Category: news

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Don’t text and walk!

From the Guardian…

In case anyone reading this is one of the 68,000 individuals who apparently interfaced thus with street furniture in London last year (mostly resulting in cuts and bruises, but with a fair proportion of broken noses, cheekbones and one fractured skull in the mix too) and therefore is self-evidently stupid enough to need the problem further delineated, these are injuries caused by people who do not understand the importance of peripheral vision. Until, that is, they compromise it by texting as they walk along the street and into lampposts, signs, bollards and other pedestrians.

Read more.

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Final goodbye for early web icon

Goodbye Netscape Navigator.

BBC reports on the end of an era for the web icon which once had 90% of the browser market.

A web browser that gave many people their first experience of the web is set to disappear.

Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 March 2008, the company has said.

In the mid-1990s, as the commercial web began to take off, the browser was used by more than 90% of people online.

Its market share has since slipped to just 0.6% as other browsers such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox have eroded its user base.

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It’s tiny, but big…

Well the 2GB Micro SD card I ordered form Play.com arrived yesterday.

It’s for my LG Viewty to give it a little more memory over the in-built 100MB.

The Micro SD card is tiny, really really small.

I am impressed that it holds 2GB, I look at some of my old clunky memory cards which hold 64MB and I think to myself how things have moved on.

It’s tiny, but big.

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Adobe AIR

Adobe today announced the immediate availability of Adobe AIR, a new platform for building rich internet applications (RIAs) across different platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Adobe AIR enables developers to create RIAs on the desktop using the skills and Web technologies — such as HTML, Ajax, PDF, Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex — they already employ. Applications deployed on Adobe AIR have the advantages of browser-based RIAs, such as speed of development, ease of use, and access from virtually anywhere. Yet they also have the benefits of desktop applications, such as the ability to read/write local files, work with other applications on a user’s computer and maintain local data storage on the desktop.

It’s an interesting variation on applications, some use desk bound applications such as Microsoft Office, whilst others use web based applications such as Google Apps.

It’s looking like Adobe AIR will allow users to have the flexibility of web based applications with the backup of desk bound applications when there is no internet connection (such as on plane).

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LG Viewty Crash

I have been having a weird issue with my new LG Viewty. Every now and again it will “die”. Nothing will work, no buttons, not anything. Initially I thought it was the battery running out, but even plugging it into the power supply has no impact.

Currently the only solution  is to remove the battery and then replace it, then all works normally.

I am unsure of what is causing it, or whether there is a better solution. We’ll see whether it continues.

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2GB Micro SD

Well after some thought and a bit of traipsing around the high street, in the end I ordered a 2GB Micro SD card for my new LG Viewty from Play.com.

It was a little more than the prices quoted at Amazon but I didn’t have to pay a delivery charge so was quite competitive in the end.

Should arrive tomorrow or Tuesday.

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Now why isn’t it working…

I have been tidying up my office at home, and moving the desk around.

I took the opportunity to unplug everything from the iMac in order to clean the power cables of all the external drives I have – it’s incredible how dusty they get stuck behind the Mac and the desk.

Having moved everything off the desk and moved the desk I put everything back.

Problem, the (somewhat irritating) blue light on my external LaCie DVD burner wasn’t on. Checked  the powerstrip (I knew I had plugged it in), checked that the power supply was attached, even checked the firewire cables.

Hmmm.

Okay lets unplug all the other firewire devices; I have three firewire devices daisy-chained together, the DVD burner, an EyeTV 410 and a LaCie external hard drive.

So with just the burner attached, still no luck, wouldn’t even appear in System Profiler.

Had I broken it?

Was there a secret on off switch?

Annoyed, you bet!

Okay maybe it’s a duff socket on the powerstrip, lets change that over…

What’s that…

Ah!

The plug was in the socket, but was not all the way in.

Plug it in, okay so now it works!

Doh.

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Olympus E-3 Review

Digital Photography Review has posted a review of the Olympus E-3 EVOLT and the reviewer was very positive about the camera, but was less sure if people would switch.

To start with there’s no doubt that the E-3 is, without a shadow of a doubt the best Four-Thirds camera ever made and a more than worthy (if a little tardy) successor to the original E-1. It offers users of Olympus ‘mid range’ SLRs an affordable way to upgrade to a faster, even more customizable camera with a pro-grade weatherproof body and a significantly bigger, brighter viewfinder. But does it offer enough to tempt users of other systems over to the Four-Thirds camp? The answer to that question is far less clear-cut.

I really like the Digital Photography Reviews as they are so thorough including sample and comparative shots, if you want to get a camera, I would check the review on Digital Photography Review first before anywhere else.

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Airport Expressions

So there was me thinking my Airport woes were over having installed an Airport Express which had been working fine.

Today having spent the day out, found despite a strong green light the Airport network was nowhere to be seen.

I could see the Airport Express in the Airport Utility, that’s because it’s connected to my network via cable and I was using my 802.11n network, so I through the Utility rebooted the Airport Express, however though this did not seem to solve the problem.

In the end I power cycled the Airport Express.

I am hoping that this is not going to go the way of my Airport Extreme, reliability of my wireless network is essential I don’t want to be constantly rebooting it.

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MacBook Pro Airport issue resolved, possibly…

I think I may have resolved my MacBook Pro Airport re-connection issues.

I ensured that Airport is at the top of the network configurations and this seems to have solved my re-connection issue when running a pure 802.11n wireless network.

I find it strange that something as simple as moving a network configuration to the top should solve this issue with an 802.11n network. However it is not an issue when running in b/g compatible mode!

Well it’s working for me now.