Does your website rely on a MySQL database? Are you tired of using a web application my phpMyAdmin in order to run some custom queries and accomplish some simple tasks?

I used to hate using phpMyAdmin to accomplish simple tasks like querying a database, creating a table or doing some basic maintenance work. However, these re

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I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux for close to 4 months now and, I’ve got to tell ya, it’s not something I want to use full time anymore.

While it was great in the start, the honeymoon has ended and I’m seeing more limitations than benefits with the human-friendly flavour of *nix. I’ve co

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For the longest time, I’ve enjoyed reading newspapers, magazines and various periodicals that are full of well written, thought provoking journalists. Perhaps it’s the love of “the story”. Perhaps it’s something else. But when it comes to telling the news and talking about world events, there are two ways to do it. The thor

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The Democratic Party of Japan has expressed their approval for the use of the Earth’s atmosphere for defense purposes. This was done through an outline of a bill on space they plan to submit in 2008. For a nation that preaches pacifism at every opportunity, regardless of the size of it’s military budget, I find this stance rather hypocritical

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n his Christmas sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned us that human greed is a threat to the planet. While I can certainly appreciate the message, and the obvious intentions behind it, I can’t help but wonder if the message was directed towards the wrong people.

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For the first time in 30 years, the laws governing bicycle operation in Japan are changing. The National Police Agency is planning a full-scale revision to the out-dated rules and will crack down on unsafe conduct. Proposed revisions include outright banning the use of headphones, cell phones, reaching for cell phones and other mobile devices.

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I love language. It doesn’t matter which language, because they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Many Asian languages are incredibly well suited to convey how we feel, but are horrendously unwieldy when discussing technology or science. English, on the other hand, is just the opposite. But why do so many of us rely on spell check?

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With the Japanese government about to sit down to start the first ordinary Diet session, it's interesting to see the topics they're not talking about. Important things like pensions and the future economic security of the nation are all taboo as it could potentially lead to a loss of confidence in the current government.

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It seems that there is trouble afoot with Japan-Australian relations. A Japanese pro-whaling video is calling Australia a racist nation and uses images from the Cronulla riots and other potentially Australian video clips. This 10-minute video goes on to accuse Australia of white supremacy, exclusionary nationalism, and a racist ideology.

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Ever since the Human Genome Project mapped their first human genome, people have wondered what they could find out about their own genetic history. Unfortunately, it’s been rather expensive, and most of us can't realistically afford it. But there is a company out there that’s trying to change this.

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n the past few years, the amount of activism in the Vancouver area has been steadily increasing. People seem to protest everything from affordable housing, to poverty, to the olympics, to everything in between.

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With RIAA’s stance that copying our own CDs is now considered a big “no-no”, I’ve been thinking about our data and when we really own it. Rather than get into the debate on music, though, I was quite surprised that making a copy of my own CD for my own use was now considered “stealing”. If I pay $18 for a CD, what am I actually buying?

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There wasn't anything in the news about it, and there's even less talk on the internet, but Japan's government is silently gearing up to impose restrictions on the internet. A plan submitted to a future government session has the framework in place to become the start of Japan's attempt to control freedom of speech and self-expression onl

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We all hear the plea from bloggers: “I’ve just changed my site design! What do you think?” Unless a blogger has hundreds of active commenters on their site, we’re lucky to hear two or three constructive comments. Whoop-dee-doo.

So when I first heard about Blogger’s Showroom through BloggingZoom, I was a little more than curiou

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Ubuntu’s battery life has been a bone of contention with me ever since making the switch from Windows a while ago, and it seemed that there was no real fix for this. But perhaps there is.

My trusty HP zt3000 has been able to consistently give me an hour and a half when running under any flavour of Windows XP, but never more than

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