Webonaut

As my pal @davidpye notes, Google Chrome now has geo-positioning on my laptop. Not just any old rough guess based on my IP address, but on the button within metres positioning. (Try it out - visit Google Maps in Chrome and click the little circle under the compass). So, how does this work? Triangulation of WiFi signals, I hear you (probably) shout - only there ARE no WiFi signals around me out here in the countryside - only MINE. The combined hardware surrounding me has no ability to geo-locate - all that Chrome has is my IP address and 1 wifi name. Related service, Skyhook say : "This involves analyzing the Wi-Fi access points around you and your computer's IP address, and sending this information to a Google server to then be translated into a location... WPS determines location based on Skyhook's massive worldwide database of known Wi-Fi access points. " The only technical explanation I can figure out - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that my wi-fi network has...

There are several jQuery sliders / carousels out there, but none did what I wanted, which was basically to take a really simply block of HTML and turn it into a really nicely animated, automatic slider with a simple bit of jQuery, such as: $(document).ready(function(){ $("#mySlides").jKlikFlow({ width: "638px", height: "223px", easing: "easeOutBack", prev: "#jFlowPrev", next: "#jFlowNext", duration: 1000, pauseBetweenSlides: 2500, auto: true }); }); So here it is: KlikFlow jQuery Slider plug-in demo | source code This is my first attempt at a jQuery plug-in (I thought it about time I put something back into the open source community) so your feedback is appreciated.

Let me first come clean - I am a Macophile. Since switching for Music Production purposes some 4/5 years ago I very quickly got to the point where my PC only gets switched on for testing and gaming purposes. As a techie and musician OSX is unbeatable - like comparing a MiniMoog to a Casiotone. However, Apple-philes are somewhat inclined to gloss over (or not even see!?!) the sub-standard points that are inevitably part of any system. So here's my honest appraisal of the bad bits for anyone struggling to find someone willing to dob them in: 1. Finder. Finder is Mac OSX's Explorer and it sucks. This is by far the Mac's biggest achilles heel. Why is it SO bad? There's no tree view. This means no little plusses to quick dig deep into a menu structure then go back out to another level - or keeping two folders open in the same window to DRAG and DROP quickly between them. It gets confusing in there, and it's so difficult to traverse back It doesn't remember where you...

It strikes me looking at the OnLive service (that allows you to play the most recent, amazing games remotely) that these guys will probably fail - due principally to the current shittiness of broadband connections. BUT - and this is a big but - the fact that they have proved that it is POSSIBLE says to me that in the future this will be completely do-able - in fact so commonplace as to be normal. Companies like Sky will eventually get in on the act, and your cable package will have a "games" option that lets you play anything - literally - without having any special hardware (other than the Sky box that will (irrelevantly) be beefier than anything around today). Sure, you'll buy games for 20 yrs or so but they will start to look antiquated - like DVDs in the face of NetFlix or CDs in the Spotify world. So what does this mean for us here in my little dev studio in Norwich? Well, immediately, I can see that the App Store is not long for this world in the same way - we need...

There's a big fight happening right now: Apple Vs. Adobe Round 1: Apple don't allow Flash in their portable browsers Round 2: Adobe get Flash CS5 (released this week) to build AppStore apps directly Round 3: Apple tighten the AppStore acceptance criteria to almost explicitely prevent Flash-originated apps Round 4: Adobe gets the arse and gets Flash CS5 to build (albeit basic) direct to HTML5 Canvas Now I am an evangelist for Apple products (because nothing touches a MacBook Pro as a hacker tool right now) but looks from here very much like Apple being the bully... This fight is not simply spectator sport - it affects all web-developers. What it means is that we can no longer produce a single content rich (i.e. with interactive animations) site/app that will serve all browsers. Until the masses upgrade to IE9, HTML5 Canvas is just not an option and Flash will not run on Apple portable gear. What about jQuery - I hear you cry! jQuery (or any raw javascript equivalent thereo...

I've just experienced two completely independent, unrelated servers with totally different web-applications reboot and unable to start the MySQL service, one on 1st April, second on 2nd April. Coincidence? Probably. Is there a Microsoft Windows 2003 server patch killing MySQL? Not found any other incidences being Googled... let's see if anyone finds this post also experiencing the same thing... UPDATE: This appears to have been triggered by a fire at BT on March 31st. Timeline: 31 March 2010 07:30 hrs fire crews attended the fire at BT Exchange in Paddington, caused by an electrical fault. According to Gradwell, a business ISP, 437 local exchanges and up to 37,500 Datastream circuits have been affected. It said the fire was having nationwide repercussions on communications - http://www.theregister.co.uk/ 2010/03/31/burne_house_burns/ It was speculated that the systems would not be back to normal until Tuesday the 6 th of April 2010. The...

Just a note for myself really (can't imagine anyone else here being interested in economics...) The Market Hypothesis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis ) is a cornerstone of Capitalism, but it's ideologically flawed. People are sheep - they follow each other. What's more, the ones who aren't sheep who should be asking "what is the true value" of some company or other, are actually asking "what are the sheep going to do". When bubbles form they are propelled even by those who can see it is a bubble. They buy even if they believe the stock to be already overvalued - if they believe others will be suckered into it for some time yet - it's all about getting out in time. The market is beginning to understand - the FT Weekend frontpage confirmed this in UK Hedge Funds Make Millions From Betting On Decline In Value Of Sterling where it says : "The 3 hedge funds - which are the 1st, 2nd and 4th largest in Europe... do no...