Archive for the ‘tech’ Category
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
i’ve officially decided, it takes more effort to post here because of twitter and tumblr .
as said previously, i was on a course last week… and as usual, it was interesting for all sorts of reasons… it was a class of 3 + the instructor for 5 full days, one of the other students worked at in the IT section for a state library, and honestly, i’d completely forgotten what the public servant world is like.
during the week, i was treated to a couple of sterling anecdotes about how work days start at 0930 and finish at 1530, and how the IT department was made of at least 20 people, around 60% of which are “managers”… gold.
…so while i was trying to give all these stories the attention they deserved, my mind wandered into the realm of oversharing… normally (according to urban dictionary) the term is used for things of an intimate nature, but i disagree… sometimes, i just don’t need to know how something i mentioned earlier relates to another one of your hilarious/amazing/noteworthy 10 minute stories, especially when i’m actually trying to learn about something completely different.
you probably think this is pretty hypocritical coming from someone who uses twitter… but if i’m your only exposure it, you probably should be made aware, in varying degrees, it is chock full of what the internet loves to call “attention whores“… and it is these people that are doing the oversharing.
i know twitter is pretty much a vehicle for it, and you think the followers/following ratio would remove the “issue”… but that would only happen if the majority of users weren’t so similar…
so, i’ll say it again;
- good morning
- good night
- need coffee/sugar
- too much coffee/sugar
- i can has foodstuff, nom nom nom…
- the weather is cold
- the weather is hot
**groan**
so yeah, after the week i had, i unfollowed about 25 people… so now my feed is nice and quiet, i may miss the odd inside joke, but meh, it’s not worth fighting through the noise for…
Posted in generica, tech, twitter | 3 Comments »
Monday, August 4th, 2008
the weekend gone was pretty good, i didn’t have to work for a start, woohoo!
umm, we watched the golden compass on friday night, i really enjoyed it but am surprised at what passes for a kids movie these days; it was pretty scary and dark in parts…
on saturday liam was back at swimming lessons, it’s weird, he just won’t lie still, he always wants to be on his tummy thrashing around and dunking his face in… one of the other onlooking mums told kim he is going to be a great swimmer, hopefully not seriously, i don’t want to be dropping him off at a pool at 4am for the rest of my life…
saturday night kim made some sort of asian bbq chicken dish for dinner… i LOVE the sweet soy sauce we got from the chinese grocer the other week.. and sunday we caught up with some friends in yarraville for brunch… liam behaved really well, we just stretched his out lunch for an hour and he didn’t get too restless… he even did a few of his tricks for the applauding masses!
ok well, this week should be interesting, i’ll be doing classroom training this week instead of going into work… and hopefully there’ll be an exam at the end of it… we’ll have to wait and see… talk to you later.
Posted in family, food and drink, generica, melbourne, tech | Comments Off
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
the way i use my ipod touch is probably fairly unique in the grand scheme of things…
i use the winamp media library in conjuction with mliPod to fill it with music, but as a user of last.fm this method has a major drawback; the offline scrobbling and playlist sync’ing doesn’t work with the iPod touch… so i’ve been listening to a stack of music on it and last.fm is none the wiser…
until now…
the other day i heard tom meritt mention the reason why he wasn’t super keen to get the 3G iphone was because it wasn’t jailbroken yet, and that would mean he wouldn’t be able to use the mobilescrobbler application…
which gave me the idea that i could use that application and not have to wait until the genius’ at the winamp forums fix it!
so, after a few bodgy attempts at downgrading to firmware 1.1.1 and the resultant bricking, i found and used the ziphone software, which unlocked the device and added the installer application! …then it was as easy as finding the mobilescrobbler application in the list and installing it (twice for some unknown reason)… but hey, i’ve tested it, and it works!
aren’t you glad?
…continued in part 2
Posted in generica, music, tech | Comments Off
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
brace yourself, this is going to get nerdy.
ever since i started using last.fm i’ve been frustrated at the lack of RSS feeds for user profile data, being able to pull out reports of scrobbled data is, what i would call key in using their service… so yesterday i finally got motivated and decided to have a go at fudging someone elses code… a quick google brought me to a blog post at i.ndustrio.us where the guy outlines a how-to for pretty close to what i need…
below is the code i ended up using in my side bar to display my “last.fm weekly top albums”;
<?php
$user = “_luke__”;
$url = “http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/”;
$url .=”2.0/user/$user/weeklyalbumchart.xml”;
$xml = simplexml_load_file(”$url”);
print “<table align=’centre’ border=’0′>”;
$columns=1;
$i=0;
foreach($xml->album as $album)
{
$i++;
$artist = $album->artist;
$album_name = $album->name;
$album_url = $album->url;
$album_image = $album->image->medium;
if($i==0)
print “<tr>”;
print ”
<td align=’left’>
<a href=’$album_url’>$artist - $album_name</a>
</td>
“;
if($i==$columns)
{
$i=0;
print “</tr>”;
}
}
print “</table>”;
?>
feel free to steal and fudge this as you see fit.
if i cared more, i would include a loop so that it only showed the top ten, if you implement this, let me know, cheers.
Posted in generica, music, tech | Comments Off
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
you know you haven’t posted for a while, when you start considering writing about how hard it is to write… or you start revisiting the well worn road of discussing what’s really relevant…
but i know what’s relevant, things like; family, melbourne, football, music, tech, twitter, food… so i don’t need to go there do i… i just need to write more… easy.
now that that is out of the way, you know what’s been annoying me lately? a couple of people have been trying to finish my sentences for me, in an effort to prove they understand what i’m talking about… even when either of them ask me the question… it just proves they don’t, and most of the time it doubles the length of the conversation… **sigh**
ok, in other news, liam took his first real steps yesterday, i was absolutely gobsmacked… he’s becoming a real person! i’ve uploaded some news pics to prove it, hehehe…
hey! why don’t i make this an uber-post and try to cover ALL the categories above… hmm…
- melbourne is cold atm, it’s winter and getting out of bed in the morning is extremely difficult. i still love it though. in the evenings we have the heater on in our living room and often, because i’ve done the wii-fit thing, i stay in t-shirt and shorts until we go to bed, AND THEN, i wonder why i’m so cold…
- football? well, apparently duff scored a hat-trick in nufc’s win against hartlepool(?), i guess that’s good news (better than losing, duh) but you know, i honestly didn’t expect us to keep m.owen into next season, but seeing as liverpool just bought robbie keane, i think he might be safe! this also is the time of the year when i decide whether to join or start a tipping competition… hmm, i think i might skip the telegraph one this year, i get the impression guys do that one as a full-time job!
- music. hmm, i’ve discovered a new blog broken record that is really interesting, and my latest tumblr post is pretty depressing if you’re into it…
- the laptop i’ve been aiming for isn’t going to be released in australia! damn, against kim’s advice i think i’ll settle and if i feel like it later, i’ll buy a solid state disk for it separately.
- twitter is still there, and probably generally unheathy for my writing in this thing. my random thoughts that would used to have been full posts get reduced down to 140 characters or less… otherwise meh.
- and food. what can i say, i’m definitely eating less than i used to and am trying to shun the evil food i love… that said, we had fish and chips with emma and scott last night, and it was awesome but strangely unfulfilling… like the awesomeness didn’t make up for how kinda unwell i felt afterwards?
ok well, that seemed to work pretty well, amazing how much crap i can come out with.
or maybe not.
Posted in family, food and drink, football, generica, melbourne, music, tech, twitter | Comments Off
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
having the tv pack it in really halted my wii fit progress, it still isn’t fixed… so i setup our projector again and now everything we watch is MASSIVE.
we went up to visit some family this weekend at kyabram, which was really great, until we got home on sunday night when i started to feel a bit sick… so went to bed at 1830, and then spent the rest of the night getting up to throw up… till about 0130… nasty.
apart from that, not much is happening… liam is growing like a machine, my work is super busy… umm, i finally went to the dentist for the first time in 2 and a half years, and guess what?! no work needed, just another check up in 6 months! that never happens. awesome.
ok, i’ve gotta try to give this thing more attention… he says signing off.
Posted in family, food and drink, generica, melbourne, tech | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
the weekend just gone was pretty cool, i was oncall, so we didn’t really do much, just grocery shopping, spent most of the time at home, liam is clapping a lot now, it’s his new thing… along with the yelling, crawling, squealing, and yelling some more… we took him to an indoor play centre down the road, and he loved it, he’s so social, other kids seem to really interest him…
we just got our tv back from the repair place, and it’s having the same problem again! damn.
no tv is good and bad, we don’t watch much anyway, it’s just nice to have the choice… and my hard-drive media player thingy failed… i managed to get a backup of the majority and the disk is under warranty, but c’mon… that’s annoying.
Posted in family, generica, melbourne, tech | Comments Off
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
yes, i realise listening to someone talk fitness and diet is about as interesting as letting a
9 month-old feel around inside your eye sockets… but…
…umm wow, so after learning my wii fit age was 47 i’ve been working out (or doing what it says to do) for at least half an hour a day; and not only have i lost 1.5kg, but i feel great and i seem to have lost a stack of fat off my belly, not that it was bad, but now there’s actual definition in my abs! i so didn’ t expect that hey… and kimmy says even my face looks slimmer…
so now my wii fit age is 33; a week to knock 14 years off seems ok, although i don’t really have anything to compare it against… not to worry… the motivation to “eat less” (and better) hasn’t gone away… i’ve just gotta keep ticking other things off the list…
eye test, done
dental appt booking, check **gulp**
consolidate superannuation…
…etc…
Posted in family, food and drink, generica, tech | 5 Comments »
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
so a couple of crazy days with regards to this site… you may not have noticed but it has been moved completely, backed-up and restored. the whole process could’ve been simpler had i been thinking clearly; i backed-up the wordpress database, then forgot to save it. nice one huh.
not to worry, i used google cache and an older backup to get me out of trouble… still lost a couple of comments though… oops.
otherwise, things for us are going pretty well, um, liam learnt to clap today, amazing, uhh, we went shopping the other day, i needed new jeans, but ended up getting jeans, shoes, a shirt, a belt…
and… a wii fit.
…anyways, getting back from holidays, being sick knocked me around a bit, i almost felt like i hadn’t really recharged at all, but now that i’m healthy again, i have to decided to get motivated and sort some crap out… i’ve been out running at 0530, taking dr.rudys advice, and am determined to do spend at least 30 minutes on wii fit every day… also, i have to make an appointment with a dentist and get my eyes checked… fun huh.
it tells me my wii fit age is 47! crap. i guess that’s expected though really; my core strength has always been rubbish… although it is kind of annoying, you can’t just tell it you want to do a whole string of things in a row, you have to click in and out of the different activities… but i like the yoga and strength stuff, everything else is a little bit mickey mouse really…
Posted in family, generica, tech | Comments Off
Thursday, June 12th, 2008
so we’re off for some holidays on friday and as i’ve said before, we can’t wait! …heading up to qld for a bit to catch up with family and what-not… so… the blog might be a bit quiet because of limited inter-tubes access and disconnecting for a while, which probably isn’t a bad thing.
i might mms the occasional pic to the tumblr because i can.
in other news, work has been really good, quite challenging (and good). liam has been a little bit sick the last couple of days, and seeing as now he can stand himself up, he has been quite difficult to settle to sleep, kim even resorted to sleeping on a blow-up mattress with him, in a separate room, to make things a bit easier last night…
the euro2008 football highlights show on sbs has been great to watch, and hopefully while we’re up in townsville there will be cable TV, even better!
ok, gotta go find some summer clothes… laterz
Posted in family, football, generica, melbourne, tech | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
so i’ve just hit 500 twitter posts!
crazy huh, i’m glad i’m on a capped mobile plan so i don’t have to think about the money that would’ve gone through twitter in more than a year… all in all;
- it’s been fun,
- i’m not that addicted,
- it’s useful for miniblogging,
- i’ve seen some excellent random links,
- the outages don’t really annoy me,
- still no ads, great!
- i’m not that much of a freak!
- mtub peeps are pretty cool.
so yeah, i’ll keep doing it, and encouraging others to, even if i can’t answer the their question “what’s the point?” easily. i guess the thing is not to over-think it. which is hard for me.
updated twitterstats:
in the spirit of random internet stuffs, i have succumbed to the enormous pressure and created a tumblelog…
“wow luke, um, what’s that?”
i’m glad you asked, quoth the wiki:
“…is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, tumblelogs are frequently used to share the author’s creations, discoveries, or experiences while providing little or no commentary…”
i’m going to use it to collect and post random interesting stuff i find on the web, but unlike the full-on wordpress style blog, the tumblr will just be a stream of pics, vids, quotes and links… so it’ll be just like my digg favorites, only not. ie, in one place and fully customised…
Posted in generica, tech, twitter, youtube | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 19th, 2008
so after seeing this i managed to steal away a couple of hours on saturday afternoon… not to see him necessarily, really just to see the exhibition, after all we live in melbourne, it’d be a pity to miss it…
yeah anyway, among the many amazing things there, i played some atari 2600 classics, watched other people play some commodore 64 games, but the best thing was… they had a working “simon” there. i played through to the end of level 2, and now i have to get one… i think some friends of mine back in NZ had a couple of these things and… i have to get one…
they must be borderline “educational” and liam might even get a kick out of it, eventually.
onto actual news i guess, kim’s sister is staying with us for a fortnight which is pretty cool, we went out to hampton park for a family lunch on sunday, great to see everyone again… liam’s 2nd (?) cousin nyha is such a little cutie now…
congrats to dave and nat! a new boy how exciting!
…liam thinks he’s pretty clever now:
Posted in family, generica, melbourne, tech | Comments Off