NiceGuyUK Blog
Friday, February 27, 2004
Site stats working again (sort of)I ended up completely removing BBClone from my server and reinstalling it, which has fixed the bug I had with it not logging any visits. The downside of this is that I have lost all the stats I have gathered in the last year. Bahhhh! I'm guessing I should have backed up the access file first....
[Listening to: Ghidorah - Toilet Story 5]
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
New machine ready to rollAfter messing about pre-installing a bunch of software on our master machine then using Norton Ghost to build images, I've finally installed the new PC at work. Its so much nicer than the old one just by virtue of having a newer OS. Most of my indispensable apps have been migrated over, and I'm just copying my data over now (all 2.8 gig of it!).
UPDATE Bah, now they're telling us the machines don't belong to our department and we might have to give them back.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Broken statsUpgraded the program that handles my website stats yesterday and now its broken. Bahhh!
[Listening to: Powa - Mega 4 Disk Mag]
Upgrade time again woohoo!New machines have become available for our use at work, which is an excuse to notch up another 800mHz of processor speed. Even better news is that we're getting an OS version bump too, from Windows 2000 to Windows XP. Linux would be nice, but the work we do here is very Windows based. Already started backing up my stuff from the old machine and making a list of all my indispensable little apps that I need to re-install.
Friday, February 20, 2004
Stupid cartoon of the weekOK, so maybe I'm slow to discover this one, but there's a great but odd little cartoon out here call Making Fiends
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Bringing Linux to WindowsWe're a Windows based development team at work, although I'm a Linux user at home. So I'm slowly making my work PC a little more Linux like, starting with CygWin for my command line tools, WKrellm for my system stats, Mozilla Firefox for my web browser, Gaim and a removing my desktop icons to a toolbar which is docked at the top of my screen. Looks a lot more like my GNOME desktop now. Admittedly, I could add OpenOffice too, but since they already install Microsoft Office on the work machines, there's probably not much to be gained there. Even got VNC and SSH servers for when I need to work on the machine from home (although I have a VPN connection which is a little easier). All in all, its not a bad little setup for a work machine :-)
[Listening to: Lando - Sub-Friction]
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
First bug borne out of the Windows code leakWell, we all figured that it was kind of inevitable, but here it is anyway. The first security exploit that has been found as a direct result of the recent Windows source code leak has made its way online here. Apparently it affects Internet Explorer 5.0 and 5.5 (but not 6 thankfully), and is triggered by viewing a specially crafted bitmap. Looks like there's a good reason for console-only browsers like Lynx after all.
[Listening to: M.O.S. - In Time]
Monday, February 16, 2004
Mystery power outagePower is out along most of the street where my office is (The Strand, London WC2). Our building is ok due to having a backup power system, but there is a lot of speculation going around about the cause of the outage. More info as I get it...
Update Network failure on the grid. Story here
[Listening to: Authentic - Vampires]
Friday, February 13, 2004
Windows source leak - updateThose clever Slashdotters have pinpointed the source of the Windows source code leak, and how it was done (unpatched FTP server, unsurprisingly). Check out the details here
Windows source code leaked - thousands of Linux developers offer to debug it for themOk, everyone is running this story, so I might as well too. Partial source code for Windows 2000 and NT has been leaked on to the internet - some 13.5 million lines of code in all. Needless to say, Bill and his people aren't best pleased about this situation, and there is much crowing to be had amongst the advocates of other OSes....
[Listening to: skip - planet potion part 3]
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Til Death Do Us Part?A Frenchwoman has married her dead boyfriend, simultaneously becoming both a bride and a widow. Full story here
[another story brought over from fark]
13 Reasons why FireFox is better than IEThe guys over at Flexbeta have come up with a list of compelling arguments to use Mozilla FireFox over Internet Explorer. Well worth a read
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Unfortunate acronymsJust been told our team is known as Front Office Application Development. This makes our acronym FOAD, which has other meanings....
Drivers - Get Payback Here!Finally, get revenge for all those annoying speed cameras
[link provided by Dan]
Monday, February 09, 2004
FireFox 0.8 ReleasedMozilla have released the successor to the Firebird 0.71 browser. Renamed FireFox so as not to overlap with another open source project, new features include streamlined downloading, a proper installer for Windows and (presumably) a whole bunch of bug fixes.
[Listening to: Mukunga Umbura - Alone (D I G I T A L L Y - I M P O R T E D - Goa & Psychedelic Trance - a voyage out of this world!) ]
Friday, February 06, 2004
What is it with animal poo news today?PALESTINE, Texas - A state trooper found 23 dogs, three cats and a chicken in a van during an East Texas traffic stop, and he said the driver and her elderly passenger were covered in animal feces.
"When I approached the van I could smell the stench 20 to 30 feet away," Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Jim Cleland told the Palestine Herald-Press in its Thursday editions. "It was then I discovered the animals." He said feces were piled up to one foot deep in parts of the van.
Robin Vanwert, 51, of Marshall, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after the Wednesday afternoon stop on U.S. 79 just east of Palestine, about 100 miles southeast of Dallas. She was being held Thursday in the Anderson County jail. Bond had not been set.
The passenger was described as an elderly disabled man and was taken to a local motel, Cleland said.
The animals were taken to the Anderson County Humane Society shelter. Virginia Hightower, a board member at the shelter, said the animals ranged in sizes and breeds. They appeared to be in good condition but will be evaluated, she said.
"We think that she was just picking up animals," Hightower said.
"It looks like the animals have been in (the van) for months," said Palestine animal control officer Terry Garner.
[another one shamelessly leeched from fark.com]
[Listening to: The Melody, The Sound - The Freak (P O W E R S H O U T ! Pure Trance!) ]
Vet poisoned by cat fecesSTOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A vet sent to inspect a strong stench coming from an uninhabited rural cottage in south-west Sweden collapsed, poisoned by fumes from the feces of some 20 cats locked inside for months, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
The regional daily Goteborgs-Posten said the vet spent three days in hospital with hydrogen sulphide poisoning.
Rescue workers equipped with gas masks had to be called to the scene to bring out the cats, which were taken to an animal shelter, the newspaper said.
[via fark.com]
[Listening to: Jess from Overlanders - Creatine]
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Discovering how deep the rabbit hole goesReading a good book call Taking The Red Pill at the moment, which is a collection of essays analysing the deeper meanings hidden in The Matrix - interesting stuff...
Great pop exposuresAmidst the furore surrounding the exposure of a breast by a certain pop singer at a certain major sporting event (I'm not saying which singer or which event for fear of my web site gettign so much traffic it bankrupts me!), there remains a couple of unanswered questions...
According to a recent report, images of the incident have set a new record for the most searched item in one day. That'll be all us Brits that couldn't be arsed to stay up to the small hours of the morning watching a game that is incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, but didn't wanna miss the chance to see the "highlights" then.....
[Listening to: Ghidorah - Toilet Story 6 (Toilet Sex)]
Monday, February 02, 2004
Free Lindows OS 4.5 Developers EditionYep, you can get a free copy of Lindows OS 4.5 (normally retails at $59.95), by clicking HERE, clicking on "Apply Coupon", and entering the Coupon Code of FreeLindowsGoogleDay
I think its a one-day-only offer, and there seems to be a bit of a queue for the downloads (I'm currently number 346!), but its worth a try....
