For some strange and somewhat annoying reason, I'm unable to use HTTP via the university internet connection. This naturally means that I can't browse any websites.
Fortunately, Ciaran came to the rescue (as you may be able to gather - I wouldn't be posting this otherwise... duh) so I'm now using proxy-server.711.net port 81. This was taken from a larger list at http://tools.rosinstrument.com/proxy/ - might be useful for bookmarking just in case.
I've just been dabbling in PHP. Ciaran finally got back to me over an email I sent him a few days ago asking how to make the Apache web server treat .html files as PHP files (I knew it was possible, it's just I didn't know the MIME type and couldn't be bothered to find it out). The reason? Mainly because I wanted the BlogRolling links to be included in the page source and not appear as tag-on scripts; that way the page loads faster (particularly on slow connections like mine).
The problem is that there's an incompatibility between PHP and XHTML. The PHP Apache modules sees the XML declaration and thinks it's a line of PHP markup. So it tries to execute it, but falls flat on its face in the process. So, instead of seeing this weblog, you would have seen a nasty PHP error...
The next thing I tried was changing < to & #60 ; , but this meant that the XML declaration was displayed with the code. Grrr.
Just when I was losing patience, I came across The PHP Manual. This explains what to do (add the XML declaration as a piece of PHP code), which finally worked. Phew.
So, the BlogRolling links are now included in the source HTML, which will hopefully raise the PageRanks of those sites that I link to. Isn't that kind of me? :)
Because HotOrNot won't let you change your blog's URL, the old account has been deactivated and I've signed up again with this. Please vote for me! :)
I decided that now that most of this site is finished, I would close the old site. If you visit it now, you'll see that the index page redirects here, and any subpages have messages on them noting that the URL has changed.
This means that if any of you link to this, please please please update the URLs. I'll modify the 'BlogRoll Me' link in a minute or two to help you with this.
And after Andy reminded me, the XML feed now gives you the whole post, not just the first 10 words or so.
I'm a WinMX user, and I'm generally pleased with the program. I'm surprised more people don't use it.
It's biggest selling point, for me, is a lack of spyware (despite what has been claimed on the LavaSoft Boards, notice the lack of replies). According to SlashDot, KaZaA, Morpheus and LimeWire are now hijacking affiliate links to Amazon (and other sites), so that the commission from the purchase goes to the program makers instead of the site which provided the link.
As the SlashDot article points out, this means that you could be browsing the site of a charity, which then asks you to buy something to help support them. You think the money's going to them, but no. Instead, it's lining the pockets of a P2P software developer.
The worst bit? Merely uninstalling the P2P program does not remove the piece of malware responsible for munging the affiliate links - that remains on your computer.
Although Ad-Aware has just been updated I don't know whether it removes this evil component, so I suggest that if you use KaZaA, either don't upgrade or monitor your system very carefully.
(also covered by New York Times and International Herald Tribune)
I just got an email from my mum (she emails me as it's cheaper than phoning) asking how my blog did in the Guardian Best British Blog Awards. To you, this might sound perfectly normal, but to me it's veeery straaange.
Why? Because I didn't know my parents knew I had a blog. It may have been one of those things that I casually mentioned and they happened to take more notice of it than I first thought, or maybe they've (shock horror) read it.
I suppose it doesn't really matter though; I certainly don't think I've written anything derogatory about them in here, but it is kinda scary that they knew.
One thing they also know is that I bought this domain, but that's because I told them that, and my incredibly tech-savvy mother then asked me why I'd bought a Mexican domain. Um... that's '.mx', not '.me.uk'...
Tonight looks like a quiet night in. There is the Friday Night Disco, but without anyone to go with it's not as fun. Even if I did get a text message from HeadPorter offering me a free drink if I showed the message when I went in.
As you may notice I'm posting entries both in the old and new blog. This is because the old one hasn't been retired yet and because I need some content on the new blog so that I can see what it looks like with a few posts, and thus design around it accordingly. Admittedly I am working with the same design as before - "if it ain't broke don't fix it" - but there may be little tweaks that need to be made.
I have to say I prefer using MT to post - it actually looks okay in Mozilla, whereas Blogger looks a little goofed up. And I can't use w.bloggar to post anymore, either :(.
As for progress, so far this main page and the comments pages now use the new (as opposed to default) template, but the archives still look rather boring and plain, so that'll be my task for this weekend. Which looks to be rather quiet - a number of people in hall are going home for the weekend so I'm going to be lonely :(. I am considerign going across to Manchester on Sunday to see Tom, my mate for I don't know how many years (14, I think. Which, considering I'm only 18, is a loooong time.). He's just moved into a house with his girlfriend and a few mates, so it'll be interesting to see what it's like.
And in case you don't know, Mandrake Linux 9.0 was released on Wednesday. I'll download it when I get home; it looks good. It comes with KDE 3.0.3, Mozilla 1.1, OpenOffice 1.0.1 and a load more besides. And hopefully after a few sessions in the labs here, I'll actually be able to use it...
My favourite political party, the Liberal Democrats, have announced that free and open source software "should get strong consideration in public sector areas", according to The Guardian Online. Although I don't (knowingly) pay tax yet (well, apart from VAT), this makes sense; think how much the government spends per year on licensing software. All that money comes from the taxpayer, so if free solutions are used instead, the cost of a new computer could be halved. That could save millions, which could instead be invested in education and health.
The Guardian's Best British Weblog Awards results were announced today, and before you check, no, I didn't win, sadly. In fact, of those shortlisted, Naked Blog was the only one I remember actually going to in the past.
The were 300 entries in the competition, which, in a way, surprised me - I was expecting many more considering that roughly half of all UK households have access to the internet at home, putting the potential UK internet audience at 30 million. But, having said that, I know that many didn't enter; whether that was related to the decision by the author of PlasticBag.org to pull out, or due to the fact that people either didn't know about it or didn't feel as if their weblog was worthy enough I don't know.
Next year's competition promises to have categories for entry; maybe I'll have more luck next time. :)
Maybe the end of next week was a little pessimistic. As Andy pointed out in the comment below, the DNS records have updated, so the site is now working, and I have installed Movable Type successfully. The site is now being built up - it will use the same template as this (intially at least) but will have the various extras that Movable Type offers over Blogger included.
I'm also impressed with Freedom 2 Surf's handling of my request - today I got a phone call from a real person confirming my order. Though I have noticed my account reports that I'm using 0MB of my 20MB quota...
Welcome to the new, improved Neil's World! The blog is now on a different host, has its own domain name, and is now powered by Movable Type instead of Blogger. This means that:
I'm still setting this up, so I'd appreciate any bug reports, comments or criticisms you may have.
I think it's about time I revealed something: this weblog is doomed. In fact, if all goes to plan, it will be retired by the end of next week.
Why? Because I'm moving to Movable Type! What's more, the site will be moving to my own domain www.neilturner.me.uk, which I purchased along with a good quality hosting package yesterday evening.
The new host will be Freedom 2 Surf; I've probably mentioned them before since they offer a good deal. The domain is also registered with them. And, for one year's hosting, it's goign to be less than £40, with the domain name thrown in. One of the big pulling factors was the fact that they accepted Switch (my ATM card) as a means of payment, so I was able to sign up there and then online.
The site won't be functional for a while because I'll first have to wait for the DNS records to update, then I'll have to get Movable Type uploaded and configured. But once that's done, I should be in business.
As for this weblog, it will be retired, but it is not my intention to delete it. I only have 20MB of storage on the server (though I can buy extra space), so I won't initially be moving the old posts across.
And yes, I do know there are issues between MT and f2s, but this is more to do with server space than a host problem :).
I've successfully gone a second day without any lectures. Most people started them on Monday, but the Department of Computing seems to have decided that we need to meet our tutors first. So my first lecture is tomorrow afternoon... and it's 5 hours. Eck...
In the meantime I got some washing done, though for some reason the tumble dryer, um... didn't. So I've now got clothes draped other everything in the hope that they'll dry sometime soon. I also managed to lose a sock somewhere, so if someone sees an orange and black sock with 'Thursday' on it, let me know, m'kay?
Oh yeah, my thumb is healing up a little, though it still hurts. It's not bleeding though, which I supoose is some consolation.
On Sunday night, I got a chance to watch the film Shrek, and actually it's a really good film. The ending was a bit pants but the rest of it was fine.
As for tonight? Erm... I'm going to see what everyone else is doing. I think there's a BAPS (Bradford Association of Pharmacy Students) night out, where guests are invited, so hopefully someone will invite me. Most of the other students in my hall are doing pharmacy as it is.
This net connection is really starting to do my nut in. IRC is totally blocked, it's slow, Trillian seems to be intermittently blocked, w.bloggar (!) is blocked, and all the file sharing clients I've tried fail. Argh!!!
To make matters worse, I slit my thumb with a breadknife today. It hurts, I tell you!
Looks like a quiet night in with a pasta bolognese and a Dario G CD as my company for the evening.
Here I am, settled at University with my own (incredibly slow) internet connection. I would have posted here on Wednesday, but for some reason I decided to plug the modem cable into the ethernet socket (the fact it fitted is slightly worrying). I only discovered this on Friday morning as I was going out to buy a new modem cable.
So, what have I been doing? Going out a lot, getting slightly tipsy and watching my next door neighbour get hypnotised by a random Canadian bloke. And catching up on all of the emails I've missed.
I was hoping to write some entries to put in here but I only really got the first entry done, so here it is:
Got up and packed final stuff (music, razor etc.) into the car almost filling it (we had to abandon the stereo box and just take the parts in plastic bags - actually I think we took more stuff then we do when we go on holiday, but then usually cooking utensils are provided and we don't need to take much food. Or pillows.
We set off at about 10:30am, and arrived at the hall just under an hour later. Me and my mum (unintentionally) left Dad with the car while we jetted off to the main building to collect my keys - all 4 of them, plus an access swipe card. The room is on the fifth floor - the building is 10 floors high I think. 5th isn't bad, I guess, and there are 2 good lifts, plus two staircases.
The room itself is much larger than I expected - you could easily swing a cat in it, if you really wanted to. There's a good sized desk, and adequate storage, though I wish the chest of draws were larger - I ended up hanging up some of my jumpers on coat hangers. Which reminds me - next time I'm home (October if all goes to plan) I'll bring some more back... There's also a washbasin in the room, which is handy - the showers are separate, and are okay. The toilets do leave something to be desired though - ah well, you can't have everything.
The kitchen is better than I was expecting too - looks like it has been recently refurbished, and although there's only one cooker there seems to be adequate storage space (although some stuff is staying in my room since I don't want it getting nicked :)). The view is also good - it was built in the 1960's so the windows are huge (and it's okay to leave them open as I don't think people are going to climb in and take stuff) - I get a nice view across to the centre of Bradford.
Although I seem to be on a mostly male floor (damn!) the guys that I've met so far all seem quite cool, especially the guy next to me (hi Anthony!). For dinner we went down to a local curry restaurant (oh come on, it's Bradford for gawd's sake!) called 'Posh Spice' (and yes it was quite posh, but cheap too) and got a takeaway which we ate back at the kitchen (there's a dining area too).
From what I gather, I'm the only one out of my peer group at Bradford - a few of my friends have gone to Manchester, but most are spread around the country - so I'll obviously have to make some new friends. Which isn't too bad because everyone seems quite friendly - although I haven't spent much time in the union bar I did go to play pool (I lost, btw). But hey, there's a whole week to get stuff done.
The area is a little bizarre - whereas in York you hardly ever see people of other ethnic groups (bar the odd Japanese tourist), here whites are an ethinc minority. The bulk of people are of Asian or West Indian origin - usually the only white people are students. It's not that I have a problem with that, it's just... strange. Well, for me at least. They all seem friendly though, and I haven't seen any threatening gangs of youths.
The hall is a 5-10 minute walk from the main campus where everything happens, which is good since it'll give me some exercise and won't be as noisy (in theory).
Overall? Yeah, I like it. I was certainly expecting much worse. Now if I could just get internet access....
Well, my laptop is packed away, so I'm back on my parent's computer temporarily, which I've tidied up (removed redundant programs, replaced Tiny Personal Firewall with the latest ZoneAlarm, sorted my parent's Start Menus etc.). Today we packed my clothes and anything that remained, such as my stereo and washing kit. Some stuff will have to go in tomorrow morning, such as my medication and razor, but other than that I'm all ready to go. Though I have to say I am dead nervous...
Since I wasn't organised and never got around to paying for my internet access, I'll be without it for the next few days so that'll explain why this blog turns stagnant. I'll be back when time permits. Toodles!
BTW, thanks for the heads up from Rapunzel :)
I BlogChalked. You can now see the chalk marking at the bottom of the sidebar - I would have done it sooner but the site/my connection wasn't working properly at the time. I was reminded by rapunzel's weblog (yes, another ODP blog), you see...
Just added SafeSurf ratings to the site. If it interests you, I set language settings to '1' (some bad language), homo- and heterosexual references to '3' (technical references) and intolerance to '3' too.
Sometimes I agree so much with bunda it scares me. This post is no exception - several cases of people dying because their (or their families') religious beliefs prevented them from having blood transfusions. What really got me was the fact that a family of a deceased patient decided to sue the doctor because the patient died after refusing a transfusion, despite a court ruling that the doctor was not negligent (and rightly too). I dispair at people sometimes.
The article was especially interesting as in one of the ODP forums we were having a (somewhat lighthearted) discussion about Jehovah's Witnesses, who (generally) annoy me immensely. Everyone is free to believe what they want to believe, but I hate people who invade your personal space and try to inflict their beliefs on you. Same goes for the people who read bible verses in the street, and the Hare Krishna followers who stick Gouranga posters up everwhere. That's not to say all Jehovah's Witnesses are like that (and it seems to me to be a minority), but they do give the following a bad name. It's not like I spend my evenings preaching why atheism is great, is it?
[end rant]
I've fiddled with the template in the hope that the blog is now easier to read - any comments? The 'Permalink' and 'Back to top' links are now grey so that they don't stick out so much - unfortunately I can't control the Comments link as they use the default link colour. Well, there probably is a way of changing them, it's just that I've never got around to investigating it...
"My Bloginality is INFP!"
I found that poll via Revolving Duck, the weblog of a female paleontology student, who links to me via BlogRolling :).
Tony Stiedler-Dennison of LG Penguin Shell fame has (re-)started his blog. It's called Frankly, I'd Rather Not, and, despite only having one post so far (a thought provoking peace on September 11th), it promises to be worth a read. And in true open-source tradition, it's powered by Movable Type.
I'm still toying with adding Brian's blog to my blogroll (Brian being another member of the LG family) - it's got quite a cool design but I just don't find it all that interesting.
Last night was my final night at Ventures (soon to become Yorvik Explorer Scouts) before going away to University - I make the move this Sunday. Today's my final clearing up day - tomorrow is shopping and packing, Saturday will be partly spent at the annual York Festival of Food and Drink (which promises to be very good this year, pity I'm missing most of it). And Sunday is when I go!
It looks like CptSiskoX inadvertently found a bug (and possible security hole) in IE6 SP1. If you visit his site - http://members.fortunecity.com/computingx/ in that browser, then click on any link, the browser crashes.
Whether it is something that he did, or is in the hands of FortuneCity who host the site, remains to be seen. But so far myself, Andy and the editor of TechSpot have all confirmed it. Hmm...
[Apologises to Andy who I accidently referred to as Chris prior to editing this. Sorry!]
Argh! Darn Paypal!
Since BlogRolling is now accepting donations again (and has now limited free accounts to 2 blogrolls - okay I have 3 and can keep them but I can't create any more), I thought I'd offer some money. I registered, gave over my bank details and then offered to donate some money to Jason, the guy behind BlogRolling. Then it asked me for my credit card details.
Apparently, non-US bank accounts have to be validated by credit card, since there is no automatic way of doing it. So without sending across a valid credit card in my name, I can't use the service.
As you may know, I am avoiding credit cards like the plague, at least while I'm a student. It annoys me that I have to do this - now that eBay (who have UK operations) own Paypal, can they at least offer to UK users what they already offer to those in the US?
As it stands, Paypal ain't gonna get none of ma money.
Trillian 0.74 has been released, though I'm having a hard time downloading it - the web site seems to be too busy. Cerulean Studios have also released Trillian Pro 1.0 - a commercial version with more features (such as video conferencing, subscription channels for popular websites etc.). It costs $25 - I may consider it.
The security vunerability, which had a number of people running around like headless chickens a couple of weeks ago, has been fixed in this release. The UI has also been changed - it no longer uses the IM network logos to signify each network and instead uses more generic icons. I personally liked the old way, but it was probably done due to copyright or something. All chat windows now have a hide button, which is a nice new feature, but other than there aren't any new features - it's mostly a maintenance release. And it still rules.
I got my hair cut :)
So, one year on. It was exactly 365 days ago since I came home from college, and, as usual, visited Eurodance, to read that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre in New York. I quickly switched on BBC News 24, to see replayed footage of the second plane hit the towers. It was then I knew that this was an act of terrorism. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching in horror as the Pentagon was hit, and then the towers themselves collapsed.
I remember seeing Tony Blair speaking at the TUC conference shortly after the second plane hit, and George W. Bush addressing the US.
I also remember seeing the newspapers the next morning, which all had pictures of the WTC in flames - some not even bothering to have headlines since the pictures themselves told the story. I spent the whole of the 12th at home since it was a day off (unrelated to the attacks), watching the TV news to get any further developments.
Over the subsequent months, hardly a day went by when I didn't hear some reference to September 11th, whether it was a reference to the stock market, religious issues, airlines, advertising, whatever. The past few weeks has seen an escalation in coverage, with the first anniversary approaching, and although I'll admit that the build up was a little excessive, today's news, at least on this side of the atlantic, has been well balanced, with coverage of other stories only being slightly affected.
Has the world changed as a result? Slightly. The business world has seen changes, with the reduced dependability on airline travel, the Enron and Worldcom scandals, the loss of many workers in business during the attacks and the subsequent rollercoaster ride that has been the stock market over the past year. Patriotism has risen again in the States - whether that is a good thing or not depends on your opinion. Afghanistan has certainly changed - the replacement of the oppressive Taliban regime with a democratically elected leader is one of the good things to come out of the attacks, though the loss of many thousand Afghan civilian lives isn't something to be proud of.
Has it affected me personally. Maybe, I don't know. And if it did, it would only be very slightly.
The big discussion now is what to do with Ground Zero. I hope it will become a green area, with some kind of memorial to those who died; I think it would help those who lost loved ones to have something permanent to visit and pay respects. And there should be a donut stall. Non-ODP editors: don't ask.
Steve Gibson is thoroughly recommending that all Windows XP users download and install SP1. It turns out that XP has a gaping security hole, and that merely clicking on a link that is formatted in a certain way could allow for files to be deleted in bulk on the user's drives. Scary stuff.
The hole is, however, fixed in SP1, but as yet there is no update on Windows Update for non-SP1 users, nor does IE6 SP1 fix the problem.
Exact details of the flaw, which Microsoft has known about for 3 months (yes, 3 whole months), are being kept secret by Steve to make sure that those who have yet to upgrade have chance to do so (it is a 130MB download after all...), and it is only XP that is affected - none of the other MS operating systems have this flaw.
Now I'm just waiting for the conspiracy theorists to come up with an argument that MS created this hole specially, to encourage people to upgrade to SP1 and then have to agree with its new EULA. It is almost certainly b******t, but it seems that being against MS is all the rage these days. Of course, some of it is understandable, but I do dispair at some people's attitudes. Talk about crying other spilt milk...
Wahey! I'm the #1 Neil Turner on Altavista!
BBC News are running an article about XP SP1, detailing how MS is 'playing fair' with the DoJ ruling by allowing users to block access to the bundled MS applets. It's getting a bit of stick from Slashdotters who claim that MS is playing anything but fair with regards to the new EULA that, depending on how you look at, may give MS the right to access your computer and change your files. I've seen different opinions other this - The Register is up in arms about it whereas Fred Langa is a lot more chilled out.
Me? I just installed it. I don't really care, and seriously doubt MS would ever do such a thing, and besides, it's a nice easy way of getting all of the security updates. Though I feel I have to quote an anonymous poster to the Slashdot article:
In the UK, a contract is not valid if one of the parties is incapacitated through drink or drugs. So sign it after you've had a few! Who needs expensive scary lawyers when you can just have a guinness and a joint? Its a simple business decision!
Should've tried that :). Never mind.
Strange - I tried Google.com again in the Chinese Internet Filter checker and now it's showing as inaccessable. And as OnlineBlog.com reported yesterday, google.yahoo.com is now blocked too. It does, however, still leave the BBC's Search Engine open, along with elgooG, the mirror image of Google that uses the Google API. incidentally the site now has a PayPal Donate button to help pay fo the extra bandwidth that is required since Google's blocking. You can read more in this Slashdot Article.
My submission to the Mirror Project was accepted :) - you can see it here.
And it appears that a few Harvard University students have set up a Chinese Filter test, to see if you page is viewable in China. Apparently, this site is okay. Interestingly, while it reports Google.com as accessable, Google.co.uk apparently isn't.
Yesterday, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1. MS are rather vague about what is new, but I expect it will include all of the security updates that have been posted in the past.
Bear in mind that if you install Windows XP SP1, you'll already have IE6 SP1 installed - I found that out the hard way. If you have IE6 then I strongly recommend installing these to plug any holes that you may have not fixed yet.
Also, beware of an issue with CD Burning in XP SP1 - CptSiskoX emailed me to say that he's been unable to burn CDs using Windows Explorer (even after a fresh XP install and SP1 upgrade). And it seems MS don't want to listen to his bug reports....
A site I've been looking at lately is SexualRecords.com. The site has details of various records related to sex and reproduction (largest breasts, longest penis etc.). It doesn't appear to be pornographic (though I have popups blocked so be on the watch out), and is quite interesting, even if some of the records are hard to imagine (like having 3-foot wide buttocks...).
Just a quick thank you to everyone who has been giving this blog a good rating on HotOrNot - I'm now up to 8/10 :). If you haven't voted, then please feel free. You can also monitor my score on the sidebar, if you so desire.
Something I found via Andy's Blog is The Mirror Project - photographs taken into mirrors (or other reflective surfaces). Some of the photography is truly excellent, and not out of place in a gallery. There are close to 10 000 entries, and many of those seem to be made by webloggers.
I submitted a photo of my own; I'll let you know how it gets on. Andy also submitted a photo of his own.
Today has been a rotten day weather-wise - it's done nothing but rain. There's now a small pond at the top of the drive where the rainwater has collected.
WinMX 3.3 is out, and it looks very good. The display engine has been given a good arse-kicking, so it now renders much much faster, and seems to be less resource-hungry too. Auto Find Sources is now implemented, so every 15 minutes the program automatically looks for other users with the same file, and if it finds any, adds them to the download, so that the file downloads quicker (in theory). And, best of all, it fully supports Ogg Vorbis! :)
If it interests you, I'm using yaXamp as my current WinAMP skin - it gets 5 stars from Nullsoft staff and just about everyone else. Including me.
Bah. Gripe #1 with XP SP1 - it seems to have named Windows Media Player as the default for playing MP3s. Um... no... thinking about it, it was probably my fault. Damn me.
Okay, here are the XP SP1 screenshots (click on them to enlarge):
I posted a while back about a bad experience someone had with VeriSign. Well, ICANN are considering pulling their license to sell domains because of their apparent inability/unwillingness to remove inaccurate information from their database. If they do not comply within 15 days, then they're stuck.
Also covered by Washington Post, ITWorld and InternetNews.com - thanks to LG Tech Specialist for covering it.
This annoyed me slightly: Police seek 'good samaritan'. A young woman has an epilleptic fit and collapses, then a stranger comes along, pretends to be a friend and instead lifts £60 from her wallet. Not very nice is it?
This message is coming from Windows XP SP1 :). It installed okay, and doesn't seem to be significantly slower than the original release.
The first new thing I noticed was a 'Set Program Access and Defaults' link at the top of the start menu - this allows to choose which web browser, email client, media player, instant messenger and Java VM program you want as the default, and allows you to disable access to those that you don't set as the default. Although I only removed Windows Messenger (I still need IE to view a few badly designed websites, and OE still has my old emails), it's at least a step in the right direction.
If you can stand all of the advertising, then TweakTown offer a useful guide to upgrading, including, controversially, how to download the leaked versions of SP1 and how to upgrade pirated copies. If you're going to upgrade, view it now while it is still online.
I'll upload a few screenshots of what is new once I've had time to explore the new features - unfortunately MS have yet to upload the full details to their site but when they do it'll be at KB article Q324720.
I gotta hand it to the Register - sure enough, a better leak has been found, and I now have 88% of XP SP1. It's take just over an hour to get this far - download speeds have been fluctuating about 25KB/sec but then most of the US is asleep so the net is generally faster at the moment.
The Guardian seems to be making a lot of the blocking of Google in China - it's the front page story of G2. It's actually quite interesting since it is a lot more in-depth than most of the other articles I've read on the subject.
And as you may notice, my ICQ status indicator is finally working again :). The servers have been down for weeks, apparently due to maintenance.
Way to go Microsoft. Although Windows XP Service Pack 1 isn't due out officially until Monday (9th September), the final build was leaked, and was available to download last night. The Register reported it, but said don't bother since you'll still be downloading it by the time it is officially released.
If you're interested, I managed to get 13KB of it. The full package is 130MB. Ah well.
Anyway, it appears to have been pulled now, probably because of all of the bandwidth it is sucking up. Hopefully when it really is released, there will be some decent ways of obtaining it. As The Reg put it:
We at The Register are however confident that Microsoft will not break with tradition, and that a new, more durable SP1 leak link will appear soon. In fact we're pretty sure it's already out there somewhere.
We'll see.
Another interesting find via WannabeGirl - Ask Lucifer. From the site:
Due to a gap in the market due to God and Jesus's current non-interventionist policy, Lucifer is offering Free Guidance for all matters of a spiritual, moral or scholarly nature.
It's... strange, but offers a few minutes of novelty value. Jaime may like it, anyway ;).
And to follow up something that various other bloggers have been talking about: it appears that Google is trying to unblock itself in China. Well, 'block' maybe isn't the word - according to Chinese officials the site was never blocked at all, but it hasn't been accessable to Chinese users. Of course, whether these officials were being honest is debatable - a number of sites are blocked because they give information about banned political or religious groups (read: any group that isn't the government), and it's not unlikely that Google was added too. Though it would seem a little futile, since you can use BBCi and Yahoo to access Google's results, and Yahoo certainly wasn't blocked.
And another thing, when I post a new item, it should now update Weblogs.com properly - previously it was sending http://totalxs.dbpoweramp.com/index.html instead of http://totalxs.dbpoweramp.com/ (which it now sends), so those of you using BlogRolling.com wouldn't have seen it marked as updated. That's now fixed :)
The last post, incidentally, came to you via Ciaran, due to the fact that I've been unable to connect to Blogger or several other US sites (notably BlogRolling and Furo's weblog). I still can't connect officially, but thanks to a page I found on NTHellWorld, I was able to manually specify one of NTL's Leeds proxies and have been okay ever since. AFAIK one is assigned automatically but the one I was assigned probably wasn't working. Ah well, all seems to be okay now.
You may noticed the 'Other' blogroll has expanded a little - I added AbsoBlogginLutely and WannabeGirl to the list since they seem quite cool blogs.
I also found this link, probably via WannabeGirl - Is it over yet?. Every day, it tells you what percentage of President George W. Bush's time in office is complete, and is currently (only) at 40.38% (that's a smidgen over two fifths, if it makes it any easier). But remember that mid-term elections are about to happen over there, and this time next year he'll have to start campaigning to stay in office. Which, hopefully, will be unlikely...
