Elly Williams’ Weblog

So, I have a slight problem getting my site to validate at the moment, which I’d appreciate some help figuring out. It goes something like this:

• Wordpress produces XHTML
• Therefore, this site has a lot of XHTML in it that I can’t control (my php skills are not up to editing anything server-side)
• del.icio.us automatically posts my link entries as HTML (minus the eX)
• Therefore, this site also has a lot of HTML in it that I can’t control
• Some of the XHTML won’t validate as HTML and some of the HTML won;t validate as XHTML
• Therefore, my site doesn’t validate.

So, I guess my problem is

• How much does it matter?
• How much do I care?
• Can I do anything about it either way?

So, there’s something that I’ve noticed about Twitter:-

To all those people who wonder if the constant stream of other-people’s-consciousness is distracting, the answer is – not really, until it goes away.

I’ve become used to the notifier in the bottom corner of my screen popping up from time to time, but increasingly TwitterIM is down and I find I have to go and manually check if everyone is still around.

Anyone else find this?

I learnt how to create your own Batch Operations in Photoshop yesterday.

I used this Batch Operations Tutorial from Slightly Remarkable. It’s incredibly easy.

Open one of the pictures in Photoshop, and begin recording an Action (it’s basically the Adobe term for “macro”). You should be able to hit the “Actions” tab in your History/Actions/Tool Presets window to see the default Actions that come with Photoshop. All you have to do from there is hit the circle (record), [record the actions you want repeated], and then hit the square (stop) in the Actions window. Now that you’ve recorded the action, you can tell Photoshop to open a large number of images, run the specified Action, save the images (or copy them as changed to a new directory), and close them, all automatically.

And it means cropping 120 images takes 5 minutes instead of 5 hours.

“More than 10% of net users are going online with the Firefox browser, show figures from analysis firm One Stat.

The global average of 11.5% is the highest percentage of users that the open source browser has ever reached.

The research also reveals that Americans are the biggest fans of Firefox with 14.1% using it. In the UK 4.9% use it to get around online.

It is thought that continuing news stories about security problems in Internet Explorer are helping to fuel the move away from Microsoft’s program.

In recent months, browsers, toolbars and the technology around them have become the new front line in the war between the web’s biggest companies – Microsoft, Google and Yahoo – to grab and keep hold of users.”

BBC NEWS | Technology | Firefox fanbase reaches new high

It’s been a bit quiet here recently (apart from the spammers). This is because in the midst of leaving my job, moving 300miles north, buying a flat and adopting a dog, I have been pretty much entirely without internet since the end of June. It may be a while before I’m properly connected up again, but I just thought I should say that I’m ok, and that Newcastle is treating me very well.

Anyway…

This article on the unfathomability of various web-terms, by the british public(via Simon) got me thinking back to a conversation I had with a colleague about six months ago. He asked “What’s the difference between a chatroom and a blog?”. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I’m fairly sure I gave a thoroughly unsatisfactory answer.

Let’s try the question another way.. In terms that you would use to a taxi driver, landlord or hairdresser…

A chatroom is a to a blog, what a [---] is to a [---]

debate is to a lecture?

conference call is to a letter?

free-for-all is to a committee?

This email puts me in mind of one of those puzzleboxes where you have to shuffle all the pieces around in order to see what the picture is. I’m not entirely sure what’s happened – even changing the browser & font sizes didn’t fix this… not that I was particularly interested in what they had to say.

Zoom Layout Microformat + Javascript + Greasemonkey = “I know Kung-Fu”…. or rather, I wish I did.

Just to add to the “Holy Cow” sentiment of teleporting becoming a near reality, it appears that they’re now working on suspended animation too…

Scientists have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

Pittsburgh’s Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject’s veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.

And there I was assuming that most people were perfectly happy with sci-fi staying fictional…

Boffins create zombie dogs | The Other Side | Breaking News 24/7 – NEWS.com.au (27-06-2005)

I don’t know, first The Queen gets and iPod, and now she’s a usability consultant for Sony. Next thing you know she’ll be hacking government websites and playing counter-strike in the basement.

Holy Cow!!

Computer scientists in the US are developing a system which would allow people to “teleport” a solid 3D recreation of themselves over the internet.

Their original plan was for the application to work in face-to-face interaction.

“I’m in Pittsburgh, and you’re in London. How do we make that happen?” Dr Mowry said.

“We can’t teleport somebody, nobody’s going to travel anywhere, but if we’re in our own rooms a system of cameras will capture exactly what’s in each room.”

“That information is turned into some representation – a three-dimensional version of an mpeg [computer video file] – like a DVD,” Dr Mowry added.

“You capture it digitally, ship it over across the network, and then reproduce a physical object that looks just like the original object, and moves just like it.”

And he stressed this would be useful for much more than simple video conferencing.

“It’s very artificial to talk to somebody through a glass wall, which is effectively what you have when you have a screen,” he added.

“You want to forget the fact that you’re in different rooms.”

BBC NEWS | Technology | ‘Teleporting’ over the internet

Microsoft is putting a key web technology at the heart of its most popular programs.

By late 2006 all the files created by users of its Office suite of software will be formatted with web-centred XML specifications.

The decision marks a big change to Microsoft’s existing proprietary file formats that can be hard to work with.

Microsoft said the changes should make it much easier for companies to do more business via the web.

*closes eyes, crosses fingers and cries ‘please let them not screw this up’*

And then I remember that it’s Microsoft who have “supported XML in Office since 2000 within the HTML formats in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.” That is, their own version of HTML that only bears a passing resemblance to anything the rest of the web is doing.

“Microsoft is basing its file formats on the XML 1.0 specification.” Is that going to be in the same way that O Brother Where Art Thou was based on The Odyssy…..

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft adopts web file styles (hang on … xml is about structure not style..)

A security firm has proved that todays cars cannot catch computer viruses.

After exhaustive testing Finnish security firm F-Secure has failed to make a virus leap from a mobile phone handset to a car’s onboard communications system.

F-Secure did the tests in response to rumours that some Lexus cars had been infected by a virus.

But the phone system on the vehicle did not respond to any of the attacks tried out by F-Secure researchers.

Well, that’s a relief!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Cars safe from computer viruses

A UK university [Derby] is trying to get women to apply for a computer games programming degree…. making a special effort to persuade women that solitary hours in front of a computer screen can be good for their career prospects.

Acting programme leader, lecturer John Sear, said: “Girls do want to play games but no-one is making games for them.”

He said there had been some attempts to make, as it were, “pink” games specifically for girls, but with limited success. So summer schools were one idea to let young women see what was available – and that programming did not have to be all about “boys’ toys”.

So, let me get this straight… in order to make games programming more inclusive, less about “boys’ toys”, and generally more appealling you’re going to tell me that I can’t play with the boys, that I need my own games (specifically made and marketed for me) and that sitting in the dark on my own is good for my career!!??? No wonder there aren’t any games for girls, if the people at the top think this is in any way appealling.

BBC NEWS | Education | Women wanted as games programmers

About a month ago I updated my blogroll to add in XFN relationships. Not being a coder I was fairly proud of myself at the time.

Anyway, after a month of not getting around to it, I’ve released it properly for anyone who wants to use it and the plugin now has it’s own page.

[The Robot Shopping Assistant] uses radio frequency identification tags to locate items and a laser range finder to avoid collisions.

It was created by professor Vladimir Kulyukin at Utah State University and shop floor trials have already begun….

“People think we’re trying to replace guide dogs, bur we’re not” Prof Kulyukin told the BBC News website.

“The idea is that you simply come to the grocery store, grab the shopping assistant and it leads you to the different products. When you leave the store you leave it behind.”

Cool…. how long before I can get one at home that I can send to do the shopping for me?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Robots to help out blind shoppers