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  • Pibb – The Social Network you never knew you needed

    I’ve been having a quick look tonight at OpenID. I signed up for one about six months ago, but I must admit, I’ve never needed to use it since. At the back of my mind I’ve been considering adding it to a blog, as it is an ID system I’d like to buy into. A post on Lifehacker today about the pros and cons of OpenID got me thinking about it, and I started reading round again, reminding myself how it might be used.

    This was how I happened upon Pibb. Pibb is a social network which starts with the OpenID protocol, and then adds in forums, groups, messaging and IM. Imagine Facebook without all the junk, and which looks really pretty and clean. And to be fair, Facebook isn’t that ugly to begin with. It’s worth a look into, for one, it could be a good place for IM chat where you’re not able to set up a client. Ultimately it’s main attraction for me is that it just looks good.

  • Foot on the pedal – never ever false metal

    We saw Run Fat Boy Run at the cinema this past Saturday, starring Simon Pegg. Not that great to be honest. Dylan Moran was alright in it. And there were a lot of Nike logos, which was annoying at first, but after about the 20,000th I grew into a state of tacit acceptance, and at about 30,000 I realised that it was in fact the greatest symbol in the history of mankind, and that life was all about the mantra “Just do it”. I’ve since sold all my possessions, bar of course my Nike trainers, and now live a life of simplicity devoted to the worship of the swoop. If I find where I can get Nike underpants, I’m going to get arrested a lot less now.

    Speaking of mind control, I was rather disturbed by an advert for The Alpha course. This was a cinema full of young teenage kids (woooo. Actually they weren’t that bad, the ones next to us that I thought would be a pain actually tutted when some younger kids down the front talked a bit during the film). They’re not allowed to have ads for alcohol, or fags, or indeed many things shoved down their throats, so why should religion be allowed to sell itself to them? When they’re old enough, fine. Although I personally go to the cinema to have naked consumerism pushed to me, and I have no desire to instead have my moral values questioned instead. If I do, I’ll watch a good documentary on the sofa. Questioning morals should always be done in a familiar chair with a cup of tea.

  • The Easiest Way to install a LAMP server in Ubuntu Feisty 7.04

    I’ve had to install a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server before, and it can be quite a hassle. Well under Feisty 7.04, it seems like the process is a lot more painless. Thanks to the wonderful Ubuntu Guide Wiki for Feisty Fawn 7.04 (which is where I start for instructions on setting up most things in Ubuntu), I found this fantastic little tip. You can install a complete LAMP server package from the Synaptic Package Manager:

    System-->Administration-->Synaptic Package Manager-->Edit-->Mark packages by Task-->LAMP Server-->OK

    Then apply the packages update, and all is done for you. So far, it looks like Apache 2 and PHP5 have been set up for me properly. I’ll test some more, but this was a real timesaver compared to the last time I did this.

  • Google tries to be Delicious

    Google have recently launched Shared Stuff, a sort of competitor to del.icio.us. I’ve had a look at this tonight, and it’s quite nicely done. You drop a bookmarklet onto your toolbar, and if you want to save a page, it launches a new window, in which you can edit your description of the page. This then saves to your own shared page (with an RSS feed of course) and your profile. The whole thing works very much like del.icio.us, particularly when used in conjunction with their Firefox extension (where you get to add tags and your description).

    The Google version definitely looks nicer, but I’m used to del.icio.us, it works well, the tagging is a very nice way to navigate your bookmarks, and I’ve been using it for so long I’m just loathe to consider moving elsewhere (have a look at my own del.icio.us page just to see how much I’ve got stored there).

    I’ve also been looking at a Mozilla project, Joey. This is a similar idea at first, except it is designed specifically for sharing content from the web to your mobile phone. The idea here is that you can clip parts of pages, so text, images and even video, so that you can just download the element you need on your phone.

    Having tried this out, it’s apparent that it is very handy for storing a bit of a timetable, or directions that you can call up from your phone. One thing it doesn’t work on yet is Google Maps, which is a shame, as that would be very handy. That is down to how the maps are generated, rather than being a single image, they are several squares which are patched together on your screen. Joey won’t let you grab them yet, but I’m sure in time they might get it figured out. It is very beta at the moment, but worth a look.

  • Moving away from the mainstream

    For about a couple of years now, I’ve been listening mainly to podcasts, as opposed to radio. My only radio exceptions are Fighting Talk, which is just a pure guilty pleasure (and I listen to the podcast version), Radio 5 in the morning as I get ready, and Radio 5 on the weekend when sport is on and I’m upstairs.

    Now I’m starting to do the same for television, using Miro, and it’s an interesting experiment. I do watch a lot of sport, and I’m really struggling to find video podcasts containing actual sporting action. I’m filling the gap with more geek related things, and a Police Drama called Port City PD. I watched the first episode tonight, and it’s a bit rough round the edges (apparently they have a budget of a few thousand pounds an episode), but it’s a perfectly entertaining and valid drama show. I’ve also found a sitcom called Something to Be Desired, American actors doing their own thing. Worth a go, takes a little to get into, like Curb Your Enthusiasm. Seems a bit slow at first, but after you’ve had a good laugh, you’re there.

    I’m going to stick with it, and see what other things I can find to watch. I’ll certainly keep up to date with the shows I really like on regular tv, but I’m trying to fill in the dross with more watchable telly.

  • Sumautrinter time

    So winter arrived yesterday, it got cold. Real cold. And then it’s sort of heating up now. Don’t know what season we are in now. Sumautrinter, I believe. I think I’m going to wrap up warm and wear shorts, makes as much sense as anything else.

    Mrsfb’s brother was up to visit this weekend, had a nice time catching up with him. Not the most hectic of weekends, rather good. Managed to mess up my sleep cycle something chronic though, not quite back to it yet.

    Have to get my bum in gear about sorting out things for going to New York. We have money, tickets, hotel and passports, so that’s kind of the important things covered, but there are plenty of other things to do as well. I intend to get a few things done tonight.

  • Graeme and fab

    A nice surprise today, I am the 4th Graeme on Google UK, and the 21st on Google.com. Imagine being so highly rated within the world of your own name! I aim to improve, and am setting my sight on being the No.1 Graeme in the UK, and to try and break the top ten Graeme list for the world. Lofty and worthy goals I feel.

    The other thing that has got me excited today is the announcement of a relatively cheap fabber. Desktop Factory have announced a $5000 3D printer (via TG Daily). A 3D printer (or fabber) prints objects, cutting and moulding plastic shapes. They could in time become home factories. One possibility is that you might be able to recycle materials, use them in a fabber, then make new objects you need, to a design you’ve downloaded from the internet, or made yourself. There is a long way to go, clearly, but seeing the basic means of production heading towards an affordable price is exciting for me.

  • Managing your Nokia 6300 using Wammu

    I’ve written before about connecting to a Nokia 6300 using Gnokii. John Dickson mentioned in the comments about using Wammu, and that he’d found it worked in part (but that also he’d written something in Java that did the backup side better). So I thought I’d give Wammu a try first, then John’s program another time.

    Under Ubuntu or Kubuntu, having followed the instructions in my previous article for installing Gnokii, I simply installed wammu via the adept package manager. This installed it under Utilities. Upon running, it pointed out there were no records for any phone, and asked if I wanted to search for one. This is a good start. So I hooked up my Nokia 6300 via USB, and set it into Nokia mode. I then let it perform the search, and after about a minute it showed that it had found one phone. It looks to me like it used the same settings I had for Gnokii. Now I don’t know if it used the connection I’d set before, or if it had figured that out for itself. I’d be interested to know if it is self-configuring like that, so I might try it out on another computer when I get chance.

    Once connected, it is a fairly basic program. It reads the address book to an extent, but can only see the name and the phone number (I am after other information as well ideally). It can’t see the calendar or SMS messages, but it can read the phone log. It looks like I could potentially use it to send SMS from the computer, but I’m not so bothered about that. However it does seem to do a basic backup of what it can see fine.

    So I’m not completely happy with it so far, but it does work to some extent, and if it is figuring the connection out for itself, then it is at least a lot easier than what I’ve done before. So a casual thumbs up for Wammu thus far.

  • Mix your own Subterranean Homesick Blues video

    I like this, mix your own version of the Dylan classic video.

  • Graeme and fab

    A nice surprise today, I am the 4th Graeme on Google UK, and the 21st on Google.com. Imagine being so highly rated within the world of your own name! I aim to improve, and am setting my sight on being the No.1 Graeme in the UK, and to try and break the top ten Graeme list for the world. Lofty and worthy goals I feel.

    The other thing that has got me excited today is the announcement of a relatively cheap fabber. Desktop Factory have announced a $5000 3D printer (via TG Daily). A 3D printer (or fabber) prints objects, cutting and moulding plastic shapes. They could in time become home factories. One possibility is that you might be able to recycle materials, use them in a fabber, then make new objects you need, to a design you’ve downloaded from the internet, or made yourself. There is a long way to go, clearly, but seeing the basic means of production heading towards an affordable price is exciting for me.