Ohio USA

Oh, and I woke up today after dreaming that I jumped a plane to Ohio with an open ticket. I think it's time I holidayed in the US of A for a while ;)

Warcraft 3 & CD's

I found an awesome way to listen to CD's the other day...Just turn down the volume in Warcraft 3! I have trouble listening to CD's without actually actively doing anything, and if I do anything that requires concentration, then I don't pay attention to the CD playing hehe.

Lately I've been playing a lot of Tower Defence (TD), especially one called Cube. It's touted as 'the most technically advanced TD'. I'm not sure about that, but it certainly is fun :)
Theres a whole bunch of other good TD's available in this TD map-pack .

Winter Conference 2006!

Wow, what an awesome function! I tell you what guys, the more the merrier for sure at a function :)
Heres some pics of the people and the highlights. Because of the lighting, I had to individually adjust the whitebalance on all afterwords (and downsample), so if they are small / discolored slightly then you'll just have to fill in the blank with your memory!

The function hall itself. We were early, so we got front row seats! That blur is Mr Ian Sinclair, respect!

Some of the boys just setting up before the function starts

Mr Pin, getting recognized, and preparing to move onto the next pin!

Gee, that looks like a man getting ready to make some money, recognize! ;)

Faster than a camera shutter, and way more entertaining than a uni assignment the night before it's due, Pat Mesiti (WOO!)

Pat is definately a very excitable character...

...Especially where props are involved!

Lunchtime, with the going-Silver group!

Definately a man in the know here!

Good times - just wait until Hawaii boys!

Rob, looking like he's dissapointed about not going Diamond fast enough - Don't worry, we'll all get there Rob!

Jordan, showing Winston where there bling is at with 'the ring' (I'm pretty sure Winston already knows though!!!)

Repeat after me: I will get to Hawaii I will get to Hawaii I will get to Hawaii (or as Rob says "aooouuu-oouuuu-aaaaa"!)

Ian, taking all the glory in this shot!

It's that thug, Peter Shack, demonstrating to us all how to break legs (he's been doing that for years though!)

When we get to Hawaii next year, I just know that you'll BOTH be smiling!!

The Broad's, doing what they do best - helping us (feel privilages to learn from the best guys)!

This is Barry Pragt...

...And this is a close up of the novelty cheque (which is backed by a real one) - how do you like them apples!!!

Peter explaining to us the meaning of the Cup. I don't remember Pauline saying anything here, but hey, someone has to stand next to Peter and look pretty! :)

Give me a big Ferris Beuler "Awwwwwwwww yeaaaaahhh!" - that'll be our group winning that next year guys! :)

Winston and Joy, styling it up!

Hah, I told you Pat was really there, now you have to believe me! :)

Rob, and two other members of his family - can you spot them! :)

The fabulously wealthy Julie Swaffield!

This is at the end, when Pauline was saying things she shouldn't - gotta' love Sanguines! And of course Peter, the melencholy, is in the background doing the Mona Lisa thing on me... ;)

Mac Ads - Parody

Along the same theme of the previous post, I found a parado of the Mac Ads (released before the current ads). So, faithful Google Video gives us the web-friendly video!

Apple Ads - Parody

Mac Ads

I read about the Mac ads that have been on TV in the USA today. So I googled them. Not surprisingly, apple.com provides them...in Quicktime format! Geez, not everyone wants to install proprietary software.

So I headed on over to Google Video and searched for Mac Ads. Hey presto, flash movies of the mac ads!

I think they're in prtty good tasted. Here are the links to Google Video for each one, in alphabetical order ;)

Better


ILife

Networking

Out Of The Box

Restarting

Touche`

Viruses

Wall Street Journal

ID4

Well I just finished watching ID4 (again). I haven't watched if for about 4 years. I must say, the acting in it was pretty...attrocious ;)
Will Smith definately has the best lines. I don't think any lines in The Day After Tomorrow could touch the part where he is complaining about having to drag the alien around in his parachute :)
All in all, nice SFX, but The Day After Tomorrow beats it on that angle. I guess thats what 8 years of SFX progression does. It's nice to see the progression in two similar themed movies. ID4 is more humourous though, less serious than The Day After Tomorrow . Always good for a change!

Friends Reuinuted (.com.au)

Well I just listed myself on friendsreuinuted.com.au - I thought it'd eat up a few minutes while I was waiting for an email to come through. I tell you what, it's strange to see your ex-girlfriend listed on there. Not because it brings back memories (there arn't that many), but simply because of what everyone used to tell me. It's a mythical name, "Remember xxxx??". How can I forget, when you keep reminding me :)

Download The Internet?

Just saw this on W3Schools . Having worked in IT Helpdesk, I find it amusing :)
For anyone who doesn't understand: clicking the image will NOT download the internet!



Edit: This Blogger template is a fixed width...I actually had to resize the image by hand. Now it's hardly readable :/
I'll have to change the template soon(ish) I think...

Expect Scripting

I attempted expect scripting for the first time today. I must say, if I used it more, I'd be writing a complete tutorial to it. I had trouble finding a good, verbose, tutorial on it. As it is, I'll just post a (working) version of my scp script that uses expect to automate the process:


#!/usr/bin/expect --
set localfile [lindex $argv 0]
set timeout 30
spawn /usr/bin/scp $localfile user@host:~remotedir

expect {
"password:" {
send "mypass\r"
interact
} "yes/no)?" {
send "yes\r"
set timeout -1
} timeout {
exit
} eof {
exit
}
}


What this does, is take an argument off the command line as the local file, and copies it to the remote server as hard coded in the file. I wanted to keep it simple, but the two things I wanted to point other that I had (a little) trouble finding are:

1. To access command line variables, it's kind of funky. So you will want to declare normal local variables at initialization like:
set localfile [lindex $argv 0]
With $argv 0 being the first argument. I couldn't get this to work with the C-style $argv[0] - it causes a syntax error.

2. When you are spawning a command that actually does something and prints information to the screen, you need to tell expect to interact. Otherwise, it will just quit after performing the operations you tell it to explicitly.

IE Table Spacing Kludge

It took me about 2 hours to work out why my table kept showing a gap underneath it. Wehn you have a 40px image on the corner, then the middle content cell has a background color that extends _below_ the image size, even though you have specified every possible height to 40px, and set all possible spacing to 0px, it is VERY annoying!

I eventually found this: http://www.draac.com/tabletricks.html
Check the first part. Very interesting. A trvial [typical IE]hack but ruins the alignment of my table tags :(

New "Currently Reading" Panel

The other day I created a module that shows what I'm currently reading, and how long I've been reading each book for on the sidebar. If you click on the book title / author, it does a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" search. I'm _hoping_ the page it brings up will be about the relevenet subject... ;)

Corsair am Win!

Wooho! Last night my RMA'd Corsair memory stick arrived! Now, finally, I can operate with 1G of memory again. VMWare w/ Windows 2003 is certainly not the ideal software to be running on a system with only 512MB of RAM :/

The best part about it, is that they only took about a week to get to me! Well, I think 1 week to get it to them, which means 1 week to get to me. Total time without my old [broken] Corsair stick: 14 days. The look on my face when I realise UPS deliver to Perth, Western Australia: Priceless! :)

I must say though, the Corsair lifetime guarentee is fantastic. I didn't have any problems getting an RMA. I think I'll be buying memory from them again...Visit the Corsair homepage. Although it doesn't look the best, rest assured it's because they put all their efforts into giving better service than anyone else (no really).

'Our' Rules

On the weekend I received one of those typical joke emails, this one a parody of girls 'rules' for guys - the parody being that it was guys 'rules' for girls. There was a line in it that I believe is very truthful, for everyone:

You can either ask us to do something
Or tell us how you want it done.
Not both.
If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

The Secret Diary of a Blog Aged 4.07 Days

I hope someone actually understands the joke in the title of this one ;)

I haven't managed to blog every day. And I think I have tried. It's simply a lot harder than I thought to actually make time to do it, on a daily basis. Kudos to those who do manage it. It's not so much a time consuming exercise, as a timely exercise i.e. it doesn't take long, but you have to make _some_ time :)

Additionally, I have now finished Season 3 of Babylon 5. The only comment I have, is that you can really see the advancement of the CGI. A much more liberal and effective use. Hence more ship based space battles :)

Late Night B5

Why is it that bugs have the most inconvenient time to land in my drink. Whenever I get up to refill my glass and actually pay attention there's nothing there. The moment I lapse, *poff*, a fluffy bug for me to cough on :/

Oh well. At least I've completed another site template. It's not live yet, else I'd post the link (maybe ;). That, and the fact that B5 3x10 had the most interesting firefights to date. B5 joins a military coup heh. More later after some sleep...