The greatest video to ever appear on YouTube? Possibly.
LOST in CODE
PHP Explorer - Update
I’ve just done a few updates to my little PHP Explorer application for navigating and editing files on a webserver and it’s suddenly shaping up to quite a handy wee app. Here’s the main updates:
- Completely hide specified file types
- Turn off editing
- Turn off deleting
- Turn off file/folder creation
- Tooltips now show filesize and last modified time/date
- Users cannot navigate further up the file structure than the location of index.php
- HTML pages now save properly
- Automatic backup is made every time a file is edited
- Random query string added when viewing pages to avoid caching
Who Will Win?
I was looking at my web stats for the first time in quite a while the other day and was surprised to see the second most popular page on the entire site is Who Will Win? Who Will Win was a little web game I’d built using ASP and an Access database, it was essentially a huge stack of mini binary-choice polls, things like Transformers vs Thundercats. This game stopped being an active part of the site quite a while back, a year at least and I hadn’t even realised that it was still working and yet it seems it is and someone somewhere must have bookmarked the link and is still playing it which is truly bizarre. So this got me thinking that if there’s still demand for it, even though the game is no longer public then why not bring it back? So I’ve overhauled the server side of the code and am working on a jazzy JQuery AJAX front end and will probably update the database of things to vote on as well (the Michael Jackson vs All That Is Good feels like it is in a little poor taste now) and then make it live on the site again. Was also thinking it might make an interesting excuse to toy around with the Facebook applications API as well.
The last hour of Transformers 2
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Aerial shot of a plane – we need more air support!
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Megan Fox pouting her lips in slow motion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Aerial shot of a plane – we need more air support!
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Megan Fox pouting her lips in slow motion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Aerial shot of a plane – we need more air support!
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Megan Fox pouting her lips in slow motion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Aerial shot of a plane – we need more air support!
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Megan Fox pouting her lips in slow motion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Aerial shot of a plane – we need more air support!
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Megan Fox pouting her lips in slow motion
Shia LeBouf suddenly arrives in the land of the Transformer Gods – he is the Chosen One! He then comes BACK TO LIFE and starts RUNNING despite clearing having a BROKEN LEG.
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Aerial shot of a plane – we need more air support!
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Megan Fox pouting her lips in slow motion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Big robots that all look the same shooting at each other
Explosion
Thymer
In my office it’s long been accepted that we need to get a proper project management system in place - the vicious circle of course is not having the time to find one that suits our needs and investing the time to use it properly (and get other people using it!). Enter Thymer, while every other system is boasting about the raft of features it has, Thymer is going the other route and is very minimal but what it does do, it does really well, really intuitively and some of its features are actually very novel. We’ve been trialling it in the private beta and so far are very impressed, especially with features like being able to create new tasks via e-mail. I suspect the guys at Stunf are deliberately starting off small (and stable) and will gradually add more features over time so it looks like a very exciting project - one we may actually stick with!
Pixar's Up
Seeing how Up was just released in the US I assumed (like most big releases in this modern age of the internet and what not) that it would be out here in the UK either this weekend or next so went to look up showing times only to find nothing… because it’s not out until October! What’s that all about then - release in May in the US and October in the UK… not that I’m condoning it but that’s almost as if they want it to be pirated silly over here between now and October.
Microsoft Natal
So Microsoft (and Lionhead) made their big reveal at their pre-E3 conference today and it’s this bonkers Natal thing, an unearthly combination of the Wii-mote and Playstation’s iPlay thing - a camera you mount on your TV and does motion detection so instead of swinging your Wiimote to play tennis, it detects your swing your arm like a tennis racket and reacts accordingly. If it works then it could well be the ace in the hole to finally trump the Wii but I’m still sceptical to whether it’ll work or not - the tech demos at E3 have been the woman interacting with the CGI kid on screen that to be fair I didn’t really get, the bouncing balls with your body which does sound like fun and Burnout hooked up to use an “invisible” steering wheel which sounds like a good idea in theory but surely you’d be losing that tactile grip - half the fun of Mario Kart is swinging that wee wheel about and leaning over into the person next to you. I eagerly await to see what actual games developers have planned for it though!
Swoopo
This site was recently brought to my attention, I had initially thought it was just another eBay want-to-be but it is actually bringing something new to the online auction table, whether it’s actually worth while though is something else. How the site works is kind of hard to explain, you bid on an item in 10p intervals and placing a bid costs 50p (even if you don’t win) the theory being that this small cost spread over many offsets the final price to the winner. Also placing a bid increases the remaining time by 20 seconds so most auctions are sitting permanently on the final 20 seconds, almost reaching zero and then leaping back up again so there’s no real way to tell how long an auction has to go. It sounds like an interesting idea but to unless you plan on buying loads of bids (oh yeah you have to buy a minimum of 20 bids you’re investing a minimum of £10 straight away with no guarantee of any return) and bidding on auctions in the middle of the night I don’t think there’s much benefit here. All items are new and listed by Swoop, not individual sellers and for the most part they’re iPods, DSis and laptops. I watched an auction for a DSi which finished at £54 - presuming you won, you’ve also got the cost all your bids, I have no idea how many it would take to win, plus however much (they don’t say) for postage and packaging so there is some value to be had there but for me I reckon you’d end up losing more than you’d win. I reckon initial interest will carry the site over for a few months but I can’t see it lasting a year.
