Embracing the semicolon

My latest read: Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

I am now embracing the semicolon; it is quite exciting!

Mutually Assured Hilarity

I so want one of these cool "self-destruct" buttons. It would be great for the times when those annoying people ambush me at my desk to get tech support for some trivial issue that they shouldn't be wasting my time with.
"Don't come any closer, I'm warning you... One more step and I'll push the button, I swear to god!"

What the hell is SysRq? I want Cut, Copy, and Paste!

Isn't it about time we abandoned the ancient keyboard layout we are stuck with? I mean, has anyone ever used SysRq ?!

Why don't we have dedicated keys for cut, copy, and paste? They are probably the most used commands on a computer for the last 20 years.

I know most keyboards now come with extra buttons for multimedia playback and web browsing but there is no consistent solution which makes it annoying when swapping between machines.

Maybe the answer is the (in)famous OLED keyboard (pictured) which is either a design prototype or elaborate hoax, depending on who you believe.

Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2

Everything you could want in a virtual guitar rig. You could get lost for days tweaking a rig like this...

Multi-touch user interface

This video has been doing the rounds everywhere recently but it is just so cool that I have to blog it.



This looks like the hugest leap in user interface technology since the mouse (and it makes the mouse look as antiquated as paper punch-cards). I just hope that it's not such a massive paradigm shift that it takes 10 years to become affordable and widespread.
The potential for music making alone is huge (especially if it has pressure sensitivity for each touch point).
It also looks to be a more natural method of input and I wonder if it could alleviate RSI from keyboard and mouse usage.

Why does iTunes not have an incremental update?

I am so sick of having to download a 35MB file every time they do a point release!

Simple text formatting with Google Talk

Google Talk is notoriously sparse of features but a small non-documented feature is the ability to markup chat text as bold or italic.

Use *word* for bold and _word_ for italic.

Using Proxy.pac File To Automatically Configure Browsers for Proxy

As someone who uses a notebook PC between work and home I have constantly needed to switch off and on my internet proxy settings.

I finally got sick of doing this and discovered that with a special file called proxy.pac I can automatically detect whether to use a proxy or not.

The file is a special Javascript routine such as this...

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
    // variable strings to return
    var proxy_yes = "PROXY ieproxy2:8081";
    var proxy_no = "DIRECT";
    if (shExpMatch(url, "http://www.mycompanywebsite.com*")) { return proxy_no; }
    if (shExpMatch(url, "http://www.myotherwebsite.com*")) { return proxy_no; }
    if (shExpMatch(url, "http://www.my3rdlocalsite.com*")) { return proxy_no; }
    if (shExpMatch(url, "http://10.200.*")) { return proxy_no; }
    // Proxy if PC is on local LAN
    if (isInNet(myIpAddress(), "10.200.0.0", "255.255.0.0"))
        return proxy_yes;
    else
        return proxy_no;
}
 

Google Slut

I am such a Google Slut.

Anything they release I just can't wait to install, the latest being Google Talk and version 2 of the Desktop search...