And to finish off a good, long weekend, our broadband has just been upgraded, free of charge, from 2Mb to 8Mb.

Very True Mood: happy

Google Labs have launched an accessible search engine. Accessible in both the sense that the search engine interface is more accessible (I haven’t evaluated this to see whether its true or not) and in that it aims to return accessible sites in the results.

A read of the FAQ reveals that the only sort of accesibility being considered at this time is visual impairment. This is a bit of a shame because it will reinforce the erroneous view that accessibility = blind. I hope that in the future it can be extended and customised to return results tailored to particular requirements.

The number of results returned is much lower, sometimes only 5% of the number returned by the main search.

The main Google site: Results 1 - 10 of about 3,370,000 for steve pugh. And pages related to me rather than the comics artist, etc. are at numbers two, four and five.

Accessible Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 157,000 for steve pugh. And pages related to me rather than the comics artist, etc. are at numbers two, three, four and ten.

One little thing I’ve noticed is that Wikipedia pages must be highly accessible according to Google as they come near the top in any search.

The main Google site: Results 1 - 10 of about 526,000 for tanita tikaram. And my site comes in at number two.

Accessible Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 57,900 for tanita tikaram. And my site is now at number one. The site TanitaTikaram.com (which uses frames) moves down from one to three. So frames don’t exclude you from these results but may hurt your position. Amazon doesn’t fair well, slipping from number ten to number thirty five.

Google indexes Flash, Word and Acrobat as well as HTML but I haven’t seen any such results yet. These formats can be made accessible but presumably Google’s spiders aren’t yet able to parse them for the signs that the authors have done so.

As with most products aimed at providing an accessible service, there are benefits for all users. If you find that Google often returns too many search results, and if you don’t want to see any paid links, and if you want to get results that only include easy to read and navigate pages, then this could be the search engine for you.

Meanwhile, I’m interested to hear what others in the accessibility field think.

Very True Mood: relaxed

Last night’s party was a success even if the gusty winds put paid to the barbecue. There was silliness and laughter and a rambling debate between atheism and theism that lasted until four in the morning.

Today, Lettice is off at the Croydon motor show, stalking James May (the floppy haired one off Top Gear) and possibly presenting him with some Knit Gear dolls. So I’m all on my own, with just the war zone that used to be our kitchen to spoil the peacefulness.

I expect the Croydon show will be very different to the one at ExCel we visited on Friday. ExCel is a huge venue - when Salute moved there from Olympia this year some attendees likened it to an aircraft hanger. Salute used a three segment long section of one of the halls, the motor show used the full seventeen section length of both halls. There’s also a lot more money in cars than in miniatures, hence at Salute we had bare floors and walls, whilst at the motor show it was carpets and banners and specially constructed stands everywhere. It was fun to have a look round but I wouldn’t have gone if my ticket hadn’t been free.

Oh, and we won the pub quiz on Thursday., so it’s definitely been a good few days.

Very True Mood: lethargic

Via TMP, Magister Militum have launched a new range of dinosaurs in 10mm (1/160 scale).

Meanwhile back in 28mm, I discovered a while back, but forgot to blog it, that Das Schwarze Auge - The Dark Eye range available via Ral Partha Europe, contains a handful of prehistoric creatures.

A dancing T. rex, just don’t paint him purple…

Very True Mood: chipper

Prehistoric Park on ITV is more than just a bit silly. Remember how Walking with Dinosaurs presented itself as a nature documentary that woulda, coulda, shoulda been made if only we had a time machine? But the only human intrusion into the CGI was Kenneth Branagh’s voice over. Then as the franchise continued Nigel Marven took over from Ken and started appearing alongside the dinosaurs.

Well, Nigel and the CGI team have jumped channels and, quelle surprise, the human and prehistoric worlds have intermingled completely. The mission is the bring prehistoric creatures back to a special safari park. Haven’t these guys watched Jurassic Park? (The audience have, it was on immediately beforehand.) Or for handy tips, read How to Keep Dinosaurs (a very good book).

This week’s opener took them back to the days before the KT boundary meteor impact event. And much was made of the race against time to rescue specimans before the big rock hit. Um, you have a time machine, you can go back months or years before impact, so why pick mere days?

The one up side of this approach is that give a good idea of the scale of the beasts when you see them alongside humans, jeeps, etc. Other than that it’s just pretty CGI dinos and mindless “bring ‘em back alive” boys own adventures.

Very True Mood: cheerful

Lots and lots and lots of memeage this week. Via lonemagpie, snapesbabe, sharikkamur and just about everyone for the Tarot meme.

( Ruler Meme )

( Political Meme )

( Pirate Captain Meme )

( Cat Meme )

( Tarot Meme )

( Dog or Cat Meme )

( Music Meme )

( Politics Meme )

Very True Mood: mellow

Last night the Fumblers became the first team to crash out of the Cup. After losing 0-2 to the Dwarf Giants and 1-2 to the Numinous Comets they creep back to their crypt in shame.

But, like all good undead, they will rise again!

Frankenstein’s Fumblers are now available to play exhibition matches, so all other losers, or any late comers who missed out on the Cup, or any confident winners up there in the heavenly half of the draw, come and have a go if you think you’re soft enough.

‘cos the werewolves are getting hungry, and want some more star player points…

Very True Mood: optimistic

Last night the 2006 Old World Cup started. This, in contrast with the recent rubbish in Germany, is a Blood Bowl tournament played over the web with a few friends. My team, Frankenstein’s Fumblers, played the opening game against the Dwarf Giants.

The Fumblers have a nice mix of muscle, speed and cannon fodder. The Giants have muscle, more muscle and some muscle on the side. The Giants won 2-0.

As the cup is being played as a double elimination tournament this means that I’m not out but I do have an uphill struggle if I’m going to win. My next match will be against the loser of Numinal Comets (elves) vs Veni Vedi Viking (um, Vikings).

Very True Mood: contemplative

I promised a test case for my latest problem and here it is: Gecko’s stubborn legend.

A few things worth noting:

1. In reality the yellow background will be a gradiant background image within each box, so I can’t just apply the background to the form.

2. Opera starts out displaying the upper form as FireFox does. The addition of position: relative (with no top, left, etc.) to the styles for legend magically changes that.

3. IE7 breaks the * html hack so some further work will be needed to align the legend horizontally without breaking things in any other browser.

4. Gecko doesn’t seem to apply float or display (except display: none;) to legend elements at all.

Via snapesbabe

Mosquito Ringtones Hearing Test

You are a thirtysomething

You’re a little frustrated that you can’t hear all the tones that the young ‘uns can but will be more than happy if it means you don’t have to listen to their damn ringtones on the bus anymore.

The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 14.9kHz

Take the mosquito ringtones hearing test

I hope, probably in vain, that the limiting factor was not in fact my ears but instead the crappy speaker in my laptop. Hmm, with plugged-in earphones I can just hear a tone at 15.8kHz.

Very True Mood: exanimate