May 29, 2008

Firefox 3 Download Day

Help set a world record!

Download Day 2008

Posted by whykay at 12:12 AM

May 25, 2008

BableFish now owned by Yahoo!

Check it: babelfish.yahoo.com

Posted by whykay at 01:18 AM

May 23, 2008

MT4.0 - What I think of it

Ok, I just installed MT4.0 to see what's so different on it, since I have not checked new blogging tools for awhile. The set up was painless, also thanks to Dreamhost for its easy-to-setup mysql databases.

What started this off was checking what the "export" does in MT2.6. It gave me a wee (or big enough) text file. So I was wondering what it would look like in MT4.0. So off I went to download it and copied to my server space. Ran the setup, as I said earlier, was a sinch. All in all, got my first blog post in, it was more automatically posted when I set up the blog.

I then imported the MT2.6 file, everything went swimmingly, and then realised that I needed to "publish" the site before anyone can see anything! It's that same age-old issue I had with MT, you have to publish everytime you did something, anything. Which is lame. In Wordpress, for example, I just post something and it publishes it (and can be draft if I wanted). The main thing is, it does not ask you to publish, republish every time you do something to an entry, templates, css, etc. In MT's case, it's publish, wait, check site, publish, wait... *sigh

Anyhoo, once I published some of my entries (as I have over 800 entries, and it kept timing out from the processing), it appeared fine when I viewed the site.

The admin interface has been vastly improved, they even have an editor that highlights the syntax and includes line numbers. Handy indeed. Erm, I wanted to include some code that is used to pull a list from a text file that is generated every few minutes or so, of posts from the Irish Born Chinese Forum. I figured out the widgets, nothing too taxing, and got it included (once I figured out where the widget goes). Published the templates, cos of the changes. Viewed the site, the latest entries from the forum appeared, huzzah!

The good news ends here, I noticed that the latest entries from the forum has not been updated, you have to republish the index pages for it to pick it up, which is not the point of pulling posts from the forum at all! It was find in MT2.6, it just pulls the file contents, but it seems to have changed in behaviour for MT4.0. I was hoping to switch to MT4.0, but this little setback is a little annoying. Maybe there is a way around it?

Posted by whykay at 08:49 PM

May 22, 2008

All because of one train driver!

What's the full story here? All I got from the news was that a train driver did not want to include training of new trainees in his current roster, and this ensued to Cork train operators refusing to drive the trains on the Dublin/Cork (including Tralee) routes. So all they do is drive trains, and training other drivers just crossed the line. When I was working, training and taking people on to train them are just part of the job, so what's so different about train operators? I find this terribly frustrating. One thing, I am glad that it has not affected the route to Limerick.

Services which did not operate / are not operating today were:
- 11.00hrs Heuston to Cork
- 13.30hrs Cork to Heuston
- 14.30hrs Cork to Heuston
- 15.30hrs Cork to Heuston
- 16.30hrs Cork to Heuston
- 17.30hrs Cork to Heuston
- 18.00hrs Heuston to Cork
- 18.30hrs Heuston to Tralee
- 19.00hrs Heuston to Cork
- 20.00hrs Heuston to Cork
- 21.00hrs Heuston to Cork
- Cork commuter services (Cork/Cobh, Cork/Mallow)
- Some Cork/Tralee services
And Friday is affected as well:
It is expected that service disruption will continue on Friday 23rd May.

While exact details will be confirmed in the morning, it is likely that all services from Cork to Heuston up to and including the 09.30hrs Cork to Heuston service will be cancelled.

10.30hrs and 11.30hrs Cork to Heuston are expected to operate from Mallow only, with bus transfers from Cork to Mallow.

The 07.00hrs and 08.00hrs Heuston to Cork are likely to operate to Mallow only, with bus transfers from Mallow to Cork. The remainder of morning services are expected to be cancelled.

All Cork/Cobh and Cork/Mallow commuter services are expected to be cancelled, and customers are advised to make alternative arrangements.

Some Cork/Tralee services are expected to be cancelled, with others operating between Tralee and Mallow only.
Posted by whykay at 08:28 PM

Hello Kitty Sewing Machine

It looks like a deformed HK! See for yourself: http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2008/05/hello_kitty_sew.html
Posted by whykay at 07:55 PM

May 20, 2008

Mo' money, still no frills

Ryanair will be increasing their charges from June 3rd. Passengers will be charged EUR5 when checking in online. A new feature is the ability to change passenger names online.

Posted by whykay at 10:24 AM

May 19, 2008

*sigh, now this is lame...

Subject line: Make Dad feel rad: $15 Mugs, shipping included!

That's right, "rad", who uses that phrase at all? I'm not a spring chicken, but I cringed when I saw that on the subject line. And which sp@m is this one from, Kodak Gallery, reminding people about the American Father's Day.

Posted by whykay at 05:57 PM

May 17, 2008

Ya "cyberslacker"!

Just came across this article about what's acceptable or not when it comes to internet usage during work. I agree that people should not be slacking off at work chatting to people on FaceBook/Bebo all the time, but that stands to reason. It's like you would get up to get coffee and bump into someone in the kitchen at work, you chat a bit, that is fine. I feel in moderation at work is fine, what annoys me are the games playing on the social networking sites more than anything else. Now don't get me wrong, I fall in the category of chatting people on IM, but I set my status to busy, so I don't get bugged all the time by friends, and I use it to look up stuff, mainly work-related. I do use it for personal banking (excuse of using part of the banking hour during work), quick check of my newsfeeds. I aim for lunchtime to do most of my catching up on news, if possible, that is why I sit at my desk eating lunch, and yes, on occassions, I do eat with my mates. Everyone has done it, check the emails their friends sends, and clicked on those links. I have learnt not to watch any videos, images sent at work, and made sure people I know tag the stuff as "NSFW" or "Not Safe For Work" on the subject line emails. I definitely stay away from those until I get home. It's the moderation, my excuse is that I need some time to ramp up when I first get into work. The main thing is, get your work done in time.

The last companies I worked in allowed the use of IM, it is really handy at work to get people's attention when it comes to asking questions, showing people how to do something,etc. I found using IM at work productive anyway. So according to the article,

[...] a ‘cyberslacker’, a term used for a lazy, unproductive employee who spends half the day checking Facebook and browsing eBay.

The report gave an example of a college graduate who was so use to being online 24/7, chatting to people, buying things, etc., that when she was in the work environment for the first time, she felt restricted. Ultimately she was banned from using the internet in the office and needs permission if she needs to use it for work-related tasks. What is interesting here is the transition of college to work environment. It was so different when I graduated back in '99, internet surfing was a pain at home and in college, it was dog-slow, so it was not a problem for me. Nowadays, I see students in the computer labs using Bebo and Facebook. It's so bad that some colleges have banned this usage. It's only fair for other people to use it to write their reports. If the students have their own laptops, which many do nowadays, they can go on these sites, so I think, surf on these sites on your own machine in college, don't take up space if you know many other people need it for their assignments. It's only common sense. How to get out of that habit when you go back to work? Is it any different to people travelling for a year and go back to work afterwards? I don't think so, it's just a different way for someone to adapt back to routine, and how to work in an office environment. If the contract stipulates it, obide by it, seek HR on what is acceptable. If manager warns you, take that into account. Use your noggin!

The report at the end suggests that maybe we are addicted to the internet.

So if you are logging on when cooking the dinner, or in the middle of the night, then you have crossed the line from internet abuse to full-blown addiction.

Well, call me an addict then. I use the computer constantly if it's nearby, for both browsing and doing personal projects. I'm not addicted to looking up porn though, I think that's another problem altogether. If I go on holidays, I can forget about the internet. The only thing is checking my email, I am worried that I miss some important emails. As long as I get to go online for a minute to scan my emails, I'm happy.

What about people who use their phones to go online to check the map, or where to go for food? Are they addicts as they thought of going online to look for information, or Twitter, blog, send Flickr pictures, etc? What constitutes to addiction to the internet? It's a tool we use constantly and has interweaved into our modern society and life itself. It's useful source of information, but please stop playing scrabble online with your mates at work, it bugs the living be-jaysus out of me, especially when I can see your screen!

Posted by whykay at 01:00 PM

May 12, 2008

links for 2008-05-12

Posted by whykay_delicious at 01:31 AM

May 10, 2008

links for 2008-05-10

Posted by whykay_delicious at 01:33 AM

May 07, 2008

links for 2008-05-07

Posted by whykay_delicious at 01:33 AM

May 05, 2008

May 01, 2008

links for 2008-05-01

Posted by whykay_delicious at 01:36 AM