It took a bit longer than expected, but I’ve finally managed to top myself on Google, so searching for Peter Upfold in Google now takes you to the new URL (the old one redirects, but the new one is better and we want people linking to the new not the old).

Yahoo actually managed to get there a few days quicker than Google, so credit there. Microsoft Live Search is still reporting the old URL at the top (the new one is listed below as a separate entity despite there being permanent redirect codes being issued by the old one). And Live, no I did not mean peter uphold.

Actually I’m really lucky that my name is unusual enough that I can top search engines for my name. Very lucky. +1 for weird names.

You’re not allowed to do this:

So why are Google Ads for services like this showing up in Gmail? I suppose it’s not illegal so it’s not Google’s job to enforce, but it is against the WoW ToS to use these services.

Ironically, it wasn’t actually an email conversation about World of Warcraft, just the word ‘wow’ (as in “wow look at that”) appeared a couple of times.

In other Google-related news, I’m getting Google Apps For Your Domain set up on upfold.org.uk, so I’m looking forward to trying it out!

Once again, I’ve managed to let my post frequency here drop really sharply, which sucks. Sorry.

I just noticed that I have an alarming number of feed subscriptions in my Google Reader. Being the curious person that I am, I want to know how this compares to other people’s number of subscriptions.

So I have 189 sites that deliver me content as it happens. If you use a feed reader, how many subscriptions do you have? Compared to you, do I subscribe to loads, a few, or what?

You probably don’t know me very well if you don’t know that I like tweaking and playing around with stuff. After having quite a while of a green-themed Linux desktop, I got bored of it and decided I wanted blue back. This time, though, I picked a different window decorator engine so my desktop feels different. Still like my window controls on the left, though. 🙂

Desktop24042007 Hosted on Zooomr

Sorry about the lack of posting here, I’ve been mighty busy here working on other blogs I contribute too and plently of other stuff too.

Today I want to share a random bit of Mac trivia that I noticed. Be warned, it is really quite random, but it’s also pretty cool.

It’s a few ways to tell whether a Mac application is a Cocoa application or not, by looking at very subtle differences in how they work.

First of all, this is a nice easy way to discover whether something’s a Cocoa app. It works in all applications that use Cmd-M as the keyboard shortcut to minimise a window. Focus a window of your target application and press Cmd-M.

Watch the amber traffic light carefully as it minimises. If you can see the little minus sign in the traffic light as it minimises, then it is a Cocoa app. You must press Cmd-M, not just click the button, otherwise it won’t work.

Let’s take a look. In Safari, a Cocoa app, you can see the minus sign as it minimises:

But in Firefox, not a Cocoa app, nothing is visible:

You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to get those screenshots in mid-minimise by the way. 😉

Anyway, that is basically it. From that you can tell whether or not an app is built with Cocoa. As far as I know, it’s pretty accurate, but let me know if it’s wrong at all.

There’s also another one. If your target application has a show/hide toolbar toggle button, click it. If the animation is smooth, it’s Cocoa. If there is no animation and it just switches, it’s likely to not be Cocoa.

Just thought I’d share that with everybody. Because I notice strange subtle details like that.

UPDATE: references to the former Bird Site of short-form social media have been adjusted to avoid providing free publicity to something that is undeserving of such promotion. This is no longer how I feel about this website, but my historical feelings are to be preserved below, with the relevant site’s name obviously altered!

After having used Short-Form “Bird” Social Media Site Before It Went Terrible for quite some time now, I’m no longer uber-paranoid and now my Short-Form “Bird” Social Media Site Before It Went Terrible is now public.

That means you can now spy on me.

For those of you who don’t already know it, my Short-Form “Bird” Social Media Site Before It Went Terrible URL is http://example.com/strategyoracle.

Hmmm… so it tells me to type ‘help’ at any time for help, but then complains at me because help isn’t a menu option.

Sounds like a bug to me.

(This isn’t an April Fool trick – try it yourself.)

It’s all about ego. Windows users are elitist snobs because they use the dominant platform. Apple users are elitist snobs because they use the “cool” computers. And Linux users are elitist snobs because they use Free Software.

Hmmm… it’s so true. 😛

Taken from actually quite an interesting article. Not sure I agree with all of it, but interesting nevertheless.

(I wrote this earlier this afternoon, but only just got round to pasting it in.)

This is the second time I have written a blog post outside. The first was this FOSSwire post, that I composed just a few moments ago.

You know what that means?

• I have a laptop (and you know that).
• The weather is getting warmer.

Today was just great. Blue skies – not too cold, but not too hot and the sun was out.

The only bad thing about writing blog posts outside is that I don’t have wifi. So I have to tap them out in TextEdit, go back inside, plug in my Ethernet cable and copy and paste.

Ah well. You can’t win them all.

You’ve probably seen this already, but if not, I just have to share this gem:

Man, I wish Windows still cost only $99. In case you were wondering, this ad is real.

I think the picture speaks for itself.