• Aug 11, 2004

    IE blog joke/flamebait, and get XP SP2 via BitTorrent

    Tony Chor, the Group Program Manager for the IE team, writes:

    We also came up with a very original idea – popup blocking.

    The idea was so ridiculous I knew it had to be a joke. And it was, when Tony later writes:

    For the record, I was joking about our "innovation" around popup blocking.

    But not after several not entirely unexpected flames (I found the popup blocking innovation comment from a site flamed the blog post too) from people who didn't get it.

    Anyway, if you haven't seen this yet (it was on Slashdot - I don't read it though, perhaps you do), you can get Windows XP Service Pack 2 via BitTorrent at SP2Torrent.com. Not from Microsoft (so it's not "official"), but you got to wonder why Microsoft doesn't embrace BitTorrent for distributing XP SP2 and do away with all that initial hoo-ha about staggered release schedules.

  • Aug 9, 2004

    iWish iHad an iPod mini

    I know I pointed out 5 reasons not to buy an iPod 6 months or so ago. I take that back. I caught the iPod bug. More specifically, the iPod mini bug - don't really fancy the larger iPod, even if it's much better with the 4G version.

    I'm really getting it as something to soothe me and make my sad life a little brighter (believe it or not, pathetic as that sounds). I haven't got any gadgets yet and this will probably be the first time I'm (modestly) splurging my salary. Yes that's right. I don't have an MP3 player, no palmtop device, no 3G phone (I kinda like my trusty Nokia 8250). I don't even have a Discman that works.

    Anyway, the sadness of my gadget-deprived life is besides the point. The point is, I want an iPod mini. And I wish I can get my hands on one tommorrow against all odds. Well, someone at an Apple reseller told me that there was a national shortage of iPod mini with interminable queues. Pretty disheartening, especially when I got a couple of colleagues to go down with me to buy it. And we were arrogantly told by the sales person (I reckon he was a Mac evangelist) that "Apple does not intend to include FM radio in the iPod or in the future". (It really was more arrogant-sounding then that, but I forget the exact words to quote him verbatim.)

    Good news is, a friend told me that she saw iPod minis selling around a tech place today. Well, at least she saw the boxes. And someone at the Mac Users Group (Singapore) posted that he bought an iPod just today. It just might happen! Will be calling a few places to check on their iPod mini stocks 10 hours from now. Fingers crossed.

  • Aug 7, 2004

    pickle.dump(links, blog) // August 6, 2004 edition

    • MWSnap - This is one bad ass screen capture utility, available at competitive pricing - it's free! It allows you to snap a selected portion of the screen (no need for resizing, cropping), and perhaps best of all, allows you to add a mouse pointer to your screen caps. Finally I can put mouse pointers in those screenshots I seem so fond of taking.
    • Ian Lloyd's Accessify.com has a whole bunch of accessibility tools and wizards to help the web developer generate code that's accessible. The Accessibility Toolbox is pretty instructive - it generates HTML code for form elements that's accessible. Are your forms not accessible yet?
    • Battle Torrent is a project that promises 'A greatly simplified BitTorrent experience'. I'm not sure if there's any active development (they're looking for a lead developer at the moment). Either way, this is something we have wanted to work on and it's great to see that we are not the only ones who think BitTorrent is amazing and it'd be even more amazing if mom and pop could use it.
    • How to Bypass Most Firewall Restrictions and Access the Internet Privately - For those of you without a proper internet connection at work. Or those of you who want privacy.
    • Punching holes into firewalls explains how tunnelling can always get you by a firewall, so long as you let a single protocol out (HTTP is ever so commonly allowed).
  • Aug 6, 2004

    Tombstone Generator

    Via TIMELINE: Tombstone Generator

    Epitaph - Help Let me out!


    I also found the Church Sign Generator which was the inspiration(!) for the Tombstone Generator.

    Church sign - Fowler Is God


  • Aug 3, 2004

    pickle.dump(links, blog)

    Well, I don't have a link blog and the Externals section is totally borked (I still keep my del.icio.us account going though), so I'm finding it so hard to keep track of links I'm picking up and intending to write about. Well, this is a whole genus of links that you want to link to but don't quite feel worthy of a complete blog entry (know what I mean?). Someday I will fix this broken weblog. For now, I procrastinate.

    • Lockergnome is looking for contributors and writers. Applied and accepted (for the Web Browser channel, naturally). Chris Pirillo's a nice dude. Though I could be saying that because he likes muvee autoProducer so much.
    • The Simple Guide to the A-List Bloggers is a hilarious parody of A-List bloggers (such as Dave Winer and Chris Pirillo) and their blogging styles. Of course, you'd have to actually have read these peoples' blogs regularly to get the humor.
    • Audioscrobbler is interesting stuff (OK so I'm a little late to pick this one up). My user details. Seems to go down quite often though, and still in teething stages. But promising. Via dot-totally.co.uk.
    • Free CSS menus (complete with rollovers). These look fantastic. Fully XHTML and CSS standards-compliant.
    • Webnote is an online tool for taking notes. Some mean DHTML/JS-fu going on there.
    • FreeTechBooks links to a good collection of free books in electronic form. All legal of course.
    • Conversational cheap shots. Add a varied collection of verbal weaponry to your arsenal. Get ahead in flame wars.
    • The Programmers' Stone celebrates the Art of Programming. A little wordy. I should print this out to read.

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