“groovy mother...”

Entries for week beginning February 4, 2007

February 10, 2007

Something I’ve Just Discovered By Accident, Which Will Undoubtedly Improve My Life In Ways Immeasurable

Pressing CTRL+SHIFT+T reopens the last tab closed in Firefox.

Firefox Twitter Plugin

Uses OpenSearch to post to Twitter. I didn’t realise you could POST using the Firefox search bar — This introduces opportunities for all kinds of cool hacks.

February 9, 2007

AMC Theatres - Best Picture Showcase

See all five Oscar Best Picture nominees in one day for $30. Tempting, but I think my head would explode with all that worthiness in one sitting!

The User Interface of Microformat Detection

Some very clever ideas about visually alerting users to the existence of microformats on a web page, plus some interesting debate in the comments about how much Firefox should visually change the look of a page in the name of “usability”.

February 8, 2007

Parallel Python

Python library for running parallel jobs on SMP machines, or networked clusters. Requires further investigation when I’m not so tired.

Pipes: Boing Boing depimpifier

My best pipe so far — Boing Boing’s RSS feed, but without Cory and Xeni’s constant self-promotion, and Mark F’s plugs for Make Magazine.

My fingerprints for Off-The-Record IM encryption

Just publishing these so I can point to them later for verification purposes. If you IM with me, I encourage you to use a client that supports OTR encryption.

Pipes from RodBegbie

Here are the pipes I’ve created so far. Wish Flickr used the same ID for photos in regular streams as well as in pools, but I’m happy with a slight decrease in duplicity.

Pipes: Rewire the web

Wicked cool RSS/Atom masher-upper from Yahoo. Nice GUI and mapping model, which means making a Boing Boing feed without Xeni Jardin can essentially be a drag’n’drop operation.

February 7, 2007

Yum!

Yum!

Joy savours the delight that is the "Berry Smoothie" barium stomach liner, prior to her CT scan today.

xmldap.org - cardspace/infocard resources

Open-source cross-platform CardSpace extension for Firefox, as well as a Java library to act as a “relying party” (a site that uses CardSpace for authentication)

Perpetual Motion: FireFox Identity Selector Extension

CardSpace plugin for Firefox for Windows. Uses the underlying Windows CardSpace system interface, so it works with all the other (ahem) applications using CardSpace on your PC.

February 6, 2007

Kim Cameron's Identity Weblog: SIMPLE INFOCARD TUTORIAL AND DEMO

I’m trying to make sense of CardSpace so I can understand what today’s OpenID announcement means. Here is the only site I’ve found on the whole bloody internet which uses a CardSpace login — and it’s merely a demo site.

Kodak: A Thousand Nerds - The Inkjet Story: Kodak's Startup From Within

Looks like the Kodak printers will work “better” with Kodak photo paper, but since I always found their photo paper to be worth paying extra for, that doesn’t bother me.

amAze

Free (ad-supported) GPS navigation software for Java/S60 phones, covering Europe and North America.

Kodak plans to sell inkjet printers with cheaper ink - USATODAY.com

Kodak are looking to break into the inkjet printer market by undercutting the overpriced ink cartridges from which HP et al make most of their profit. I encourage this, since I tend to buy a cheap new colour inkjet printer every couple of years rather than pay through the nose for ink.

Apple - Thoughts on Music

Steve Jobs publicly calls for the record companies to drop their requirement for DRM on online music sales: “Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. […] This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.”

brad's life - Microsoft & OpenID

MS are announcing CardSpace authentication for OpenID. Of course, five bucks says this goes the “embrace & extend” way of Microsoft “supporting” SPF two years ago.

Useless Account

Sign up for an account and, erm, that’s it. Needs OpenID support, if you ask me.

February 5, 2007

YouTube - Girls Aloud vs Sugababes - Walk This Way

Bah. I had such high hopes for this, but it’s a decidedly underwhelming cover.

BBC NEWS | Deal ends Beatles' Apple battle

It’s interesting that this news has been released today, when there were (inaccurate) rumblings a month ago that there would be a Beatles iPod commercial during last night’s Superbowl. Makes you wonder if it was planned but pulled.

Study Finds Web Antifraud Measure Ineffective - New York Times

I’ve always suspected that these “Select your image and don’t enter your password if you don’t see it” systems were broken — Asking users to behave differently when something is *missing*, which they’re liable to forget even *existed*, is not security by any stretch.

February 4, 2007

saute-swinish