Yet Another Blog

If you don’t know already, NASA have lost contact with Columbia about 400,000 feet above the Earth.

BBC – CNN – ITV

I’ve removed the last post that was here, which was about the mission.

Just out of curiosity went to a few sites that use PHP, and tried going to http://their.server/phpinfo.php

The number of people who actually have this file is astounding! I’m sure everybody puts it up for the same reasons – to check their installation, but I wonder if there’s any information on there that’s “handy for hackers” that could really do with not being there?

A quick scan doesn’t reveal much, although I imagine having the path of the users’ home directories might be vaguely useful. If you can think of anything do let me know, I’d be quite interested to find out!

BTW a search on Google throws up a huge number of results!

Dave2002 convinced me to try Opera 7 the other day, with his positive review of the program. I’ve used Opera before, back in the days of ‘it fits on one floppy’. I’ve been running 7 for a couple days now and although I’m largely impressed, I’ve already noticed several silly bugs that I can’t believe they left in.

For example, my cursor never changes appropriately to indicate when I’m hovering over a link. I presume it should, because without that indication it can be difficult to find links in, say, image maps.

There also appears to be a rendering bug when you go back one step in the history – some pages re-render really oddly.

I also noticed that Opera seems to default to pretending that it’s Internet Explorer 6 (unless it was reset from the last Beta). I know they do this because some webmaster types get iffy about non-IE browsers and start writing IE-specific code but this is really unnecessary. The ability should be there to change it for those websites that are just ignorant of non-IE browsers (to be followed up by a cross email from the user!) but surely such a standards-compliant browser shouldn’t default to disguise itself? We should be getting people out of the habit of writing IE-centric code and then instantly barring all other browsers or providing inferior code, not quietly running along with it.

I also think that the opposite is true, that it’s necessary to be honest about which browser you are because there are IE-specific options (channels I think, HTA, some more will come to mind) that are perfectly legitimate to use in IE and useful! but cause errors to the poor unseasoned user in Opera, and in those cases it’s not the webmaster’s fault at all!

I’m still getting used to Opera and overall I’m impressed with the amount you can customise, could do with a few bug fixes though! Roll on 7.01

I try to avoid discussing that whole ‘war’ thing because I’m still unconvinced either way, but it seems that the masses (all 56 of them) reckon Bush has gotten his aims wrong anyway, and should be attacking Canada instead…. I love sarky polls.

Found via MediaWhoresOnlineWatchWatchWatchWatch – no, really.

I always find the most interesting sites when I’m supposed to be busy doing other things.

Acts of Volition is a site that discusses, in extraordinary detail, various aspects of the Semantic Web, W3C standards and various blogging issues. It’s a very nicely designed site and extremely well written – just wish it was on Blogwise already ;-).

I’ll be adding it to my list of sites shortly, alongside Dave2002 – an interesting blog written by David M., who regularly updates with posts reflecting his experience with setting up the site.

Hooray \o/ Final exam was today. Means I can get back to doing more useful things…

The exam was about Software Analysis and Design, since you asked. Part way through my mind started wandering, and for some unknown reason I started trying to work Fatboy Slim song titles into the answers. Some were quite easy: “Java was our weapon of choice“, Because we Can was a piece of piss, Michael Jackson made an appearance as one of my team member’s names (we had to use fake names to protect the guilty…)

Slightly more difficult would’ve been You’re Not From Brighton, The Rockafeller Skank, and Love Island for example, but hey – I’ve got to take these exams seriously 😉

I hate exams.

184 pending submissions on Blogwise.
exams begin Monday.
145 emails to deal with.
Want to redesign a site….

This weekend will be busy. 🙁

In other news…., I suck at bowling..

Does anybody out there know if there’s a UK-based version of Cafépress? I have loads of ideas for T-shirts, clocks, etc. but I’d rather avoid all the import costs and delays. I looked around and I can’t believe there’s nothing there.

This was the Guardian’s G2 cover yesterday. A lot of people have been completely annoyed at this language, although however you view it this shock piece of “art” (their definition of art is another blog’s worth…) I reckon the Guardian has probably picked up a fair amount of publicity and possibly a good few extra readers because of it, more than “will never read such filth again”. I certainly doubt that this has done them an extraordinary amount of damage or the editor would have never released such a controversial cover with such ease…

The BBC reports that researchers in New Zealand have discovered that memory problems may be part-perceived, rather than wholly induced by alcohol. Students who thought they were drinking Vodka showed signs of memory loss, despite actually being given tonic water with lime. Bunch of lightweights 🙂