Blog
Filterset.G out of favour
In my recent post about online advertising, I mentioned that I use Adblock Plus and Filterset.G. Ares writes in to say that Filterset.G is is deprecated and probably unmaintained, with the last update in March. Didn't know that!
Ares recommends EastList+EasyElement from this list, which I've switched to now. We'll see how it goes.
05 Jun 2008 10:29 [category: /geek] #
"Imagine you've taken half a tab of LSD and are at a very bad performance art installation"
No, not Club Kooky but Marcus Westbury at the Logies. Hilarious description of a surreal event.
Red carpet arrival. A spotter peers in limo window to see who of any interest is in the limo. "No one!" they call back to red carpet show director crew.
05 May 2008 17:25 [category: /art] #
Firefox 3 looking good
I thought I'd try out Firefox 3 for a bit. Part of my job is to stay up to date with the latest and greatest, and I was hoping the much-touted memory management enhancements would be a nice plus.
So far, I'm well impressed. AJAX- and JavaScript-heavy sites are vastly faster, so for example Gmail snaps open, Google Reader zips along. The CMS I use all day every day also flies. Most importantly, they really do seem to have plugged the memory leaks. By this time of day, I'd expect Firefox to be around 200 megs, having used a few AJAX sites quite heavily. Instead, it's around 115 megs with four tabs and two CMS windows open. It also seems to go down when you close tabs and windows, which is something that didn't happen before. It also remains quite zippy.
Haven't noticed any bugs or rendering weirdness yet, which is a good sign. Only problem so far is that Firebug isn't yet available. There's a version of it for Firefox 3, but it apparently has some issues. If I decide Firefox 3 is stable enough to use all the time, I'll try out the upgraded Firebug. Life without Firebug would be a much reduced life...
05 May 2008 11:29 [category: /geek] #
Ted Fest
Those of you who know my views on religion, and organized religion in particular, might be surprised to learn one of my idols is a Catholic priest. Father Jack Hackett has always been a role model for me, someone whose virtues present something of an inspiration. His religious teachings ("that would be an ecumenical matter") are both profound and point us to the unknowable.
In this vein, I would have loved to join the throngs of Teds, Dougals, Jacks, Mrs Doyles and Lovely Lovely Girls at Ted Fest on Craggy Island recently. What a fantastic idea!
In the same vein, I'd love to go to Lebowski Fest at some point, although I'm not too keen on visiting the US these days given the rudeness of their security apparatus.
05 Mar 2008 11:06 [category: /weird] #
St George bringing in two factor authentication
I've banked with St George for many many years, and they've long been pretty ahead of the pack with technology in Australia. I got a letter the other day indicating that they were bringing in some new "Secure Code" system, which sounded like two factor authentication to me.
Looking at their site, it seems they are indeed bringing in such a system. For risky transactions (and I'm sure they can raise and lower the bar at will) they'll send a code to your mobile or landline phone, which you need to type into the application to complete the transaction.
It's interesting to see financial companies finally getting onto the two factor authentication bandwagon. The point is that you need to present something you know and something you have without massively inconveniencing your customers. The mobile or landline seems to me like a pretty good balance between security and convenience.
I notice that Paypal now uses some kind of security token that looks a lot like the RSA tokens people carry around for VPN access in a lot of companies. I wonder how long it'll be before we're all carrying around a clutch of these things?
Now I'm thinking about implementing an sms-based two factor system on my own server. Wonder if there's any software for doing that?
05 Mar 2008 09:16 [category: /geek] #
Simon and Holly: greengrocers to the stars
We're in this little fruit and veg co-op with a bunch of mates. Our turn to head out early in the morning to Flemington came up, and here's all the veg divided up. It's a great time for produce, with a huge variety in peak condition at really cheap prices. We didn't manage to spend all the $30 per household budget before filling the little car.
