Zaonce

Automatic preview for the people!

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:14:39 +0000

Some of my avid blog readers were a bit confused when adding comments - it's not obvious how to format urls, images, etc.

So - the first step was to add a live preview! It should at least show you what your comment will look like before you post it.

The next step will be to add some buttons to insert the codes for you - around any selection. For now though, the supported UBB codes are:

[b][/b] - bold, [i][/i] - italics, [u][/u] - underline
[list][/list] - for lists, which must surround [*][*/] list items
[center][/center] - to center align
[url=][/url] or [url][/url] - hyperlinks
[img][/img] - to link images
[code][/code] - for preformatted source code
[quote][/quote] - for quotations

I haven't tried all of these, so feedback is welcome (Will).

Even more Chromium goodies

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:49:54 +0000

Another extension:

RSS Subscription - this one should be built in.

I've also finally found a theme I like:

Smoothie (AERO)

One in the oven

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:44:32 +0000

I thought I'd dig out my Virtual Boy a few days ago. I thought the kids might be interested to have a go on something a bit different to the Wii. Unfortunately, one of the displays had started playing up which spoilt the effect somewhat. A quick bit of research latter and it turns out that the trick is to take the display out, stick it in the oven for a couple of minutes, and then rub your finger on it for a bit. Book.

Except getting the thing open is a bit tricky. The security screws holding the unit together need something called a gamebit. I found one on ebay and got ready to go, but some of the screws are so deeply set that the gamebit wouldn't reach them! So I had to dremel the hex section to make it circular and cut a slot in the end for a screwdriver. Eventually the case was opened and the offending display was removed. Two minutes in the oven later, a bit of rubbing and we're back in business!

The kid's interest lasted about 30 seconds.

Con Air?

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:00:57 +0000

How on earth did they ever convince John Malkovich, Colm Meaney and Steve Buscemi to be in this film? Even John Cusak should have avoided it. Still, it's one of those films I can't help watching every time it's on - along with Starship Troopers...

More Chromium fun

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:28:55 +0000

I've found two more chromium extensions which I'm finding useful:

csscan which is an ultra simple CSS inspector.
Wayback Machine for single button access to the internet archive website when you get a 404.

I've also found a RSS feed for the latest chromium extensions.

Firefox -> Chromium

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:30:00 +0000

I've been forcing myself to use Chromium recently - it seems much faster and less bloated than Firefox, but it still lacks some features that I really would rather not do without - namely, a vertical tab bar and icons only on the bookmarks bar. Most other things can be got round more or less, and I do love the way you can add and remove extensions on the fly.

So far I'm running with:

AdThwart
Extensions Button
FlashBlock
Font Size Increase and Font Size Decrease (to do text only zoom)
MK Undo Close Tab
XMarks Bookmarks Sync

Vertical tabs are in development apparently...

Bye bye Blogger, and good riddance...

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 21:20:17 +0000

So Blogger decided to stop supporting FTP publish blogs, leaving me a bit stuck. I had a play with Wordpress but it didn't seem to be very easy to customize, and doesn't support arbitrary scripts.

So I decided to roll my own in perl. It should publish a valid RSS feed (please accept my apologies for anyone who received multiple updates during development!) and supports comments with via logging in to a local account. I had a look at some code to implement OpenID, etc. but it all looked a bit too tricky...

Bugzilla Userscripts

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:15:00 +0000

We've been using Bugzilla at work for a while now and it does it's job reasonably well. It works even better as an SSB (created with Fluid).

However, it does have a couple of small niggles - for some reason the columns in the search results are truncated, and you can only click the defect number to visit the defect. Luckily both of these can be fixed easily with some Userscripts: Click Row and Expand Columns.

Safari Top sites in Firefox?

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:02:00 +0000

I quite like the idea of Safari's Top Sites feature - it just seems to make a bit more sense than a blank home page. As a Firefox user, I thought there would be an extension that provides the same functionality, and as expected there are a few, eg Fast Dial and Speed Dial. Crucially however, neither of them use your browsing history to provide the most relevant pages - you need to manually configure them, so in effect they are just bookmarks displayed as thumbnails.

There is a way to get what I wanted though - using Google Toolbar. Install it, go to the settings page, enable the 'Google New Tab page', and there you have it - a page of thumbnails based on your recent browsing history. Job done, except there is now a really ugly, bloated Google toolbar cluttering up the window. A quick trip to the toolbar menu to disable it, and we're back to normal. However, now the flippin' new tab page has stopped working!!?? Luckily there is another setting under the Layouts page - 'Keep features working with invisible toolbar'. Hmmm, snappy name....

Ode to a hair-brush

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:32:00 +0100

ODE TO A HAIR-BRUSH

Oh wondorous, sensational hair-brush,
Oh perfect, divine hair-brush.
I savour your smooth hard back which is a
base-ball bat.
I value your swirly writing on the front of your
Fat, round, gorgeous handle.
I relish your superb, fabulous bristles as they run
through my silky hair.
I treasure you as I fight my sister off under
the table with you.
I worship you when you're my very short
walking stick to hold up my back.
Oh, hair-brush, oh phenomenal, admirable hair-
brush.
I adore how you lie on my dressing table
and don't even twitch like a caterpillar
You are a hair-brush
You are the most special hair-brush in the

WORLD!

Olivia (aged 8).

Can't let go...

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:28:00 +0100

What do I do with my battered 12" G4 powerbook?

It can't cope with Flash anymore - that's basically all it gets used for - web browsing (under the very easy to use parental controls for the kids). It feels like it should still be a great little machine, but it's just not quite there. But I can't bring myself to get rid of it - the form factor is still better than anything else (including the MacBook I'm using now)...

Not only that, but it's got the mini-dvi to S-video adaptor that means it'll display quite happily on my old Sony TV - and there doesn't appear to be an equivalent adaptor for the mini display port...

...sigh.

Everybody should have a Stress Relieving Bikini Hen Squeezy Toy...

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:26:00 +0100

One of Deal Extreme's specials: a Stress Relieving Bikini Hen Squeezy Toy

Bye bye pinball machine...

Fri, 15 May 2009 20:17:00 +0100

A sad day - my pinball machine has found a new owner...

I love ironing

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:05:00 +0000

Can an atheist believe in serendipity?

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:01:00 +0000

Back when the Playstation (the original) was the king of the consoles, there was a monthly magazine which featured a CD on the front cover with playable demos of upcoming games. Sometimes they also included 'homebrew' games developed on the Net Yaroze.

One of these homebrew games was a fantastically addictive, highly polished two player game, in the 'puzzle bobble' genre, called Super Bub which got played it a lot (I said it was addictive). It featured a great sound track which fitted the game perfectly, and a few days ago I heard it on the radio. I shazam'ed it (still can't get my head round how that works) and found out it was Higher State of Consciousness by Josh Wink. So when I got home I had a listen to it on YouTube and Sarah overheard, remembered what it reminded her of, and asked where the Super Bub game was. Ooops - no idea - must have lent it somebody years ago.

So, I started looking for the demo disc (number 43) on eBay, but it's apparently quite sought after now and nobody seemed to have it. Googling a bit further, it was apparently also included on demo disc 81. There was also a demo disc 108 which had 20 Net Yaroze games included, but I couldn't find a complete listing anywhere. After a bit of searching with various criteria and eBay's old search, I found a listing which included disc 108 along with a few others, so I stuck a 99p bid on.

A few days later, the discs arrived and there was a nice surprise when one of the boxes (disc 83) actually had an extra disc in - disc 81!

Mind you, it turns out Super Bub is on disc 108 aswell, so I've actually ended up with two copies, although I hadn't actually expected to get any...

Pointless Web Bling

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:44:00 +0000

After seeing a couple of sites with animated favicons, I thought I'd try one myself. OK, so it's probably right up with the MARQUEE tag, but I tried to keep it subtle - they're only supported by Firefox at the moment anyway.

I tried various different links in the header, but couldn't get it to fall back nicely for other browsers. Eventually I noticed that the Sky Sports site had one which I guessed would work with all browsers so I copied their links and it seems to work nicely now.

So, just in case anybody feels the need, here are the header links:

The first one should be a windows icon file, and the second one is your animated gif.

Hamsters

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:02:00 +0000

Hamsters running every where
All around
Might give you a scare
People screaming scared but why?
Seven little creatures giving it a try
Take it from me thair harmless and small
Each and every one of you don't think at all
Rats or mice or giuni-pigs
So say Hampsters once it'll give you the gigs.

Olivia (aged 7).

Leave it alone!

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:27:00 +0000

Why do so many websites feel the need to constantly change their appearance? They could at least give you the option to choose between the old and the new, but that doesn't happen very often.

Anyway, Google Reader was updated a few days ago, and it's been annoying me that they changed the font sizes. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem if you're using Firefox - you just use Stylish or Content Preferences, etc. to change the appearance on a per site basis.

However, just to be awkward, I like having google reader in an SSB using Fluid which doesn't easily allow you to change the site's appearance. There are a few solutions on the net, using userscripts, but they all seemed to be slightly broken due to the fact that google reader keeps changing it's structure and appearance (:rolleyes:).

Luckily, userscripts are pretty simple, so using Firebug I managed to track down the elements I wanted to change, went to the Userstyles Preferences, and added a couple of CSS rules to change the font sizes:


#sub-tree {font-size:90% !important; line-height:150% !important;}
.entry-main {font-size:9pt !important; padding-bottom:1em !important;}

Set the URL Pattern to *google.com/reader* and Bob is your proverbial.

I wonder how long it will last?

I'm glad I'm not a PC...

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:23:00 +0000

Does anybody else think it's slightly bizarre that Microsoft have spent money on an advertising campaign for a product they don't even make? I always thought they made software...

About time too...

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:59:00 +0100

http://oettinger.dk/touch-plugin/

Nuf sed.

Arcade Machine in your URL bar?

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:11:00 +0100

I haven't seen anything on the net for a while thats surprised me, but this did:

Defender of the Fav Icon

A playable game INSIDE the favicon!

Cool.

Paper cut on the tongue anybody?

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:34:00 +0100

We've all done it. You lick an envelope and cut your tongue. My youngest went one better a few days ago - she bit right through her tongue! I guess it's what happens when you try sticking your tongue out while attempting a mooney a bit too close to the banisters...

If you're feeling brave, take a look at the pic: Ouch!

Happily, it's healed up pretty well in just a few days.

Optional Exposure

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:39:00 +0100

Some of my many readers will remember that I had a particular gripe about OSX's Exposé feature, where it forced you to mouse over every window to find the window you really want, because it would only show the title of the window under the mouse. A right pain if you have lots of text editor windows that all look the same when shrunk to fit on the screen.

While searching for Mail RSS hints and tips, I came across this posting which points out that you can hold down the Option key to show all the window titles! Very nice. Not sure why it's an option though - it would be better if pressing the key toggled the feature on and off.

Maybe the reason it's not more well known is that it seems a bit buggy. It worked for me first time, but it seems to be a bit hit and miss for some people...

Holiday snaps...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:22:00 +0100

I've just added some photos from my holiday in France - camping in Carnac. Really nice campsite, with excellent facilities for the kids, and a top excuse for me to check out the megaliths that are all over the place in the area.

I've also taken the opportunity to try out a new photo viewing script Thickbox, which has some nicer features than the old script I was using, Lightbox...

My first rant post...

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:20:00 +0100

I saw a mini today with reversing sensors on it. A Mini. WTF?

Elastic-tastic...

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:21:00 +0100

As all my avid readers will be aware (hi Dave, Steve, Chris and Jo), I like using ems to layout websites so they stay nice and elastic. It works great in Firefox, Safari, etc. but not quite nicely enough in Explorer (surprise surprise). So I did a quick google and found this little nugget:

body { font-size: 80% }

That's it. No more ridiculously small fonts when 'smallest' text size is selected (well it's still a bit small, but you can actually read it now) and layouts work much better. Down with pixels!

A different point of view

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:01:00 +0100

My kids had come into our bedroom and we had long conversation after one of them claimed to be able to see Mt. Everest out of the bedroom window. I was trying to get them to imagine how big Everest really would be - 20 times higher than the Malvern hills we were actually looking at (pretty impossible to imagine actually).

One thing led to another - tectonic plates pushing together to create mountain ranges ... oceanic trenches ... fossils at the tops of mountains ... why it is easier to explore mountains than the sea because of the pressure ... ears popping, etc.

Next thing, my other daughter zips off to tell her grandmother that we've got some blue tits nesting in a box in our garden. I then hear her say that this is amazing because it had only happened because she was born. Because, then she had a birthday so she was given the nest box so the birds had somewhere to make a nest and have babies.

Looks like humans can't help seeing things from their own perspective...

Better post something for this month...

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:42:00 +0000

Right - I've sussed it.

1. Never use percentages for placing stuff using CSS.
2. Always use ems.
3. Decide on one part of the page (or section of the page) that will stretch with the window resizing, then fix the size of everything else.

At least that's the strategy for now. It'll probably break in Explorer because it's got a different idea of the size of an em!

Time for a Change

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:10:00 +0000

Well it only took about 7 years, but I finally got round to updating my website. A lot of the old stuff has gone, leaving a simpler, more up to date site.