Probably won't get back to this blog until well into Oct Jan.

...but enjoying it.

Lots of work, a trip to Australia, moving house...it's all happening.

Another 'must have' Firefox extension has just been added to my list. TargetKiller...

...is a small extension for the Firefox Web browser. The extension removes the target attribute from links on the fly. You can specify which target attributes should get removed. By default, it removes all target attributes that are equal to _blank or _new.

This release adds an option dialog and support for whitelists and blacklists.

Nice.

I'm a big fan of Alan Moore and respect his work a great deal. I've briefly mentioned about his troubles with movie makers, but there is a new interview with him and explains the situation a lot better than I ever could. Have a read and add another reason to the 'Why I hate the American Film Industry' list.

So far the best podcast I come across is the Gillmor Gang. The format is unique to what I discovered so far in podcasting and consists of a group phone conversation that usually goes between one and two hours. Add to this some very intelligent people who know their stuff when it comes to tech and you have a very interesting and informative show.

So far the episodes I've listened to include talks with the CTO of the Mozilla Foundation, a very interesting discussion about the future of identity on the Internet, a discussion with the creator or WikiCalc and the reactions of The Gang to the release of Intel Viiv and DRM.

The Gang include a number of important people, but the core consists of Dana Gardner, Dan Farber, Doc Searls, Steve Gillmor, Mike Vizard and John Udell.

Check it...no...seriously...check it.

The latest Extremetech podcast is a review of the Intel Developer Forum. There's also a article on Extremetech detailing their findings. Victor and Loyd discuss all the new surprises Intel are promising in the coming months. Sounds like Intel have something special with Conroe.

Intel's next-generation dual-core processor family (codenamed ‘Conroe’) delivers exceptional performance and headroom to support demanding tasks including video conferencing, multithreaded applications and multitasking, all with outstanding performance/watt. ‘Conroe’s’ new, high-performance microarchitecture, shared cache optimized for multi-core use, and faster mainstream front-side bus maximize the responsiveness of professional platforms even when running demanding business applications. The improved fine-grain power control and advanced semiconductor technology used with ‘Conroe’ help deliver high-performance desktop platforms that consume less power than previous platform generations.

And the ETt guys say;

At the 2006 Intel Developer Forum, Intel showed a Conroe system running existing generation PC games faster than an AMD system. And not only was the Intel system running at 2.66GHz—a slower clock rate than the top Pentium 4—it was outpacing an overclocked Athlon 64 FX-60. Wrap your brain around that idea for a bit while we dive into the architecture of Intel's new progeny.

The other biggy was Viiv.

Intel's new platform designed for the enjoyment of digital entertainment—Intel® Viiv™ technology—delivers the multitasking power of a dual-core processor and enables sleek new designs that fit your lifestyle.

Wow - sleak new designs that fit my lifestyle - givemeabreak.

From the ESA post;

This image of Mt. Fuji is the first data to be acquired by Japan’s recently launched Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) on 24 January 2006...

Mt. Fuji – Japan’s highest mountain (3776 metres) – is a volcano that has been dormant since its last eruption in 1707. It is located near the Pacific coast and straddles the prefectures of Yamanashi and Shizuoka about 100 kilometres west of Tokyo.

Detailed streets and rivers in the Kofu Basin are visible in the front of the image, and Motosu Lake, one of five lakes making up the Fuji Five Lake region, is in the centre right. The Fuji-Subaru road, which leads to the top of the mountain from Motosu Lake, can also be seen.

You need to see the high res version to fully appreciate this shot.

Found at everyone's favorite astronomy blog - UniverseToday.

There's a 20mins documentary video on the 'Amen Break'. The film has a good history of this particular and very popular break, while also giving a good overview of some copyright/ownership issues.

Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

You can view the documentary online or download it for later viewing.

While you're at it, check out some of Nate's other works at nkhstudio.com

It still amazes me when I explain to some people what breaks are and how they are used in modern music, as a large percentage of them are totally oblivious to the concept. It's always good to provide these people with a concrete example, so if you find yourself in this situation, head over to The-Breaks.com where you can match a break with a list of tracks that use the break.

Unipage...

...is a way to store a complete web page as just one file.

All of the page's images, formatting, and even functionality are kept together instead of as separate files.

To create a Unipage from any web page or page on your computer, you need the Unipage Unifier program.

The download is windows only at the moment, which is funny because when I tested it, my saved page only worked in Firefox and not IE [which was what popped open when the Unipage Unifier finished making the single html file].

You can download it here.