Googling Sex in Two Countries

24 August 2009

When people flocked to reproduce Abigail Bray’s experiment of searching Google for ‘sex’, what surprised me was that the results varied significantly. So, I tried myself, and I found that the results were very different when searching Google than they were when searching Google Australia.

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Simple Countdown Timer for Windows

21 August 2009

I needed a simple timer utility for Windows, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of the programs available. So, I wrote Orzeszek Timer. Just enter the time to count down in just about any format, and hit Enter to start the timer.

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How to Sync WMP and iTunes Ratings

17 August 2009

If you use both Windows Media Player and iTunes to manage your music, keeping your ratings synchronised can be a pain. Orzeszek Ratings lets you sync your play counts and ratings between Windows Media Player and iTunes with two clicks.

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How to Delete Flash Cookies Conveniently

12 August 2009

A couple of days ago, Wired reported on the questionable use of Flash cookies revealed by a UC Berkley study. Many users are unaware that Adobe’s popular Flash plugin stores its own cookies separately from normal browser cookies. Here’s how to get rid of them.

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Fix Slow WLM File Transfers with Orzeszek Transfer

11 August 2009

Slow and buggy file transfers are a problem with Windows Live Messenger. Orzeszek Transfer works as a simple HTTP server, and is a convenient way to transfer larger files without using an intermediary. And it supports resuming broken transfers and multi-part transfers, so long as the client does.

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Will Firefox Morph into Chrome over Two Iterations?

22 July 2009

Sadly, Firefox today looks like it belongs in the last decade. Recently, a number of blogs have picked up screenshots showing mock-ups of the interface for Firefox 3.7. But what I found more interesting was a proposed interface evolution showing Firefox morphing into Google Chrome over two iterations.

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The Clarity in Pricing Act’s New s 53C Works

25 June 2009

Recently, I noticed that the advertising on the Greater Union website had changed. Previously, Greater Union enticed its visitors to join its CINE BUZZ club by promising $8 movie tickets. It buried a mandatory $1 per ticket ‘booking fee’ in the fine print. It appears that the updated s 53C of the Trade Practices Act has put an end to this annoying practice.

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Change the Tag Cloud Font Size in WordPress 2.8

11 June 2009

One of the annoyances about the default tag cloud widget in WordPress is that there is no easy way to change the minimum and maximum font size that the widget uses. While the recent release of WordPress 2.8 doesn’t add any UI to change those sizes, it’s now easier to change them than before.

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Razer Prohibits Use of Its Mice with Multiple PCs

28 May 2009

I bought a AU$200 Razer Mamba mouse. Being inclined as I am, I decided to read through the legalese that accompanied the mouse, including the EULA for the driver software. ‘Razer™ grants you a … license to use one copy of the enclosed software … on one computer only … No other rights are granted.’

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What Conroy Meant by Voluntarily Mandatory

27 May 2009

Yesterday, Senator Conroy made statements in a Senates Estimates hearing suggesting that filtering could be implemented with a voluntary industry code. To explain what he (probably) meant, I have set out how filtering is governed by a voluntary industry code today, how this can be changed to make filtering mandatory, and what exactly is ‘voluntary’ about this industry code.

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How to Enable OpenType Ligatures in Word 2010

17 May 2009

No normal person would care, but Microsoft has finally added support for OpenType ligatures in Microsoft Word 2010 (Word 14). They’re not enabled by default, though. To enable OpenType ligatures, right-click on some text, select Font, select the Advanced tab, and select Standard Only from the Ligatures combo box.

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So What Exactly Is Prohibited Content?

16 May 2009

When three copies of the ACMA blacklist were posted on Wikileaks, people were surprised to find it included ordinary pornography, horror movie clips, anti-abortion sites, pro-euthanasia sites, and poker sites. I explain why the inclusion of these sites on the list was not the result of error.

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