Tom Fotherby
Gnome Cat Brush
To further prove our cat is a geek, her brush has the Gnome Logo on it! I have also realised that Cypher is a good Halloween cat seeing as she’s black and witch-like:
New Job at PeoplePerHour.com (11/Nov/08)
I have a new job. I’m going to be working at a small startup developing a recruitment website called www.peopleperhour.com. I’m very excited! It certainly ticks the boxes in terms of things I wanted from my next job: Must have: At the bare minimum, at least 50% of my time should be spent coding. Yes, […]
Ubuntu 8.10 on Sony VGN-AR51E
After installing Ubuntu 8.10 on my Sony laptop (VGN-AR51E) this is a list of some of the configurations I’ve made: Fixes The web-cam (MotionEye – Ricoh USB r5u870) doesn’t work, I think the driver isn’t in the kernel for Ubuntu 8.10. In fact, /dev/video0 is completely missing (see bug 255678). This is how to fix: […]
New release of Ubuntu – “Intrepid Ibex”
I upgraded to the new Ubuntu 8.10 release and found it included a few improvements. These are some of my favourite: Nautilus now has tabs so you can middle-click folders to open them in a new tab. The included version of F-Spot has had a bug fixed so it now correctly imports comment metadata from […]
Introducing Cypher, Our New Cat (Family++)
The bad news is that we’ve got a cat. The good news is that it’s a geek like us. She’s called Cypher (“Cypher Tarball Fotherby” in full) and cost £50 from a RSPCA rescue home. She’s already spayed and chipped but we need to get her some injections before she can go outside.
Asus Eee-PC 900 – 3/Sep/08
This laptop can be summed up in one word: “Cute”. It’s just perfect for traveling: 9 inch screen Weights only 1KG Solid-state disk drive (very bump/knock resistant) Wi-Fi Built in camera for Skyping Card Reader so you can store holiday snaps. I bought this laptop for two reasons, firstly to help plan our road trip […]
Fothofax v0.41 (Oct/08)
Seeing as I have needed to organise my time more than usual lately (because I have more of it!) I made an update to my calendaring software called FothoFax and released version 0.41. It now supports events that span multiple days and has the ability to colour the background of a day. Anniversaries are handled […]
Stitching Photos Together (16/Oct/08)
Hugin works like magic to stitch photos into a panoramic even without using a tripod. After doing the tutorial on the Hugin website, Kix used 3 photos to create this larger one: The funny thing is that, if you look closely, there is a man in the photo that appears twice! This is because he […]
The Food in the US
You wouldn’t believe what they have as a optional extra at the Universal Studios theme park in Los Angeles… An unlimited food pass for THE WHOLE DAY. All the pie people (like me) walk around with bright pink arm bands that allow you, at any time in the day as often as you like, to […]
Wildlife in the U.S.
We saw a lot of wildlife while in the US, it was one of the best things about our trip. Often the animals we saw were in their natural environment and protected from humans by the rules of the National Parks. These were our top five wildlife encounters: A Bob Cat in Yosemite Sea Lions […]
Scorpion Trail (Geoffrey Archer)
Fiction, 3/10 – October 2008 I read this because I had got though all the other books on my holiday. It seemed to be war based so I was hoping for something action packed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t packed with action and wasn’t gripping. The characters didn’t come alive for me and I didn’t find the […]
Gridlinked (Neal Asher)
Sci-Fi, 7/10 – September 2008 What if you could have Google hardwired into your brain? Then you would be “gridlinked” like Special Agent Ian Cormac has been for thirty years – ten over the max. The book explores what it may be like to be unplugged after being fused with machines for so long. I […]
Car Scratch (20/Sep/08)
I had a small scrape against a stealthed rock which I assumed the car hire company wouldn’t be too impressed with: They actually were very understanding and just told me “don’t worry about it” – I therefore rate Alamo very highly and will hire from them again if I get the chance. The funny thing […]
Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh)
Fiction, 6/10 – September 2008 The characters are bold and striking and interesting, especially Sebastian Flyte. I didn’t find the book to have a proper story in terms of a beginning, middle and end but perhaps it’s more accurate to say it has too much story. It covers faith, alcoholism, painting, the decline of English […]
In the Beginning… was the command line (Neal Stephenson)
Programming History, 7/10 – September 2008 This is basically a short diary of the thoughts of Neal Stephenson about Microsoft, Apple, Linux and user interfaces. Tech is a hard subject to write about in an interesting way but Neal can do it well and obviously has a rich history and deep understanding of technology – […]
