Blog
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Microsoft strikes a blow against DRM
Microsoft have come out as unlikely allies in the fight against DRM. It seems they're helping to educate consumers on why DRM sucks. Their new player won't work with product bought under their "Plays…
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Monster MythTV box
I just bought a monster server machine to run as my MythTV machine. It's a dual 1.4 GHz Xeon with two gigs of RAM and 288 gigs of RAID storage. Nice! Servers on eBay seem to be inordinately cheap. I g…
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Should I go to linux.conf.au?
Registrations are open for linux.conf.au and the programme looks quite interesting. For me it looks like Wednesday and Thursday are the most worthwhile days. Thing is, I'm a contractor and going means…
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New Kyoto won't be as sweet a deal
Howard is dissembling about a new Kyoto agreement to take heat off the fact that the largest per-capita greenhouse gas emitter won't sign the existing agreement. Thing is, Kyoto was a fantastic deal f…
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Holly has a job!
Good news everyone: Holly has a job! She'll be starting next week at Odyssey House, an addiction charity. It's in the city, which means we're both working centrally. That'll be nice for a change.
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Linux going mainstream at last?
Spotted on the ubuntu-au list: Does the ubuntu default installation come with a anti-virus and spyware. I seems can not find it. I scare apyware and vitus:P Hold onto your hats folks (alright Jeff you…
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A plan to end farmer welfare
I have a plan to stop farmers sponging off the state. Many farmers in Australia farm extremely marginal land that is regularly very badly affected by drought. Australia is a place that has droughts. E…
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Moving!
Turns out we got the house in St Peters. Excellent stuff. We move on 18th November, so still a while to wait.
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Hopefully a home
We put a deposit and application in to rent a house in St Peters on Saturday. It's a lovely little two-story semi with a bit of open space at the front and a nice little unpaved garden out the back. T…
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Estate agents: how I love thee so
Ahh doncha just love estate agents? They're so honest! Here's an ad in our target area. Let's decode the real estate-speak: FANTASTIC LOCATION! The house is shite, but what a great spot! Two bedroom,…
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The end of worrying about spam?
I've just signed up for Marc Perkel's spam filtering service because I'm sick of managing the spam arms race. It's a near full-time job and my Linode just doesn't have the RAM to do it. I mean, the la…
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Hot hot hot
It was damn hot from Thursday to Saturday last week. 37°C on Saturday! We went up to Wamberal and had a swim at Avoca and then Terrigal. Amazingly Terrigal had decent surf, which meant I had a bit of…
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Google love
I just had an enquiry from someone looking for a technical author. Sounds like good people, but it's in Brisvegas and wasn't paying enough to justify another move. Anyway, I was wondering how she foun…
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How to treat your customers
When phoning to ask for a piece of information, unless you are sure the customer has screwed up, don't use language like "you didn't give us your..." as if you are in the wrong, you give the impressio…
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Recruiter blacklist: Sapphire Technologies
I applied for a job advertised by these recruit-scum. Turns out they're flogging training, not jobs. I didn't hear from them, and saw the same ads getting posted day after day so I assumed there was s…
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What happens when you microwave silica gel?
Found in a can of "Mexican spicy peanuts" from Thailand, one of those little packets of dessicant. As well as the usual "Do not eat" notice, it also says "Do not microwave". Talk about red rag to a bu…
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These spammers try everything
Wow these spammers are tenacious. I woke up this morning with a bunch of spam sent through my contact form, which was built specifically to avoid spammers getting my email address. Interesting that th…
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Mobical
I've been using a mobile phone calendaring service for the last six months or so. It's really rather good because it integrates into the Nokia calendar I use on my Nokia 6630, and you can synchronize…
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Clueless web designers are everywhere
Martin Brooks is audbly seething about clueless web designers who can't even write browser detection Javascript that works across all the (narrow range) of Windows browsers they support. These people…
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Summer Lamb Couscous Salad
This is a quick and easy summer salad that I've been making for years. It's tasty, healthy and dead easy to make. I find it's particularly suited to those long, hot summer evenings when you don't want…