Codswallop

Another night with nothin' on telly. In a last ditch attempt to magically conjure up something watchable we turned to the EPG (Electronic Program Guide). To our amazement it actually worked! It's always been a source of frustration that the stations weren't forced to provide this information, making your epg functionality worthless. Instead they expected you to watch their annoying ad overlayed guide channel. A quick google reveals they have finally caved in to the public pressure and as of yesterday (19/11/2007) Ten and Nine have started publishing their guides, free and unencrypted. Seven say they will come on board starting next year.

BTW, there is still nothing worth watching. Looks like another Northern Exposure night

I've talked about Nick Flanagan a lot on this blog. Nick Flanagan is a former U.S. Amateur Champion who won his way onto the main pga tour this year courtesy of his three wins on the Nationwide Tour.

I'm sure all of the big names were chasing Nick's signature but in the end it was Callaway that closed the deal. We'll get a chance to see Nick strut his new Callaway gear later this week at the MasterCard Masters at Huntingdale and over the rest of the Australian summer of golf. I suspect we'll see him perform very well and I wouldn't be surprised to see him win.

So I finally got around to upgrading to Gutsy the other day, only to return from a meeting to find I could barbecue my lunch on my ThinkPad.

To give you an idea, the following is the starting temperature of my laptop.




And this is the temperature after 15 minutes of usage under the old kernel.





After only 10 minutes light usage under Gutsy the temperature has hit a testicle frying 71 degrees and climbing fast!

When
Date: Thursday 8th November 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Where
Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne

PHP 6: What's In, What's Out & Why - Ben Cornwell - 7:15 - 8:00 pm

Ben will be presenting an overview of language features and enhancements to made under the forth coming release of the PHP Hypertext Preprocessor language. PHP is one of the fastest growing developments on the web, and the eagerly anticipated release of its 6th version heralds veritable swarth of new capabilities, features and security enhancements. This paper will seek to address all primary new features marked for inclusion in version 6, discuss potential integration and migration issues, and comment on the reasoning behind dropped features.


PHP Image Manipulation with GD - A Tutorial by Ben Balbo - 8:15 - 9:00 pm

In this 45 minute tutorial, Ben will introduce image manipulation techniques using PHP5's GD module, including image resizing, hot link prevention, access control and caching, resulting in the development of a simple file-based photo gallery system.


Socialising & Networking - 9:00 pm onward

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided
with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.