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The Gift of Fear

I have just read The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence by Gavin de Becker.

Like many self-help books it has a concept that can be described in a paragraph and explained in a few pages. The rest of the book shares anecdotes that help the reader understand the […]

The Lord of the Fries

Today I bought a box of fries from The Lord of the Fries [1]. I bought it from their new stand at Flinders St station because I was going past and saw no queue. In the past I had considered buying from their store on Elizabeth St but the queues were too long.

The fries […]

Digital Video Cameras

I’ve just done some quick research on Digital Video Cameras for some relatives. It seems to me that the main feature that is necessary is Full HD (1920*1080) resolution as everyone seems to be getting 1920*1080 resolution monitors (getting smaller doesn’t save enough money to be worth-while). Resolutions higher than 1920*1080 will probably available in […]

Is Lebara the Cheapest Mobile Phone company in Australia?

My parents have just got a mobile phone with a Lebara pre-paid SIM [1]. Lebara advertise free calls to other Lebara phones but have a disclaimer that they charge a 25 cent flagfall and charge 15 cents per minute after the first 10 minutes – which is still cheaper than most mobile calls although not […]

Virtual Hosting Prices

Linode has just announced a significant increase in the amount of RAM in each of their plans [1].

The last time I compared virtual hosting prices in a serious manner was over two years ago [2], so it seems like a good time to compare the prices again.

Now there are some differences between these […]

Bugs in Google Chrome

I’m currently running google-chrome-beta version 5.0.375.55-r47796 on Debian/Unstable. It’s the fastest web browser I’ve used in recent times – it’s the first time that I’ve run a browser that feels faster than my recollection of running IBM WebExplorer for OS/2 on a 486-66 system! It has a good feature set, and it’s the only browser […]

Brother MFC-9120CN Color LASER Printer

I have just bought a Brother MFC-9120CN Multi-Function Color LED LASER Printer for a relative. It was a replacement for the Lexmark printer which turned out not to support Linux properly [1].

This printer cost about $545. I bought it from OfficeWorks [2] under their price-matching deal. If you find a better price anywhere else […]

Pants To Poverty

On Wednesday I saw a group of people wearing nothing but underwear walking through the Melbourne CBD. They were promoting Pants To Poverty which is a UK based underwear company that sells Organic Fair-Trade underpants [1]. The corporate web site seems equally divided between the purposes of selling underpants and lobbying for a variety of […]

Lexmark Supposedly Supports Linux

I wanted to get a Lexmark Prestige Pro805 printer to work under Linux, due to bad drivers from Lexmark and no driver support in Debian/Unstable I’ve given up and advised the people who purchased it to return it for a refund. I recommend that Lexmark not be considered when purchasing a printer for use with […]

CPL Still Sucks

I previously described my experience with Computers and Parts Land (CPL) [1] who gave me a product that didn’t do what I wanted (because they thought that they knew better than me) and then gave me attitude when I returned it.

As it’s almost a year since that incident I had to buy something else […]