The Geekorium

Home of Rex Havoc, Space Adventurer and other assorted Geekeries.

  1. My Small Issue With the Windows Live Sync Beta

    Had a strange problem using the new Microsoft Windows Live Sync Beta. It’s working fine on one of my computers, but on the other one, it drops a letter when I set up a folder to sync.

    See what I mean?

    For example, if I want to sync a folder like D:\My Videos, the program accepts the folder I want as D:\y Videos and then creates this new folder for syncing. Or it might sync D:\Archives as D:\rchives. On my other computer — no issues.

    Investigating a bit, I discovered it doesn’t happen on my other drives (C:, F:). My D drive is different, in that I’ve moved the location of my My Documents folder to D. In a quick test, I discovered that moving it again to a subfolder of D removes the issue. It’s not a permanent solution however, as a) I like having my documents folder in the root of my secondary drive, and b) I would have to move 220Gb of data to an external drive and back again as you can’t move the location to a subfolder of the current location.

    So I’ve sent feedback to Microsoft using the inbuilt “report a problem” menu in the beta. I did it in two parts though, so this post is my way of putting it all in one place, and on the off chance that someone is having a similar issue, they might get some comfort knowing that it’s not their fault (well it is, but only ever so slightly).

  2. Fair-well Old Chums

    As much as I miss the genius of Jim Henson, I realised the other day that I will miss something else just as much as Jim’s Muppet characters. I will miss the insane and brilliant pieces of comedy gold he used to create with Frank Oz.

    Frank Oz is nowadays probably best known for being the voice of Yoda, but he’s also a respected and talented film director. He’s still entertaining, long after Jim Henson’s death and I hope he continues to do so for a long time to come.

    But what the world has lost since Jim’s death is not only a talented puppeteer and performer, but some classic comedic pairings of his characters with those of Frank Oz. I cry a little inside when I realise that there will be nothing new created by these two fabulous men working together.

    Let me give you some examples. First up the most obvious pair:

    This is the only video in this collection that I’ll forgive you for not watching in full. It’s a scene from my least favourite of the Muppet movies (Muppets take Manhattan1 ) showing the “wedding” between Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog, probably the most memorable Muppet pairing of all time (even if it’s not one of my favourites). Though an unlikely pair, Jim and Frank made the pig’s flamboyant declarations of love and the frog’s seeming indifference oddly engaging and has created a love affair that is still going strong.

    More!

    1. Ironically for this piece, directed by Frank Oz [↩]

  3. As Good As

    I’ve been working on a new design for The Geekorium. I’m constantly revising and trying to get it looking right, and I’ve previously made my own themes, but I’ve never been particularly happy with them. The problem with creating a design for yourself is it’s far easier to distil the essence of someone else into a few key elements based on what you perceive as their strong and sellable points, but far more difficult to do it to yourself. So the themes I’ve created have not really been “me”.

    Well I’m trying again.

    I’m happy about where this one is going. I’m still in the design stage, so it’s probably going to change a lot, but I’m proud of the work so far and I thought I’d share the direction I’m going with it and ask for some feedback. Normally my feedback process on my personal site design is to ask my wife, but I want to widen my base and get an idea from some of the people who read it. I realise I’m not giving you much to go on, but I’d love some off-the-top-of-your-head thoughts.

    A sneaky peak

    So what do you think?

  4. Creative Commons: What, Why and How.

    Creative Commons Configurator
    Adds a Creative Commons license to your blog pages and feeds. Also, provides some Template Tagsconfiguration panel.George Notaras

    I’ve used this plugin here and elsewhere to add a Creative Commons licence to the items I publish. Publishing something as Creative Commons means you still retain full copyright to the material, but gives others permission to use portions (or all) of your work on their own sites as long as they meet your guidelines. The choices can be a combination of the following:

    • Attribution — the person who uses your content must link back to you.
    • Non-commercial — the work they do must not be used for commercial gain.
    • Share Alike — the work they make must also be put under a Creative Commons licence with the same terms.

    The nature of the web is to share and republish things you find interesting and useful and to add your own take on it. By making my writing CC licensed, people can share what I write without fear of copyright claims (as long as they agree to my terms). I in turn other people’s CC licensed photos in a lot of my posts. CC helps to make the web richer and more useful by opening up things that might otherwise be locked away on their own sites.

    If you don’t plan to sell your work or make money off it, or feel like contributing to your community in some way consider putting your work under a Creative Commons licence.

    I DIDN’T KNOW MY SISTER WAS A BLOGGER THEN I FOUND OUT THAT SHE IS AND SHE DID A POST ON CREATIVE COMMONS AND PUBLISHED IT BEFORE I DID AND MY MIND IS BLOWN SO I’M LINKING TO HER POST ON CREATIVE COMMONS SO YOU CAN GET MORE INFORMATION IF YOU’D LIKE TO READ IT SHE STUDIES COMMUNICATIONS AND SHIT SO SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE’S TALKING ABOUT AND SHE HAS A TWEETER ACCOUNT TOO. HOLY CRAP.

  5. Bozo, the Clown Communications Minister

    “This is probably the single greatest breach in the history of privacy.”

    Steven Conroy on Google’s (accidental) collection of unsecured (and essentially public) wifi data from people who don’t know how to set a simple password on their wireless Internet connections.

    Conroy
    I once caught a clue THIS BIG! Then I let it go.
    By kjd.

    Really, he needs to stop talking if he ever wants anyone to take him seriously in a technological capacity ever again. Can’t he just have a 13 year old check his speeches before he gives them so they sound at least vaguely knowledgable?

  6. Fluffy Oat Pancakes

    Here’s my favourite pancake recipe. It’s excellent with some good quality yoghurt and fruit instead of maple syrup.

    Recipe: Oat Pancakes

    Summary: These pancakes are tasty and healthy

    Ingredients

    • 1 cup rolled oats
    • 1 cup milk
    • 1 egg
    • 1 tbsp sugar
    • 3/4 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
    • 30 grams (1 1/2 tbsp) butter/marg
    • Pinch of salt

    Instructions

    1. In a medium bowl mix oats, milk, sugar and egg. If you do this a while before the rest of the recipe, the oats get so soft it’s like eating air.
    2. In a large bowl pour self raising flour and a pinch of salt.
    3. Melt butter
    4. Pour wet ingredients into flour and mix well.
    5. Heat a small non-stick pan on the lowest heat.
    6. When hot, pour a serving-spoon or two of pancake mixture. Swirl pan to make even round pancakes.
    7. The pancake will cook slowly. When the top starts to bubble, flip the pancake over.
    8. Serve with yoghurt for a healthy alternative to syrup.

    Quick Notes

    It’s vitally important that you have patience with pancakes. Don’t put the heat up too high! The slower you cook them, the fluffier and lighter they will be. These pancakes seem like they will be bitty, but have faith — they are as soft and smooth as any other, more so! And they taste divine.

    Cooking time (duration): 15

    Number of servings (yield): 4

    Meal type: breakfast

    My rating: 5 stars: ★★★★★

    Microformatting by hRecipe.

    I’ve worked out the Calorie count for these pancakes. If you use 1/5th the mixture per pancake, you’re eating roughly 890kJ or 215Cal. If like me you add 2 tbsp it’s only an extra 10Cal per pancake. A 1/4 cup of choc-chips adds an extra 100Cal to each pancake.

  7. My Sister is Funny

    Wishing I’d made a list of all the “type these for security purposes” words to use for fantasy band names. Spend Brandies are going to ROCK.Mon May 24 04:59:34 via webCarlynne Nunn
    mygirlbetty

    Due to me not using Twitter any more, I can’t just retweet this, so I’m blogging it instead. Overkill: yes; necessary: yes.

  8. Google Wave Live and Available for Everyone! Including Google Apps users!

    Today at the Google I/O Conference (the same one that Google Wave was announced at last year) Lars Rasmussen gave a brief update on Google Wave. The biggest news is that Google Wave is now available for any one to sign up without an invitation. This makes it much more likely that large groups will just get started collaborating on Wave without having to coordinate Wave invitations for everyone. While the service was invite-only it had the appearance of being a “tech elite” product. As more people found uses for it in group situations (classrooms, meetings) the need to make it easy for the people that actually wanted to use the product to do so became obvious.

    In a guest post on the Huffington Post, Lars explains:

    For this reason, today we opened up Google Wave to everyone. You no longer need an invitation to use the service. Simply go to wave.google.com and sign right in. Likewise, if you administer a Google Apps domain, you can now easily enable Google Wave for all your users at no extra cost. Google Wave is now officially part of Google Labs, the same place my team launched Google Maps close to 5 years ago.If you tried Google Wave earlier and found it not quite ready for real use, we think you’ll find that a lot has changed, and now is a good time to give it another look.
    Lars Rasmussen in the Huffington Post

    Did you catch that second part? That was the other half of the announcement: Google Wave is now live for all Apps for Your Domain accounts! If you are using Gmail or Google Calendar on your own domain name, you can now use Google Wave too, and it integrates fully with the normal Google Wave experience. Those of you who have been waiting for this since launch, or since Linkoping University announced it for their students, well wait no more!

    It took about 3 hours from the announcement to being able to add Wave to my own domain account. Setup is a breeze. Click the “Add more services” link on your App Dashboard to install the Wave Preview. Then get Waving!

    Don’t forget to Wave @ me and add josh@nunnone.com to your Wave contacts.

  9. Wave This API released. Plus Official Chrome Extension and Bonus Unofficial WordPress Widget

    A few weeks ago, I noticed a new feature of Google Wave that allowed a user to easily send websites and content to a new wave to easily share with others. The feature (called “Wave This”) was not officially announced at the time, and I was asked politely not to say anything more at the time until the team could officially announce it.

    wave-this-buttons.png

    In addition to this, the Wave This function has an official Chrome Extension. Install the extension, and you can send any page to Wave with a click!

    Finally, you can also use an undocumented Wave This feature to add a Wave contact button to your sites. At the top of my page I’ve added a “Wave @ me!” button that starts a new wave with me as a participant so you can easily contact me in Google Wave. To add the button to your own site it’s as easy as filling your details in the code below:

    <a href="https://wave.google.com/wave/wavethis?t=Contact+via+[Your-Site-Name]&r=[fill-in-your-@-wave-address-here]" title="Contact me in Google Wave" class="vt-p"><img src="[your-button-image]" alt="Wave at me!"></a>

    The &r parameter for adding a recipient isn’t listed on the API page and support might be pulled or altered so use at your own risk. Additionally, be aware that the Wave This function currently defaults to the Google Wave Preview account only, so if you use a different client (a Google Wave for Domain Apps account for instance, or Novell Pulse) you’re out of luck for now.

    So there you have it! A new API, an awesome function, and my modest widget. Have at it! Make some buttons!! Start spreading Wave!!!

  10. Wave This Widget for WordPress

    Announcing the Wave This Widget for WordPress. Install this widget, add it to your sidebar and let your visitors share your posts easily on Google Wave!

    The Google Wave “Wave This” function takes the title of a post and a short description and starts a new wave for you to add users to. It uses the “Wave This” API.

    Wave This!

    This sidebar widget adds a button to individual post pages that sends the post title and exerpt to Wave. If you haven’t set an exerpt the widget uses the default one generated by WordPress for each post. The default button is 300px wide to allow for larger sidebars. Please resize the button using the widget options.

    : Added the official button options from Google.

    More!