I was signing up to a website the other day, and it wanted to know my title. Here are the options it offered me: Look, I get it. If I'm ever daft enough to undertake a PhD and masochistic enough to complete it - I am going to demand that everyone addresses me as Doctor Who Doom Octopus. But why this ordering? Why distinguish between male and female doctors? Let's see if the source code holds…
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The good folk at Nooie have sent me their 360 WiFi camera to review. Cost is usually £50 - but check the bottom of this post for a discount code. The design is gorgeous - and award winning. It's a sleek unit and, surprisingly, feels nice in the hand. It can store videos on an SD card (not included) or via the cloud. The app - which is pretty nice - also lets you view the camera when you're away …
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I've never "got" the appeal of a Mac. But I have to use one for work. Here's a partial list of everything I cannot do on a Mac, but I can do on Ubuntu. These are all objective facts. These are things which either are impossible, or require adding unsupported 3rd party software - sometimes at a cost. Resize the system font I find the menu bar at the top too small. The only way to do this on…
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HTML is magic. It comes with all sorts of great usability and accessibility features. But people often ignore them or misuse them. Take a look at these checkboxen: If you click on this label, nothing happens. If you click on this label, the checkbox will toggle This is important. Tapping on tiny squares is hard for lots of people. Whether they have visual impairments, motor issues, or just…
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I'm trying to create some ridiculously tiny audio files. The sort where every single byte matters. I've encoded a small sample. But the opusenc tool automatically adds metadata - even if you don't specify any. Using the amazing Mutagen Python library I was able to completely strip out all the metadata! import mutagen mutagen.File("example.opus").delete() It edits the file immediately - so be …
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Apple's attitude to usability is... complex. The general attitude of "you're holding it wrong" seems to be prevalent across all their products. I like having a large mouse cursor. I find it easier to see on my large monitor, especially when sat at a safe distance. But, if I use a large cursor - I can't see the tool-tips underneath it. Annoyingly, Apple don't include the larger cursor sizes…
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I need a new laptop. My old one is dying a long, slow death. My requirements are modest - runs Ubuntu and charges via USB-C. Cheap would be a bonus - as would a num-pad - but I'll take what I can get! Loads of people have recommended the Dell XPS13 series. I'm looking at them and I'm a bit confused (so what else is new). I'd appreciate your advice gentle reader. There are two models available. …
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Mums, eh? One minute they're teaching you how to read and write, the next minute you're teaching them how to video call casting directors during quarantine. You see, my mum is an actress. When people ask "what sort" - I could tell them about the award winning short films she has been in. Or the London theatre productions she's starred in. Or the TV commercials you've almost certainly seen. …
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We have just installed solar panels on our house in London. We also had panels on our old house in Oxford. How do they compare? Oxford London Latitude 51.753738 51.486880 Panel Size 4000 Watts 5040 Watts Orientation South East/West Split Obviously, it's hard to compare exact weather conditions - lower temperature makes for more efficient generation - but…
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WebP is the hip new image format on the scene. It offers unrivalled image compression at superior visual quality. But, in my opinion, it is deficient compared to JPG in one significant aspect. It doesn't have a progressive mode. Progressive mode is useful because it can quickly load a low resolution preview of an image, and then gradually improve its quality. WebP, by contrast, just loads up…
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The good folk at Seeed Studio have sent me a Rock Pi S to review. Since the original Raspberry Pi came out, there has been an explosion in Single Board Computers - but this one is special. It is miniscule - almost dominated by the Ethernet port. And the specifications are ridiculously good - considering this thing costs US$10 + postage. 256MB RAM USB-C power Ethernet 26 GPIO pins Another…
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We're all working from home now, right? I got this specific monitor for two reasons only: It rotates to vertical mode It was within my employer's home working budget There are no integrated USB hubs, no TV tuners, no gaming mode, no 4K, no HDR, no smarts. It is just a screen. That happens to rotate. Tech Specs Gloriously boring. For video, there's an HDMI socket. You also get a legacy VGA…
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