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  • Google Chrome

    They’ve finally done it – Google have announced their own browser. Google Chrome (odd name).

    What? You’ve not realised? I don’t think I’ve seen such a software release (beta too) plastered over the media (top of the BBC’s technology news!).

    I was expecting it to be Gecko based, like Firefox, as Google and Firefox have been working very closely recently. But it’s not – it uses Web Kit, like Safari. Having said that, Web Kit does pass the mighty Acid3 test.

    Anyway, it’s released tonight and, like the true geek I am, I’ll try and get hold of it. Will their servers take the strain any better than those when Firefox 3 was released?

    In the meantime, you can keep yourself entertained with some screenshots. And if you’re REALLY bored, you can read its own comic book.

  • Blog Updates

    I’ve made a few changes (again) to this blog.

    • After realising I’ve earned a whole 60p from adverts on this blog and equally realising that they were slowing the site down, I’ve removed them!
    • After realising that the language translator never appeared to work, I’ve disabled it.
    • I’ve moved the admin options to the side
    • I’ve added quick shortcuts to various categories in the top menu bar

    I hope you like the changes 😀

  • Converting photos for a digital photo frame

    I’ve got a lovely digital photo frame. With many of these types of new technologies, I’ve waited for quality to improve and prices to drop.

    This one works best from an SD card (as it’s more discreet) – I’ve put in a spare 2 GB one that I had. This gives me loads of rooms for photos based on the resolution of the screen.

    So, how to best get my photos onto the frame.

    First of all I used Picasa to go through my photos and find those I wanted. It’s a shame there isn’t an easy way of moving copies to a new folder, so I had to do this manually. But from this I built up a seperate folder containing the photos I wanted to use.

    Next, I re-dimensioned them with Image Cropper – I tried a number of cropping programs but this worked the best. The ratio of the frame does not match my photos, and this allows me to adjust the are of cropping for each photo. The only downside to this program is that it doesn’t seem to retain all of the configuration – even though there is an option to load/save configuration options.

    Anyway, this program let me one-by-one crop to the right ratio, as well as change the pixel size to match the screen.

    Once all of this was done, I wanted to randomize the photos in some way (and possibly rename them too). I’m sure there’s an easy way, but I came across VIPBase – a collection of image and video processing utilities. Amongst these is a batch file renamer, which includes a button to randomize the files before being renamed.

    The results were copied onto the SD card and have worked a treat.

  • God help us

    (No pun intended)

    We’re back to the BBC website, but this time an entry in their “Magazine” section. It’s about what the Bible says about homosexuality – it shows the pertinent passages and gives a pro and anti view for each. And there’s strong arguments for both.

    So, a good, and thought provoking article. However, the BBC spoil it all by then allowing the knuckle-dragging members of the general public to respond to it. My favourite being…

    It is clear from the pro-gay viewpoints that they will twist and turn every Bible verse they want to say what they want it to say, or otherwise just brush over it and say that we are apparently a more enlightened society in the 21st Century. The Bible is God’s word and should be the only guide in a Christian’s life.

    Which is missing the point entirely. You could equally say that the anti-gay exponents are twisting their views. The whole point is that “God’s word” can be interpreted whichever way you want it to – there is no clarity and no-one to turn to who can confirm in which way it’s meant.

    How can “Gary from Coventry” know that his anti-gay view is the correct interpretation?

    As someone else put it…

    This whole article demonstrates one of the many fundamental problems with the Bible: its ambiguity. It is so vague and self-contradictory on so many issues…

    Bearing in mind that slavery is seen as acceptable, and having sex with a woman who is having a period is wrong (and also women during this time are “unclean”), it is clear that many of these things being quoted are simply the views of the authors at that time in society, not necessarily the will of God.

  • Tesco just makes things worse

    According to a news article on the BBC website, Tesco are to change the wording of the “10 items or less” to make things clearer. Instead, it will now state “Up to 10 items”.

    Now, is it me or is that actually even MORE confusing? Does that mean you shouldn’t use it if you have 10 items? Or does it mean up to and including 10? At least with 10 items or less this wasn’t an issue.

    No, the sign is being changed because of those ever-increasing pedants who have complained about the linguistic correctness of the original.

    So, something that made sense and was totally clear is now being changes for something that now isn’t quite as clear.

    Well done Tesco.