Homebrew

Homebrew

from the fermented-and-demented dept.

My first attempt at home brewing has been a success, and I now have around 2.7 litres of homemade Pina Colada flavoured alcohol in the fridge.

[Listening to: The IT Crowd (Dance Remix) - ]

Penguin email

Penguin email

from the cute-n-cuddly-boys,cute-n-cuddly dept.

Had an email from my penguin this morning (ok, so not actually from the penguin, but from Dr Mike Bingham who looks after her). Her name is Alison, she's a Magellanic Penguin living at Cabo Virgenes in Argentina. She has just the one chick this year (Magellanic penguins usually have a pair) because the first one died. Here's a picture of the Alison and her chick

Love my phone

Love my phone
God, I love my phone! Just uploaded a bunch of XviD videos (resized with correct size/aspect ratio for optimal playback) to it, for when I'm on the train home. Some of my favourite pop video are now on there :-

• Eric Prydz - Call On Me (models in skimpy lycra doing a workout - the one that plays the instructor is 22yr old Australian Deanne Berry)


• Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Kylie wearing not much more than a ribbon)


• Boogie Pimps - Somebody To Love (giant scantily clad model (Page 3 girl Natasha Mealey) is attacked by mini parachuting babies)


• Galeon - So I Begin (model Jitka Ogurekova gets out of bed, gets showered, tries on a bunch of skimpy outfits before she goes out)

Do I detect a theme here?

Making ncurses apps look nice in PuTTY

Making ncurses apps look nice in PuTTY

from the terminal-boredom dept.

Found a nice post at ChristianLong.com about configuring remote ssh/telnet sessions in PuTTY so that ncurses applications display correctly (such as Midnight Commander, YAST and others). Useful stuff.

Windows XP install - optimized

Windows XP install - optimized

from the if-you're-gonna-do-it-do-it-right dept.

If you will insist on using Windows XP rather than Linux, you could at least optimize your OS by following this handy guide

[Listening to: BOBBY O'DONNELL - United Creationz]

Evil sysadmins

Evil sysadmins

from the fight-the-power dept.

Came in to work this morning to find my machine in the process of an attempted software audit (which I prevented, naturally). The powers-that-be are having another crackdown on machines that they don't control with locked-down restricted Windows - something I've vehemently resisted for the 5 years that I've been here. They keep spouting the usual lines of "its not your machine to do what you want with". After the last time they used Microsoft System Management Server to roll out some "patches" and fucked up my machine, I've done my utmost to keep the buggers out.

It may not be my own personal machine, true enough, but I have to use it every day to get my job done, and if they lock it down, prevent me from installing the tools I need, and keep installing shit I don't need (European Product Master? SAP? I'm a developer not a warehouse manager or finance geek!), then I'll continue to fight them all the way!

Long time no blog

Long time no blog

from the oh-look-he's-alive! dept.

[IMPORTANT - For everyone coming here looking for the video file, be patient! Atariboy is making a torrent for you all!]

Hello, yes, I'm still around...

Watched the first 2 episodes of Channel 4's new comedy "The IT Crowd" - very amusing and eerily familiar when compared against my workplace! Channel 4 have even been kind enough to post episodes online so you can watch them....

...BUT they're only streaming video (no downloads), in Windows Media format (no Linux or Mac!) and are protected with DRM (no fair use!). Two things smack of irony immediately here :-

1. They're alienating the very IT geeks that make up a chunk of their target audience


2. They restrict fair use yet the office of the main characters is covered in stickers saying "Fair Use Has A Posse" - a well known anti-drm sticker

Anyway, I refused to put up with that, so I've removed the DRM from the latest episode so I can watch it how and where I want.