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Wednesday, November 8, 2006 13:51:52      I'm too busy these days so I just installed Firefox 2. They've done a nice job of updating the software. I personally don't care about the close button on each tab now but, that's one complaint I got from someone who I subjected to Firefox, they couldn't figure out how to close a tab. Opening in a new tab instead of a new window by default is also cool and I can't wait to play around with this session thing. I was using the Google one on my desktop because my power is constantly tripped with my dead UPS which I'm using as a sugre protector, but I found it bothered me because I use too many expendable windows. The Google Suggest-like feature of the search is awesome, I think I'll stop automatically starting up that tab now when I open up my browser. Read the release notes.      I updated the Data Matters web site on Monday night and last night I fixed up the software a bit. Like when a slow machine is calculating a hash on a large file, the connection could disappear due to lack of activity (courtesy of Rogers in my test case) so I added a heartbeat thread to the service so that it keeps you connected. Very sweet.      On a completely un-technical note, check out halton.ca/SaveTheTree and donate a buck or two to save a 250 year old oak tree from becoming part of a road.

Monday, November 6, 2006 09:11:18 Whoa, I just did one of those balancing equation things to make: price = total - (total * (discount / 100)) become: discount = - ((price - total) / total) * 100 Now when those people around the office need to calculate the discount for my application they can do it quicly and easily. Much more efficient than that trial and error. My math teachers would be proud. Friday, November 10, 2006 12:21:00 finnegan's dad writes: "quicly"? Maybe not your English/spelling teachers though...

Thursday, October 26, 2006 12:01:43 Oh yeah, I've been driven nuts while using Fedora because the touchpad keeps going forwards and backwards in Firefox... Here's the proper fix from the Gentoo Wiki Horizontal Scroll Issues with Firefox I was looking for this information for a long time and couldn't find it. I finally found reference to this in a cached version of this (gentoo-wiki). So that firefox will not misinterpret the horizontal scroll as 'back' and 'foreward' For many like me this is irritating because you are reading a webpage and by moving the mouse you accidently go to another page. Some forums suggest disabling horizontal scroll (editing xorg.conf to: Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"), but instead the correct way is to configure firefox so that it doesn't misinterpret the horizontal scroll. In firefox type in URL (address bar):      about:config and double-click on the line:      mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action to set it to 0. And then also set      mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.sysnumlines to true. To add fonts to Fedora from your... uh... true type font source... open Nautilus to fonts:/// and simply drag and drop them. (Firefox looks so much more normal when it has the fonts you're used to.) To make the CPU fan stop running constantly on your notebook, open up /etc/cpuspeed.conf and comment out the two OPTS lines to monitor temperature and battery power.

Thursday, October 26, 2006 11:17:03      Well, I got Fedora Core 6 all downloaded yesterday. The torrent was pretty slow and I ended up using ftp.telus.net and less.cogeco.net to get the ISO images. Today I did an upgrade of my laptop which was running an up to date FC5 install. So far so awesome. One big thing that I like is that they no longer have seperate kernels for SMP and non-SMP machines for i386 hardware. Why's that good for me? I can take a FC6 installation of whatever, pick up it's hard disk and throw it in any other system and it won't require kernel module changes. I suppose you could always go from plain kernel to a system with smp and not use it, but you couldn't go the other way around, it got all screwy. yum still isn't connecting to fedora for it's updates due to the massive amount of geeks updating to FC6 one would suppose.      Went to see The Prestige with Jayme, Sean and a friend of theirs from the lab at school Alma last night. Very awesome movie. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about it so I had no clue what it was about. As Jayme said on the way home; "It was nice to finally see a new plot line in a movie". It kept you guessing the entire way through it. On the way home, I had driven past Alma's place so I backed up down the road since no one was on the road and it was 0:40 in the morning. Just as I got going a cop turned around the corner and so I signalled and then backed into a driveway. Then waited for him to pass, but he was waiting for me. So, I signalled the other way, drove back to the corner by Alma's and she got out. The cop was sitting behind me and then I rolled down my window and waved for him to come up. He drove up and said "You're going the wrong way". So I explained that I was dropping a friend off and that we just passed her place. The cop said; "Fair enough." and drove away. I've heard a lot of stories of Guelph cops being power-trippy so I was worried that he was going to book me for something or giv e me a hard time, but this guy was really nice. I like nice surprises.      Oh, by the way, in the movie, David Bowie sounds scarily like Pierce Brosnan and is totally unrecognizable.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006 23:25:54      Hey, anyone noticed that the internet is damn slow tonight? Why? Fedora Core 6 was released today. Get your copy via torrents. The new default desktop looks purty. I'm downloading now. Hopefully I can upgrade my laptop tomorrow.      Sean's birthday today! Happy Seanday Birth!

Thursday, October 12, 2006 23:22:32      I'm playing around with using Linux as the primary OS on my laptop. Each time I've done this previously there's been a major stepping block that I couldn't get through, we'll see what happens this time. Not the point however, I stumbled upon something awesome. Lots of people probably already know this, but if you want Firefox to open a bunch of tabs on startup (Gmail, Google Calendar, and say Nasdaq FlashQuotes) open the tabs the way you want them and then go to the Edit -> Preferences or Tools -> Options window and then on the first tab, select use current pages and voila! Multiple tabs on Firefox startup. Dead sexy. Friday, October 13, 2006 08:23:55 Ian writes: Actually, Windows was easy to find. Fedora's default grub installer found it and called it Unknown. So I just needed to rename it in the /etc/grub.conf file. I do like the fact that a lot of the stupid tweaking is done automatically with these Fedora installations. Like the ZAxis thing on the mouse. All that stuff that geeks love to do hinders mass acceptance of their opertating systems. Monday, October 23, 2006 22:30:21 finnegan's dad writes: Lots of people probably already know this. ;-) I like having weather (forecastfox), 3 gmail accounts (gmail manager), gmail space and downloads (download statusbar) at the bottom. I don't need gmail in a tab. My other fav' extension is Adblock. And it's not just for ads as they say. My credit union has very annoying pictures of happy customers and slogans. I have zapped them all so I can just see my account information.

Friday, September 29, 2006 15:25:28      The infocentre is closed!? I drove out to the gym at lunch and on my way down the 401 just before Winston Churchill the service centre signs have had all of the logos ripped off and there's a CLOSED through the middle of the sign. FERMÉ en français. Whoa! I just found out you can leave number lock on on this laptop and still type. You have to press Fn for the number keys to work. Nice job Dell! Now, if only my 5 key would work reliably.      Anyway, back to the news... The info centre is now closed. No more hockey at 2am in the gas station, though that hasn't happened in years, but still. On my way out there, they were taking down the signage (<-- Brianne's favorite word) and on my way back it was all gone. No "Wendy's" or "Tim's" anymore. I wonder if there's anything about this online anywhere... TheStar.com - Hortons spinoff goes ahead Local Wendy's remains open Wendy's restaurants abruptly close doors      Well then, those stories are interesting, but really have nothing to do with the info centre. Maybe I should buy some Tim Hortons stock... Wait, you need money to buy stock. I guess I won't then.

Thursday, September 28, 2006 09:12:52 You can work here, just don't have a bladder on the second floor. You may remember, three years ago a sign got posted in the second floor mens washroom at the office prohibiting dumpage to to toxic fumes. Now, due to noise violations, unless you can pee without making a sound, you can't do that upstairs either. Maybe we should just bulldoze the washroom instead of posting warning signs. Or, better idea; issue company head phones and a clothes pin to those who have to work next to washrooms. How about we just tell everyone not to eat or drink all day so that they get grossly unhealthy, but they won't have to hear or smell co-workers bodily functions. I think I'm going to close down the women's washroom on the second floor citing equal rights. Sunday, October 08, 2006 22:48:40 finnegan's dad writes: Reminds me of a sign at one washroom at work a few years ago over the bathroom sinks telling you to turn off the faucet "gently" because the water hammer of a quickly shut tap disturbed the office behind the wall. Why do they put offices beside washrooms? In large buildings the washrooms are usually next to stairs, elevators, meeting or break rooms. Or the male/female washrooms are back-to-back to keep the smells and plumbing noises "centralized".

Sunday, September 24, 2006 16:00:54 It's fairly difficult to ride backwards on a unicycle. I think it might be a guy thing though. I also can't go backwards on the epileptical machine, like many women at the gym do. I just don't operate well in reverse. I can drive a car backwards very well, so it's not a directional thing, it's a motor skills issue. Practice, practice, practice!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006 09:43:50      I think it's almost time to break my iPod, they unleashed the new 80GB iPod this week along with a new 8GB nano. Also, now the new nanos have colours have gone back to that rounded iPod-mini style instead of looking like shrunken iPod videos.      Good ol' extended warranty. I wonder what the best way to "brick" an iPod is... With the 80GB, I'd be able to put all of my music on the player again, for a little while anyway.

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