Blog
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Transport Plan 2010
I got a letter in today's Herald about my lack of faith in the delivery of this North-West metro the NSW government is promising. The bit they chopped off was: You'd be hard pressed to find Action for…
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Not a charity
I've just had a very bizarre exchange with Rodney Gedda from IDG, a big magazine and book publisher. I used to write for some IDG publications and was, briefly, editor of a micro-magazine they had, On…
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Web developers are from Mars
I imagine most of you reading this blog already read Joel on Software, but today's post is destined to be a classic. Joel worked at Microsoft on the Excel team from 1991 to 1995, where he clearly lear…
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Marketing experiments, and other oxymorons
Oh how the mighty fall! Who would have thought I'd find myself subscribing to something called Marketing Experiments Journal. I bet the use of the word "Journal" makes the marketers quiver with scient…
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The dreaded lead paint
Like most houses built before the 1970s, our house almost certainly has lead paint. Given the number of layers on the paint around the windows and door frames, I'd guarantee there's lead paint there.…
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Bathroom nearly done
We're making progress with the bathroom. Phil's finished up yesterday, with all the fixtures in. Follow the link to see some photos. Today we sanded and painted the undercoat layer. During the week we…
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M83 a no show
Holly, Mikey and I were quite excited to be seeing M83 last night, ostensibly supporting Midnight Juggernauts at the Enmore. Unfortunately, his band's gear was all somewhere between Paris and Sydney,…
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Bathroom renovation
We're into the second week of being without a bathroom as it gets gutted and re-done. Everything has come out and we're getting there. Gyprock went on yesterday, so tiling and plumbing in the applianc…
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Google Calendar sync with Outlook
I, like many others amongst you, have to run the bloated abomination that is Microsoft Outlook at work. It's been quite annoying, as I've really got used to my personal Google Calendar being synced to…
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Postbox next to Central is good
Wow, the postbox outside Central Station gets fast delivery. I popped the DVD we watched on Saturday night into its Quickflix envelope and dropped it into the postbox yesterday. Quickflix have just em…
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IE8 will break the web, and about bloody time
So the latest Internet Explorer is out and, like any good web developer, I've downloaded it and thrown the sites I manage at it. The results aren't good, and I'm very pleased by that. IE8 was original…
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Ted Fest
Those of you who know my views on religion, and organized religion in particular, might be surprised to learn one of my idols is a Catholic priest. Father Jack Hackett has always been a role model for…
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St George bringing in two factor authentication
I've banked with St George for many many years, and they've long been pretty ahead of the pack with technology in Australia. I got a letter the other day indicating that they were bringing in some new…
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Busy weekend of bathroom shopping and free stuff
We've had a very busy weekend getting all the bits we need for our bathroom renovation. The whole bathroom is getting gutted today, so we had to get a bath, toilet, vanity, cupboard and all the bits.…
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Firefox tip: delete an autocomplete entry
This is one of those things that's obvious once you know it, but solves a real problem beforehand. You're using firefox with autocomplete switched on. You make a mistake filling out a form once, and f…
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Spectacularly bad UI
Wow Ricoh really take the cake here. My work has some Ricoh photocopiers with an excellent feature, you can use them as scanners. Great feature. Lousy user interface. Once you're scanned your page, yo…
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1 terabyte is now under 300 bucks!
An important threshold has been passed. 1 terabyte of external storage is under $300 at a mainstream vendor. Wow! I could get all old fogie and reminisce about the old days, our first 10 megabyte hard…
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Great cabling
My uncle is putting built-in cupboards in our bedroom. There's a phone jack in the bedroom, right in the way of where he's building cupboards. He asked me if I wanted the phone jack, and I said no, so…
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Children of Men
I signed up to Quickflix recently on their free trial. The service is good, but I don't think we get through enough movies to make keeping it worthwhile. However, one of the movies we got was Children…
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Background Briefing: Greenwashing
I've been a long time listener of the ABC's Background Briefing, ever since I was interviewed for one of the programmes back in 1998. It's always well-researched and very interesting. What's more, the…