406 Not Acceptable

This picture just had to make it one week:

We got bored waiting for someone to turn up at the pub (and our food,) so we had some fun. The crazy stuff computer science students get up to!

I am currently suffering from a nasty caffeine head-ache. I went home (after guzzling tons of tea, coffee, and coke to live through the evil last weeks of the term,) to find all the tea and coffee was caffeine free. Now I normally would have no problem with this, but after a ‘caffeine binge’ not touching the stuff will cause a nasty headache.

Trying to do an assessment with a banging head is not fun. Neither are the pains of three hours of football

Another day, another three Firefox extensions ready for you to try out.

Request Access

Whether you’re still in education or stuck at work (I made that sound fun, didn’t I?) It’s highly likely that you have seen the ‘Access Denied: Inappopiate Content’ message, or filtered by ‘x’ webpage crop up on numerous occasions. Well how about a nice extension for you to message whoever decided to block the site in question? With some luck the site may be accessable one day.

We have a bit of a theme here, two extensions used for annotating the web. A really handy set of tools if you’re writing a dissertation, thesis, or just an esssay. I’ll be repeating myself if I describe the benefits of each extension, so I’ll let the authors do the talking. These extensions handle the task of annotating the web in different ways, one with a separate frame, the other in sticky note style.

ReframeIt

ReframeIt adds a collapsible side-margin to your web browser where you can comment on the text of any website. All comments are part of a free online community where you can share your thought and ideas across the web.ReframeIt adds a new layer of meaning to the web by allowing users to provide their own comments along-side any website. The ReframeIt Plug-in creates a collapsible margin in the side of your web browser where the your thoughts and ideas are displayed. All Comments are organized through groups and tags allowing other users to locate interesting web content and see it placed in a new context.

Fleck

Fleck allows you to add Notes and Bullets to websites. You can then share these annotated pages with other people. After installation a small button will appear in your browser. Click that button when you visit a website and you will get a toolbar at the bottom of the page you are visiting. Another small icon will show you if there are Annotated versions of the page you are currently visiting.

Whilst for some time the ASUS Eee PC 701 has been the lone affordable ultraportable laptop on the market, it won’t enjoy that priveledge for much longer. With the emergence of the Everex CloudBook the Eee has finally got some competition. Here are the specifications for this little machine:

• gOS Rocket operating system (Linux variant)
• 1.2GHz, VIA C7-M Processor (ULV)
• 512MB DDR2 533MHz, SDRAM
• 30GB Hard Disk Drive (3600rpm parallel ATA)
• 7″ WVGA TFT Display (800 x 480)
• VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics
• VIA High-Definition Audio
• 802.11b/g WiFi
• 10/100 Ethernet Port
• DVI Port
• Two USB 2.0 Ports
• 4-in-1 Media Card Reader
• 0.3MP Webcam
• Headphone/Line-Out Port
• Microphone/Line-In Port
• 4-cell Lithium-Ion Battery

Now these are quite impressive when you find the Cloudbook will retail at $399 — the same price as the 4GB eee PC. For the same price a user will get a processor running at twice the speed (the eee uses a 900mhz chip, but it is factory underclocked to 630mhz) and just under 8 times the storage space. Sadly, well maybe not for eee users, there is a twist in the tale. The hard drive only spings at 3600 rpm, your typical desktop drive will run at twice this. This means, according to NotebookReview.com:

Both the average data transfer speed (read/write speed) and the average data access time (how long it takes the drive to locate data) for the 30GB hard drive where slower than either the internal 4GB SSD inside the Asus Eee PC or a 16GB SDHC card used as a second storage drive inside the Eee PC.

Now that is quite staggering information. Thus, one could overclock (techincally this would not actually be overclocking, as you will be simply making the processor run at its correct speed,) their eee then insert a 16GB, or soon a 32GB, SDHC card and have a, plausibly, superior system to the Everex; although, this would be more expensive.

Secondly, the operating system gOS Linux is just as poor as Xandros Linux on the eee. Neither machine comes with an operating system that the majority of users would be satisfied with. If either machine used something like Xubunu, or even a tweaked version of Ubuntu, the systems would feel much more complete. For reference I removed Xandros for Xubuntu on my eee in less than a week.

Now Asus will be releasing a more expensive version of the Eee, the Eee PC 900 that features numerous improvements:

• 9″ screen running at 1024×600
• Multitouch trackpad
• Integrated bluetooth
• 8 or 12GB solid state drive

Now all this on top of what the Eee PC already offers for only $100 more ($400) seems like a great bargin; although, the price starts to tred on the heels of larger machines with much higher specifications. This will probably cause the price of the 4GB 701 to drop, and the 8GB model move to the $300 price point. Otherwise, I can see the 701s struggle; I own a 701 and would be tempted with the 900 if the price stays at $400.

I know many people who are turned off the idea of the Eee or the Cloudbook, simply because of the 7 inch screen. Now with a 9 inch screen these people will have to think again about these laptops. If everything goes well, demand for the Asus Eee Pc 900 could even outstrip the current demand for the 701.

There doesn’t seem to be long before the next major release of Wordpress — version 2.5. Originally planned for release on the 10th of March, it seems that Wordpress 2.5 is not far away. Looks like I might have an interesting couple of weeks (if I choose to ignore revision, which is bound to happen;) with the possible releases of Ubuntu Hardy Heron and Wordpress 2.5. For whatever reason the developers decided to ignore 2.4, I guess this was intended to make the release seem more important.

Wordpress 2.5 does feature major changes in the Dashboard and ‘Write’ pages, but nothing there really interests me. It will probably be easier to navigate, but I don’t find the current solution to be cumbersome. Here are the major changes:

• Faster load times.
• Multi-file uploads.
• Customisable Dashboard
• New “Media Manager” for images, audio, video, etc.
• Built-in gallery function.
• Built-in (and pluggable) Gravatars support.
• One-click auto-update for plug-ins.
• Reactivate plugins after a ‘Deactivate All Plug-ins’ action.
• Tag management

Notice the one in bold? (I really hope you did, otherwise you might want to see an optician.) Yep, a built-in gallery! Now I don’t need to bother with setting up Gallery2, or any other Gallery plugin. Wordpress will have the function straight out of the box, except it doesn’t come in a box… So when the stable version of 2.5 is released, and Dreamhost get round to supporting it, I’ll happily move over for the gallery alone. The other features all sound nice (who doesn’t like faster load times?) but nothing else really sounds groundbreaking. I wonder how the many Gallery plug-ins will react, will we see some improvements being made to them, to warrant their installation? Or will they just die out (well, the Wordpress forks.)

Not sure how, but the cacheing seems to be weird. I might need to sort out the settings, I’ve lost a post thanks to it… and you might not even see this one for sometime…

Great!

A nice find on Bristol road:

 

Not sure if the sign is still there, the road works are probably finished now.

Getting Diablo 2 mods working in Linux can be a pain (especially when you try running them from an Asus eee pc,) although Diablo runs perfectly in Wine, mods can be somewhat more tricky. I do know that any mod that uses Nefarius’s NefEx system will run perfectly, as I created and tested the Ragnarok mod using this system (on my eee too!) However, some mods can be more tricky to run and TFW: The Awakening is a special case as it utilises a vbs script to run under Windows. This is the only mod I know of that uses such a system.

One user on the Keep, AGUtilities, has created a nice bash script, which simulates the effects of the vbs script under Linux. All the calls to Wine are inserted in the script so all you have to do is put the script into your TFW folder and run it. Make sure you have Wine installed before running the script, otherwise you’ll just get a bunch of error messages.

I’ve checked the script and it does nothing malicious,  it’s pretty easy to understand what it is doing.

You can get the script from here.

I’ve provided a download mirror here.

It seems by predictions for today were almost right, with Chelsea narrowly beating Arsenal 2-1 and Manchester United – helped by a slightly controversial sending off – thrashing Liverpool 3-0.

Right now I am still feeling the effects of Wednesday/Thursdays all nighter. I have felt sleepy ever since that crazy night of Java, I’ve even ran out of milk so I can’t keep myself going with cups of tea or coffee   What’s even more depressing is the fact I still have two assignments and revision to look forward to over the next 5 weeks, then exams after that. So I won’t get much time to relax over the ‘Easter holidays’ which basically started after easter, so really aren’t easter holidays at all.

WooOOOO! I now get to escape from Tesco! They even decided to pay me correctly for a change, just as I leave.

On the other hand, this means I have to get cracking down with revision, and two assignments… which won’t be fun. Aleast I’ll be able to watch Grand Slam Sunday at on the huge TV at Opal with no-one around, as everyone has gone home from University.

What I want to happen:

Arsenal to beat Chelsea

Liverpool to draw with Manchester United

Why? As a neutral it keeps the title race open and I’d rather have the flowing football of Arsenal get rewarded over Chelsea’s dire stuff. Especially when they have numptys like Ashley Cole in their squad. Secondly, a Liverpool draw gives Everton some hope in snatching 4th spot and disrupting the so called ‘big four’. With the money every side gets these days the extra money from the Champions League is not as huge a factor as it has been in the past (that money basically gave us a big 2, then a big 3, and finally a big 4.) Sides like Everton, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Tottenham and even Newcastle have a much greater potential to break into the Champions League, and break up the ‘big four’. I’ll be glad to see a much more open league, as long as the standards stay high.

However, what I expect to happen:

Chelsea to draw with Arsenal

Manchester United to beat Liverpool
This would all but end the league race, but weaken Liverpools grasp on the 4th spot. Shame as this year looked to have the most open title race in years.