Damned Hayfever

I spent most of yesterday (and the night before) suffering from the worst bout of hayfever this year. It took a while for the antihistamines to kick in, so I had 36 hours of sore eyes, runny nose, constant sneezing, and generally feeling rather iffy about things.

I certainly feel a whole lot better today, in fact I'd go as far as to say that I feel more like a human, and less like a mobile snot factory. My nose may never be the same again.

Things are moving slowly with SpankMonkeys!, which is where all by IT / Technical / Geeky articles are going to go from now on. It will take a while for it to get on the Google radar, so I'll be pimping some of the articles on here - just to try and get things going.

Of Chrome and Chromium

You may recall my annoyance at the lack of a Linux implementation of the Chrome browser - and the note on the source code page:

Note: There is no working Chromium-based browser on Linux. Although many Chromium submodules build under Linux and a few unit tests pass, all that runs is a command-line "all tests pass" executable.

Click here to read the full post

This Week on SpankMonkeys!

Some pimpage of my "other" blog. . .

Google Chrome - First Impressions

Google, masters of the search engine, blogging, advertising and God only knows what else, now want the web browser market too.

Read full story here

Older stories. . .

For Sale - One Sun, Slightly Soiled

Latest on the rumour-mill is the possibility of Sun Micro being up for sale, with Microsoft being the potential buyer.

Read full story here


Pystar to Countersue Apple!

According to CNET Pystar, those wacky funsters who have been selling Mac clones (with genuine Apple software) are countersuing Apple!

Read full story here


iPhone Antics

Truth in advertising is a wonderful - if sometimes rare - thing. Apple have fallen foul of the UK's stringent advertising laws with their iPhone adverts.

Read full story here


Microsoft takes toughter measures against XP "Pirates"

They're at it again. The "Windows Genuine Advantage" (WGA) programme is being toughened up to make life less pleasant for users of pirated software. As well as a permanent watermark on screen, the desktop background will change to a plain black colour, and will revert to this once every hour if the wallpaper is changed. These changes are only being done against Windows XP Pro, because they are "focusing on the product edition that is most often stolen."

Read full story here


I Love IM - NOT!

I'm starting to develop a serious dislike for Instant Messenging. Don't get me wrong, it can be a useful tool to keep in touch with people, or at least it is if they use the same protocol as you.

Read full story here


Hans Reiser - Sentenced

Hans Thomas Reiser, former Linux file system guru, was sentenced to 15 years to Life yesterday (Oakland, California). Hans confessed to the murder of his wife (Nina) as part of a plea bargain which reduced his minimum sentence from 20 years.

Read full story here


KDE - The Long Shutdown

As the Alice Cooper song goes "It's the little things that drive you wild," and that is certainly true with KDE4.

Read full story here


Ubuntu on Macbook G4

I like Ubuntu - I'm not ashamed to say it. Don't get me wrong, it isn't perfect but it has a nice balance between speed and ease of use.

Read full story here

The Experiment

By way of an experiment I've started a second blog (which you can get to here).

This is where I'm going to experiment a bit with things, both with my writing and also with how I run and promote a blog.

There will be NO traffic increasing tactics used on it. That's right, none.

It will be interesting to see if word of mouth (and searches from Google) is enough to get a blog noticed.