Rich Burridge's Blog

Links for 30th June 2008 - June 30, 2008

How We Read Online Lots of good observations. The ones that make me wonder about the usefulness of a web page to me are: Does it initially come up with readable text, or do I have to press Control-and-Plus a couple of times Ironically this Slate.com page fails that test with Firefox on my Ubuntu system. How many annoying flashy ads does the page contain You know the type. "YOU...
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/links_for_30th_june_2008

Bill's Experience Installing Moviemaker On Windows - June 25, 2008

An email from 2003 from Chairman Bill on the problems he had installing Moviemaker on his Windows system. My favorite bit is: "Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time" Ahh! Windows. (thanks Maya). Technorati Tag: Moviemaker Technorati Tag: Windows
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/bill_s_experience_installing_moviemaker

Links for 25th June 2008 - June 25, 2008

Tribute To George Carlin There are a lot of similar link out there. Yeah, I'm a couple day late. As I've mentioned before, I didn't enjoy everything he did, but you can't get away from the fact that he changed the face of comedy. Whether always for good or bad is hard to tell. Virgin's Data Visualization web page Personally I'm not sure how particularly useful (or easy) their site is, to actually...
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/links_for_25th_june_2008

The Stalled Server Room - June 25, 2008

The Daily WTF has an interesting post today. A company had to relocate from the second to the first floor in their building. Unfortunately their server room couldn't be moved. Here's the letter from building management explaining the situation: Hi all. As you all are aware, we have new tenants that have moved into the 2nd floor suites. The access to the server room is now via the womens bathroom. There will be a...
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/the_stalled_server_room

Don't Talk To The Police - June 23, 2008

Links to these two video's came over Hack a Day recently. They are U.S. centric, but well worth watching. Firstly, Professor James Duane: "In Praise of the Fifth Amendment Right to Not Be a Witness Against Yourself. Why I am proud to admit that I will never talk to any police officer." Secondly, Officer George Bruch, Virginia Beach Police Department: "The Other Side..
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/don_t_talk_to_the

Spore Creature Creator - June 19, 2008

Spore is one of the most anticipated games of the year. While we all wait for that to happen, Electronic Arts have released their Spore Creature Creator, including a trial version. I didn't R the FM and just navely downloaded the Mac version onto Duncan's iBook, only to find it's just for the Intel architecture. I then tried the PC version on two oldish Windows Xp machines, only to find that we didn't have good enough...
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/spore_creature_creator

Links for 17th June 2008 - June 17, 2008

The Trons - Self Playing Robot Band If my manager ever decides to leave the Megatones, it's clear that he can easily be replaced. (via Make Blog). Fabric Covered Car My first thought here, was great, so keying is no longer a problem. Vandals can just slash your car at the same time as they are slashing your tyres. Or if you ruin the skin on your own car, ten minutes work with a good knife will get.
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/links_for_17th_june_2008

Moog Guitar - June 16, 2008

(As reported over on Geek.com). This looks fascinating. The company that gave you Moog synthesizers in the '70's, have now created a Moog Guitar: It has five different sound modes, designed to give the player a wide range of possibilities to play. The most touted mode is the infinite sustain, which allows players to hold a note on every note and at every position. Other modes include controlled sustain, mute mode, harmonic blends, and the Moog Filter. Check out the video. Maybe...
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/moog_guitar

Create Your Own O'Reilly Book Covers - June 15, 2008

Yesterday, I stumbled across the O'Reilly book cover maker web site and thought I'd have a go. A long long time ago, in a land far far away (and before I joined Sun if you were wondering), I had a manager I did not get on with. I'm sure the feeling was reciprocated. When it came time for my yearly review, the draft copy contained the phrase, "does not suffer fools gladly". "Ah," I replied, "so you admit they are fools then" I was glared...
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/create_your_own_o_reilly

Not All DVI Cables Are Created Equal - June 13, 2008

Earlier in the week, I downloaded the Big Buck Bunny movie onto my wife's new MacBook. We wanted to try the new mini-DVI to DVI adapter cable that we'd bought (via the online Apple store), to hook it up to our TV and watch it on the "big screen". Wasn't I miffed to find that the female DVI plug on the end of the adapter cable wouldn't connect to the male DVI plug on the end of the cable coming out of the TV. From the blurred pictures above, you can just see that the male DVI cable (first.
http://blogs.sun.com/richb/entry/not_all_dvi_cables_are