Alison Young

Relocated

2008-03-10T13:23:00.005+11:00

Due to the greater flexibility offered by Wordpress and finally getting to setting up my domain, I've now moved to http://alison-young.com.

All posts have been imported into the new account. Adjust your blogrolls and rss feeds accordingly.

This blog won't be deleted, but it won't be updated anymore.

Miro

2008-01-21T13:38:00.000+11:00

Last night I did some further reading on Miro which I became aware of a couple of weeks ago. Miro is an open video player that utilises the VLC media player and also features an array of internet channels with all free content and an inbuilt bittorrent client. It also enables you to download and save videos from YouTube, Google Video and seven other sources. Before it was renamed to Miro in mid-2007 it was called Democracy Player and DTV.

This application initially interested me as I often get video's in my rss feeds that I do want to watch but not always at the exact moment I have the item open. It's untidy and inconvenient to have several pop-out windows loading at once and sometimes the environment isn't conducive to watching videos. Previously I've also found watching videos from browser windows to be laggy and sometimes they fail to load entirely.

What particularly impressed me about Miro is the ability to download videos only when I want to see them, but also that the downloaded videos can be set with an expiry after which they're automatically deleted to free system resources. I like to watch BoingBoingTV and VLog 'episodes' but don't need to retain them after viewing. The channel searching and browsing is novel but I don't foresee that I'll use that feature often. Searching and downloading clips from YouTube to watch later is useful and searching is quick and quite accurate. The ability to limit bandwidth used by Miro is good and there are plenty of options regarding how often you'd like new videos in the channels you've added to be downloaded and managed.

Miro did crash a number of times while downloading videos however after restarting, the application instantly picked up where it left off. Given that Miro 1.1 was released a mere 10 days ago, a couple of initial crashes can be forgiven. It has been running quite stable since.

Extra kudos must be given for having installers with simple clear instructions for Linux, Windows and Mac systems. Within the Linux installation page, Ubuntu had it's own guide with instructions for installation on either of the three latest Ubuntu releases.

In summary I'm impressed with what I've seen so far of Miro. For me it is a great way to store and keep short videos for later viewing. I don't plan to use Miro for large file and playlist management but according to the website it's more than capable of doing that. Have an explore, it's refreshing to find such a great application that solves a long-standing niggling problem.

Widget

2007-11-20T21:42:00.000+11:00

I've discovered to my absolute delight that I can in fact add a widget to my blog which shows links that I've selected to share from my GoogleReader rss feeds. In effect this could be seen as being lazy, but I'd like to defend that by stating it is now easier for me to share the more interesting things I find and no more difficult for my readers to find more rapidly changing content.

I've also registered my own domain for a bargain price. Now I just need to determine what I'd like to do with it and organise a page and hosting. I'm actually looking forward to developing some more web skills in terms of basic page design and coding in addition to learning more about how domains, space hosting and creating a statement page can all come together.

Popularity and Nerds

2007-11-18T12:17:00.000+11:00

In 2003 Paul Graham wrote an essay as to why nerds are unpopular. Beginning as quite a detailed account of how the groups within a school function, specifically how nerds fit in and why they are victimised by the popular people before graduating into the role of modern teenagers in society. This offers some sort of explanation as to apparently why teenagers are the way they are and how it is merely the product of the 'adult world' and their lack of ability to engage teenagers and thus two disparate worlds are formed, the teenage and the adult.

It's an interesting read and while I can't overly identify with all aspects of it, I suspect that's due to differences in the American and Australian school systems, difference in lifestyle and engagement with my parents and other adults.

Link Goodness and job fun

2007-11-06T21:52:00.000+11:00

My new contract has been indulging a few of my geeky weaknesses. I've had a really good time learning about how mobile phone towers communicate with each other and with our phones. The basics are that I'm in charge of testing new 3g towers and collecting data from around the place using a variety of expensive gadgets and software. Part of my job also includes adjusting the electrical 'tilt' of tower sectors where required. Learning how to do that was the basis of a 'field trip' today including a first hand look inside the shed at the base of a local towers which housed a lot of cable, racks and other assorted goodies in a white air-conditioned room.

Onto the links that are grabbing my attention this week.

LOLcode - it's real, it's out there and apparently there are employers seeking LOLcoders with at least a month of experience. It looks like fun, I wonder if they'll let senior programming students use it when they get to pick their own language.
Street kids running their own bank - this is so inspiring to me. Why aren't more children being so innovative and gaining such important skills?
Model of Scrooge McDuck's money bin - link is to the set, I highly recommend going through each of the pictures as the detail and attention put into this is incredible.
Portrait Landscape Sketchbook - this is more novel than anything else, but I still think it's cool though I'd likely never actually buy one.

BoingBoing Link Roundup

2007-10-24T17:29:00.000+10:00

All sorts of interesting links today. I'll try to keep discussion short and sweet.

Vampire cupcakes - with fang marks and bleeding when you bite into them
William Gibson Hates Futurists - good interview done towards the end of his Spook Country book tour
Guy Fawkes Mask aka V's mask - folded from a single uncut piece of paper
Secret Storage Books - recycled hollowed out books for storage
Stationary with Bite - every office needs something from here
Magnetix iCoaster - magnetic roller coaster with all sorts of tricks
Plush XBox 360
Levitron Anti-Gravity Globe - kind of cheesy and kind of cool, shame it's so small

That's the end of the slightly odd-ball but pretty cool links for the day.

Ubuntu 7.10 and more

2007-10-23T12:12:00.000+10:00

I upgraded my Ubuntu install this morning. It sounds like a feat but in fact it was so easy that literally anybody can do it. Closing applications, making sure you had an internet connection and then hitting 'Upgrade' in the package manager. Walk away for a little under an hour and that's it. My input was required once - to tell the installer what to do with a customised file.

Upgrade complete and system restarted to find that my settings were just about all intact, including transferring settings between a major application upgrade and the smaller subtleties such as remembering my Firefox session. Overall I have to say that from the onset I am very impressed. Tweaking for the next few days is to be expected to get everything just how I like it, but the new Ubuntu is quite able to used with little problem straight out of the box. Whether you're upgrading from 7.04 or creating a fresh install using a CD, Ubuntu has never been easier or more accessible to those interested in wishing to use linux for everyday computing.

Here's my list of interesting links of the week. Enjoy!

for those wishing to know more about my new OS here's a non-geek friendly review of Ubuntu's new release, 7.10 aka 'Gutsy Gibbon' (I love the release names)
B.Stevens has created a cheap and easy way of creating lightrings for photography. Article here and Flickr photoset here . The amateur photographer in me would love to try this out.

after decades of searching it seems that Carmen Sandiego has been found
a most interesting article of the Neurology of 'Alice'(Warning: link is a PDF)
Chris Gilmour, an Italian artist who creates lifesize everyday objects out of cardboard
a push button house which unfolds from a shipping container in 90 seconds, the Illy Cafe
clever and funny clip about how a Triumph is not actually made...

Impending Upgrade

2007-10-22T16:05:00.000+10:00

In the most poetic way possible, the topic of my last post about technology being the source of frustration has happened to me personally over the last week. One of my most frequently used applications has been throwing error messages at me at random for the last week, usually not a huge dilemma but it has been getting on my nerves a little.

So like any logical person would, I went out to seek a solution. Turns out my operating system is outdated again, such as is the way with Open Source applications. I can solve my problem with Gaim and upgrade my operating system at the same time. I have a new project for this week :)

I've also been finding lots of interesting items in my RSS feeds of which I'll publish in another post.

Technology and Blame

2007-10-19T15:02:00.000+10:00

I'm presently listening to Cory Doctorow podcast Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown. The link is to Part 1, there are 15 parts in the podcast to date. I am a little behind and was listening to Part 4 this morning.

In brief the book section was describing how technology, specifically computers, can in many ways do tasks more quickly than humans could ever hope to. Humans have in this case handed over control of communications networks to 'senseless but powerful machines'. However when things go awry, or break, humans instinctively look for somebody to be responsible and subsequently to blame. They are unable to accept that when something has gone wrong, it may be the fault of a computer glitch and thus no human is actually to blame. What then happens when a frustrated and inconvenienced person is unable to be angry at another person?

They look for somebody to blame. Typically this takes the form of hackers or some other evil person, instead of the more likely scenario.... a glitch in software. In the example described by Sterling, the error was due to a single mistyped character in the software.

This had me thinking about the number of times I've seen frustrated people attack an innocent party when software hasn't fulfilled a persons expectations, though it may be functioning perfectly. Let alone when systems do in fact come crashing down which happens from time to time and is often the fault of nobody in particular. In this emerging era of technology integration with society humans need to learn how to deal with frustration without automatically seeking another human to blame. In my experience there are precious few with this skill, though I believe it coincides with the ability to see past short-term frustration and seek a workable solution to a problem.

Creative Commons 2007

2007-10-17T23:57:00.000+10:00

I've learnt that Creative Commons has just launched their fall fundraising campaign, though it's spring here; the newly revamped website is looking good and wonderfully easy to navigate. All you wish to know about creative commons is now easier than ever to discover.

The badges for blogs and sites to promote the fundraising are stylish also. Here's my pick of the lot:

The really good news is that the campaign was only launched a little over 2 weeks ago and is already over 20% of the way to the goal set. It will continue until the 31st of December

BoingBoing Link Roundup

2007-09-26T16:41:00.000+10:00

There are some great finds in my RSS bin atm. Here's some that I really liked.

Not a lamp, not a box - a tongue in cheek take on Ikea-esque flat pack furniture (2 links).
Formable Furniture - awesome concept, a collection of slats that can be reshaped into furniture and stay in shape by tension wire
Yarn cupcakes - created as a farewell gift for somebody having to leave their knitting group behind. Knitted creations make with marzipan.
The MC Hammer School of English - adorable video of children learning to speak and spell in English using the time-honored "Hammer Time"
Extermiknit - yes, somebody has knitted daleks.
Graffiti on a hostel door in Prague - this should be self-explanatory for you geeks out there.
Face your pockets! - project where people scan their faces and the contents of their pockets and submit to the site.
Book of Lights - folding lamps that arise from opening a book and actually work if plugged in.

I got tied up playing Kingdom of Loathing. Lots of harmless fun which has in turn taken a back seat to more exciting things happening in my life currently.

Full steam ahead for relocation to Sydney within the next 2 weeks. I'm very excited about the opportunities available and for the chance to explore a new city and see more of my friends down there.

Tangling

2007-09-12T23:17:00.000+10:00

I've acquired myself a Tangler account. After some familiarising myself with the site I can see how it is a really useful way of communicating and sharing ideas. A cross between irc and a forum with much nicer navigation between threads and really elegant thread handling. Still early days yet so stay tuned.

Quick Links

2007-07-01T19:51:00.000+10:00

I found some very interesting articles I'd like to share with you guys.

I chat therefore I am..... an article about a conversation held between two advanced chatbots.
Alter Egos.... an author commentary with pictures of people and their in-game avatars. Interesting because of the research that this guy has done. He's also written and published a book about these people.

I haven't done anything remarkable with either of my machines lately but can report my ongoing satisfaction with Ubuntu. I've found even when I give my laptop to somebody who's never used linux before they are able to navigate the desktop and menus with only minimal guidance.

BoingBoing RSS Madness

2007-06-17T14:23:00.000+10:00

While clearing some of the many unread articles in my BoingBoing RSS bin I stumbled across some really cool stuff which I thought I'd share.

Firstly, game studio Three Rings Design re-outfitted their office/studio to resemble The Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Go and check out the pictures of the office here.

Secondly, for the simple reason of increasing awareness and supporting people fighting the copyright monster I'm wanting all of you to go and have a watch of this. It's called A Fair(y) Use Tale and it uses clips from Disney movies to briefly describe copyright and fair use - it's very clever and even contains a section explaining why they used Disney movies for this.

Ubuntu 7.04

2007-05-27T08:45:00.000+10:00

I have a shiny new Ubuntu install and blinged up XGL. The latest upgrade to Ubuntu 7.04 aka Feisty Fawn.

I still need to have an experiement with settings to work out what I want where and doing what. However I'm pretty impressed with it all so far though. The help provided was very much appreciated as though I'm becoming quite competent and comfortable with using Ubuntu, I am still slightly hesitant to do a major upgrade by myself.

Beryl

2007-04-25T21:49:00.000+10:00

I'm having a serious case of wanting this upgrade that I think will run on Nostariel with little problem. Check out the flashyness in the vid below....

Distro Couches

2007-01-16T12:44:00.000+11:00

I know I promised that I'd take the pictures and post them but somebody else has already done that so in the grand tradition of not reinventing the wheel I'm just going to post links to their pictures.

The couches are to be found in the common chillout area which is a large square u-shaped structure containing any wifi points, chairs, tables and Disro couches.

Fedora the big red couch inspired by the big Red Hat. On a side note, the Red Hat Noodle Bar close to the campus got a bit freaked out by the influx of excited geeks heading their way.

Debian since apparently blue couches were unavailable for hire for Fedora, Debian gets to be black to match the colour of its heart.... Note the lack of support there.

Suse featuring the pooh green couches. There was an apology for them not being bright.

Ubuntu is bright and spongy with no sharp edges. I have no complaints about admitting that I'm an Ubuntu user.

Gentoo was a whole other amusement all by itself. Arriving at the venue in flatpack and being left for the geeks to assemble. Which they did however slowly it took. The end result introducing Gentoo.

Interestingly enough, over the course of the week modifications appeared on the construction instruction sheet for the Gentoo chair which was taped to the wall nearby. Documentation customisation at its best.

LCA07 Day 2

2007-01-16T09:40:00.000+11:00

It's morning again and the theatre is somewhat less crowded. Still lots of geeks and laptops as demonstrated here by the pic of the lecture theatre taken from about halfway up the room. Lots of lappies, lots of people who managed to make it in by 9am. Not a bad effort though less people than yesterday. The Google party tonight should be a lot of fun, we've even heard whispers that Linus will be wandering around.

What's really cool about LCA07 and Flickr? There's a dynamic script that takes all the pictures tagged with 'lca2007' from Flickr and posts them onto the LCA07 homepage. It's an excellent setup and we've had lots of fun seeing how many pics of Elspeth can be up there at any one point.

Interesting Links

2006-10-22T01:15:00.000+10:00

I love finding interesting stuff in my RSS feeds, most items currently come from my Slashdot feed.

Among the articles about anamatronic clothing and Zune reviews I found a couple of quite appealing articles. The first is that the complete works of Charles Darwin have been meticulously catalogued and photographed and you can read the text on the left and see the actual page on the right. I thought it was cool.

The second is an article which describes what the earth would be like if all humanlife disappeared. I haven't had a chance to read it in full as yet, so the link is here for my reference as much as yours. But the crux of it is that within a matter of a few hundred thousand years there would be little to no trace of human life whatsoever. Quite sobering.

Return

2006-10-20T14:18:00.000+10:00

Honours thesis, teaching and being mildly social has left me with little time for pursuing hobbies over the last several months. I've now got less than a week to go before submission; drafts have been issued to my 3 proof-readers.

In more exciting news I've finished my Open Source Software paper and have decided I'm going to go send it in for consideration for the Research miniconf at Linux conf which will be in Sydney in January next year. I'm excited, this will be my first paper submission to a conference. I do plan to go whether I get accepted or not, should be fun to go to a linux conference and I know I'll learn a lot.

Giving books away

2006-04-14T00:55:00.000+10:00

I've recently downloaded some books from Cory Doctorow. He's a Canadian science-fiction writer who releases all of his books under a Creative Commons licence. This means you can go to his site, download his books, and read them/copy them/give them to everybody you know without coming under fire from lawyers or anybody else; as long as you don't make a profit from your actions.

Cory has done a number of things, most notably he's a co-editor of BoingBoing. While not as likely to take to the streets, I do agree with some of his ideas about freedom of information and the problem with licensing which tends to punish only those trying to use products legitimately.

His writing is also very good. I urge you to check out his website and the various novels and novellas he's authored.

Aria and Aibo

2006-02-17T12:45:00.000+11:00

I got quite a surprise today when I went to pick up my Griffith things for the WIT regional tour and came away clutching the box of a Sony Aibo as well. Apparently the RoboCup team were feeling particularly generous and decided to part with one of their clan so that I could take it on my tour of regional Queensland next week.

I'm also fairly rapt that Nostariel's bluetooth adapter means I can easily transfer photos and clips from my phone to wherever I like. I also have a shiny new Antec Aria case for my desktop pc.

Conference

2006-02-12T09:14:00.000+11:00

I've been invited to be on the organising committee for QualIT 2006. Of course I said yes and now I am in charge of registrations to begin with. It should be a good conference.

Attended a WIT networking event on Thursday and had some really interesting conversations. A lot of people are interested to hear what a student says; I find that refreshing. I'm hoping to catch up with some of them at the next event. According to everybody who knew, I'm going to have a blast on the WIT regional tour in a couple of weeks.

First Post from Nostariel

2006-02-02T16:59:00.000+11:00

Nostariel is the name I've given to my Dell Inspiron. Little 'sibling' of Ielenia, my desktop machine.

Still a few things I need to fix to get things how I'd ideally like them. The problem with 915resolution is one I'd love dearly to solve, it's a pain having to restart x after configuring it again after each boot. Maybe I can get clever and script it or something. Sound is a non-event in Xine and I can't work out why. Also, this is the most novel and least troubling of my problems - I plug in headphones and the music comes through at full volume but rather than turning my speakers off, they go to half volume. It seems this has happened with a few machines. Sadly because it's a notebook, it's not as easy to solve as just turning off your speakers. Unless it's something I can do in software.

Guild Wars and WoW

2006-01-30T01:52:00.000+11:00

I bought Guild Wars on Saturday. It's not WoW but then again it doesn't try to be. A lot of the things that annoyed me about WoW aren't a problem in GW. To me GW is also a lot harder - you have to rethink strategy a lot more and stop relying on the strength of a lot of others to get you through.

My new Dell arrived safe and sound on Friday and is now running mostly happily with Ubuntu. Need to have a play and see if I can get wireless working happily at uni tomorrow. I've moved onto the next level of geek, I have a desktop pc and a notebook which runs linux entirely. Ielenia and Nostariel. Ielenia's new home is coming soon...

2006-01-24T13:36:00.000+11:00

I got a phone call yesterday, my Dell is being delivered Friday morning between 9a and 1p. I can hardly wait, however I'm going to have to wait for the batteries to charge once it arrives.

Then I can start playing with installing Linux. It was suggested I do some research to find out if I can run 2 distros that share the home directory between them. Will have to research and see. The reason for 2 distros is that people have had the most success with getting everything to work using Ubuntu but I had a bad experience with it once and am doubtful to try it again - though I suspect I will. I'm also wanting to put Fedora on there because it's great and I know how most things work there. Decisions decisions.

Ali gets a laptop - finally

2006-01-19T21:35:00.000+11:00

It all started when I checked back with the Dell site to see if those wicked deals were still happening and sure enough luck was with me. Today was the last day. After some browsing and choosing between a couple of models I settled on something which had a slightly less gutsy processor and 20G less of a hdd (who needs a 100G laptop hdd anyway) resulting in something more my budget. Added some extras of my own and I still wound up paying about what I originally expected

Details for the more technically inclined:
CPU: Inspiron 630M Intel(R) Pentium (R) Processor at 725 - 1.60GHz, 2MB cache, 400MHz FSB
RAM: 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Disk: 80GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
Optical Drive: Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Combo drive with dual layer write capabilities
Screen: 14.1" WideScreen XGA TFT with TrueLife (1280x800 res)
Graphics: Intel(R) Media Accelerator 900 Graphics up to 128MB shared system memory
Battery: 6-cell 53Whr Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Adapter: 65W AC Adapter
Wireless: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200 (802.11b/g) 54Mbps Mini-PCI Wireless Card
Bluetooth: Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Module (internal)
Modem: Internal 56k Modem
Carry Case: Deluxe Leather Case
Extras: Spare battery and power adapter.

I spoke to somebody at Dell about not including the Windows stuff as I plan to run Linux on it and they said no as apparently Windows is supposed to be a freebie anyway. They did however offer me a free case.

Delivery is in approx 5-8 working days.