Whomwah.com

I got sent this link today. I can’t begin to explain what it does, but here’s what is says on their site. It seems to work it’s way through your source code and build a tree like structure based on it’s findings.

Tree is a translation program. the simulation of real space by software as a starting point and basic question characterizes the search for an algorithm (design specification) which illustrates a real tree. tree interprets each html page as a design specification; the html space determines the algorithm and generates the visual world of the translation beyond simulation.

The screenshot above is what the result of typing whomwah.com in. I think the results are beautiful.

I have just read an article about Linux and Laptops. I have recently got myself a lovely 12″ powerbook after having run Fedora on a Sony Vaio V505DP for about a year. I went through the transition of FC2 to FC3 and found it great at my day to day tasks as well as for development. Now, obviously you don’t run Linux and expect everything to work seamlessly, although I have to say that most things on FC3 actually did. Even setting up the wireless was a dodle and worked much better than it had been under XP. In fact everything was great … until you decided you wanted to say, use your laptop quickly on a bus or a train, or maybe just finish some work in which you have loads of windows open and stuff running and would like to just put it in standby and come back to it later.

You see thats what currently lets Linux down on a laptop, Power Managment, or should I say the lack of it. The best I could do with my Sony was to just shut the lid (the screen turned off) and hope the gap between me reusing it was within 2 hours. Oh and thats another thing. Under XP the battery life was nearly 5 hours. Under Linux I got just over 2.

Don’t get me wrong here, I think Linux is great, the system, the community, the whole ethos. But for the notebook user it just isn’t quite there yet. Like Neil says in his article, this process could be sped up by manufacturers helping the Linux community and not pandering to the big boys and waiting for someone else to make the first move?

It’s not often you will hear me say this, but I read with interest on the IE blog .. that they have already fixed a few bugs in the next version of IE. The PNG alpha channel problem that creates big design restrictions has been addressed. They have also sorted the peekaboo and guillotine bugs. They’ve still a few more to fix though.

Now I think these fixes are great, but I hope that they’re going to be doing more that just fixing stuff. In my opinion IE fixes should be addressed in the same way they address the many security fixes that people have had to apply to IE in the past. While I appreciate the fact that they are being open and telling us what is going on in the development of IE7, it still concerns me that they will not be addressing the main problem us developers have and that is the lack of full standards support, the fact that IE currently doesn’t fully support CSS2 which has been a W3C Recommendation since 1998.

In the mean time, I do welcome these snippets of information about current development but I will not be happy until I see some forward thinking steps by the IE team that make me feel happy that MS are not just palming us of with sweeteners.

At last google have finally created Google Maps Uk. This is what we’ve all have been waiting for. I have briefly tested it with various peoples homes and random places and there is definately some minor tweaking to be done, but as an overview it’s amazing. I guess multimap and streetmap might as well pack there bags and go home?

Update: People have been having fun with google maps in the US since they added Keyhole satellite imagery. Here my favourite so far.

It was the London marathon on Sunday and I decided to go and watch it early with a vague hope of seeing some pro runners. As you can see from the photo I did just that … by accident.

I was meeting a buddy down on embankment and had to cross the road where the runners were. I got half way across when I was stopped by a marshal. I could hear the crowd cheering and could see the timing truck approaching. Turns out it was Paula Radcliffe !! What luck. I got a great photo from the best spot on the course. Oh and by the way she was at about 22 miles and running as fast as I could on the flat. Amazing.

Well, after about a week of nothing up, the site is back with a new host. Basically last week I checked my site as I normally do and found it had been deleted by my hosts again. After searching forums and wasting time finding out what gave (They lost the data backing up!!) I decided to ditch the space I had been using and pay for some. A big thanks to Matt W for advising Pair.com whom I have decided to use. They have everything installed that I would want and everything looks like it’s locked down. It’ll probably take me a few days to get everything back but the worst is out of the way.

I got round to going and seeing the Bruce Nauman installation at the Tate Modern today. It features 11 paired speakers all along the Turbine Hall which when listened to ambiently sounds like interesting background sounds. It’s only when you walk along the centre of the hall and come parallel with each speaker pair the sound becomes clearly audible. It’s quite a strange sensation, if you close your eyes the sound feels like it is inside your head. This with all the hundreds of people in the building and making there own personal noise makes the sensation only stranger.

Well worth a visit.

Well, after a day of lots of April fools, which was your favourite? I think mine was Tokyo Zoo Adds Giant Penguin.

Others that made me chuckle were: Yahoo and Google join forces(I thought it should have been called ‘Yahoogle’, NASA Builds Worlds Largest Paper Airplane, U.N. Decides to Shut Down Internet Permanently and Microsoft to develop standards based browser.

Ahh, I am coming to the end of a week off work. It has been a nice relaxing time. We had a loverly easter weekend visiting family and walking in the South Downs. We came back to London Tuesday and we’ve chilled at home, played Xbox, watched lots of DVD’s, been to the cinema, done some DIY, checked out some great websites, followed up some great links and generally had a nice time.

Ah well, back to work Monday.