Robin's Blog

Archive for the ‘Computing’ Category

Why I hate my Toshiba laptop

I think that screenshot is enough really, but just to give a few more pieces of information: In the screenshot above you can see twenty-one separate pieces of software whose name starts with TOSHIBA. These are 21 different pieces of software which were supplied, by Toshiba, as part of the original build of the machine. […]

Review: Dreamhost web hosting

Summary: Cheap, lots of features, can resell. Servers located in US (may be a problem) and expensive for dedicated servers. Details: Register at Dreamhost. If you use the promotion code RTWILSONBLOG you will get $50 off your hosting package, and a free lifetime domain registration – yes, really! The details of their standard package is […]

Alfred – the new Quicksilver?

For a while I used Quicksilver, but it seemed to be rather unstable on my machine. Then I used Quick Search Box, but it got terribly slow. Then, somehow, I found out about Alfred – and it’s replaced them both. Alfred, like the other applications mentioned above, is a launcher, but it does far more […]

My programming journey

When clearing out some of my old programming books the other day I realised how far I’d come with programming over the years, and the number of different technologies that I have used over time. I thought I’d do a little summary post going from first programming experience to now – and it’s amazing what’s […]

An ode to PDFs (and PDFs as a first class filetype)

Ahhh PDFs…., or more formally, Portable Document Format files. I remember the days when I thought that PDFs were only for instruction manuals downloaded from the internet, or electronic copies of things that you don’t want people to be able to alter. Not so – I have recently discovered the joys of PDFs, particularly through […]

How to: Consolidate your internet presence

Recently I took a while to try and simplify and consolidate my online presence. I thought it was an appropriate time to do this, as I had just bought a domain name (rtwilson.com), where I was hosting my academic website (www.rtwilson.com/academic) and my blog (which is what you’re reading now!). I thought it’d be useful […]

Amazing software you haven’t heard of

Every so often, on my travels around the internet, I come across a piece of software which is so great that I wonder why on earth I haven’t heard of it before. The software listed below falls into this category, and hopefully by posting the list here I will allow more people to find them. […]

My favourite OS X software

I’ve spent the last couple of months getting used to my new MacBook Pro, and I must say that overall I’m really liking it. Continuing my previous posts about my mac, here are my favourite three pieces of OS X software: Preview This is the built-in image and PDF viewer that comes with OS X. […]