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Thursday, June 12 Oh smashing, now I can stop using Dictionary.com all the time Great though it is, Dictionary.com has its shortcomings. I've used Urban Dictionary for a long while too, but there's other great sites out there that provide functionality you'd otherwise have to pay for. LifeHacker has the lowdown (click to read the article - I love Gawker blogs!). I'm really busy at the moment, so blogging's gone onto the backburner. Sorry to any of the (semi) regular readers. :) Labels: dictionary, kerblam, random finds, useful, web trawling, word nerd Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 6/12/2008 10:51:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 1869583116718488589· | Permalink Tuesday, May 20 Personal debt, and amusing placenames I was somewhat alarmed to re-read on the BBC News site last weekend that personal debt in the UK passed the one TRILLION pound mark almost four years ago - and it's well on the way to doubling. That's a huge amount of money (and a UK trillion is far more than a US trillion). I also learnt that, according to the BBC's Hugh Pym, "If you took £1 trillion worth of £5 notes they'd cover a county the size of Leicestershire." Blimey. We also keep on getting debt collectors' notices through our letterbox for one of the tenants who lived in our house before we moved in, and at last count he's run up more than £4,000 worth of debt... How do people manage to live so far beyond their means for such a long time without realising that they'll probably never be able to get a decent credit card, loan or a mortgage again? Having bad credit to me is worse than being shot; at least you can recover comparatively quickly from most gunshot wounds. Oh, and then on my random pootles around the Interwebs, I found a town in central North America called "Truth or Consequences". I'm not kidding: http://www.flickr.com/map?place_id=aTimE6CbApWrrSmE for the cold, hard proof (and geotagged pics). This then sent me off on a voyage of discovery, finding weird placenames... This compilation of US and UK names had me scratching my head in places. I mean, what could possibly convince someone to christen a town with a name like Monkey Eyebrow? Anyway, that's my thought for the day. Now time to go back to trying to wash the paint off my hands (we were painting our living room this evening.) Labels: bizarre, grumpy old man, kerblam, money, names, paint Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 5/20/2008 02:39:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 5010052612680702259· | Permalink Friday, April 11 Windows error codes, know thy master Those fscking Windows error codes really annoy me sometimes - how am I supposed to remember what 0x00002740 stands for? (It's "Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. WSAEADDRINUSE" aka errorcode 10048, incidentally). If, like me, you don't have a photographic memory (or months to memorise what each code stands for), there's a couple of useful links you should have bookmarked: http://infosys.beckhoff.com/index.php?content=content/1031/tcdiagnostics/html/tcdiagnostics_win32_errorcodes.htm http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1141825 Armed with those two error code reference points, you should be able to diagnose just about any weird error you come across, from BSODs to arcane or esoteric errors at a DOS prompt. Labels: error codes, kerblam, reference, tech support, windows Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 4/11/2008 08:51:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 4138096422993217554· | Permalink Sunday, April 6 The definitive 2008 guide to multi-network psyBNC setup and configuration This tutorial is published under the "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales" licence. If you want to provide this tutorial on your site for the benefit of your users/customers, you can do so providing you attribute the original to me. I put a lot of time and effort into compiling this, so my only real request is that you credit me (Christopher Woods) as the original author and link back to this post. Thank you :) Sometimes, necessity is the mother of invention. I couldn't find any one, definitive guide to setting up a multi-network psyBNC installation from scratch when I set up a shell recently - so after struggling through the process through trial and error (and eventually succeeding) I decided to write one for the benefit of everybody else. (The official psyBNC tutorial is out of date and hasn't been updated in at least 2 years, and it actually tells you to do some things incorrectly, as do many other tutorials on the web, most of which are just copied and pasted). Why am I doing this? I recently configured a new shell account for my IRC usage, and I had to reacquaint myself with the whims of psyBNC. It's a fearsome beast when it comes to multi-network chatting (one of its best strengths) - but equally, it's a right pain to configure. I use mIRC to chat with, and it also needs to be set up in a particular way so it can authenticate with psyBNC... But let's start from the beginning... If you're running Windows, get a copy of PuTTY from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/. It's a free telnet/SSH client which will save you oodles of time in the long run, and considering that Windows doesn't ship with inbuilt support for establishing SSH connections, you need a client. The application runs standalone without needing installing, creating files and directories as it requires (so I recommend you put it into C:\putty or its own folder in My Documents / on the Desktop, wherever you prefer). Fire up PuTTY, and you get the PuTTY Configuration dialog. Put in your shell address / IP in the Host Name box, and leave the Port as 22. Type a name into the box under Saved Sessions (for example 'my IRC shell', name it what you like) and hit Save. Then, either double click it from the list or hit Open. The first time you connect, you will see another dialog showing the connection key for the SSH session, with three options; PuTTY is asking you whether you want to save the session key forever, for this session only or reject it. For ease of use, click the accept always button. You then see a login dialog... Enter your username and hit enter, then put in your password (it won't show on the screen so be careful typing it) and hit enter. If you were successful, you'll (possibly) see a few screens of information and then you'll get a login prompt. Mine looks like this: [14:39:03/Sun Apr 06] If you see that, you can move onto the next step. NB: Through this guide, I'm assuming your shell is on a FreeBSD/Linux system. Mine's FreeBSD (my last one was, too). If it's a Windows shell, then that's 1) quite unusual and 2) problematic (you'll have to get a different BNC program). NB: your shell provider may have a preconfigured psyBNC installation which the server can autoinstall and autoconfigure for you automatically, meaning you can skip these first few steps. Enquire with your provider as to whether they offer these, or READ THE MESSAGES when you first log in to see if these commands are listed. I actually installed my own copy of psyBNC before realising that my shell provider provided psyBNC preconfigured - it would've saved me a lot of time and energy, but I enjoy doing things my own way anyway. :) If your provider only gives you an empty shell account though, your next step is to get a copy of psyBNC... There's no need to get an SFTP client and upload the psyBNC tarball from your machine, one of the handy things about shells is that you can (usually) wget the file you need straight over - and if the box is on a fat pipe, it'll transfer much more quickly anyway. So, go to the official psyBNC site and get the link to the latest release. As I write this, the latest stable is psyBNC Version 2.3.2-7 (dated 04/06/2005); it's old but it works fine. The link to the file is http://www.psybnc.at/download/beta/psyBNC-2.3.2-7.tar.gz - right-click and copy the link (or click and drag, then copy it to the clipboard). Moving back to the PuTTY window, type the following: To do this quickly, just type wget (then hit space) then right-click next to what you've just typed - PuTTY will paste in the URL to the psybnc tarball on the clipboard. Hit enter, and you'll see something like this (not all at once, but you will see it all once the download's finished):christopher@eddie:/home/christopher$ wget http://www.psybnc.at/download/beta/psyBNC-2.3.2-7.tar.gz The progress bar will slowly fill up as the file's downloaded, and when it's finished, you can typechristopher@eddie:/home/christopher$ wget http://www.psybnc.at/download/beta/psyBNC-2.3.2-7.tar.gz to see a directory listing - you will seels psyBNC-2.3.2-7.tar.gzlisted (maybe alongside a couple of other folders or files, depending on how your account is configured by default by your provider). To extract the files from the archive, type the following command (NB: almost any platform aside from Windows is case-sensitive, so you must use upper and lowercase where indicated): The directorytar -zxvf psyBNC-2.3.2-7.tar.gz - and the folder MUST exist before you extract, to achieve that you enterpsybnc/will appear on the console, followed by a list of all the files. Because the files inside the tarball are in a directory calledthe directory structure is replicated for you, so you don't have to make the psybnc folder then extract into it (you would do this withpsybnctar -zxvf psyBNC-2.3.2-7.tar.gz -C To go into the psybnc folder, typemkdir cd psybnc Typing will show your current folder path, and if your shell is running bash (or similar) the folder path will be shown at the command prompt.pwd One of the nicer things about psyBNC is that it comes with a graphical installation tool - to run it, type If everything's ok, you will see the following:make menuconfig ... And then the screen will show a blue menu withchristopher@eddie:/home/christopher/psybnc$ make menuconfig at the top.psyBNC 2.3.2-7 - COnfiguration If this doesn't happen, or you get an error - then something's not configured correctly with your server or shell account - enquire with your provider, they'll be able to help more than I can (every set up is different, and I'm not a BSD or Linux expert). You can configure psyBNC by editing the psybnc.conf file locally and uploading it (or using pico / vi / emacs to edit it from the console), but if you get any of the syntax incorrect, psyBNC won't work properly. All sorts of weird and wonderful behaviour can result from incorrect config files, so I recommend you use the GUI. Step 3: here's where you configure psyBNC for your initial connection. Follow the instructions carefully and be careful to press the right keys at the right times (for example, to get out of some menus you press Escape, but for some menus you have to choose Ok or Cancel, and press Enter... A bit confusing, but it works once you get used to it). With Compiling Options selected, press Enter. You'll see a screen of default compile options - I recommend you leave everything as-is unless you have specific requirements (for example, I want Encryption with Blowfish support so I make sure that's enabled, but it is by default). I also enabled oIdentd, although I didn't need to (my shell provider runs an oIdentd server which overrides any per-user oIdentd server), but oIdentd gives you the option to specify your ident name (the bit that shows up in IRC before the hostname when you /whois someone.). Make sure Non permanent IRC-Connections is DISABLED, otherwise your BNC will disconnect from IRC whenever you quit the BNC. The Version Reply is where you can specify a custom CTCP version reply - it doesn't always work, but you can have some fun with it (putting in CP/M VERS 2.2 COPYRIGHT (C) 1979, DIGITAL RESEARCH can provoke some amusing reactions!) When you're done with that, choose Exit and hit Enter. Go to Bouncer-Config and hit Enter. for Listening Ports, find the IP address of your server and choose a port number to listen on (by default psyBNC listens on all IPs and on the default port 31337, but I can guarantee you someone else is using that). To put in your IP and port number, choose the single entry, hit Enter, then hit backspace to delete what's written. Replace it with your info in the following format: Ensure you put a space between the IP and the port to delimit it, don't use a colon or any other symbol. Hit Enter, and you're back at the previous screen - hit Escape to go back to the Option menu.127.0.0.1 1234(Obviously 127.0.0.1 will be replaced with the real IP of your server, and pick a port number above 1000 for most success) Leave the Links menu alone, you don't need it. You can give the Bouncer a name (if you like), but it's only really useful if you're creating multi-BNC internal networks or relays, so you can leave it as-is if you like. I just put in a name like "Home". the Host Allows screen is where you can define whitelists of hosts that are allowed to connect to your shell - if you have a static IP, you can specify it in here, and ensure that you and only you can connect to your shell. If, like most people, you have a dynamic IP, just leave this as it is by default which allows anyone to connect. Hit Escape to return to the Options menu.*;* TheUsers window is where the magic happens: this is where you set up your username to connect to psyBNC. mIRC has an odd behaviour whereby it won't correctly pass the variables to the psyBNC server unless you set it up in a particular way, I'll cover this further down the page. Here's a sample configuration (to alter any of the values, use the up/down arrow keys and hit Enter to edit the values, then hit Enter to return to the User screen after you're done): At the bottom, you can see theServers option. You can leave that alone for now and configure your servers through your IRC connection once you're logged on, but if you want to define one server to connect to you can do so here. Go into the Servers page, and add a server - if you have a favourite server, you can put it in here. Like before, you enter the data in the formatservername portnumber, delimited with a space. I choseirc.blackened.com 6667 from the top of my head, to make sure it could connect ok. Save in the usual manner (hit Ok to close the screen then at the Servers page, hit Escape to return to the User options. To go up again, chooseExit and hit Enter - this returns you to the Bouncer-Config screen. ChooseExit and hit Enter, and you're at the root menu. If you're happy with your settings, choose Exit and hit Enter.Login: christof (this is your psyBNC username) The menu will quit and you'll see What this means is that your options have been saved to the config file, but psyBNC needs to be recompiled for the changes to take effect. You can rehash your options once you're actually using psyBNC from inside your IRC client, but this initial compile needs to be done this way."Now compile psyBNC using make, if not yet compiled, or if Options were changed. Simply type make and you'll see LOTS of information scroll past you... If you enabled encryption, it will generate an SSL key. Here's what you'll see (with example data in bold)... After that, it will generate the RSA SSL key and you should see something similar to the following:You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated Congrats, psyBNC is now compiled! You may see text that looks like warnings or errors, don't worry - if psyBNC fails compilation, it will say so.psyBNC2.3.2-7-Linux ready. Please read the README before you run psybnc. To run psyBNC, type./psybnc - you will see ... And then you'll get a shell prompt again. Congrats, it's working (and listening for incoming connections). The next step: connecting to psyBNC. Connecting to psyBNC is a fiddly thing to do sometimes, mIRC can be picky about how it sends the ident and user information to psyBNC (and it's not helpful when it doesn't work). To make sure you can connect, go into the mIRC options and do the following:
Type /server Type /quote pass awesome123 or/pass awesome123, and provided everything's ok, you'll be logged on.-Welcome- psyBNC2.3.2-7 If you specified an IRC server in menuconfig, psyBNC will now connect to that network - but if you didn't it will just sit there waiting for your next command. This is how I recommend you proceed, so you don't have unnecessary connections before you've actually done your proper configuration. If your shell provider has a vhost configured for your account (for e.g., mybnc.isbrilliant.com) then once connected, type psyBNC will reply with/bvhost mybnc.isbrilliant.com Provided the reverse DNS (rDNS) is configured correctly on your shell provider's end, your IP should resolve to that hostname, and then anybody else on IRC should see you asuser@hostname if they whois you (or when you join a channel).VHOST changed to 'mybnc.isbrilliant.com'. There's a good guide (with screenshots) for configuring mIRC correctly at http://www.blueshells.biz/setpsy.html (I don't expressly recommend them above any other provider, I merely provide the link as a useful resource). Here's where we get really fancy... Multi-networks. Whenever you connect, psyBNC will open a private message window to you - and that's where I suggest you type all your commands, because otherwise they may accidentally be directed at the actual IRC server (and can sometimes invoke the wrath of opers!). You can send commands to psyBNC from any window by using/quote before any command, but it's easier to work within psyBNC's PM window because that's where it will reply to any command you give it. Ok, example scenario: you primarily chat on EFNet, but you want to also connect to Link-Net, Quakenet and P2P-Net. This is simple enough to configure, as long as you follow some simple steps when adding servers. psyBNC works on a system of a primary network, then extra networks - if you add a server (with /addserver) it, by default, is assigned to your primary network. So, to add another server to EFNet, in the psyBNC PM window type (Note the space before the colon - you can leave the space out, but I believe it's good practice to delimit the portnumber with a space as well as use a colon.)addnetwork irc.he.net :6667 You'll then see Server irc.he.net port 6667 (password: None) added. After a few seconds, if you didn't already have a server listed, psyBNC will begin to connect. It's important to set your hostname with bvhost BEFORE you connect, otherwise the server will see your shell's default rDNS (which could be something ugly). If you do forget though, set your hostname and then issue jump - this will make psyBNC disconnect then reconnect using the new vhost. You can repeat the addserver process several times if you want to add more servers; for EFNet I use I decided to go with US servers as my shell account's on an American box (why connect to UK IRC servers from the US if there's a closer, more powerful node nearby?)irc.blackened.com :6667 Tip: If you've added several servers and you want to switch to a specific one, type Which will show you a list of your servers, numbered. To jump to a particular server, just usejump x (where 'x' is the number next to the server number, e.g. jump 2).listservers For multi-networks, psyBNC adds a prefix to its entries, any channels you're in and any users in those channels - this is a hardcoded feature, you can't disable it (and it's quite useful once you get used to it). However, this means you have to remember the prefixes - I recommend using two-letter prefixes (e.g. dn for Dalnet, qn for Quakenet, pn for P2P-Net... You get the idea). You'll have to type this prefix any time you want to issue network-specific commands or changes, so best to keep it short and sweet. In the following examples, I'll work with the fictional network "xy-net". To add the network, typeaddnetwork xy (where 'xy' is the prefix ). You'll see New Network 'xy' added by username (where 'username' is your user). To add a server to this network, you MUST prefix the server name with the network prefix. If you don't, the server will be added to the serverlist for your primary network! To add a server to the 'xy' serverlist, type the following: Getting this syntax right is the key to configuring multi-network. NB the apostrophe (' symbol) between the network prefix and the server name - older tutorials or FAQs show the the delimiter as a tilde (~), which is outdated and incorrect.addserver xy'irc.xy-network.xy :6667 If you add the server, psyBNC will report Server irc.xy-network.xy port 6667 (password: None) added. Check that it's gone into the right network by issuing listservers xy' (WITH the apostrophe after the prefix) - it will show a list of 1 servers. If you type listservers xy without the apostrophe, it will show the primary network's servers - if your latest addition is showing in that list, you went wrong. Note its number, and type delserver z (where z is its number) and psyBNC will report Server z deleted. If you enabled SSL support when you compiled psyBNC, you can add an SSL server by issuing addserver S=ssl.xy-network.xy :6669 (if the server is for a secondary network, you add in the network prefix, so the command becomes addserver S=xy'ssl.xy-network.xy :6669. Of course, you will need to find out the details for the network's SSL server (if it even has an SSL server). The port number will always be different though, so remember that when you're adding the server (unencrypted servers won't accept SSL connections). Repeat the process for each extra network you want to add. As soon as you add a server to its serverlist, psyBNC will begin to connect. You have to set your bvhost for each network you connect to; to do so for our fictional network, you would type and psyBNC will report back the usual 'VHOST changed' message. Most other commands work in the same way -setusername is also network prefix-sensitive, as are commands like jump (jump xy'1 would jump to the first server on the xy network, jump on its own will jump on all servers on all networks).bvhost xy'mybnc.isbrilliant.com A word on setusername - this affects the bit which comes after your ident@hostname when someone /whoises you... You can change this to anything you like. Mine says 'o hy thar', (hy2u meme fans!) but you can put your name, a message, anything you like. It's easier to do this from psyBNC once you're connected via IRC rather than mess about in menuconfig - I try and spend as little time as possible doing the initial configuration, because there's a much more comprehensive help guide available once you're connected (which you can bring up at any time by typing /quote bhelp). To join a channel on your main network, just type the usual /join #channel. For other networks, you need to add the network prefix in - so to join #lobby on the xy network, you would type/join xy'#lobby. The # must come after the network prefix. You can also only login to a channel once you're connected to the network. Everything else works in the same way - so if you wanted to DCC a file to someone, you can always use the right-click menus, or use the format/dcc send xy'recipient C:\mirc\file.txt (where 'recipient' is the other person's nick). Rule of thumb is that the network prefix is put before any command where a network-specific username or command is issued. One last thing - once you're connected to multiple networks, even if you have different nicks on the different networks, you will only ever see the nick for your primary network at your end (although if you connected directly in a second window, you would see the correct nick once you had set it). To set your nick on the secondary xy network, type /nick xy'differentnick (where 'differentnick' is the nick of your choosing)mIRC's screen won't update, but other people will see it change. This can cause confusion, but it is just how psyBNC works. Housekeeping / modifying the config If for some reason you want to reconfigure an aspect of psyBNC using menuconfig from the console, you must first kill psyBNC by issuing the following command from the shell console: This signals all processes matching the name 'psybnc' to exit, and if issued correctly psyBNC will disconnect and quit (and your connection will drop). You can then usemake menuconfig and change your options accordingly. For every extra network you add, you will see another user in your User list - one very important thing to remember is that if you edit the config once it's changed, the passwords will be in their hashed form. If you want to be able to log on to psyBNC again after recompiling, you MUST re-enter the passwords. If you don't, all you will do when you compile psyBNC is make psyBNC rehash already-hashed passwords! The password is hashed if you see an equals sign (=) before it, so just select it, hit Enter and retype it, then continue with your changes. A finalmake once you're out of menuconfig, and issue./psybnc to start psyBNC back up again. If you didn't stop mIRC from connecting while you were doing this, as soon as psyBNC is running again mIRC will re-establish the connection - and it will automatically send the password for you.killall -9 psybnc If you want to add your psyBNC connection as a favourite server, the BlueShells page has screenshots on what to enter and where (you do it through the Add Server dialog, and you put the /quote pass password into the Password box). I hope that helps some other people - I had a pain of a time working out the correct syntax for everything because it had been months since I'd last set up a psyBNC shell! If anybody has any questions, you can email me through my company web site's contact form (I don't give out my email address as it gets enough spam already, but if you fill out the form on that page I will receive it as an email). Apologies also for this being such a Windows-and-mIRC-centric guide; I've been a longtime mIRC and Windows user so that's where the bulk of my knowledge (and usage) lies. I'm sure that if you run Linux, you'll know most of this already (especially the console / commandline stuff). Mac users, well... I just irrationally dislike Macs. ;) Plus OS X is based on FreeBSD, so the hardcore users out there (who are more than likely to be using shells for IRC anyway) will have an alright commandline knowledge anyway. If you're still struggling however, there are many active user forums where you can ask for help. If you Google your query you'll probably find an answer from a fellow user. I aimed this tutorial at being an updated-for-2008, definitive guide for setting up psyBNC, and to provide the web with a consistent list of the correct commands (and their usage) for multi-network chatting, because most of the other guides out there are either contradictory or completely incorrect. Hopefully, I've done alright. If you spot any errors or have more information to add, please let me know. Happy chatting! Labels: bnc, commands, guide, howto, irc, kerblam, multi-network, multi-server, multinetwork, multiserver, psybnc, shell, tutorial Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 4/06/2008 05:28:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 2845186964913290820· | Permalink Saturday, April 5 Feel old? Yeah, so do I. I just cleaned about 10gigs of MPEG-2 video files off my PC (DVB-T rips)... At about 2 gig per hour, they soon build up. Three DVDs later, 10 gig more free space! Woo and yay. My first PC had a 10 gigabyte hard drive in it, and I just remember thinking "cor, I don't think I'll ever fill that up..." How wrong could I be: my fileserver (other machine) has more than 1 Terabyte of (mostly filled!!!) storage in it, with more planned. And to think my old Acorn A3000 has a hefty 2Mb of video memory, and something like 16Mb total system memory... Hardcore. I loved how you could dynamically alter the memory allocated to the graphics card so you could up its allowance to play games :D In fact, my latest dabbling in the wonderful world of computers is a project to build my own Linux-powered SAN - it'll be a steep learning curve as my commandline Linux knowledge is currently far too limited! (Example: I had to google to find out what rm -rf does... In short, don't ever use it unless you have a least a couple of free days afterwards.) Oh, and I was rushing out of work on Friday afternoon, my foot slipped off the (huge) doormat they have and my foot went kinda-sideways off the edge of the mat. Quite painful, and I had to drive home with it - and now it's giving me gip every time I put weight on it. Not pleased about that. Found another grey beard hair this morning too when I was looking in the mirror. Great. I feel old before my time :( I was up at 4am today too, because I went to bed at about 8:45pm on Friday night! Pass me my slippers... Labels: age, grumpy old man, kerblam, moan, newspaper, old, pipe, slippers, whinge Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 4/05/2008 09:20:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 420113903992953304· | Permalink Thursday, March 20 F1 comes home to the BBC! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! $deities be praised! The BBC has secured the television rights to show Formula One in the UK from the 2009 season. How good a bit of news is this! I've loathed ITV's coverage ever since they won the rights from the BBC in the 1990s - there was nothing like sitting down and watching an entire race, without adverts, and with quality presenters. Unfortunately Murray Walker has retired (maybe he'll stage a return to broadcasting?) but there's still a raft of quality presenters to back up the coverage. This also means it'll (likely) get an HD simulcast for the countries filming in HD as well! (America, UK, Germany, some other EU countries and quite possibly some of the Asian countries). The total lack of adverts is more than adequate enough to satisfy me though. Oh yes, I'm so happy! This has made my week, if not my month. I really do love the BBC right now, this makes my license fee so much more worth paying. (I already pay it anyway because I think it's stonkingly good value for money, but this will secure my payment for at least the next five years!) Labels: 2009, BBC, broadcast, f1, formula 1, kerblam Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 3/20/2008 12:16:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 3165439770356387994· | Permalink Wednesday, March 5 I was on BBC TV! And for a good reason, too... Crossposted from my Uniblog. Preface: a while back, I wrote a case study about damage to my own hearing after prolonged exposure to loud noise over a period of years (musician, drummer, listen to loud music etc... I'm sure you're the same or similar, or you know someone like me). Anyway, on Monday, I was contacted by someone from the RNID, who said they were launching a new campaign called "Practice Safe Decks" (groan) to raise awareness of hearing protection - and would I like to take part in a BBC Breakfast article to be featured on Wednesday morning? So, although I consider myself to have a great face for radio, of course I said 'definitely!' (Wouldn't you?) I also drafted in my coursemate Ciarán Jordan (it made for better TV, and he was interviewed too. Brucey Bonus.) ...And here I am, on BBC News! Click here to read the rest... Labels: BBC, campaign, deafness, Don't Lose The Music, kerblam, rnid, TV, uniblog Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 3/05/2008 10:56:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 2139379875482912868· | Permalink Sunday, March 2 My fave links in the week of a day that shouldn't exist (A very convoluted way of saying 'the week containing February the 29th'). Has your girl proposed to you yet? Links of interest for the week with a day that shouldn't exist (29th of January). The Dangerous Ground Project has a very clever web site illustrating the difficulty millions face on a daily basis with unexploded landmines. Apparently, it takes just £1 to clear one square metre of land, which does raise an interesting question - do you really need that spare £10? Need some Barbarian Repellent or Time Freezy Hyper Slush? You need the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, now open in Los Angeles. (their strapline is "Whenever you are, we're already then." Oh, and (smug mode on) proof that even Apple doesn't always come up smelling of roses, no matter how powerful and well-oiled their marketing department is. A classic case of marketing leading technical decision-making? I think so. But what am I on about? Oh, only the fact that Apple promised that by the end of February, there'd be 1,000 movies to rent on iTUnes Movie Rentals by the end of February (and 100 HD movies)... And as of the first of march, they had just 399 movies available, and 91 HD movies. Oops. If you're making a press release (because I know that my readership is mostly comprised of new media entrepreneurs ;) why don't you flip things around a bit, and release your news through a more modular, easily-bloggable Social Media Press Release template? Finally, the independent AV Comparatives has comprehensive ratings and benchmarks of all the popular antivirus solutions available on the market (with historical results, too) - very useful if you're shopping around for the best AV solution for your systems. Until next week, namaste! Labels: antivirus, apple, back to the future, cool, kerblam, landmines, links, schmapple, social media Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 3/02/2008 02:02:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 3022035481772148908· | Permalink Sunday, February 24 Saving the world by doing nothing? There's few people who can attest to doing nothing to save everything, but Stanislav Petrov did just that - and kept schtum about it for decades. What am I on about? Give this a read, and then thank your lucky stars that there are still some sane people in this world, keeping their heads (when all around them are losing theirs)... Hope you're having a peaceful day, see you soon. Labels: kerblam, nuclear, reason, sanity, stanislav petrov, war Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 2/24/2008 07:02:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 8412620160125701943· | Permalink Friday, February 22 My favourite links this week (22/02/2008) My links for the week: flac-113 "...was written to allow users to convert their FLAC archive from previous versions of FLAC to the latest version. The script was written when 1.1.3 was released, thus the name, but can be used for any version of FLAC." Full instructions and links to download (with other utilities) too - start your surfing from http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/files/flac-113.txt. They're, their, there! Get it right! Been looking for a clear explanation of the various types of RAID array? The AC&NC 'RAID.edu' pages should help demystify the whole RAID process - it even has moving pictures (oooo). File2HD can rip files from sites, including in-page players that don't always let you download the tracks (including MySpace). Enjoy it while it lasts. If you like martial arts, then you might want to seek out the Chinese made-for-TV miniseries called 'State of Divinity'. The first episode's available on Joox. Recommended LAME encoder settings, anybody? Always handy to have around. Have a good weekend :) Labels: favourite, flac, kerblam, links, raid, useful, utility Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 2/22/2008 12:09:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 7975503556496415434· | Permalink Wednesday, February 6 Lekker? Lekker lekker lekker, lekker lekker lekker lekker lekker... So goes a Noisia breaks tune from a little while ago. I'd been wondering what lekker means for ages, because I was sure it wasn't a Dutch word... Turns out it might be a South African word (it'd make sense anyway): lekker (lekk-irr with a rolling r) - Nice, good, great, cool or tasty. Definition from SouthAfrica.info That is all. :) Labels: kerblam, lekker, translation, word Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 2/06/2008 10:49:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 6868271207590581223· | Permalink Sunday, February 3 Woo - Roni Size is re-editing New Forms! Sometimes I'm a little sceptical of artists when they "re-edit" a classic album and rerelease it, but I have faith in the Size. He doesn't mess with a classic formula, especially one which is good enough to win a Mercury Music Prize (before it became shit). I got this email from the V Cycle shop the other day. D&B fans rejoice! Roni Size/Reprazent’s New Forms was a benchmark for not just the drum 'n’ bass genre that it leapt from, but for all types of electronic music. Keep your eyes peeled for this one... The original album's a must-own, and this re-edit should be a big release for 2008. Excellent. Labels: and, bass, dnb, drum, drum and bass, kerblam, music, new forms, reprazent, roni size Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 2/03/2008 09:28:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 5129970865574927317· | Permalink Wednesday, January 23 Another blogging platform gets $30million... Share the wealth? WordPress just announced they're getting $29.5 million for their B round of funding. And they said the bubble had burst. Nice! There's still hope for my search for $65m in VC funding for my interactive wacky wailing inflatable arm-flailing tubemen social networking site. I know that $30m only equates to about £4.69 in pounds sterling, but it's still an incredible amount for what's nothing more than a (very popular, and quite, quite clever) blogging platform. As Matt (one of the founders of WordPress) says on his blog, Fast forward to 2007: many of the seeds planted started to really bloom. On WordPress.com 1.8 million new users joined, they created 25 million posts, we served 3.2 billion dynamic pageviews, and grew to reach over 100 million unique users worldwide. Akismet blocked billions of spams from reaching blogs. Nearly every major media organization, from the NY Times, WSJ, CNN, Fox, Time, People, and more, have embraced WordPress. Finally the approach of serious acquisition or majority-stake investments brought up the biggest question we’d faced so far: should we sell, or build out Automattic to be an independent company for many years to come. So the NYT is officially getting in on the act now... Free beers all round! Oh, and if you have a WP.com account, you've now got 3 gigabytes of space to play with. Have fun go mad! Labels: automattic, blogging, funding, kerblam, social, wordpress Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 1/23/2008 05:43:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 7319729944797960839· | Permalink Monday, January 21 Come fly with me... Some inspirational and mind-boggling photography: here's a panoramic collage taken by Charles M. Duke (Lunar module pilot on the Apollo 16 moon voyage):  There's tons more imagery and multimedia on NASA's Apollo 16 multimedia pages. I've been meaning to make a note of this page for at least a month now! And while you're perusing these images, you can go download and listen to some of the music from some classic Nintendo games, courtesy of of USF Central (if you didn't own an N64 in the 90s, you missed out!) Labels: audio, cool, games, kerblam, landing, lunar, moon, music, n64, nasa, nintendo, panorama, photography, sound, usf, voyage Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 1/21/2008 01:42:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 3418656648683673003· | Permalink Monday, January 7 Vimicro USB PC Camera 301x drivers - free Always nice to have something for nothing... I have a really cheap webcam (one of those purchases you make from eBay because hell, even if the thing never arrives, it only cost a few quid so it's no big deal). Anyway, various people sell it under a variety of guises, but in its OEM form it's a Vimicro USB PC Camera 301x. Drivers for this thing used to be fiendishly hard to find, too (the most Google-popular ones were also infested with a nasty little virus, which I found out the hard way). So, when I decided to hook the webcam up to my new fileserver to act as a CCTV camera while I was away on holiday, I decided to take a fresh look and see if I could find some clean drivers for it. Loads of Googling eventually took me to a (really quite unhelpful) page on Dowan.org, dating from 2005, where the author had put a link to a paid site where you cough up a few quid and you get the drivers. Loads of people were either asking for a copy of the drivers (which are really tiny filesize-wise), and the author was just telling them to pay up and download them. Makes you wonder whether she was getting kickbacks from each purchase... However, I'm a great believer in free (as in both beer and opensource, but that's another story). Anyway, I refused to pay money for these drivers (paying for drivers? come on, seriously)... So, on a whim, I checked the Vimicro site, which had previously been scant on both information and driver downloads or any kind of support. However, they now have a revamped web site, but the downloads section is still quite confusing (it lists drivers by chipset, not by camera or model). What got me excited was that they now have a really handy utility which will detect the correct driver for your camera and download it automatically - just by plugging the device in to a USB port and running the utility! Here's what their web site says: If you are not certain about which PC Camera processor that your PC Camera uses, then please download the Detection Tool of Vimicro PC Camera Processors Model. This tool will help you find the processor model and will provide you with the corresponding link for the driver download.How handy is that! So, if you have any Vimicro webcam, just hit that link up and run the utility. It's totally painless, fast, and gets you the guaranteed correct driver straight from their web site. Couldn't ask for a more useful little app, could you? Labels: 301x, driver, drivers, kerblam, software, support, tech, vimicro, webcam Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 1/07/2008 04:05:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 695764794288924975· | Permalink Saturday, January 5 Why are banana sandwiches so good? There's something about a cheeky banana sarnie (made with freshly-cut white bread, of course) at 1:30am with a cup of tea to follow it which really satisfies a snack craving - and in a moderately healthy way, too! Can't really beat that, can ya... I wonder what my housemates' weirdest late-night snacks are, gonna have to go ask them now. :D Labels: food, kerblam, late, night, snack, studenty type late night musings Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 1/05/2008 02:28:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 6623269093827388013· | Permalink Tuesday, January 1 ... Hello 2008! Yay for Comedy Connections on BBC2, taking me through the small hours. That, and some nice cups of tea. Happy new year, happy Year Of The Rat and United Nations International Year of Planet Earth, everyone :) Labels: 01/01/2008, 1st, 2008, january, kerblam, new year Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 1/01/2008 01:26:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 5290259757780237740· | Permalink Saturday, December 22 This is beginning to get a little ridiculous My housemate just invited me to a Facebook group...
... Though I did laugh hard! I've seen some utter shite on Facebook though. When's too much too much with all these Apps? Some of them are useful but some are utterly pointless... And the spam I've been seeing on Superwall recently is reaching unbearable proportions. We have idiots forwarding those stupid hoaxes and chain letters again, and it's really winding me up. If only someone could write a Greasemonkey script to hide all the useless Funwall/Superwall/X Me/Zombie apps from showing up... If you can do that, submit your script please! Labels: facebook, humour, kerblam, pointless, stupid Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 12/22/2007 11:50:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 9014961244043324575· | Permalink Christopher <3 his new speakers  I love it when a plan comes together... I had a bad driver in my previous units, so after the third time it was sent off for repair, the guy at the DV store just said "we'll arrange an exchange for you" - completely unprompted!And now I have them, oh yes I do, I have them yes I do, just before Christmas. And to make things even better, Samson have updated the R6A design, so I have two completely new of their new-design R6As! Man I missed having my speakers. I don't really care what I get for Christmas now (though anything given is gratefully accepted!). :) Labels: happy, joy, kerblam, monitors, r6a, replacements, rubicon, samson, speakers, studio Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 12/22/2007 06:38:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 2515218837851871750· | Permalink Tuesday, December 4 Vista drops its kill switch, pirates wonder what all the fuss is about Noticed that Microsoft's removed (or is going to in the next Windows Update, anyway) the kill switch which crippples Vista if the machine fails its WGA. Too many false positives spoil the OS. More about this on the relevant BBC article (and other articles around the web for that matter, I just like the BBC site). All the pirates proper are wondering what all the fuss is about - piracy of Vista has continued unabated since its launch, with patches and workarounds galore for the WGA checks and suchlike, so why is Microsoft even bothering to do this now? They've utterly failed with Vista, they should just drop it and revert to a previous point revision in the SVN where, at the very least, the Start Menu worked - and then build AROUND those smaller features, instead of making section developers have to recode their own sections due to the whims of the core dev team. And to think I thought XP was a mess until I used Vista... Christmas is nearly upon us, so look forward to seeing me looking grumpy in a santa hat again. December just wouldn't be the same without it. Labels: grumble, hello world, kerblam, kill switch, microsoft, vista, WGA, whinge, windows, windows update Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 12/04/2007 04:35:00 PM. Roughly. Blog ID: 2060156806331041534· | Permalink Sunday, October 28 PostSecrets  This, and many more thought-provoking, perplexing and mysterious secrets are revealed on the PostSecret web site. "PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard." Maybe it'll spur you on to create and send in your own? Labels: anonymous, art, community, kerblam, postsecret, secrets, social experiment Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 10/28/2007 01:41:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 8733463043484122094· | Permalink Wednesday, October 24 It's not much, but it helps My web site (and all my other sites hosted on this server) are now carbon neutral:  Yay for me! I know it's only a drop in the ocean, but what do lots of little drops make when you add them all together? £6 a year, not much. Labels: carbon neutral, coco2, green, kerblam, neutrality Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 10/24/2007 11:55:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 5702180678007028944· | Permalink Ever wonder what happened to Britain's vast rail network? I often do. I do know that it was drastically scaled back in the last century, largely due to the emergence of the motorways and the Government's insistence on the Motorway being the best form of transport (showing great foresight, as usual) but some of it just deteriorated or got forgotten about. The Last Main Line helps chart part of our country's great rail network history, examining "the history and continuing social, environmental and economic impact of the Great Central Railway's 'London Extension', which ran between London and North Nottinghamshire between the 1890s and 1960s." ...Smashing. With a cornucopia of text, images and a smattering of multimedia to go with, there's definitely something for everybody here. Any train buffs who've not checked this site out (and bookmarked it) should do so poste-haste. Right, back to work! Labels: british, british rail, GCR, great central railway, hobby, kerblam, network, railway, trains Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 10/24/2007 11:22:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 1039038490820116547· | Permalink Sunday, September 30 Having problems with your Windows shares? This might help This might be the magic command which fixes them... I've been having a problem with getting a laptop running XP Pro to see (and be granted read/write access to) shares on a Windows Server 2003 box. In a nutshell, I'd fire up a share via Run ( \\server\share) and it might once ask me for a username and password, which I'd type in, and then I'd be granted access, but after that I'd just be kicked back to the logon dialog again. The WS2003 machine was showing ANONYMOUS LOGON attempts - apparently null sessions that Windows uses to authenticate the user - which were succeeding, but the username I was supplying wasn't being authenticated for some reason. This laptop is the only device I've used or set up which has had this problem, and it's been driving me nuts. I hate Windows filesharing almost as much as I hate using Macs. ;) Anyway, I eventually gave up trying to fix it on my own, and decided to give Google a shake and see if any answers fell out of its pockets. Lo and behold, similar problems were being discussed on places like Experts Exchange, and I clicked through to one of them. ("Error: \\pc name is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource...Access is denied." When trying to access a share.") Some way down the page, a guy called dvt_localboy wrote, What is happening there is that your XP Home machine is trying to connect to the XP Pro machine with 2 different sets of credentials. I suspect that you've enabled the quick logon option, which caches network drive info aswell. Filled with anticipation, I fired up a DOS box on the laptop (using VNC, that was the most annoying thing - I could VNC to the laptop fine! haha) and typed in net use * /d. I then immediately fired up a share, this time the hidden root share \\server\C$, typed in a username and password which had admin rights on the server.... And bingo! It worked! So, if you're having odd, unpredictable bouts of inaccessible network shares, that command might just do the trick. I'll stick it in my brain for next time, that's for certain. Labels: authentication, filesharing, IPC, kerblam, net use * /d, permissions, problems, solution, windows Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 9/30/2007 07:56:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 6462541330313470614· | Permalink Wednesday, September 19 My Blogger account is learning German It's not doing very well though... My post confirmation screen's been displaying its links in German for the past few days, though the rest of the interface is in English. I've not changed anything, so what's going on here? Haha. Labels: blogger, german, interface, kerblam, languages, problems, UI Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 9/19/2007 03:27:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 137498358928177282· | Permalink Arrrrr, I be makin' my first digital music purchase! And it be a grand one at that - the Official 2007 Talk Like A Pirate Day British Single, from Indiestore. I bought the original and the Edwin Van Cleef House Mix too, because it's downright funky. 79p each, all proceeds going to Marie Curie Cancer Care, so how can you argue with that? You can download the track up to three times in your choice of formats (MP3, iPod-native MP4 or WMA), and you can download each track up to three times. ALL PROCEEDS BE GOING TO CHARITY, YE SCURVY SINGLE-BUYERS! Just go do it, it's worth it. This is my first EVER digital music purchase (and it's likely to be my last too, the physical medium is great - vinyl and CDs for the win!) so if I think it's a worthwhile cause, you should too. There's also links to buy from iTunes or Virgin's site, but they'll both have DRM slapped onto their copies (fucking DRM, grr) so both they - and I - recommend the Indiestore route for your purchasing. Oh, and it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day 2007 today, so ye best be speakin' like seafarin' folk or ye be walkin' the plank later! Eyepatches at the ready mateys... Labels: 2007, ARRRRRRRR, charity, day, download, indiestore, international, kerblam, like, official, pirate, single, talk, yarr Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 9/19/2007 03:17:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 2986815350064690688· | Permalink Sunday, September 16 Finding the impetus to blog Some people seem to be incredibly spontaneous about their blogging, doing so several times a day religiously all week long, week in week out. I'm having trouble even keeping up a several-posts-a-month regime, and it's really annoying me - because I enjoy blogging (why else would I do it?) but something in me is just waiting for a *really* good reason to start doing it more often. Maybe it's because I've run out of things to say........ .....nah, that can't be it. ;) I think I'm just too lazy! Labels: blogging, kerblam, self-discipline Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 9/16/2007 04:14:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 8760108395886274212· | Permalink Sentient tinfoil  I think that within five years, things like this will be coming with RFID tags embedded in the end of the roll that activate when they're put near your computing device (that's not counting the fact that kitchens will be most likely fully wireless and have embedded computers in most of the equipment), ensuring a seamless delivery of your next roll of tinfoil before you run out. None of that "stamping a reminder message" onto the end of your roll, like they used to do in the (sniff) 21st century. We live in interesting times... Blogged with Flock Labels: futurology, kerblam, tinfoil Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 9/16/2007 03:30:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 7729780682274632251· | Permalink Friday, September 14 KT Tunstall and her (great) album's Drastic Master KT Tunstall's music was a bit of a late grower on me, but I really enjoy listening to her voice and her all-round musicality. Plus she's Scottish, and I have a bit of a soft spot for her. ;) Anyway, like any true music tech student, the first thing I do after I get the (limited edition gatefold with bonus DVD!) album back to my house is crack it out of the packaging and stick it in the computer, rip to PCM audio and go analyse the mastering in Audition. I was a bit disappointed; I could hear it was a loud master right from the off but within two seconds of Track 1, we have digital clip on the left channel. The tracks are very well engineered (as you'd expect from any second album under the EMI imprint) but they're ALL TOO LOUD! Put it like this: WHEN YOU HAVE SOMEONE TRYING TO CONVEY A DETAILED, POETIC MESSAGE TO YOU, BUT THEY'RE SHOUTING IT AT 90dB FOR AN HOUR, IT GETS A LITTLE TIRING. Get the message? Fortunately the RMS (the 'perceived') values aren't too high, but they do peak quite high, a bit too high for this kind of music. Plus there's audible pumping at certain times due to the radio-friendly compression, but it's a very clear mixdown which leans in its favour. Her voice is well placed in the mix, the backing vocals are just a smidge too high in the mix for me though, but the clarity and tonality of the guitars is the deciding plus point. One of the slightly disappointing (but to be expected) aspects of this second album is its obvious 'studio' quality. It's a little to clean, a little too crisp for me, a little too sanitised. Her first album, Eye To The Telescope, was recorded at NAM Recording Studios - just a few miles away from where I lived, and grew up, for almost 15 years, in a small village called Holt (near Trowbridge, Wiltshire). For more info, see the Bath Venue Musicians' Studio Guide pages. If you ever see video footage of the setup, you can see how much more of an intimate setting it was when compared to a larger pro studio, and how the acoustic of the small performance space really lent itself to her musical and performance style. Her first album is a really gorgeous piece of studio work as much as it is a musical work of art, and her second album suffers from the bigger budget - the bigger, in-house recording studio contracts will have made sure of that (she will have been told to record at xyz venue as EMI have a contract with them for job lots of studio time, most likely). This is unfortunate, but I guess there's not much we, the listeners, can do about it. My one regret with Drastic Fantastic? Her voice has too much reverb on it at times, and it sounds a little too polished (even when holding album 2 up against album 1!). Though, I suppose if you've listened to her first album as many times as I have, and had many hours to scrutinise its every little feature and peculiarity, nothing will ever sound the same unless it was recorded in the same venue then mixed and mastered by the same producer and engineer respectively. Still, there's not much to complain about at all with her second album. It's a great toe tapper, and it has enough radio-friendly tunes to give Tunstall (well, EMI) a decent amount of radio play for promo purposes whilst keeping the album-centric listeners (like me), who couldn't give a flying barrel of monkeys about her chart placement, happy with the same kind of content as we received in the first album. Even taking into consideration all the different influences factoring into the sound of KT Tunstall's second album, it's still a great disc, and I don't feel like I've been ripped off by buying it - a problem which often plagues me post-purchase! (Buyer's guilt? Realisation that I've been mugged by buying awful quality music that shouldn't, by rights, have even been pressed to disc and published? heh.) Done right though, there's a lot to be said for the back-room-studio-recorded album, and Eye To The Telescope is testament to that! Drastic Fantastic compares favourably, and Tunstall's deliciously soulful voice is a treat to listen to. Annoyingly, the ASLAP (AS Loud As Possible) syndrome has struck again at the mastering stage, most likely thanks to EMI saying "LOUDER, WE NEED LOUDER BECAUSE LOUDER EQUALS BETTER" at the mastering engineer. Shame, because the whole point of CDs in the first place were that they could preserve a larger dynamic range than vinyl, thereby allowing more musicality to come through in the recorded tracks. I bet the master tapes (well, master Pro Tools sessions ;) sound far more dynamic than the end result on CD, but I guess we'll never know for definite. Top tip: if you prefer the "Unplugged" KT Tunstall, check out her Acoustic Extravaganza album (which I like to think of as album 1.5), it makes a great listen if you like her stuff. And the super-shorter version of my review? Well, it's a three-worder: buy on sight. :) Labels: album, critique, drastic fantastic, engineering, kerblam, kt tunstall, mastering, music, review Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted into his blog at 9/14/2007 05:46:00 AM. Roughly. Blog ID: 3152940665287869915· | Permalink Saturday, September 8 Oh cool, I have a Lifestream ...Courtesy of 30Boxes (with whom I just signed up for their online calendar service, to give it a spin) - I noticed this People Aggregation feature on their main site (83degrees.com) and clicked through, typed in my email and got a ton of info about me aggregated from various social networking sites, my blogs, etc... Exceedingly cool. Check this for fancy: http://30boxes.com/lifestream/5752111 You might have one too! Go look. |
