Apparently this isn't a wind-up, though it sure looks like an early April Fool.  Here's an 18 button mouse from OpenOffice.org, from a report in The Register (OpenOffice.org pushes gamers' buttons with OOMouse):

Some weeks ago, I noted the existence of Google's Sidewiki (Is Sidewiki evil? (Probably not, but it's annoying)) and mentioned that I'd planned to install a Sidewiki blocker on my websites.  Well, I've done that.  I've also installed the Google Toolbar thing, and now have a Sidewiki button nestled up there next to my Firefox URL box.

Every so often, I click on it to see if a website has any Sidewiki annotation, but thus far, I've yet to see one.  Does this mean that Sidewiki's a flop?  Or just reflect the nature of the sites I visit (many are forums or blogs with pages of relatively transient interest)?  And need I have bothered to install a Sidewiki blocker at all?

From the excellent xkcd...the Tech Support Cheat Sheet...

One of the more bizarre features of the Phorm business model has always been the question of why businesses would allow their webpages to be scanned by Phorm's deep packet inspection system.  My understanding of Phorm's system is that individual web users' browsing habits are monitored by kit installed within the ISP's infrstructure, and that key words are extracted from visited web pages and used to target advertisements to the user.

What's always surprised me is that companies weren't flocking to request their exclusion from this system: after all if web users are looking through my product line, why would I want them to be offered adverts from my competitors?

Here's a weird thing.  A couple of weeks ago, my Vaio notebook that's been running sequentially updated versions of Ubuntu GNU/Linux for the last 2.5 years started playing up on me with apparently random lock-ups.  This didn't start after any specific event or software installation.  I've Googled this, looked in Ubuntu Forums (and indeed started a thread there) to find an answer.  The symptoms are:

1. Display frozen, except the mouse/trackpad pointer can be moved
2. No keyboard input
3. No trackpad buttons work
4. The ongoing processes are still running - I can login from another terminal

This always seems to happen when I'm using Firefox (I am currently on 3.5.1), which is by far my favourite web browser, though this might just reflect both the amount of activity when using that app as well as the number of times I use Firefox each day.  Often the hang occurs when I'm scrolling down a page (which I do by stroking the edge of the trackpad).

This bug report at the Ubuntu Launchpad ([i965] X freezes starting on April 3rd) seems to describe the problem I've been having over the last few weeks with my notebook running Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04.  In essence, at some point, usually 2-24 hours after the last boot, the system will freeze up - the display is immobile (though the mouse pointer moves) and there appears to be no input from keyboard or trackpad buttons.  Other than that, the system is running happily, as far as I can tell from logging in remotely.

In a previous blog post (Firefox, Opera and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty), I'd thought that the problem lay with Firefos, but that turned out not to be the case.  From the bug report, it would seem to be related to the Intel graphics card the current theory being:

Over the last week (while I've been working away, and needing the use of my Ubuntu notebook) I've continued to have issues regarding the weird X freezes I've been having sporadically for the last few weeks (X freeze on Notebook - solved?).  Unfortunately, all the fiddling around with the system were to no avail, and the problem continued.

Seeing the claim that the bug was resolved in the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" release, I decided to update the system to the current alpha version of Karmic.  I did this with some trepidation, as I would usually wait until the official release before updating Ubuntu.  Interestingly, I've yet to find any irritating alpha bugs (but it's early days) - it's also a bit early to say whether the X freeze bug has really been resolved.  If not, I'll do a fresh reinstall.  As I type this, I've had a cumulative uptime of 10h42m...so let's hope this is sorted, as it's a bit of a showstopper bug.

Since my last posting (Weird X freeze on Ubuntu 9.04, part umpteen), the problem with X freezing still seems to be present, despite the bug report saying it was fixed in development versions of Ubuntu 9.10.  I upgraded to 9.10 on Friday, and have had a couple of freezes since then.  Just now, I have just over 40h on the uptime meter.  I think this is because I'm logging out before suspending the computer.  Anyway, logging in is better than having freezes which require a reboot!

Well, I know this is tempting fate, but I've got 48:03 on the uptime monitor, so perhaps the recent Karmic xserver updates I've recently installed have sorted out the X freezes (see here, here and here).  If so, I am mighty relieved, as this was a bit of a show-stopper for me.

Update: now 61h14m, but sometimes it logs me out when I resume from suspend.  Guess that's a risk one takes when one is using the alpha version of Ubuntu GNU/Linux 9.10?

It's been a while since I mentioned Phorm on this blog.  Mostly that's because it's become less of a threat to the UK ISPs (but other murky operators lurk in the wings, judging from the nodpi.org forum), since BT confirmed they had no plans to implement Phorm.  BT's announcement was closely followed by Carphone Warehouse and a rather lukewarm statement from Virgin Media.

The market responded to the rug being pulled from under Phorm by a mammoth drop in share price, a decline which has continued since.  Interactive Investor now has the price at 130 pence, possibly its lowest event point.

The BBC reports (Google to launch operating system) that Google will release an operating system aimed at netbooks in 2010. I particularly like the HAL9000-like logo (see picture). There's a collection of media comments on this development, mostly commenting on the threat to Windows.

Of course, netbooks kicked off with a focus on Linux as their OS, until MS realised they'd committed a strategic blunder and moved to "suggest" to the PC manufacturers that they ought to use Windows XP, which miraculously had its lifetime extended (though this may have been in part due to the poor reception of Vista and its capacity to gobble up computer resources). So forgive me for being a little sceptical that the Chrome OS will unseat Windows in the netbook market (but I would be delighted to be proven wrong - we certainly need a more competitive OS marketplace).

Apologies for the intermittent service over the last 24 hours.  I appear to be having database issues, which I'm trying to rectify.  I'd expect access to the site to be a bit flaky for the next day or so until I can get this fixed.

This story came across my radar this morning (Microsoft Update Quietly Installs Firefox Extension).  This seems bad news to me, and exemplifies one aspect of Microsoft's software model that I really rather dislike in comparison to, for example, how Ubuntu rolls out its updates.

Turns out this Firefox add-on, which is installed rather stealthily as part of a regular Windows .NET update, has its uninstall option disabled, which means Windows users need to go through a complex process to remove this, as described at annoyances.org (Remove the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant (ClickOnce) Firefox Extension).  Annoyances.org says:

The Internet seems to be abuzz with a new "natural language" search engine called WolframAlpha, widely touted as a Google-killer.  But what the heck is it, and how does it work?  More to the point, how much will it cost?

There's a video from WolframAlpha which seeks to explain it...though it looks pretty spiffy, I guess they've chosen topics they know will produce visually arresting output.   Cnet News has a useful article (Wolfram Alpha shows data in a way Google can't) featuring opinion from several users.

So, all four upgrades completed, with absolutely no problems or hitches (at least none that have manifest themselves so far).  Now, I'm fairly competent at running my computers, but I wouldn't class myself as a serious "under-the-hood" mechanic.  That's to say, I'm happy enough to mess around with config files, set up hardware and all that, but I don't have the sophisticated understanding that would allow me to appreciate subtle changes between Ubuntu releases. That being said, presumably there must be some evidence of an upgrade?

Gnome - this is my preferred desktop environment, and with Compiz effects is quite flashy enough for me.  (I've always found KDE a little garish for my tastes.  I did give KDE4 a whirl when it was released, but it seemed a bit flaky at that time.  I'll try it again in the coming months as I hear it's  a bit more stable now, and it's quite possible that it offers a fresh new way of using the desktop.)  Gnome seems to be characterised by small incremental changes - here we have version 2.26, which on the faceof it seems pretty much the same as before.  You can read about the main changes at the gnome website.

Over at the Team Grumpy website, I've posted an article on the UCI bike regulations and how they relate to the design of time trial bikes.  At the weekend, I'll measure up my bikes to see how they fare - I expect both to need adjusting to fit the criteria, but the dreadful 1:3 rule probably rules out the handlebars on both bikes, also the front fork and seat pin on the Cougar.  Of course the main reason for this is the suggestion mooted a month or so ago on the timetrialling forum that the Duo Normand would be enforcing UCI regulation in all categories (not just the elite categories).  Whether these rumours have foundation, I don't yet know.  I suppose that formally time trials in Scotland, which are run by the BC-affiliated (and therefore UCI-affiliated) Scottish Cycling Union, ought to enforce these rules, as should the BC-CTT jointly run British Time Trial Championship.

Over the weekend I've been playing around with Wordpress, having set up a blog over at wordpress.com, where you can set up a blog spectacularly quickly (as you can over with Google's blogger.com).  As a fairly experienced Joomla! user, I found the hosted blog slightly restrictive (for example I would have to pay a daily rate of $0.04 just to be able to edit the theme's css file).

I ended up doing a test installaion on my notebook, firstly using a dedicated database, then trying out incorporating its database within my main Joomla! database.  It turns out to be pretty straightforward to migrate content (though I imagine one would exceed the import limit quite quickly on an active blog).

I fancied a change from the old website template, which has been going for more than a year.  The new template is a modified Siteground template.

I had a few issues making the header image work with Internet Explorer 6 and earlier (the notorious png problem), but seem to have cracked that.  As usual, the the site has been tested with a variety of browsers on Linux (Firefox 3.0.5, Epiphany 2.24.1, Konqueror 4.1.3, Opera 9.63).  In Win XP I've looked at it on IE 6 and 7, and it seems to work (now the png fix for IE versions =<6 has been implemented.  I haven't tried Chrome, or any browser on Mac OSX.

Ars Technica reports that SCO, the bankrupt (both morally and financially) company with a tangled history of amalgamations and renaming, and which has been fighting a losing battle against Linux (via courtroom debacles with Novell, IBM, Autozone and Red Hat) has filed a fourth reorganisation plan.  The whole sorry saga of how SCO's deluded CEO Darl McBride dragged the company into a legal morass can be read at the famous and excellent Groklaw blog.  With SCO's claims mere dust in the wind, Groklaw appears to be entering a phase of consolidation, as it sorts through the astonishing quantity of court filings and other documentation and comment the site has generated over the last four years or so since SCO launched is big action against IBM.  During that period, the story has been spectacularly convoluted, ultimately revealing that not only does SCO not own Unix copyrights, but that they actually owed Novell a significant wad of cash (still unpaid as SCO use it to bankroll continued legal action).

As far as I know, and despite his role in the company's looming demise, McBride seems to remain at the helm and is presumably one of the four top executives in line for continued remuneration.

News reports on the BBC somewhat precede April 1st.  Apparently the Scottish National Party want an airbase in Scotland  to be used as a Scottish spaceport.

The party's Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, wants Virgin Galactic to use RAF Lossiemouth in his constituency as a base for space tourism.