Diverse Ramblings

Applied Maths - what was I thinking?

There has been a distinct lack of posting on this blog lately because I've been busier than usual.

This Monday I'm sitting for my Applied Maths A-Level and I realised that trying to study when you have a full-time job, a husband, a flat and a cat is a whole new kettle of fish. I study on the bus, I study during my lunch break, I study in cafes, I study in the middle of rehearsals... *sigh*

Just two days to go *meep* and I am wading through mechanics like nobody's business. Well I did most of this stuff already as part of my Physics A-Level or as part of my degree, but some of it is new stuff and some of it I never really got in the first place.

I am hating differential equations, but I love that today I did an entire topic (shear force and bending moment diagrams) in a relatively short time because it was one of my favourite subjects back in Uni. Heheheh.

When I decided to sit for this exam, it was part of my "Sit an A-Level every two years" master plan, which has the ultimate aim of preventing stagnation of my brain. Then for the in-between years I do musical theatre exams instead, which fall at around the same time of year. I was thinking of doing chemistry, and started working on it, and then decided that no way, it was much too hard. Lol.

But Applied Maths didn't sound too bad because I'm already familiar with the subject. Now in the pre-exam weekend I am panicking a bit because I haven't been through ALL the topics yet, I'm struggling on a couple of the more esotric ones, I am not doing so well on the past papers... aagrh! What was I thinking?

Well, we'll see how it goes.

After the raging success that was my English A-Level two years ago (I got an A, along with four other people out of the 819 who sat the exam), I thought I would aim high this time too. I doubt I'll get an A though, that was a bit too optimistic.

If I did, I would totally skew the statistics for this subject - there are generally less than twenty people who take this exam every year, hardly anyone goes above a C, and there aren't even any official statistics because the sample size is so small.

Mind you, I can see why the grades aren't that high - there's a lot of pure maths in it, but anyone taking Applied at A-Level won't be taking Pure at A or I and therefore will be missing a lot of background. And there's probably too much "applied" content to allow much time for teaching the "pure" background that is so important. Pure Maths A-Level is an absolute NIGHTMARE but I will be the first to say that it left me with a good grounding.

I realised earlier this week that there is a much greater chance that I will actually study if I prepare a space with everything I need already there. So I cleared off a desk that my sister had donated to us (my proper desk is full of PC, old-skool monitor, speakers, telephone etc) and I put all my study stuff there.

This is what my study desk looked like yesterday, with textbooks, past papers, highlighters to mark what I need to study (yellow for paper I, orange for paper II), water bottle, file paper, calculator, pen, kitchen timer for timing study sessions, chocolate cupcake for motivation, and cute toy for mindless moments. What more could an aspiring student need?

This is what my study desk looks like today, several hours of use later. I ditched the timer because the ticking bugged me, had to dig out an engineering textbook because the applied maths textbooks I got don't cover one of the topics, Jenny ran away with the remains of the cupcake (who knew that cats like chocolate cupcake?) and as you can see I'm using a lot of bits of trees. *sigh*

The blob on the chair is Fuzzball, the newest member of our little family. I'll blog more about him later.

I'm off to bed, thoroughly fed up with calculating collisions and closest approaches (one of the topics I don't remember ever doing before).

Just remember, for collision or interception to take place, the relative velocity must lie on the relative displacement vector. Or something like that.

Xarabank on Cyberspace - The Evils Of The Internet

I watched yesterday's Xarabank programme through the streaming available on di-ve.com, because I wanted to write about it and I can't really criticise if I don't actually know what happened. I didn't watch the programme live because in our house, Friday night is for the Living TV line-up of Moonlight followed by Criminal Minds followed by CSI. Priorities...

So, I watched the entire programme tonight and followed along by writing a transcript, and then extracted the major themes. I've put the list of themes at the very, very bottom of this post - it's a long one!

Xarabank focused mostly on relationships, probably because human interest stories make for good ratings. They spent quite a lot of time talking about social networking sites, in particular Hi5, and chatrooms (mostly mIRC). There were three sweet stories about people meeting friends/boyfriends/spouses online and then In Real Life, but mostly the programme was about the evils of the internet. Porn, bullying, the exploitation of children by strangers, scams, hate sites, online gambling were all mentioned. Blogs were not mentioned at all. Education via the internet was not mentioned. The ability to do good via the internet was not mentioned. Pursuing hobbies and finding support in difficulty such as illness were not mentioned. There were huge gaping holes in the programme, which is a shame, and calling it "Cyperspace" was too general. Really there is enough material about the internet to cover multiple episodes - if they can do one episode about the evils of the internet, wouldn't it be great to follow with another episode about all the cool things you can do online?

At the beginning of this programme, there wasn't even a brief explanation about what the internet is, so I imagine that most viewers over a certain age probably watched with bemusement.

There was a panel, and a couple of other guests. Of the panelists, only ONE seemed to be a geek, or at least familiar with the use of the internet (he used expressions like IRL), and it was nice to see him jumping in with some good points such as there are other bad sites on the Net other than porn sites, and that people do bad things to each other offline as well as on. Of the rest of the panelists, most of them had an axe to grind about some particular aspect of The Evil On The Internet. A couple of times different people said "the internet can be used for good things too but..." and we never got to hear about those good things.

My point is, yes people should know about the bad stuff that is out there, but by only focusing on one side you leave the viewers with a bad impression. Overall there were some good points raised about online safety, which is great, and any non-savvy parents who were watching now have a better idea about helping their children stay safe online. But I wish that the programme had been more balanced, by covering some positive topics or having more geeky people up there.

I loved the clips from the Cyber Crimes unit, the guys did a great job explaining how they monitor social networking sites, how to check the authenticity of scam emails, and what happens when a computer is impounded. I had no idea they were checking up on social networks, I think that's a great idea.

Because I was bored, earlier in the week when I knew the theme of the Xarabank programme and of its probable bias, I wrote the following about how I use the Internet as part of my life. There's loads of people like me whose internet use is not limited to Hi5 and mIRC, but maybe we're not interesting enough ;-)

For the bloggers:

I phoned Xarabank on Sunday following a tip-off from Jacques that they were interested in having bloggers for this Friday's programme, which will be about the Internet.

Xarabank contacted me this afternoon to say that there are some places left in the audience that they would like to offer to "the bloggers" (audience members are able to comment during the programme). I don't know how long these places will be kept free, so if you are interested in going, contact Claire on 21249200 and say that you're a blogger.

Bloggers vs. People Who Blog

Insite, a student media publication, has published interviews with three bloggers: Jacques René Zammit who blogs here, Sandro Vella who blogs here, and Daphne Caruana Galizia who blogs here.

The most interesting part of the interviews was the varying answers to the last question, "What effect did local blogs have on the outcome of what has been called 'Malta's first dotcom election'?"

Sandro said not much, and Jacques said that the attention given to blogs such as his caught political parties and the mainstream media by surprise and prompted the creation of more blogs, and Daphne said that there was a strong effect.

I was most amused by the huge difference between Sandro's and Daphne's attitude towards blogging. You can tell that Sandro is a real blogger and I loved his long, rambling answer about his favourite blogger(s). He finished off by saying...

We bloggers form an inclusive party. Let us extend this our family. It shall not be a new beginning or even wind of change but we shall continue to build upon that which we have built. If you open a blog you may find peace of mind that nobody will give you a transfer. With blogs everything is possible.

Shame on you if you choose not to open a blog. Don't be a chicken. Face up to reality and create a blog!

By comparison, when asked about her favourite blogger, Daphne's reply was, "I’m not really into this kind of thing. I only read a couple of blogs."

My favourite quote from her interview was in response to the question "How do you think your blog is perceived by the rest of the blogging community?"

Is there a blogging community? That comes as a surprise. I know there are many people who blog, but that is about the only thing we have in common.

In conclusion: Sandro and Jacques are bloggers, Daphne is someone who blogs.

Techno-kitteh

Bloggers Meetup Dec 07

On Saturday a bunch of Maltese bloggers (plus a couple of non-bloggers) met up at the Vitorja band club in Mellieħa. I had previously only met two of the people there, but no worries, they were a friendly bunch. Thanks Jacques for organising it!

Quiche, Kinnie, Twistees and Cisk comprised the refreshments.

There was an extra chair or two at the table, so every so often someone would get up and move to an empty chair, and this was great because I got to talk to almost everyone instead of just four or five people.

Below are examples of some of the conversations I had in the course of the evening. Haven't had this much fun in ages, and we definitely need to do this more often!

Claire Commando and Annalise - the trials and tribulations of first-year law studies

Ninuhadida (surely the coolest nic) - electronic music

Rene - various internet-based technologies, and related entrepreneurs

Jacques - the superiority of the tea served in the Vitorja band club

Wen - cats, Christmas trees, and home loans

David - the pros and cons of a capitalist society

Rupert - the geneology and geographic distribution of the Cefai clans in Malta

Vlad - the rise, fall and future of the Maltese bloggosfera

Sandro - pros and cons of having a bilingual blogg

Unfortunately I didn't get to spend much time with the rest of the people there such as Jean Paul and Neebother - maybe next time!

What they're drooling over in the USA

But with a price tag of Lm159, no-one on my Christmas list is getting a Wii from me. Apparently since there is such a supply-and-demand problem in the USA, there's good money to made flogging Wii-related merchandise on ebay.

Twenty Questions

Wen tagged me with a meme...

Instructions: remove one of the twenty questions and replace with one of your own. Then tag eight people.

1. At what age do you wish to marry? Already married, three months ago at age 26.

2. If you were to be stranded on a desert island, who are the 3 blog buddies you would take with you? Why?
I would take Athena because that woman can really cook.
I would take Coemgen because he's a nurse and could handle our medical emergencies.
And I would take Jacques because the man would be so desperate to blog that he'd get us rescued by any means possible.

3. Where is the place that you want to go the most? I don't know - I'd like to visit Ireland and New Zealand for the scenery (WOW) and Scotland/Australia/South Africa to visit relatives.

4. If you could have one dream come true, what would it be? Be given a huge amount of money so that I never have to work again, hahaha. Then I would laze around all day reading.

5. What's the best compliment you've ever received? I can tell you're your father's daughter.

6. What are you afraid to lose the most? My husband :-)

7. If you win $1 million, what would you do? Buy a cute car, upgrade our flat, travel a bit.

8. If you meet someone that you love, would you confess to him/her? Or would you keep it to yourself and observe from afar? Am already in love (with husband) but at the time I did keep it to myself. We got together through a match-making friend.

9. List 3 good points of the person who tagged you. Wen is kind-hearted, loves books, and can cook.

10. If you could go back in time, would you like to change something in your life? What would it be? I would like to have learned about ten years earlier than I did, that other people's opinions aren't really that important after all.

11. Which type of person do you hate the most? People who lie and swindle other people, and won't help anyone unless they'll be getting something out of it.

12. What is the thing that will make you think he/she is bad? Not caring about the welfare of someone else.

13. What is your ambition? To combine having a family with a fulfilling job.

14. Christmas is coming, who do you like to celebrate with? Family and close friends.

15. What do you think is the most important thing in your life? My husband and our relationship.

16. Are you a shopaholic or no? Depends what I'm shopping for, but yes in recent years I have discovered a latent shopaholic streak. My husband dreads hearing the words "I'm going shopping".

17. Which actress or actors you would like to be? Well the actress I admire the most is Emma Thompson because she's clever, funny, a great actress, and can write too.

18. It would be 2008 in a few days, do you have a new year’s resolution? The same as for the last five years: I resolve not to make any New Year's resolutions.

19. Do you have any plans for tomorrow? Going to church, where I'll perform in the choir and coax the kiddies through their 30-second performance, and then off to the theatre to watch the Panto dress rehearsal. Yay!

20. My question: what is one of your all time favourite books, and why? The Time Traveller's Wife is one of my favourites because it's such a great story combining much love (aaaah) with time travel (cool).

I tag: anyone who wants to do this.

I keeell you!

Politically-incorrect ventriloquism, always amusing.

Look after the environment, you only get one.

Today is blog action day, so I thought I'd write a few lines while waiting for supper to finish cooking (Michael's work, of course, not mine).

One of my pet environmental peeves is littering, simply because it's so unnecessary. Would it kill you to take two extra steps when you get off the bus, to drop your ticket into a bin? And why do you assume it is your right to use the streets as you personal ashtray? And there is never any excuse for chucking wrappers out of your car window. Be a grown-up, take your litter home.

End of rant.

Remember, Captain Planet says, the power is yours to save the environment!

Meme-ness

I got tagged over at ninuhadida.com, and it's been a while since I last did a meme, so here it is:

1. Where is your cell phone? in my handbag as usual.

2. Relationship? Engaged to my honey *grin*

3. Your hair? Medium brown, currently reaches half-way down my back because I've been growing it for the wedding, but I intend to chop it all off shortly after.

4. Your favorite thing? Am I allowed to be all gooey and say "Michael"? Other than that... I love to read. And blog. And play music.

5. Your dream last night? I rarely remember my dreams, they're usually full of the weirdest people and situations.

6. Your favorite drink? Kinnie!

6. Your dream car? A Mini Cooper, because I think they're SO CUTE.

7. The room you're in? Bedroom

8. Your shoes? As comfortable as possible, sporty sandals for preference. Barefoot is better though! Except in winter, when fluffy pink striped bedsocks rule.

9. Your fears? That Michael and I will drive each other crazy living together, lol.

10. What do you want to be in 10 years? White picket fence.

11. Who did you hang out with this weekend? Michael, of course! (are you starting to see a theme in my answers here?)

12. What are you not good at? Relating to people (I was recently accused (lovingly) of being tactless, and have yet to get the hang of small talk).

13. One of your wish list items? A dishwasher!

14. Where you grew up? You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

15. Last thing you did? Chat with Mum about wedding preparations.

16. What are you wearing? Shorts and a t-shirt.

17. What aren't you wearing? Earrings, I seem to have misplaced all my everyday ones.

18. Your pet? My computer, lol.

19. Your mood? tired

20. What are you thinking about right now? I'll give you three guesses...

21. Your car? None yet, maybe in a few months' time. Since a Mini Cooper is rather outside the budget, my car will probably be an ugly yet reliable box on wheels. Might paint it pink, haha.

22. Your kitchen? Very tidy since we don't live there yet!

23. Your summer? Full of wedding preparations.

24. Your favorite color? The berry colours, deep blue, deep red and deep purple (cue the riff)

25. Last time you laughed? This afternoon at work, when Mike cracked a truly inspired joke via sms.

26. Love? is what makes life worth living. Soppy but true.

I tag: anyone who wants to do it. If you don't have a blog, feel free to do it in the comments!

BarCamp Malta?

Darren Barefoot and his wife recently moved here from Canada, to spend some months living in Gozo.

They're thinking of organising a BarCamp here some time in the next six months, and want to get an idea of how many people would be interested. BarCamp is like weekend workshop for geeks, with sessions on all sorts of subjects and everyone's encouraged to participate and lead/facilitate a session too. Lest it sound too dry, remember that geeks know how to party (remember the bloggers meet at the Balzan band club?) so even if you aren't that techy I think you'll still find amusement.

BarCamp sounds cool, so if you're at all interested, please answer Darren's six-question survey (takes about 20 seconds) so that he'll be encouraged to go ahead and organise it!

(and if anyone wants to lend me a laptop for BarCamp, let me know, heheh)

Quote(s) of the week

Quote #1:

"What's an mp3?"
     (yes, there are still people who buy CDs)

Quote #2

"Are you MaltaGirl?"
     (*waves to Claire*)

x1.5 speed

I was watching a TV series on DVD this week, but decided that it was going to take too long to watch all the episodes.

So I found a good workaround - you know how you can fast-forward a DVD? Well the software on my PC, besides the usual speeds, also offers x1.5 speed. Any faster than x2, and the sound is lost completely, and at x2 the action is too fast to understand everything, but x1.5 speed is perfect. The movements are a little jerky and some of the nuances are lost, but if you don't like a series enough to want to fast-forward through it, then you probably won't care about that.

Conversely, if you have too much time on your hands, watching at x0.75 and x0.5 can be hilarious...

I *heart* my geek

For every time I ever disparaged Michael's lack of geek-ness, I apologise...

He was over here the other day, and Middle Sis had the following conversation with him:

Middle Sis: Mike, I need to go to Siggiewi this evening. Can you explain to me how to get there please?

Michael: It's just past Qormi.

Middle Sis: Erm...

Michael: Have you got Google Earth?

Dedicated to Little Sis

I was going to blog, but I have a DVD to watch, so in the meantime have fun reading this comic strip. If you are a geek (and, let us be clear about this, geeks are COOL) then you will love it.

w00t!

It took me about half an hour but I finally found a monitor that is acceptable - the sides of the display curve inwards like those funky containers of low-fat salad dressing or drinking chocolate, but hey, the text is legible and I can live with this.

I have my Berry back! YAY!!!

*pats the tower*

Now I can get on with various temporarily-postponed projects and stop carting my files around from borrowed computer to borrowed computer. Aaaaaah...

The Computer Killer Strikes Again (dah dah dah DUM)

So, after Dad checked out my poor computer and went and bought me a Pentium IV motherboard plus CPU and memory, he rebuilt the computer for me. He offered to let me do it, but I remember the last time I built my own PC (several years ago) and really I'd rather stick to Meccano; you don't bark your knuckles nearly as much, and the pieces are virtually indestructible...

I took my rebuilt tower upstairs, plugged in everything and switched it on.

And...

*kaboom*, there went the new motherboard.

*sigh*

Dad did a postmortem, and ended up taking the PC to the computer shop, where the tech guys decided that I must have jiggled the board when unplugging the monitor. I told Dad to go ahead and buy a second motherboard, which the techies installed, and tonight he brought my beloved Berry* home... but told me to plug in an old Pentium I PC before trying to use mine again.

I lugged the Pentium I upstairs, plugged everything in (I really, really hate plugging stuff into the backs of computers) and switched it on.

And...

*kaboom*

Well, not really, I just THOUGHT it was kaboom because the monitor didn't register the PC, it just kept flashing its annoying grey grid, just like it did with the last two motherboards I blew...

The Pentium I still worked when Dad plugged it into his test bed, so the final diagnosis is that something is wrong with my monitor, and it's possible that the monitor blew the motherboards, not me as such.

Yay. Maybe I'm not a computer killer after all.

Since it was now safe to use Berry, Dad offered me the pick of one of the five old monitors that we have lying around, saying that "a couple of them work reasonably well".

I wondered if I should play eenie-meenie-minie-mo, but Little Sis said "Just pick the biggest one that looks like it won't fall to pieces when you pick it up". Oooof, that thing was heavy.

I plugged Berry into everything including the 'new' monitor, and...

no *kaboom*!!!

It booted!

Hooray!

Well, then there was the little issue of the display and why was I seeing three images of my desktop... turns out the big monitor is not one of the couple that work reasonably well.

I have had enough.

I refuse to plug in another plug tonight.

Tomorrow I will pick another monitor and try it out, but for tonight I'm happy to be sitting in the kitchen blogging on Mum's computer.

Goodnight my friends, and remember, if you have a computer problem... don't call me.

------

* We have to name our computers in this household, because of the internal network. When I bought my PC five years ago, translucent plastic was all the rage, so my tower/monitor/keyboard/speakers/mouse were all made of or featured translucent white and blue plastic. I thought the computer's monitor reminded me of a blueberry so I named him^ Berry.

^ Dad insists that all computer names be male, as he has never had anything but trouble with female-named computers.

Computer Killer

Yesterday was not a good day for me and computers.

My computer kept crashing while booting, and when I tried to use Mum's to check my email, my webmail crashed the browser which crashed her computer and then I couldn't even get it to boot in safe mode...

Having effectively killed two computers, I carefully avoided further contact with all things electronic until Dad got home.

Of course, Mum's computer booted quite happily in his presence, don't you hate it when that happens?

Mine wasn't so easy - the motherboard has died.

Dad will pick up a new one for me tomorrow, and in the meantime I'm borrowing some time on Little Sis's machine. He offered to lend me one for the interim (it's not like we don't have plenty of computers in this household) but I decided it wasn't really worth it for two days.

Actually I'm rather having fun on my sister's computer - it's brand new as compared to my five-years-old clunker, and it's appreciably faster. Unfortunately she'd probably notice if I swapped it with mine, so I'll just enjoy this while it lasts.

Frustration is

having a New Release that's due back tomorrow, and the rubber band inside your DVD drive breaks.

Coolness is when your Dad takes the DVD drive out of his machine and lends it to you.

And self-satisfaction is soloing in successfully removing your DVD drive and connecting up the new one.

Oh yeah.

Pterodactyl Death Throes

Yesterday I finally got around to dismantling the trebuchet that I built ages and ages ago - it's been so long since I touched my Meccano.

While I was at it, I consolidated my two big sets and six little ones into one big set, and sorted into two storage cases that I bought from Tal-Lira a couple of months ago for just such a purpose...

This afternoon, my nose stopped running enough for me to stop feeling so miserable, so I built a... well, I'm not sure exactly what it is, so far it's been described as a bird, a pterodactyl and an insect. It's from page 52 of one of the instruction books, but Meccano doesn't title its models, possibly because their manuals are carefully designed to be purely graphics and numbers, so they are understandable no matter what language you speak.

See the cool curves on this model? That's because it uses flexible metal, which is really cool but difficult to work with because if your hand slips before you tighten the screw, the flexed piece snaps back to its original form and screws/nuts/miscellaneous metal pieces fly into your face like so much shrapnel...

I thought I'd be clever and use my larger motor instead of the smaller one that this model was built around... but it turned out that the design didn't need any extra power after all and the large motor made it look like it was about to disintegrate. The model is built around the motor, so I couldn't really swap motors, but what I could do was take the battery pack apart and step it down from 6 volts to three, so that was OK.

But because I don't have alkaline batteries the new configuration isn't quite strong enough to power the wings, so I have decided to call it... Pterodactyl In Death Throes (click picture for video, 3Mb).

*delete*

Middle Sis finished her thesis the other week and as her nearest and dearest we were glad for her. Her thesis was educational for me too, because I learnt that fish are not like carrots, but when you see someone working so hard, you can't help but be pleased for them when it's finally over :-)

It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed since I finished mine.

I still can't stand to look at it.

This week my stortage of hard-disk space reached critical limits (fancy some mp3 blogs, anyone?) so I finally got around to a chore that I've been avoiding - clearing out all the files from my thesis. It took me all afternoon, urgh, but by careful selection I got them down to a mere three gigabytes and burned them onto five CDs.

Just to be safe, because someday I'd like to go back and work some more on that benighted project, I burned two sets of CDs, it's surprising how long it takes to do that *sigh*

Now my computer is seven gigabytes the freer... lots of room for mp3s, yay...

Of all months to write a novel in...

I have resorted to writing my novel in the oddest places - on bus stops, on buses, during my lunch break at work, anywhere really. I carry a notebook and a pen around just in case.

Last night I typed up my efforts from this last week, and the resulting word count is dismally low. I need to make 50,000 by midnight on November 30th in order to 'win' NaNoWriMo 2005.

So I will make an even bigger effort in the next ten days to write, write, write, while still keeping up with work, preparing for my graduation on the 1st of December and the party two days later, and househunting with Michael. Busy, busy, busy...

The fun part about writing a novel is drawing from real life.

For instance, this week we established that while I may be skilled in various areas, burping on demand is not one of them. Michael tried very hard to teach me, but I just can't do it. A very instructive half-an-hour with him and his siblings the other day inspired me to write a bit for the novel, which just goes to show that you can find something good in any situation, no matter how gross it may be...

Happy Birthday FireFox!

I was too busy earlier in the week, but Toni (who is guestblogging over at Wired Temples this weekend) pointed out that this week sees FireFox's first birthday.

Have a look at some celebratory images, and make one of your own.

Get FireFox or spread FireFox, the open source browser that is taking back the web! And you can also stop by and wish Jacques many happy returns too ;-)

Virus Warning

This evening I received an email, apparently from my Internet Service Provider (ISP), saying that my email account was about to be suspended. ACK! The email said to check the attachment for details, and the attachment was a .zip file.

I almost clicked on it, but years ago Dad drilled it into us that inside seemingly-innocent attachments can lurk deadly viruses, and the message stuck... plus the atrocious spelling in the email was another giveaway...

Dad checked the attachment using his super-geek skillz, and sure enough it was a virus, the Mytob worm to be precise.

So, if you receive an email like the one below, don't be fooled in that it has the name of your ISP in it (wherever "MyISP" appears below). And UPDATE YOUR VIRUS SCANNER! If you update less than once a day, you're wide open... you can probably set your scanner to update automatically.

Subject: WARNING MESSAGE: YOUR SERVICES NEAR TO BE CLOSED.

Dear MyISP Member,

We have temporarily suspended your email account myusername@myISP.net.

This might be due to either of the following reasons:

1. A recent change in your personal information (i.e. change of address).
2. Submiting invalid information during the initial sign up process.
3. An innability to accurately verify your selected option of subscription due to an internal error within our processors.
See the details to reactivate your MyISP account.

Sincerely,The MyISP Support Team

+++ Attachment: No Virus (Clean)
+++ MyISP Antivirus - www.myISP.net

Attachment: important-details.zip

To MUD or not to MUD, that is the question

I spent part of my childhood and youth playing text-based adventure games, and a little while ago tried out a MUD (Multi User Dungeon, which means that other people are playing at the same time, and you can interact with them). I also enjoy a little Shakespeare (yes, yes, it's my pathetic attempt at that whole Renaissance (Wo)Man thing)...

So I was thrilled to find, via Boing Boing (a directory of wonderful things), get this... a text-based adventure game based on Hamlet!!!

The Most Lamentable and Excellent Text Adventure of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Who really killed Hamlet's dad? What does King Richard III want with a horse anyway? And where did the gravedigger get that gorgeous pink dress? Avenge your father, defeat your evil uncle and ascend the throne of Denmark in William Shakespeare's long undiscovered text adventure.

With these games, in case you have never played any (oh sad, deprived person) you are given written descriptions of your surroundings, on the lines of "You are in a large room. There is a table in one corner. There are two exits, one to the north and one to the west." Then you explore the room, mostly using the "look" command.

For instance, you type "Look table" and the program returns a pre-written response "It's an old table that has seen better days. There is a box of matches on it." and to that you would type "Look matches" and get "It's just a box of matches." and then you'd "Take matches", giving "You pick up the box of matches and put it in your pocket".

No doubt that later on, you will find yourself in a pitch-black tunnel, in dire need of, you guessed it... matches!

You can also interact with pre-programmed characters, and sometimes it's quite tricky to find the correct words to elicit the desired response - for instance, the old crone will only give you directions to the tower if you include the word "please" when you "say where is the tower please".

Fun, fun, fun...

Anyway, this adventure looks cool...

> look horatio
Your best friend Horatio, an amiable man with a brown suit and a ginger afro. He looks a little more nervous than usual. In fact, he looks as though he's seen a ghost.

> look ghost
You can't see the ghost here.
Horatio is shivering a bit.

> say hello horatio
Horatio says: "Hamlet! You're not going to believe this, but I saw your father's ghost out on the balcony last night!"

Geekness... *grin*

MaltaDad says.....(3)

So now we move on from System stuff, which makes your computer safer, to productivity stuff, which makes your computer easier and more fun to use.

Start with the Browser. You must have Internet Exploder (no, that's not a typo <g>) as it is commingled with Windows and you need it for running Windows Update. However it is probably the most pathetic browser on the market today (well OK Amaya may be worse).

Try Firefox from www.mozilla.org. It is brilliant and much less susceptible to malware than IE. Nobody I have heard about has moved back to IE after trying Firefox.

Next is the email client. Outlook Express and Outlook are Virus Magnets. Outlook Express in particular will allow any malware in a message to run.

Try Thunderbird from www.mozilla.org. It will import all your Outlook Express settings and messages. (Note that the opposite is not true). That's a safe email client.

Both Firefox and Thunderbird are Free and Open Source.

Next on the list is the all important Office Suite. Microsoft Office is the world's best selling Office application. It is also the world's most expensive one and accounts for a staggering 35% of Microsoft's revenue. Microsoft releases a new version every couple of years to keep the revenue stream going.

The MS Office file formats are unpublished and proprietary. In other words you don't know how your data is stored. MS change the formats from version to version of office in order to push upgrades. If other people upgrade, you have to as well, otherwise you can' read what they send you. If a file gets corrupted then it is very difficult to recover it as you don't really know the format. (For those who may not realise it, if you know how a file is structured you can open it in notepad and fix the corruption! There are however better tools.)

Essentially, Microsoft own your Data!

But there's a way out. There is a new format called Open Document Format which has an open specification. Any application is able to know exactly how a file is structured.

There is also a new(ish) Office suite called Openoffice which is Free (no charge) and Open Source (anybody has access to the source code). The OpenOffice group pioneered the Open Document Format which is now being adopted by other Office Suites. However this week Microsoft declared that they will not support it.

Openoffice 2 is currently in Beta 2 form. ie pretty good but there might be some bugs still there. I am writing this in OpenOffice. There are versions for just about every Operating System. I could exit Linux, fire up Windows and carry on working on this opus without seeing any difference. I could open it with a Mac and hardly notice the difference.

It is not a direct MS Office replacement, doesn't have all the features. On the other hand the features it does not have are the ones that most people don't use.

OpenOffice can be downloaded from www.openoffice.org. Price LM0, size is 100MB so it doesn't take long on ADSL.

It can open MS Office documents (the reverse is not true) and can save in MS Office formats. Warning: there can be some compatibility problems with complex documents using weird formatting, but very few.

Try it, I recommend it highly.

MaltaDad says....(2)

Yesterday I preached “theory”. Today it's action time.

The first thing to do is to safeguard our PCs. What are the threats? The correct answer is: “Viruses, Trojans or Worms, and Spyware". For more info about what they are, Google.

Viruses

The protection against Viruses is, of course, a Virus Scanner isn't it? Answer: NO! It is an updated Virus Scanner. If you don't update the scanner daily you may as well uninstall it.

Most PCs today come with a Virus Scanner installed. The problem is that after a trial period you have to pay for updates. Most people don't realise this and are consequently living in a fool's security paradise.

Most Commercial Virus Scanners are bulky, heavy on Computer Resource Usage (that's a pompous way of saying they slow down the computer) and relatively expensive to run.

I recommend AVG Antivirus. There is an excellent FREE version which is more than adequate. Where Norton and Macaffee bring a Pentium 1 to it's knees, AVG hardly affects it.

Get it from www.grisoft.com. Do NOT EVER try to run 2 antivirus scanners at the same time. Uninstall the one you have and reboot before installing a new one.

That's it! Your virus problems are just about over, as long as you update daily.

Spyware

The next threat to deal with is Spyware. You can consider that there are 2 kinds. Tracking Cookies are relatively innocuous. They enable advertisers to track what websites you visit so that they can target you with specific adverts. However they are a breach of privacy and other users of the PC can easily see where you've been.

More serious are Spyware (and/or Adware) programs. These get installed on your PC and can send information back to the authors. There are programs which steal your passwords and banking details. Others take over your browser and flood you with adverts and porn. Still others set up a mail server on your PC. This then gets used by spammers. They use your resources, you get the blame!

Don't think that because you only visit “nice” sites you are safe. “Nice” sites depend on advertising and many have no compunctions about dumping spyware on you. Solution? There are two worth considering.

AdAware from www.lavasoft.de and Spybot from security.kolla.de

You install them and run them, say, weekly. Spybot offers an “immunisation” facility which should intercept spyware on its way in but I haven't used it so cannot comment on it.

I suggest you get both and use both. They tend to leapfrog each other in performance.

Of course, both are free and frankly superior to the paid for programs available. Read the reviews if you need convincing.

Trojans

Unlike viruses, which spread by email and infected programs, Trojans get into your PC via the network (including the Internet). Tests have shown that a newly installed PC connected to the Internet will be infected within an average of 20 minutes.

In the past 30 minutes there have been 240 probes of my server, mostly from Chinese and Korean computers. If such a probe succeeds then my server will be toast.

Solution: A firewall. Windows XP has one built in. Otherwise try ZoneAlarm from www.zonelabs.com. There is a free version which, when coupled with the programs mentioned above will give you enough protection.

Test: go to www.grc.com, click on Shields Up and then scroll down to Shields Up. Run the test. It will tell you how safe you are.

Our next step is to make life a little more pleasant

SPAM! A word which has come to induce acute depression in many people. You download your mail and most of it is advertising medicines, porn, body parts enlargement and mortgage refinancing. Among the garbage lie the gems of real mail that you really want to read.

Most ISPs offer a filtering service. The problem is that they are trying a “one size fits all” policy so that it cannot be totally effective. If it works for you, fine. Otherwise you need to look at filtering your own.

Once again, the best product is a free one! POPFILE from popfile.sourceforge.net .

Popfile learns as it goes along. Initially you train it by telling what is spam and what isn't. When it makes a mistake you correct it. Soon you're running at 99.7% accuracy or better.

There are 2 versions, cross-platform and Windows only. The cross platform version is more difficult to set up as you first need to install PERL (a programming language). The Windows version installs like any other program and I'd recommend you use that (Unless you're running Linux, in which case most of what I've been writing is old hat to you).

If you've read this far, thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll look at free productivity software.

MaltaDad says....

Call me MaltaDad. One of the joys(?) of parenting is looking after the pets, both living and electronic, while the children are at school, sleeping over or just not bothered that day.

Now add another joy - “Dad, will you look after my Blog for a few days?”.

Well, I've never blogged so let's see if I can do something with this opportunity.

I'm going to write about safe, reliable and free computing. Free does not necessarily mean zero cost or price (but usually does!) but also Freedom – to do what you want with the software - legally.  Safe means that you are not exposing yourself to myriad viruses and spyware programs. Reliable means that when you sit down to a session you do not expect the computer to suddenly pop up an “illegal operation..... I'm about to destroy your work” window.

Essentially the above writes Microsoft out of the equation on all three counts.

It is possible to live in a Microsoft-free world by running a PC on Linux, BSD or some other operating system. However the change can be traumatic unless carefully managed. Most people may opt to live in a Microsoft-reduced world instead. This is possible, desirable and easily achievable.

What's the beef? What's wrong with Microsoft?

1. Digital Rights (or Wrongs) Management

Microsoft have given us ample evidence that the customer does not come first. Big business comes first. MS have put Digital Rights Management into the heart of Windows. In other words, when you come to play a piece of music, or a movie, Windows will decide whether you own it and can be allowed to play it.

I am not condoning piracy but I do believe that entertainment licensing and copyright are a matter between me and the rights holder. The Operating System is there to operate my computer, not to “protect” Hollywood and the RIAA. Windows Vista is going to take this to extremes, look it up if you want to.

Possibly more important is that this same technology can be used to block any kind of speech too. If Bill Gates doesn't like this blog then MS can tell your PC to block it – and you gave them the right to do so when you clicked “I accept” during installation. (But of course you knew that because you read all the licence <g>)

2. Lock-In

Microsoft use proprietary formats and protocols, accessible only by their own software. This means that when you produce a document using MS software, only people who have the same program can read and use it.

Microsoft own your data!

3. Security

Windows was not built on a security model. No amount of patching is going to fix this. Look at Viruses and Spyware. These are able to attack your computer because MS have built unsafe features right into the Operating System. Then, to add insult to injury, MS made Internet Explorer a part of the OS so that the unsafe features of IE were added to Windows.

4. Price and Cost

Microsoft Software is expensive to buy and, worse, expensive to maintain. Think viruses, spyware, crashes, reinstallation.......

I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture.

Tomorrow I'll write about specific programs which will take you a long way towards free, reliable and safe computing. See you!

Google Talk

Google has released their Instant Messaging client Google Talk. Interesting article here.

I haven't talked to anyone on Google Talk yet, but the download and installation was INCREDIBLY fast! The program was up and running in under a minute from when i clicked on "Download".

You log in with your Gmail username and password, and can easily invite the people on your gmail contacts list to start using Google Talk.

You can use audio as well as text in the program, and there's all kinds of rumours flying around about what's in the pipeline. It's in Beta, and who knows how long it will stay that way, lol, since Gmail has been in Beta since its launch almost 17 months ago.

Also, according the article above (can't find any official press releases) Gmail is finally going to be made public, so people don't need an invitation to join. However this will only be open to users in the U.S.A., and part of the registration process will be to provide Gmail with a mobile phone number, and confirm the account by replying to a text message sent to the phone. This is in an effort to cut down on spammers, and seems a bit over-the-top to me. It's not that hard to get an invitation these days anyway, since a few months ago Gmail gave all its users 50 invites each (and keeps topping it up to 50!).

And finally, anyone wanting a gmail account, leave me a comment with your email address or email me at -- maltagirl -- at -- gmail -- dot -- com and I'll send you an invitation :-)

Podcasting bil-Malti

Typepad.com recently rolled out some new features, one of which was support for podcasting.

So, I give you my podcast... in Maltese, heheheh...

*waves to Toni*

I recorded myself on my nifty little voice recorder, uploaded the .wav file to my computer, and used CDex to convert it from a .wav to a .mp3

Then I deleted my thesis blog, created the podcast blog, uploaded the mp3 to the new blog, and wrote the session notes. Typepad automatically created the podcast feed, and there you have it.

I suppose this means I should learn how to edit audio, lol. Don't have time to get into it right now (I have an exam in two weeks), so the podcast that you hear is me rabbiting on, in one take, with all grammar mistakes, stammering, and the occasional lapsus included ;-)

HP-flavoured Myers-Briggs

Via The Blue Sloth, a Harry Potter version of the Myers-Briggs personality test!

I came out as INTP, as always, but look who my character is, heheheh...

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Nellie packed her trunk but forgot her tail

Some months ago, I built the most advanced model in one of my Meccano sets - a walking elephant. I was very proud of it :-)

I'm at the point where I want to use the pieces for something else, but I wanted to film Nellie the Elephant before dismantling her. So here she is (.asf file, 2.5 MB)... there's an unexpected ending, but (a) it's funny, and (b) I can't be bothered to fix it, heheheh.

It doesn't float, but it looks COOL

We were without power for most of the afternoon, meh, and most of my usual time-wasting activities during study breaks were unavailable... no computer, no internet, no TV, my guitar's at church, and Mum was in the room where the piano is. Even reading palled after a while.

Then I remembered that I hadn't yet assembled the "bonus" model that came from collecting all six of the Meccano Starter Kits over Christmas. Boredom problem solved!

A handful of metal and plastic

Becomes a rather nifty catamaran

And with wonderful timing, the power came back just as I finished it :-)

Cooler air for under Lm10

Last week, I was absolutely fed up of theoretical engineering, so I decided that a little practical work would be a good idea.

This guy was featured on both digg.com and slashdot, and I had been turning over his idea in my head for the past few days.

The idea behind it is that of a heat exchanger - passing heat from one fluid (like air) into another fluid (like water). When there are two different objects at different temperatures, heat will always go from the hot one into the cold one. This how a car radiator works - heat passes from the hot engine into the water in the radiator, and then the heat passes from the radiator into the air.

So this guy, who is a civil engineering student in Canada, came up with the idea to build a heat exchanger and stick it on the back of the fan in his room, to cool the air down faster. What he did was to take some copper tubing and attach it to the back of the fan in a spiral, and then run cold water through the spiral.

As the fan sucks air in, the air passes over the cold copper, and heat from the air passes to the copper and into the water inside it. This has the effect of cooling the air down, and therefore you too.

So, one afternoon early last week, I trotted off to the local ironmonger to get the materials.

Tabellina

Via Mark, I found out that Tabellina is now up. Completely bilingual, too :-)

Go on, give them some more Malta samples...

No bubble wrap? No worries...

For everyone out there, who, like me, is in need of a little stress relief...

Go pop some bubbles!

Thesis and podcasts

Yesterday I had a great meeting with one of the people who will be grading my thesis. He is my Reader, which means he actually has to read the 100-page book, poor guy. The Assessors get away with just reading the synopsis.

Anyway, we sat down at a computer in the lab and I went through my synopsis with him, explaining what it is that I am actually doing. He was great, gave me good suggestions, and even lent me a couple of books to help me with a problem I'm having with figuring out the shear moduli.

I'm very glad that went well, especially since whatever grade he finally gives me is worth 35% of the total :-)

Right now, I'm home, and taking advantage of being the only person using the connection to catch up on some of my favourite podcasts.

Muahahahahahaha...

Rules of Computerdom

My Dad just sent me this... this post is dedicated to Owen, Kenneth, Srl and others of their ilk...

Rules of Computerdom
by Jim Woosley

1. There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

2. A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.

3. The programmer's national anthem is 'AAAAAAAARRRRGHHHHH!!'.

4. At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.

5. Beta. Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released. Beta is Latin for "still doesn't work."

6. Computer analyst to programmer: "You start coding. I'll go find out what they want."

7. Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.

8. Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS

9. Hit any user to continue.

10. I wish life had an UNDO function.

11. If your computer says, "Printer out of Paper," this problem cannot be resolved by continuously clicking the "OK" button.

12. It said "Insert disk 3..." but only 2 fit in the drive.

13. Microsoft Windows: computing While U Wait

14. 665.9238429876 - Number of the Pentium Beast

15. I have yet to meet a C compiler that is more friendly and easier to use than eating soup with a knife.

16. My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.

17. Programming graphics in X is like finding sqrt(pi) using Roman numerals.

18. "To know recursion, you must first know recursion"

19. Life's unfair - but root password helps!

20. Mountain Dew and doughnuts... because breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

21. Hey! It compiles! Ship it!

22. "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

23. Intel: We put the "um..." in Pentium.

24. Helpdesk tip #2: When the support analyst says "Click...", wait for the rest of the sentence.

25. BREAKFAST.COM Halted...Cereal Port Not Responding

26. BUFFERS=20 FILES=15 2nd down, 4th quarter, 5 yards to go!

27. As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.

28. Disinformation is not as good as datinformation.

29. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.....

30. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...

31. All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?

32. A good programmer makes all the right mistakes.

33. Managing programmers is like herding cats.

34. "There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true."

35. "A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street."

36. C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.

37. A computer scientist is someone who, when told to "Go to H---," sees the "go to," rather than the destination, as harmful.

38. 1010011010 - The binary number of the Beast

39. APATHY ERROR: Don't bother striking any key. Application has reported a "Not My Fault" in module KRNL.EXE in line 0200:103F

40. "The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a software patch and a user with an idea."
    

*snooze*

It was touch-and-go for a little while there, but I made it through all three of today's lectures *whew*

On Tuesdays I usually have a coffee between my first and second lectures, but then I still get the sleepiest during that second one. I don't know what it is, you'd think I'd be buzzed on caffeine... maybe it's just the subject, lol.

I'm off to lunch (I wonder what the Pasta of the Day is in the canteen) but here's the cutest alarm clock ever - Clocky. It rolls off the bedside table when you hit the snooze button and goes and hides so that when the alarm sounds again you have to get out of bed to turn it off.

I think that would drive me crazy but... it's so CUTE!