sxa's Technical Musings

[Short link to this article if you need it - http://goo.gl/cGB8FP - or retweet me ] This article contains links that some people may object to - you have the choice whether to click them At the time of writing this Formula 1 driver Jules Bianchi has been taken unconscious to hospital in an ambulance after his Marussia Formula 1 car collided with a yellow crane/digger which was trying to move Adrian Sutil's Sauber out of the way after the both aquaplaned off the track on consecutive laps at the same point. The initial reaction on twitter was "What's going on?" when the medical car came out of the pits along with the safety car which had come out to slow the race down (it was stopped shortly after). What wasn't visible on the live stream was that it wasn't for Sutil's accident - it wasn't shown that Bianchi had gone off too, although some on screen graphics showed Bianchi's name against the long distance view where only Sutil's car was vis...

[Short link to this article if you need it - http://goo.gl/pVdsoM - or retweet me . This article is a useful collection of links I've gathered for myself as much as being a blog article for others!] The Facebook messenger app that was introduced appears to have generated quite a bit of controversy. Facebook split out the messaging functionality into a separate app from the main one and blocked the main one's ability to manage private messages, this effectively forcing people to install the new app to keep their existing functionality. Not inherently a problem in itself, but it seemed to stir up a bit of controversy about the permissions that the application had. It wanted access to your camera and microphone. How could that be. The level of outrage seemed to reach fever pitch on some parts of the internet about how having acces to that meant that they could spy on you and record everything you're doing. It got ridiculous, and the media didn't help - I saw this appear...

[Short link to this article if you want it - http://goo.gl/WFPIzm - or retweet m e] Undecided on the #indyref ? Download the #ScotSept18 ebook for unbiased information to ensure you know the facts: http://t.co/kJ7B7slc5F — ScotlandSeptember18 (@ScotlandSept18) September 17, 2014 I'm a bit late in posting this but what the hell ... The Scotland independence referendum is coming up to it's climax. I've finished drafting this just after midnight - voting will commence in a few hours. The question is simple: "Should Scotland be an independent country" That's it. Yes or No. I currently live in England after living in Scotland until I was 22 therefore I don't get to vote in this. Scotland has been part of the United Kingdom for many years, and there are plenty of arguments on both sides. The white paper is available here if you want to see what's being proposed. And some of the things that would still be shared at least to begin with are co...

[Short link to this article if you need it: http://goo.gl/D9n7tX - or retweet me !] There is an executive summary/how-to at the end of the main article if you're just looking to get on and do it! This has been quite a popular blog entry, so if you've found it useful, please get in touch and let me know! INTRODUCTION It seemed like such an easy thing to do. Use Linux to write a continuous mix audio CD of some tracks of 2013 to a 90-minute blank CD-R with track splits and CD-Text information. Bear in mind that some things I'm covering here are NOT specific to 90-minute discs, but are true for audio CD writing on Linux in general. I'm writing this to document my experiences since I struggled to find the comprehensive information anywhere else. For reference in this article my use of "wodim" and "cdrecord" are interchangeable - the machine I was using used wodim 1.1.11 - "cdrecord" was symlinked to it. For the uninitiated, most CD-Rs o...

[Short link to this article if you need it - http://goo.gl/nKqxM7 or retweet me ] I've written before about the reasons why I'm more than happy to pay for music streaming services and how it hasn't diminshed the amount of music I pay for, but recently WE7 discontinued it's "on-demand" subscription service. With it's demise occurring after it's acquisition by Tesco and a move exclusively to a zero-cost "radio station" model after the rebranding to BlinkBox Music I had to start looking around for an alternative (Thanks to the team at Gareth and Georgie at WE7 for recovering my playlists! I do still recommend BlinkBox to those who don't need explicit selections). Spotify was the obvious one of course, but part of what I liked about WE7 was supporting the underdog, so my preference would be to support a bit of competition and go for an alternative. So what are the options? Spotify Everyone knows what this is, and most people have pr...

[Short link to this article if you need it - http://goo.gl/ixqxJy - or retweet me ] Another old article - drafted nearly a year ago now but it's time to post it! There is a separate companion article about problems with the device, but this one is about the OS. DISCLAIMER 1: This is written from a perspective of someone who's bought their first Android device. DISCLAIMER 2: I bought the tablet because I don't have a laptop, so some of these are issues in using it as an alternative to a laptop to highlight the limitations of doing so. Now that I've got both of those things out of the way, I'll continue. I bought a Nexus10 because I not longer have a laptop in the house. I figured the stuff I'd do on a laptop would be more practically served by a tablet. For me the disadvantage of any sensibly priced laptop on the market has always been the screen resolution - it's all very well saying you have a 15" screen, but why do  they headlines never list t...

[ Short link to this article if you need it - http://goo.gl/ykgDqG or retweet me ] This is an article that's been in draft form well over a year now (it was written as the final entry following my previous two articles about Facebook - one on the frequent appearance of unsourced "scandal" posts and social engineering and another on technical issues with the site  - and I initially intended to post it shortly after the others near the end of 2012!) It wook a while because it's a tricky one to balance the article correctly and frankly, it was hard at the time to come by non-anecdotal statistics to back it up effectively. But I now need to get it out of the way so I can post some more blogs :-) Unfortunately I may have missed the boat slightly by delaying it since there are a few similar articles that were posted during 2013 by others! I have a concern that social media potentially triggers more cases of depression than is necessarily appreciated. This is, of cour...