Donncha

My Linux Webcam

When I bought me PC last year it came with a small little webcam which never worked for me until today when I plugged it in and Ubuntu Linux detected it using the Spca5xx driver. This is what the kernel reported:
“USB SPCA5XX camera found. SONIX sn9c102 + Pas106”
Easycam made it easy enough to install new drivers, and Camorama is a useful tool to control it. (via)

Unfortunately this isn’t very exciting for a number of reasons:

It has a manual focus and doesn’t handle changes in light very well.
I can’t get it to capture more than ~~176×144~~ 352×288.
There’s no busy road or traffic to see from my window. I could point it at the LEDS on my DSL router?

Oh well! That was fun for five minutes!

An exciting scene in blarney today

The TVArk – television museum

Ryan found the TVArk! Ryan has linked directly to a few ads such as the old Kia Ora one from 1984 and remember the Trebor Soft Mints one set in a strange and soft world? That’s from 1987!
Lots more on the TVArk site itself, Yes Ryan, I’ll have to have a good look around this site tonight!

Cancer chemical found in coffee

A cancer causing chemical has been found in coffee. Acrylamide is the drug in question and “only chips and crisps are responsible for greater quantities on average.” (That’s fries and chips to US readers)
Yet again, I’m glad I gave up coffee! Unfortunately the chemical is produced during cooking, “particularly high-temperature processes such as frying and roasting” and so bread and biscuits have high levels of it. Damn.

Jack and Jill Mobile Phone Appeal

This morning on Ian Dempsey’s show a representative from the Jack and Jill Childrens Foundation was on asking for mobile phones to be sent to them.
This is a really good cause, the Foundation helps “babies born with severe developmental delay. Usually that means that they can not function at birth and require 24 hour care.”

You shouldn’t send SIM cards or battery chargers, just the phone. Details of where to send the phones are available but if you have an old mobile phone, pop it into an envelope and send it to “The Jack & Jill Inkjet Appeal, Freepost.” That’s all! If you’re in a large organisation, there’s a lo-call number to ring to arrange a larger collection!
Haven’t got an old mobile phone? Why not give them your old printer cartridges instead!

c64ize An Image!

Justin has coded a c64ize script which will convert an image in modern formats such as jpeg or gif into what an 8 bit Commodore 64 would display!
Ah yes, you had to be there…

2 for the developers

2 links for the developers around here:

Quick Lookup is an online dictionary of PHP,MySQL, Javascript and CSS commands and keywords. As of this moment, “55% ish of MySQL is done, JS is NOT finished yet” but it’s still useful if you haven’t got the PHP manual handy.
Regular Expression Checker – regexes are an arcane science. Everyone needs all the help they can get when working with them! (via)

Later.. Here’s another AJAX powered regular expression checker via Matt.

The Roaring Forties on the Late Late Show

Donal wants to see Cork Jazz band, The Roaring Forties on the Late Late Show. As he says himself, email Pat and tell him how great they are!

Queen's Death on Two Legs .. who is it dedicated to?

Over the years there has been much speculation over the years as to who this song is dedicated to. A post on songmeanings.net states that it is about Norman Sheffield, their manager in the early days who “locked Queen into a slave like contract where they saw almost nothing in terms of royalties and artistic freedom.” Nasty!

I searched about a year ago for the answer to this question but couldn’t find anything as “concrete” as the answers above. It is still hear-say but I believe it could be true..
Last night while channel-flipping I came across “Classic Albums” on BBC1. The show was about Queen’s, “A Night At The Opera”, the album which really set the ball rolling for them and included the huge hit Bohemian Rhapsody.

I missed the start of the show but came in when they were talking about “Death on Two Legs”. Brian May spoke for up to a minute about the early days, saying they had a manager then who handled everything. He named the manager but I can’t recall what the name was. It was most likely Norman Sheffield.

They showed a grainy black and white group photo, and the camera zoomed in on the smiling young face of a man in a suit and lingered there for a few seconds. The scene changed back to May who looked into the camera for a few seconds saying nothing.

If you want to know what others think about this album, here are some critical and not so critical reviews.

Irish Blog Awards – Who's your favourite?

Ryan alerted me to the fact that Damien Mulley has opened the flood gates for nominations for the Irish Blog Awards!

This blog hasn’t been updated as much as it used to since wordpress.com took off, but take a look at the categories and email Damien if you think I should be nominated!

Guess I have my hands stuck in several of the categories with this blog and my photoblog, In Photos, so please don’t let me stop you nominating me in whatever category you like! 🙂

painful self-promotion ends!

A Christmas Story

Take five minutes out of your busy day and read Mike’s short story about his visit to Santa. It’s a good read!

One of the great things about working on WordPress.com is that I come across brilliant posts like this one. Granted, his blog is in the top 10 most popular, but there are plenty of others.
That gives me a warm glow.