Peters Blog

Firefox CPU usage

2008-07-10T21:02:00.002+02:00

I've been a happy firefox user for a long time. It's a great piece of software and I'm addicted to a few of the plugins, specially Ad Block Plus and the del.icio.us plugin.
However, for some time I've been having some problems when I run firefox on my powerbook G4. It gets really warm, and the noise from the fan is driving me crazy. The reason is that firefox constantly use no less than 5% CPU power. And the del.icio.us plugin oddly use no less than an additional 5% CPU power. This consumption is when the browser is idle.

My solution so far... Is to use the Opera browser in stead. I still have an average of 5 open tabs. I'm doing the same surfing as usual, but the CPU usage is most often below 2%, and I rarely hear the fan. I can live without instant del.icio.us access, but damn... I need to figure out how to do ad-blocking with Opera.

Watch This!

2008-03-07T21:09:00.002+01:00

Ok, I haven't had time for blogging in a very long time... But this blew me away, so I had to share. As a comics geek, I've been afraid of how the Watchmen movie is going to turn out. If something has a big chance of dissappointing the fans, this is certainly it.

Then somebody sent me this link :

http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/2008/03/one_year_to_go_1.html

Now -- I'm not as afraid as I was before.

Podcast Awards

2007-08-03T22:06:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since my last post... But I just stumbled across somthing that I would like to share with you all. I was listening to Security Now! and they mentioned The Podcast Awards site. It's a good idea to go there and vote for your favorite podcast, if it's nominated. But, it's also a great list to browse for new stuff to try out.
If you find something good, don't forget to tell me :)

Den gode podcast

2007-03-13T16:32:00.000+01:00

Som så mange andre er jeg i løbet af det sidste års tid eller to blevet totalt afhængig af at lytte til podcasts. I skrivende stund abonnerer jeg på 14 forskellige podcasts som har overlevet min nådesløse sortering, og blandt dem har 4-5 stykker lige så høj status som de bedste TV udsendelser. Det har fået mig til at tænke over hvorfor dette nyere medie så tilsyneladende let kan konkurrere med de professionelle medier såsom radio og TV. Hvilke ingredienser skal der egentlig bruges til at bage 'Den gode podcast'? Jeg er kommet frem til følgende opskrift:

1. Lav din podcast for din egen skyld.

Din målgruppe minder sikkert en del om dig, så hvorfor ikke producere noget som du selv er tilfreds med? Det er naturligvis muligt at få feedback fra brugerne med forslag om at tilføre podcasten et eller andet. Tag kun de ideer som du selv synes er gode.
Dem som podcaster for andres skyld mister hurtigt motivationen. Det kan tydeligt mærkes på kvaliteten og hvad er så grunden til at fortsætte?

2. Det er indholdets kvalitet det handler om.

Hvis jeg skal bruge tid på at downloade diverse podcasts til min iPod, så skal der være en god grund til det. Når indholdet er i orden gør jeg det med glæde og vil endda bruge tid på at give feedback.
Hvis du vil lave en video-podcast, bør billederne tilføre ekstra indhold. Vi har allesammen set en person tale ind i en mikrofon, og det er som regel ikke nogen særlig oplevelse.

3. Kend dit stof. Der er en god chance for at dine lyttere ved ret meget om emnet.

Du behøver ikke være verdensførende på området men hvis du hele tiden siger noget vås, så er jeg smuttet i en fart. Hvis der er hold i de ting du siger og jeg stadig synes det er noget vås, så er jeg ikke en del af din målgruppe :)

4. Vær forberedt på kritik. Folk brokker sig også over ting de får gratis.

Folk er generelt nogle brokkehoveder, mange er tilmed gamle og mavesure, og undertegnede er ingen undtagelse. Sådan er verden bare. Ignorer den slags mennesker, eller lær dem at kende og find ud af at de nok ikke er så slemme alligevel. Hvis dine lyttere har brugt tid og energi på at give dig konstruktiv feedback, bør du svare tilbage så de føler at de bliver hørt. Du kan svare enten via din podcasts kommentar-sektion eller pr. e-mail . det behøver ikke være 'on the air'. For det betaler sig at være på god fod med dine lyttere. Hvis du ignorerer dem risikerer du at de en dag ignorerer dig.

5. Lad være med at love at næste afsnit kommer om en uge og lad være med at undskylde for den uge som blev sprunget over.

Måske er du alligevel ikke lige oplagt til at podcaste den følgende uge. Måske har du for travlt. Måske har du ikke noget at sige. Måske genudsender TV2 'Demolition Man', og du er den eneste i Danmark som ikke har den på DVD endnu.
Der kan være hundrede ting som du måske hellere lige vil lave den kommende uge frem for at behage en gruppe mennesker du overhovedet ikke kender. Så tag lige og gør de ting inden du laver den næste podcast for man kan sagtens høre hvis du ikke rigtigt gider.
Desuden er det dit liv og din podcast. Du kan gøre med dem som du vil, og det bør du. Hvis din podcast er i orden, så er jeg stadig en trofast lytter hvad enten der går to uger eller to måneder inden det næste afsnit udkommer. Jeg vil stadig tænke 'YES', hente afsnittet, og glæde mig over at du endnu en gang har leveret en god podcast.

I hate Windows 1

2007-02-19T21:56:00.000+01:00

One of the (many) reasons why I hate windows is that the statement "Restart later" really means "Please bother me again in 5 minutes". On my Mac it means "I'll restart when I want to". The same goes for Ubuntu, and my NetBSD box never even asks.

I really hope that one of the many features Windows Vista has stolen from Mac OS, is that particular interpretation of "restart later".
Actually, what I really hope, is that I'll never have to use Windows Vista.

Du er jo sikkert en pirat

2006-11-24T17:11:00.000+01:00

Nu har vi jo haft piratafgiften på DVD medier så længe at vi næsten har glemt hvor fuldstændig tåbelig den ordning er.
Men... nu er der jo nye lagermedier som er blevet moderne, og de kan jo potentielt indeholde alverdens piratkopier, så hvorfor ikke lige klaske en afgift på dem også. Det sker så fra 1. december 2006. Læs eventuelt interviewet med formanden for COPY-DAN på ekstrabladet.

Den latterlige fortolkning af hvad USB er, som er brugt af COPY-DAN, står forhåbentlig for deres egen regning. Ellers kommer vi nok til at betale et verderlag for andet end lagermedier.

I'm switching to google reader

2006-10-07T23:15:00.000+02:00

Every day I read a lot of news and blogs online. A lot. So, it's important for me to have a good news aggregator keeping track of all the rss feeds.
Many people recommend bloglines, but i never liked that very much. A while ago, I found newshutch, which have served me well. It has most of the functionalities I want, but sometimes it freezes or just slows down dramatically. This is enough for me to be looking for something else. And, I think maybe I found it today.
The latest hype on various news sites is google reader. I tried it out, and I really like it. Being a google thingy, it has the same snappy interface as gmail and google calender. Feature-wise, it does whatever I want, and best of all it has keyboard shortcuts that remind me of 'vi' (and anything like vi must be good, right? :) ).
So, now I'm switching. I'll try it out for some weeks to see if it beats the competition.

Rockbox, still in testing

2006-10-02T00:40:00.000+02:00

A few months back, I discovered Rockbox, which is a very cool firmware replacement for various music players, including most of the Ipod models. Since I own an Ipod 4g, I had to try it out :)
It's not that I think the original Ipod software is bad, I just think it lacks features. Rockbox offer lots of features. It has lots of games, lets you organize music in a normal directory structure independent of ID3 tagging and most important (to me), it has more sound codecs so I can play my beloved Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files.

So, after a few months, I have to say that I'm very impressed with this software. I enjoy being able to play chess against my Ipod while listening to Ogg Vorbis encoded music. Best of all is that I don't need special software to transfer files to the device. I don't sit in front of the same computer every day, and I haven't seen a port of ITunes to NetBSD. But with rockbox I just need to mount the device and copy files to the proper directory.

Still, I'm sorry to say that Rockbox crashes a lot. Often 5 minutes into a podcast, which is a disaster. Luckily I can boot the original Ipod firmware and still be able to do my regular stuff, and when I want to experiment I just boot back into Rockbox again. I'm hoping that Rockbox will become more stable, so that one day I will not remember which button to press to boot the original firmware.

Free internet on its way to Denmark

2006-09-27T22:09:00.000+02:00

An article in todays web-edition of the Danish newspaper 'Politiken' had a title corresponding to the title of this posting. The term 'free' is used with the meaning 'no cost'. Free internet sounds too good to be true. Guess what... It's not true.

The real topic of the piece is the FON network. As the article correctly says, the concept of the FON network is that you buy a wireless router from the project, which you connect to your home broadband connection, and let other members of FON access the router. People who are not members can buy access to the network on a daily basis.
What you gain as a member of the FON network is a wireless connection wherever you go. That is, as long as you go near a FON router.

But, you get nothing for free. You still have to pay for your own broadband connection, and the FON router. Thus, the topic is clearly misleading.
The part of the article that contain some news is that the FON organization would like to expand their business to Denmark.

Personally, I really like the idea of having wireless access to the internet when traveling, and I wouldn't mind paying for it.

But, I don't see how FON could operate legally in Denmark. I read the terms that came with my broadband connection. It states very clearly that I'm not allowed to give other people access to it, unless of course they're part of the household. Attaching a FON router would obviously violate this condition. I haven't read the terms from other providers than my own, but I'm willing to bet a couple of beers that most of them have something similar.

I think the Danish internet service providers will object strongly to FON selling its product in Denmark. It will be FUN to watch the action.

First post

2006-02-13T11:45:00.000+01:00

Hey! Just moved here from my Livejournal blog which I never used. I intend to put stuff here, but make no promises.