Open Source Let Down

Every now and then I get the urge to do a bit of amateur (emphasis on amateur) website design and make myself a site (that isn’t just a list of books I’ve r&r’d). On my old laptop I have Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004, which is a brilliantly powerful website design tool… so far I haven’t found the disc for my copy (it’ll be somewhere in the mess) so had to find an alternative. (EDIT: Found the disc.)

After a quick search on my favourite website for finding alternative open source software I found that there weren’t that many alternatives to Dreamweaver, I’d tried Nvu before… it was good as a very basic editor but as it didn’t support frames or have nearly as much functionality to Dreamweaver, I needed to find something that did (it’s also pretty buggy and their CSS editor doesn’t seem to work.) Also I’ve found out that Nvu is no longer being actively maintained so it’s unlikely that the bugs will be fixed or the functionality will be increased. KompoZer is recommended as an alternative as it’s based on the Nvu source code… again it doesn’t support frames and after looking into the comments it seems the ‘insert image’ and ‘tables’ functions are broke/buggy.

A much as I am very for open source software (Open Office permanently replaced Office as soon as I had internet access in my flat just under 2yrs ago) and there are some fantastic programmes out there like Gimp, this time I really think I shall be going back to using Dreamweaver. It’s a shame, Nvu could have been a contender.

I Fail

7 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Haha, oops?

Gadgets, Doodahs and Whatsits

My 5yr old Canon A80 digital compact camera has developed a ‘known fault’ with the CCD sensor and fortunately I can get this repaired for free (it’s currently packed up on the kitchen counter) from my nearest Canon repair shop (of which there are only three in the UK).

I’ve also bought a new one, I’ve spent £114 on a Canon A580 which I originally tried to buy from Pixmania (discovered instructions would be in French) and then from UK Digital Cameras… both of these places won’t deliver to my address since it’s not the address my card is registered at without having far too much privacy invading identification just to prove that it’s me. In the end I’ve bought it from Dixons as not only would they allow me to deliver to my home address but I could choose the delivery period (opted for Mon 7th July between 8:30am and 5pm). Excellent… also worked out cheaper.

Don’t seem to be having the greatest luck with technology at the moment.

UPDATE: The postage was a surprisingly cheap £1.94! Couldn’t believe how light my digital camera is without the batteries !

The Vacuum of Space

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, surely if you’ve been sucked out into the vacuum of space you want to die quickly… although the probability of being rescued is 2 to the power of 2076775949 to 1 against which means there is still a chance.

Entering the 21st Century

Tried to enter the world of 21st century gaming via Steam this morning. Exited the 21st century ten minutes later.

I installed the ‘Portal’ demo but it all went wrong and crashed, considering that I meet at least the minimum specifications (even though I have an onboard graphics card it is direct x9 compatible)… perhaps it did fall out with my graphics card, I wouldn’t blame it but really… Also I’d much, much rather have a hard copy of the game sitting around, don’t think I’m ready to get my games via download just yet. I don’t even know if ‘Portal’ is my type of game yet, I actually suspect not, it looks pretty though.

I’m tinkering with Windows Live Writer, it was one of the existing programmes on my computer and heh why not explore for a bit? So far, I quite like it and it has a nice functionality to it. Doubt I shall be switching from ScribeFox but it is nice to have alternatives.

Here’s a random picture of my orchid:

Foxy Tour

Firefox 3 is here, and it’s working fine with me… to be honest I don’t really know much about the inner workings of a browser I only know what I like… and I like Firefox.

The news story that the IE7 team sent the Firefox team a cake made me giggle, good on you IE7 guys!

I’m getting exited about the Tour de France, what with the no time bonuses and exluding the guy who not only won last years Tour but won this years Giro! Should also be interesting to see how it’s all going to play out behind the scenes as they’ve split from the governing body.

It’s going to be a close call, people are tipping Cadel Evans for the win but I don’t think the race suits his style this year, he has everything to loose… I like that Alexjandro Valverde is going to be the more likely winner. I did have Tom Boonen tipped for Green Jeresy again, but he’s been banned for failing a drugs test so I think I’m going for Thor Hushovd… not sure who I want for the polka-dot jersey, there’s only one contendor going into the race for me and that’s Soler but you never know how the KoM competition is going to go.

Not for the Fans

Ever since the announcement that they were planning to go back to the early days of Trek for the new film I’ve had one of those hard to shake off feelings that it’s not going to be a film for the existing fans and that they’re going to piss on a lot of things that I love about the original series.

The Trekmovie blog has posted a snippet of the interview Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman gave to the Star Trek Magazine recently where there is a somewhat worrying quote from Orci: “…we wanted to introduce Star Trek again to a new generation and the people who had been around who felt that they were never able to jump onto the bandwagon because they felt they’d missed too much…”

A little part of me has just died having the confirmation of something I’ve always feared, I’m worried how if they’re going to change too much and I also feel they are being a little shortsighted – making a Star Trek film is really only going to appeal to existing fans, I doubt a lot of people on the street who are hardcore Star Wars fans are going to be interested.

Previous JJ Abrams has stated that the new film is “not for the fans alone” but I was hoping he meant he was going to use clever marketing techniques and use his existing fan base for ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘Lost’ to promote the film… I guess that was really wishful thinking from me.

Worrying quotes from Abrams:

“The audience we’re making this movie for is people who love movies, not people who love Star Trek movies. … I’m not saying we’re not honoring what’s come before, (but) if we made this movie for them alone, we would be limiting our audience like crazy.”

“The challenge of (”Star Trek”) is to take something that — despite the baggage of what came before — was imaginative and unreal and make it feel as real as possible…”

(from this article posted by Trek Movie)

I’ll be in my box watching TOS.

New Toy

I’ve been thinking about getting a new laptop for awhile, despite the fact mine is only 3yrs old. Well, after a problematic weekend which is going to involve me getting it repaired professionally I bit the bullet and spent money on a brand new spanking system.

Old System:
Windows XP Home
Intel Celeron M 1.5Ghz
512MB RAM
40GB hard disk
15.3″ screen

all for about £600 three years from PC World.

New System:
Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Pentium Dual-Core 1.7Ghz
2GB RAM
120GB hard disk
15.4″ *widescreen*

and what am I bid for this? £349. How fantastic is that?

I was originally scared that Vista was going to be this big evil monster that was going to leap out of my keyboard and drink all my tea but so far it’s been fine. There are a few annoying things (such as why make is complicated to play a DVD?) and it’s need for constant reassurance but apart from those things I’m pretty happy with it.

In fact, just because I’m really excited here is a completely dorky picture:

Dream a little dream…

Firstly let me say that I think the whole predicting nature of dreams and the stuff about your deepest darkest secrets is a load of phooey… doesn’t mean that I haven’t enjoyed a good dream. I seem to lean towards the more rather abstract, particularly ones that would make rather good films (or at least mediocre horror films that gain a cult following).

Just as an example, these are some of the odder dreams I’ve experienced in the last few years.