Category Archives: Muxed

Multiple, disjointed subjects

Recent finds

Ever wonder how they fitted an entire computer language into just a few kilobytes, back in the 80s? Documented disassembly of BBC Basic 4.

How to highlight author comments in WordPress … but it relies on the author being user ID 1, so it won’t work here, where we have several people posting. Could easily be customised to look for other user IDs though.

Some developers are throwing in the towel and running Vista as Admin.

The excellent Secret Life of Machines not only has a web site, but is available freely (and legally) via BitTorrent. And the theme tune is available on iTunes.

Brief stuff

Nokia is recalling 46 million batteries, type BL-5C made in Japan by Matsushita. It affects a wide range of products (my 6230i uses that type of battery, but not the exact one being recalled) and apparently there have been around 100 cases of the batteries catching fire.

Microsoft’s cutting of XBox360 pricing around the world continues in Australia, with the XBox360 Pro now retailing for A$579.95, and the XBox360 Core at A$399.95 — the same price as the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo said they won’t drop their price; they’re selling plenty as-is. But it makes you wonder if Sony will drop the PS3 from its dizzying A$999 price.

Ars Technica notes that their beautiful iPhones are billed by AT+T with dizzying amounts of detail: even when covered by an unlimited data plan, every single connection gets its own detail line in the bill, resulting in one bill with 104 pages of usage listings.

Microsoft must be getting a little concerned: Google have added Sun StarOffice to the Google Pack.

Just for a laugh… The future is digital…

(via Dan Warne)

A few good links

Last night I upgraded this site to the latest version of WordPress 2.2.1. Thank goodness it always seems to go smoothly. To my surprise, even the template (which dates back to WP 1.5) didn’t need modifying (well, not for technical reasons, anyway — I’m considering tweaking it on aesthetic grounds!)

Anyway, here’s a few good links from this week:

How Google Earth Really Works.

You’re used to the Mac/PC adverts… here’s the Parallels adverts, highlighting their virtual PC for Mac “Parallels Desktop” product.

Something I’ve talked about before highlighted again: The growing problem of accessing old digital file formats is a “ticking time bomb”, the chief executive of the UK National Archives has warned.

Snippets of interest

Jon Galloway on how to avoid RSI by ditching the mouse, with particular attention to web browsing, which is one of the hardest things to do with just a keyboard.

(My particular pet hate is that even Alt-D to get to the address bar can get disabled when a web page has Flash on it.)

Telstra Sensis and NineMSN have clubbed together with mylocal.com.au to try and fight off the onslaught from Google (who have data from truelocal.com.au).

Long Zheng has a great piece on the next steps for GUI environments, pointing out that, really, they haven’t changed all that much over the years.

Stuff and nonsense

Very interesting guide to DVD media, highlighting which brands you should entrust to your most treasured archives (but check yearly and re-burn regularly!) and which should be saved for stuff that doesn’t really matter.

Commodore launches game machines with high-end components and custom-painted cases, using that same old C= logo, preloaded with Windows Vista and a Commodore 64 emulator! Launching in April.

Haven’t tried these yet, but Killfile for Google Groups (Firefox/Greasemonkey) and Killfile for Google Groups (IE). Shame Google doesn’t implement this themselves, of course, so users don’t have to install it on each browser they read from.

Friday brief stuff

Google for the Enterprise: Google Apps Premier edition is here. $50 / user account / year, providing Gmail, GTalk, GCalendar, GDocs & Spreadsheets, GPage with guaranteed uptimes, phone support and more storage and options.

Favicons: Good article on making a good favicon.

One commenter left a useful link to the PNG2ICO command-line tool. This online tool also looks handy.

RIP: Robert Adler, the man who invented the TV remote control (despite not watching much TV himself, apparently).

Some brief stuff

Good news for our friends across the Tasman: iTunes NZ just opened.

Speculation that the death of CNet editor James Kim can be attributed to bad advice from an online mapping service, which didn’t know the road the family took was dangerous in winter. I’ve previously noted faults in trip planners though the worst I encountered was trips that would take too long, gain you a traffic ticket or were physically impossible.

By the way, for those in Melbourne, Metlink now have their Journey Planner plotting more trips, and showing you maps, including walking to the stop.

Microsoft’s RSS blog featured a pr0n image for a short time due to a Flickr image owner protesting over use of his picture without attribution.

Brief stuff

It’s a bit quiet here this week, probably because I’m busy and Josh is away offline somewhere in Gippsland.

Google have announced the Anita Borg scholarship programme is now running in Australia, offering A$5000 scholarships to women studying at undergraduate or postgraduate level in computer science in Australia.

One of the oldest games software houses in the world, let alone Australia, Melbourne House is in trouble, and likely to be sold/offloaded by Atari in the near future.

Another example of where being geek luddite is good: Dans Data on why the latest and greatest X mega-pixel cameras aren’t good value for money. I’m sticking with my 3.1MP Canon A70, thanks — for web and domestic use, it’s great.

Nothing lasts forever. This page logs the deaths of free email services: Free email DeathWatch.

Girls, music, and virtual PCs

Hmm, a calendar of Australian IT women, in the name of encouraging more women into the industry. Available online at itgoddess.info.

If you’re more at home with mucking about on Virtual Machines, then you might be interested to know that Virtual PC is now free.

Billy Bragg has applauded MySpace for backing down on their T+Cs imposed on artists who used the site to distribute music. “I am very pleased to see that MySpace have changed their terms of agreement from a declaration of their rights into a declaration of our rights as artists, making it clear that, as creators, we retain ownership of our material.”