A Life In Perspective

Official Gmail Blog: Making security easier

2008-07-30T11:16:00.000+02:00

Worried about security? Have no fear, optionally-always-on https Gmail is here!

Official Gmail Blog: Making security easier

I am 88% Geek!!!

2008-07-28T13:45:00.002+02:00

(I really have to stop taking these tests...)

88% Geek

I am a Super Geek

2008-07-28T13:12:00.000+02:00

At 51.87377% it's official...

She Owns the Place

2008-07-25T14:04:00.004+02:00

Or should that be "She Pwns the Place"? Both pronounciations would fit here. ;-)

Click for the full picture.

Reallife Futurama

2008-07-25T08:34:00.005+02:00

This is in response to a funny list of Futurama quotes from Rexman on the blog AnyArbStuff.

Click the picture for the full sized version.

(And I still think that Leela is hot, even though IMHO they should've captured the front of her face! ;-)

BOINC Now Available For GPU/CUDA

2008-07-21T12:55:00.003+02:00

Hooray! *congratulatory self-pat-on-the-back* My second accepted story submission to Slashdot! Check it out here.

I'm a Dorky Nerd King! (v2)

2008-07-04T13:49:00.001+02:00

Social Bookmarking

I am a Supreme Nerd!

2008-07-04T13:13:00.000+02:00

Social Bookmarking

Sometimes, It's the Obvious...

2008-03-12T16:30:00.003+02:00

OMW. Helped out another programmer at one of the sister companies of the company where I work via email today. First, the required COM DLLs weren't present, then I tried to get them for her from other projects that we did that used the same libraries, then she was getting “Exception of type 'System.Windows.Forms.AxHost+InvalidActiveXStateException' was thrown.” 24 emails later, it seemed like it would never end!

Eventually got an installer for her for the Kodak Image Library that was residing in a rather dusty directory on one of our servers (that thing is like flipping hen's teeth on the Internet!). That seemed to work, but then the same exception popped back up.

Guess what now? We forgot that the now-correctly-installed-and-registered ActiveX control wasn't on the form because, well, it wasn't correctly installed and registered. I supposed I should mention that she reinstalled her laptop two days ago and she also told me that she was modifying copied code. She put the control on the form and finally, Finally, FINALLY the thing worked.

Lessons:
1) If you format and/or reinstall your developer machine, make sure that the required libraries and project dependencies are installed.
2) If you are installing the said libraries and project dependencies during development, drop the control back onto the form!

She's very junior and is learning C# while she is coding this app, so this was plain inexperience on her part and ASSumption on my part.

Bleugh. But at least it's solved! :-)

How to Tell If It's Good Code Or Bad Code

2008-02-13T14:51:00.001+02:00

http://sadeveloper.net/forums/10526/ShowThread.aspx#10526

Happy 50th Birthday LEGO!!!

2008-01-28T04:33:00.000+02:00

http://www.lego.com
http://parents.lego.com/Features/50th%20Birthday.aspx

LEGO turns 50 this month! (January 2008) LEGO played a big role in my childhood and really taught me how to think laterally and outside of the box.

Happy birthday my old friend!!!

Why Should I Play Fallout 3?

2008-01-23T05:15:00.000+02:00

I honestly love Fallout 2. I hope Fallout 3 isn't a complete mess with it being a FPS now instead of a Turn Based CRPG...

For more details, please go to No Mutants Allowed.

The Great Purge

2007-12-28T02:20:00.000+02:00

[Purge]

I'm an Assasin for Hire!!!

2007-12-06T11:03:00.000+02:00

According to experts, my personality type is :
Assasin for hire

Other people like me display these traits.

They work in fast food resturants

They have nose hair

They listen to Brittany Spears

They go commando

Take the Ink Blot Personality Quiz at JokesUnlimited.com

Social Bookmarking

My Code's Compiling!!!

2007-10-17T11:58:00.000+02:00

Aw, Sweet!

2007-10-17T11:38:00.000+02:00

RIAA Can Suck Air In a Vaccumm

2007-09-13T02:59:00.000+02:00

http://bash.org/?444453

#444453

ProfessorOhki: oh, ud get a kick out of this
ProfessorOhki: cisco guy came to talk to my class
ProfessorOhki: (lecture hall)
thepieisabomb: ya
ProfessorOhki: and he goes "i ask this ever year out of curiosity, who has the most media collected and served?"
ProfessorOhki: no one wants to raise hands
ProfessorOhki: one guy rasies his hand
ProfessorOhki: "how many gigs of media do you have shared?"
ProfessorOhki: guy: "about 3.6 terrabytes"
ProfessorOhki: i swear the cisco guys heart stopped for a sec

Killed By a Rabbit Recently?

2007-08-26T10:17:00.000+02:00

Quote available here.

[Dejos] I was killed by a rabit in D&D once
[Wiser] lol
[Dejos] stupid DM
[recursive] did it have big sharp pointy teeth?
[recursive] \/\/\/\/\/
[Dejos] no! it didnt have squat.. I tripped over it and fell off a cliff

Han Solo Solo No More

2007-08-25T01:23:00.000+02:00

This is so cool! This guy has replaced Han Solo's face in the legendary block of carbonite with his own! Check it out at
www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000668.php. As he says, it's definitely one way to try and cement one's nerdship for a looooong while. Well done Rob!!!

Biology in IT

2007-08-23T10:03:00.000+02:00

bash.org quote here.

[SSilver2k] he worked on a server called Servix in a college, he asked this girl to log into her "servix" terminal...you can see how that conversation went.

It's All a Matter of Physics...

2007-08-23T08:29:00.000+02:00

Bash.org quote here.

[chaz] I had to recompile our software to pick up the new libraries etc
[chaz] we then hit an issue with connectivity to the database server
[chaz] but thats what i fixed (i hope) this morning, so we'll see :)
* Twitch crosses her fingers for you
[chaz] my apologies, I didn't realise you were female.
[chaz] I should turn my geek off. :/
[Twitch] I'm in Physics, don't bother

Bash.org - Duke Nukem Forever

2007-08-14T04:35:00.000+02:00

*siiiiggghhh...* I'm still being optimistic and waiting for Duke Nukem Forever. Hopefully it won't be recorded as DNF...

Here's a good DNF quote from bash.org:

[Analogy]: The Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled approximately 2.5 billion miles since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever

How It Feels To Lose A Girl Explained To A Gamer

2007-08-13T05:23:00.000+02:00

Digg link:
This is a brilliant quote!!!

Direct link:
http://www.bash.org/?761414

SergioThree: there's other fish in the sea, man, she's just a girl
Beatsfromkorea: no dude, that's bullshit.
Beatsfromkorea: Think of it this way. if your precious copy of street fighter third strike broke and i told you "it's ok man, there's other games in the sea. here, play mortal kombat instead" what would you say? you'd be like, "fuck that, gimme third strike."
SergioThree: ...
SergioThree: you just reached me on a level that i never thought possible

A Few Quotes and Stuff...

2007-08-09T00:07:00.000+02:00

"The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea."- _The Wizardry Compiled_ by Rick Cook
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing.
We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers.
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten 10% of its capacity, the rest is overhead for the operating system.
Programming is an art form that fights back.
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
Best file compression around: "DEL *.* /S" = 100% compression
Windows: Just another pane in the glass.
RAM disk is *not* an installation procedure.
Shell to DOS...Come in DOS, do you copy? Shell to DOS...
- They get deallocated?
- Their values become undefined?
- The get re-intialized?
- Their structues break down?
- They become WORM food...
- They start dropping bits........
- They branch to a new address!
- Their social system resources are released?
- They dump core?

Battle in the Kruger Park

2007-08-08T02:23:00.000+02:00

Here a small pride of lions, a crocodile and an herd on buffalo. It is AMAZING!!!

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

Questions in the early morning

2007-08-05T02:26:00.000+02:00

What am I doing? Where am I going with my life? Am I moving forward? Progressing? Stagnating? Growing?

I think I'm growing, moving forward. I feel/think that it's just a bit slow...

Google Health Turns a Little Bit Evil?

2007-07-03T15:05:00.000+02:00

Google Health Advertising Blog: Does negative press make you Sicko? Was Lauren Turner doing anything wrong other than trying to get more customers? She said what they wanted to hear, but don't most salesmen?

S N O W ! ! !

2007-06-28T10:55:00.000+02:00

It snowed yesterday morning!!! I never thought I'd see snow in my life, not to mention snow over my home in Kempton Park! The last time it snowed like this in Kemton was about 27 years ago, four years before I was born. Check out some photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdilord

Goodnight dear reader. Sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite.

Good Morning

2007-06-20T06:46:00.001+02:00

It was SO cold when I hot up today! My knees really protested! Had some lekker rooibos tea with rusks, now making the day's sarmies - two peanut butter rolls and a ham sarmie. Also boiling the breakfast sausages.

Still surprised I forgot to blog about Father's Day. A belated blog-Happy Father's Day Dad!!! I love you, I'm proud of you and I thank the Lord for you often. Thanks Dad. Love you.

The Power of Focus

2007-06-17T00:48:00.000+02:00

A month or two after one of my colleagues told me that in the States one typically specialises in a certain type or field of programming (as opposed to the jack-of-all-trades approach typical of South Africa and New Zealand) I still find it amazing!!! What an awesome opportunity to specialise like that!

Which File Extension Are You?

2006-11-21T09:49:00.000+02:00

src="http://www.bbspot.com/Images/News_Features/2004/10/file_extensions/html.jpg" width="300" height="90"
border="0" alt="You are .html You are versatile and improving, but you do have your limits. When you work with amateurs it can get quite ugly.">
Which File Extension are You?

Microsoft’s developer patent pledge “worse than useless” says SFLC

2006-11-11T10:03:00.000+02:00

What else did you expect from those asses at microsoft? Charity and good will towards men?
http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2006/11/microsofts_deve.html

5 ways to save on your monthly software rental bill in the year 2056

2006-10-10T13:00:00.000+02:00

Brlliant!!!

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/1787

Scott Carpenter's blog
Please check out the Free Software Magazine

Blogged with Flock

REALLY small linux devices and a slut of an OS

2006-09-22T14:11:00.000+02:00

Ooo... shiny!
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS7561066345.html

Windows Visa, Slut Edition! (yes VISA! Because one needs a visa to pay for the OS and all the new hardware that it needs to run...)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060907/tc_afp/usitsoftwarecompanymicrosoftlatvialanguageoffbeat

Blogged with Flock

Why Johnny Can't Code

2006-09-14T14:52:00.000+02:00

Got this brilliant article off slashdot:

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/09/14/basic/index.html

I remember Basic. Could never get the programs to work though, although I think the programs in the books from the public library and my version of basic weren't compatible for some strange reason... I don't think that any of you know how much I now wish that I could have gottenthose programs to work.

Just imagine: a 6 or 7 or 8 year old coder. How elite is that???

Happy 50th Birthday Harddrive!!!

2006-09-14T09:08:00.000+02:00

The harddrive turned 50 yesterday. Check out the links:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/14/0148217
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060913/tc_pcworld/127104

The second link is quite interesting. For instance, dis you know that Al Shugart worked on the original HDD and also founded Seagate, the biggest HDD maker? Or that the first HDD, a RAMAC unit, weighed a ton. Literally. (Not sure if it was a metric or imperial ton though, guessing imperial. Flipping Americans... ;-)

Many happy returns Mr. Platter!

Blogged with Flock

top For Windows

2006-09-12T09:04:00.000+02:00

Just found out a windows equivalent of top, the process/tasklist viewer. It's called tasklist.

Drop down to your command prompt/shell (Start -> Run -> "cmd") and type in "tasklist /v"

Thanks to http://www.sadeveloper.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=74287 and http://blogs.msdn.com/winclient/archive/2004/07/08/177947.aspx

A more personal update coming soon...

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Portaputty

2006-08-28T09:54:00.000+02:00

Yeah, I know, its been a while. Update soon, I promise. ;-) In the meantime, check out portaputty, "a hacked version of PuTTY that stores all its information in files, not in the registry."

http://socialistsushi.com/portaputty

See you guys soon!

Blogged with Flock

HAPPY x86 DAYS!!!

2006-08-02T16:42:00.000+02:00

From /.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/02/1232229
<snip>
"today, tomorrow and the next day are the only days we'll get dates like this: 2/8/6 3/8/6 4/8/6 like the x86 computers :-)" And yes folks, in the august news cycle vortex, even this strikes my fancy. In recent years we've seen numerical giants like 3/1/4, 6/6/6 and 1/2/3, but now really, what do any of us have to look forward to? Is our future dull and meaningless without cool numbers in dates? Oh the humanity of it all...
</snip>

Blogged with Flock

How Jedi Are You

2006-06-01T18:03:00.000+02:00

I knew the answer before I took the test.

I Am A Jedi Master.

how jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen

Emotions on a rollercoaster

2006-03-19T10:30:00.000+02:00

to tell all or only tell half? that just crossed my mind. i keep all these emotions bottled up because i don't have a real friend i can talk to about it. this brings back the memory of the only best friend i ever had... if you let me i want to take a memory trip 7years back...

i was 13, young but not nieve. that year my perants got devorced, and i gave something very important(i realise now) away, and thats the year when my only best friend killed herself.
we were only friends for a year, but it felt like a life time. i'll call her Pokkel, that was the
pet-name(if i can call it that) i gave her when we were friends.
i basically went thru primary school without friends, -if you know me, you'll know thats not a strange thing, i've never been good with talking in a crowd. and always doubted myself.-
yeah, i had friends. they all had my back if i needed it, and i had their backs all the time. i met Pokkel at the begining of st.5. Linkie(the viceprinciples daughter) was pushing for a fight with me again, i was like always not interested. i turned my back and walked away and she shoved me, i almost fell on my face. Pokkel was standing nearby and she stormed Linkie and gave her a very nice shiner-that lasted for a week-
from then no one could seperate Pokkel and i. no no no, we weren't lesbians, we just had the rare thing called real-true-best-friendship. we used to do the craziest things together, slipping school, walking to the mall in the dead of nite, hitch-hiking, beating Linkie and her gang up, and most of all we stood with each other thru everything. my perants told us they're getting devorced a month before my 13th birthday, my grand-mother died a week before that same birthday.
i dont know if you understand yet how important Pokkel was to me. she also had her trouble with her family, which i wont say, i'll keep those horrid things for myself.
we had the best times together, we didn't care about anything, we blacked out the world when we were together. we went to the same high school, we bullied the matrics with our initiation, insted of them bulling us. she did the nasty with the headboy and caused him to give being a headboy up. we had fun great times.
well, at the end of the first quarter of std.6 my mom told me we are moving to another town, things were very difficult at Pokkel's home at that time. i told her im moving, she didnt take it well at all.
the day before we moved i promised her i'll go to her house for a final goodbye before i left. Pokkel lived with her father and brother, they both knew me very well. i walked the two blocks from our house to Pokkel's flat. i should've walked faster, left earlier, phoned or done something, before i started walking over there i knew something was very wrong. i could feel it over my whole body. when i got to their flat, her father opened the door and said Pokkel's upstairs in her room. i walked up the stairs slowly. i didnt want to go into her room, i was afraid of the feeling inside me. when i opened the door i saw her lying on her bed, her duvet was full of blood. she had slit her wrists, more than deep enough. she did it for real, she didnt want to go on. i didnt cry, i just died inside. i found a letter adressed to me next to her bed. i wont say what she said in the letter.
i never attended her funeral, nor do i know where she's buried. all i have from her is a photo what we took at the mall one night, and the letter. and most of all our memories.
i think about her everyday, i miss her. i promised i wont cry over her, and it takes all i have not to. i loved her like more than a sister. i've never had a friend that even comes close to her.

This songs for you Pokkel!! *crazy in the night - Kim Carnes*

HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY MICHAELANGELO VIRUS!

2006-03-06T09:41:00.000+02:00

HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY MICHAELANGELO VIRUS!!!

[The rest of this post has been purged]

EA Pathetic

2006-01-08T22:25:00.000+02:00

http://www.cncnz.com/features/articles/070106.shtml

Freaking EA Pacifc!!! I mean, EA Pathetic! <H1>LONG LIVE WESTWOOD STUDIOS!!!!!!</H1>