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I recently purchased a Linksys WRT54G. These wireless routers are popular because the firmware can easily be upgraded to increase the functionality via custom firmwares such as DD-WRT, HyperWRT or Sveasoft Alchemy. Another alternative, which offers even more functionality and complete control over all aspects, is OpenWRT, a mini Linux distribution especially designed for [...]

Recently I have been playing with C#/.NET programming. I’m quite impressed with the C# language, it is definitely an improvement on C++ and Java. One of my favourite features is get/set properties. As a FIT student at Monash you are entitled to use the Microsoft Visual Studio development tools. However if this does not [...]

Recently iTunes Music Store launched in Australia, with Apple selling songs for $1.69 each (ouch!). While I haven’t tried the new Music Store, I have downloaded the latest iTunes to test out some of the other features. The podcast integration seems like a good feature, however my initial experience was that it was quite slow [...]

Digg.com has really hit the big time with the announcement they have received US$2.8 million in venture capital funding. If you haven’t seen Digg before, its a social news and bookmarking website that puts the editorial power back in the hands of the readers – every single user gets a say in what makes today’s [...]

This Week in Tech ep. 26 is out and as always has great tech discussions between Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak and the guys. One interesting point they discuss is the proposition that software companies should move to a subscription business model where the user pays for additional protection from spyware and viruses. John goes [...]

I have been talking to Dan about getting my site in Google. Currently if I do a Google search for Shane Butler I am not listed in the results (but my old pages are though). Interestingly, I am at the top of the Yahoo! results. In his blog, Dan points out that Google has a [...]

I discovered an awsome geek TV show, Systm which is very cool (young hosts and cool content). They have shows on war driving and MythTV!
Also, Robert X. Cringely has launched NerdTV, available exclusively online. He will be interviewing high profile geeks on a wide range of topics. The first episode is with Andy Hertzfeld of [...]

I need to get something off my chest: DataInputStream.readFloat(), I hate you!! Today I had one of those annoying bugs pop up that are hard to chase down. I know how to read/write my binary IEEE754 floats in C (all tested and working) but my Java code is really not liking it. Turns out readFloat() [...]

Andy acquired a new toy at work: a Segway HT! It was only fitting that I visit and give it a spin! Let me just say, the Segway is one impressive ride — I want one!

Weee!: Me riding the Segway HT.

Cruising: Video of Andy riding the Segway (DivX, 6.6MB)
The Segway website also has a proof-of-concept [...]

Over the past few months I’ve been wanting to put Windows XP back on my main PC for SAS work. Swapping plugs between computers is just too painful! Unfortunately when partitioning I created too many primary partitions and now I can’t make any more. Unfortunately Windows won’t install on a extended partition. [...]