Useful little thing to know if you want to show all the hidden hardware on a Windows machine:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=77909774&m=1400925745
Basically at a cmd prompt:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc

Then in device manager “show hidden devices” under the view option.

Edit for 2006: this is also useful for finding hidden devices.

Interesting paper on Standford University site from Sergey Brin andLawrence Page or Larry Page as he is better know now, entitled: The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. As I haven’t raed it all yet I am putting it up here as one to read, but I am sure that it makes interesting reading and so far has been a nice little eye opener. Of course it lead to the infamous google.

Of course there are other interesting reads on search engines out there for instance:
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cis?q=Lawrence+Page
http://lsdis.cs.uga.edu/GlobalInfoSys/GlobalInfoSysReading.htm
http://www.masternewmedia.org/2002/12/31/google_pagerank_explained_defined_best_reference_resources.htm

Just I made the plunge and finally upgraded some elements of the home cinema by the inclusion of firstly a Pioneer 575A DVD player which also plays back DVD-A, SACD, DVD-R/RW, CDR, Divx, jpg and MP3 files! It has progressive scan on component video outs and it plays very nicely to.

Next up was the screen so I choose after many hours reading the forums over at AVForums a Panasonic PWD6. I am still waiting for the stand to arrive but so far I am very impressed with the performance of the screen particularly when driven from the component outputs of the 575A with progressive scan enabled. Buying a screen like this isn’t a light proposition so if you are contemplating it then please head over the AVForums.

At Morley College. More Norwegian classes, so I am probably going to do some more work on http://norsk.timc3.com sometime soon if I don’t upgrade the server somewhat.!

Just got a Giganews account, and its very good indeed. I am impressed with the transfer speed which always manages to successfully max out my broadband connection. I like the fact that you can get a full searchable list of groups and that the retention is up to 50 days.

I am using the great newsreactor news reader after trying newsbin, agent, outlook express and several others this was very simple and fast to use and has most of the features that I am looking for. Daan systems also have some other interesting little programs but this is worth more than the $15 they are asking for it.

Its that time of year when Apple brings out some of its more exciting products and I must admit they look great. First of is the Shuffle which looks fantastic. Its either 512Mb or 1Gb chewing gum sized music player and I think I am going to put my order in straight away! It just looks so cool and I love the fact that it just charges off a USB port of which most people have lots! I just hope the battery lasts better than most of Apples claims

Next up they have brought us the Mac Mini which I won’t go into too many details about but suffice to say it looks gorgeous but why is it they always miss something that is crucial to me and that is namely a digital output so I could use it as a home theatre device. Oh well maybe I could find another use for it!

And lastly the brought out some more software iLife and iWork, which are beautifully packaged and probably work quite nicely as well though I am sure they won’t change lifes.

The Tsunami in asia was one of the worst natural disasters to happen in recent times, and is unfortunetly only going to get worse even though the media will soon forget about it. Give help by donating to it here: http://www.oxfam.co.uk/what_you_can_do/give_to_oxfam/donate/asiaquake1204.htm
If you have an amazon account you can also give through that, so don’t hesitate log in and give.