Set Away in Konversation based on Pidgin’s status March 9, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentHere’s one for the nerds. If you happen to run both Konversation (for IRC) and Pidgin (for IM) you may be interested in this plugin. To install, save into ~/.purple/plugins (you might need it to have a .pl extension but my web server doesn’t allow me to serve any files with .pl in them). You might also need to chmod +x it. Finally, (re)start Pidgin and enable it.
What does it do? It sets you to Away and Back in Konversation based on your Pidgin account status. Why? Because Konversation 1.0.1 (I know, it’s old and out of date but we don’t get to run bleeding edge at work) doesn’t do auto-away while Pidgin does. Enabling this lets people on IRC see when you aren’t available.
Firefox usage shrinking? Of course! March 2, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentSo it seems Firefox usage is shrinking. Maybe that’s surprising for some but not for me. Why? Because they’re really bad at fixing actual issues that affect actual people.
It wasn’t too long ago that Firefox was finally bearable enough to use on Mac OS X and thus became my universal browser (used on Linux, Windows and Mac). The thing is though, it’s not the browser itself that made me do this, it’s the cross-platform extensions that made it such a compelling option and that’s one of the problems with Firefox.
They released 3.6 two months ago? I still haven’t upgraded because it’ll break some extensions I use and I haven’t yet had the time to check if they’ll work anyway.
This is a real problem with Mozilla apps. Their usage of a single version number instead of component versions means that extensions either work or they don’t. There is no way for an extension to say what it uses (and thus for the browser to know if the extension will work with it) so instead the extension has to say what versions it works with and then has to be updated every time a new release comes out.
This same problem has kept me from upgrading Thunderbird to 3.0 but there it’s worse because while FF 3.6 is an incremental update to FF 3.5, TB 3.0 is a rewrite compared to TB 2.0.
I’ve been watching the development of Chrome with some interest. It’s available for Windows/Mac/Linux and the most important extensions I use seem to be available. The only problem? My machine at work runs openSuSE 11.0 which is not able to run Chrome.
RIP HP 845c February 24, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , 2commentsThe other day we had a big storm and there was a lightning strike on a nearby power pole that threw the main circuit breaker. Unfortunately, it seems there were a few casualties.
Our trusty old printer, a HP DeskJet 845c is dead. The printer itself wasn’t on though so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it does still work and that it was just the power dongle that has died (another power dongle died so that theory has some credit). At this point though I doubt it’s easy/cheap to find a new power dongle and Bree wanted to print something so we just got a new printer.
The thing I loved about the 845c is how cheap it was to run. Unlike previous printers it could print lots of pages from a tank and didn’t dry out when it wasn’t used for a month. It was our first printer that did color but we never really used that. It certainly wasn’t any good a printing photos.
I hate trying to pick new things so I did the same thing I did the last time we needed a printer, I asked someone I knew what they had (and confirmed that it worked well for them). That let me to get a Brother HL-2170W.
This printer is a mono laser that does network printing and has wireless built in. Brother has a USB-only, network only and this wireless version so it’s possible to see how much each feature adds to the price. $100 for the base model, $70 for networking (and an extra 1kg of weight), $30 for wireless. The networking was high on my priority list because while I have hardware sitting around that could operate as a network print server it’s not actually setup and running and the last time I tried to setup this kind of system it failed. Wireless wasn’t much extra and meant we’d have more flexibility in placement.
In it’s “low quality, low toner” mode it produces results that are better than what the 845c gave and it does it quicker too. We can now print from anywhere instead of the previous routine of walking over to the printer, plugging it in then waiting until the job was done so it’s way more convenient.
Isaac says… February 16, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentIsaac: What’s that? (pointing to chest)
Me: That’s a nipple.
Isaac (to Bree): Do you have pickles?
1GBPS FTTH from Google February 11, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentIf the government won’t force the lazy, monopolistic telcos to compete you need someone with deep pockets to come along and show them how it’s supposed to be done. The state of broadband access over in the US is just terrible and I have high hopes of Google bringing about real change (even if it’s only by forcing the telcos to compete and invest in the required infrastrcture). I just hope the telcos don’t manage to derail this in the courts (as they’ve done to other attempts to launch small-scale high-speed broadband access).
Story here.
If Telstra wasn’t so up themselves they could have done something likw this in Australia and actually lived up to their claims of being the most important business in this country. At least our government had the balls to tell Testra to bugger off when it was clear they were going to be dicks about it. Our broadband future should be in good hands thanks to the NBN.
Update 11 Feb 2010
Well… bummer. Seems there’s a lot of negative opinion on the NBN. I don’t really care if it fails though, as long as the situation here gets better instead of descending into the kind of craptastic situation the US is in now.
Avatard February 10, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentOh noes, I’ve been Avatard.
For much better examples (some of which are NSFW) check out the Avatardation blog.
Singing in the rain February 8, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentOn Sunday I sang in a concert. It was supposed to be a nice sunny day on Mount Tamborine and we were to sing in the botanical gardens.
Unfortunately things didn’t quite workout that way. The weather wasn’t exactly great and record rainfall the night before cut off most of the roads there.
Nevertheless, the show went on and it was good.
Symbian’s open source promise realised February 5, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentCongratulations guys. I didn’t think this’d happen so quickly or completely.
I’m really starting to lean back towards Symbian and away from Android. Of course some decent, modern-spec phones to run it on would be nice. Hopefully we’ll get some more manufacturers doing Symbian phones because Nokia’s focus seems to be on cheap handsets for emerging markets.
Maybe now the platform is all there we’ll start to see Symbian getting ported to existing phones (like how Linux gets ported to everything). A Nexus One or (for less money) Liquid A1 should make a great Symbian phone.
It might even be worthwhile to look into running it on my Treo 650. Now that would be an interesting hack. Not sure if I’ll have the time though…
Isaac says… January 22, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentI had this fascinating exchange with my son on the way home from kindy the other day.
Isaac: Did you know that Dorothy (the dinosaur, from The Wiggles) has a second mouth insider her?
Me: What for?
Isaac: So she can talk.
Me: What’s wrong with her normal mouth?
Isaac: It doesn’t open.
He’s right of course but what an odd thing for a child to think of. He hasn’t seen any Wiggles recently though we do listen to them in the car.
Isaac fails night training January 6, 2010
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentIt’s only been 2 weeks but we’re giving up on night training Isaac again. The last two mornings he has failed to wake after wetting his bed, continuing to sleep in the wet puddle. He may be close but he’s not there yet and with normal routines starting up again we don’t have the time to wash his sheets every day.