Here’s the fastest way I’ve found to install Ubuntu on a USB flash drive, for my Dell Latitude D420. (Pendrivelinux.com is a great resource for this sort of thing.) Ingredients One large USB flash drive like this one. Not less than 4GB. I’d suggest 8GB or more One CD (not a DVD) Ubuntu 8.10 desktop CD ISO IMGBurn or any other CD burning software Direct Internet via LAN cable (without proxy, without wireless) Installation ...
This vacation, I took a session each for class XI and XII at my school, Vidya Mandir. The subject was Computer Science (the only one I can teach with some confidence), and the topic was networks. It was an experiment, in two parts. The first was to understand how students of this generation interact with the Internet. (I'm twice as old as them, so I guess they qualify as the next generation.) The second was to see whether I'd leave them far behind, or they'd leave me far behind. ...
I hadn’t jumped on to the Twitter bandwagon for a while. I’m not much of a conversationalist, nor am I a very sociable. I also tend to stay away from social networks. But I figured I would try Twitter out for a while, mostly because it’s an outlet for short comments. For long articles, I have my blog. For sharing links, I have Google Reader and del.icio.us. I don’t quite have anything for that occasional moment when I want to say, “Hey! A great way to shred mint leaves is to freeze them!” ...
It’s been three weeks since I initiated the effort to type in the Dilbert strips and the results are encouraging. About 2 years worth of strips have been typed out. So this Dilbert viewer now has a reasonably sized index for searching. Many thanks are in order here. The first is due to geek.nl, whose images I have taken the liberty of hotlinking. Thanks also to those who’ve taken the time out to type strips: ...
In the 1980s, we rarely used to buy audio cassettes. It was a lot cheaper to record songs from the radio. It’s amazing that in the 2000s, this technique seems to be less used than before. If you wanted to record a song that was streamed online, you could go through the complex procedures I’d mentioned earlier to download online songs, or you could use the 1980s technologies. Get a tape recorder, connect the headphones of your PC to the tape recorder’s microphone using a stereo cable, and record to your heart’s content. ...
UPDATE: 13 Jan 2026: Scott Adams passed away. RIP. UPDATE: Mar 2023: Dilbert.com was closed but archives are accessible via the Wayback Machine (slow). Search does not work well. Dilbert viewer is an alternate interface via Reddit. UPDATE: 2012: dilbert-search.appspot.com died, likely of old age. – Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to search through the Dilbert archives using text? This used to be possible at Dilbert.com some years ago, as a paid service. In late 2003, I needed to find some Dilbert strips for a client, so I’d subscribed for a year. I could then search for the quotes (I happened to be looking for “outsourcing”, so you can guess the context). ...
Some gadgets I’ve bought / got over the last few years. SDHC Card Reader on 17 March 2009 16GB SD Card on 14 March 2009 16GB USB Flash Drive on 8 Jan 2009 Creative Labs EP-630/A Earphones on 30 Dec 2008 USB MIDI cable on 30 Dec 2008 Strand iPod Cassette adapter on 30 Dec 2008 Recta Micro Compass Accessory on 30 Dec 2008 TomTom ONE v3 Great Britain on 31 Aug 2008 Keysonic Compact Notebook Layout Wireless 2.4Ghz Radio Frequency Keyboard With Integrated Touch Pad on 6 Sep 2008 Acer Aspire 5715Z Notebook Laptop, Intel Pentium Dual Core T2330 1.6GHz, 15.4" TFT, 2GB RAM, 80GB Hard-drive, DVD±RW, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, WiFi, Vista Home Premium on 29 Jul 2008 BlackBerry Curve 8320 on 10 Aug 2008 TDK Recordable Blank 16x DVD+R Discs 25pack Cakebox on 6 Jul 2008 BlueNEXT BN-909 GPS Receiver SiRF Star III on 6 Jul 2008 HTC S620 (Excalibur) on 1 Jul 2008 Sandisk MicroSDHC 4GB Card in 6 Jul 2008 TRUST HU-4440P 4 PORT USB2 MINI HUB on 31 Mar 2008 Masterplug 4 Gang Switched Extension Lead 2m 13 Amp Fused on 31 Mar 2008 Nintendo Wii Remote on 1 Mar 2008 Hama Compact USB 2.0 Hub 1:4 on 31 Mar 2008 Canon IXUS 70 Digital Camera - Silver (7.1MP, 3x Optical Zoom) 2.5" LCD on 29 Feb 2008 Sandisk 2GB Secure Digital Card on 29 Feb 2008 Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive on 15 Feb 2008 Verbatim DVD+R 25Pk 16x Spindle on 15 Feb 2008 Bontempi Keyboard - 61 Full Key GM, Midi, Stereo (AD177.12) on 4 Jan 2008 LUPO DIGITAL TV DVB-T USB ADAPTER/DONGLE/STICK FREEVIEW RECEIVER & AERIAL FOR PC AND LAPTOP on 6 Jan 2008 Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 on 26 Dec 2007 Mini-Headphone Splitter (Stereo) on 1 Jan 2008 SanDisk Sansa m240 1Gb MP3 Player on 24 Jul 2007 Kenwood FP580 Food Processor 2 Speed White on 26 Dec 2007 Uniross AAA 1000mAh (4)Rechargeable Battery Ni-Mh on 24 Jul 2007 Sennheiser CX300 Eco Ear Canal Headphones Black on 24 Jul 2007 Cordless Skype Phone Kit NON VISTA on 5 Mar 2007 Logitech EX110 Wireless Desktop on 5 Mar 2007 Sony Ericsson Standard Travel Charger (UK) CST-13 on 12 Jan 2007 LG 42PC1D 42" Plasma TV on 20 Jan 2007 Fuji FinePix S5600 Zoom Digital Camera [5.0MP,10xOptical Zoom] on 17 Nov 2006 Uniross Sprint 1 Hour Battery Charger inc 4 x AA 2700 mAh Rechargeable Batteries - batteries upgraded from 2500 mAh on 11 Jan 2007 DIGIHOME DVB915 FREEVIEW Digital Terrestrial Receiver with SCART Lead on 17 Nov 2006 Fuji 1GB XD Type M Picture Card on 17 Nov 2006 CyberHome DVD 401/0 Multi-region Capable DVD Player with DIVX on 28 Jul 2006 Sony 80min/700MB Thermo printable CD-R spin 50pk on 28 Jul 2006 Dynamode 3.5" IDE Interface Disk Enclosure on 1 May 2006 Rivision DVD+R 8x 4.7Gb 100 Cake Box on 15 Jun 2006 BenQ 16x External Dual Format, Double Layer DVD Writer - EW162I, Beige on 3 Jan 2006 SANDISK CRUZER MICRO 1GB on 3 Jan 2006 Panasonic NV-GS17B MiniDV Digital Camcorder [24x Optical, 2.5" LCD, DV out] on 9 Nov 2005 Emtec DVD+R Cake Box 100pk on 3 Jan 2006 Comments Saurabh 14 Sep 2008 6:23 am: Small tip - If you are not a member of Amazon prime, then do check out their free trial..Cancel it just before expiry or better still, remove the tick for auto renew in your account! S Anand 15 Sep 2008 12:41 am: Is there any benefit other than free next day delivery? I usually end up ordering the free 2-4 day delivery, and end up collecting it from the post office during the weekend! So unless I’m ordering on a Friday or Saturday, next day delivery probably doesn’t help me much.
When I analysed my HTTP log last week, I had another motive: are there enough people accessing my site on a mobile device? Or is it too small at this stage for me to care about? Well, have a look at the numbers. Windows98.4% Mobile0.6% Linux0.5% OS X0.5% Yes, there are more people accessing my site through a mobile device than there are using Linux or OS X. That's shocking! ...
I went to the Google Chrome site. Clicking on the “Accept and Install” button… … automatically launched the downloader in Firefox… … and (after a fairly short while) started installing the application directly. This may be the most painless install I’ve done in a while. I clicked on “Customise the settings” This is what it looks like. And that’s it! It installs, and launches in just a few seconds. First impressions: the startup and rendering are really fast. ...
One out of every 5 hits to my site is from a bot. I spent a fair bit of time this weekend analysing my log file for last month (which runs to gigabytes, and I ended up learning a few things about file system optimisation, but more on that later). 80% of the hits were from regular browsers. 20% were from robots. Here's a sample of the user-agents: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; <a href="http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)">http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)</a> Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +<a href="http://www.google.com/bot.html)">http://www.google.com/bot.html)</a> Mediapartners-Google DotBot/1.0.1 (<a href="http://www.dotnetdotcom.org/#info">http://www.dotnetdotcom.org/#info</a>, [email protected]) Mozilla/5.0 (Twiceler-0.9 <a href="http://www.cuill.com/twiceler/robot.html)">http://www.cuill.com/twiceler/robot.html)</a> msnbot/1.1 (+<a href="http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)">http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)</a> FeedBurner/1.0 (<a href="http://www.FeedBurner.com)">http://www.FeedBurner.com)</a> Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; attributor/1.13.2 +<a href="http://www.attributor.com)">http://www.attributor.com)</a> WebAlta Crawler/2.0 (<a href="http://www.webalta.net/ru/about_webmaster.html)">http://www.webalta.net/ru/about_webmaster.html)</a> (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; ru-RU) Yandex/1.01.001 (compatible; Win16; I) ... You get the idea. The bulk of these are search engines. Over two-thirds of the bot requests were from Yahoo Slurp. Now, this struck me as weird. If I take the top 3 search engines that are sending traffic my way, ...
If you look at the number of entries I’ve written every month since 2005, there has been a clear decline. While I was averaging almost an entry a day in 2005 and 2006, that dropped to 2-3 entries a month since mid-2007. This doesn’t bother me. I’ve been lucky to never have lost sight of the purpose of this website. This website is meant for me. Not for you, the reader. For me, the author. ...
I have a new home page design. (If you’re reading the RSS feed, check the home page.) One reason is that the old home page’s design sucked. Almost everyone told me that it was drab in black and white. Personally, I think the new home page sucks in terms of colours as well. There’s too many. I suck at picking colours. The only good thing about these colours is that I left it to the judgement of experts. These are the colours in Powerpoint 2007’s “Concourse” theme color, and I’ve just lifted them. ...
Opening programs from the Start - All Programs menu is painful. For many years, I relied on the quick launch bar. But it’s space constrained. There are only so many applications you can place there. I want space enough for frequently used documents as well. Recently, I decided that I need all the space on the screen. So my task bar is on auto hide, and that makes the quick launch bar a little tougher to use as well. And finally, I can’t use the quick launch bar with the keyboard. That’s important. ...
Some years ago, a friend asked me to write about how I manage my time. It seemed to him I was doing a good job of it, given that I had time to pursue my interests. It’s something I tried to do consciously. Every few years, I used to go down the route of “time management”. I’d read stuff and try it out. But over time, I’ve come to believe that “time” is not really “manageable”. Think about it: are most of your actions planned? Me, I just react out of habit, no matter how well planned I try to be. What I do is largely driven by what I’m in the habit of doing. ...
I have the habit of reading books on the screen. It’s something that started from the early 90s, when I got a copy of The MIT Guide to Lockpicking. Since I didn’t have access to a printer, I’d spent hours poring over the document on the screen. And then I discovered Project Gutenburg… I’ve heard many people ask if I have a problem with this. Personally, no. I’ve been staring at screens from the age of 12, and I’m quite used to it. My job requires me to stare at a screen for most of the day anyway. (I’m not saying there’s no a strain on the eye. My eyes are red at the end of the day. I don’t know if they would be less red if I’d been staring at paper instead of a screen. But my glasses have remained roughly the same power over ~15 years, so it’s probably not ruining my eyesight much.) For those who are like me who reads all the time and spends a lot of more time facing their laptops, you might want to check this sd card, a very good quality card that can be handy in the future. ...
I’m thinking of buying a digital keyboard with touch sensitive keys and MIDI support. (The one other thing that I thought off – a pitch bend – puts the keyboards out of my budget.) I’d like a good deal. (Who doesn’t?) But I don’t like to spend time searching for one. (Who does?) So here’s the plan. Firstly, I’ll restrict my search to Amazon.co.uk. For electronics items, I haven’t found anyone consistently cheaper. Tesco has some pretty low prices, but not the range. eBuyer is pretty good, but not often enough. Google Products is the only other one that gets me consistent lower prices, but I’ve had my credit card identity stolen once before while shopping online, so I’d rather not pick any random seller listed on Google. ...
If something goes wrong with my site, I like to know of it. My top three problems are: The site is down A page is missing Javascript isn’t working This article covers the second topic. One thing I’m curious about is hits to non-existent pages (404s) on my site. I usually get 404s because: I renamed the page Someone typed a wrong URL Someone followed a wrong link Find the 404 ...
If something goes wrong with my site, I like to know of it. My top three problems are: The site is down A page is missing Javascript isn’t working I’ll talk about how I manage these over 3 articles. My site used to go down a lot. Initially that was because I kept playing around with mod_rewrite and other Apache modules without quite understanding them. I’d make a change and upload it without testing. (I’m like that.) And then I’d go to sleep. ...
I have only two problems with Google Reader. The first is that it doesn’t support authenticated feeds. Ideally, I’d have liked to have a single reading list that combines my e-mail with newsfeeds. GMail offers RSS feeds of your e-mail. But the feeds require authentication (obviously) and Google Reader doesn’t support that right now. (So I usually don’t read e-mail :-) The second is that it’s tough to manage large feeds. It’s a personal quirk, really. I like to read all entries. If there are 100, I read all 100. If there are 1000, I struggle but read all 1000. I’m too scared to “Mark all read” because there are some sources that I don’t want to miss. ...
If a site doesn't have an RSS feed, your simplest option is to use Page2Rss, which gives a feed of what's changed on a page. My needs, sometimes, are a bit more specific. For example, I want to track new movies on the IMDb Top 250. They don't offer a feed. I don't want to track all the other junk on that page. Just the top 250. There's a standard called XPath. It can be used to search in an HTML document in a pretty straightforward way. Here are some examples: ...