livejournal-related news.

[baratron]

I've finally caught up with reading everyone else's livejournals! This might not sound like a big achievement, but Richard put some new memory into the computer the other day, and it doesn't seem to be completely compatible with the motherboard. Now, instead of Netscape crashing every hour or two, it won't stay up for more than a couple of minutes at a time. I've had to switch to using Opera, which is a lot more reliable - but even that's been crashing a couple of times a day! You try reading people's web journals when you can't get a bloody web browser to stay up!

Oh, and before anyone does - don't even mention lynx!

I put some new userpics up last week, so I now have the full complement of 10 that I'm entitled to as a paid user. I really like all of them, particularly the arty ones - they're all images I've made myself, although obviously I didn't take all of the original photos :) The pic accompanying this post is my absolute favourite of them, though it doesn't seem appropriate to use as my default userpic.

Comments

[lovingboth]

What memory in what motherboard? The blazingly obvious thing to do is to take it out again and see what happens...

[lovingboth]

Oh, I've an unwanted 64M/100MHz SDRAM lying around here if you want to try that.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer, but it won't help. The original memory is 64 MB of 60 ns FP DRAM - the new (incompatible) memory is 256MB of 100 MHz SDRAM. The motherboard is (apparently) a "crappy old TX Pentium motherboard".

Nah, we've swapped back to the original memory and things seem to be fine again. We'll have to get a new motherboard. Richard estimates that it'll cost about £200 to upgrade the computer with a new motherboard and case - he has a new processor spare from work machine shuffling, but needs a Pentium III motherboard to put it on. Don't suppose anyone's got one of those handy? :)

[lovingboth]

Er yes, that would cause problems.

The prices of new computers are falling rapidly at the moment as manufacturers seek to shift stocks. At the moment, I don't think you can build them yourself for the same money, but £200 for a P-III m/b and case is sixty to eighty pounds overly pessimistic.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Without mentioning that other thing, have you tried with w3m?

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard of w3m - I'm assuming from the name it's another web browser :) Linux magazine ran a review of web browsers this month, but it was absolutely awful - the ones they looked at were lynx, Netscape, Mozilla, Star Office, Galeon and Opera. It also mentioned Beonex and Amaya. It's a bloody awful review though - I wanted to see a browser-by-browser comparison for things like speed, stability, level of implementation of the W3C guidelines, ability to run javascript without crashing, etc. There wasn't anything like that - just a load of waffle and a small screenshot.



I'm utterly sick of Netscape, and lynx just isn't an option because I like graphics and too many people write non-compliant HTML. I don't fancy Mozilla because it's related to Netscape and still in beta, and Galeon appears to just be a fancy front-end for the Mozilla source. Star Office is - well - not really a browser at all, so that just leaves Opera! Which is at least a browser that several people I know have recommended. It has a slightly annoying interface (Multiple Document Interface, ie. it provides its own tool bar rather than spawning the separate windows onto my window manager's tool bar), but it seems robust, and it features the interesting ability to pretend that it's IE or Netscape - which means you can access sites that check for browser compatibility at the start and screen you out if you're not using one they've heard of.


I've heard a couple of people say good things about Konqueror too, but Linux Magazine didn't even mention that one, so I don't know.



By the way, David - I did get your recent email, I just haven't got round to replying. As my job currently involves working evenings and weekends, I haven't been able to make too many plans to socialise with people - but I hope we can meet up sometime soon.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

w3m is indeed another Web browser, written by a Japanese guy; it is, yes, a text browser, but much faster rendering than lynx with more graceful handling of frames and tables. Under a real OS it can display images you're particularly interested in, like Lynx. It's not perhaps ideal for all Web browsing, but it's cracking stuff for what it does.

That aside, Mozilla/Galeon may still be in beta, but it's fairly useful; and a lot of people speak very well of Konqueror, now that the Qt license issues are resolved. I'd certainly consider having a look at it...

Opera

[barty.livejournal.com]

Good news: The latest version of Opera (v6.0 beta 1 (http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/20011113.html)) lets you to use a Single Document Interface.

Bad news: That version is currenly only available for Windows. I don't know when the Linux and Solaris version will be released or even if it will have the SDI feature.

know the feeling....

[chrismoose.livejournal.com]

yesterday the computer at home kept crashing...
today it's my one at work!!!!
It's going to send me mad - like I don't have better things to do :(