RIP Dennis Ritchie

Thursday, 13 Oct 2011 10:01:24 · 1 minute read · Comments

unix / passed away / Dennis Ritchie / C Language · General

Co-writer of the C language and co-creator of the UNIX operating system Dennis Ritchie sadly passed away last Saturday. It seems his death was somewhat overlooked due to the passing of Steve Jobs. Thanks to Ritchie’s contributions to computing, we have the C language and its derivatives (including Java, C++, Objective-C, JavaScript, and more), and UNIX with its derivatives (including Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris, Linux).

Goodbye, Steve

Thursday, 06 Oct 2011 06:04:13 · 1 minute read · Comments

Apple / Steve Jobs / passed away / sad · Apple

I sat down at my computer this morning before work, I glanced at my tweets, then at my RSS, I realised what had happened. Yesterday the world lost a great man, Steve Jobs. I know that this will be plastered all over the Internet, I know that newspapers already have obituaries written, but I wanted to pay my respects to this great man. Steve’s keynote speeches were always brilliant, it was these speeches that made me so enthusiastic about Apple products. Read On →

Sherlock

Monday, 19 Sep 2011 19:01:36 · 1 minute read · Comments · Apps

Sherlock is one of my all time favourites. No, not the stories, the game! Written by Everett Kaser many moons ago, I first played this classic game on DOS and taught how to play it by my Dad. At the time it felt fairly hard, and it still catches me out from time to time now! This is my current “I’ve got five minutes to fill”, or indeed “I’ve got half an hour to fill” game. Read On →

Doodle Sub & Wager

Sunday, 11 Sep 2011 18:46:00 · 1 minute read · Comments · Apps

A couple of friends have made some apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch, so I thought I’d quickly plug them :P First up is Wager by Tom Diggle. This app is handy for calculating the return and profit of many betting types. It sports a succinct UI which is both fast and effective and allows for multiple bets to be stored for later reference. Find it on the App Store for just 69p! Read On →

iPad 2

Sunday, 21 Aug 2011 19:06:15 · 1 minute read · Comments

ipad · iPad

Last weekend it was Faye’s 23rd birthday. Having asked her previously she had joked about an iPad, so I saved and an iPad she got. A 32GB, Wi-Fi only iPad2. I’m impressed with the device, I’ve played with them in the Apple Shop, but having one at home is nice. Faye has an old G4 iBook, this new device has somewhat elevated the iBook’s duties. The iPad gets used for games, web browsing, email (both through Mail. Read On →

Exciting times for social networking

Wednesday, 13 Jul 2011 08:55:19 · 4 minute read · Comments

facebook / Google / Google Plus / Diaspora* · Google / Internet / Social Networking

The social networking world is rather turbulent at the moment, with Google barging in to rival Facebook. Until recently, Facebook went unrivalled. From humble beginnings as a networking tool for uni students, it is now to the social networking world as the iPod is to the MP3 player. Facebook has always had some use, it is not merely for posting on a friends profile, but for organisation. You can organise events, be reminded of a friends birthday, categorise and tag friends in photos and videos and notes. Read On →

Download your Facebook profile

Sunday, 10 Jul 2011 22:08:29 · 1 minute read · Comments

facebook / Google · Google / Internet

Now I have a Google+ account (more on that later) I want to start moving my life from Facebook to the new shiny thing. Thankfully, Facebook make it somewhat easier than one would expect. If you navigate to Account > Account Settings then click on the “learn more” link next to “Download your information”, you’ll be able to request for Facebook to zip up all your data (well, most of it) and make it available for you as a download (I had to wait ~5 hours for my 66mb of data to be made available). Read On →

iPhone Safari - Search for text on page

Wednesday, 15 Jun 2011 08:00:00 · 1 minute read · Comments

iphone / Safari · iOS

Have you ever used your iPhone to search Google for something, then find that the best link is a huge page? On the desktop you’d hit cmd+f to search on the page, but in the iPhone this luxury isn’t immediately obvious. It is, in fact, really easy. Go to the page you want to search on, then click on the search box in the top right. Type in your query and wait for the text “On This Page” to appear: Read On →

App::perlbrew

Wednesday, 08 Jun 2011 08:00:00 · 1 minute read · Comments

perl · Perl

Last summer I decided I would learn Perl. I had put it off for a long time, but after trying and failing at learning Python, I decided to give Perl a go. Managing the perl installations has been tedious. I tend to use a lot of the features in v5.10, but MacPorts keeps installing older and newer versions and making the perl command point to v5.08 for some reason. But today I found App::perlbrew. Read On →

Record Shops

Wednesday, 01 Jun 2011 08:00:00 · 2 minute read · Comments

music / shopping · Musings

I found myself in the local record shop recently, Faye’s brother wanted to browse. I was loitering around, glancing at the shelves and having a flick here and there. And I just thought to myself, I don’t enjoy being here at all. The other week when I opened iTunes, it took me straight to the store, I’m not sure why it did that, but on the front page I caught a glimpse of Hugh Laurie’s new album. Read On →

Ben Lavery-Griffiths