Mat's best of the web for June 10th.

2008-Jun-10, Tuesday 20:34
matgb: (Webstuff)
Gah, sometimes you can try to be too clever. Bottom link is to Andrew's fix of the crossposter code, which theoretically auto-selects a userpic, gets the timestamp right and removes the auto formatting. Except that having done so, it's not posted at all today. So either del.icio.us is playing up or I've messed my code. Anyone want to lay odds? Apologies for the messy appearance, this is a copy/paste from my profile there. Still, it works.

  1. Taxing times for Hungary's porn inspectors | The Register

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    A Hungarian porn producer has filed his tax forms, and claimed scene dressing props as legitimate business expenses. So the tax inspectors have to watch his films to confirm they're used. Apparently 'It's a hard job'

    to porn humour taxation ... saved by 2 other people ... 22 hours ago

  2. Solar Cycle 24 Could Be 13 Years Long - Cooler Times Ahead? « Watts Up With That?

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    I'm not enough of a scientist to know if this holds water at all, written from a sceptic perspective I think, but I don't discount the anti-climate change position completely, doubt is good. Anyone able to expand, confirm or debunk?

    to science climate+change solar+cycle ... saved by 2 other people ... 23 hours ago

  3. 'The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion' - When the Anti-Choice Choose

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    I've read many of these quotes before, but it is a fairly good collection about how anti-abortion campaigners react if it's them that needs to make the choice.

    to abortion Freedom ... saved by 320 other people ... 23 hours ago

  4. Hack Attack: Burn almost any video file to a playable DVD

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    Mostly for my reference as I've got some stuff I want to back up from my old PC and have never done it. Anyone got experience of using this or other software to burn AVIs and similar onto DVD?

    to tools video dvd ... saved by 2566 other people ... 1 day ago

  5. Basic UK libel law for idiots by Adam Porter

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    Another guide to online libel, this time from Urban 75. Seems accurate, although I'm really not sure about the linking could be defamation thing. Mentions the Staggers/Scallywag case directly though.

    to internet journalism law libel writing ... saved by 9 other people ... 1 day ago

  6. Charlie's Diary: Moderation Policy

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    Not a bad general guide about what is and isn't acceptable on someone else's blog, and most of it applies to me as well (although the bits about huge readership numbers and similar aren't, natch). Freedom of speech doesn't apply.

    to netiquette writing ... saved by 5 other people ... 1 day ago

  7. Qinetiq ships first 'Transformer' war-droid | The Register

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    It doesn't actually change shape, but it's got a selection opf different weapon fits, and dude, it's a robot. Um, not 100% sure I approve, but still, it's cool

    to electronics weapons ... saved by 2 other people ... 1 day ago

  8. The greatest defunct Web sites and dotcom disasters - Crave at CNET.co.uk

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    These are cool, a set of failed 'name' websites and why they failed. Some of the could work well now, others are just bad examples of stupid business plans.

    to internet funny ... saved by 40 other people ... 1 day ago

  9. delicious -> livejournal reposter - May Contain Nuts

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    Andrew's redone some of the code for the cross poster I'm using, much better, solves the timestamp problem and a few other things. I really need to reinstall an FTP client and fix mine.

    to del.icio.us livejournal ... 1 day ago
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Linkspam for 8-5-2008

2008-May-08, Thursday 06:37
matgb: (Webstuff)
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[Blogging tricks] Shared Brain Syndrome

2008-May-01, Thursday 15:21
matgb: (Cool)
Yesterday, I had two posts I was planning to make at some point. Then my shiny new work laptop arrived, but it wouldn't stay online for more than 5 minutes and fixing it took me ages. But in another attack of shared brain[1], [info]Debi's done very similar to what I meant to do, so go read:

The former is a linkdump of Firefox extensions redone, I need to do one anyway to transfer to my new laptop so that'll happen. The latter is a how-to on linkspamming sharing with delicious and crossposting them to your blog (works anywhere but LJ needs some extra tweaks), but also has a how-to on using and/or hiding LoudTwitter posts. I really like the utility of the latter and like reading them, and dislike it when people cut them as I can't just scan past, but I know others dislike them intensely so if you do you might find it useful.

Anyway, the rest can wait, I have some campaigning to go do. Go vote people, especially in London (and remember, the GLA list vote really matters, unfortunately).
[1] Debi has a habit of posting stuff as I'm thinking about the same thing, and we share a lot of "oh, cool trick" stuff anyway. Jennie, OTOH, has scary freaky same-as-me opinions on a lot of stuff, and we sometimes make the same comment at the same time in various places. So if you're missing my longer informed posts, I hope I'll get over the block that seems to mean I lack inspiration or inclination, but in the meantime reading [livejournal.com profile] innerbrat, Jennie's [livejournal.com profile] theyorkshergob or my old housemate and third "shared brain" unfortunate [livejournal.com profile] paulatpingu wouldn't do you any harm.
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Easy LJ feed syndication using Firefox

2008-Jan-20, Sunday 22:11
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (Firefox)
Quickie: About a year ago there was a cool [livejournal.com profile] lj_nifty[1] post about easily adding feeds to an LJ friends page using Firefox. I linkspammed it but the walkthrough I meant to write never happened. Today, [livejournal.com profile] andrewducker has written such a walkthrough and made it seem even easier:
1) open a tab and type about:config in the address bar.
2) type ContentHandlers in the filter box.
3) Choose one of the feeds you don't use (Yahoo, for instance).
4) Replace the Title with "Livejournal"
5) Replace the uri with http://www.livejournal.com/syn?url=%s
6) Shut down Firefox and restart.
7) Done!
Combine that with the screenshot on the Nifty post and that, Firefox and a paid account is all you really need. This has of course prompted me to finally getting around to doing that in the config file for this laptop, really ought to start cataloguing all my little hacks and tricks for whenever I switch machines semi-permanently.

On that subject, can anyone remember what you change to turn off that annoying "taking too long to respond" error page and replace it with the pop-up error box that doesn't lose the content you have managed to load? (Our wireless is being a bit flaky on occasions, most annoying).
[1][livejournal.com profile] lj_nifty is a fairly quiet comm for sharing little tricks and tweaks to make LJ work better, normally fairly user-friendly.
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Scrabble failures, so I give you bees!

2007-Sep-13, Thursday 20:52
matgb: (Cool)
This is getting old:
Errors while loading page from application

There are still a few kinks Facebook and the makers of Scrabulous are trying to iron out. We appreciate your patience as we try to fix these issues. Your problem has been logged - if it persists, please come back in a few days. Thanks!
Apparently it's probably a problem with Facebook not Scrabulous, but still. For those of you waiting? Sorry—I have 12 games active, and I can manage to succesufully load maybe one or two each time I try. Of course, loading up my game against Duncan and seeing he'd got his 3rd bingo of the game (a challenge game no less) and had more than doulbe my score of 260 (which is normally fairly respectable) was, well, a little depressing.

Anyway. Loads of stuff I could talk about, but, well, apathy strikes. In the meantime, have a honeycomb ina bell jar, via [info]boing_boing[1], and also at the site itself, a nice set of Devilish greeting cards. I'm probably going to have to give it its own filter, but boing boing truly is a directory of wonderful things.
[1] Gotta love the [livejournal.com profile] ljaddons plugin and the programmable insets, right?

Oh yeah, the del.icio.us crosposter seems to be failing miserably, I'll give it a kick at some point.
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Theming your LJ using Expressive and Style Sheets

2007-Sep-02, Sunday 02:48
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (xEnjoy)
OK then. Having fixed my template, I remembered that I promised aaages back to do a walkthrough on how I made it and how you can make your own—using just a Cascading Style Sheet, which is so easy even I can do it. This is especially true for [livejournal.com profile] nadriel who, despite having a BSc in Computer Science is still using the Piximix theme I set for him as a joke 6 months ago. So here we go...

( The basics and the code )
That gives you my layout, exactly as I've got it, colour scheme and banner image and all. Which I'm sure you don't want, you don't want to copy me, you want to personalise, right? Besides, even I don't like my current header graphic anymore,s o you'll want to change that ASAP. So let's go through it...
( The code explained... )

There. Easy, isn't it? Anyone can make their journal look pretty. Well, prettier and more personal, anyway. All it takes is a bit of patience and the ability to pick colours. No prizes for guessing why mine is black and grey, right?

Feedback welcome, even if you don't like it. And yes, I'm aware bits of the code could be cleaned up, I spent a chunk of the afternoon getting it this clean already...
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Iconify me (redux)

2007-Jul-29, Sunday 14:12
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (Marvin-Life)
Ah well, good while it lasted. [livejournal.com profile] snapesbabe is at Kings Cross waiting for her train home, we've spent two weeks together. My room, which normally seems small, has for the last week seemed very cramped. Now it seems empty. Not sure when I'll be able to go up see her again, and she'll find it hard tog et down again for awhile. But it's been great being with her.

Anyway, I thought it's time to repeat a meme that I did ages ago. Can't find it now, but it's the whole 'talk-in-icons-only' thing.
Comment here with no text, just an icon. Reply to others using just icons. Talk, with no text, a uniquely LJ form of discussion. I'll add a corollary; you can use macros as long as they're not too big
Remember: talk to each other because I may fall asleep or be busy at work or whatever.

I may possibly have ImageReady open as I type this. There may be an icon post later on. Possibly. If I stay awake. Actually, on the subject, in the long lists of "things I wish I'd known when I started" things; the keyword for this icon is "Marvin-Life", it's one of the very few icons I've had since almost the beginning that hasn't been replaced. I'm now on my 5th Books icon. But because every time I've replaced it I've called it Books, it shows up on all my old posts and comments using any of my old Books icons. This is deliberate; keep your keywords for usage rather than descriptive, you can replace icons and have the new ones show on old posts. LJ-fu, but I found it out by accident awhileback. Good, innit?
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The meaning of [LJ] life: 42nd entry

2007-Jul-03, Tuesday 22:46
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (LJ-Marvin)
Silly meme from SB:
1. Go into the archives of your LJ.
2. Find your 42nd entry ever. Yes, this may require some counting and basic maths. Deal with it.
3. Link to that entry in a new entry. This is the meaning of your life.
OK then. My return journey from Athens. So, the meaning of my life is to return home from a nice break and fall asleep for 24 hours? Sounds like a plan...

Here's a hint :
The number in the URL is generated by:

N = 256E + R

where N is the number in the URL, E is the number of the entry, and R is
a random integer from 0 to 255.
LJ-fu from [livejournal.com profile] rho in the comments on a very old entry, for which my Gmail search string was label:lj- from:rho 256 because I just knew. So that means you're lookingfor the entry numbered between 10752 and 11008.

Oh, might as well, posted to [livejournal.com profile] ihasatardis earlier, it may or may not have cleared the moderation queue: ( Casting spoiler for the Doctor Who Xmas special (plus it's a big pic, which is more important) )
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More Firefox plugins, in meme form

2007-May-19, Saturday 15:41
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (LJ-Marvin)
[livejournal.com profile] innerbrat lists her favourite Firefox extensions, and asks:
How have you customised your Firefox? Which add-ons have you used, how have you altered them, and what couldn't you do without?
So I thought I'd do a follow up to my firefox extensions post and list all those not listed there by me that I'm currently losing. A fair few of these (especially Colorzilla and Submit to Tab) are great little tricks that you guys told me about int he comments, others I've just added as I go along. I now have FAR TOO MANY extensions, and am likely to dump some, and split others off into a separate profile full of development tools and not use them for geeral browsing. And, unfortunately, LJ Login clashes with [livejournal.com profile] deepestsender currently, so given I rarely if ever use my other accounts I have it disabled.

( List of firefox extensions )
As before, are to wherever the developer says they're based. If they don't link to a download page, blame them, not me, but you can search Mozdev by name to find em if you want them. Back to IB:
I want you guys to do the same with your Firefox.
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Cunning as a 9 Tailed Fox?

2006-Sep-16, Saturday 17:52
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (Books)
[livejournal.com profile] lithium_doll:
I'm going to try for the 1000 comments anyway. SPAM ME! Invite your flist, your family, your enemies, your milkman. I welcome discussion, poetry, fic, jokes, pr0n, pretty, pretty pictures, and politics. And anything else. I'm easy. So, so easy.
here. 'twas her who pointed out to me I'd made my 500th post, so go comment as requested? She may even make a vid or something. However, as [livejournal.com profile] rho observes I must've deleted some, as the post number said 503:
( Rho's mighty LJ-fu )
Which was interesting. It also means that milady Doll has deleted about 31 posts at various stages, as it's actually her 1031st...

Today, I was due in Exeter. [livejournal.com profile] draich_goch even rang me to remind me. I said hello, and immediately went back to sleep. Instead, I read Jon Courtney Grimwood's 9TailFox. Apparently, it's an SF novel. I'd say it was even less SF than the Ashraf Bey series (which apparently he's writing a new one of), but there y'go. Good read, regardless.

Basic premise is that a San Francisco cop is investigating an apparent murder committed by a 13 year old girl, and gets killed. He then wakes up in the body of a coma case who's been unconscious for quite awhile, and, conveniently, is a little bit wealthy. There's the usual Grimwood characterisation, but I'm not really sure it's a real difference from either the Ashraf books or Stamping Butterflies. I didn't spot some of the twists, although they were heralded, and some of the elements were a little OTT, but I suppose the OTT elements may be what made it SF.

Only big drawback to me is it made me miss San Francisco and wish I'd organised my stay there a bit more than "get up, find something cool to do" while I was there. Ah well, can always go again sometime. Well, assuming it doesn't sink into the sea anytime soon...
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[LJ2ME] Test post

2005-Oct-01, Saturday 12:49
matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (LJ-Marvin)
Testing the lj2me thing on my phone

[Edit] Did I mention that my phone contrat gives me free WAP access as well? [livejournal.com profile] markslut has been going on about this app for a bit, thought I'd try it. Very cool, and can do much longer posts than by SMS. Thing is, I don't think my WAP access is free and/or available abroad, which is when I want to be able to post by phone. We'll see.
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