Posted February 22nd, 2009
by Josh
My eldest daughter has started developing an interest in using computers and the Internet. She quite often asks to play games on one of her favorite websites on my laptop.
This has started becoming a more regular occurence, so I decided that I would re-instate an old laptop that I had lying around and set it up for the kids.
The machine is quite old so wouldn’t be particularly speedy running Windows, so an idea struck me, I could install may favorite linux distro of choice, Ubuntu; not only would this run better on the old laptop but would also give my kids a different view of computers than most of their friends will get just using Windows.
I’m hoping that giving my kids this different view of computers will help them have a better understanding of computers in the future.
One of my problems with computing in schools is thatfor example, kids arn’t taught how to Word Process, they are taught how to use Microsoft Word, this goes for using the OS itself as well.
I’m a realist enough to know that this is the way things are due to Microsofts Dominance of the market, but I’d like my kids to be able to have a different perspective on how computers can be used
I’m no Microsoft hater, I’d just like my kids to make their own decisions on these things and by giving them a choice, I hope enable them to do that.
Tags: Kids, laptop, Linux, Microsoft, Ubuntu, Windows, Word Posted in Cool Stuff!, Personal, Rantings, Technology
Posted January 22nd, 2009
by Josh
I’ve just come accross this report on the BBC’s technology newspage.
Its unbeleivable really, BT and our own government will not seriously look at rolling out a decent high-speed broadband infrastructure, so some desperate people are looking at cobling their own broadband services together.
I think its disgusting that people are driven to these measures, which will end up costing them ridiculous amounts of money, when people i countries such as Sweden, Holland and Japan have these services available as standard.
Yet another indicator that the UK is a good 5-6 years behind some countries in regards to our broadband infrastructure, so much for us being a global superpower and leading nation. 
Tags: Broadband, BT, IT, UK Posted in Rantings, Technology
Posted November 14th, 2008
by Josh
Just thought I’d add a link to a really useful site I use on a regular basis.
The guys over at Pogdesign have designed a really useful TV catalogue that displays all the best TV shows from America and the UK.
To vie the Catalogue click here.
Tags: catalogue, listing, pogdesign, show, tv Posted in Cool Stuff!, Me, Personal, Technology
Posted October 30th, 2008
by Josh
I’ve just installed a plugin that allows people to sign up and login to the site using and OpenID.
OpenID is an initiative being supported by a wide range of organisations which is hoping to reduce the need for uers to have multiple usernames and passwords for all their various web accounts.
For more info check out the OpenID site or for a good (and independent) OpenID provider, click here.
Tags: OpenID, plugin, Wordpress Posted in Cool Stuff!, Site Stuff, Technology
Posted October 30th, 2008
by Josh
The Ubuntu team have release their 9th version of their operating system today.
8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) will be supported until 2010 and includes a new default theme and a raft of other improvements.
Ive been using it for a while as a beta and I really like it.
Keep us the good work!
Tags: Linux, OS, Ubuntu Posted in Technology
Posted October 10th, 2008
by Josh
You can now get 50GB of space for your Dropbox. If you pay monthly its $9.99 per month, or you can pay an anual $99 fee. Unfortunately for me they only accept credit cards and I dont have one (Credit Cards are evil!). Theres a petition to get them to support Paypal, so lets hope it pays off as I neeeeeed this!
Tags: 'credit cards', 50GB, Dropbox, paypal, petition Posted in Cool Stuff!, Technology, Wishlist
Posted September 18th, 2008
by Josh
I recently discovered a new online storage solution thats just come out of beta and been fully released into the wild.
Dropbox is a highly user friendly storage solution designed with the ethos that little or no effort should be needed on the users behalf to keep their documents syncronised with the online storage system.
Dropbox achieves this very well. You download a small executable from their website, install it and signup. You then choose where you’d like to store your Dropbox folder on your local filesystem. Once setup this folder and anything inside it is automatically syncronised with Dropbox’s servers.
The brilliant thing about Dropbox is that you can install the client on any PC, login with your details and your Dropbox folder is automatically syncronised with this new computer.
Dropbox also has a web-interface if you dont want to install the client (if your using a public computer for example). From it you can upload and download files, aswell as manage existing files already in your Dropbox.
If you dont happen to have access to a computer at anytime, you can also access Dropbox via its iPhone portal (this is just a page styled to work better on mobile browsers, so will actually work with most smartphones and PDA’s).
Dropbox also allows you to share certain files publicly. A folder named ‘Public’ is created inside your Dropbox and any files placed in this folder can be made available. All you need to do is right click the file and select the ‘copy public link’ option, then paste this link in an email or IM chat.
You can also make groups with other Dropbox users in and share certain files to the group, making it a potentiall useful businessfile sharing tool.
There are Windows, Linux and Mac OSX clients available, allowing you to sync between these 3 platforms.
Currently, users can signup for free and get 2GB of online storage. Apparently these 2GB accounts will always be free, which is great for those of us who dont like paying for anything. They are currently working on implimenting larger storage space, but this will probably be a chargable extra. A price of $9.99 per month for 50GB is being bandied around at the moment, which sounds very reasonable to me.
Tags: browser, client, documents, Dropbox, filesystem, iphone, Linux, mac, online storage, OSX, syncronised, user friendly, web-interface, Windows Posted in Cool Stuff!, Technology
Posted August 29th, 2008
by Josh
I was recently pointed towards a new Microsoft project by a friend of mine, its called photosynth, and its just gone public on Microsoft Live Labs.
Essentially its a system for ’stitching’ digital photographs together to make 3d representations from the 2d images. It uses a system of ‘point recognition’, wherby it analyses each picture and looks for similarities between them. These reference points are used to generate a 3d ‘points cloud’ to which the 2d images are overlaid.
Enough of the techie talk, photosynth is really cool! Its also very easy to use.
Once signed up (you need a Windows Live ID), you download a browser, plugin and a application for your PC. You then take some pictures, making sure theres an overlap of about a third with each one, then dump them into the software and press synth! A short while later, your synth has been created and is viewable online for the whole world to admire.
Depending on how well you’ve taken your photos, your creation will be given a ’synthy percentage’. The higher the percentage the more of your images were used and the more ’synthy’ it is.
Anyway, heres a link to a couple of my better ones, enjoy.
Robin Hill – Wishing Well
Robin Hill – King Henry VIII’s Hunting Lodge
Tags: live id, live labs, Microsoft, photosynth, points cloud, synthy, Windows Posted in Cool Stuff!, Technology
