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One of the applications I couldn’t let go of when I switched from Windows to Ubuntu was uTorrent. Unfortunately, as you need to run uTorrent using Wine, there is no direct way to automatically launch uTorrent when you click a .torrent link in your browser. Up until now I had a workaround – I created a separate folder in which I saved the torrent files and told uTorrent to watch it for any new files. It works great, and the torrents appear pretty much instantly in the download list. This obviously only works as long the app is running in the first place.

Now I just came across this post on the Ubuntu forums. All you need is a small script which you get Firefox (or any other browser you’re using) to launch when a .torrent link is clicked. Do the following:

From the terminal create a new file for the script:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/utorrent

Now paste the following into it:

#!/bin/sh
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/utorrent
if [ "$1" != "" ]; then
var="`echo $1 | sed 's/\//\\\/g'`"
var="Z:${var}"
wine utorrent.exe "$var"
else
wine utorrent.exe
fi

Make sure the path to the uTorrent folder is correct, then save.

Set the file permissions:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/utorrent

(Update: if you are having problems with the above script then try Adam’s solution down in the comments)

All you need now is to open your browser’s Preferences and tell it to launch your new script when you click a torrent file. Works like a charm.

Kinda disturbing.

Here’s the full picture set from Friday night’s gig. Excellent night.

My favourite:

7. A nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, “Keep off the grass.” Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient’s dressing, which said, “Sorry, had to mow the lawn.”

Submitted by RN no name

Read the rest at Office Spam.

last.fm subscribers could test out new features for the past weeks and today they went live.

The radio streams are now taking a more prominent place as they have been moved from the sidebar into the main profile. And it’s not just subscribers that can listen to the personal streams now, free users can too. What still hasn’t changed is that you can’t listen to your own profile stream unless you are a subscriber. It’s not last.fm’s fault, the radio license they have demands it. Not that it makes any sense, but I guess the music industry knows best *sigh*

But you can now share your station as well by either sending your friends a link, or you can embed it in other profiles or even your blog.

Another new feature that I’ve already come to love is that you can now create your own playlist and feature it on your profile or website. Currently it seems to be restricted to 1 playlist with 25 tracks. During the beta testing you could share the playlist like your radio streams, but that feature seems to have gone. For now, anyway. Let’s hope they will bring it back. I also remember reading in the beta forums that users would be allowed to create multiple playlists in the future.What limits the functionality of the playlist a bit though is that the vast majority of tracks are only available as 30 sec previews, so go pester your favourite artists to change that. I do too. But last.fm has made it easier to actually find fully streamable tracks and artists.

The blue play buttons mark previews, the gold ones are fully streamable. They are also displayed in the Overall Top Artists and Tracks lists. To add a track to your playlist just move the mouse over its name and a new button appears.

This can be done on any page that displays tracks- album pages, your dashboard and profile pages. And obviously your playlist is also editable and you can give it a descriptive name. And clicking the blue or gold buttons will let you listen to the tracks right there and then.
Something else for you to use on your blog – or MySpace profile – is the Quilt. This will display either the covers of your top albums, or the top artists’ pictures.

Move your mouse over the tiles, it’s interactive

You can now also import your contacts from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, and Hotmail. If they are already registered with last.fm you’ll easily find them that way.

Last but not least there have been layout tweaks, like making the album art and artist pics consistent in size when they are displayed next to your Recently Listened Tracks and Weekly Top Artists lists. And to find out about the rest you better go and have a look for yourself, there’s quite a few more things to discover.

Happy scrobbling

In today’s Entertainment News:

The Fox TV network will make a pilot of The Minister of Divine – co-produced by Vicar of Dibley creator Richard Curtis – before deciding on a full series.

And who’s going to play Dawn French’s part?

Former Cheers actress Kirstie Alley is to play the lead role in a US version of hit BBC comedy The Vicar of Dibley.

I can’t see it. At all.

But then again, I thought the US version of The Office wouldn’t work but somehow it did.

sackrace, originally uploaded by Johnny_X.

And don’t forget to check out the tags on the original Flickr page

I nearly fell flat on my back laughing when I picked up a copy of the Foyle News on Wednesday morning. The front page was dedicated to Paddy ‘Bogside’ Doherty’s plan to erect a 160 foot high statue of St Columba (that’s higher than the fricking Statue of Liberty minus its base!) on an artificial island in the middle of the Foyle, complete with 2 lifts up to a viewing point and accessible via a foot bridge from the Waterside and a ferry from the Cityside.

The Foyle News hasn’t got a website, but here’s Friday’s Derry Journal article (same publisher):

The director of the Inner City Trust, Paddy ‘Bogside’ Doherty, has said he’s delighted with the local support for his idea of a £15m statue of St Colmcille in the River Foyle. And he said Manchester United wouldn’t get a decent footballer for the same money!
Mr. Doherty told the ‘Journal’ yesterday: “All I can say is that whenever I try to do anything in this town, I get the support of everyone. This project seems to have touched people’s imaginations, and it’s going to be hard work, but let’s do it together.”

By Julieann Campbell

The visionary idea has received widespread media attention and created much public debate since Paddy ‘Bogside’ Doherty presented the concept to Derry City Council earlier this week. Details of the ambitious St. Colmcille statue were first headlined in Wednesday’s ‘Foyle News’. Now it seems clear that if Council gives the project the green light, Derry could gain a huge landmark and a world-class tourist attraction for many generations to come.

Paddy said he was pleased at the attention the River Foyle Project has received since the images were made public. And speaking of the £15 million price tag for such a project, he added: “If Manchester United were buying a footballer tomorrow, they wouldn’t get a good one for £15m. It is not a lot of money for what it is going to produce. It is an investment which will – hundreds of times – pay that money back to us.”

St. Colmcille’s connection with Derry goes back many centuries and actually gave the name Doire Colmcille to the city in past centuries. Now the saint could dominate the riverscape, standing 160 feet tall. The Statue of Liberty stands more than 300 feet in the air, although half of that is the base.

Local sculptor, Maurice Harron, the artist responsible for many other highly-acclaimed sculptures in Derry and beyond, was initially sceptical about the project. However, he now believes the feat can be achieved over two years, using a 20-strong team.

Mr. Harron went on: “We envisage there would be a viewing platform inside – around about the neck area or shoulder area. This would give a 360 degree viewpoint. There would be river taxis to take people from the Cityside, from the Guildhall, and city council offices over, and a bridge to the Waterside.”

After I recovered from the laughter reality set in and I started getting pissed. A visionary idea my arse!

Every single person I’ve been talking to thinks this is the most ridiculous idea and complete waste of money. Who’s going to have to pay for this monstrosity? Paddy Bogside? Hardly. Derry City Council with tax payers’ money more likely. We’re being told that it will cost £15m. Where the fuck is the council going to take £15m from? We’re always told there is no money for anything. And will £15m be enough? Probably not. If there really were £15m available then how about doing something for the young people in this city that will actually be of use. Fort George has been lying empty since the British army left. How about transforming that into a skate park as so many have been campaigning for for the past years? How about investing it in the regeneration of the city?

Also from the Foyle News:

During his presentation, Mr. Doherty described the structure to Council as “an attempt to create a haven of peace on the centre of the river which divides the city, where both Catholics and Protestants together can meet and appreciate historic shared Christian heritage.

“The iconic building on the River Foyle, representating Columba, will represent a new image of the city to the world.

What bullshit. Seriously Paddy, the last thing this city needs to unite catholics and protestans is a religious icon!

And Derry might be the second biggest city in Northern Ireland, but it is way to small for something like this. You know what this reminds me of? These small towns and villages you come across in the middle of nowhere in the US who pride themselves as having the largest frying pan or shopping trolley in the world.

Here’s a cool video of a phenomenon which the Inupiat eskimos of northern Alaska call Ivu. This one was in Newfoundland, Canada.