Now the dust has settled around ICS, I thought I’d write a little something on upcoming improvements to AndChat.
Firstly, there is a lot of work being done to make AndChat work great on ICS. The main improvement being worked on is the userlist handling, which will be similar to how it works on Honeycomb and slight changes to the UI. The challenging part with the userlist is the small screen real estate and nick selection and I’m working hard to find a nice way to get it to work.
Another Dell engineer came yesterday with a new LCD but with the wrong part (WXGA), despite me explicitly telling the tech woman to put down a note the screen MUST be 1440×900. 
Seeing how Dell support is incapable of understanding simple english and my chances of getting this resolved with a good WXGA+ screen were so poor, I offered to keep the WXGA and get a partial refund. The tech team made a note for me to be called back, but they never did 
Another engineer came today, compared the screens and decided it wasn’t worth replacing the screen with one that had the same problem. 
Also yesterday, on the advice of bma, I sent an email rant to michael_dell[@]dell.com. Today, I got a phone call from their Customer Relations Department wanting to know the solution to the problem.
I got annoyed of the sparkly affect all over the LCD shipped with the laptop, called Dell support who agreed to replace the LCD. Now this is where things get funky.
The native resolution of the LCD shipped with the laptop was 1440×900, and naturally, I’d expect them to replace the screen with an LCD with the same res. Once the laptop was delivered to them (minus the hard drive 
), I rang them up and asked for the part number they’d replace it with. I googled the part number, and it turns out that it’s a 1280×800 screen :o So I ring them again and tell them that’s the wrong part, and they assure me they’ll fit it with a 1440×900 screen.
Today the laptop arrives, I boot into the BIOS, check the video settings, and find the native res. is 1280×800. 
Feeling pretty pissed off and booting into Windows, I notice major backlight bleed on the XP boot process background, half the screen looks grey instead of black, and the shitty viewing angles. Feeling even more pissed off now, I give Dell support a ring and demand Dell replaces the screen or gives me a refund for the extra amount I paid for the higher res. screen.
So my old laptop broke after taking a hit, luckily, the HD was not damaged and all my data was intact, although, if it was broke, it would have been more of an inconveniance then anything, since all my stuff is backed up.
I went for a Dell seeing as how they get good reviews quite often, and the laptops were within my price range. So I went for an Inspiron 1525, with the following specs:
Inspiron TM 1525 (N0652507)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5550 (1.83 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache)
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Internal Keyboard Uk/Irish (QWERTY)
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium – English
56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter – UK
8x DVD+/-RW Optical drive, including SW
Dellâ„¢ Wireless 1395 802.11b/g Mini-Card – Europe
1Yr Limited Warranty – Collect & Return
1 Year Base Warranty
65W AC Adapter
6-cell 56WHr Li-Ion primary battery
2.0 Mega pixel web camera
Midnight Blue Colour with Microsatin Finish
15.4″ Wide Screen WXGA+ (1440 x 900) Display with TrueLifeâ„¢
So finally, my exams are over for this year 
I reckon I did alright in them all, although I might do badly in my Software Engineering paper, but hopefully the project’ll make up for it lol. Holidays for me now until October or something Also, finally got around to buying Assassin’s Creed, didn’t buy it all this time because I knew I wouldn’t revise lol. Now off to watch some Doctor Who and Smallville Finale and then have a looooog sleep
Oh yeah, I need another job lol, might as well earn some dosh while I have free time.
Do want:
I think I’m gonna sell my PDA when this comes out.
I have 10 1 invites left so leave a comment with your REAL email address in the email box. Don’t post it in the message box unless you want spam bots to pick it up.
So, my old External HD is now filled up, after a year and 3 months I needed a new one, was gonna buy a 2TB one and RAID it, but I’m skint so thats not gonna happen. After googling around a bit, I found this 750GB Western Digital (698GB formatted, ftl), and after googling around a bit more, found it on Play.com for £120 2 Firewire, one USB and one eSATA connection = win.
This is the new design one, but I think WD did an amazing job on the looks. The white bar is supposed to indicate how much space is left, but I don’t think that works at all. Its a nice cosmetic feature though, and when its turned off, you can barely see the white strip. Nice work WD My old HD has the blue rings which didn’t work at showing how much space was left either lol. Surprisingly, the 750GB is a bit smaller then the 320GB one 
, but not by much. Also, there is no rubber on the case like my old one . Hope its still as durable as the other one. :s
Overall the design is more or less the same, just the front has a different indicator 
and the power button is at the back. I wander how long this one will last……
The odd time I used a crack for the lulz, I wandered how to get some the music that played in the background, I used to find the tunes really good, and using Audacity or something to record made it sound really shit.
Anyhow, after some googling, I found KeygenMusic.net, where they have a MASSIVE collection of those tunes. I downloaded all their files, after going through about half of them, I found some tunes that I thought were the best out of the ones I heard, and I thought I’d share 
The files (in xm format) can be played in VLC or XMPlay. I converted them all to mp3, but 101MB is too large for me upload on my shit connection 
You can find the uploaded rar (1.01MB) here. Enjoy!
Found an interesting article on Boing Boing about plans to “coerce” people to use ID cards, which basically sets the foundation for tracking people. A Government document has been leaked which shows these plans, you can find it here.
UK campaigners NO2ID this morning enlisted the help of bloggers across the world to spread a leaked government document describing how the British government intends to go about “coercing” its citizens onto a National Identity Register. The ‘ID card’ is revealed as little more than a cover to create a official dossier and trackable ID for every UK resident – creating what NO2ID calls ‘the database state’.
NO2ID’s national coordinator, Phil Booth, exhorted bloggers, freedom lovers and anyone who gives a damn about personal privacy to mirror the annotated document on their site.
“The charade is over. While ministers try to bamboozle the British public with fairytales about fingerprints, officials are plotting how to dupe and bully the population into surrendering control of their own identities.”
“Biometric ID cards are a sham; a magician’s flourish to cover the biggest identity fraud there has ever been.”
IMO, we are already in a police state and its gonna get worse with these ID cards. Read the doc and decide for yourself if you can trust the Government.
Haven’t written nothing for ages, so here is a quick post.
Probably the most exciting thing that happened is someone trying to look for commonly installed programs (like phpmyadmin) on teh VPS. 
Check the log here.
