Star Size Comparison

Blogger Finally Supports Read More Function

If you have visited my site before, you may have noticed that I have changed things around a bit. I have replaced my highly customised version of the default minima template, which has served me well for a long time, with something which is hopefully more modern, elegant and simple.

During the painful process of transferring all the custom code and widgets over I realised that Blogger had finally added a feature which I had to previously hack my template to enable. The feature I am talking about is the read more function.This allows you to cut or truncate part of your post on the front page allowing readers to click on a link to view the full post.

Mininova Alternatives

Mininova has deleted all 'copyrighted' torrents from their site. They decided to do this after a failed attempt at filtering out certain torrents. Unfortunately, they had no choice but to carry out this drastic action as they had lost a court case and were ordered to remove all offending materials or face a massive fine of up to 5 million euros. It's not quite all over for Mininova, they are possibly going to make an appeal but I wouldn't get your hopes up if I were you.

Obama Advocates Indefinite Detention Without Trial

I knew it was too good to be true, it looks like Obama will turn something immoral into something that is legal. He plans to detain people, possibly for an indefinite amount of time and without trial, for crimes they might commit in the future.

Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

While I was browsing around the net looking for something to take my mind off revision I came across a site called fundies say the darndest things. It's a site with collections of quotes from all over the internet from people trying to argue against science. And by 'people' I mean mainly religious people. Although, non-religious people do say stupid things they don't have a collective agenda against science and reason. Some of these comments are funny but a lot are just plain disturbing, the stupidity of some people out there never ceases to amaze me. Below are some of my favourite comments.

Windows 7 vs Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04: Boot Time

When I heard Microsoft were giving away Windows 7 free for a year I decided to put it on my EEE PC 1000H and see what it was like. There has been a lot of buzz surrounding it, people were claiming it was much better than Vista. I was very surprised at how fast it run on my netbook, I had tried Vista previously and can remember how slow that was. I also had Ubuntu Jaunty already installed on the system so I decided to time both OS's boot time and see how they fared.

I expected Jaunty to be faster since Ubuntu put in a lot of effort to make things speedier but it turns out so did Microsoft. Both system booted in almost exactly 25 seconds, see for yourself in the videos below.

Windows 7 booting:



Ubuntu Jaunty booting:



I have to give Microsoft credit for Windows 7, it felt faster overall and it looks great too but after using Ubuntu for so long it felt a little awkward using Windows again. While the 25 second boot may seem impressive now, just wait until October when the next version of Ubuntu, which promises to be even faster, will come out. Sorry about the video quality I used my Sony Ericsson P1i to record it.

Pop Idol Kenya

Check out more videos by elRizLoco (youtube)

We are Linux

The Linux foundation has just announced the winner of the "We're Linux" video contest. The video created by Amitay Tweeto, called "What does it mean to be free", was chosen by a panel of judges as the winner.

The contest was set up by the Linux foundation to get people to create a one minute video showcasing what Linux meant to them, essentially an "I'm a Pc, I'm a Mac" type thing. Linux doesn't get a lot of advertising or promotion in the public sphere, it's usually through word of mouth that people find out about and try Linux. The aim of this contest was to make people aware of Linux and to encourage them to try it.

I really liked the winner because it not only told people that Linux was out there and they had a choice but it also portrayed the core ideas and ethos of Linux. Linux is not just software but also a community of people who believe in sharing, the ability to use your OS as you want and making it better together for everyone. Here is the winning video:



The runners up: