Twitter Updates for 2008-02-29

• About to click "yes" on "do I want to erase this Macbook and reinstall?" Goodbye, cruel world… #
• install done. Now for updates… #
• Time Machine doing it’s restore thing. Might be here for a while as I regret not investing in a Firewire drive… #
• I can haz teabagz. #
• Slowly rebuilding my Macbook after a restore. Amazing how many tweaks need applying… #
• Trying to get MySQL running on MacBook. Epic FAIL #
• Hah! MySQL up and running! Helps if you get the directory permissions right… #
• @russelldavies It’s Friday night, and I’m *writing* bloody software. Where did we all go wrong? #
• And now, for an encore - installing VMWare Fusion #

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links for 2008-02-29

• Ponoko
  Web-based laser cutting service to make custom parts from .eps files.
  (tags: make design sourcing materials craft)

Twitter Updates for 2008-02-28

• Blogging about the latest project to come out of Headshift Towers - http://tinyurl.com/26h9w5 #
• I can’t remember how to adjust a gantt chart to show something completed early. Does that say something about how most projects run? #

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Faster, deeper, sleepier

My first Mac was a G4 Powerbook, and one of the principal “wow” factors was the sleep function - close the lid or hit the power button, and the machine would sleep more-or-less instantaneously. Waking up was just as fast, which was always good for impressing the Windows fanbois as they went off for a coffee or three while their Windows machines restarted.

When I upgraded to a Macbook, I found that the sleep function took a lot longer - not so much longer that it wasn’t still impressive to Windows users, but long enough to be irritating to someone used to a Powerbook. That’s because the Macbooks sleep AND hibernate, which takes a while as the contents of memory are written out to disk.

SmartSleep is a free-as-in-beer utility that installs as a preference pane in System Preferences, and allows you to change the default behaviour of the sleep function so that it just sleeps. This is dramatically quicker - but the clever part is that the utility will switch to sleep and hibernate if the battery level drops below a definable threshold.

All of which will save me, oh, minutes per day….

I’ll go and hand myself in, then

The Metropolitan Police have launched a campaign to make sure we all stay frightened alert for the imminent threat of being gunned down by trigger-happy coppers blown to bits by suicide bombers.

There are several suspicious behaviour traits, apparently - taking pictures, owning more than one mobile phone, and - er - apparently, using doors.

Since at last count I had three mobile phones, at least twenty cameras of various description, and a front door, I suppose I’d better save someone else the trouble and go and hand myself in…

Twitter Updates for 2008-02-27

• Just met a full-grown adult fox on the footpath to the station. Guess she was commuting, too #
• So you can change the background colours of the BBC homepage. Nice feature - but why?? #
• Looks like the BBC is following the Grauniad’s lead - homepage looks *completely* different to News… #
• Does anyone else of my vintage remember the Open University Micro Computer - early 1980s, Z80 processor, controlled lego motors? #
• Wondering why I seem to be the only person on this train without a Blackberry. #
• Watching someone fighting with Outlook - 3 reboots so far, and still she hasn’t managed to reply to the email. #
• Was about to weigh in on a Comment Is Free thread, but got trapped in registration process hell and gave up. Life’s too short… #

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Twitter Updates for 2008-02-26

• At the V&A Museum. Business rather than pleasure, but the best office art in town #
• @johnniemoore Be sure to take advantage of the unending supply of complimentary coffee and shortbread biscuits! #
• Attempting to update my ‘about’ page. Still haven’t got it right. #

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links for 2008-02-26

• Graticule
  Graticule is a geocoding API for looking up address coordinates and performing distance calculations. It supports many popular APIs, including:

  * Yahoo
  * Google
  * Geocoder.ca
  * Geocoder.us
  * PostcodeAnywhere
  * MetaCarta

  (tags: api rails ruby rubyonrails geocoding goecode geographical)
• Botanicalls Twitter DIY
  Botanicalls Twitter answers the question: What’s up with your plant? It offers a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates that reach you anywhere in the world. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know
  (tags: hacks hacking electronics arduino interface)
• TimesMachine - New York Times
  TimesMachine can take you back to any issue from Volume 1, Number 1 of The New-York Daily Times, on September 18, 1851, through The New York Times of December 30, 1922. Choose a date in history and flip electronically through the pages
  (tags: times newyorktimes newspapers newspaper online)
• Google Static Maps API - Google Code
  The Google Static Maps API lets you embed a Google Maps image on your webpage without requiring JavaScript or any dynamic page loading.
  (tags: maps mapping google googlemaps code coding development)
• Adobe - Design Center : Using Flash for the first time – Part 1: Building a banner
  (tags: flash tutorial)
• CEB Press - Open Souce Ecology
  This page is an introduction to the collaborative development of a high performance Compressed Earth Block (CEB) press, The Liberator. We aim to provide a low-cost, ecological, ergonomical, and economically-significant press.
  (tags: opensource ecology engineering)

Twitter Updates for 2008-02-25

• Stealing wifi from a Cloud hotfoot, which is working rather well considering that O2 is involved. #
• @jermolene Intriguing idea, what’s the detail? #
• @Jermolene Definitely - us old farts + good ideas = almost an oxymoron #
• @serenasaysso Sounds like the kind of fitness regime we could all relate to #
• @infovore If you now know all about optocouplers, guess you’re not going for the light fiction reading? #
• Aiming to be asleep by midnight - so Heathrow Departure Control take note and stop routing A340s directly overhead, please #

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Twitter Updates for 2008-02-24

• Building Flash Bebo widgets with daughter. Wondering if that’s at all precocious for 13… #
• @tomtaylor Let’s just say it’s a learning curve, and mine is steeper than hers… #
• Oh, Peterborough, how have I missed thee. Must be all of 72 hours since I was last staring at your rathole of a station… #
• On the last train of the day #

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