The computer science source
I had a look through the WordPress theme directory and was surprised to see no themes designed with accessibiliy for low vision readers in mind. So using the Sandbox theme and the BBC’s own Betsie Low Vision Parser (a great Perl script to make your website low vision freidnly) I quickly made my own, here is a screenshot:
Screenshot
Download
Anyone else seeing the Python-urllib/2.5 google labs bot hitting their sites? Ive noticed it particularly hits new sites.
Just wondering if anyone out there has any idea what is does? Post a comment if you’re seeing it too and maybe we can work it out.
I've noticed quite a few people have been searching for how to use the net use command on this site.
Below is a list of the commands, and a full tutorial on how to use net use is here
The NET Command Program
NET Command Syntax Chart
NET ASCII
NET BOOT
NET CLOSE
NET CLIENTS
NET COMBINE
NET CONTINUE
NET DEBUG
NET DELAY
NET GHOST
NET FLUSH
NET HELP
NET KEY
NET LOAD
NET LOGOFF
NET LOGON
NET MENU
NET MODEM
NET PAUSE
NET PASSWORD
NET PEERS
NET PING
NET PORTS
NET PRINT
NET PRNSETUP
NET RC / Remote Control
NET RECEIVE
NET RING
NET SEND
NET SEPARATE
NET SERVERS
NET SHARE
NET TIME / DATE
NET USE / CONNECT
NET VERSION
NET VIEW
There isnt a simple answer to the question, “Which is the best web hosting company?”, as the answer depends entirely on your needs. To be honest, I’ve always gone for the cheapest. Sometimes I’ve been pleasently surprised, sometimes its led to major issues.
Below are three short tales from the crypt of problems I’ve had with webhosts:
Dial up works by connecting through your phone line. It is the cheapest method to connect to the internet. It is also however the slowest (in terms of downloads and time waiting to connect), and prevents you from being able to receive phone calls whilst connected.
Broadband is typically more than ten times faster, allowing you to stream videos and browse websites comfortably.
If you choose broadband, you’ll need to choose between DSL and cable connections. Typically cable is the faster than DSL, but may not be available in your area. Satellite is fast and widely available; but can be very expensive.
Once you’ve decided the service you want, try asking your existing telephone provider if they offer any good deals. Also try looking at comparison websites, and try my recomended ISP’s below.
When choosing a provider, consider more than just the cost. In particular, look for a toll free support number (as set up problems are very common). Also check if there are installation costs.
The actual implementation of an ISP can affect the speed significantly. Whilst two cmopanies may both offer the same bandwidth, one company (typically larger companies) may have agreements with other ISP’s to have priority traffic. This can lead to discrepencies between companies speeds. It all gets a bit confusing at this point but it isnt too important 
6.0MB of Broadband…7Xs Faster Than DSL…Order Now from Comcast
Get Free NetZero Internet Access for 10 hours per month
disable_functions = system,exec
I read an interesting article in the Belfast Telegraph today (“Get a life, or just Google it”) about Google’s plan to store all data it gains from users permanently to offer more relevant websites and product advertisments. Ignoring the obvious privacy concerns, there may be another issue with this- expanding Google’s price comparison services (eg Froogle) may be pushing the prices that consumers pay up, not down.
“For example if you want to buy a particular book from a certain site, Google could locate other sites selling the same book at a cheaper price or it could recommend other books by the same author.” The Telegraph
The reason is that competitors know exactly what price they have to beat, all it takes is a quick search. Without this, they only have a vague idea and will often offer very low prices in case a competitor can beat them. Paul Klemperer, the UK governments auction theorist, states this more formally:
Transparent internet prices are readily observable by a firm’s competitors so lead, in effect, to an “ascending” auction; a firm knows if and when its others are being beaten and can rapidly respond to its competitors’ others if it wishes. So, viewing each car sale as a separate auction, the price any consumer faces falls until all but one firm quits bidding to sell to him. …
On the other hand, shopping to buy a car from one of competing dealers is very like procuring in a (first-price) “sealed-bid” auction. It is typically impossible to credibly communicate one dealer’s other to another. (Car dealers often deliberately make this hard by refusing to put an other in writing.) So from the buyer’s perspective it is as if sellers were independently making sealed-bid others in ignorance of the competition. …
“Why Every Economist Should Learn Some Auction Theory”, Paul Klemperer
Other concerns are that the only companies that can offer very low prices across the board are large firms, as they buy in such bulk and have low cost per transaction due to their size. Again, Google’s price comparison service can be a disadvantage to small firms.
To end on a more positive note, I am just highlighting some issues I forsee that may come to be important in the future. At present it is clear that the Internet as a who has enabled small companies to reduce their selling costs, sell to a wider audience and also allow consumers to easily compare and, in general, buy products at prices far lower than the high street.
Google has just released their newest toy from the labs: Google Code Search. Along with being a useful tool for development, and perhaps finding security holes, you can also have alot of fun with it.
In case you were wondering, there are:
Just 100 hits for the phrase hitler. Including my favourite:
"One World, one Web, one Program." - Microsoft(R) promotional ad "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer." - Adolf Hitler
" 14: my $storage = Springfield::connect_empty; my $homer = NaturalPerson->new( firstName => ‘Homer‘, name => ‘Simpson‘ ); Springfield::test( !defined $storage->id( $homer ) ) “
"addPlayChat("4 Oompa Loompa“,”Oompa Loompa Doopida Dee”, oompa);”
Hunting for interesting quotes is getting to be quite an addiction for me. I am currently investigating the number of pieces of code written by “Your Mum”.
Also of interest is the Linux Kernelswear count project.
A neat trick I saw on corz.org is that you can do on the fly translation using .htacces and Google or Altavista translate.
By re-writing anything ending in -fr, for example, to the url of the french google translator. For example, the .htaccess will translate on the fly:
Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^(.*)-fr$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=fr&sl=en&u=http://www.rustyspigot.com/$1 [r,nc] RewriteRule ^(.*)-de$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=de&sl=en&u=http://www.rustyspigot.com/$1 [r,nc] RewriteRule ^(.*)-es$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=es&sl=en&u=http://www.rustyspigot.com/$1 [r,nc] RewriteRule ^(.*)-it$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=it&sl=en&u=http://www.rustyspigot.com/$1 [r,nc] RewriteRule ^(.*)-pt$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=pt&sl=en&u=http://www.rustyspigot.com/$1 [r,nc]
In a move that was a long time coming, Wikipedia has decided to attatch rel=nofollow to all outgoing links. This small change will mean that all links from Wikipedia will be ignored by Google (and Msn, Yahoo) when weighting how important sites are.
This will have too affects. The first is that spamming of Wikipedia will reduce dramatically, freeing up editors to spend their time increasing the quality of existing pages rather than removing spam.
The second is that some existing sites that rely heavily on honest Wikipedia articles for page rank will drop dramatically in the rankings.