Microlog
150 Microlog entries tagged with ‘technobabble’
Toward Better Master Passwords
Very good advice here, specifically for users of 1Password but in general too. Technobabble ·
Formula 1 user interfaces
Some hot car/tech pr0n, in anticipation of the new F1 season starting this weekend [c/o Daring Fireball]. Interesting ·
The iPod Death Clock
According to this, mine’s got less than a year left before it buys the farm. That’s not good. Interesting ·
CSS resources in one handy hyperlinked PDF file
Does exactly what it says on the tin. Interesting ·
iScroll2: Two-finger scrolling for pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks
Might try this instead of SideTrack. Interesting ·
Most useful CSS related resources?
Filing this for future reference. Interesting ·
Smultron: An open-source text editor written in Cocoa for Mac OS X
Might give this a try. Interesting ·
PDFLab
For splitting, combining and generally tinkering with PDF documents. It’s not very elegant but it works [c/o paulhammond.org]. Interesting ·
Hacking the user interface through tags
“Tagging isn’t just metadata; it’s metadata you can use.” Makes me wonder if I’ve been using my tags right; rather than a form of internal navigation, they point outwards, to other blog posts, to give some context to my own. Interesting ·
4096 Color Wheel
Unbelievably cool interactive colour picker [c/o del.icio.us/barryf]. Interesting ·
Paparazzi!
An OS X utility for capturing full-length screenshots of web pages. Very handy indeed. Interesting ·
Send me an Odeo
Just a little social experiment… I’m not fishing for compliments, I swear. Interesting ·
DocuWiki
Looks interesting; might be a better fit for my WikiThesis. Interesting ·
Phil Gyford’s Timeline
Now this is what a styled table is supposed to look like! Impressive information design too. Interesting ·
Today is CSS Naked Day
In case you were wondering where the design went. Interesting ·
Podcasts from SXSW Interactive 2006
If you couldn’t make it to Austin for the annual geek-out… Interesting ·
First look at the Nintendo DS Lite
OMG!! I want one!! Interesting ·
Bring me your AIBOne
This article was all it took for me to dream of having my own AIBO. Now if only they were Mac compatible, like the new Lego Mindstorms… Interesting ·
Ambient Findability: Talking with Peter Morville
The more information we have to deal with — and believe me, the volume is growing at a near-exponential rate — the more necessary it will be for this information to be ‘stored’, tagged and thereafter located. And that’s even just thinking of sources of news. I’m looking forward to reading Morville’s book sometime this year for his ideas and theories on the subject. Interesting ·
Edited transcript of Newsnight interview with Tim Berners-Lee from last summer
I lost a lot of respect for Mark Lawson after seeing the broadcast of this. I mean, if Gutenberg were alive today should he have sleepless nights over the printing of Playboy or Mein Kampf or whatever? Lazy, lazy thinking. Interesting ·
weblog conversation
Data visualisation used to discover why bloggers join specific conversations in multi-author blogs. Interesting ·
Yahoo! Answers
It’s hopelessly clogged with bullshit, and Ask MetaFilter is better anyway, but it might be worth exploring if you have the time or the patience. Interesting ·
Everybody needs a personal “status” page
Yes we do. I’ve got my own status page right here. I try to keep it up to date. Interesting ·
Inventor of the web finally catches on to this blogging lark
Consider this link a thank-you. Interesting ·
Searching for a fresher taste
Bobbie Johnson invetigates Yahoo!’s investment in Web 2.0. All the cool kids work for Yahoo! now; it’s the new Google. Or something. Interesting ·
The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging
An intro to the phenomenon for those unfamiliar. Filed here for future reference. Interesting ·
Structured Blogging
“Structured Blogging is a way to get more information on the web in a way that’s more usable.” If you want it used, that is. (There’s more discussion here) [c/o Subtraction]. Interesting ·
Web Browser CSS Support
Very handy to know [c/o Stylegala]. Interesting ·
ToneTester: A Macintosh application that tests hearing
Turns out I have a left-pitch offset of -0.15 semitones. Good to know. Interesting ·
Reith Lectures 2005: The Triumph of Technology
The Independent’s Nicholas Lezard says the broadcasts were boring, so I’m happy enough to read the lectures instead. When I have the time. Interesting ·
I am a camera
From The Guardian a few weekends ago; an article on moblogging that doesn’t once mention Flickr. Strange, that. Interesting ·
Printing a Book with CSS
I had a feeling print typesetting wasn’t much of a step up from web markup; this is the proof. Excellent stuff. Interesting ·
Open Source Mac: Free, Open-Source software for OS X
With some more links to open source software here. Interesting ·
Riffs: Your Social Recommender
I wasn’t sure what this was at first, since there’s so much going on on that front page. But I guess it’s the digital equivalent of bursting into a room full of strangers and asking whether or not they like something. Nice idea. Interesting ·
‘Shorthand’ tips for handwritten notes
Some good non-shorthand notation for practical use here. But they’ve got Pittman wrong: a pencil isn’t required, it’s just easier for most. The way I write shorthand I can’t tell the difference between the weights of my lines, and besides after a certain level of practice it’s not supposed to matter. Interesting ·
stevenberlinjohnson.com: Meet The New Blog
It’s official: short-post blogging is the new black. Interesting ·
Odeo finally launches its browser-based podcast recorder
It sure took them a while. I’ll try it out some day. Interesting ·
Barry Frost on SuperGlu
I owe Barry a link since I pretty must stole his homepage design for my new look. Interesting ·
iPod audiobook/podcast tip: In iTunes, do a Get Info, go to the Options tab, and check “Remember playback position” and “Skip when shuffling”.
Ah! Finally I can save place on my iPod while listening to 3-hour-plus downloads! That’s my in-flight entertainment sorted. Interesting ·
XHTML: Differences between Strict & Transitional
I’ve got so many elements to change to make my code strict, I don’t think it’s worth my while. But I’m filing this here anyway, for future reference. Interesting ·
Semantics in the Wild
Interesting article on informal semantic metadata in web code, as opposed to just semantic usage of HTML tags, which is something I’ve tried to implement here. Just my little contribution to the Semantic Web. [c/o SimpleBits] Interesting ·
The end of One Big Text File
I don’t know. I see what he’s doing there, but I’m happy sticking with my Big Text File for now. The key, I think, is to not use it for archival, but only the stuff you intend to work with. Anything else can go in a folder as a separate file, just like you’d do if it was hard copy. Interesting ·
Camino v1.0.1 Release Notes
Camino was my browser of choice before I upgraded to Panther and got hooked on Safari. I’m very tempted to switch back. Interesting ·
Macintosh Web Browsers, Past and Present
So many! Who woulda thunk it? Interesting ·
Guide to Modular CSS
I had a set-up somewhat like this for the last design, and I’m trying something new for this one too. Keeping a separate file for colors will make swapping any changes much easier. Interesting ·
Footnotes and Textpander
Filing this for future reference. Interesting ·
Web Developer’s Handbook
This is the mother lode. Interesting ·
Typetester [c/o del.icio.us/plasticbag]
A cool web app for comparing screen fonts. Interesting ·
CSS Techniques Roundup [c/o Airbag]
Interesting ·
Introducing the CSS3 Multi-Column Module
Lovely. Browser support will be coming along any year now. Interesting ·
Google Talk is live
So this is the big surprise everyone’s been talking about. Shame there’s no Mac client, but I’ve got the IM set up through Adium. If anyone wants to chat, I’m macdara(dot)conroy(at)gmail(dot)com. Interesting ·
Making Sections In Text Files With SubEthaEdit
Invaluable advice, inspired by this article (also noted at 43 Folders). My current system involves three .txt files — one for blog drafts, one for linklog stuff, and one for thesis notes — which I could well see merging into one mega-file, yet for the time being keeping them separate but using LaTeX syntax has made navigating my notes so much easier. Interesting ·
PHP Manual
I’m going to learn this some day, I really am. Interesting ·
The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
Filing this for future reference. Interesting ·
Podcast of the BBC’s Reinventing Radio presentation at ETech 2005 [c/o del.icio.us/cityofsound]
Interesting ·
Yummy! Personal PDF Library [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
It’s like del.icio.us, but for PDFs. Now if only they could do something about the downtime… Interesting ·
Learn to Program (with Ruby) [c/o plasticbag.org]
Something else to read when I finish my thesis. Interesting ·
JSAN: JavaScript Archive Network [c/o JayAllen.org]
A comprehensive resource of JavaScript goodies. Interesting ·
Nvu: The complete web authoring system for Linux, Windows and OS X [c/o What Do I Know]
Looks great, but you get what you pay for. Interesting ·
Talk Digger: Check who’s linking to you [c/o del.icio.us/jack]
Handy tool for checking linkage across multiple tracking services. Could do with some better icons, though. Interesting ·
Robust CSS Drop Shadows [c/o Alt Text]
I’ll definitely be experimenting with this. Interesting ·
Amputator: an ampersand-encoding plugin for Movable Type [c/o Subtraction]
Nice. Requires template edits to set it up, but it’ll save me the trouble of hand-coding the bloody things. Interesting ·
Internet companies that should have been bigger, but weren’t
I think Blogger did pretty well, actually. But they didn’t adapt fast enough to deal with their popularity, and targeted the service towards novices at the expense of their older, more experienced users. Interesting ·
“I think that as a Mac user, I’ve become very complacent about security. And that’s [a] problem. As more and more people come to the platform, we’re going to start seeing more and more exploits.”
And so it begins… Interesting ·
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Legal Guide for Bloggers
I haven’t read this yet. I really should. Interesting ·
Make the Web Mobile With IYHY [c/o Asterisk]
Very handy tool. See, for example, how this site looks stripped bare. Interesting ·
Throwing Tables Out the Window
Tables will always be a necessary evil for certain layouts until IE bites the dust or starts supporting universal standards. And that’s never gonna happen. Still, it’s nice to dream… Interesting ·
How To Fix An Underexposed Photo
Note to self: take more photos so I might actually have use for tips like this. Interesting ·
How to style a restaurant menu with CSS [c/o kottke.org]
Or style anything else, for that matter. Interesting ·
Quick start your design with XHTML templates [c/o del.icio.us/merlinmann]
Filing this for future reference. Interesting ·
Technorati: A New Public Utility
It’s certainly going that way. Who would have thought folksonomy would take off so fast? Interesting ·
Online PDF converter
Handy for short documents if you don’t have PDF conversion built-in. Interesting ·
Turn a Zip case into a Hipster PDA [c/o 43 Folders]
Very nice, but probably more trouble than it’s worth for me. Interesting ·
Create Gapless CDs and AAC Files with iTunes 4.9 [c/o del.icio.us/jack]
Filing this for future reference. Interesting ·
MetaFilter reponds to GoDaddy’s dodgy domains privacy policy
With this coming after the Gitmo controversy, I think I’ll be taking my business somewhere else when the time comes. Interesting ·
How to make enhanced podcasts [c/o Asterisk]
Filing this for later reference. Interesting ·
Architecting CSS [c/o Asterisk]
Filing this for later reference. Interesting ·
Ten CSS tricks you may not know
I have the strangest feeling I’ve linked to this before. Interesting ·
Building a weblog engine with Ruby on Rails (MOV) [c/o plasticbag.org]
I know feck all about programming, but this stuff looks remarkably powerful and easy to learn. Interesting ·
Mellel — The word processor for Mac OS X
Might be handy for writing my thesis, if I don’t decide to set it in LaTeX instead. Also, you’ve gotta love their honesty in the reviews section. Interesting ·
Secrets to creating Wordpress themes
Cornerhost upgraded my hosting plan this month, giving me a couple of mySQL databases to play with. So I might just migrate to Wordpress one day, if I can get to grips with the PHP. Interesting ·
S5: A Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System
Screw Powerpoint! We should all be using browsers from now on. Interesting ·
Simple templating with PHP
I should redo the Furnace website with this system. It’ll make managing it much easier. (I’d use MT but I don’t want to pay for a licence.) Interesting ·
Blogumentary maker squares off with a ranting loony [c/o WaxyLinks]
If there’s anything I hate more than summer humidity, it’s ranting loonies. Interesting ·
MetaFilter moans about Matt Webb
Is this what we’ve come to? That we can’t write on our own blogs without some jackass complaining we’re not up to the standards of the New York Times or something? Jeez… Interesting ·
Character entities for XHTML
So I don’t forget it. Interesting ·
Google Advanced Operators Cheat Sheet [c/o Helium3]
Interesting ·
Ebooks for your iPod
I’ll have to give this a go. Interesting ·
Help Cameron graduate by filling out his blog survey
I did my bit; it really does only take about 10 minutes. Must get cracking on my own survey, what with that thesis I have to write and all. Interesting ·
The lifecycle of bloggers [c/o Accordion Guy]
I’m almost ashamed to say I’ve been through most of these stages. But not #13. As Anil rightly says, “nobody’s ever been fired for blogging.” Interesting ·
eBay Ireland has been launched [c/o Slugger O’Toole]
I registered with eBay years ago, but I’ve only just bought something through ‘em. Interesting ·
Oberkampf: a set of tools to build custom photo galleries running off your Flickr account
Interesting ·
Podcasts from Etech 2005 [c/o Boing Boing]
Interesting ·
VideoLAN might disappear due to patent legislation
They have to kill everything that’s good in the world, don’t they? Interesting ·
MGM leaves its private web directories open to the public
Speaking of MGM, their movie channel was added to my basic cable this week. The only noteworthy thing to say about it is the wildly inappropriate scheduling of 18-cert films well before the watershed. If it was a subscription channel, that would be different. But it isn’t. I don’t mind hearing ‘fuck’ on TV before 9pm, but I don’t think the majority would agree. Interesting ·
Metafor: Visualizing Stories as Code (PDF)
Something worthwhile from the Media Lab for once. Not like that stupid Clocky. Interesting ·
Jack Schofield interviews Flickr’s Stewart Butterfield
I wonder what Wittgenstein (he of the language games) would make of the whole tagging-slash-folksonomy phenomenon… Interesting ·
Quicksilver tips and tricks at 43 Folders
Quicksilver is such an amazing idea and so easy to use that it’s a wonder Apple didn’t think of it first. Interesting ·
Hybrid CSS Dropdowns (A List Apart #197)
Something for the summer redesign, maybe. Interesting ·
Developing Dashboard Widgets for OS X Tiger
Doesn’t look very difficult at all. Just time consuming for someone like me. And of course I’d have to upgrade to Tiger, which I don’t see happening for a while. Interesting ·
Pupils ‘do worse with computers’
Another one for the ‘I coulda told ya that’ file. Interesting ·
Clocky is a clock for people who have trouble getting out of bed [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
Oh my fucking God. Where do I begin? There’s no visible clock, for starters! This, ladies and gents, is the kind of thing on which the Irish Government spent millions of taxpayers’ money before they pulled the plug on Media Lab Europe a few months ago. Interesting ·
Notes from the Folksonomy discussion panel at O’Reilly Etech 2005
Interesting ·
Drag and Drop Images and Layers, using DHTML and Javascript [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
Just when you think you’ve seen it all… Interesting ·
Google News now customisable
Interesting ·
A California judge has said that bloggers should not have the same protection afforded to journalists under US law
I’m not sure what to make of this. You can’t go making wild accusations with ‘anonymous’ sources as your only evidence, but these sites in question were reporting responsibly (providing information of public interest, at least to that segment of the public with an interest in technology) and not doing anything different than what a mainstream publication would do (PR embargoes be damned!). Interesting ·
How to maintain notes using Gmail
Apparently this is an ‘old school’ trick, but seeing as Gmail has been around about a year, that doesn’t make sense. But anyway. This could be adapted to maintain almost anything. I’m already using it to keep separate folders for notes, links and large documents. Interesting ·
MacInformation, a Dublin-based Apple consultancy
Interesting ·
Folksonomies Tap People Power
I’m thinking of a way to tag my posts here that fits in with the look of the site, and isn’t too much of a hack. Interesting ·
Wikipedia entry for ‘Folksonomy’
Interesting ·
The Sound of Data [c/o del.icio.us.com/jack]
It sounds better than you might think. Interesting ·
Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content
Interesting ·
Quicksilver: moving around and training yourself
Interesting ·
The Lifehacks Wiki [c/o del.icio.us/merlinmann]
Interesting ·
A Silicon Valley startup claims to have cracked one of most elusive goals of the software industry: a near-universal emulator that allows software developed for one platform to run on any other
Interesting ·
At least the Beeb gets Wikipedia
Interesting ·
“It’s sort of the Jay Leno of computers, but otherwise it’s beautiful.”
Interesting ·
The all-new iMac is unveiled
Interesting ·
Steve Minutillo on the lack of undo in Safari: “Didn’t that lady throw that hammer through the scary guy on that big screen so I don’t have to deal with this?” [c/o Antipixel]
Interesting ·
Groksoup and the 5th Anniversary of Hosted Blogging [c/o Interconnected]
Interesting ·
The Big Web Design Details List
Interesting ·
Google is looking for Ireland-based part-time internet researchers
Interesting ·
John Gruber with another perspective on the Movable Type fiasco
Interesting ·
Test Drive a Macintosh [c/o Submit Response Reading]
Interesting ·
Web standards jokes
Interesting ·
Giant Black Hole Rips Apart Unlucky Star In Cosmic Reality Show
Interesting ·
Black Holes Can Be Ejected From Galaxies
Interesting ·
RealPlayer Free, now spyware-free (thanks to the BBC) [c/o Boing Boing]
Interesting ·
Alpha testing to begin soon on Movable Type 3.0
Interesting ·
Richard Dawkins’ paean to the humble Apple Mac
Interesting ·
Only one week left to vote for your favourites in this year’s Bloggies
Interesting ·
Tom Coates on Kottke’s metadata post (also: Sippey throws his hat in the ring)
Interesting ·
We are all nerds now!
Interesting ·
Now that’s what I call a venn diagram [c/o sippey.typepad.com]
Interesting ·
Wired’s things of the past [c/o plasticbag.org]
Interesting ·
The incredible story of two British teenagers who completely revolutionised the concept of video games
Interesting ·
Amusement park physics
Interesting ·
Ten Things I Dig About Panther
Interesting ·
A Brief Overview of Linguistic Features of the Blogosphere [c/o Interconnected]
Interesting ·
flash mob, noun: An impromptu gathering, organized by means of electronic communication, of the unemployed.
Interesting ·
I blog like this too [c/o leuschke, who also blogs like me]
Interesting ·
In the 3 weeks (approx.) since signing up, Knowspam has blocked an incredible 1,165 spams from my inbox
Interesting ·
The internet is not shit
Interesting ·
The guy in Memento should have had a blog
Interesting ·
Comparison between left- and right-aligned website navigation menus
Interesting ·
“Blogging is really the online equivalent of a philosophy department. What else does it do but produce other philosophy professors (or record store clerks)?” (this is so true, it hurts) [c/o The Truth Laid Bear]
Interesting ·
Antipixel in pirated site controversy
Interesting ·
How to make a quick links weblog in Movable Type (this helped me a great deal)
Interesting ·
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This is the personal website of MacDara Conroy, a production journalist and mediavore in Dublin, Ireland. Read more »
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This page lists all Microlog entries by MacDara Conroy tagged with ‘technobabble’. You will find many more entries sorted by month and by category in the Archives.
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