Rubenerd

After posting a few weeks ago about how I'd downgraded back from the Firefox 3.5.x series to Firefox 3.0.13 because of serious stability problems I've been overwhelmed by the feedback I've got from people here on the blog and through Twitter and email saying they've had the same problems. Not since I started using Phoenix 0.2 when I was in high school have I ever had to downgrade Mozilla software, it really is that bad.

The problem is Mozilla has (possibly intentionally) made it difficult to locate the downloads for the 3.0.x series which is still being maintained and supported. I admit when I gave up and decided to downgrade I used a copy of 3.0.6 I still had on an external drive then used its internal software update feature to bring me up to 3.0.13.

Fortunately since then I found my ISP here in Adelaide has a globally accessible mirror for Firefox 3.0.13 which you can find here:

http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/mozilla/firefox/releases/3.0.13/

I think it's safe to say the 3.5.x series is still beta quality software and should be treated as such, meaning when I advise people about what software they should use on production machines I'll be strongly suggesting they use 3.0.x.

Now ladies and gentlemen, as far as being a neighbour goes I reckon I'm pretty easy to get along with. All I need is a reliable internet connection, water and electricity. The only loud music I play is jazz fusion. When people living across from me have a gas leak and call the fire department in at 3am I just roll over and go back to sleep. When Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, I hide my copies of The God Delusion and The Portable Atheist and pretend to care about what they're saying.

Presenting exhibit 1936a, the photograph above. Ever since I started studying here in July last year these telephone access covers have been sitting here without a footpath around them. When it rains it becomes a river of mud, when it's dry the temporary fencing which has been standing there longer than some of the houses surrounding it serves to snag feet and bags.

I submit dear reader that Telstra should stop sitting on whatever part of their corporate body they primary sit on instead of helping taxpayers and come down to Mawson Lakes here to fix this problem, because I'd very much like one of these days to be able to walk to uni without tracking mud for a few hundred metres or tripping and falling flat on my arse which not only hurts but looks terribly unsophisticated and tends to make me look as though I'm trying to pull off a John Cleese walking impression. I'm flattered by the comparison, but honestly all I want to do is walk without the aforementioned events occurring.

Please Telstra, look at the rambling nonsense you've reduced me to.

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

Singapore Sky/Weather Cam

"Singapore weather webcam time lapse images"

(categories: singapore webcam weather)

TheIntelligentCrowd Blog

Mark Ashworth's blog

(categories: blog thoughts management business)

Stickman Bangkok.com Living and Working in Bangkok

(categories: southeastasia asia travel thailand)

Pay-per-email plan to beat spam and help charity – tech – 13 August 2009 – New Scientist

"Yahoo! wants to reinvent the postage stamp to cut spam. Researchers are testing a scheme where users pay a cent to charity for each email they send"

(categories: spam email news)

When I read blog posts like this one by Dave Winer where he refers to budget computers as craptops it stuns me just how far we've come. I imagine a person from 20 years ago would kill to get their hands on a computer with the CPU power of a current craptop. Of course as Pirelli has been telling us for 30 years power is nothing without control, and the craptops of which he speaks do come with Vista. Put 7 (or even better XP or a FLOSS system) on them and they're a bit better, but the kind of people who buy such machines probably don't know this. But that's for another post.

What I find interesting about all these articles about how netbooks and budget machines are making basic computing cheaper for the masses is that people continue to completely ignore the second hand computer market in their analysis. Sure netbooks are probably a bit ligher and smaller than an older laptop for the same price, but that's not to say you can't find yesterday's svelte executive lightweight subnotebook that has premium build quality, a keyboard that's actually usable and great battery life for less than a bargain basement dinky new machine now, while probably still being able to perform all the same tasks.

I admit as with buying a used car, when you buy a second hand computer you don't know how the previous owner treated it and whether or not said hardware is in good condition. Leaving aside refurbished computers that often do have a limited warranty, it comes down to how much homework you're willing to do on sellers and hardware.

I've bought several second hand computers for myself (latest is a ThinkPad X40 pictured above) and friends over the last few years and the only problems I've had have been related to dying hard drives which I always upgrade to higher capacity or SSD units anyway. Even if you do have to replace a defective part, often they're cheaper because the hardware is older, and you're still better off.

I adore my 2006 MacBook Pro and when I finally get around to replacing it I will be buying a brand new machine; I think if you intend a machine to be your primary workhorse it makes sense to spend the extra money. For netbooks though that you use at coffee shops or that desktop you have in the corner downloading anime torrents (not that I do that, just an example you understand), I don't see any reason why a second hand computer that was fantastic and expensive yesterday won't do the job as well or better than a craptop from today. In many cases it may even work better.

Just sayin'!

For the convenience of those who aren't using Twitter I have transcribed a hilarious, witty conversation I had with Lensflared on Twitter this evening.

Lensflared: Come on Sun, where are you?

Rubenerd: @Lensflared Last I heard Sun was being bought by Oracle :D

Lensflared: @Rubenerd Does that mean the Sun will shine even brighter, or will it cause an irreversible eclipse? :-)

Rubenerd: @Lensflared AAAAAAAAAA! Okay you win! :D

What I love about such "high level" nonsense is if you weren't a serious computer nut you'd have no idea what's going on! Or perhaps in this specific IDE context I should say a computer… bean? HA! Damn I should have replied with that instead, don't you hate it when you come up with a great comeback but only after the time when you could have used it?

I talked about this issue a bit more seriously back in early April.

Given some of the software I have to run at university is Windows only and that I need to test sites in IE, I've been using Windows 2000 and later a copy of the release candidate of Windows 7 in a virtual machine. I've decided it's probably in my best interests to purchase a licence for 7 once it becomes available.

As far as I can tell I don't need, want or care about any of the so called premium features of Windows 7 so I want the most barebones one possible. Windows 7 Starter is out of the question because I just can't bring myself to use an OS where you're not even allowed to change your desktop background. Whatever the marketing people at Microsoft are smoking I advise them to get off it before it causes them all irreversible brain damage! I turn Aero off on machines I use so not having that doesn't bother me.

Problem is the next one up is Windows 7 Home Basic which according to Wikipedia will only be available in so called "emerging markets", no doubt to help stop people from considering free software alternatives that do most of what they want to do without most of the vendor lock-in and high prices. I guess it makes sense.

Here's what I was thinking. When I go back to Singapore for Christmas to see my dad and we head over to Bangkok I might be able to grab myself a copy there, though I assume there's a clause in the EULA that states taking a copy of Home Basic outside an emerging market is illegal or some other dubious legal claim. Would I have to run that virtual machine through a Thai proxy server whenever I wanted to update it to trick it into thinking I was using it there? ;)

Once again Microsoft saves itself from a failed product (Vista) with a relatively decent product, then fails in the marketing and follow up. It's a bummer, I really thought they had a compelling product here for the first time in a long time. I guess they still have time before the final release.

I wonder if they'll have student pricing for Windows 7? I know they do for Vista. I'm assuming my legitimate retail Windows 2000 Professional licence won't mean squat for an upgrade, and even if it did it would probably only apply to the Professional or Enterprise versions which are too expensive anyway. Might have to look into this.

I finally got around to uploading some photos I took in late July and adding them to the surprisingly titled Mawson Lakes 2009 set on The Flickrs. These were taken one afternoon in Mawson Lakes, the suburb in Adelaide where I'm studying. Even though it had finished raining by late morning, by the afternoon the sky was still dark, the air was eerily still and presumably because people were afraid of venturing outside for fear of being soaked the entire neighbourhood felt deserted. No people, no moving cars, nobody! Not only that but one small gap in the clouds was casting some pretty crazy long shadows everywhere to add to said eeriness.

It was surreal, like I was walking on the set for a movie or something. It was as if I was Will Smith in I Am Legend. It was as if everybody had been beamed aboard a space ship and I had somehow been spared. These analogies doing anything for you?

I've been spending my afternoon programming in my room because my sister is still feeling crook and I don't want to wake her with my loud bucking spring keyboard. I blame her condition on the fact she hasn't ever put a Toblerone box on her nose. Yeah, that works.

Having spent a few hours in here I've noticed just how messy it is, from my chair here I can count four empty takeaway coffee cups, nine coat hangers, an upside down box fan, a power supply cable that I've forgotten what it plugs in to, a rolled up quilt I took off the bed last night when it got too warm, and several tons of documentation and other paper strewn everywhere back when I was looking for my Oracle serial number.

ASIDE: This has got to be one of the most ridiculous premises for a blog post I’ve ever done, except for literally everything in the nonsense category.

Just from where you're sitting now, how much mess can you see? If your room is spotless don't answer, I don't want your snide judgement ;).

There are lots of conspiracy theorists on Twitter which I think mirrors their high degree of exposure on the internet in general. Without a reliable way of checking and verifying facts in many circumstances online, this breeds such ideas like a week old loaf of bread does mould. That's fine though, as well as people aren't getting hurt it's just free speech asserting itself.

I never thought I would consider myself a member of the conspiracy theory clique, but I am a conspiracy theory conspiracy theorist. I am of the opinion conspiracy theorists around the world are members of a loose, underground alliance designed to distort facts, spread misinformation and sew seeds of doubt in order to disrupt scientific, political and technological progress, all while using the guise that they're the ones trying to expose said shenanigans. It's very clever!

When conspiracy theorists saying the world is changing and there's a New World Order being established, I assert they would know better than anyone else because they're the ones guilty of perpetrating it, whether they realise it or not.

Look out conspiracy theorists, I'm onto your conspiracy! Who's the sheeple now? ;-)

I know I only just posted about Akiyama Mio from K-On but this picture by Pixiv member 198353 was too good. In hindsight I should have put this picture on that aformentioned blog post instead of the one I ended up with, but oh well.

Anyway here we have Mio on a Ducati no less! I wonder if she's met Casey Stoner?

I'll get my motorcycle licence one of these days, it's on my laundry list length to do list (try saying that quickly five times in a row!). Once I do I'll get a fuel efficient Piaggio scooter for quick trips and a small, bright yellow Ducati for longer ones. I know I'm supposed to get a red one, but I saw a couple of yellow ones in Singapore and they were pretty damn swish. This is of course after I've won the lottery and stopped wasting money on computers.

Update 2019: Attributed the Pixiv artist, though they’ve since closed their account which is a shame.