I had a laptop hard-drive go on me a few weeks back. After starting over, here’s what I currently have installed. The list is in no particular order:

• Putty
• WinSCP
• GIMP
• XAMPP
• SharpReader
• Firefox 3 beta
• Nokia PC Suite
• Google Earth
• Polar WebLink (for my heartrate monitor)
• TortoiseSVN
• Beyond Compare

I’d expect that as soon as I get my MP3s back on this machine I’ll have WinAMP and the Last.FM scrobbler installed. I can’t be too far off needing an IDE either…. it may be time to try NetBEANS.

[update 28th June]

• FireFox 3 (with firebug, ietab, twitterfox, del.icio.us)
• Opera 9.5
• Internet Explorer 7 (side by side with IE6 thanks to MultipleIEs)
• Winamp & the Last.fm Scrobbler
• Eclipse (plus subclipse, php, pydev)
• MultipleIEs
• NetBeans

[update 10th July]

• CDex
• MusicBrainz PiccardTagger
• Juice Podcast Receiver

Blarg… almost six months since a post.

Last night I upgraded the blog software from 2.5.0 to 2.5.1. This supposedly locks down a few security issues and patches miscellaneous bugs.

After momentarily thinking I’d hosed the database and would need to revert to a daily backup, I realised I had incorrectly configured the table prefix variable. This was because the head revision in subversion differed from the deployed wordpress instance. Bad Dwight.

Another side effect of this blunder was some general weirdness with Feedburner. After some investigation, fooling around with the plug-in, and an eventual version upgrade, things should have returned to normal.

I definitely need to write myself a process guide for future upgrades!

I’m lying around listening to a couple CDs I bought yesterday (Pixies and She Wants Revenge). I just had a flashback to new year’s day when I stumbled into a second hand record store and found The Answer To Both Your Questions by Something For Kate.

I usually check the SFK spot in a vein attempt to find Intermission which is rare.

I couldn’t remember whether the tracks are on Q&A With Dean Martin, which I own. I didn’t make the purchase. It turns out the vague memory was correct - Q&A includes The Answer… and the tracks released with their first single Dean Martin.

While googling and ended up on a tangent when I noticed the Prickly re-mix (of Prick) was by Eli Janney. He played bass/keyboards for Girls Against Boys. Cool band in mind, mainly for the track ‘Kill the Sex Player’ from the Kevin Smith film Clerks.

Kill that noise,
Kill the noise.
Make it alright,
Kill the drummer.
Kill the bass player,
Kill both bass players.
This song is so hip right now,
I’m going deaf, I wanna kill the singer.

Anyway, I think I’m going to buy The Answer to Both Your Questions.

I couldn’t sleep when I saw this in my Last.fm rss feed.

I’ve been hooked ever since I gave Antics a serious listen on a mates iPod while deep in powder country. I went straight out and bought it from Tower Records in Shibuya a few days later.

While speaking of getting hooked, I’m severly engrossed in The Mess Hall’s Devils Elbow. It’s strong and punchy up load but smooth enough for background music.

And finally I’ve just stumbled upon evidence that She Wants Revenge put out a second album, This is Forever, late last year. I’ll have to get hold of this and then get amongst the Hottest 100 voting.

I’ve had it up to ‘here’ with Dope Wars and Fun Wall invitations on FaceBook. Some of us have work to do!

So I googled and found a simple guide on how to block those annoying invitations.

This update comes in a little late since I’ve been side tracked with family (and general laziness) the past few days.

The fourth weekend in December turned out to be a pretty interesting affair. I knocked off from work for the year on Friday and was extremely happy to make it home. The only thing I’ve taken with me is a 34 page form for some security access that I’ll need in the new year. Oh, how much of a joy that’s been to complete.

Anywho, Friday night was a fairly low key event. I managed to get myself down to The Back Page for a few quiet beers with a mate. Toohey’s Old was the beverage of choice; a long time favourite of mine from the cheaper/mass produced market.

Saturday morning was quiet also, in the most part due to a solid sleep in that I desperately needed. I got my act together close to midday and had the best intentions of shooting the basketball before heading around to a christmas party being held by trio of friends who are sharehousing.

I’d was about fired up the car when a call from mum threw plans into disarray. Being the good son, I offered my services to sort out a radiator issue down at the fruit and veg store. This was close to the bottle shop I had planned to visit so the distance/location wasn’t such a problem for me. After 45 minutes in the sun working on the car and a recently purchased bottle of Malibu in hand, I gave up on the basketball and went straight to the party. It turned out to be a great afternoon by the pool and evening on the deck.

Sunday morning I hit the shops early to purchase one last christmas present. This was wrapped by about 11:30 so I chilled out and played through the ‘best of The Cure’ album I’d bought myself earlier in the day. The afternoon drifted away to the sounds of the stereo and thoughts of the upcoming celebrations.

Last week was the start of a new role in Canberra. There were more airports, taxis and airplane food then generally desirable. I need to get used it quick because it’s shaping up to be a standard part of my week for the next six months.

Friday night was Brisbane and I took a CityCat around to the University of Queensland to see my sister Dana’s graduation ceremony. This was my first time at such an event since I elected not to attend my own. Although the main attraction, Dana crossing the stage, took all of 5 seconds, the rest of the event was reasonably interesting and went quickly.

Later in the evening I made my way through a couple bars in Brisbane and the Surfers Paradise.

Saturday and Sunday were fairly identical: a decent sleep-in, beach, shopping for Christmas presents at Pacific Fair and catching up with friends in the evening. The difference being the all-grain home brewed beer on Saturday and the Boost Juice on Sunday. Good times.

Download this podcast. It’s an interesting talk given by William McDonough about ecologically intelligent design and the ‘cradle to cradle’ philosophy.

The idea is to put an end to waste by by designing and producing things that are infinitely reusable/recyclable. He calls out businesses and governments for focussing on how they’re doing less bad (e.g. reducing emissions by 15%), rather than saying what good things they’ve done well.

The way this inverts the typical social perspective is really neat.

If you like, I’d suggest you check out and subscribe to the Conversations Network. After grabbing bits and pieces from them for the last few years, I’ve just started pulling down their podcasts pretty heavily for the past month or so. It’s all good.

As expected December is running away on me quicker than I can describe.

No downtime midweek since I saw movies on Mon/Tues, played the regular Wed night poker tournament with mates and the n the weekly basketball game in Brisbane on Thursday.

Last night I checked out this tiny local pub/bar that goes by the name of the ‘The Back Page’. I haven’t been there in a couple years and was pleased to see it’s still going strong off the back of the Friday afternoon tradesman crew. Perfect for a quite brew to toast the start of another fine weekend. The lack of pokies, pubTAB, keno etc. is a refreshing change and reminder not all pub owners are like the money grabbing purveyors of sin in Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach.

No plans are set in stone for the weekend except a 5:05pm flight to Canberra on Sunday night. So there’s nothing else to do but check out the beach. One could be stuck with worse things to do…

I’ve been out and seen movies twice this week. Which is highly unusual for me… but not as unusual as the movies themselves.

Two biographical flicks and two heroes who died before their time.

Monday night was ‘Into the Wild’, directed by Sean Penn. It’s based on a true story about a young guy who’s basically had jack of his parents and from there decides he’s not up for society in general. He’s super strong willed, physically tough and decides to head into the Alaskian wilderness to tough it out on his own. See the IMDB and Wikipedia pages.

Tuesday night was ‘Control’, whose subject is Ian Curtis. It tells the story of the his early involvement with Joy Division and their rapid ascent to stardom. It also looks closely at how this affected his marriage and other relationships up until to his suicide on the eve of the band’s first tour of the US. See the IMDB and Wikipedia pages.

Both amazing stories. Recommended for viewing on DVD in the comfort and safety of your own home.