Entries from August 2003

Regular readers will by now be aware that I recently bought a new PC, and a beauty she is to. Does anyone wonder what happens to old computers though? Has anyone ever thought about how to dispose of their unwanted PC equipment?A local school came up with a deceptively smart way to get rid of their (very) old computers recently. Let me explain. The plan was to make use of ... Read full entry

The annual August trade winds arrived in Sydney with a blast last Sunday. A little late they may have been, but their force was nevertheless brutal.Trees blew over, plate glass windows on some older high rise buildings burst inward, fences were destroyed, ironing sheeting flapped in the gale, signs and billboards disintegrated, house roofs vanished, and one unfortunate person was killed when a massive tree fell on his car.Power and ... Read full entry

With all the media attention focusing on the recently released findings into the tragedy that resulted in the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia and deaths of all seven crew last February, I somehow missed the story that a permanent memorial for the dead astronauts had also been announced.Seven recently discovered asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter will be dedicated to each of the final crew of ... Read full entry

Hard on the heels of the recent furore over the private life of a well known local cricket spin bowler, comes the somewhat intriguing revelations that the Australian batting legend Don Bradman, did in his day, have one or two secrets as well.It seems his god daughter is selling by auction some letters The Don had written to her father. Some of these letters make reference to a mysterious woman ... Read full entry

You would almost think space aliens were about to land with the hype being created over next Wednesday's close encounter with the planet Mars. For the first time in 60,000 years Mars will be a mere 56 million kilometres away.While that's only a hop, skip and a jump in galactic terms, it's not quite close enough to be useful. It's not as if we can zip over there on a ... Read full entry

The latest edition of Jugglezine covers the sometimes vexed issue of donating to charity at work. What are the rules and limits? How much coercing to give is out of hand?I have heard of workplaces where it seems people go there to give their money away rather than actually earn anything! I kid you not.

Sky writing is an increasingly common method, especially in Sydney, to communicate a message and reach a large audience at the same time. I believe it is rather cost effective as well, all things considered.Recently the skyline has been filled with car logos, the brand names of well known stereo systems, and even the web address of an ... Read full entry

My brother Ben is a web and Lotus Notes developer currently living in London, and has just launched a new version of his personal website bucketFountain. It's rather a good idea to set up a weblog when you go travelling, so you can keep everyone up to date on your travels and life without having to actually keep in touch.Weblogs and the internet all happened ... Read full entry

In working on another idea for an article, I decided to take a hilt at the subject of how the film adaption of a story compares to the original book from which it is derived.The 2001: A Space Odyssey saga has long been a favourite of mine, so I decided to base some observations of this topic on the classic science fiction series written by Arthur ... Read full entry

With the arrival of my super duper new PC the other day, things should start returning to some sort of normality here in the next few days. It's a case of so far, so good with the new system, and my first real foray into the domain of the latest Windows operating system, XP.I was thinking how the process of setting up a computer has vastly changed in the time ... Read full entry