I quite like the YourTV.com.au web site. The TV guide it displays is quite usable, and can be customised to show your correct channels.

But why does it keep forgetting your region every few weeks, and reset itself to metro Sydney?

Very irritating. (Well, if you live outside metro Sydney.)

Using your web browser, you can check the cookies. This article describes how, in various browsers.

That’s where the problem is: it looks like the “TvFixGuide” cookie, which seems to hold details of what region you’re in, is only set for a month.

It doesn’t look like either browser allows you to extend the time range of the cookie, or otherwise modify it. I suppose there’s legitimate reasons for that.

It is possible to hack it by deleting the cookie, setting your computer’s clock, say, a year into the future, before going back to the site and setting the option.

Yep, it seems to work:

Don’t forget to set your clock back afterwards.

The other day I noticed I was following @Twitpic on Twitter. I use Twitpic, really like the service (esp as I haven’t yet sat down and got my mobile to Flickr and Twitter posting working yet) but I don’t remember following them.

This morning, much more sinister, I notice I’m somehow following Twitpic founder @noaheverett.

Something is afoot. Could it be that Twitpic is abusing their access to my Twitter logon, and using the API to make me follow them?

A Twitpic Twitterer mentioned the option is on this page. But I’ve been using Twitpic for about 18 months, and I’ve never seen that before — and it’s only in the last week that I’ve seen @Twitpic and @noaheverett tweets show up.

Apparently it’s new, added 20 days ago, and people see if once, after logging on. Maybe they’ve sneakily switched everybody on by default, or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, because I don’t recall seeing it, and I try and restrict how many people I follow very carefully. I might have opted-in for @Twitpic, but definitely not @noaheverett.

Or maybe, since only pops up during logon, I haven’t needed to re-login recently. I notice if you go back to it, it defaulted the option on again.

Not sure if this was something sneaky by Twitpic, or just not very well thought-through.

Oh Scrabble, you bastards.

This new advert appears when opening up Facebook Scrabble (the international version).

Gripes:

• Total advert length might be 45 seconds or more
• Sometimes it’s a video advert, sometimes it’s a moronic Flash game or one of those stupid “You have a new message!” mock emails
• Looks like you can’t stop it until there’s only 15 seconds left. After that it seems a Continue button appears
• For videos, once advert has buggered off and the game fully loaded, the player details don’t appear properly. The video advert has stuffed it. Everybody remains “Anyone”

Apparently we weren’t paying the adverts enough attention, now they want to shove it in our faces.

Way to piss off your users.

Looks like I can stop recommending Scrabble on Facebook to people.

I just want to look at a photo a friend has posted. No doubt the app in question makes it very easy for my friend to post the photo, but it’s difficult for me to see it without handing over a bunch of control to the app.

Now, I know it’s not Facebook’s fault specifically, but c’mon, why do I need to give an application access to my Profile and details of my friends just to look at a photo? I don’t want to do that.

Surely they could change the FB API around so it’s easier to have simple interaction with an application (eg to just look at the photo, not post my own) without handing over this kind of permission?

But then the app wouldn’t spread so fast virally, would it.

The fact that this kind of stuff is so typical is not exactly training users to be careful about minding their privacy online.

Fortunately in this case, it appears that the app is just re-broadcasting a photo from the user’s existing collection of photos, so I’ve been able to hunt it down and look at it there.

Of course, it’s in the FB photos standard lowish resolution, no bigger copy available, but that’s another story.

Google’s introduced custom background images for its plain search page.

You know what? I find it annoying. It’s just slowing down the page, and making it less readable.

And the clincher is… you can’t turn it off! Initially there’s a very well-concealed link at the bottom left to do it, but once you take a look at the options and try it out, that becomes a “Change background image” option, and there’s no way to remove it completely.

I’ve also seen it momentarily change to a “Remove background” link, but it doesn’t work — instead it changes back to a default picture.

Seriously, if I wanted this kind of crap, I’d use Bing.

Under Editor’s Picks, there is an option for a white background (as well as other colours), but choosing white is not very readable, because the writing has also been changed to white, with a grey shadow. For now, I’ve switched it to the blue one, which isn’t excessively bad, but I’d like it gone completely.

Mashable has found there are a couple of not-very-convenient ways to turn it off:

Go to http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all

or use HTTPS, eg https://www.google.com/

Attn: Google, by all means offer this as an option, but for heaven’s sake provide an easy way to turn it off.

Update: Google blog post about this (via Richard Thornton.)

Update 8am Friday: They’ve fixed the bug, so the Remove Background Image link now works. As this update notes: Due to a bug, the explanatory link did not appear for most users. As a result, many people thought we had permanently changed our homepage, so we decided to stop today’s series early.

Call me crazy, but maybe they should have tested it properly before turning it on. (Thanks again Richard)

One two occassions I’ve had to call NetSpace, my new ISP, because the Intertubes went away.

On both occasions, I was on hold for quite a while – 40 minutes, Thank the Lord and Maker that He Invented handsfree telephones.  On the second call the support guy helpfully pointed out that they could have called me back if I’d pressed “1″, and then clarified that I wouldn’t lose my position in the queue.  Mental note for next time.  Trouble shooting in both took more than a half hour, and assumed that there was a working Windows box in the house – that was a bit of a stretch.

Both calls to NetSpace were for the same problem - Authentication Failure.  No, we didn’t forget the password to the account.  For the first call, it appeared that the problem was resolved when the modem settings were altered from the factor default (and ISP specified) PPPoE to PPPoA (VC-BASED); the second required changing the account password, and changing it back.

This does not bode well, and I expect there will be a next time.

What am I meant to do when my home phone is a VoIP phone?

Dug this up from a five-year-old draft:

Sensis are nuts. They’ve totally shot themselves in the foot, and they’ve only got a limited amount of time to plug the gap before their Yellow Pages foot falls off completely.

Yellow Pages on the web doesn’t contain entries for all of the businesses listed in the physical Yellow Pages. Sensis charges businesses extra to list on the web. Not many have taken Sensis up on that option, meaning that YPW has remarkably few businesses listed – and because YPW has few businesses, consumers don’t turn to YPW to find businesses. And because of that, fewer and fewer businesses are listing… and so the death spiral goes.

If anyone there had one ounce of sense (sic), they’d be giving web listing away for free, or even negative price. For a while, while the network effect was being established. Then the charges would start hiking up, and the profits rolling in. But no, they had to try to be profitable before the monopoly was established. Bang! bang! Wow, my foot hurts.

I don’t think I was wrong.  When’s the last time you used the yellow pages online to find… anything?

The state of software produced by web developers is highly variable.  The things the good programmers can do is little short of astonishing, as it always has been with limited environments.  But the bad programmers…

Fifteen years ago I did a Microsoft certification thingy, and now they want me to do a satisfaction survey on it – for no compensation.  I think not.  But I notice an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, so I follow it: http://www.mailingsvcs.com/optout.aspx?type=email&optout=1&service=1&networkid=9001&id=josh@example.com&pid=p53457652, see the Submit button, click on it… and nothing happens.  And then I realise – it needs JavaScript to press.  A button, one of those things right at the heart of HTML 2.0.  What is this, amateur hour?  Turns out, yes it is because if you follow the hacked URL above — which if filled with bogus data — and click on the Submit data, the back end proceeds happily without validating any of the data, and asks you another question before confirming that it’s done:

We’re sorry you no longer want to receive e-mails from us. Please allow one week for us to process this request, during which time you may still receive e-mails from us. We apologize for any inconvenience.

To help us improve our service, please tell us the primary reason why you no longer wish to receive our messages:

There appears to be some kind of problem with their computers.  Last time I checked, the time it takes a computer to remove a record from a database is in the vicinity of “I’m already finished”, not one week.

I’m of the opinion that people who construct software ought to be required to put their name on it in a visible way, so they can go on my list of people to smack in the face when I meet them.  It’s for the best.

To celebrate Pacman’s 30th anniversary, Google’s banner today is not only Pac-man-based, it’s a playable game if you wait for a few seconds.

And yes, if you clear the first two boards, you get the traditional cut-scene.

Is that totally awesome or what?

Am I correct in thinking it’s not actually written in Flash, but in some clever HTML-type thingy?

Update: Yes. CNet reports: ccording to Germick, the company worked with Pac-Man’s publisher, Namco Bandai, to make the project as realistic as possible. Yet the Google team, with the inspirational lead of Marcin Wichary, a Google senior user experience designer, built their version of the game from the ground up using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

Update 4pm: If you click Insert Coin twice, you get a two-player game (W/A/S/Z controls Ms Pac-Man). And there is one minor bug I’ve noticed — sometimes when chasing ghosts after eating a power pill, you can pass right through them.

Update 9:30pm: Google Pac-Man: The FAQ + Kill Screen Winners — contains more details on how it was written, where to find it when it’s gone from the main Google page, and a picture of the”kill” screen.

Update Monday: It’s gone from Google’s home page now, but is still online here: www.google.com/pacman

Chrome doesn’t attempt to sandbox CPU consumption. I just closed an inactive Google docs spreadsheet, and saw CPU fall from pegged-at-100% to bubbling along at 10%.

Does it really need each available CPU cycle to wait for the other end to do something? Apparently so, in the way it’s coded.

Google: not as clever as the press release makes out.

Facebook, seriously, WTF?

I mean, what the hell is that? Some kind of deformed Pac-Man? The Man in the Moon?

I’ll tell you what it is — some unrecognisable blob, that’s what.

And I bet they knew, too. When I clicked “Try different words”, the blob was replaced by the word “unusable”.

(Previous CAPTCHA fail)

How fast is Google Chrome? This fast.

(Mind you, I suspect it of contributing to my continuing Windows 7 temporary profile issues.)

Here’s the making-of video:

(Found via Carole Theriault at Sophos)