Trying out HootSuite for Twitter

Trying out HootSuite for Twitter – http://ow.ly/1IyWC

Blippy publishes users credit card numbers

Wow this is insane.  A social networking site that lets you show off what you have been buying has inadvertently published its users credit card numbers.  Said numbers still show up in google’s cache.

Considering that the usernames of the people involved are also shown (which in a lot of cases, are the users real names), this is a huge privacy issue.  I imagine a lot of people will be sending angry messages to the owner of blippy, as well as cancelling their cards.

Google Translate for Animals

Well it seems that google have outdone themselves this time.  They have brought out a new app for Android phones that can bridge the gulf between humans and animals.

To quote from their site:

Making the world’s information universally accessible is a key goal for Google. Language is one of our biggest challenges so we have targeted our efforts on removing language barriers between the species. We are excited to introduce Translate for Animals, an Android application which we hope will allow us to better understand our animal friends. We’ve always been a pet-friendly company at Google, and we hope that Translate for Animals encourages greater interaction and understanding between animal and human.

Translate for Animals is an application for Android phones that recognises and transcribes words and phrases that are common to a species, like cats for example. To develop Translate for Animals, we worked closely with many of the world’s top language synthesis teams, and with leaders in the field of animal cognitive linguistics, including senior fellows at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Oh one last thing.. April fools! 

Countryside

Countryside, originally uploaded by cannonski.

View taken looking due west towards the Isle of Arran (with the snowy mountains) in the far distance.  Oh and yeah that is Cid in the foreground.  More pics of the mutt to follow.

UPDATE: I have an additional pic taken from a similar angle on a different day…

TweetMyPC

I recently tried a nice little application that is designed to give you remote access to your pc while you are not at home.  What’s more, it requires no fancy servers to be set up or any undesirable ports opened on your router.

TweetMyPC is an easy to set up application that requires only to be left running in the background on your PC, and access to an active twitter account.  Essentially it views your twitter feed for certain commands issued by you and then executes them.  As twitter messages can be sent from mobile devices, you can then remotely control your pc from your phone.  Nifty eh!

As you can see, the configuration is a doddle and takes no time at all for you to be up and running.

Here is a screenshot of my twitter where I used the simple command “os” to make it print my OS Version (there are many other commands).  A full list of which can be viewed here.

The only downside (for me at least) is the cost of the sms messages to twitter which come in at 20p a pop, which I think is rather bad.  Still all in all I thought this was a very nice application and one I would use a lot if it didn’t cost me to tweet from my phone (hint hint T-Mobile!).  Anyway you can visit my Twitter page to see it in action with more commands used.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Namecheap Contest

Well I had a fun weekend experiencing twitter’s usage as a form of trivia bot (resembling those seen in some Internet Relay Chat channels).  Essentially the hosting provider and registrar, Namecheap had a weekend of SuperBowl based questions where one could win free domain names (as well as a super prize to those who answered the most questions correctly, the prize being an Apple iPad).

Alas my SuperBowl knowledge isn’t too hot, especially since I prefer the sport of rugby, but imagine my amazement when I won one of the prizes (since I’m the type who never wins doodly squat lol).

Full results of the contest are posted here.

Anyway my thanks to Namecheap for running a fun contest (first trivia quiz I’ve seen on twitter, but I’m no pro so I have no idea if it’s been done before).

Requiscat in Pace Keith Floyd, the Prototype Gordon Ramsay.

What can I say but offer a lame Requiscat in Pace and show you a video from the Prototype.  I enclose below a video of him in action.  Sleep well, and may they serve fine booze and food in Heaven!

Hell’s Angels for the Youtube Generation

I was browsing on youtube earlier and found a nice little video.  It is footage from the Howard Hughes directed film Hell’s Angels set in World War I.  I list it as one of the great old epic war films out there and recommend those who haven’t seen it, to give it a go.

Anyway I feel it follows on quite nicely from the previous post in that the film features a large number of authentic warplanes from Bleriot’s time and even had actual WWI aces doing flying for the film. You can certainly tell from the wonderful flying witnessed in it.

The clip is set to Revelation by Manowar.  I’m not usually one for liking videos set to someone else’s musical tastes, but I feel it works in this case.  Anyway enjoy the clip!

100th Anniversary of Channel Flight

Greetings readers, I came across an interesting article today on BBC News regarding the 100th anniversary of Louis Bleriot’s famous flight over the English Channel.

The actual anniversary is tomorrow (25th July), and it seems a modern day aviator will take to the skies and recreate the flight in a replica of the Bleriot XI.  Be sure to check the  article on it, as it has a fascinating video showing inside the cockpit of the Bleriot XI replica.

Cue mandatory pic of said aircraft!