August 2006 Entries
Sony PlayStation 3 Console Black + Resistance: Fall Of Man & Rainbow Six: Vegas (16+) £669.00 FREE Standard Delivery
Source: Freemans And this is why Sony are going to lose big to the XBox 360. £669, for a game console!!! You must be joking!!!
Two men wearing masks and dark clothing entered the Premier Travel Inn at Panmurefield Village at 10.30pm and presented a firearm at staff before taking a sum of money. Source: Courier News Story The pin on the left is Premier Travel Inn and the pin on the right is my house. Now that is waaaaay to close! :)
That my local Tesco supermarket is open 24/7, but there's no doctors on my cousin's cancer ward at the weekends?
Roundtrip Solutions Blog says....
Ed “The FED” Gibson, Chief Security Advisor of Microsoft UK, is coming up to Edinburgh on the 2nd of November as a keynote speaker at an extra special security event. He will be discussing cyber security and organised crime online.
My friend, John Thomson, is drumming up support for the aforementioned security event; if you are in the area, it will be well worth checking out.
I'm going to be speaking in Edinburgh on the subject of Ajax. Full details are available here. Feel free to pop by if you've nothing better to do.
We should start a union of explainers and justifiers who respond to the kvetchers and complainers who say we have no right to do anything new, or find a new angle on something that's been done before. Source: Scripting News: 8/24/2006 Actually Dave, you have every right to do something new, or "find a new angle on something that's been done before". What people object to is you coming along and working on something that others have been doing for a long time, then saying "look what I just invented, ain't I clever".
Well I've decided to jump on the Dave Winer river of news for mobiles bandwagon. I've created a mobile river of news for this site; you can view it here. This was created using a fairly simple php script, which I'm making public so you can all create your own news rivers; all you need is an RSS feed. Have fun :) Tags: Dave Winer, River of News, Mobile
We're excited to announce the availability of the Google Base data API, which lets you write applications that dynamically interact with Google Base. You can insert, edit, or delete items programmatically, complementing existing input means like the Google Base front-end or the bulk upload mechanism. You can also query other users' published content and access their items via the API. This enables you to create domain-specific search applications (or mash-ups) combining Google Base content with other services. Source: Google Code - Updates: New GData API: Google Base
I've not been so excited or so sure about a new direction for mobile technology since podcasting in June 2004. I'm sure we'll look back on this as a turning point for mobile news. Source: Scripting News: 8/22/2006 Why should this be a turning point? Just because Dave has looked at it? The BBC has been offering mobile news for ages now, but that's not likely to stop Dave, watch out for the "I invented mobile news" posts in the future. Tags: Dave Winer, Mobile News.
I've just put episode 4 up on the site, get it whilst its hot :) In episode 4 of our podcast series, “Journey to The Open 2007″, we interview Sandy Reid, the Head Green Keeper on the Championship Course. Source: Journey to the Open » Interview With Sandy Reid
Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger says....
Someone I met today was talking to me about reading blogs and said “I wish bloggers made links pop up as new browser windows.” Or something like that. Hated using the back button.
I said “did you know you can shift-click on links to get them to open up as new Windows?”
Really? Damn, I never knew that! Like they say, you learn something new every day.
garyshort.org says....
Sky conditions: mostly cloudy
Weather: heavy rain
And they’re not kidding, its absolutely pouring down here tonight. Mind you, its the first day’s rain I can remember in weeks; but even so… Why do we have to have it all at once eh?!
I've just come across a BBC API that will let you query schedule information on all the BBC channels. It's good fun to mess around with. Below you'll find the code to show the schedule for now and the rest of the day on BBC one. Check out the code and the API and have fun mashing! :) protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//GS - Build a URL to get now and next programme info for BBC One
string url =
@"http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/api/query.pl?";
url += "method=bbc.schedule.getProgrammes&";
url += "channel_id=BBCOne&";
url += "detail=schedule&";
url += "limit=100";
//GS - Fetch the schedule information
XPathDocument xpd = null;
try
{
xpd = new XPathDocument(url);
}
catch (XmlException xe)
{
Response.Write("The following xml error occurred: " +
xe.Message);
Response.End();
return;
}
//GS - Create a navigator
XPathNavigator xpn = xpd.CreateNavigator();
//GS - Pull out the schedule information from the xml
string synopsis = "";
string start = "";
string name = "";
string duration = "";
try
{
XPathNodeIterator xpni =
xpn.Select(@"/rsp/schedule/programme");
Response.Write("<h1>Now and Rest of the Day on the BBC</h1>");
//GS - Write out info for each programme returned
while (xpni.MoveNext())
{
name = xpni.Current.GetAttribute("title", "");
Response.Write(name);
Response.Write("<ul>");
start =
xpni.Current.SelectSingleNode("start").InnerXml;
Response.Write("<li>" + start + "</li>");
duration =
xpni.Current.SelectSingleNode("duration").InnerXml;
Response.Write("<li>" + duration + "</li>");
synopsis =
xpni.Current.SelectSingleNode("synopsis").InnerXml;
Response.Write("<li>" + synopsis + "</li>");
Response.Write("</ul><hr>");
}
}
catch (XPathException xpe)
{
Response.Write("The following XPath exception occurred: "
+ xpe.Message);
Response.End();
return;
}
}
Tags: BBC, Mashups
I've downloaded the beta version of Windows Live Writer. One of the cool things about it is that it allows you to post maps, so I thought I'd show you where I work. Well, I say work, what I really mean is they pay me, I turn up, and have fun messing about with software and really cool web sites. Some people call it work though. Does that count? :) Tag: Windows Live Writer
Independent Online Edition > Business News says....
Search engine giant Google, known for its mantra "don't be evil", has fired off a series of legal letters to media organisations, warning them against using its name as a verb.
Tag: Google.
Boing Boing: says....
The RIAA brought a file-sharing lawsuit against a guy who died; they offered the departed's family a 60-day grieving period before they began to depose his children for the suit against his estate.
Ah, the caring face of the RIAA at work.
Tags: RIAA
ZDNet.com says....
Even if the product you make doesn't look, smell, feel, or do anything remotely close to what an iPod does, and even if consumers can't buy it on the shelves in a store, that apparently doesn't mean Apple won't release its legal dogs on you if the name of your product includes the letters P-O-D.
It’s this sort of thing that makes the trademark legislation a joke.
Tags: Trademark, Apple, iPod
I’ve just posted a new podcast on the Carnoustie Golf Links web site. It’s a conversation with john Philp the links superintendent. You can pick it up here.
Tags: Golf, 2007 Open, Carnoustie
Nickelodeon brought their cameras to my home town the other day. Dawn took the kids down to enjoy the fun. You can check out the pictures here.
Tag: Nickelodeon
Well it’s exam results day. If you’re in 4th, 5th or 6th year in Scotland then you’ll be getting your exam results today. Gemma, my eldest, got her Standard Grade results and she aced them! ( 8 credit grades out of 8 ). Lucky for her she got her mother’s brains. :) Well done Gemma, keep up the good work for next year!
Tag: Standard Grades
One of the things that suck about this country is our public services. The thing is, this government (and previous governments) have thought that the best way to get value for money from the public service is to introduce competition. Make the public sector compete with the private sector and that way you can drive savings. What a lot of bollox!
Here’s a top tip guys. The private sector have to make a profit for their share holders; hell it’s even the law. Well that’s no use for the public sector, d’you know why? I’ll tell you. Because there are some things you are not supposed to make a profit doing, because it’s more important that the job gets done right, than someone makes a profit doing it. What kind of things? Cleaning hospitals and schools, school meals, mass transport and delivering the mail. That’s just a few off the top of my head.
The Post Office is a prime example today. As I said earlier, today is exam results day. Now, 20 years ago (OMG was it really 20 years!) when I was waiting for my results, the post came before I was awake and I opened them before breakfast.
But not now, oh no. In the name of improvement and of value for money, the Post Office no longer provide two deliveries per day and if you want your mail before 9:30 am you have to pay extra. Today, Gemma had to wait until lunchtime to get her exam results! Boy, that’s progress for you.
Tags: Post Office, Public Sector, Profit Before Service.
I recently received an email from a reader who asked how to read the weather from a Yahoo feed. I’ve posted the code here in case it’s of any use to anyone else.
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//GS - Clear all headers written already
Response.Clear();
//GS - Fetch the weather information
string uri =
@"http://xml.weather.yahoo.com/forecastrss?p=UKXX0025&u=c";
XPathDocument xpd = null;
try
{
xpd = new XPathDocument(uri);
}
catch (XmlException xe)
{
Response.Write("The following xml error occurred: " +
xe.Message);
Response.End();
return;
}
//GS - Create a navigator
XPathNavigator xpn = xpd.CreateNavigator();
//GS - Pull out the weather information from the xml
string weather = "";
try
{
XPathNavigator node =
xpn.SelectSingleNode(@"/rss/channel/item/description");
weather = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(node.InnerXml);
}
catch (XPathException xpe)
{
Response.Write("The following XPath exception occurred: "
+ xpe.Message);
Response.End();
return;
}
//GS - Write out the weather information
Response.Write("<html>");
Response.Write("<body>");
Response.Write(weather);
Response.Write("</body>");
Response.Write("</html>");
}
Tags: Yahoo, Weather, Asp.Net, C#
... why does this never happen to me?
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