Dean Sas's Weblog

Google Desktop Search

// March 8th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Google Desktop Search (or GDS as it’s becoming known) has just been fully released. I reviewed the beta a while ago. The new version is much the same to most people, with the most notable addition being the ability to search more kinds of files. However google have included APIs for developers to create plug-ins for different filetypes to be searched by GDS, this has allowed several plug-ins to be developed already, google are hosting plug-ins which meet their standards on their site. The flip side to this is that the APIs also allow any windows programmer to access GDS to get information out of its index. So hopefully we’ll soon see programs that embed GDS inside theirselves. All this in a 700k download.

Wonder what the atmosphere is like at Microsoft right now..

Bill Bryson – A Short History of Nearly Everything

// February 25th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve just completed A Short History of Nearly Everything, after having plenty of time stuck at Birmingham New Street to read it. Basically it is an ‘easy to understand’ explanation of many scientific discoveries and theories on a huge varying subject matter, from the big bang theory, to the discovery of atoms, to the birth of life and evolution and many more inbetween. Somehow, despite the realms of things to be explained Bryson manages to keep a lively sustained narrative, Mainly I think because as well as all the science Bryson also finds time to tell you about the personalities involved in each discovery. This helps to keep up interest in the book and keeps the whole book from being just another dry science book.

The level of science involved is I feel of about an a-level standard, although it’s hard to quantify however I do think that pretty much everyone will come away from this book having learned at least a few new facts.

I really enjoyed this book, and I think that anyone with an inquisitive mind will also enjoy it. If you want to find out how people weigh the earth, know how old the universe is or what the centre of the earth looks like, then this book is for you.

Ubuntu

// February 23rd, 2005 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

I’ve installed the Ubuntu “Warty” release and played around with it for a couple of days, configuring and exploring it. I quite like it, it has a nice, ungimmicky default theme, has firefox as the default browser and uses the very nice gnome 2.8. It seemed really easy to use, kinda ‘clean’ and well, just made sense. My camera got picked up fine. It was basically a joy to use. The best distro I’ve ever used I do believe. Gnome seems to have overtook KDE in my mind, KDE just seems so kind of gimmicky and vulgar in comparison, but without the user friendliness and stability to back it up. The one drawback I felt was the use of Open Office as the default office suite rather than Abiword and Gnumeric or similar, Open Office isn’t that pleasent to the eye, and the major problem is that it takes an age to start.

I felt that good about it I upgraded it to development version – “Hoary”. However I’m having problems with that. So I’m going to go back to Warty tomorrow.

eBay Hacks

// February 1st, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

My Amazon order arrived today – a day or two earlier than I expected, but I can’t moan at that .

The first book I’ve read already, eBay Hacks is basically a tip book for eBayers, both buyers and sellers, though to be honest it’s not really worth getting unless you wish to sell. It contains a 100 tricks, ranging from the common sense “beware of off eBay sales” to the more useful “automatically leave feedback”. Some of these tricks are ‘offline’ hacks – better ways to handle post office queues, others are technical hacks – run this perl code to automatically submit listings. One very useful section is the photography section. It contains tricks and tips to get 3d images on your auctions, basic photography techniques and similar items. This can save you over 15p an auction, which may not sound much, but it all adds up.

As a whole I feel that this book has a problem deciding who it’s audience is. Some of it is soley useful to large ‘power sellers’ or the technical crowd, others are of no use to any experienced eBayer. I suspect that many of the technical users could figure out the ways of using the eBay API anyway, while the example scripts given aren’t feature-rich enough to be of any real use to power sellers. Another problem with this book (at least for me!) is it’s US-centric, there are several tips devoted to shipping, and nearly all of them are useless outside the US

I don’t think this book is worth the £17 full price, and to be honest I’d struggle to reccomend it at the £12 it is at now. However you may be able to find some bargains at the Amazon Marketplace.

Saw

// January 15th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I saw saw at the cinemas. When I went in I went to the counter and said “can i see saw” (y). (geddit geddit???!?)

Anyway Saw is a dark film that relies on plot twists and dark humour to keep the audiences attention. Instead of the usual build up, then the story then an ending, this film basically just has a story, so you know pretty much nothing about the characters, this information is then unveiled as the story goes on, basically driving the plot twists. It’s sure to have you thinking ‘whodunnit’ all the way through. This makes the film good to watch once, but I suspect repeat viewing quickly becomes a chore.

Featuring a cast lineup of Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon), Dina Meyer (Starship Troopers), Cary Elwes (Robin Hood) and some random people (y)

Well What Can I Say I’m Back Here?

// November 1st, 2004 // No Comments » // General

Went home at the weekend, Friday really dragged waiting to go home, I felt really excited but slightly nervous as well. Anyway I got a bouquet of roses from Sainsburys for Sara and packed the rest of my stuff up ready to go. My Mum and Dad picked me up, Mum had managed to direct the wrong way for a change (y). The journey back seemed really fast for some reason but it did take us the usual time to make the trip. Anyway come 2145 I walked up to the co-op, flowers in hand to meet Sara, completely embarrased her when I gave her the flowers . It was just so good to see her again mmmm. (more…)

Public Enemy vs White Stripes – White Enemy

// October 23rd, 2004 // 5 Comments » // Uncategorized

Well this came through and I got Meggs to rip it to mp3 for me, and it’s pretty great. Course I would say that seeing as I just spent £20 on a single track but meh. This, for people who don’t know is a mix up between Public Enemy – Bring the Noise and The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army. It’s based around P.E.s acappella over the Seven Nation Army beat. It works to great effect. The second verse especially – the end of every word of Chucks rant hitting every beat perfectly. Only 500 of this 7″ was pressed so it’s pretty hard to find, but well worth your while if you do.