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The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

Internet

Tweets for 2013

Categories Geekery, Internet, Life

Tweets for 2013These are my tweets for 2013 (minus replies and retweets). All the URLs are still Twitter's 't.co' ones, as the API doesn't spit out the original URL text.

  • Time machine back to year 10, 1998! http://t.co/FDjrAzCA #DrWorm was my favourite Jan 02, 2013
  • Gold! 'Old Cops Discover The Internet': http://t.co/47ITSJrW Jan 05, 2013
  • Darn. Oh well, it was worth a shot http://t.co/BuoySrn4 #DeathStar Jan 12, 2013
  • lots of profanity, but loads of hilarity "Darth Vader Voiced By Schwarzenegger": http://t.co/2SY7sm7z Jan 14, 2013
  • What a joke that Brave won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Film! Does Pixar get the awards
… Read more →

Why Haven’t You Turned on 2-Step Verification?

Categories Internet, Technology

two-step verificationWe've all heard of it, or even seen it personally many times: "my account was hacked!". Usually I'll get the scam emails from a friend's email address saying they are trapped overseas and to send them money to help them out, or maybe the general spam or phishing attempts from one of their online accounts.

You might think it won't happen to you, but all it can take is logging in on a computer that might be infected by something, or using the same password for your account on another site that had its servers hacked.

There is … Read more →

Getting Into Podcasts

Categories Geekery, Internet, Technology

Pocket CastsAfter starting a job in the city, and now for the first time having to travel to Brisbane's bastion of capitalism on public transport, I have had to find ways to fill in the time whilst being on the train.

Reading on the train is not an option for me; for some reason, when I read on transport (cars, trains, etc.), I develop headaches, so I usually limit my reading to checking a few emails or briefly catching up on news.  For the first few months of the commute, I have been listening to my music library on my phone, … Read more →

Feedly is My Choice as a Replacement for Google Reader

Categories Internet, Technology

Feedly Logo After the gnashing of teeth that greeted the news of Google's decision to close down Google Reader (effective in a few days), over the past few months I have tried out more than a few possible replacements.

I have been surprised by how many 'Reader replacements' have popped up or gained attention since the announcement. It definitely seems like Google had largely killed-off a market when they developed Reader, and now have almost single-handedly recreated it by shutting down their service.

A lot are aiming to just re-create Google Reader and it's features (or previous features); The Old Reader, … Read more →

The End of Eras: LucasArts & MSN Messenger

Categories Gaming, Geekery, Internet

The announcements of the closure of two things, one a game development studio and the other an instant messaging application, have had me reminiscing on days gone by; namely, the mid-to-late 90s. Both closures are very understandable and not very surprising. It makes them a little easier to accept, but it's still hard not to feel a little sad.

LucasArts 1982-2013In my opinion, the bigger announcement of the two was that Disney, following their acquisition of all of Lucas-land, have decided to close down LucasArts as a game development studio. It's not unexpected, as the once mighty and innovative developer … Read more →

The End of My Affinity for Google: Reader to be Shut Down

Categories Internet, Rants, Technology

Google Reader Shut Down

Today it was announced that Google will be shutting down its online RSS-feed aggregator, Google Reader. Ironically, I first found out about the announcement through Google Reader as I am subscribed to the Official Google Blog through it.

To say that I am disappointed with this news is an understatement. Along with Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Reader is one of three Google products that I use all day, every day.

After trying to find a suitable RSS aggregator almost seven years ago, I eventually settled on Google Reader and have been using it every day I've been on … Read more →

Tweets for 2012

Categories Geekery, Internet

Twitter2012I was thinking it might be good to have a new annual entry at the end of each year which lists all my tweets for the year. My Twitter account hasn't been given access to the new backup/export/archive feature, so all the external links contained in the tweets below are Twitter's 't.co' URL shortened ones.

  • Unfortunately I have have been moved over to the new @Gmail look 🙁 Twas good while it lasted classic look! Jan 04, 2012
  • @LiaParadissis You can buy the 3D bluray and watch it over my place if you want 😉 Jan 07, 2012
  • @LiaParadissis Hopefully
… Read more →

Is Google Becoming Evil? Free Google Apps No More

Categories Internet, Rants, Technology

Google Apps Not FreeI'm a big Google user; and by that, I don't just mean that I use their search engine.

Over the years, I've increasingly centred my online life around the company's products: I use Gmail for email, Google Calendar is now my organiser, I have an Android phone that syncs to both, and recently I also used Google Docs (now 'Drive') for collaborative docs and spreadsheeting during the house construction, and so on.

But in considering all that, probably the single product that I've voluntarily advertised, espoused, and assisted friends and family in terms of setting them up with, is Google … Read more →

Compulsory ISP Data Retention

Categories Internet, Rants, Technology

Government internet spyingFor all the goodwill that this government has generated among IT people with the NBN, it always seems to have something up their sleeve that goes way too far in terms of people's "safety".

Previous plans for compulsory internet filtering have thankfully (and hopefully permanently) been shelved. Now the Government seems to be proceeding with plans to make ISPs and telecommunications providers compulsorily store and retain customer usage data for two years. Whilst it hasn't yet been revealed specifically what 'customer data' will be retained, one can presume that for ISPs it will contain customers' internet browsing histories.

This type … Read more →

A New TA Successor on Kickstarter

Categories Gaming, Geekery, Internet

Planetary AnnihilationThe idea of crowd funding has really taken off in the past year or so. Headlined most prominently by US-based Kickstarter, it enables people who want to raise money for something to easily pitch their idea to anyone on the internet, who can in turn pledge a certain amount of money often in return for some rewards once the project gets off the ground. It's a great way to raise early capital for a project without having to go to banks, or relinquish part-ownership to venture-capitalist firms.

I hadn't yet previously supported anything on Kickstarter or on other crowd funding … Read more →