February 2007 Archives
ModalBox is a JavaScript technique for creating modern Web 2.0-style modal dialogs or even wizards sequences of dialogs without using conventional popups and page reloads.
BBC News today...
Britain's national film and television archive is to be opened up in order for it to be accessed by the public
Looks good, but then..
Eventually these images will all be available in a digital format.
Uh-oh. Let's see, which Digital Restrictions Management system will they implement for this? Time to lobby the BFI, then.
Of course, nobody expected the Labour government to actually change this, did they? The Green Party on the other hand, said this about the recent Vista launch.
"So-called 'digital rights management' technology in Vista gives Microsoft the ability to lock you out of your computer. Technology should increase our opportunities to consume media, create our own and share it with others.""But Vista helps the corporate media take away our consumer rights. Silence in government betrays a shocking complacency in the face of this latest attack on our rights."
Join the Green Party today if you feel that the present government have failed to represent you on this. You might also be keen to note that this is the same government who want to take away your civil liberties under the guise of combating terrorism. Also consider reading Sian Berry's blog on newstatesman.com, including Microsoft - bad for consumers and the environment?.
Interview with Noam Chomsky by Andrew Marr of the BBC.
My mum got interviewed for the local paper back in Devon.
Lorraine Lee sees herself as much more than a post office manager - she considers her role to be a one-stop shop for community life. Customers can turn to her for all the usual mail-related services offered in branches up and down the country. But in Buckfast, near Totnes, the locals are as likely to pop into the post office if there is a problem with a fallen tree or a broken street light.Mrs Lee, who has worked in the post office for 14 years, uses her extensive knowledge of the area's residents to solve the problem as swiftly and painlessly as possible.
"People who haven't lived here for very long don't know who's who," she said. "I first moved into the area when I was two years old, and now I live just up the road in Ashburton. I know everybody and I try to help out if I can."
Her caring nature also extends to the welfare of her customers. She said: "If somebody comes in regularly, and then suddenly stops, I do try to make enquiries on how they are, and whether I can help in any way."
The post office is a valued community asset, with a loyal customer base, particularly since the only bank in the village closed its doors last year.
Rod Summerfield, chairman of the Buckfast Residents' Society, praised Mrs Lee for her "professionalism and dedication".
He said the shop provided a focal point for elderly residents, young mums and many others. "The post office and Mrs Lee are vital elements of the fabric of our community, fully deserving of our business and our gratitude," he said.
Mr Summerfield nominated the Buckfast Post Office for part of the WMN's campaign which features the services branches provide, amid fears that many post offices will close because of these services being withdrawn. Nationally three million people have signed a campaign to safeguard post offices.
It follows plans announced by the Government to scrap the Post Office Card Account, used by more than four million people every week to access their pension and benefits payments, by 2010.
Television licences can no longer be bought from local post offices while it is feared that car tax and passports could also come under fire.
There are also concerns that the £150 million a year Social Network Payment, which bolsters rural post offices, will be scrapped in under two years.
David Salter, of the Buckfast Spinning Company, said the business generated by the post office did not leave much change after wages were paid.
The firm, part of Axminster Carpets, bought the post office when it faced closure in 1993, when Buckfast Abbey shut a shop which it was once attached to because it was no longer viable.
Mr Salter is officially the post master, but he said Mrs Lee ran the service "as if it were her own".
He said: "It would be devastating all round if it had to close. We will keep it going as long as we can, and as long as we are allowed to, but we can only do that because we are part of a larger successful business.
"It wouldn't take much to see the post office become viable in its own right. We aren't looking for a massive remuneration - it would just be nice to se some recognition of the community service it provides."
- Workplace smoking bans may be good for workers' health, but could open the back door to hackers. In a recent social engineering test, a tester was able to easily gain access to a corporate building through a back door left open for smokers. Once inside, the penetration tester easily bluffed his way into a meeting, claiming IT had sent him.
- Ways to speed up Wordpress with caching
- Yes, there is a PJ (of Groklaw)
- Barack Obama on the Web Twenny Bandwagon
St Skeletor's Day is a non-commercial alternative to the corporate whorefest that is St Valentine's Day. Each year, on February 15th, the festival of St. Skeletor occurs worldwide.
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Dear Lazyweb,
Please help me find a theme for my blog that doesn't suck. I'm using Wordpress 2.1, and the theme shouldn't require JavaScript, and must use Web Standards.
Thanks,
matt
Michael G. Hagerty - why isn't this guy in more stuff? He's a great comic actor.
"...we made a mix, with me MCing, and put it online as 'Michael Jackson - Thriller'. Nobody downloaded it though."
Classic Alex.
Say no to ATI and Nvidia. Don't compromise my freedom for a spiny cube
i wish i could explain why sometimes my head just makes me feel like everything's going wrong, when things are okay. i have a new job, a new girlfriend and i'm really enjoying everything i'm doing.
i just need to try and remember to take better care of myself, eat proper meals, tidy up, fill in forms, pay bills, that kind of thing. all the stuff i'm terrible at.
CNUK was born in late 1997, long before Creative Commons or the ideas of free culture were born. It was the personal website of Matt Lee, titled unsurprisingly enough 'Matt's website' and it lived somewhere on Tripod, and then a week later on Geocities - neither of the URLs work now, because I've forgotten them. The content, much like the HTML sucked - what little content there was comprised almost exclusively of short little silly pages I created because there didn't seem to be anyone around with a site like mine, there didn't seem to be anyone talking about the things I was talking about:- Amstrad CPC computers, Lee and Herring (the British Comedy Duo), The A-Team and Slow Worms. Of course, nowadays, we have Wikipedia for such content, but back then there was none of it, really.
Introducing Nick
In 1997, I met Nick Hancock - he had more hair back then, a pony tail in fact, as his mothballed website from back then reveals. Nick and I eventually collaborated to produce Matt and Nick's Comedy Net - a website with big asparations and little in the way of design or concept, it was all made in a demo version of Front Page 98 and the graphics were made with a freebie of Corel Xara found on a coverdisk. It moved to its new home at comedynet.inuk.com and eventually went 'legit' with it's own domain name - comedy-net.co.uk (we've still got these domains by the way, we're just getting back to using them) - the website became Comedy Net UK and we even found ourselves getting voted 3rd Best Comedy Site by Internet Monthly magazine. We celebrated, albeit a month early, with our friend Ruaidhri (who we call Clive) and notions of film began to come to mind.
Of Chloe and Clive and Kate, of course
In mid 1999, I began writing scripts for my film, Clive Pigeon Spotting - it was to be a romantic comedy, written by a boy (I was only just 18) who knew very little of comedy and nothing about romance. It didn't do that well, but Clive and Chloe (and later Kate) blessed me with their presence each and every Saturday afternoon for a while, in the local cinema bar as I presented another hastily-printed-at-8am-at-work script in a fat Manilla envelope over a Smirnoff Mule or 20. Time passed. Kate vanished. Clive began concentrating on university and Chloe has aspirations of her own - a series of spoof pornos, with titles like Dawson's Crotch. Eventually, I moved out of my family home, into my own flat and began a grassroots comedy site for the local area. Nick was in Australia, and the whole film thing eventually vanished from my mind. Comedy Net UK disappeared and up came comedynetuk.com which survived about 4 years in various incarnations whilst never truly managing to have any content. Some of the people I'd worked with on various comedynetuk.com projects are now doing things behind the scenes at CNUK, but overall it wasn't ever really what it could have been. CNUK Media Foundation was born out of a sense of needing to do something right for culture, after reading Free Culture and taking an interest in EFF, FSF, Downhill Battle, Adbusters and Creative Commons.
The mission is community
The mission of CNUK, I believe, is one of community. Creating a community around the ideals of several likeminded projects and giving people a platform to contribute.
I hope you like it as much as I'm liking it
matt
The longer he sat by himself, the harder he tried to recall the events of the evening previous - it did little good and as Nick slipped in and out of his manic operatic, he began to recall basic, if disjointed events. He had come to the following conclusion:-
- Some girl was involved.
- He had asked his sort-of-girlfriend to marry him, albeit in a drunken stupor, proceeding an argument and after having asked her what the fuck she was on about, several times.
- He had managed all this on £4.86, given the amount he went out with and the 14 solitary pence in his pocket.
- None of this had seen especially out of the ordinary of the people who had been buying him drinks.
- Neither Matt nor Ben had bought him a drink, or even seen him, since storming out of the party.
It was 3:07pm. Sunday afternoon. Nick woke up with a startle. His head hurt. While most Saturday nights were similar for Nick, this time had been different, this time things with Rachel had gone particularly bad. After all, that's why he had hit the town with quite such gusto. No, this was a drunken binge to end all binges, and the ultimate irony? He didn't have a fucking clue what had happened to him, but he'd find out, eventually. Maybe.
