nemof.org blog

OK, I fixed the htaccess rules for my wiki so it should be accessible. Now I gotta add more content, sigh. Well at least people like the Best Software round-up I published a while ago. I will get around to updating it, adding a few new diamonds and updating some previous entries.

If you are ever having problems with setting up a wiki on a subdomain so it has nice URLs and doesn’t freak out then check out this post which I unfortunately cannot take credit for. For someone who doesn’t have the time or patience to read up on .htaccess rules it’s useful.

In other news I am reading this livejournal post with trepidation. I haven’t got to the pictures yet, but a sense of disquiet is slowly building in my stomach… that might be heartburn though.

I can’t believe I am posting this but here is an in depth preview of Halo 3 from 2old2game. I guess even my interest has be piqued about what will surely be one of the biggest games to hit the shelves this year. My money is on Crysis though. My money will have to be on the counter to play it though, my current machine is ~5 years old and that just doesn’t cut the mustard these days.

Compiz & Feisty Fawn Ubuntu

I updated to Feisty Ubuntu a few days ago. A pretty seamless upgrade from Dapper it went off without a hitch and left me with a spanking new iteration of what is undoubtedly the most shiny and well thought Linux Distro around. Ubuntu has got it where it counts, and as you can test drive it on a Live CD there’s no need to fear a full installation. You just burn it to CD, boot from it and test drive the system without making any alterations to your PC.

What I’m seriously impressed with this version has to be the inclusion of Compiz. Simply put Compiz takes your Desktop and adds eyecandy, extremely gorgeous eye candy. The kind Vista wished it had.

For instance after Compiz is turned on (called ‘Desktop Effects’ in Ubuntu) all windows wobble when you move them. It even wobbles movies while rendering them in real time, it has to be seen to be believed. Further to that some of the effects and functions have a practical aspect. To put it simply the one effect I’ve fallen in love with the most has to be the Zoom function. With a few click you bind zoom in/out to your mouse wheel and you can dynamically zoom in and out of the desktop, enlarging any area. I can think of fantastic potential for helping people who are partially sighted to make more use of their Computers.

Funnily enough Compiz wasn’t the first place I’ve seen this zoom, it’s around on pretty much any modern Mac which is where I first fell in love with it. Since I first saw it I’ve been looking for a program that adds this kind of functionality to Windows and have yet to find it. The closest I’ve found have been magnifying glass type affairs that are always atrociously out of date and only do set multiples of magnification.

Before I go into propaganda mode I just wanted to link to some Compiz videos on youtube so you can see exactly what you’re missing till you stick that Ubuntu CD in!

It seems every day that Windows sees itself losing more of its lead that it used to be able to proudly boast of in terms of First and Third party software as compared to other platforms. Ubuntu is an extremely accomplished Desktop as is Mac OS X, both of which I would whole heartedly recommend. Of the two Mac OS X is the simpler and also in some ways more accomplished, however if you find joy in tinkering and learning then I would suggest Ubuntu. You get your first introduction to Free Open Source Software, you get the joy of learning something new and the end result is a wonderful, flexible operating system that has almost limitless potential.

I knocked over one of my speakers today and when it hit the floor it obviously gave the hard drives in my Computer a shock because they decided to freeze. On rebooting the machine crashed, a little SATA cable wiggling and another reboot and everything was fine - or was it?

For the second time in the history of nemo I’ve managed to lose a whole collection of music. Last time my hard drive finally failed and I hadn’t backed up. This time it seems windows ckdsk managed to orphan my whole music folder and all it’s sub-folders. In other words I opened up foobar to get the music going only to be told ‘error - file not found’ for every single track. A quick browse of drive H, no ‘Music’ folder. Crap!

For the second time in nemo history though I have been brought back from the brink of of the abyss (no music is a harrowing experience for me) by GetBackData. This nifty little app will recover not only data you chucked in your wastebin but stuff that has vanished in a system crash. First time around it was able to retrieve some data for me, but the hard drive was definitely in bad shape already. This time however I’m hopeful of recovering a great deal more of my music collection. If I do, it’s going to take an awfully long time to sort it out - it’s been shoved into hundreds of folders with what look like hashes for names. Oh happy happy joy joy.

If you are wondering where my website has been for the last 3-4 days it’s been at the mercy of my atrocious web hosting service, Hostcolor Europe. I haven’t been able to access my mail, let alone my site. It’s been very frustrating, all the more so trying to get information out of them about what is wrong, when it will be fixed and whether they think this an adequate way to run a service provider. I’m waiting to hear back on compensation, and it better have the word "gold" somewhere in it. Just check out these forum posts:

http://forum.hostcolor.com/viewtopic.php?t=1119
http://forum.hostcolor.com/viewtopic.php?t=1149
http://forum.hostcolor.com/viewtopic.php?t=1132

And among other things they were supposed to roll out a new control panel which their American arm has already rolled out (6 months ago).

I am not a happy puppy. If anyone knows of decent European (UK preferably) hosting. Must be Linux based, all the usuals etc. 3-5gb space, 20-50gb monthly transfer; 20+ MYSQL db, php, cgi etc etc.

Another thing that’s been fucking me around, firewalls. I’ve used Zone Alarm for years and on the whole it’s been ok, I’ll emphasize that, ok. It ain’t the golden goose. Recent problems with MSN and making my system hang has made me uninstall it and try out alternatives. I am currently testing Agnitum Outpost Firewall. So far I’ve not slammed my head into any brickwalls, so here’s hoping.

Been working on a new design for my site. Sorry to you guys with your 800×600 resolution displays but the minimum rez to have no horizontal scrolling will be 1024×768. I’ve decided to make this change as I’m tired of content hanging over and objects of a certain width breaking design. I could go for a fluid rather than fixed design, and I might if I had more content to fill up but all I really need is a two column layout with content and sidebar. Gonna get busy with the distressed look, I know that is soooo 6 months ago but hey, I like to think of myself as comfortably behind the curve, trudging on my bling zimmer.

Been hearing some words on a new docu(film?) in which in one scene an American president that looks very like Bush is killed. People are getting their knickers in a twist over it, shocked that it said what we all hope will happen. What’s yer problem? Every American I’ve ever talked to hates his fucking guts, you telling me you all got secret warm squishy feelings for him or something? Get over it, you wanna climb out of the mire your country is falling into, cut the rope of the asshole who is leading the charge to drag you down; or sink, it’s your choice.

Well looks like Summer is over. Grey skies are here again, put on your wellies. I can here the drip drip dripping of fat drops outside my window, the dark violet hue of city lights  pushing against the hardened sky, late at night. People are probably hiding bus shelters and under overhangs, trying to flag down taxis while trying to keep the few inches of them that is still dry from the nights rain.

Can’t put it off any more, nemo needs a job. I’m not a picky fellow, I can hardly hope to be right now. Just every time I look at something a bit interesting I see something like "need 2 years previous experience", "need degree", need this need that. ‘Cause of the way I’ve got to this point in my life I’m not the most qualified person in the world, but I’m far from incompetent. I guess I just feel it. hmph.