Daily Mail on Chrome

It’s very unlikely that you haven’t heard of Chrome, the browser that Google launched last week. If you’re running Windows then you may have even tried it out. Those of you (and I assume it’s most of you) who follow tech news will also know that there was some confusion over Chrome’s licence agreement during… Continue reading Daily Mail on Chrome

Their Own Worst Enemy

Sometimes (actually, it’s really quite often) Free Software enthusiasts are their own worst enemy. Their insistence on using completely free formats for audio and video instead of the proprietary formats that most people use means that their message is often only seen by a tiny minority of people – generally the people who don’t need… Continue reading Their Own Worst Enemy

Is Sarah Palin a Wiccan?

This just came up in a discussion in the office. You read it here first. Sarah Palin claims to be a christian. If that’s the case then why are at least two of her children (Willow and Piper – I’m researching the others) named after teenage witches? I reckon she has wiccan sympathies. Does anyone… Continue reading Is Sarah Palin a Wiccan?

Tesco Improves its English

From the BBC: Tesco is to change the wording of signs on its fast-track checkouts to avoid any linguistic dispute. The supermarket giant is to replace its current “10 items or less” notices with signs saying “Up to 10 items”. Tesco’s move follows uncertainty over whether the current notices should use “fewer” instead of “less”… Continue reading Tesco Improves its English

Livery Companies – Project Complete

(Well, stage one of the project, anyway.) A couple of years ago whilst I was working in the heart of the City of London, I noticed that my lunchtime wanders were taking me past a few of the City Livery Halls. I’d always been aware of the Livery Companies, but I’d never really investigated them,… Continue reading Livery Companies – Project Complete

Phone Strangeness

My current phone is a Nokia N91, I’ve had it for well over two years, which is probably the longest time I’ve owned any phone, and I’ve been very happy with it. Of course it’s showing its age technologically now, but I haven’t had any problems with it. But last week, whilst I was in… Continue reading Phone Strangeness

Why Corporates Hate Perl

Over on O’Reillynet yesterday I wrote the first part of a series of posts entitled “Why Corporates Hate Perl“. I’m working through some rough ideas that might just form a talk of the same title at next year’s YAPC::Europe. I didn’t think that anyone would take any notice of my random thoughts, but this morning… Continue reading Why Corporates Hate Perl

Showing Appreciation

I’ve mentioned here before that I run a small free software project which supplies simple web programs. The programs are quite widely used, but we generally only hear from the users when things go wrong. It was, therefore, nice to get a mail from someone who hadn’t had any problems and just wanted to say… Continue reading Showing Appreciation

Breaking Radio Silence

It’s been a bit quiet round here for the last week or so. Sorry about that. I was busy in other areas. I spent the last week in Copenhagen, speaking at YAPC::Europe. Over four days I gave three short talks and a full day training session. It good to catch up with a number of… Continue reading Breaking Radio Silence

Anniversaries

It’s been a week of anniversaries. Wednesday was the tenth anniversary of the first London.pm meeting. And last night we had our tenth anniversary meeting. But for me personally, today is an even bigger anniversary. It was twenty years ago today that I started my first “real” job. I hope you won’t be too bored… Continue reading Anniversaries