There’s been significant progress made with WebLex in the last few weeks. Mainly through avoidance of revision… Anyway, there is now a beta version out for both Ubuntu and Windows. These can be found at http://www.weblex.org/

The latest version is written in Python and will hopefully be coming to Apple’s OS X shortly too. French and Spanish support are still extremely limited, but this will be improved over time.

Yup, facebook chat, notorious for being the world’s worst chat platform (yes even worse than MSN) now allows you to connect using XMPP (the best chat protocol in the world).

All you have to do is set a facebook username, then you can connect using username@chat.facebook.com and your facebook password… it really is that easy!

You can see more details and instructions for specific chat clients here: http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php

This is my translation of Florian Diesch’s guide found here: http://www.florian-diesch.de/doc/python-und-glade/online/einleitung.html

I translated this guide as there doesn’t seem to be anything about using gtkbuilder and glade, rather than the older libGlade, with python. The guide is not yet complete, but I will keep working on it over the coming weeks.

Dieser Werk bzw. Inhalt ist unter einer Creative Commons-Lizenz lizenziert. This work is released under a creative commons licence (cc-by-nc-sa).

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This shot is taken from Doctor Who Confidential – Lords and Masters. It is a making of video and at 39:29 you can clearly see several computers running Ubuntu! To be more accurate, it looks like it’s probably several monitors connected to a single computer running Ubuntu, but nevertheless… quite a catch.

Ubuntu being used on the set of Doctor Who

I remember the first artificially intelligent bot I ever spoke to. It was back in the days of the Amiga and its name was Claude. It could answer very basic questions like “How are you?” but as soon as things got even remotely complicated, it would say something like “Is that the door bell I hear? You’d better get that!”. Evidently, things have moved on in the world of AI. Check out www.cleverbot.com. Here is a conversation I have just had with it:

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The Karen Hilltribes Trust

I am now working as a web designer for The Karen Hilltribes Trust. It’s the most amazing job ever! I love doing this sort of work, it’s always been a hobby of mine and now it’s my job!

You can check out the site so far here: http://www.karenhilltribes.org.uk/

The Samsung DVD-SH871M

EDIT: See comments from David for an even newer firmware!

I recently came across a Samsung DVD-SH871M that was unusable due to the EPG and several other menu features being incredibly slow to respond to the remote. I have no idea what Samsung were thinking of when they released this player with completely unusable firmware… but there is a fix.

A quick google showed that this was a common problem and the solution was to upgrade the firmware. The new firmware is supposed to be available from Samsung’s website, but there is only a manual listed for the DVD-SH871M. However, it turns out that the DVD-SH875M, for which there is a firmware update listed, uses exactly the same firmware. To the point that when performing the upgrade, you will see that the old (i.e. the shipped) firmware contains the SH875M’s name in its version number.

So, the solution is a simple one, download the DVD-SH875M’s firmware from here: http://org.downloadcenter.samsung.com/downloadfile/ContentsFile.aspx?CDSite=uk&CttFileID=2003747&CDCttType=FM&ModelType=N&ModelName=DVD-SH875M&VPath=FM/200809/20080908164404281_sh875m_20080728.zip

I will also mirror the file here, unless Samsung request I remove it: http://www.danbishop.org/downloads-files/sh875m_20080728.ruf.tar.bz2

Then unzip the file, burn it to a cd/dvd/cdrw/dvdrw, then put the disc in the DVD-SH871M. The player will load for a bit, then ask you if you’d like to upgrade the firmware. Select “Yes”, then go and make a cup of tea (the process takes about 6-8minutes).

Once finished the player will eject the disc automatically, remove it et voilà, the process is complete.

On Saturday 13th June 2009 I had my hair dyed lime green to raise money for Cancer Research UK. We’ve already manage to beat our target of £200, but any more donations would be very gratefully received! You can donate online here: http://www.justgiving.com/danbishop1 Or, in person, by giving cash/cheques to myself, Claire, or Fiona.

To all those who have already donated, thank you! So far we’ve raised a massive £256.96 with some more promised! Particular thanks to Claire and Fiona for actually making this happen (though please don’t be fooled into thinking I won’t get revenge in some form).

Many of you stipulated that in exchange for a donation, I had to provide pictures/videos… so here they are: enjoy!

The Long One:

The Final Result:

Photos:

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Claire went away on a scout camp this weekend. Fiona and myself saw this as the perfect opportunity to purchase 110m of tin foil and cover every book, bottle, brush, comb, laptop, desk tidy, pen, picture, whiteboard, etc. in Claire’s room… The result can be seen here: