3rd September 2007

Which is more painful, the illness or the cure?

In my life as a Windows user, I’ve learned that sometimes there will be problems. Not every day, because that would certify me as a masochist. Still, even with caution and safety harnesses and protective software up the yin-yang, there will be stormy moments. I’ve spent two evenings doing battle with a trojan/spyware infestation, and it meant that this was not a labour-free weekend.

Read the rest of this entry »

posted in computing | Comments Off on Which is more painful, the illness or the cure? | 311 words

30th May 2007

Objects may be closer than they appear

Even though I didn’t have the spare change this week to attend the D5 conference down in San Diego, some nice people did point out some of the salient details from today, and I’m impressed by what the future holds for me. In fact, back about five years ago, when Minority Report was released, I thought that science fiction had a certain cool factor going for it. Now, I believe that certain objects may be closer than they appear.  Forget the substance plot. Focus on the interface.

Read the rest of this entry »

posted in computing | Comments Off on Objects may be closer than they appear | 318 words

26th April 2007

It depends who is doing the name-calling

In the world of the blog, we sometimes get so self-absorbed in our writing that we forget that we are simply emulators of a model that the world calls the “newspaper”. Especially since we don’t always have to present news, and our editorial direction is ours. But in the real world, newspapers do exist, do have to fight for readership and do have to live in a world where the dollar rules supreme.

Read the rest of this entry »

posted in economy | Comments Off on It depends who is doing the name-calling | 313 words

25th August 2006

Barring a few technical difficulties

Ah, technology. Loved and needed, rarely abandoned unless something “better” stumbles into view.

Tonight, I had a request to find a lost file, so after making sure that the missing wasn’t misplaced, I went and brought our Backup-Drive into view…

Read the rest of this entry »

posted in technology | Comments Off on Barring a few technical difficulties | 205 words

13th July 2006

Virtually amazing

Synchronicity. Not just an album by the Police, or a term from a long since over psychology lecture. Rather, a moment when a number of people arrive at the same moment with the same idea. No, silly, not when the train comes in.

Read the rest of this entry »

posted in computing | Comments Off on Virtually amazing | 252 words

29th April 2006

But I do exist

I just “won” my first one cent auction on eBay. Now, nothing costs a penny; the shipping is for 700 percent of the amount, but not to quibble. The site had a very good explanation of what S&H stood for; I quote:

Read the rest of this entry »

posted in economy | Comments Off on But I do exist | 418 words

5th January 2006

Maintenance without pain

Today was a maintenance day for software. Microsoft released their version of a patch for the WMF hole, which seems to work. New versions of MediaWiki (1.5.4) and MySQL (5.0.18) are now running and nothing has mysteriously stopped. I even was able to Google my way to resolving an obscure problem involving “php and mb_string”, which might have had some unexpected effect sometime, somewhere, in a galaxy near you.
The whole problem for a person trying to maintain a test server is that you can’t be sure what update will send you back to square one. I had to rewrite my Wiki data from start after one such session. I don’t know how to back up this blog, so it lives a similar, ephemeral existence…

posted in computing | Comments Off on Maintenance without pain | 124 words

  • Archives

  • Categories

One Laptop Per Child wiki Local Weather

International Year of Plant Health

PHP Example Visiting from 3.89.56.228

Locations of visitors to this page