chrisg.org

I just realised the many many many hours I have wasted trying to get wifi working with Ubuntu on my laptop probably makes Ubuntu the most expensive desktop operating system I have ever owned.

My new wifi card has been just as much of a pain. I bought it on impulse because I thought it might be my old crappy belkin causing the problems and apparently the D-Link runs flawlessly right out the box. Nope. These are lies people. Don’t believe the hype.

This so-called “free” operating system is going to cost me time, money and my hair.

In todays “web2.0” environment many applications now require some sort of RSS interaction, even if it is just for a “ping, I have done” notification. IBM has a nice little easy to read tutorial on using RSS with PHP

PHP and RSS: Getting it together

Another “spit your coffee on the computer screen” post for you to read, go right now and read “What code DOESN’T do in real life (that it does in the movies)” over at Drivl.com

A couple of my faves

1. Code does not move

In films and television code is always sailing across the screen at incredible speeds; it’s presented as an indecipherable stream of letters and numbers that make perfect sense to the programmer but dumbfound everyone else. I understand that to the non-savvy person the abilities of a programmer might seem amazingly complex, but do they honestly think we can read shit that isn’t sitting still?

6. Code cannot be cracked by an 8 year old kid in a matter of seconds
Sorry, no.  Just no.  

Every day people complain about PayPals business practices. It’s easy to get upset with a company that can take your money away without your permission and get away with it. Many of these people have a shaky case, they have done something clearly against the PayPal TOS etc, but many more appear to have been victims of very strange and abusive policies such as this long-standing PayPal users experience over Playstation 3 auctions ..

Read:“One Man’s Battle With eBay and PayPal Ends In Tragedy”

I don’t believe in willpower but I never seem to keep my new years resolutions. My belief is people weigh up costs and benefits and choose the path of greatest immediate reward. Also I believe people have split personalities, “short-term-me” and “long-term-me”. Stay with me here.

Think of most things that people believe require willpower. Dieting, giving up smoking, starting a book, doing homework, etc. Mostly these are gradual things. One cigarette won’t do you much harm. An extra doughnut won’t make you fat, etc. In most cases this means “short-term-me” wins; captain “instant gratification” asserts his influence. Short-term-me is childlike, spontaneous, gets us drunk, wants kicks now and doesn’t mind putting off nasty stuff as the future is the responsibility of the more level headed and adult long-term-me. It is long-term-me who has to deal with the consequences. Short-term-me writes cheques long-term-me can’t cash.

The only way to get short-term-me to act responsibly is to make the consequences also short term. Some people can bring long-term-me into the here and now sometimes. Most people though have to find a way of taming short-term-me and that is where “self binding” comes in.

Self-binding, in this context, means finding ways to commit yourself to a course of action where the consequences of not are out of your control. It could be as simple as a bet with a friend or at the extreme informing the police to arrest the driver of your car if found out after 10pm. In Missouri casinos have “self-exclusion” lists where you can ask them to throw you out or even arrested if you try to gamble. Ever. Sometimes the phrase “Ulysses Contract” is used (more often in psychiatry)

take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope’s ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still

— The Odyssey

Most people don’t need to go as far as involving the police or being strapped to a ships mast. Just the knowledge that your friends know of your resolution can be sufficient, or if not a smaller agreed penalty can be enough.

So what is the point to all this? I’m thinking this year I really want to stick to my resolutions … 🙂

I have failed. I can’t get my DSLRBlog template to play nice with IE7. Anybody got a clue how I can fix it?

My childhood memories of Santa are sketchy to say the least so when my daughter protested that she was afraid of Santa right from the get-go I thought it was just one of her foibles. It turns out that fear of Santa is a much more common thing (it has even got a name, Hagiophobia, although I think that is a fear of any cultural or religious icon?), check out the SCARED OF SANTA GALLERY: Tis the season to be scared witless

Nothing says Happy Holidays like a photo of sweet little toddlers screaming at Santa. A couple of years ago, the Chicago Tribune asked readers to send in their “Scared of Santa” photos. Those photos are included here, as well as additional photos sent in by SouthFlorida.com, Sun-Sentinel.com and Chicago Tribune readers in subsequent years. Enjoy!

I saw this post over at drupal.org and had to laugh. It’s one of those “funny cuz it’s true” things but even though it is “drupal hell” it could apply to pretty much any programming endeavour  …

The Road to Drupal Hell

Attensa for a while has been my RSS reader of choice. It runs right in Microsoft Outlook which until recently I would have open all the time. Problem is a lot of the time now it just misses updates. A tool for keeping up to date is no use if it misses new posts. For example it has been running all day and has still to see the posts for 4th or 5th December at Problogger. Pretty unforgivable bug that. But I also have this goal of leaving the world of Windows in favour of Linux so an RSS reader that relies on Microsoft Outlook is pretty much redundant anyway.

I tried Google Reader which, even though I am not all that fond of web interface RSS reading, is pretty ok. A screencast by D’Arcy Norman about the new version of BlogBridge has prompted me to give it another try. I gave it a go before and even recommended it to a few people but ended up settling on Attensa.

The divide between professional and amateur video and audio worry me a bit. With articles/blogs/websites its easy to compete with the big guys on “production values” whereas video and audio the entry bar is set at a far more challenging level.

First of all there is the ability of the presenter, producer, director and editor (probably in a lot of cases all same person). When you write with modern tools you only need to be able to write. Journalistic, editing, research or even HTML skills can help but or not really necessary. With podcasting a whole new set of technologies and skills come into play. Equipment, sound levels, editing etc on the technical side and that is before you discover if you have any talent in front of the mike. Some people are naturals, I think Nicks years on the telephone have trained him to have a good radio voice, the rest of us would probably have to work hard to not sound uninteresting. Going into video you have even more challenges, as well as all the audio hurdles of podcasting you have the addition of the visual. Your presenter needs to look the part and many shows use graphics. Seamlessly and creatively directing and editing video is even harder. There is a reason why many of the top video bloggers are either TV or aspiring TV professionals.

OK, I know there are people who are doing podcasts with built-in sound cards and even built-in mikes. I suppose, though I don’t actually watch any, there are video podcasts (vlogs, vodcasts, whatever) where people sit in front of a video camera and just “do their thing”. How long will these efforts stay around though?

Look at the podcasting community discussions of “rigs“. Right away there is some snobbishness about using basic audio capture gear. Podcasts produced this way are largely dismissed. For a fun clip of someone falling over a video captured on a phone is sufficient, a regular “show” that is just thrown together probably wouldn’t survive very long and almost certainly wouldn’t attract any income.

For myself I think I will stick to text and maybe guest on a podcast or vlog if invited. I would rather leave all this complexity to others for now!