Random Tech Stuff

It's 6:30am and I'm wide awake for some reason so here's some random stuff, mainly for the benefit of Google's search engine.

1. You'll remember that I bought a Logitech Squeezebox recently. It's a marvellous thing. However the one problem I had was with the AlienBBC plugin which lets you play BBC (and other) RealAudio streams. It stuttered a bit and, more significantly, it stopped after four minutes and five seconds. Various references to this on their Wiki but only in relation to "Listen Again" whereas I was getting it on live streams too. Our server is on Ubuntu 6.06LTS aka Dapper Drake so it's relatively elderly (and is due to be upgraded to Hardy Heron sometime in the Autumn) and the mplayer with Dapper is pre7. So last night I built mplayer from source and both problems have gone away. I have updated their Wiki page accordingly.

2. You'll also remember I've got a Multimap Open API application which lets you plan routes on OS maps. It's proving very popular. When it broke I went to their forum for help only to find it had gone. I did get my application back in the end with some help from another user. Anyway the forum is finally back now, although it's currently locked and all users are disabled, but it's progress. Their blog is back too although with no mention of where it's been.

3. Finally a mention for Firefox 3. In truth it's not very different to Firefox 2, for me at least, but one thing I'm finding very useful is the "smart location bar" feature when entering a URL. It's like predictive text, on steroids. So, to take an extreme example, if I type "i" in the box the first URL it lists as a possible option is BBC iplayer, presumably as it knows I go there a lot. Similarly "w" brings up these very wibblings as the first match and "n" brings up various news sites I use. Tis very nice: doesn't get in the way, does save a lot of typing.

Hmmm ... and it's 7am now. Must be time for more tea so TTFN.