Posted: October 12th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: General | | No Comments »
This keeps happening!
I don’t know if it’s because at some point I’ve hacked the default set up of Apache on our Xserve or something else but every time Apple does a PHP/Apache update it stuffs up the asset management tool we run.
The problem is that the default Apache set up doesn’t have the GD library installed. It’s no great shakes to install this but getting it to actually load is a pig.
For reference, it seems that Apache (our version at least) is running in 64bit mode (it’s on 64bit hardware so great) but GD won’t work in 64bit mode. The trick, therefore is to make Apache run in 32bit mode and you do it like so:
sudo mv /usr/sbin/httpd /usr/sbin/httpd.ub
sudo lipo -thin ppc7400 /usr/sbin/httpd.ub -output /usr/sbin/httpd.ppc7400
sudo ln -s /usr/sbin/httpd.ppc7400 /usr/sbin/httpd
I’m wondering if there is some means to make it ALL 64bit and so avoid the problem in future.
Posted: July 29th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Food | Tags: recipe | No Comments »
I don’t know if this is authentic, but it’s yummy. Someone asked for it on Twitter so I though I’d post it here too!
Moussaka
Serves 4 (ha!)
Ingredients
1 large aubergine sliced
1 tbsp olive/veg oil
1 onion chopped finely
1 decent sized garlic clove crushed
350g minced lamb
250g sliced mushrooms
425g can chopped tomatoes
150ml Veg stock
2tbsp cornflour
2tbsp water
500g potatoes, par boiled for 10 mins and sliced
2 eggs
125g low fat soft cheese
150ml natural yoghurt
60g grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper
flat leaf parsley to garnish
Method
Lay aubergine slices on clean surface and sprinkle with salt. leave for 10 mins, turn over and repeat. Rinse and drain well.
Heat oil in pan fna fry onion and garlic for 3-4 mins.
Add lamb and mushies and cook for 5 mins until browned.
Stir in tomatoes and stock, bring to boil and simmer for 10 mins.
Mix cornflour with water and stir in.
Cook, stirring until thickened.
Spoon half mixture into oven proof dish. Cover with aubergne slices then remaining lamb mixture. Arrange potato slices on top.
Beat together eggs, yoghurt, soft cheese and seasoning.
Pour over potatoes to cover them and sprinkle with grated cheese.
Bake in a preheated oven at 190C/375F/Gas Mk 5 for 45 mins until topping is set and golden brown,
Garnish with flat leaf parsley and serve with a green salad (and a bottle of red)
Posted: June 16th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Drunken Ranting, General | | 4 Comments »
I don’t know about you but I’m pretty fed up seeing endless, arbitrary lists of things being peddled as decent web content.
Very few of these are genuinely insightful or useful and they are generally just a way to drag more or less useless traffic to a website (normally a blog mostly consisting of lists) where said traffic can leave an equally brainless and irrelevant comment.
What’s more, these lists are often an arbitrary length. Top 50 and top 10 are pretty standard but a bit last year, so often we get “top 13″, “top 8″ ? Come on, make at least a small effort to get 10 or 15. Just goes to prove that much of what is posted is recycled crap backed by ameobic sensibilities.
That’s not to say there aren’t some great lists out there and I’ll freely admit that I’ve found some good stuff from reading these lists. I’d say the ratio of good to bad is something like 1:20,000,000 though.
The general modus operandi seems to be:
- Pick some topic, preferably something that’s been done a few hundred times before. If you can’t think of anything then just look for another list you like the look of.
- Type a few words related to your chosen topic into Google (or you can use Alta Vista, Dogpile, Excite – your choice really) and copy paste the top 7, 9, 34, 61 or whatever number you want, results.
- If you don’t already have one, set up a blog… or a MySpace page. It’s not hard but you could get a Ukranian coding team to help or failing that ask a grown up to lend a hand.
- Make a post and show the links you found, with some nice screenshots. Jumble them up a bit.
- Give your post a title like “Most awesomest <thing> ever!!!” or “<random number> essential <things> you must read or you’ll die in a pool of vomit”. Something catchy like that.
- Hit up ANY social network you can think of and whore your ass like a drug addled runaway teen. The important thing is keep repeating the same bloody thing over and over and over until someone tracks you down and jams a metal spike in your forehead… or AOL cuts off your internets.
- Sit back and bask in the fame and adulation of the intellectuals that leave comments telling you how great your list is and how much they will come back to your site. These people often also talk about gambling websites and sites with pictures of naked celebrities. This is normal. Don’t worry.
So, not being one to shy away from the bandwagon – in fact I prefer to pre-book in order to avoid the queues – here are my deeply meaningful and carefully compiled lists.
Top 6 Twitter users that follow me and wanted to be on a list
- @kassy4
- @spongeproject
- @alexeld
- @Japh
- @pixelcellar
- @thewebsiteplace
Top 4 Twitter users who follow me and didn’t want to be on a list
- @createsean
- @pixelcellar
- @petemorley
- name withheld
Top, er, one Twitter user that follows me and wanted to be on both lists to “cover all the bases”
There. Deep, meaningful and insightful.
Posted: June 10th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: General, Social Comment | Tags: newpaper press photograph children privacy | 1 Comment »
My local paper ran a picture of my daughter last night complete with her full name and the name of her school. I think this is absolutely irresponsible.
I’m normally pretty liberal when it comes to things like this as I feel there is a lot of scaremongering that goes on. Even so, I think it’s our responsibility to accept that there are people out there that might use this sort of info for nefarious reasons.
I know the school has a policy that doesn’t permit showing full names with photos and that’s how it should be.
It seems the paper thinks otherswise as they have published the full name (and in places schools and ages) of every child shown in a photograph within their pages.
Speaking to the head teacher this morning she shared my concerns. Every guideline I have ever read concerning publishing photographs of children says that this shouldn’t happen.
I’ll be calling the newspaper later today and probably getting arsey with them.
Posted: June 9th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Drunken Ranting, General, Social Comment | | 10 Comments »
Apple realeased the “new” iPhone 3GS last night. It’s faster, much faster apparently, has a few more nice features and looks like it will keep Apple and the iPhone at the cutting edge of mobile telecommunications.
But what’s this? If you have an iPhone 3G (still available alongside the newer version incidentally) you have to PAY to upgrade! WTF! Pay? The cheek!
I’ve seen and heard many, many (many) iPhone 3G owners complaining that they can’t get a free upgrade to the iPhone 3GS. People have started petitions online and are calling for O2 to give them upgrades.
OK. Firstly, I feel your pain and if I was on the other side of the fence I’d probably be miffed too but 3G iPhone owners – you have really have very little to complain about.
I’d also like to say that I’m no fan of O2 – of the fact the iPhone was only available on O2 was probably the biggest influence in me not grabbing one the day they hit the streets.
Why the fuck should they do that? Look at the simple facts…
1. You signed an 18 month contract.
O2 subsidised the purchase of your phone for the express reason that they have you by the short and curlies for 18 months. Why do you think a PAYG iPhone costs so much more? Part of your monthly charge is paying for the handset.
Why should O2 be compelled to give you an upgrade – at their expense – when Apple release a new model. I’m no fan of O2 but it’s simple business sense surely? The whole business model is to get people on a contract. It’s not just phone networks either. Sky, Virgin, Magazine publishers etc. all love the contract/subscription model because it guarantees cash flow and looks great on their books.
If you defaulted on your contract and didn’t pay do you think O2 would let you keep the phone? It may be a surprise to you but it’s not YOUR phone. It belongs to O2 and they are leasing it to you.
In fact, you CAN upgrade. You just have to complete your contract first. i.e. pay for the handset you are borrowing from O2. Once you’ve done that you owe them nothing and can do as you wish.
But, I hear the cries now, the upgrade from 1st to 2nd Gen iPhone was free!
Ahh, say I, but the 1st Gen iPhone wasn’t subsidised. You had already paid for the thing outright.
I think part of the problem, and the reason I initially resisted getting an iPhone, is the 18 month contract. It’s too long to be tied in when you consider Moore’s Law.
2. You’ve got a bloody good phone
At the end of the day the “old” iPhone hasn’t been retired. There is still life in it. It’s a bloody good, no, it’s the BEST mobile phone on the market. You know that, it’s why you bought one.
Yes, it would be lovely to have the new features but your current handset is far from obsolete. If you REALLY want the 3GS you’re just going to have to pay up to get out of your current contract and take out a new one.
But then what happens when the iPhone 3GSX comes out in 12 months? Oh noes!
3. Tethering
Oooh. Tethering. What? I have to PAY for this?
Er, yes you do… and here’s why.
Again, why should O2 pay for your internet connection? OK 3G isn’t going to give you the speeds of your home broadband connection but not everyone has a 10/20Mbit home connection. The majority of (the UK at least) make do with 2/4/8Mbit connections. I’m sure that if they also owned a contract iPhone and could hook their computer up to use that to access the net they would consider ditching the extra expense of paying for home broadband.
Also, O2 offer “broadband dongles” to let you use their 3G network to access the internet via your laptop. It’s no different really except your dongle costs a lot more. So why should they let you use the network for free simply because you also access it with your iPhone (again, you’ve paid for this in your monthly subs)?
Consider this. While using your iPhone “normally” you will probably download a bit of data over the net, send some emails… nothing heavy. Now if you could hook your laptop up to it a whole new usage pattern emerges. Your use of the network becomes much heavier. Consequently O2 need to invest more in their network to meet the increased demand (yeah, of course they would do that haha). Someone, somewhere pays for this.
Fair enough, I tend to agree that £15 for 30 days usage is a little bit rich but you can buy 30 days at a time. Besides, look at how much contract mobile broadband costs with O2.
That’s a snip under £30 a MONTH for 10Gb data. I may be wrong but with iPhone you get unlimited data transfer don’t you? For £15 and NO contract – you can buy the tethering when you need it in 30 day lumps. Oh, AND if you only want 1 month’s access you have to buy the modem for another £58.
Sounds like you’re getting a bargain with the iPhone’s £15 tethering charge.
I’d also question how many people actually NEED to tether their laptop to their phone. Yes, it’s undoutably useful but I bet if you couldn’t do it you wouldn’t miss it. It’s the new feature bug. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean you, personally, actually have a need for it 24/7. As far as I can see there is very little reason to tether. I for one can only think of rare instances when I’d really, really need it so I’d pay the £15 for the privilege.
For all our high-tech gadgetry we don’t live in the Star Trek universe where there is no need for money and we share everything. Shit costs money. Someone, you, me, whoever has to pay and it sure as hell won’t be a warm hearted philanthropic mobile carrier or silicon valley based tech firm.
So existing iPhone 3G owners, don’t feel hard done by because you are actually quite lucky. Enjoy the remaining time on your contract safe in the knowledge you are lucky enough to have a bloody amazing bit of tech nestling against your nuts (or female equivelant – cos their different right?).
+++ STOP PRESS – O2 Executive’s contact details +++
For those of you who are amongst the disgruntled, you may be interested in the following contact info:
Simon Lloyd,
O2’s Head of Media Relations
tel: 01753 628 335
email: simon.lloyd@O2.com
Richard Poston,
O2’s Director of Corporate Affairs
tel: 01753 628039
email: richard.poston@O2.com
