nevstokes.com - Latest Comments

Re: Welcome to the world!

Arran Craig — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:11:29 -0000

Brillant news, that's the social life over but well worth it.
Arran

Re: Chance would be a fine thing

Nev Stokes — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:06:10 -0000

Take that one as a given ;)

Re: Chance would be a fine thing

andrewburnett — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:00:48 -0000

And no mention of IE6?

Re: Pay to play?

Nev Stokes — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:35:07 -0000

As far as my limited understanding of copyright law goes, strictly speaking we've never really owned the music anyway but merely a license to listen to it. Your mention of CDs is also something of a straw man — I can't remember the last time I purchased music on physical media. I really hope that Spotify doesn't vanish but the Google Video revelations should serve as a warning to all about what can happen when you place your trust in the cloud / a third party.

Re: Pay to play?

Andy Cotgreave — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:25:24 -0000

This is the post I would have written 2 years ago, if I'd wanted to write a post about Spotify. But now I wouldn't. And I disagree with you on the need to "own" music. Two years ago I used to feel the same, but then I realised that I didn't use my CDs any more, I just ripped them to my iPod and used that. From there it was a small leap to paying for Spotify. Now I listen to more new music than I did in the previous 5 years (prior to about 2005, before kids, I was still buying a lot of new music).

What it made me realise is that I don't need to own music - I just need to listen to it. Let's say we both wannt the latest Diamanda Galas album ;-) You buy it, and I download it onto an Offline Spotify playlist. The end result is the same.

I discovered 3 great new artists on last Friday's FridayMix alone - that's 3 new albums I have access to instantly. I think music "ownership" is dying out. And what are you going to do when CD formats become obsolete? Do you own the music then?

Re: Working together

andrewburnett — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:46:15 -0000

2010 came and went, alas we got no more cowbell… digitalhero games truly do need MOAR COWBELL - here's hoping we get it in 2011 :)

Re: Open for business

Mike McGrail — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:31:58 -0000

Hi Nev,

Couldn't agree more re Princes Street, total joke these days, I had a similar rant a couple of months back if you fancy a read - http://itsureiscoldupnorth.wor...

Re: Intruder alert

Nev — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:15:42 -0000

Thanks for that Christian.

Re: Intruder alert

Christian — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:08:20 -0000

Just in case you are using Zend Framework and would like to integrate PHP-IDS: I've published a useful open-source Plugin for ZF that enables you to easily integrate PHP-IDS in your ZF apps.

You may download it from Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/zids/

Bye
Christian

Re: Nev’s fashion fix

Nev — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:52:40 -0000

@Alex, I was unsure if I should have filed this under "Rants" or simply "Personal". It doesn't upset me, but man, does it ever make me laugh. Maybe "Humour" would have been a better tag?

Re: Nev’s fashion fix

Alex — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:53:30 -0000

I most enjoyed this particular rant. Please can you start a blog consisting solely of rants? Or even better, solely of anti-fashion rantings?

Re: Nev’s fashion fix

Geoff — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:48:30 -0000

Eventually! My inability to buy trousers that fit shall no longer be an affliction! :-)

Re: Ngiya bonga South Africa

Gulli — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:43:13 -0000

"Another rule I’d like to see introduced is the banning of defenders shepherding the ball out of play – any player employing this practice anywhere else on the pitch would be pulled up for obstruction."

Actually, you are wrong there, forwards do this repeatedly in order to get a corner kick or a throw in and they're not penalized in any way. The same even happens in the centre of the pitch time and time again but isn't noticed as much because other players have access from other angles.

"I’d make it illegal to shield the ball unless the player has touched it and is in control."

The rule is that the player has the ball under control if it is within "playable distance", deemed to be approximately 1 metre. Requiring the player to have touched the ball before he can shield it would go against the basics of football.

I do agree with you though that players are far too often allowed to take this to the extreme.

Re: Stating the obvious

Jamie — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:48:04 -0000

Listen to the PC Pro podcast this week and the guys spent three days before they worked out to degrade the signal performance. They said you wouldn't hold it that way anyway.

Jamie

Re: The iPad

Aidan Webb — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:47:16 -0000

i am planning to buy an iPad since it looks lighter than a regular desknote and i don not use much of the features of a laptop.-..

Re: A better phpinfo

Aaron Cunningham — Thu, 13 May 2010 14:30:22 -0000

Sorry, the blog filtration skewed the code.

Please visit http://page2pagepro.com/a-bett... and let me know if you like the addition for php-extensions.

thanx!

Re: A better phpinfo

Aaron Cunningham — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:25:43 -0000

Great concept. I was unaware of the parameter aspect - Even though I knew it was a function. Here is some code that you might incorporate, or add to allow displaying of installed/loaded extensions.
I have been working extensively with portable Web Servers (i.e.: Uniform Server), and was trying to incorporate XSL, Tomcat and ASP. I decided first to 'modify' the way my php_info() appears, allowing a listing of currently loaded extensions. Hope someone finds this useful.

<?php

// Get PHP INFO
ob_start();
phpinfo();
$phpinfo = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
$phpinfo = preg_replace ('//', '', $phpinfo);

//HR
$hr = ''.PHP_EOL;

//GET EXT INFO
ob_start();
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
echo '';
echo '';
echo 'PHP Extensions'.PHP_EOL;
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
echo 'Overview'.PHP_EOL;
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
echo 'Extensions'.PHP_EOL;
$exts = array();
foreach (get_loaded_extensions() as $ext) {
$exts[] = $ext;
}
echo implode(', ', $exts).PHP_EOL;
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
echo 'Details'.PHP_EOL;
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
foreach ($exts as $ext) {
echo ''.$ext.'';
$funcs = array();
foreach (get_extension_funcs($ext) as $func) {
$funcs[] = $func;
}
echo implode(', ', $funcs).PHP_EOL;
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
}
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
echo ''.PHP_EOL;
$extinfo = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

//OUTPUT
echo $phpinfo.$hr.$extinfo;

Re: New features

Jamie — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 04:41:42 -0000

Not being able to flag emails is real pain and maybe quick way to turn off/on wifi, bluetooth etc

Jamie

Re: Edinburgh 10k

the killers mr brightside cove — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:25:42 -0000

I really like The Killers they are surely without doubt one of the best bands. And yet I've got to say I discovered this top-notch mr brightside cover version on Youtube . com the other week and y'know I enjoyed it more than the original rendition! You have to view this ... The Killers Mr Brightside Cover

Re: Really?

DN — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:50:55 -0000

Was he a Mexican? - can just hear it.

Re: What're the odds?

Colin Gilchrist — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:46:19 -0000

Agreed Nev - having been burgled I know this only too well.
I have learnt to switch off Latitude outwith 9-5, and very occasionally dip into Foursquare in the knowledge that someone else is at home.
But then I question my actions because my house is as secure as my work place - surely burglars will know I don't work until this time at night and chip away at the backdoor... go on I dare you!

Re: The iPad

Nev — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:12:34 -0000

YouTube and Vimeo appear to be phasing out Flash in favour of standards compliance. This is a Good Thing™

The 30-pin dock connector looks like it has at least an SD card reader available which doesn't tie the device to the connector technology of the moment so there's no need to replace the entire device when something better comes along or you end up with spare port when another technology becomes obsolete.

Re: The iPad

DN — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:22:51 -0000

I had thought that it would be the device that got me over to the mac dark side having been a PC/smartphone boy these last few years. Bitter disappointment...no multitask as Mike said, no HDMI out for movies to my TV, no camera for Skype or Augmented Reality, no flash video (app needed for youtube/vimeo), no industry standard connections like USB/SD/mSD.
There, thats my frustrations out!

Re: The iPad

Mike Coulter — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:46:35 -0000

Nev, I'll be getting one.

But one thing I totally missed last night, and that is a poor do imho, is that it does nae multitask, (picked that up from gizmodo.)

Re: 2010: Things to come

Alex — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:42:25 -0000

I think what might really push 3D in the end is video games. The current gen of consoles can already push the frames, but the tellys can't display the required number to fool our brains it seems. So we all need new 200Hz screens.

Anyway, 2010 sees the launch of Freeview HD, so that's a new telly/freeview box right there, 3D notwithstanding.

I feel a long wait for my next TV coming on...