Nano technology

Posted on July 29th, 2004 in Technology by Jim Prince

Interesting article on the development of Nano technology.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3920685.stm

As predicted on Red Dwarf last night ;-)


New iPAQ Pocket PCs

Posted on July 27th, 2004 in Technology by Jim Prince

HP have officially anounced a bunch of new iPAQs. The hx4705 looks particularly tasty I’m sure you’ll agree.

See engadget.com for more details.


Lookout acquired by Microsoft

Posted on July 24th, 2004 in Technology by Jim Prince

Lookout is a document and e-mail search tool that integrates with MS Outlook 2000 or above. I’ve been using it for a couple of days now and I’m impressed.

My Mailbox contains more than 40,000 items and Lookout will still return search results in a fraction of a second.

It’s recently been announced that Microsoft have acquired Lookout software. So they must have impressed the folks at Redmond too!

To try it yourself click the here.


bugmenot.com

Posted on July 23rd, 2004 in General, Technology by Jim Prince

Every now and again someone comes up with a really good idea for a Web site, ebay and Friends Reunited are great examples of this.

While not quite in there league bugmenot.com is extremely useful, especially if you’re concerned about on-line privacy.

Basically it allows you to bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information. Last time I checked it covered 16562 sites.

Read the FAQ for information on why you need this.


Blade computing

Posted on July 23rd, 2004 in Technology, Work by Jim Prince

We’re consolidating Servers in our data centre so I’ve spent some time looking at this and I have to say I’m disappointed. Having seen offerings from SUN and Dell I don’t believe either offers any significant advantages over 1U servers (at least not for Talis).

One of the things that surprised me most was the use of older processor technology. UltraSPARC IIi for SUN and Pentium III for Dell. I know these will happily run most tasks you throw at them but the next generation of processors will do it so much faster.

I’m inclined to think Blade computing will remain a niche market for large Telecoms.

Then again it’s a fairly new Technology so we’ll see how it develops. Some form of standards adoption between the competing manufacturers may help things along.

You can read about Dell and SUNs offerings here and here.


Bees nest

Posted on July 22nd, 2004 in General, Personal by Jim Prince

We found this Bees nest in the eaves of my girlfriends house. It looks amazing. We had to take a photo of it.


Making fun of Bush and Kerry

Posted on July 22nd, 2004 in General by Jim Prince

Yes I know it’s American but this really made me laugh. You’ll need a sound card or it’s a bit pointless.

http://www.jibjab.com


Internet Explorer

Posted on July 22nd, 2004 in Technology, Work by Jim Prince


Acording to The Register one in 100 IE users have switched to another browser.

This is good news and will hopefully lead to Microsoft taking security more seriously.

Talis’ web stats reflect no change though. More than 90% of hits are from IE6 browsers. We’ll see what happens next month and before anyone says anything I’m aware the pages don’t render correctly in Netscape/Mozilla.


Top Gear

Posted on July 22nd, 2004 in General, Technology by Jim Prince

The Ford GT on Top Gear on Sunday really was something special but 4mpg, that’s just ridiculous.

Wouldn’t mind one though. Anyone got £100k lying around?

If your interested the new GT has a 5.4 litre supercharged truck engine which develops 500bhp. It has a top speed of 200mph.