Two proper galleries now complete from my Norway Cruise:


Ships in Oslo harbour



Sculpture around Oslo

Dell has decided to launch an MP3 player in direct competition to Apple's iPod.

BBC NEWS | Business | Dell launches iPod rival

"Well, I'm back" he said. The last line of "Lord of the Rings" also applies to me as I've just returned from a six-day cruise up the coast of Norway. The weather was, unfortunately, pretty dire, but it was a very enjoyable time, nonetheless. I think I'll probably repeat it in a couple of years, but go at a different time of the year.

Full gallery

Showing considerable insight (that is, considerably more insight than some in power in the USA), the UK government has made it illegal to send unsolicited email and text messages. The measures take effect from 11th December this year.

BBC NEWS | Technology | UK bans spam messages

Goodbye to a flat rate for broadband?

The days of paying a flat rate for broadband access may soon be gone - we could be charged according to what we download, to ease congestion online and share bandwidth more fairly.

Between 60 and 80% of bandwidth is being eaten up by a fraction of customers - who are mainly engaged in peer-to-peer activity - and, according to the industry, the rest are penalised because of the heavy users sharing the network.

So long as it works out cheaper for me, I approve! But why not simply stop those who use peer-to-peer file sharing, especially given the chances are its being used to share stuff illegally?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Goodbye to a flat rate for broadband?

Run away! Run away!
On the new Lord of the Rings (film) exhibition, just opened at the Science Museum, London:

Special effects guru Richard Taylor was ecstatic at the opportunity, giving journalists the ins-and-outs on Massive, the New Zealand-created computer system that allowed the film-makers to create artificially-intelligent armies to do battle with.

"They had a pre-taught repetoire of military moves and understood them, knew how to fight on different terrain. Once a battle started, we did not have the ability to choose who won or who lost.

"Unfortunately, when we first started running it, every time the armies insisted on running away," he said.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | A glimpse behind the Rings magic

More on the enormously expensive (for Microsoft at least) patent infringment that will have far-reaching effects on websites around the world.

CNET News.com | IE patent endgame detailed

To put it plainly: the current method of using plugins by IE is (allegedly) a patent infringement. The company who own the patent (Eolas) are suing Microsoft, but at the same time are not goint to grant them a license to use the method, which means that IE needs to be changed. Which may, in turn, mean all web pages that currently use plugins (eg: Flash, QuickTime) will need to be changed as well.

Apple Computer's "switch" ads are hurting Microsoft's pride. But they aren't nearly as painful as Microsoft's self-inflicted wounds.

Microsoft's 'Switch to Windows' ad backfires

A well-documented reason why broadband via BT Openworld isn't necessary plain sailing:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Always on, except when it's off

All I can say is, I think I've been very lucky because, so far, I've not had any significant problems with BTO at all.

I was really looking for a Bjork lyric generator, but I found this instead:

The Brunching Shuttlecocks | Alanis Morissette Lyric Generator

So you think CD-Rs are a safe backup medium?

Keeping data CDs in the dark for two years isn't a good idea. According to the Dutch magazine PC Active some CD-Rs degrade in months, even at room temperature without sunlight.

The Register | CD-Rs deliver degrading experience

I've got thousands of negatives scanned to CD-R and on reading this, I think I'm going to copy them to a hard disk!