This is the text of an email I sent to RTE. In America, CNN Television network is allowing the copying, remixing and free use of presidential debates as long as they are given credit, I believe RTE should follow its lead and extend to other programs: First of all, sorry this isn’t to the right department, I couldn’t find the right one. The technical department which runs the website would make likely be able to deal with and respond to this issue. ...
Well this is not a technology related post, but I get asked about it alot and people have sketchy details about what it is (ie. they know my vision is messed up). Keratoconus (from Greek: kerato- horn, cornea; and konos cone), is a degenerative non-inflammatory disorder of the eye in which structural changes within the cornea cause it to thin and change to a more conical shape than its normal gradual curve. In plain English, light bends in a distorted way to make vision ghosted, blurry and less sharp. Glasses cannot fix this problem as they fix issues with your natural lense behind the cornea, as usually it has improper focus. ...
I got inspiration over this past Easter holidays, being bored, I gave Linux Gaming a shot. I am not much of a gamer myself and most websites aren’t very helpful or have too small a focus (only shoot-em-ups, or only certain Linux distros etc.). Inspired by the fine folks at OpenSourceMac.org and OpenSourceWindows.org, I announce my own project: Ultimate Games Disc. UGD is a project I think I can make very successful. My aims are as follows: ...
I heard the news one hour before it was announced: Apple and EMI are going Digital Rights Management (DRM) free, albeit at a slightly higher cost and quality. One of my pet hates is people who bash the European Union, often citing I will admit its not glowing charachteristics. These same people never admit the things Europe does right, which may well be this hopefully landslide affect against destroying DRM. To quote The Register: ...
Here’s a few items I’d like to share with everyone as I find them extremely useful, hopefully you will too, thats if you have never used them! My Top 10 Apps of 2007 in descending order: 10. Spybot Search and Destroy Always a must on spyware infested Windows XP installs I come across (Unfortunately all to often). It removes a lot of the bad stuff, and my most used feature is system startup section, as I can stop all that crud from loading and slowing everything to a crawl. 9. iTunes (OS X Version) ...
I recorded a tutorial, showing people how to extract YouTube (and other flash based sites videos’) and get them onto your iPod. It was recorded on my Mac, so unfortunately its Mac specific, but really only iSquint program is, so if anyone can suggest a replacement on Windows or Linux, I will add it to the details of the video. I use Garageband for audio, iMovieHD to edit the video and audio and Copernicus to record my screen. I started by getting everything I needed ready (all the Firefox tabs etc.) and hit record in Copernicus. I imported that .mov into iMovieHD, and then proceeded to open Garageband, watch the video and talk myself through my own recording. I saved the voice part in Garageband, exported it and then imported it into iMovie. I checked to make sure the audio and video lined up perefectly (what I done on screen matched what I was saying) and then exported it as a .mov from iMovieHD. Then I uploaded the result to Youtube, which I think for a first try ain’t bad!! Watch it here: ...
Tor, (or The Onion Router) is a service which connects people all over the world with one aim: privacy. Tor protects from traffic analysis, basically where you have been. Benn to you Banks website? Feel like buying something off Amazon or Ebay? Your behaviour online is by no means private, you hand over your numerical address, browser details, country, city, versions of which plugins you use, where you came from, just to name a few. You may have seen on sites something to the effect of “Welcome Google user!”, that website knows exactly what you typed to get to it. Tor routes your online activity through different computers, for example mine went through an educational institution in the US and an Internet Service Provider in the Netherlands. ...
Just like software. it can be really useful to open source other things in life, collaboration is nearly always a good thing. John Buckman, CEO of Magnatune Records knows this principle all too well. He gave a speech at a Red Hat conference a while back, and he talked about the importance of music artists sharing the “source”, i.e. basically sharing the method of how the produced the music in the first place. This allows easier mixing, and a higher chamnce your work could be featured on TV or in a film, and you get paid ...
I found this doing a search for Domino Records DRM. I looked up some of my favourite artists to see if they were part of the “MAFIAA” that is the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), not surprisingly some were (70% of sold music worldwide is put out by this cartel). I got rather confused when a Franz Ferdinand album appeared on the list, when their debut album did not. Seems the record label did a deal with Sony for distribution. I found a piece of information quite old now (May 2006), but interesting anyway: ...
Just a note on the new look, hope you like it. I am very fortunate to be running Wordpress, the world’s best blogging tool (and it is open source). I looked up the fabulous theme site to go with it, and I came across this one and liked it very much. The last design was my own, but I had awful trouble implementing to look the same in all browsers (especially Internet Explorer, even the latest one, argh). I know the old one can be improved, so I am submitting to WP Themes directory, which I will update this post with the link. I love the new theme, it brings what I couldn’t to the old one: choosable colours and sameness across browsers. I’d like to thank Justin Winslow for that! Did I mention that the exact same colours are used in this theme? It brings a total different look though, the power of perception! So now you know these are the official DF’s colours! ...