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“Hello Dave, You Look Nice Today” – One step closer to HAL 9000

// October 12th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

Today, the machines became a little smarter, as a computer named Elbot managed to achieve a 25% success rate when convincing a human being that they were talking to another human. via Gizmodo & The Telegraph 

Should the law of exponential growth hold, it isn't going to long until we can create programs that can ace the turing test. Its taken 58 years [1] from its inception to this point, I don't think it will take us many more years before the test is passed.

Ray Kurzweil has previously stated in his books (Age of Spiritual Machines & The Singularity is Near) that we would be able to create a system that accurately simulates human interaction to pass the turing test [2] I think I am going to go out on a limb and say it will be much sooner.

I’m jumping ship – VMware Fusion

// August 28th, 2007 // No Comments » // Apple, Blog, Computing

I just installed VMware fusion on my Macbook; Parallels they crept up behind you. Don't get me wrong I love parallels and its incarnations, but VMware has a smaller feature set and its fast.

I have been running Fedora 7 through VMware, with it emulating to cores thats right you can virtulise stuff on multiple cores. It screams. I had a little trouble getting the resolutions right (this is because Fedora isn't a supported OS) but a bit of googling (who knew this was now a verb) and I got it going.

I now have a fully operational Death Star, for use with my many future Ruby on Rails Projects. I am really looking forward to seeing what Parallels comes up with in there next version, all it really needs is more performance and I will have a dilemma which to use?

BTs Top Ten Causes For Slowness

// August 15th, 2007 // No Comments » // Blog, Computing

I have been experiencing some heavy packet shaping by my usually pretty good ISP BT, when I emailed them to ask what was with the excessive packet shaping I got this reply.

If there is an EMI then the connection may drop or you may experience slow browsing. Please make sure that the modem is not placed near any of the following electro magnetic devices such as:

1. Halogen desk lamps near the modem or telephone line, especially those with dimmers.
2. Any electrical dimmer switch.
3. Electronic devices, such as stereo speakers, PC speakers, televisions, monitors, microwave ovens, etc.
4. Routing the telephone line parallel to an AC power cord for more than a few inches.
5. Electronic insect electrocution devices (bug zappers).
6. Low quality 900MHz cordless telephones.
7. Any other emitter of high frequency electromagnetic radiation.
8. Should not be placed above the computer tower.
9. Should not be placed directly on a carpeted floor.

How does carpet create an EMI, or for that matter any of them really effect speed of my connection.

Trixbox Pro Released

// August 13th, 2007 // No Comments » // Blog, Computing, Trixbox

Today marks the release of Trixbox Pro, a more business orientated version of my favorite VOIP system asterisk. Fonality are doing some clever stuff with Pro and its great that I can use it without paying mega money (in fact not a penny)

It looks exactly what I have been looking for, Asterisk based, but stupidly simple to manage, and no editing the conf files manually. I just want something that doesn't take forever to learn and make work. I am running Trixbox CE at the moment and its one update away from reinstall so it looks like a perfect opportunity to change to Trixbox Pro.

I will have a review posted as soon as I get Trixbox Pro Installed and running.

Trixbox CE - Community Edition

Trixbox Pro

Safari 3 Check, Leopard Check

// June 11th, 2007 // No Comments » // Apple, Blog, Computing

I always pick the best days to go to the Cinema after exams. I got in and the World of Apple has turned to jelly (at least mine anyway). Leopard = Yes! There is anything really revolutionary, but it doesn't need a fancy new pair of Interface trousers, Finder looks fantastic, stacks (I have already being using folders to do this) Generally Leopard looks like a solid update, and as I said a long time ago, Leopard need not be singing and dancing upgrade. Just fix the quirks and add some useful features, also make sure the install takes less than 3-hours unlike the last 3 times I have set up Vista.

As for safari, I have switched back. First impressions, its polished and fast. Google Reader now no longer has the weird beach ball effect when loading the next lot of stories, its also a lot faster than Firefox loading, Visual Rich Editor in Wordpress works (although it has its quirks). It also has the Element Inspector from WebKit which is incredibly useful to me making sure websites work. It also just seems to feel better, nothing much has changed but it seems to run more smoothly even load web pages faster?

In the process of making this post I have corrected 4 errors, on the website. Due to Safari 3 not liking certain elements.