12:33:42 PM: Ah, I think I don’t need to say ‘NLB’ with the slashes each time. That just starts the process for the plugin to monitor tweets.

12:35:16 PM: I wonder if there will be multiple new posts on the tech blog. None there yet: plugin checks every 10 mins as defauult.

12:41:59 PM: Now I get it: definitely no ‘NLB’ with each tweet as multiple posts get created otherwise. http://twitpic.com/4h36s

12:50:36 PM: @thisismash you’ve written a very cool WordPress plugin with Twitter LiveBlog, thanks. http://bit.ly/tmhNS Testing it at the moment.

12:55:13 PM: My next tweet will end this little first test of Twitter LiveBlog. http://bit.ly/tmhNS

Last month, I installed Norton Internet Security 2009 on my primary desktop PC, a Dell XPS-420.

I received the software from Edelman, Symantec’s PR agency in the UK, and I’m using it in that PC instead of McAfee Security Center that I’ve been using on all my PCs for the past year.

Once you’ve installed your security software, you tend not to think about it any more. It’s a bit like the alarm system or even the door locks in your house: part of the fundamentals, the peace-of-mind infrastructure, that you know is protecting you.

It’s actually a good frame of mind to be in. Who wants to think about anti-virus software or a PC firewall more than when you first install or upgrade it? Not me!

A few days, ago, though, I had cause to think about such protection when Norton blocked an intrusion attempt as the screenshot above illustrates.

An “HTTP Fake Codec WebPage,” it said, which Symantec’s Security Response page describes thus:

This signature detects web pages displaying download prompts or fake scans to lure the user into downloading misleading applications.

Interesting that the Symantec page lists the versions of Windows it says are affected by this attack, but doesn’t include Windows Vista: that’s the one running on my Dell.

Anyway, I know exactly what I did that produced the alert – clicked a link in a page of results from a  Google search on something I was researching for a blog post. As I recall, the link I clicked was the third or fourth in the Google results and that action immediately produced the Norton alert.

More importantly, the alert is a notification to say that security wasn’t breached, the software had done its job and no action on my part was required.

Would the McAfee product also have produced this result if I’d still had it installed? I’d certainly have expected so.

But what I have installed right now is the Norton product and it did its job well. That’s what I like about peace-of-mind infrastructure.

[Update March 25: This problem is now resolved, thanks to collaborative thinking by a group of people shared over Twitter. See update at end of post.]

This is a peculiar error in the ‘Manage Plugins’ WordPress admin page over on my primary blog – three lines containing the same PHP error message:

Warning: Illegal offset type in /mnt/local/home/ehobsonc/www.nevillehobson.com/wp-admin/includes/plugin.php on line 456

It appeared after I’d auto-updated the Chat Catcher plugin to a new version 2.63 as notified by Wordpress’ plugin auto-update feature.

The plugin didn’t succeed in upgrading, only producing the error and not working at all. I removed the plugin files completely via FTP into the server and manual deletion, and uploaded a previous version just so I’d still have the Chat Catcher functionality.

That worked but the error you see above still remains (although it doesn’t seem to be affecting anything on the blog).

Plugin author Shannon Whitley subsequently released a fix, version 2.64, which installed just fine. Again, though, the error text remains on the ‘Manage Plugins’ admin page.

I can’t get rid of it! Shannon suggested one possible solution – de-activating Akismet and then re-activating it – but that didn’t work.

Doing a search on the precise error text turns up a few results, leading with my tweets to Shannon about it!

The only other option it seems, as suggested by Shannon, is de-activating all plugins and then re-activating them. Really reluctant to have to do that unless it absolutely is the only way to fix this.

Surely there’s a simpler way?

[Update March 25:] As you can see from the comments to this post, a number of people have offered some ideas on solutions. And there is a solution that works.

Read on for the details…

I’m especially grateful to Peter Westwood for jumping in following a tweet by Benjamin Ellis, and taking time to write a plugin that when installed and activated, generated loads of text that means something to Peter.

So that got the train on the track to seeing what might be behind the PHP error texts.

An email from Peter early this morning proposed a solution, but it was Shannon Whitley’s code suggestion overnight that did the trick (I was in the midst of implementing that when Peter’s email arrived).

What Shannon proposed – which worked – was to add some PHP code to the ‘Hello Dolly’ plugin which, when the plugin was activated and the PHP code executed, would fix a corrupted Active Plugin array in the WordPress database that resulted from activating version 2.63 of Shannon’s Chat Catcher plugin.

So no de-activating/re-activating all plugins, just edit one plugin file and activate it.

Highlighted in yellow, this is Shannon’s code I added to hello.php and the precise place where I inserted it:

I activated the plugin and, voila! Error messages gone and back to normal.

What I’d be interested in next is understanding exactly what happened here – what caused the error texts in the first place.

Above all, though, thanks to everyone for your help. And perseverance.

Can’t wait to see this game when it appears, expected this coming August.

Quake Live from ID Software – the guys who gave us Doom in 1996 – will be a web-based game, playable in your browser, and offered free (there will be ads, though). So nothing to purchase or install on your computer, unlike previous Quakes, just log in to the game site and play.

If the video above is a good indicator – and it’s the same video currently showing on the official Quake Live website – then I think this first-person shooter will be a winner.

More info at the game website. If you want to get your hands on it early, and be a beta tester, you can sign up on the site if they have any places left.

Read about the history of Quake on Wikipedia, some nostalgia there (I’ve played them all except Live):

• Quake
• Quake (series)
• Quake Live

(Via Download Squad.)

Now what about Duke Nukem Forever?

This is the game first announced in 1997, then in 1998, 1999, 2001, 2007, and, most recently, in December 2008. The latest? Here’s the official view from developer 3D Realms in December:

The release date of this game is "When it’s done".  Anything else, and we mean anything else is someone’s speculation.  There is no date.  We don’t know any date.  If you have a friend who claims they have "inside info", or there’s some game news site, or some computer store at the mall who claims they know – they do not.  They are making it up.  There is no date.  Period.

And yes, we know the game has taken a long time.  There’s no possible joke you could make about the game’s development time that we haven’t already heard. 

So there!

But take a look at the last teaser released in December 2007:

Looks terrific. But is it all just vaporware? Hard to tell.

Keep a positive outlook: if you’re a Duke fan, this could be worth waiting for.

What a disappointment – my iPhone apparently has a fault. When I switch it on, this is what I see on the screen and if I stroke the slider on the bottom of the display:

After a little white, a dialogue pops up saying I need to restore settings from iTunes; and if I touch the little ‘i’ symbol at the bottom right of the screen, I get a wholly unexpected text:

IMEI and ICCID are both to do with the SIM card, the small piece of plastic and embedded chip that contains information that lets you use a mobile phone for voice, text and data.

Note the word’ Searching…’ at the top left in each screenshot – iPhone can’t see any cellular network to connect to, and it doesn’t see the SIM card in the phone.

iTunes can’t see the iPhone, either – this is what happens on the PC when I plug the iPhone in via USB and iTunes then launches:

The phone itself is visible to Windows Vista as this autoplay dialogue appears when the iPhone is connected to the PC via its USB connection:

What a situation! The phone was working just fine yesterday.

So my troubleshooting today has included this:

• Ensured the battery is fully charged.
• Followed the iPhone Troubleshooting Assistant. Little help as the iPhone doesn’t progress beyond the screenshots shown above, ie, the phone can’t be operated at all other than for making an emergency phone call.
• Checked iTunes installation, following all the steps in Apple Support’s TS2430 and TS1495 articles.
• Removed the O2 SIM card from the iPhone, checking it for any dirt or damage. It checks out fine.
• Tested the O2 SIM card in another phone (Nokia N95 8GB). It works fine.
• Double-checked Windows Vista Device Manager and Services listings; everything that should be there and working, is.
• Checked the Event Viewer for error or warnings messages. None that I could identify relating to iPhone or iTunes.
• Restarted the computer and reset the iPhone. That didn’t make any difference.

I called O2’s iPhone support number but gave up after waiting in a queue for 30 minutes (I guess everyone who got an iPhone for Christmas is calling O2 today).

So my next step looks like a visit to my nearest Apple Store Genius Bar (that’s in Kingston).

I want my iPhone back! I’ll update this post with progress.

[Update Jan 2] The iPhone is going to be replaced by O2 under warranty. Details in O2: phone service awful, store service great.

What’s the iPhone virtual keypad like? is a question I’ve been asked a great deal over the past few weeks as I continue to get to know the iPhone 3G.

So here in this video are some initial impressions.

Just over week ago, I received an iPhone 3G to experiment with, get to know and figure out whether it would be a device that would make me want to forsake all others.

This is part of Adrian Melrose’s ‘Applefy’ plan (time will tell how that works out), as well as to get a sense of how the iPhone stacks up against other smartphones like the T-Mobile G1 aka the Googlephone. I was lucky enough to get a quick look at one just before its UK launch in October.

So, to the iPhone.

I made this short video via Qik with some initial impressions of using some of the apps on an iPhone – including Tweetie, WordPress for iPhone and the App Store – as well as some of the built-in features like the camera and iPod.

I have little doubt that the iPhone is a remarkable mobile device. As I said in the video, it’s the most elegant, beautifully-designed and easy to use device I have ever got my hands on.

Is that enough for the Applefy effect, though?

Far too early to say, so stay tuned

Pretty imaginative – 360-degree video on the move. First time I’ve seen that.

Let the video load fully (to avoid buffering issues), then play.

(Via Sam Michel)

Last week, I had the pleasure of using a T-Mobile G1, otherwise known as the Googlephone or Gphone.

This is the device that runs Android, the new operating system and software platform developed by Google and others in the Open Handset Alliance, which was announced last November.

Here are two videos of what I thought about the new Googlephone. My focus in both is on broad usability. These reviews are not depth tech-focused or any other specific focus – you have plenty of choices if you want depth reviews – just my reactions and feelings about the phone.

I recorded this first review during the evening of Tuesday October 28. The Googlephone arrived late that afternoon and this was the first moment I had to actually turn the phone on and discover a little about it.

Relatively short, just over ten minutes.

I recorded my second review in the morning of Thursday October 30 – the day Googlephone went on sale in the UK – after having got to know it a bit since Tuesday, especially during my trip to Brussels the preceding day.

This review is quite a bit longer, nearly 25 minutes, as I talk about the applications I’d discovered and played with a little, notably Gmail and the browser.

Bottom line: although I had this mobile device for just 48 hours, it was enough to convince me it is the bees knees, as I mentioned in a brief post the other day.

It’s not perfect, by any means. Its major failing is that it does not support video recording. That’s a potential show stopper for me, given that I do a lot of video on my Nokia N95 8GB, notably Qik and seesmic.

On the plus side, the device is a joy to use especially the touch screen and keyboard. And yes, I really would ditch old behaviours about mobile email.

Take a look at the complete spec list to see the phone’s full capabilities.

What I’d like to do is get one today for everything except video. Wishful thinking, though! Wish I could justify the budget.

Thanks to Will McInnes of NixonMcInnes, and Brands2life, two of T-Mobile UK’s PR agencies, for lending me the Googlephone.