Blog
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Small business web analytics
I'm writing a tutorial for a magazine about web analytics and its use by small businesses. I'd love to include a case study of how people use such tools. I use web analytics every day in my real job,…
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JQuery and Drupal book suggestions?
I'm launching a new site for work in a bit over a week that's built in Drupal and with JQuery used extensively. So far I'm pretty impressed with JQuery, especially how you can string things together.…
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Shittyrail claims ownership of timetable data
Apparently Sydney's Shittyrail government transport monopoly is threatening an iPhone developer who had the temerity of making their timetables more usable. This from an organisation whose web site pr…
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IE6 must die
When the revolution comes, the developers of IE6 will be the first up against the wall. Joining them there will be the people at my work who haven't updated the desktop COE to a browser that isn't qui…
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Smokey lamb
On the weekend I finally got around to trying out the new smoker box I bought for the barbecue. It's just a small stainless steel box designed to hold some wet wood chips, with a couple of holes to al…
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MythTV and the Playstation 3: current state
So I've had a week or so playing with the PS3 and MythTV. I just posted this to the Myth user list, but I suspect some of the readers here would be interested in how it's going. I'm attempting to use…
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MythTV and PS3: problems with formats
Michael Fox has commented on the reasonable UPnP client in the PS3 and its interactions with MythTV, and I think he's helped me work out why I've been having some problems. It seems Myth is recording…
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MythTV and PS3
After my recent hardware woes, I've had a little more success getting MythTV back up and running. I bought another cheap Dell workstation to act as my new Myth server. After a little fiddling, it's up…
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IBM PSU not standard
Following advice from Graeme and Grant, I bought and tried out an ordinary ATX PSU to solve my PSU problem but unfortunately it hasn't worked out. It fits in reasonably well, with three of the screws…
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Chutzpah is, Dutch edition
Chutzpah is... being a racist, Islamophobic, populist Dutch politician who calls for the Koran to be banned, then complain that being refused entry to a country is an affront to free speech. In a rela…
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Having a bad time with hardware
Got home this afternoon and tried to turn my desktop machine on, and got nothing. Looking up the diagnostic lights the Dell manual says "System board failure has occurred." Not good!
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Is this some standard PSU?
So the power supply on my MythTV server died last weekend with a bang. I'm hoping it didn't take all the other hardware with it, but first I need to get a replacement PSU in there. One nice thing abou…
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Pro-censorship Morans
You really couldn't make this up. The pro-censorship brains trust has descended on article about a death threat received by an anti-censorship campaigner. SALLY of TOOWOOMBA Posted at 12:54pm today PO…
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Amazing London snow photos
Westminster and snowman, by Pablo Godoy There's some amazing photos coming through on Flickr of the snow in London. Those of you in London, looks like loads of fun! Enjoy the time off work, those of y…
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Why Windows will never be secure
While common software applications require that you disable the privilege escalation functions, Windows will never solve its security issues. The concept of running as a low-privilege user, while usin…
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Fixing a laptop cooler
Our laptop had some problems with heat in the recent spate of Summer temperatures. I pulled it apart and gave it a vacuum. Sure enough, lots of dust and a fair few dead cockroaches. To prevent a recur…
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Beer's Estate Marrickville
I managed to find a poster for the original sale of the land our house sits on from 1891 in the National Library of Australia's catalogue. $35 later and I'm the happy owner of a CD with a ridiculously…
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Explaining to an 8-year old
I've been babysitting my niece today and we got to watching a Goodies DVD I have. After getting through three episodes on one disc, she insisted on watching the South Africa episode. Now The Goodies a…
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All Tomorrows Parties Cockatoo Island
On Saturday we went to the All Tomorrow's Parties festival on Cockatoo Island, curated by Nick Cave and the Bad Seas. Loads of fun and it was certainly nice, for grumpy old man, to be at a festival wi…
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Do Not Call means just that
We've received two telemarketing calls from the Police Citizens Youth Club soliciting donations in the last week. Being a charity, they're legally excluded from complying with the government's Do Not…