Internet

I am currently in Switzerland on a business trip. In between work, I managed to get some time over the Swiss national holiday to visit the CERN. CERN is world famous for the invention of WWW and of course most recently, the almost certainty that the Higgs Boson (aka. “The God Particle”) - the particle that gives energy mass - exists. The CERN tour is completely free and highly recommended. I visited the Atlas experiment with a colleague (who just so happened to have a Phd. in Physics) and questions were encouraged at every turn. What impressed me the most was the fact that there was no stupid questions. You can be a Phd weilding Physicist or a child and each question was handled the same by the staff. The guide (an active researcher at CERN) even expressed disappointment at the Higgs: ...

If your passion is in technology, you often sigh with the marketing buzzwords used in sales. Cloud Computing doesn’t actually mean anything specific (or could mean a lot of things). It’s that a lot of things to a lot of people who makes it useful as a term, an ideology, a way of explaining why you-oh-so-need-to-do-this-now. Cloud computing for me is a platform description. I think of the myriad of hosting companies who offer a platform to build your service atop. ...

I am not a big gamer; I primarily love systems and how they work. I do own a PS3 (amazing hardware I might add) and I prefer FPS and generally devious natured video games (like the GTA franchise). Does that make me a bad person who wants to kill people? Of course not; nothing could be further from the truth. But some people stick their fingers in their ears and shout “LA LA LA Columbine LALALA Terrorists LALALA Violent Video Games!”. They say it is destructive to childrens young precious minds. The “Think of The Children” argument always disgusted me; its like shouting Fire in a packed room when their is no danger: it is false, just to garner attention and a sickening twisted version of the facts. Are violent video games harmful to kids? Probably; I wouldn’t advocate giving them access since they; just like movies are clearly rated for Adults. * ...

I just read one of the most informative and insightful blog posts of my entire life. Half serious a guy takes a look back at when he had to beat up a Girl. Weird stuff! Yes, you read that right, I had to beat up a girl … not a woman. She was asking for it and she deserved it. I Had to Beat Up a Girl

Nokia have announced an upgrade to the N800 Internet tablet, called the N810. I suspect its called that because it is more of an incremental upgrade than a total visual refresh it was going from an Nokia 770 to N800. Here it is: (Picture Courtesy: Internet Tablet Talk) It sports a nice new hardware keyboard; inbuilt GPS (For satellite mapping) and OS 2008 (an upgrade to the operating system it runs). The N800 will also benefit from OS 2008, which will include GoogleTalk, Skype, Mozilla browser, among the usual such as its email client, media player, file manager, control panel, assorted games and an image/PDF viewer. The one feature it will emit is an inbuilt FM Radio, which was axed to make the N810 a smaller tablet. It still retains the best screen size for web browsing, bluetooth connectivity, and of course Wifi which is central to the tablets existance! No word on what easter eggs are included if any; on the N800 it was a radio and the N770 it was the microphone. Engadget has a great writeup on it, choc-a-bloc full of high resolution photos with size comparisons to Apples iPhone. ...

Microsoft has settled with Eolas over a number of patents regarding browser plugins which chicago based Eolas filed patents for in 1998. A jury in Chicago then found Microsoft guilty of infringing on Eolas’ patents and was told to pay $521m US Dollars in ‘damages’. That ruling was overturned and a fresh trial ordered which was due to start very soon, but it seems Microsoft has decided to pay out: ...

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! ...

I am embarking on a journey I believe everyone should: digitise as much photo, video and documents you can. It serves as a record of your existance, a guide to people of what your life was like. Why? is the most obvious question you might ask. Well I will tell you what prompted me, which is the culmination of a lot of different things. This brings me to the first reason: Television. I find shows fascinating where people discover their ancestors were orphans, incredibly wealthy or died from exhaustion in a mine. It really makes you think what makes you the person you are, so to speak. David Attenborough says (although I have paraphrased) that if people look back at his 100-150 hours of television, they will get a snapshot of what the glaciers, mountains, desert and animals were like in the latter half of the twentieth century, not a complete picture, but one nonetheless of what Earth was like at that time. ...

BBC are putting together a Mac, Windows and Linux user, to debate the pros and cons of being a users for each operating system. While this in itself is good news (more airtime for alternatives), most of the comments are highly in favour of Linux, then Mac and lastly Windows. This is part of the BBC’s coverage of Windows Vista. My hope for the future is that Mac and Linux gain at least 10% each (20% total) over the next 5 years of the home desktop market, as this will push innovation forward, like AMD and Intel competition. ...

AOL, the longtime dialup king, who esperate to keep customers at its’ site who have switched to broadband, is offering free dot com and dot net domains. There are a few caches however, one must be in possession of a US mobile phone (cell) number. Luckily I have a cousin stateside willing to help out ;-) . I got to register NeilGrogan.com (My actual name) which I hadn’t bothered with before. AOL is the legal owner however, so has all the say legally to the name. At the minute it provides 100 2GB email accounts with the free domain, and if you visit the address online, it redirects to an AIM Pages profile of the owner (for all intents and purposes, it’s another social networking site). Its a good way to drum up interest in its online offerings, but they should be more flexible. If anyone is in any doubt, this is just an ‘alright’ kind of deal, AOL say they will give you the option to buy the name back in the future, but I won’t hold my breath. ...