2000 views!!!

I just noticed that my blog just hit 2000 views. I don’t like posting blogs like this, they feel like they should be tweets, but 2000 views is a lot. I’m quite amazed that either a lot of people look at my blog once, or a few people look at it lots of times…either way, I’m happy. Thanks for reading my random, and occaisionally useful, information.

Video of the Week: Keyboard Cat

Ok, this is the most hilarious video I have seen for a long time. The first half is fantastic. The second half isn’t quite as good, but still. This merits not only the video of the week, but the Video of the Month trophy. Congratulations, Keyboard Cat.

Right, here we go…

RANT: Palm Pre on O2 in UK

I’m sorry, I’ve ranted about this subject before, but what is the various phone companies’ obsessions with releasing a phone on 1 carrier? Lets have a look at various ones:

• HTC Dream (G1) – T-mobile
• HTC Magic – Vodafone
• Apple iPhone – O2
• Blackberry Storm – Vodafone

And now…the Palm Pre will be on O2

Seriously dudes? Why do you do that? It drives me insane. Obviously, I am not looking for a new phone just now, as I have my Nokia 5800, but it just drives me insane, a person who thinks we should have choice, that we don’t have choice to choose a phone, AND a carrier. You choose a phone OR a carrier nowadays.

Dropbox, UbuntuOne? No? Ok…how bout Spideroak?

Let me say before any of this – this is not an UbuntuOne rant, like everyone else seems to be doing over at Ubuntu Planet. It just so happened that I just found out about this today.

I have used dropbox for a while – I use it to share things between my Desktop and my uni laptop, and also as a sort of document backup thing. Now, this is all very well and good, but what if dropbox dies? (I know, very unlikely thing, but ya never know, you can never be too careful). Well…Canonical just released UbuntuOne. A cool new dropbox-esk thing.

There are a few problems with UbuntuOne. First of all…it currently runs only on Ubuntu. It can be packaged for, say, fedora or opensuse or something, but as far as I can see, noone has done that yet. Also, it doesn’t run on Windows or Mac, and although I don’t like them as operating systems, we still need to agree that they do actually exist, and we need to create apps for them. They are not my choice of OS, but isn’t diversity everything that Linux stands for? The choice? So we need something that will run on more than just Linux.

Second of all…and I know…this sounds like a pathetic thing to say, but the back-end is not opensource. Now, yes, one might say “Neither is Dropbox”, but dropbox don’t say they stand for freedom and opensource. Canonical have said that it would be easy to create a server very similar to UbuntuOne, because it is based on, I think they said iFolder, am not sure though.

In this case, why the heck is it closed? What is the point in closing it, if it is easy to put the exact same thing together? I do use some proprietry things (dropbox, nvidia drivers) but I object to a company saying “We do opensource” and having something closed. This is, IMHO, pathetic.

So, I’m not happy with UbuntuOne, so what will I use as my dropbox’s “backup”? Well, Paul Mellors posted about SpiderOak, a new dropbox-esk filesharing backup thingy.

So, I tried it out, and I’m very happy. I much prefer it to dropbox, in fact. First of all, you have none of this dropbox folder nonesence. That drives me insane. I don’t want to link everything to my backups, thats stupid. I want them to backup where they are, and SpiderOak does this. Which is brilliant.

SpiderOak, like dropbox, comes with a free 2GB (which is all I need for my documents and pictures just now) and has a paid 100GB service (and 200GB, 300GB etc etc) for $10 per 100GB that you want. As mentioned, this works out at under £7 per 100GB of space that you want. Not bad, one has to say. Better than dropbox anyway.

SpiderOak allows you to add as many computers as you want to your account (Windows, Mac, Linux) and just syncs whatever folders you want on all your computers, and puts them wherever you want. I think you can also choose NOT to sync specific folders with specific computers, but will have to test this out (Ooooo…I can feel a sequel post coming on).

Finally…it is not opensource, but they are going to opensource it soon, which is good. So…for everyone who wants a (soon to be opensource) alternative for Dropbox, but isn’t running Ubuntu (or doesnt want the limitations of UbuntuOne), but doesn’t have the money to spend on their own server, I would recommend this highly.

Video of the Week: Umbrella (Christ Mix)

Cheesy? Yes. Fun to listen to? Yes. True? Definately.

Click here if you are reading this in an RSS aggregator, and can’t see the video

I haven’t posted a Video of the Week for a while, so enjoy this one/

Microsoft are selling Viagra?

I just got this email today (it went into my spam folder, but I check that anyways, just incase anything slips into it.

I find this really amusing. Do people think this is Microsoft??? Why???

RANT: Madonna…trying to adopt a child in Malawi, while in New York.

I have been trying not to blog about this for a few days now, but I’ve given in when I heard something else today about this. Let’s get the background first…

Madonna adopted a child from Malawi a few years ago. Illegally might I add. The Malawian law says that one has to have lived in Malawi for 18 months before one can adopt a Malawian child. Madonna, however, managed to get this child even though she had never lived in Malawi.

Now, Madonna wants to adopt another Malawian child, and when she tried first of all, the judge (rightfully) said no, not until she has lived there for 18 months. Adhering to the law. Now, however, she has gone and decided to appeal the decision. Her lawyer is saying that “The best interests of the child should be put first.” Which I agree with, which means that Madonna should not be allowed to adopt her.

Today, I heard that last night Madonna was at some art festival. So far, the length of the appeal, Madonna hasn’t even been in Malawi.

I am sorry, but, first of all – the law is the law. Madonna shouldn’t be allowed to circumvent the law. Second of all – why the heck should she be allowed the child if she won’t even go to the country herself. She would rather spend her time at an art festival. I’m sorry, but if Madonna ever gets this child, then I feel sorry for the child. It deserves better than a Mother who would rather go to an Art Festival than try and get her child.

RANT: The Sims 3: We have a contract with hardware manufacturers.

Disclaimer: My title is not a quote from EA, nor have they said anything.
I do not work for EA, and my opinions expressed here are my own,
and there is no fact in whether EA have contracts with any hardware
or software manufacturers, or anyone else in that case.

Now that I’ve done the legal stuff…on with the rant.

I bought my girlfriend a pre-order of the Sims 3 for Christmas, as she really likes Sims 3. It was meant to come out on Feb 26th. Which we thought was an OK time to wait. Then, however, they decided to delay the release till June. Now, obviously this is something that couldn’t be avoided, and this is not what the rant is about.

What the rant is about, is the system requirements for The Sims 3. I shall quote from http://www.thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/feature6.jsp:

The Sims 3 requires at least the following:

FOR WINDOWS XP
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
* Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
* 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1.5 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB
of additional space for custom content and saved games

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows,
the game requires at least:
* Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
* 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
* 0.5 GB additional RAM

Now…I’m sorry. But a 2.4Ghz processor? 1.5 Gb of RAM? 6.1 GB OF DISK SPACE WITH AT LEAST ANOTHER 1 GB FOR SAVES?

What do they expect people have? Not everyone has a supercomputer. My computer could run it…but my girlfriend’s laptop (which is the computer SHE has, so it needs to run on that) has nowhere near that spec. Whether the RAM is total RAM for Windows as well…I’m not sure. But even still, her laptop only has 1GB in it.

I just have a feeling that EA has a contract with hardware manufacturers to bulk it up so people have to buy new hardware to run the Sims 3.

I mean…come on. The Sims 3 needs more system resources than Crisis for goodness sake.