I like my lists to be visible, and unless it’s on my desktop I think I’ll miss it. It’s also important not to overload yourself with too many tasks that they become overwhelming. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from the Agile methodology, it’s that short - achievable - tasks queued up for a release can be very effective.

When thinking about task lists recently, I decided to look for something I could ’stick’ to my desktop as a reminder that I had something to do. I don’t know about you, but I like my desktop to be clean (I have 10 icons and that’s already too many) so something that messes up my desktop would be something I’d want to clean up and therefore I’d get my tasks complete!

Stickies for Windows

I’m sure I’ve heard of Stickies for Windows before, but it basically allows you to drop virtual post-it notes onto your desktop - much like the Mac OS application. Admittedly there are a few features I’d like to see (like a syncronisation that doesn’t require Amazon storage, or preset alternative colours for categorising notes) but these would probably spoil the simplicity of the application.

Posted in Software | 1 Comment »

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