Archive for the ‘computers & internet’ Category

xkcd … pretty funny!

i’ve had a cold since about tuesday. the usual symptoms began with a sore throat followed by a shitty head cold. i’m felling a bit better today, but i’ve still got a cough and my nose feels like an open tap. i will probably have a runny nose for a few days, then i should be fine. i rarely get a cold and i always hate it when i do get one.

today i need to go out, reluctantly, and get some film developed. i also need to catch up with matt from the korean herald. i’ll probably stop by and have a beer, pick up my business cards, and head home. i’m not keen to stay out too long today. i’d rather come home where it’s warm. and i can be miserable in peace.

i’ve also started moving sites over to the new server. i’ve decided to switch server companies and i’ve bought a 10 year plan. holy shit, that’s a long time. super-dave.com is already moved, as is nerfy.com and most other minor sites. i still have a few sites to shift … which i’ll leave until next weekend. the problem is that sites with databases are a pain in the arse to move, so i’ve been moving stuff slowly, for fear of fucking it up. super-dave.com has a database, so i’m pleased with myself for moving it over successfully. but i don’t want to get too confident, or shit will probably start to go awry in a big hurry.

next saturday i’ll move craig’s sites too. the new server company has sub-uer accounts, so craig will be able to have all his own login details … pretty sweet.

i’m completely obsessed with boston globe’s new feature called the big picture. this is a regular photo gallery of large, high quality photos focusing on world events. the last three have been hurricane ike, north korea, and observing ramadan.

the big picture represents the best of photo journalism and photography in general. the photography is absolutely brilliant.

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this is pretty funny, family guy creator seth mcfarlane has started releasing short animations on youtube. so far, this is my favourite.

the talk of the town is google’s new web browser, entitled chrome. the browser is very minimal and light (in the usual google fashion).

my first impression of chrome is that it’s fast. the browser loads and moves quickly. pages load relatively fast as well. the browser uses little space for tabs and icons, leaving the majority of the real estate for the web pages. that’s my favourite part, how little space is wasted on icons and how much space is left for the internet.

chrome will be yet another contender in the browser wars. but as some pundits point out, chrome may take more of firefox’s userbase than from internet explorer’s userbase. and then there’s the sinister side to why google might create a browser. after all, the more they know about you …

ibuddha.org has received a face lift, and a few extra photos. the site now has a 100 photograph, horizontal scrolling gallery. yay!!

i really like the new look … however, be warned, it takes a while to load.

oh, speaking of web stuff, i bought a few domains. i noticed that davidsmeaton.org and davidsmeaton.net were still available. so i bought them … might as well own the lot.

got a hella busy weekend coming up … tonight i’m trying to finish angie’s photos (which i’m 3 weeks behind on) and update natalya’s site (which i’m months behind on)

ryan gets here in the morning. we’re gonna check out the magnum photography exhibition, go to cheungmuro and look around, then head to dongjak and do some photography on the bridge. the plan is to photograph the han river at sunset (here’s hoping for clear weather). the view from the bridge is probably the best location in korea. we can see the sunset, the han river, lots of buildings and a motorway on the right, and the 63 building on the left.

however, tonight’s work is progressing well. i’ve upgraded my site and fixed the permalink error. i’m running wordpress 2.6.1 which has a few error fixes from the wordpress 2.6 release. i also fixed some small cosmetic issues and uploaded a different smilie pack

i’m a bit hungry, so i might head out soon and get some food. actually, i’ve been a good boy lately. my diet has consisted of kimbab (lots), bibimbab, ramyeon, neng myon and dongass. it’s been a 95% korean diet … with the occasional sandwich thrown in … usually on the way to work.

but, i have beer … so i’ll grab a snack and have a few drinks while i do some editing.

oh, i almost forgot, i’ve started listening to last.fm. these days my regular music has been getting a bit dull, and i’m tired of changing playlists. so i figured it’s time to explore and find some new music … it’s working out well.

shout out to all my new friends at leicaclub.net. i joined this site a couple of months ago, but i never got around to posting any photos. so, a few days ago i updated my profile, uploaded some photos to my profile, added a photo to the gallery and wrote a post in the ‘introduce yourself’ forum.

i’ve already got a few responses and some feedback on my photos. leicaclub.net is a korean site and everyone i’ve met so far is very friendly. so i think i’ll contribute as much as i can.

i’ve also been invited to a cafe in cheungmuro called ‘amigos’ where the leicaclub.net members often hang out. i may head over there this saturday and make contact with them. while there, i’ll probably buy a few accessories for my cameras, have a beer, make some cool leica friends.

just quietly, i’m also hoping that i can get a few leica club stickers or badge, just to pin on my camera bag. lol

fuck! the company hosting my sites fried one of their servers. as a result, i lost all my stuff for nearly 60 hours … as you can imagine, i’m pretty pissed off about that.

i’m going to investigate some more reliable hosting companies. it’s highly likely that i’ll move all my stuff to another company in august during my holidays.

sorry about the downtime.

although the olpc program is old news, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing to report. rumour has it that the XO 1.0 (the original olpc laptop) is going to be succeeded by an amazing new version which could actually become the prototype for how regular laptops are built.

XO 2.0 was unveiled recently and is a cutting edge design based on concepts that microsoft, apple and linux all hope to work on: a fully touch screen computer. the concept is simple, to design a computer with no peripherals. that means no keyboard and no mouse. the keyboard will be an on screen touch pad and the keyboard will be replaced by touch gestures.

the design is known as the ‘clamshell’, which folds in half. however, both sides of the shell are touch screens, meaning that one screen can be used as a keyboard or drawing pad, while the other acts as the monitor. this opens the idea up to an infinite number of possibilities: including two users working together from either side of the laptop, or using the laptop as a splitscreen device (similar to the nintendo DS concept).

the idea is brilliant and i’m impressed that kids in impoverished countries may have their hands on this technology before we do.

links to the olpc program, their wiki page and a more indepth article from computerworld.