Comments for Tom's Thoughts

Comment on Redesigning the OpenStreetMap Web Site by Anders Hovmöller

Anders Hovmöller — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:50:08 +0000

There are a lot of things that can be done to significantly improve the sites appearance to new users without going through the entire thing in a big bang redesign. Lots of small incremental tuneups would accomplish a lot.

The site has fantastic data but fails in impressing people because the default rendering is kinda ugly up close (all buildings are some kind of weird brown-ish thing) and the site itself looks old fashioned design wise. Just brushing up the outwards appearance in small steps would do a lot. The new logo is a big step for example!

Comment on LOVEFiLM and SMS Spam by Chris

Chris — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:25:56 +0000

PECR is becoming widely ignored because the ICO has become a worthless, toothless waste-of-time. I hope you get a positive response but I’m quite sure that marketeers know they can flaunt the rules with little chance of any follow up.

Comment on Tyan AST2050 Mac Address Fail by Grant (Firefishy)

Grant (Firefishy) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:55:39 +0000

Hi CSS,

We ended up contacting Tyan Support who supplied a utility called kcsflash.exe which was able to change the MAC address.

Was a little tricky, but worked as follows:
1) Reflashed system bios with latest, reboot, save bios
2) reflash AST2050 with kcsflash using NoConfig Y options. full power off cycle.
3) kcsflash MAC XX:XX…
And it worked :-)

I have dumped a copy of kcsflash here: http://www.firefishy.com/util/tyan-ast2050/KCSFlash.exe
USE AT OWN RISK.

/ Grant

Comment on Tyan AST2050 Mac Address Fail by CSS

CSS — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:49:53 +0000

How cruel, this comes up in Google, yet there is no resolution. :)

I can add that the (very hard to find) uh8.exe DOS tool also makes it look like it can change the MAC, but it really doesn’t.

Comment on The Mystery of John Unwin’s Diary by Pat Spotanske

Pat Spotanske — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:54:59 +0000

The Robert Unwin that is reference was my Great Grandfather. His son Frank married Viola Alice Byrnes. My mother Lillian was one of their 6 daughters.

Comment on Rails Warning Fail by Robin

Robin — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 21:31:49 +0000

Try the following:

:conditions => proc { ["age > ?", age] }

Comment on Redesigning the OpenStreetMap Web Site by OpenStreetMap – Where’s the Search? | Spatial Knowledge

OpenStreetMap – Where’s the Search? | Spatial Knowledge — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:43:07 +0000

[...] discovered that users have difficulty locating the Search on openstreetmap.org. This has been highlighted before. This video shows the gaze plot of one participant looking for the OSM search. The [...]

Comment on BT really are clinically insane by CAM

CAM — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:16:32 +0000

This number keeps calling all day and it disconnects my internet every time. I hate dealing with companys here in the UK. Nobody will give you their name (like they are criminals) and they do not know how to communicate professionally. Letters and bills are a joke,gawwwd now I have to waste even more time trying to make it stop!!!!

Comment on City Labels in OpenStreetMap by Matt Williams

Matt Williams — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:22:19 +0000

However, the idea of using dbpedia (or similar) is interesting in that it can be pulled in at rendering-time. This has the benefit of us not needing to keep everything in sync as well as not polluting the OSM database with copyright material. Then, the only question is what effect this copyright status has on the rendered tile – I would say little but that’s for the lawyers to sort out.

Comment on City Labels in OpenStreetMap by Vclaw

Vclaw — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 20:54:58 +0000

I think much of the population data in Wikipedia is copied from official/government sources, which may be copyright in some countries. Wikipedia considers copying “facts” from other websites/sources to be OK in terms of copyright, OSM doesn’t.

Just like most of the coordinates in Wikipedia are probably derived from Google Maps (or other copyright maps), so its considered to be a bad idea to import this OSM.