And now, Ben Heck makes an ‘Atari’ Xbox 360 ‘1977 edition’

A while back, I came across Benjamin J. Heckendorn (a.k.a. Ben Heck) and his Commodore 64 laptop. This is a quite a fascinating machine, considering the actual “portable” 64 Executive was a heavy beast that could kill if hurled at you. While Ben took the 64’s odd colour, keyboard and 64C’s motherboard, his is structured […]

Read More… from And now, Ben Heck makes an ‘Atari’ Xbox 360 ‘1977 edition’



Hopefully the last Firefox 3 blog post

Since discovering that Firefox 4 Beta 13 is stable, I have spent less time with Firefox 3·6, the buggiest, most oft-crashing program I have ever used in 30 years of computing.    But I used it today enough times to net myself five crashes, though this is above average. The ‘unmark purple’ bug that plagued […]

Read More… from Hopefully the last Firefox 3 blog post



Where do the Mac evangelists hide when Apples go, ‘Boom’?

Once again, I posted a Tweet (which went on to my Facebook) about Apple messing up (this time, about Mail with disappearing attachments). There were no replies.    Interestingly, whenever I post about a Windows bug, the Mac evangelists all swarm on to it, usually with the sentiment, ‘Get a Mac.’    They all disappear […]

Read More… from Where do the Mac evangelists hide when Apples go, ‘Boom’?



Why I removed Chrome, and the six basic things that it can’t do

I write this not long after another Firefox crash (Atomic Decrement being the signature) and wiped three quite well worded (if I say so myself) paragraphs. To vent, I Tweeted, and received (again) the suggestion of switching to Chrome.    I appreciate the kind motive but Chrome is so severely lacking that last night, I […]

Read More… from Why I removed Chrome, and the six basic things that it can’t do



The real experts are fixing Firefox 4

Good news: there have been more developments with Mozilla as they work on the rather serious bug (the one where you can’t read a damn thing) in Firefox 4 Beta.    John Daggett at Mozilla created logging to help identify the problem, and I ran the latest nightly build to get the logs back to […]

Read More… from The real experts are fixing Firefox 4



Mapping friends on TouchGraph

Although my piece on Social Media NZ about my scepticism toward Quora was published today, written while in a mood of being “virtually socialized out” (one that has not totally passed, incidentally), I did get a buzz with TouchGraph, which is an app that my friend Laura used on her Facebook in 2009. I only […]

Read More… from Mapping friends on TouchGraph



All I wanted to do was to say, ‘Thank you,’ to Telstra Clear

I seem to be to computers what Frank Spencer is to life.    Long-time readers will know that in 2009, Vox locked me out. We went round and round for months, with the company suggesting all sorts of solutions, usually putting the blame back on me or the ISP.    I had tried logging in […]

Read More… from All I wanted to do was to say, ‘Thank you,’ to Telstra Clear



Giving a toss about web hosting: Americans 2, Brits 0

© Generally, I turn a blind eye to people who use thumbnails of our work or take an excerpt from an article and link the rest to us. Pity, then, that so many of these sites are splogs, but at least they stop short of outright piracy.    It’s when someone takes an entire article, […]

Read More… from Giving a toss about web hosting: Americans 2, Brits 0



And now, Chrome changes fonts on some numerals

When I run a temperature or am sick, I try to find “lighter” things to do at work. Updating the information pages at the company website seemed to be the best thing: it’s not mentally taxing, but it has to be done.    And in doing so I found even more problems with Chrome.   […]

Read More… from And now, Chrome changes fonts on some numerals



The surprises in Firefox’s about:crashes

C’mon, Firefox! Can we get to 12 crashes per day and really make it a record?    When some friends began, helpfully, advising on these crashes, I really didn’t know what was causing them. It was only recently I found out about about:crashes so I could see what was the culprit.    The latest, according […]

Read More… from The surprises in Firefox’s about:crashes