Whykay's happenings

Looking back at PAX 2008

From the overwhelming amount of people attending PAX this year to my utter disgust at Freezepop's inability to perform without your ears bleeding to immense pleasure of witnessing Gabe's artistic talents at work in creating Monday's panel (which unfortunately won't be seen till Gabe's machine is fixed, but that's ok as I have a video of it to remind me what it was like, and you can check out the photo of the final image at the make-a-panel). Who can forget the many, many DS' and laptops shining out during the gig, and Jonathan Coultan's act was fantastic, the Portal song and the Zombies were my highlights. Audience participation is a must for full enjoyment.

From phrases like "Whooo-oo" to "Yea-aah!" to "Awesome" was the main vocab for some odd reason. It's not like nerds/geeks are not educated or anything, it felt like they are either rednecks or surfer dudes (and yes, dude was mentioned somewhere out there).

The moment of Jerry tying the mic chord around Mike's neck to get the Pacman watch given by a fan was funny, Mick did not get a shot of that, we'll need to wait for the PAX 08 DVD to come out to see that again. Another thing I've never experienced before (apart from it being my first time at a gamers convention) was the use of PictoChat on the DS. It's fantastic up to a point where people were populating it with wangs and arses. Although I was happy when I drew (or tried to) a stick figure version of the portal slide and got Portal responses from the people around.

And finally some pics from PAX can be found at here

RTE online

It's really moved on, I should have browsed around more on their site. Seriously, I'm not joking. I came across their live page, you can watch their programmes live! It's brilliant... anyone, anywhere can watch the news, programmes, etc. I know most of you would think "so what, that's old news!". For me, it's just really great feature that is free for people to view programmes from Ireland. As it is right at this moment while typing this blog entry, I am watching "George Lee: In China" via their live page. Really handy.

Firefox 3 Ireland party on Thursday

I'll be there. Wonder what free swag I'll get?

Google labs in Gmail

Mick pointed it out to me yesterday. For those who are lucky to see the green bottle at the top right hand corner of your gmail window, then you have access to the Gmail Lab. Once you are in Gmail Lab section, you can enable or disable the features and feedback links to each of the features.

Here are the features:

• Quick Links - Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more.

• Super stars - Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature, you can choose which icons you wish to use in the "General" Settings page.

• Pictures in Chat - See your friends' profile pictures when you chat with them.

• Fixed width font - Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font.

• Custom keyboard shortcuts - Lets you customize keyboard shortcut mappings. Adds a new Settings tab from which you can remap keys to various actions.

• Mouse gestures - Use your mouse to navigate with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows.

• Signature tweaks - Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the "--" line that appears before signatures. Can't use this and the "Random signature" Labs feature at the same time.

• Random signature - Rotates among random quotations for your email signature. Can't use this and the "Signature tweaks" Labs feature at the same time.

• Custom date formats - Adds options to the general settings page allowing the date and time format to be changed independent of language. For example, you can use a 24-hour clock (14:57) or show dates with the day first (31/12/07).

• Muzzle - Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends' status messages.

• Old Snakey - Kick it old school with Old Snakey! Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit '&' from the main page to play a game of snake.

• Email Addict - Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat.

• Hide Unread Counts - Hides the unread counts for inbox, labels, etc.

I am using the Super Stars and the pictures in Gchat at the moment.

Firefox 3 Download Day

Help set a world record!

BableFish now owned by Yahoo!

Check it: babelfish.yahoo.com

€3 Million for 2 young Limerick entrepeneurs

As word spread in the blogging world of two young Limerick lads who successfully sold their company Auctomatic to a Canadian firm for €3 million, some bloggers have one thing in common, in giving out about Enterprise Ireland and County Enterprise Boards on their lack of support for these young business men. And it's the same for many start ups who try to find seed money to kick-start their venture, leading to big sales to foreign investors. I'm jealous of the guys on their big sale, but also fair play to them for doing everything they can here in Ireland to fund their company. We need more young people like them, ensuring that Ireland continue to be innovative and not reliant on foreign companies and investors. This all came out of my Reaching the Market lecturer quick mention of two young Limerick lads who sold their business for multi-million Euro, but acquired no support from Irish enterprise boards. Typical, isn't it?

Drop over and say "hi" at IWTC

I'll be there (along with other Python Ireland folks), and my hubby, Mick, will be giving the Django talk. Anyone who is still interested, sign up at http://iwtc.firstport.ie.

Python Ireland posters and biz cards for IWTC 2008

So now that I still have a little free time, Mick kinda prodded me to try my hand of doing up poster business card designs for Python Ireland, 'cause we are attending The Irish Web Technology Conference. Or more precisely, Irishdev.com has agreed to give a booth at the conference.

I'm bugging the guys for ideas and I've send some designs for posters and biz cards to the Python Ireland Google group alias. All I need is some confirmation, I've a pretty good idea what the biz card would look like. Now it would be cool to have xkcd guy to get back to me, so we can use one of its images for our poster. I'll have to see what is on, and get time off lectures. I'll prob be the person videoing the conference as well. Hope the guys manage to get some Django talkers over.

Open Social

If you have not heard by now, Google has launched Open Social. I've signed up to the OS application development forum as well. What's interesting is that this could be end to Bebo and Facebook. Even MySpace and Six Apart have joined up with Open Social.

I can't wait to try this out with my own little project. I think this will make life easier for me. Only time can tell, and it won't be that long before this snowballs and everyone starts using it.

Come on, Apple delivery!

Gaaaaah! Where is my MacBook?!?!? At least I am not the only one who is waiting. My MB only had 1 change, I bumped it up to 2G of RAM, that's it. And I also included an ipod (latest one) with it. The shipement is now two parts! According to my delivery status, both shipped 27th and 29th respectively, and delivery date is 11th/12th October. WTF!

And the only status the last 2 and a bit weeks was "Merge in Transit GB", which means that all 2 parts of it are on its way to a central UK depot before being bundled together and shipped out to little ole Ireland to me (my hubbie, as he is the recipient in place of me).

Maybe it's the Golden Week and typhoons in China that are causing this length delay. 11/12th Oct is the latest delivery date, and I was hoping to get both in a week or so.

I have 2 friends, one ordered an iTouch and got it in a week, another orders a MB with no changes and got hers with the new iPod Nano in just a week. Oh, just remembered, another friend (classmate) just got updates on her MBP delivery!!! Gah! This is SOOO not fair.

The new nano

So I just so happen to drop by the Apple Store in Birmingham, around half a dozen times over the period of 4 days while attending Pycon UK. And on Monday, I saw the iPod Nano and I have to say, I was rather tempted. But getting it to annoy a friend seems to be too extreme, so I am saving that money I would have spent on the Nano, for my MacBook. Yup, I'm not getting a MacBookPro anymore.

Social networking sites

I recently blogged about social networking sites that I have signed up to (some not proudly though), but here is a post I came across to warn people to STAY AWAY from.

I'm also on Pownce.

Python Ireland Talks - August 2007

Well, it was a success! The Python Ireland August Talks last Wednesday hosted at Google's HQ got a full turnout. Considering that when the announcement for people to sign up (for the NDA), it was full in less than 2 days. People were scrambling to get their names on it. My ball park figure of 25 max was a bit off the mark. Heh.

We arrived on the evening, and signed the NDA, with some hawk-eyed security men glaring at us. Of course, the whole group had to be fully assembled (and yes, Neil was the last one to arrive!). We went down to the cafeteria, and was greeted by some recruiters handing out goodie bags (pen, pad, tee, magnet thingie along with their biz card). All in all, we were not bombarded by them. When upto 4 engineers (included a Google intern) trying to figure out how to get the projector to work with a Mac Book Pro, and 2 other Linuxes laptops, the attendees gorged themselves on Ben and Jerry's ice-cream.

So how many engineers does it take to get projector working with a laptop, well, none really. Ended up turning the webcam towards the laptops. Who would have thunk, ay?

Unfortunately, I was not allowed to video the Python Ireland talks. It's a new thing we are embarking on to share our talks with the world. Well, next time.

The talks went well, on time (me waving my hand to signal 5 mins and then waving again to say time is up, I don't like being timemaster. Heehee!).

We departed to the Schoolhouse pub (5 mins away), I reserved an area, again, I was off with the numbers going the afters. But we mange to fit in ok. Had a good ole chat with folks, and then the usual stragglers (yes, I'm included) got booted out of the pub, as it was closing up.

Well, no talks for next month, meetup at pub instead. Most likely The Pembroke off Baggot St. There will be talks held in October, and possible venue at Trinity College. Now all I have to do is bug people to do talks. \\(;*u^ )//

Mercurial and Trac

Just got the Mercurial plugin for Trac working this morning. It's pretty nifty. Configuration was a sinch. It does all I need, revisions, changesets, and if I include the #number for the issue number, it appears in Trac. Well, that's a Trac thing. I've never used Trac with a plugin to source repository before. Heehee, so it was double the bonus, geeky happiness for me this bank holiday

2 new colours fo DS Lites

Metallic Rose and Gloss Silver according to the report from MDN.

"Web2.0" buyout madness

Ok, maybe I'm jealous or something with all these multimillion buyouts, the most recent on is Ebay's buyout of Stumbleupon for $75m. Is this in danger of another bust? Web2.0 bubble about to burst, is this in preperation for... ahem...don't shoot me, Web3.0. There's just too much money been flung around.

Last.fm buyout and Avatar alter egos

Wow, Last.fm got bought out by CBS for $280m. It's like a boom all over again, but smaller, much smaller. I use Last.fm to let others know what music I am listening to, when I am using my PowerBook. I find the site extremely slow though, hopefully a bit of money boost might have that a little.

Alter Egos: Avatars and their creators looks interesting. My character is a big female Tauren in WoW, does it reflect me? I think so. Heh!

Rumours, rumours, rumours

Just came across this, Yahoo! to take over Bebo, that is one heck of a rumour. Rumours has it, Yahoo! are willing to fork out $1billion!

More in the news: http://tinyurl.com/2pz6ey

To tar or not to tar

For the love of dancing strawberries and whipped cream! I've been banging my head wondering why using tarfile extractall() is not working! It was pretty obvious:

• Kept complaining it does not exists
• If I only read the docs properly, it only exists in Python 2.5.

Aggh, it's one of these day!

See also: http://docs.python.org/whatsnew/modules.html

Pipes and Picasa space upgrade

Mick pointed out Yahoo's interactive feed builder and reader called pipes. Will have to try it out, and see what it is like. Although I am still an avid Netnewswire user.

And Mick also pointed out that Google has upgraded space on Picasa to 1G.

Real Transformer

Cool, just came across this!

November's Python Ireland Talks were a success

Last night's Python talks went really, really well! Thanks to Sean Mc Grath for a great talk on Jython, and Mick for his talk on WSGI. Everyone was so engaging during the talks. Sean's talk went on from around 7:30pm till around 9pm, and Mick went through his slides swiftly, while prodding a few people's buttons along the way. It was Q&A all the way through both talks. And the time honoured tradition of Python Meetup Talks, it's off to the Pembroke pub to wrap up for the night. The attendance was one of the largest this year, around 14/15 people (I think). There were lots of familiar faces, which is great. That Jython talk had something for everyone, pot shots and more neutral views on big companies like Sun, MS and BEA on their take on Python/Jython, for example.

It's nice to see the Python community growing, even though it's little by little. We are planning the next set of talks already for December 13th (Wed), and at least we have WxPython penned down. If anyone is interested to give a talk, drop a note to Python Ireland's mailing list.

By the way, speakers at our talks gets a free Python Ireland t-shirt, just like the one we gave Guido.

Roundup is Python's new issuetracker

Cool, Mick is one of the volunteer admins for Roundup, the new Python issuetracker.

Google acquires YouTube

Mick did not believe me last week, when I mentioned that Google would be buying YouTube. Well, Google did buy YouTube. I think buying out the competitor and putting Yahoo at a big disadvantage. And it's interesting to see how other bloggers react to this news.

Smart-*ss

Heh, just saw an ad in yesterday's paper from magnet.ie trying to grab some of the SMART's now broadbandless customers... I like this part:

Your Broadband Supplier is not responding, Would you like to: Get unreliable high contention bogband [...]

So cheeky.

SMART gone, gone, gone

Eircom pulls the plug on Smart customers yesterday. Eircom's plan worked. Smart's financial difficulties is their own fault as well, all those fancy ads. But it's still so annoying that Eircom still rules the roost in the telecoms sector. NTL's broadband division is not too hot either. Well, at least I am lucky enough not to use Smart a year ago.

Another one

Fwoosh, the sound of another battery going up in flames : The Register - Man Saves Laptop

Silly thing to do, pulling out the battery when it's smoking!

Python 2.5 is out

Yup, yup, it's out : http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/

Programming Quotes

Here's a nice way to finish off the week (after a few pints of course), read some funny and worthwhile programming quotes to think about. My favs are

• Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. - Donald Knuth
• The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time. - Tom Cargill
• Programmers are in a race with the Universe to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs, while the Universe is trying to create bigger and better idiots. So far the Universe is winning. - Anon
• Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. - Albert Einstein
• There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third works. - Alan J. Perlis
• I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. - Bjarne Stroustrup
• Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. - Jamie Zawinski
• Copy and paste is a design error - David Parnas

That made my Friday yesterday

I am happy that Sun still has some humour. Their little stunt did not bode too well with HP. I think my last memory of some Sun-related humour was back in Oct 2005, when Sun and Google announced they were going to work together. The look on Scott's face when he recieved the Google Lava lamp, and Google's Schmidt received and Opteron and Staroffice 8. The the HP one is class. I loved it. Good one, Sun.

Python Ireland Tshirts

Well, I got my own Python Ireland Tshirt.

I'll be sporting this on Monday.

Dell recalls batteries

Again, Dell has issued a recall. Scary that I use to have an Inspiron, and my family members have as well, hope we are not of the small few who has the faulty battery. More info : https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx.

Google Calendar new features

So google has release more new features to googlecalendar.

I tend to have all my stuff as private, but maybe I should use it a bit more. Let my friends know what I am upto.

There are other new features like

• google calendar available in your personalised google home page
• accessing calendar from your phone
• viewing google calendar from google desktop
• integration with gmail for your domain
• google calendar API
• support for Verizon (which does not really matter for us in Ireland)

Here is mine after trying out their publish events and embed into blog, it's just a test by the way.

More job cuts for Sun?

Donthca just wish life that that predictable. As soon as McNealy steps down as CEO, job cuts are winging its way to Sun land again.

Sun has reported a net loss in 16 out of the past 20 quarters, and in January announced plans to close more than 120 offices in coming months and eliminate jobs in legal, administration and other areas as it consolidates the companies.

Updated does not really mean updated

Now what the heck am I talking about? Well, I found a wee problem with the Atom <updated> tag, it's not what it seems. The following is what I tried to change to get an entry to highlight itself when its contents have been modified.

Tried modifiying this in <feed>:

Indicates the last time the feed was modified in a significant way.

And then this in <entry>:

ndicates the last time the entry was modified in a significant way. This value need not change after a typo is fixed, only after a substantial modification. Generally, different entries in a feed will have different updated timestamps.

Well, I needed to have an entry that I have in a feed I have subscribed to, to be highlighted in my reader of choice, which is NetNewsWire (and other readers such as SharpReader, Tristana and FeedDemon), whenever <updated> timestamp has been updated. I thought it was the seconds that was throwing it off, well, I got a second opinion. Yes, Mick had a look for me, and found that does not indeed do what it says. So my only way of getting individual entries highlighted by whatever readers that are used is to update the individual's <id> tag. I know, it's not correct, and defeats the purpose of having an <updated> tag. But for now, this cannot be handled by most readers out there.

Google Notebook

Pretty cool, checked it out. Simple and easy to use. Pretty funky.
Google notebook

Vim author to work for google

See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimannounce/message/152 .

And another Google-related article about Google Techtalks.

Next Gen Lego Mindstorm available for April 1st

Yup, all you lego mindstorm fans, preorders you can preorder your sets from April 1st.

(Previous entry on Mindstorm NXT.)

Google stuff

Apart from finance.google.com for you to check out how much your share options are (if you are lucky), or just get depressed knowing how much your boss earns.

The other thing is I finally got access to the google pages after being placed on a waiting list to sign up due to demand at the time. Pretty nifty for folks who want to put up pages quickly. Adding pics using url was cool, it popped in the pic almost instantly. Here is my google page. I know, what a messer.

Dell buying Alienware?

Few rumours going around, here's one.

New python.org site

Cool the beta site is now the official site!

Google stuff I came across

So I see Google has been creating dashboard widgets for MacOSX (found this from this article).

And some rumours about them going into social bookmarking as well.

Another happy elementtree user

See, I am not crazy! Why is most folks at work find that I am crazy or just different when I choose to use elementtree? This person optimised XML processing in Python using the elementtree API, and he one heck of a happy guy!
I just find sax too over the top for what I need to do. And elementree does what it does, cleanly, in a more Pythonic fashion. And it's noticebly faster. And boy.. IK cannot wait for it to be bundled in with Python. Not that it's hard to install it in the first place. >-<

Just my 2 cents.

Atom and sets are the biz

So I have been busy at work.

I was lucky enough to break away from the humdrum icky work to check out RSS2.0 generation, a few hours in, I realised some issues. Not so lucky, you might think... so I decided to try Atom the next day. Woowee, that was a cool change. It can handle xhtml tags. Grreat.

And just did a simple Python script today, and used sets and in intersection. So handy! Makes code so much smaller! And unit tests as well well to boot. Mick would be proud.

This looks interesting

Codefetch is the google for searching for snippets of code. V. useful indeed, but I suppose folks will have to be careful when they want to use the snippets of code retrieved from codefetch.

Lego Factory

Only saw this in this month's Wired. And it looks really cool. Went to the Lego Factory and downloaded the Mac Lego Digital Designer app. (I did not even think a Mac version would be available). But it's cool, and I probably think would cost quite a bit for a custom lego model. I never really played with Mindstorms, but always wanted to, but they are so expensive (and still are). Maybe I can try the Mindstorm NXT. They even have an RSS feed there to keep track of what's happening.

Gamer's keyboard

OOoooh! This keyboard is hot for MMORPG fans.

Friday fav links to fun tech things!

• Digital incubator
• Stuffed dog webcam
• Famicon card holder
• New iTrip from Griffin
• iKitty
• Zelda map on 6000×3000 pixels display

Oooh
* iPod my Baby!

Jimmy.. what do you think of this!

And finally... gals and gaming.

Programming a game

Literally! A http://www.ohgizmo.com/2005/10/23/the-c-plus-board-game/ game! Now that is sad.

HD tv coming!

So excited. I see that the BBC is trying out HD tv.

Anti-trust

Mick pointed this out (courtesy of boingboing). Really well made, and gets the point across.

Google Talk

I suspect most people have heard of Google Talk by now... I knew there were rumours, and this morning, I logged into my account at work as usual, your typical work morning (and a cup of coffee). And surprise, surprise, I found multiple invitations to join Google Talk. I have to say it's basic. No smilies (who needs them anyway... teehee, I do actually!). It's a bit big, the main google talk dialog does not hide itself, you can roll-up open chats. I still feel mighty attached to my iChat on my Mac though...

Have not tried the voip yet to other google talkers. Still, I was curious. Had it running at work today (yup, we IM at work, it works well if used properly). If you have not tried Google Talk, check it out.... go on, I know you are curious. Go on, go on, go on...

Keyboards

Wonder how good this Gamer's KB would be... or... what about this keyboard. Keys with OLEDs... wtf! How cool is that?!?

Other ref:
* http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000140050736/

The geek inside me

Well, I came across this vi reference mug, the geek inside me really likes it!

Since I use to work on international keyboards alot, coming across this virtual keyboard is an interesting idea, but must have some bad ergonomics posture for anyone who uses it!!

And no matter how much of a geek I think I am, I don't think I would get this geeky keyboard. No labels on the keys, some sensitive keys... hmmm, nope, I don't think so.

TV b-gone

Heh, this little gadget was trying to prove itself useful for a friend of mine last night at a pub. He was trying out the remote to see if he could turn off the tv, but looking rather obvious from the aiming 30 degrees at the tv. Not sure if he got it to turn off though. Funny, nonetheless. There was no major football match on at the time. Heh.

Top 10 reasons why you are a s/w developer

The top 10 reasons. Sometimes it's so true.

Yahoo 360º

My Yahoo 360º page, just trying it out. Not sure how much I will update it. But I will try, prob with pics, and other stuff. Might to interesting how this works out.

Stupid online gaming crap

So I was doing the usual updating of anti-spyware, adaware, virus checkers, and this "wild tangent" crap came up as a trojan. So I removed it, and it was coming up with cannot run dll malarky whenever you log in. So I did a search and proceeded to remove it manually from the system, folders, registry, and run msconfig to get it not to start up at startup. Well that worked after a few reboots. Stupid crap.

Neopets at the flicks and WoW hotel charges?

Neopets going to the big screen, now that is a bit much. I am quite happy with my neopets as they are without appearing on the big screen. Anyhoo, not sure why I am commenting on it! Heh, and since I have been playing World of Warcraft (ok not here, but here). But then I saw this, credit card oopsy.

A Hello Kitty MP3 player!

I was wondering when a Hello Kitty MP3 player would make its way into the real world! (Really think I should start a Hello Kitty Gadget and wierd things section! )

CES - femme geek friendly (not)

Hmm, judging by the small number (or lack thereof) gadgetry for femme g33ks. And what's with the bimbo booth babes? Why not booth hunks... But that's besides the point, if I was there, I would just go straight for the gadgets anyway. (Or maybe stay away from it!)

iTunes store for Ireland

At last, iTunes is now available.for Ireland considering that Ireland could have missed out on this opportunity. Evidence show, my boyfriend has already signed up once he found out just now, and with a quick entering of details, he is downloading like mad! (Very dangerous indeed for the credit card!)

Woozy Numbat released

Linux 2.6.10 is out (Woozy Numbat). All those who wants a tinker over Chrissie hols.

How do I do this in CSS?

"Hang on! I'll just check my iPod." I am not being funny, WestCiv now has a css reference guide that can be installed on your iPod.

Python of series 60 phones is out

Nokia series 60 phone fanatics can get Python for it now. Prob the only reason my BF nearly got one in HK!

Debian encouraging more women developers

Saw this article and thought it's cool that more encouragement for lasses to get into development. I have started to tag *nix chix related sites @ my delicious.

And I suppose on a sort of *nix-related theme, eye candy for KDE mailing list is up.

Amazon Japan Cell Phone Fancypants Service

Mick was pleased about iSight+s/w to scan barcodes and check on Amazon, he should check Amazon Japan Cell Phone Fancypants Service.

iPod in ur pocket

My bf does not like the idea of having a slappa in his pocket, but I don't think he would like these ipod socks either.

Access Key links and printing in Plone

Hmm, I have one issue with plone at the moment, and it's the amount of links it spits out (accesskeys) at the beginning of a printout of a page from plone.
I have tried printing tips from zwiki.org. Searches on google came up empty.
The generated links appear after the following <!-- always-available quick access keys -->.
It's in the body right before the first heading.

[UPDATE]
Check /Applications/Plone2/Sites/Default/Products/ZWiki/skins/standard/wikipage_macros.pt and add the hiddenStructure class.
Thanks to Mick for finding the file, I was way off, did not think of looking inside Products.

Going to try something this weekend

Going down to Limerick. Bringing the airport express, and I am, ok my BF is going to check out if this will work as a repeater for us. As we have brick walls and we are encoutering a problem of weak signals.

Found the following which maybe of use to us:

• AirTunes/Airport Express, WEP, and Netgear routers

• AirPort Express Compatibility?

• It's an 802.11g bridge

No iTunes for Ireland (yet)

That is so annoying. All this due to some issues with IMRO and now I am extra jealous that London Apple Store has finally announced their opening date.

Just Blog it tool

JustBlogIt with a simple right-click. Just trying this out to see what it is like.

Parking meters replace E-Cards with Octopus smart cards

Obviously not here! This is all happening in HK.

Although smart cards are all the rage. I am not surprised. I love the cards, so handy going around HK, seeing the sites. HK already implemented parking meters that accept smart cards. They will be replacing E-Park cards with the Octopus Smart card. And public are urged to donate what is left in theri e-cards to charity in a campaign running from Oct 1st to Dec 31st.

And most people here in Ireland are still stuck with paper tickets on day-to-day basis.

Other info:
* Government Press Release

Some nice comments about Sun Bloggers

OSNews.com - Sun Opens Up with Blogging; Solaris Tidbits shows that peeps out there do appreciate some openess of corporate companies. At least it is good to know that Sun bloggers are accepted now.

Sun/blogs/Linux, Moz and Openoffice

Alot of things have been heppening wrt to Sun and blogging, and its ever changing tactics wrt Linux . And also news that OpenOffice.org Partnership with Mozilla.

Street Fighter Anniversary Controller

Neil would wet himself when he sees these Street Fighter Anniversary Controllers, and maybe this will come in handy.

Get Pink GB SP I did not...

Nearly got myself a pink GB SP while I was in HK, cos it's just a colour that you cannot get over here, and plus I am a gurl... lol But I did not in the end though, getting enough stick from my friends about my cuddly toys in my cubicle. ;) But I have to say, it's just a different colour from your usual silver, blue, black and red.

Oh dear...oh my g...

Even I cannot take this horror of a machine. I thought it was already ott on the tvs, vcrs etc. from Disney... but a PC!

Good choice, bro!

Yeah, my brother got a Nokia 6230 in HK, and seems like there is not enough to go around. Wonder if my bro will see if on ebay... :)

Happy sysadmin appreciation day!

Check out System Administrator Appreciation Day, and remember to thank your sysadmin! :)

I like this cartoon though. *lol*

Good news for Sun (or...)

Hundreds of New Customers Around the World Join Sun in the Network Services Revolution from a Yahoo biz article. But SUNW shares still stand at 3.63 at this current post.

Profit, but yet still not enough?

Although Sun made a profit, and Scott gave team pat on back, Sun shares still fell. But there is plenty to come, Sun's new team aiming at Wall street, and Scott take on his critics.
Alot has happened since I was out of the country. Gonna keep an eye out for more news.

Isn't technology great!

I'm sitting at Shannon airport waiting to board the flight to London... on my way to HK...baby! And I am using the free wi-fi access from my BF's powerbook! Woohoo... Now.. to get my moblog going when I setup my phone...

Eric S. Raymond: Sun 'Thrashing' for Direction

Eric S. Raymond's skeptism about Sun.

Textile plugin

Just trying out Textile plugin for MT that I just installed. Very wiki-like. Gonna use this for text formatting from now (well, while I am still using MT). And there many other ways of formatting text via the manual .

Gillmor Gang conversation recorded at JavaOne

The Gillmor Gang's recording from Sun's JavaOne. Jonathan Shwartz defends Sun that the company is not "beleaguered". And hear about the OS'ing Solaris, Java, Linux and more...

For all you python/xml junkies

Heh.. my BF's pygenx was mentioned in xml.com. Cool!

Sun and AIB

News is everywhere about it. Great news for Sun.
Silcon.com - Irish bank chooses Sun and Linux
Enn.ie - AIB set to adopt open source OS
Yahoo - Allied Irish Bank Selects Sun Microsystems Java(TM) Desktop System
(And probably more if you google-searched news for it.)

Jonathan Schwartz's Blog!

Here it is - Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog

OS Solaris

Here is a blog entry from a Sun Engineer about OS Solaris. Some other peoples opinion on OSNews.

Sun Blogs

Cool, finally Sun has a wee blogging community, yay! About time, not sure about the blog-rolling page. I find it quite annoying, and it seems I am not the only one... who is not keen on the roller. But there is another place that has everyone in it, it's planetsun.org.

Well... more on this OS Solaris

Just do a goog-search on this topic now, and you'll get plenty of news on this. From one of my news feeds, I see this "Sun confirms plan to open source Solaris", but then I also see this "SCO Says Sun Can't GPL Solaris Without Its Permission. Man, at least Sun is in the limelight again. Especially this one that I read "Sun's gimmicky good idea from C|Net. There's alot to see and hear.

As I suspect...

Sun: No decision on open source Java... incoherent arguments for the push for OS Sun's Java has not helped. Since this was even mentioned higher up the chain, this matter will never happen. My BF happen to mention this.
Plus hear the Gillmor gang talk about Sun os'ing Solaris, plus other IT conversations.

I don't know and what?!?

What's this? Sun opensourcing Solaris, and now they are talking about OS'ing Java! Hmm... *me wanders off and being wary of all this news*

You've got to read this! "Linux Today founder calls for a boycott of Linux Today" That is so screwed up! Allowing M$ to advertise on a Linux website. What did they expect? M$ will of course put up anti-Linux ads, and blatant ones at that. It's infuriating to see that happened though.

Maybe this would be useful for Oisin...

The Irish Tech Tour 04 - Overview... Wonder if Oish and Chris will go to this for Engines of Creation?

Pretty, but will it be usable?

Who is the fairest DT of them all? I dunno, 3d dt is not what you say are usable. I sort of got motion sickness just watching the dt background move slightly (as it was picture of space). I don't think I would like 3d dts...

Paper discs by Sony

Sony develops 25GB paper disc - ZDNet UK News

And the official site - Sony press release

Sun and MS agreement

04/02/04 - MICROSOFT AND SUN MICROSYSTEMS ENTER BROAD COOPERATION AGREEMENT; SETTLE OUTSTANDING LITIGATION

Plus some more stuff from around the web:
- The Reg : Sun settles with MS for $2bn (ish)
- C|Net : Sun settles with Microsoft, announces layoffs

Of course, you can get more headlines associated with SUNW via Yahoo.

An ezbake for your pc!

Now all the g33ks need is a coke and mars machine and they are sorted! - Boing Boing: EZBake Oven for your PC (hee-hee... chk date of posting)

MT-blacklist is the biz

Oh yes, no more click-delete-rebuild and ban IP (repeat another couple hundred blog entries, blast those scripted spammers). But MT-Blacklist makes life alot simpler now. It's the biz. Thanks a whole bunch, with sugar on top!

[FYI] css-discuss Wiki

Another to my ref collection... css-discuss Wiki

Stu's Cutting Edge CSS

Good for reference, seems to have alot of ideas here - http://www.s7u.co.uk/.

[FYI] O'Reilly's PHP Foundations

O'Reilly's PHP foundations devcenter. Another place for me to check out when I need help or tips.

Nice css menu tricks with l