esotechnica

Webcomics - a waste of time?

Simon Collis — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:23:45 +0000

Years ago I used to read lots of comics online, especially one of the earliest - Doctor Fun, which sadly stopped publishing in 2006. You’ll need to be a bit of a science buff to get most of the jokes, but Records Your Neighbours Listen To or When Cats Try To Cook (which I used [...]

Ernest Pike at firstworldwar.com

Simon Collis — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:19:06 +0000

The Guardian newspaper has recently been running a fascinating series of booklets on the First World War, and recommended a site called firstworldwar.com. Checking them out they have a great range of vintage recordings, by famous names such as Vesta Tilley, Marie Lloyd, Florrie Forde, Harry Champion… and Ernest Pike/Herbert Payne of course. Sadly, there’s [...]

Why DID Microsoft want to buy Yahoo!?

Simon Collis — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:46:53 +0000

I’ve been thinking about the abortive Microsoft-Yahoo! deal last night in bed, and what came to me has been crystallising in my head ever since. Basically, Microsoft’s plan is, and always has been, to provide as much of the software for as many of the computers in the world as they can. Doesn’t sound too [...]

Iron - privacy enhanced version of Google Chrome

Simon Collis — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:29:10 +0000

There’s an open-source spinoff from Chrome already: it’s called Iron (the website is in German, but Incomplete News translated it). When you install Chrome, there’s a check box that says “report crash data and usage statistics to Google”. You don’t have to tick this, of course, but if you do, Chrome generates a unique ID [...]

Another black mark for Google Chrome

Simon Collis — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:53:37 +0000

After yesterday’s fairly glowing review - 35 out of 50, if I recall correctly - I’ve found a problem with Chrome. Debugging a web application this morning, I needed to view the source of the page I was looking at. It’s a farily complex application (a 100K page is generated by about 700K of code), [...]

Add a search plugin to your site

Simon Collis — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:40:16 +0000

I just added a search plugin to my site. Unless you use Firefox 3 and noticed the small blue highlight on the arrow, it’s fairly difficult to notice, but for those who - like me - make good use of that box, it’s a nice thing to have. Let’s start with the easy bit: the [...]

Google Chrome - after 2 weeks use

Simon Collis — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:22:55 +0000

Well, I’ve been using Google Chrome for about 2 weeks or so now, and here’s what I think of it so far: Speed 9 out of 10 Google Chrome is pretty fast, and some of the applications that I use on a regular basis squirt enormous great forms full of hidden fields at you (out of necessity, [...]

More Ernest Pike

Simon Collis — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:56:45 +0000

Ernest Pike continues to contribute 50% of the entire traffic to this site - who knew that this obscure singer would prove so popular? Anyway, an email from a nice chap called Bart tipped me off to two more recordings available through UCSB’s The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project: The Green Isle Of Erin and Do [...]

Google Chrome - now on Windows 2000

Simon Collis — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:55:12 +0000

Apparently there’s now an unofficial way to make Google Chrome run on Windows 2000. This is pretty cool if you’re still running 2000 somewhere (say on a laptop) for whatever reason. There are some odd warnings with it, but nothing you can’t live with, apparently.

VideoLAN 0.9.2

Simon Collis — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:47:25 +0000

VideoLAN’s VLC 0.9.2 (codenamed Grishenko) has been released today. VideoLAN Client Licence:GPL Status:stable Version:0.9.2 (Sep 15 2008) Web:Homepage It’s the result of about 2 years work by the VideoLAN team, and features a brand new interface, support for more file formats (including flv), better hi-definition (1080p) support and fullscreen controls. (The full feature list is on the wiki.) Because VLC is [...]

Spooky Scary Skeletons

Simon Collis — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:03:21 +0000

If you haven’t seen Spooky Scary Skeletons already, go and check it out. The animator - Zekey - is now working for Weebl’s Stuff animating things, and this is just a little animation that he put together. It’s completely wonderful and feels a bit Tim Burton-esque. Connosieurs of Disney cartoons may remember the rather [...]

Does anyone remember the Orange balloon race?

Simon Collis — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:44:42 +0000

Well, I was sorting out my bookmarks the other day and came across a folder of things I meant to look at from the balloon race, so I thought I’d share them with you. I’ve put them into alphabetical order by sort-of-subject… you’ll get the idea (I hope). Art, Design & Photography Chris Charles - [...]

Large Hadron Collider

Simon Collis — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:24:11 +0000

I’ve been on Yahoo! Answers recently, and noticed that almost every other question seems to be about the Large Hadron Collider, and “will it destroy the world”. Well, as far as I can tell, there are four possible answers to that question: They find the Higgs boson The Higgs boson is the magic “god particle”, which supposedly gives [...]

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Simon Collis — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:24:50 +0000

International Talk Like A Pirate Day (here in the UK, in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care) is almost upon us (Friday the 19th in fact). So it’s time to get your pirate name out, dig out those flags, blow up the inflatable parrot and get ready for 24 hours where every other word is [...]

Google Chrome - the backlash begins

Simon Collis — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:30:55 +0000

Google’s little marketing comic for Chrome has proved a goldmine for satirists, as The Register shows… (In case you’re wondering, I’m still using Firefox thanks. Yes, it’s fast but I’ve too many Firefox plugins to switch. Hmm - is there an article in that somewhere?)