Benny Ling’s Bling

Thrust is a interpreted stack-based esoteric programming language where all of the language constructs are based on the word thrust. In the language stacks are referred to as ‘thrustors’ and are the sole storage location. Each thrustor has a numerical identifier.

via Ima Blogg : Thrust.

What exactly is jQuery?

How can it make my life easier as a developer? How do I get started? Well, jQuery makes writing Javascript fun again and really allows you to take advantage of some of the more difficult aspects of Javascript with relative ease. Today, we will have a look at how to get started with jQuery, and writing your first script!

via Simple Guide: How to get started with jQuery.

The 2 oz., pocket-sized OWC Express USB 2.0 Enclosure offers bus powered* personal storage performance in an ultra-portable design. With no AC adapter needed, a USB connecting cable and carrying sleeve included, and compatibility with Macs and PCs, the OWC Express puts your music, photos, and personal data in the fast lane.

via OWC Express. (Besides, it’s all pretty and shiny. And stuff.)

grow open-ended mosaics

via Landscape Urbanism Bullshit Generator.

Click on “Illustration” or “Pencil” to create a new iPhone Mockup in either style.

via iPhone Mockup Generator.

Cheat sheet is a reference tool that provides simple, brief instructions for accomplishing a specific task. I have collected a set of best cheat sheets for web developers. Please feel free to suggest some of the cheat sheets I did not mention.

via xHTML and HTML Cheat Sheets.

Following our series of HDR images of famous city we have an incredible set of photos from New York City, the city that never sleeps. The photos are from sites like Flickr and DeviantArt and we hope you enjoy it. You can check out the other posts of: Berlin, Rome, and Paris. Also let us know if you have nice HDR photos from your town.

via Amazing HDR photos of New York City | Abduzeedo.

iPhone Tracking How-To from Instamapper.

via Instamapper – Free Real-Time GPS Tracking.

It all started with an eBay auction for a new G4 Powerbook. My friend Cory wanted me to sell it for him just days after he bought it. Probably because he realized that, aside from looking cool, he had no real use for it. For the sake of an easy sale, I just pretended to sell it as my own, with a starting price of $1700, and the “Buy It Now” option for $2100.

via The P-P-P-Powerbook Prank.

Introducing the new Light For Life™, an entirely new take on portable “flashlight” technology. With a charge time of just 90 seconds, the Light for Life UC3.400™ has the longest uptime and fastest recharge on the market, all in a durable, environmentally-friendly package.

via Light For Life.

Every day thousands of misspelled auction items on eBay fail to sell because they can’t be found using eBay’s built-in search tools. To find these so-called ‘fat fingers’ eBay misspellings you need to use a specialised eBay typo search tool such as this one.

via TypoThis.com.

Awesome.

via Team Rocket Intro Sequence.

AppleScript is a simple Macintosh-only programming language that can control and automate actions on your Mac. AppleScripts written for iTunes can manage files and track information, create playlists, interact with other applications, and perform many other tasks which otherwise would be repetitive and time-consuming.

via Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes.

Woot, inspired by Rob’s hard investigative look into the economy of lols, has done the deep googling necessary to track the elusive wooooot (and w00000000t).

via “woot” index.

One Line Ascii Art for Twitter, IM, Text Messages, and Status Updates.

via One Line ASCII Art.

Yesterday a Twitter post (a tweet) by Mashable’s Pete Cashmore became so popular that traffic from Twitter crashed a blog. This sounds very similar to a common social media phenomenon originally known as the Slashdot effect (and later also the Digg effect), where a post on a popular social media site pushes more traffic than the target site can handle.

via Dawn of the Twitter Effect.

Most people get worried about how much energy reserves we have left, but as this graphic shows, that’s the least of our problems. The real problem is the materials we use to make things.

via How Long Will Our World Last.

Synected enables shortened URL creation on your own blog. Rather than relying on services such as tinyurl.com or bit.ly, Synected lets you easily create and use short links based off your own domain. This releases you from dependence on a third party — a server error on tinyurl no longer prevents visitors from reaching your site. In addition, it strengthens your brand, keeping your domain name in view of your audience even on Twitter and other micro-communication platforms.

via Synected. (Useless to use it on this blog, because the URL alone is 30 characters [including the http:// stuff], which is the maximum that Twitter will display. I’d buy kar.la, but it’s isn’t available.)

This morning I set Outspoken Media up with it’s own URL “shortening service” so to speak and Lisa thought you guys might want to know how I did it. With all the talk of Tweet-Jacking and concerns regarding the branding you’re doing for URL shortening services instead of yourself, it only makes sense to create your own internal URL shortening service if at all possible.

via WordPress URL Shortener How-To.

Enter iTunesFS, a FUSEOFS based file system for your Mac, which makes all your iTunes™ playlists available as folders in Finder™! And – not only that – as you can see in the screenshot below, version 1.1 adds support for iPod™s in the very same manner!

via iTunesFS.

This is so pointless, but utterly, utterly cool at the same time. Ba-doom TISH!

via Instant Rimshot.

All in all, I have to admit that I’m very please with both apps. However, I think the flexiblilty of The Hit List makes it a clear winner in my book. For me, The Hit List is a grown up version of Things. I hope that Culture Code will take heed of some of the things in THL, and hopefully they can win me back in the future.

via Things vs The Hit List. (This too reflects my thoughts almost perfectly – IMO, The Hit List is a far better GTD client than Things is – however, the lack of a iPhone app makes me cry. )

Phew! Now that those links have been cleared out, ShoveBox is useable again!

Properly sort Drafts, Deleted, and Sent mail on the iPhone

Assuming that you have followed the iPhone IMAP setup instructions, it is now time to properly configure your mobile Mail client so that Sent Mail, Deleted Mail, Drafts, and Junk are reflected properly after syncing back between the webmail client and any other desktop clients you may have.

1. Open ‘Settings’ > ‘Mail’ > [Your Gmail IMAP account] > ‘Advanced’

2. Select ‘Drafts Mailbox’ > ‘On the Server’ > ‘[Gmail] Drafts’. Return to the ‘Advanced’ view.

3. Select ‘Sent Mailbox’ > ‘On the Server’ > ‘[Gmail] Sent Mail’. Return to the ‘Advanced’ view.

4. Select ‘Deleted Mailbox’ > ‘On the Server’ > ‘[Gmail] Trash’. Return to the ‘Advanced’ view.

Any emails sent from your iPhone will appear in Gmail’s ‘Sent’ view, any saved drafts saved on your iPhone will appear in Gmail’s ‘Drafts’ view, and any deleted messages will be reflected in Gmail’s ‘Trash’ view.

via How-to: Proper Gmail IMAP for iPhone & Apple Mail – Derek Punsalan – 5ThirtyOne.

So I was having an issue on my iPhone where my Gmail wasn’t syncing properly.

Read the rest of this entry »

• I’m at Fahan. Picking up a graphics tablet from @wlelong. It’s cold. #
• Getting my graphics tablet on. Wow, this feels weird… :S #
• Trying to draw the perfect stick figure in mr photoshop with my (well, borrowed) wacom tablet. It’s harder than it sounds… >_< #fb #
• Right, enough of this. Time to name and shame… Seriously – WTF. Some people are just complete douches. http://twitpic.com/5f3tm #
• http://bit.ly/2CGGY Pfft. They should have used LOLcode… “I can haz solution? Kthxbai!” ^_^ #
• Now I realise that some of my friends are some of the most quirky (but totally awesome) people I’ve ever met – and I’m okay with that. #fb #
• Wow, some of these wallpapers are really, really awesome. @tomricci @zacislost http://bit.ly/13sMIi #
• Friggin huge graphics tablet is friggin huge… http://twitpic.com/5h5g0 #
• Javascript, I can haz work? I just want you to load a page when I type the Konami code, nothing too difficult… #
• Wow. My Javascript works as advertised, thanks to http://bit.ly/taLXN. I iz happy now. ^_^ #
• Not even 9am and I’m down to 30% battery left… This will only end in tears. http://twitpic.com/5ipu5 #
• AHAHAHAHAHAHA. @shaun_r @neg2led #tweetiepwns #twitterfonsux
  http://twitter.com/GeordieGuy/status/1855610643 #
• Babadi: My, what a lovely shade of green you are… After all, you’ve seen the power of Majin Buu…
  Piccolo: No, I always look this way. #
• “that would allow a soldier to receive intelligence almost instantly from a picture snapped with the iPod” /facepalm http://bit.ly/wO5Oo #
• In a Skype chat with @neg2led, @mattydee, @matt231, @matt_v… Missed out on the @shaun_r bag fest, though… :’( #
• Just preformed the perfect question sidestep; vague enough to answer the orig question, but without going into any specific details. Win. #
• Currently locked outside because I forgot my house key. Thank goodness for wi-fi internets and MacBook’s 3hr battery life. ^_^ #
• Now for the 2 hour wait for my sister to get home from school. This shouldn’t be so bad… #
• If you’re a fan of Zero Punctuation, you should watch his latest. If you don’t know who Zero Punctuation is, watch: http://bit.ly/XRIo1 #
• Just registered bennyling.com (for AU$10) to use with ServerGrade’s “Get Paid ($20) to try Australian Webhosting” deal. http://bit.ly/19cgc3 #
• ZOMG! Goku just talked about FUSION in DragonBall Z!! 225 episodes in, and NOW they talk about Fusion?! Finally, sheesh! #
• Also, ActionScript: please be simpler (or more like Java) so I can understand you kthxbai! #
• This ActionScript is doing my head in. I haz a sad. #
• Ha! Home time now. Pity there’s an ugly monster waiting at home for me – it’s name is ActionScript, and it is universally feared.. #
• Today, I missed the bus that I wanted to catch by seconds. Now I have to wait 30 minutes for the next one. FML. #
• Just registered for the UMAT 2009. I went completely balls last time – it was pretty bad :S Hopefully this time will be better. #
• Respect for: @urusaipoppu, @neg2led, @zacislost, @tomricci, @bekkynixon, @adam_d, @benzoenator. #followfriday #
• Craving KFC chips. That’s settled it – KFC it is for lunch, then. #
• Hmm- at a musical without my glasses. Unless I get a good seat, this could be potentially problematic… #
• I’m now 10% of the way through my 3000 word review of Left 4 Dead for Uni. Yes, I get to review games. ^_^ #
• Bashing out this assignment. It’s almost unbelievable that I’m already 20% done. This will possibly be easier than I originally thought. #
• I’m halfway through my 3000 word game review on L4D, and I haven’t even talked about half of the stuff I’m supposed to talk about… #
• 66.66666667% of the way through my 3000 word L4D review. This is much easier than I thought, primarily because L4D is so completely awesome. #
• And I’m done. I’ve written more than 3200 words, but there’s still so much more to say… Here’s hoping I don’t break the 4500 word limit. #
• Dream Theater is excellent music to write long game reviews to. I kid you not. #fb #
• Let’s try again. #3wordsaftersex #
• Fine, that’s the last time I try and be humourous when tweeting a trending topic. The one I posted had already been posted like 6 times :’( #
• Making the transition from blogging (first/second person perspective) to critical game reviewing (third person) is harder than I thought. #
• RT @marcofolio I am in to win a premium WordPress Theme from FlashMint.com! Join this contest too: http://bit.ly/14pWQp . #
• Watching Brothers and Sisters on TV. I frakking love this show… ^_^ #
• Um… what? http://bit.ly/PKtmV Still, WANT #
• This is the same bus I’ve been catching for the last 12 weeks, and only TODAY are there 1000x the normal amount of cute girls. /sigh. #
• RT @thetruthuntold: Where the fuck is my visual voicemail Telstra! #
• Just received what appears to be a legitimate email from the Commonwealth Bank – pity it’s to the wrong email address… Phishing? #
• WTF – my sister’s MSN account seems to have been haxored – ha, serves her right. Either that or my Jabber server is having issues again. =/ #
• I want a #promocode for Matches + Phases by @bjango http://is.gd/EtCl #iphone #
• Epic Left 4 Dead game review is now completed. Final word count: 4,719 words in 44 paragraphs in 370 lines. 4571 spaces alone. :O #
• What’s your most tweeted word? Mine’s “awesome”. Literally. http://words.elliottkember.com/bennyling #
• Hmm. My #promocode saved search in Tweetie also picked up some promocodes for gay and straight porn… Er… DO NOT WANT! :S #
• Not in class because it’s the end of the semester and that particular class has decided to end. No class makes Benny a bored boy. #
• Standing in JB Hi-Fi wondering if I can afford The Unit Season 3 @ $56. Very, very tempted… #
• Dropbox rocks harder than any other online file-sharing/storage service I know, (including iDisk) yet it doesn’t have a native iPhone app… #
• Panic sale now on – http://www.panic.com/sale – I want Coda, but I probably won’t use it (I only bought Espresso because it was part of MacHeist). #
• FB RT:
  PATIENTS NAME: Quality Music
  STATUS: Deceased
  CAUSE OF DEATH: Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, High School Musical, etc. #
• Last night was the first time I’ve had a solid 8 hours of sleep in a while. I’ve forgotten how good this feels ^_^ #
• Just had to restart my iPhone because it wouldn’t respond to any input. Strangely enough, the Can Touch This podcast was still playing. #
• Has finished Uni lectures for this semester and now only has exams to look forward to.. =\ #fb #
• Actually, getting a little ahead of myself there… Completely forgot it was Thursday, not Friday. Ugh. =\ #fb #
• Just bought Transmit + Candybar from Panic. It feels good to be going legit (with Transmit) – at those prices, I can actually afford to! #
• Going for a drive for the first time in months. Hopefully I can get my Ps before semester two starts… #
• Back from driving. Somehow managed to pick up my mum along the way – but what matters is that I’m THAT MUCH CLOSER to my Ps. ^_^ #
• RT @Appilicious: $10 iTunes Giftcard Giveaway! You can enter by following @Appilicious and RT this. 1100 followers before announcing winner. #
• Hah – just went to sign up for OCAU because their registration is completely anal, discovered that I already had an account… Lulz. #
• New MacUpdate Promo now out – Parallels 4 and TechTool Pro 5 make it worth the $50 alone. http://www.mupromo.com/ #
• Ideally, I’d love to go to sleep at 10:00 or earlier. It doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen, though – documentation can suck it. :’( #
• Lonely Planet guide for San Francisco (iPhone) available for free! http://bit.ly/rkZeH @parisba @tonygray and all other WWDC attendees! #
• Just completely borked my ActionScript project by renaming one file. Renaming it back doesn’t help either. It’s gonna be a long night, sigh. #
• This is going to suck harder than the emptiness of space. I’m not even kidding. #
• Awesome. Stopmotion. Music. (Youtube and MP3) http://bit.ly/WWKm0 http://bit.ly/JslNC @urusaipoppu, this is the original. #
• Yeah, 5 hours sleep is enough. ¬_¬ #
• Weather in Hobart completely blows today; it’s all rainy and stuff. My advice would be to stay inside if you can #
• Just had a complete mind blank when ordering a bacon deluxe meal at Hungry Jacks. Blonde hair and blue eyes will do that to me… #
• Er… Can I be bothered to read 4500+ articles in NNW? I think not. I’ll just have to mark most of these as read, then. #
• Time for another edition of #stupidosxbugs: this time, Safari! Please don’t throw these kinds of errors. http://twitpic.com/6671i #
• Fail tweet was completely full of fail – new one in a sec. #
• Would like to know how I’m supposed to do things without having an example of how to do it properly in the first place. Please explain. #fb #
• Hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to work we go… #singalong #
• My ability to print seems to have been revoked. Well, not revoked – utterly destroyed is a more accurate description. #
• ZOMG! I now have access to OCAU’s trading forum! CHEAP PC COMPONENTS BE MINE! MUHAHAHA! #
• WOW. Hugely impressed with OCAU’s trading forum – fark, it’s like a PC geek’s wet dream come true! IT’S. SO. AWESOME. *drools* #
• #navision is ugly. #
• FFS AIM, please stop being all “Error: Serv:RequestTimeout” on me all of a sudden… :’( #
• Currently playing some L4D with @urusaipoppu ^_^ #
• Win a copy of Office Home and Student 2007! http://tr.im/o2007comp — to win just follow @BeauGiles and RT this message #o2007comp #
• I take L4D far too seriously these days. Maybe it’s because I have some overachiever complex? Thanks to @urusaipoppu for pointing this out. #
• I seem to have developed a hatred for Supertramp. It’s funny, because I loved them to bits roughly 6 months ago – now I hate them. =/ #
• Finished driving. That wasn’t so bad now, was it? “Just keep driving straight” works quite well, I think. Better than expected, anyway. #
• GREAT GALAXY! IF I KNOW MY ANATOMY, THAT LEADS STRAIGHT FOR THE SOUTHERN EXIT! – Vegeta, Dragon Ball Z, Episode 258. #
• I’d love to piss away the rest of the evening on random WordPress stuff, but sadly there are these things called EXAMS. They suck a lot. -_- #
• So now the question becomes – CSI New York, or 24? 24 starts 11 and NY at 10:30, so I think I’ll watch NY and then switch over to 24! #
• Hmm. Maybe it’s not the best idea to be using a #WordPress theme that hasn’t been updated since 2005… Poor form, Mr Designer. :S #

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Seriously – WTF is this?!

Look at it. Just look at it. Surely that’s not even legal?

It’s so horrendously bad, it was named as 2008’s worst website of the year.

If you’re interested (or just want to experience the horror for yourself) in a larger version, hit this link.

Some guy on the internet has made a screencapture of the whole site – it’s fairly large, though. Hit this link.

Finally, if you want to experience the full experience for yourself, hit this link. At your own risk. I take no responsibility for what happens next.

Just. Astounding.

Little known fact about James: In grade 7 I was more excited about the release of Super Mario 3 than I was about the school dance.

via Twitter / James White: Little known fact about Ja ….

Er… School dance? What school dance?!

via adamd, (via ragetoons).

I’ve taken my hyperactive editing style a step further! Hope you’ll enjoy it!

via YouTube – Amateur – Lasse Gjertsen.

There’s a comment on the page where a commenter says:

Doooodddd. MAKE AN ALBUM.

…and really, that’s seconded.

If you’re interested, download the MP3 of the audio here – thanks to Lassegg for making this available!

This is my new ringtone. I kid you not, IT’S THAT AWESOME.

Although we were as efficient as possible, the user interface consisted of 161 images once cut up into the final pieces.

via Creating the interface for Beats, an iPhone app on Vimeo.

This is too awesome – the way each graphical element goes together?

Just. Awesome.

Irony: this defines it.

I’m not the only one that thinks the new selected tweet colour style sucks, either.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

via Worst. Idea. Ever at Kontraband UK.

I’m not one to usually link to Kontraband, but this is the exception.

So, Java, huh?

It’s not so bad, actually.

As a first language, Java is okay – especially when it is taught right (inside joke there).

Anyway, hot on the heels (somewhat cold, actually), of the Windows Shutdown Crapfest, comes the X Character Finder crapfest, courtesy of yours truly.

First, a little background to this – at Uni I’m doing a subject called programming and problem solving. It involves Java.

Our first assignment was to calculate some variable. Or something. Anyway – one of the things we had to do was find out if the user’s name had the ‘x’ character in it – in either upper or lower case.

This is what I managed to come up with – I’ve commented the code so you understand what it does. I’ve also used Pastie to embed the code, because this is the one time WordPress has failed me. Right, everything seems to be failing hard on me tonight, so I’ve just linked the Pastie…

If you don’t really get what’s going on, I wouldn’t worry. Here’s the english explanation: Get a username. Count the letters in that username. Look at the first character – if it’s an X or an x, then we have an x in the username. If it’s not an X or an x, then we look at the next character in the username, and perform the same “Is it an X or and x check” again. We keep doing this until we either find an X, or we’ve run out of characters in the username. If you just want to know why this is the X Character Finder crapfest, well, it’s just because I’m re-inventing the wheel here, man – there’s a heaps easier way to find if a particular word/string has a particular character in it, and that’s via use of methods.

The real code that I submitted looks like this. Thanks again to Pastie.

See? Much easier.

This was the X Character Finder Crapfest, brought to you by Benny Ling.

Comments below.

• I have a sore throat and I’m coughing. Swine flu? #H1N1 #
• Ihave a terrible memory; can’t seem to remember placing an order for a customer last saturday… =/ #
• Both the TVs in this house are currently being used, when I want to watch Top Gear Australia… Meh. I will have to buy an Elgato, methinks. #
• New favourite webcomic! If you enjoy XKCD, you should definitely check out Zoitz! Eg: http://bit.ly/Jc4BD and http://bit.ly/rLRqS #
• #geoDefense medium 4 is kicking my ass over, and over, and over again. Can’t seem to get past wave 12 of 20. Must be doing something wrong. #
• w00t!! Finally beat #geoDefense medium 4, puzzles are easy once you have the key… Protip: don’t be afraid to pop those vortex nodes! ^_^ #
• CBA not charging it’s customers for using ATMs from other banks? Am I reading this right?! But you can still get charged by the ATM owner… #
• Looking at $AUS -> £GBP conversion rates. Why? http://store.effingcards.com/ ZOMG THEY’RE AWESOME!!! WANT. SO. BAD… #
• Can’t decide which OSX error is more stupid. Both applied to the same file. :S http://bit.ly/i6Pd3 or http://bit.ly/13NfcH #osx #bug #
• And while we’re at it, why doesn’t #Skitch have TwitPic support? Oi, @plasq; Skitch + TwitPic = EPIC WIN! #
• Bacon + Cat = http://twitpic.com/512yu #
• FFS, more iMovie BS in Web Management. It wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t using iMovie 6 HD. Seriously, wtf. Epic fail. #
• Install 10.5.7 broke my uptime record – I was up to 46 days (16 days actual running time). http://twitpic.com/531e6 #
• I think I follow too many people to use the “show me replies from everyone” feature anyway. The option would have been nice; choice++. #
• Okay, now I’m sick – coughing, runny/blocked nose, head feels stuffy, sore throat, the works. Swine flu? #
• I have come to conclusion that old-school Lily Allen music is far better than the new-school Lily Allen music. #
• I forgot to call the object identifier when calling it’s functions, no wonder my compiler complained to the tune of 67 errors. #java #fail #
• Fine, we’ll just have to start the day with 42% battery life, then. Aeroplane mode kinda defeats the purpose of a phone… #
• RT @tapulous: To celebrate 3K followers we’re giving away premium apps 4 free! Follow @Tapulous & RT 2 enter! #
• Respect for: @zacislost, @neg2led, @benzoenator, @urusaipoppu, @tomricci, @exocetau, @tomrivers, @nigelhoney, @vaempyr. #followfriday #
• It is entirely sad that I would rather do assignment work than play L4D. Noobs ruin the game for everyone. /ragequit #
• Oh c’mon, that’s just not fair. Resident Evil in the US App Store but not in the Australian one?! http://bit.ly/zlqU3 [US iTMS Link] #
• Why do I always see african-americans with stunning blonde girlfriends? When was the last time you saw an asian with a hot blonde? Hmm? #
• ZOMG, #L4D SDK (Authoring Tools) BETA RELEASED! BRING ON USER_CREATED MAPS!1!
  http://bit.ly/nD6BQ #
• Just played PopCap’s Plants vs Zombies for the better par of an hour – while it’s really quite good, it eats up swap like nothing else… =/ #
• SEE? I *TOLD* you that 1 in 2 asians were allergic to alcohol (or the yeast contained therein). Wikipedia does not lie! http://bit.ly/rxtdF #
• Wow. Lostprophets are actually *awesome*. #
• Why do people build websites from scratch for fun? I can understand building your own theme, but your entire website? CMS or GTFO, please. #
• Lawl. This almost seems like a pre-emptive block, but hey, if that’s the way you’re gonna roll… http://twitpic.com/5co2m #
• Unfortunately, the time for sleep has home. I have a bus to catch at 7:30am, which means a 6AM start. Woe is me… #

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