Category: Internet matters

Posts about the internet

More on Mica’s videos

Mica’s ‘Jock Rock’ video came first in the sixth Google Idol pop music video competition. Previously, his video for ‘Walk Idiot Walk’ won their first rock video competition.

Right now, his video for ‘I Bet That You Look Good on the Dance Floor’ is in the grand final of the 4th rock video competition. Please take a minute and go vote. The competition ends on the 17th and, when last I heard, he was trailing behind the other competitor.

Google Idol seems to have changed their name to ‘bopsta’ because of the rather problematic fact that they didn’t have permission to use ‘Google’ or ‘Idol’ in their name. It’s true that people did often incorrectly assume that they actually had something to do with Google, other than using their video service for free hosting.

Relevant links:

Data exchanged

Grad students in Oxford should definitely make use of the 50GB of free backup space provided by the school. A backup is the best defence against anything that can happen to your computer: from viruses to abrupt falls. Before you can backup your data, you need to register.

After about ten hours, my data is on the HFS server. It seemed like overkill to back up all the music, but this was the default configuration. It took enough tinkering to make it work in the first place, and I was able to tell it not to back up videos. Fifty-four gigabytes, passed across the network at about 800kb/s.

It’s odd to think of the robot arms sorting data backup tapes, in fire safes wherever they may be. I am glad everything sensitive is durably encrypted, as far as I can recall.

New blog on Vancouver speaking events

Most of what I write here is for people attending or interested in Oxford. Here’s a link for people in Vancouver. My friend Tristan is setting up a blog that lists speaking events in that fine Pacific city. If you have something to suggest, please email him through the links provided therein.

People with web design experience are particularly encouraged to help develop this into a useful service for academically inclined Vancouverites.

Oxford Wireless LAN

While it may not be obvious, there is indeed a certain amount of university-run wireless networking in Oxford. Network availability is quite limited, but at least one of these seems to seep into the room where my developing world seminar is held.

In order to use the network, you need to register for a remote access account and get a Cisco VPN client. Mac configuration is detailed here. It is annoying that you need to install special software for the VPN, given that Mac OS X can handle normal wireless networks perfectly well on its own. This means that you cannot access the VPN (say, to use electronic resources) from any computer on which you are not allowed to install software.

Hopefully, wireless networking will rapidly become more widely available in Oxford. That said, I have serious doubts about whether any such change can occur rapidly within such a disaggregated and complex system.

PS. Another OUCS service well worth looking into is their HFS backup system. It is especially valuable for people with finicky and easy to steal laptops:

Three copies of your data are made, each to separate tapes; one copy is held in the automated tape library; the second, in a fire-proof safe located at OUCS and the third in a fire-proof safe at an offsite storage facility outside Oxford.

Snazzy, no? It is only available for graduate students.

On mass leaching of images

Hotlinkers beware! Whenever you generate more than, say, 25,000 requests to my server, you will get the pancake face of doom. It may be a small fraction of my total bandwidth allotment, but when it begins happening at such a scale it transcends ‘annoying’ and becomes ‘rude.’

The saga of my interactions with the MySpace hotlinkers began here. Here is one of the many offending sites. This one has generated 700 image requests during the last thirty days.

Final reminder: OxBlogger gathering tonight

Time: 8:00pm
Date: Today – Wednesday, November 1st
Place: Far From the Madding Crowd (map)

What to expect: Meeting other residents of Oxford who maintain blogs.
Note: You need not have met us before to attend; indeed, this is how we met in the first place.

Seth and Ben have also announced this. For more information, see previous announcements and records of past gatherings.

Let my packets go!

Oxford Social Sciences Library

Why is wireless networking so dodgy right now? I am not talking about typing 400 character messages into your phone with your thumbs, but about accessing something really useful with a device not physically connected to a computer network.

Not to sound like Margaret Thatcher, but a big part of the answer is government regulation. Back in the day when analog cellular phones were a dream, there was a belief that radio frequencies had to be allocated, for eternity, to a particular group for a specific use. The advent of cool networking technologies like CDMA has demonstrated that this is not only wrong, but incredibly inefficient.

If we abandoned a broadcast television station or two, or national militaries gave up some of the radio frequency spectrum allocated to them, some really good wireless internet access could emerge. Until then, we must all wait until technological advancement removes the shackles imposed by governments concerned about the technological issues of decades past.

WordPress 2.0.5 upgrade

The blog has been upgraded to WordPress 2.0.5: Ronan. This is an incremental upgrade, so I do not anticipate any major issues. So many people are doing this upgrade today that the instructions page for upgrades on the WordPress Codex cannot be accessed. Good thing I remember the drill from last time.

Plugins will be coming online as I test them.

Please report any problems. As always, I am open to suggestions for new features.

[Update: 3:00pm] All my plugins are running; I see no problems. In addition to upgrading WordPress, I installed the latest version of the excellent anti-spam system Spam Karma 2.

PS. For the record, free open source software remains the best thing since antibiotics.

Bloggers’ gathering reminder

Pond in the University Parks

The day has been busy and the hour is late, so I will not write much. Indeed, I will just quickly remind members of the Oxford blogging community – new and old – that the fourth Oxford Bloggers’ Gathering will be happening next Wednesday, November 1st, at 8:00pm, at Far From the Madding Crowd, near the small Sainsbury’s at Broad Street and Cornmarket.

In my experience, meeting other Oxford bloggers is good fun, so I hope to see plenty of people there. Established bloggers, please pass along the word.