Software to detect plagiarism

I recently saw an article about the growing problem of plagiarism among students and so I've written a little piece of software as a tool to aid teachers in the fight against it. The application is called Collusion and allows users to select a folder on their hard drive that contains the students' essays. These are then checked against each other for evidence of "copy-and-paste".

This is version 1.0. All feedback, via the contact form or the Nimisis software Google group, would be greatly appreciated!

Tags: software, education, Collusion, plagiarism

CS Lewis' Mere Christianity

Fans of CS Lewis' writing, such as the Narnia books, might be interested to hear footage of the man himself talking on BBC radio back in the 40's.

A related link is Librivox.org, which provides free audiobooks from the public domain.

Related: CS Lewis, Librivox, audio, books

Webuser magazine

PriceCutReview.com got a mention in this fortnight's Webuser Magazine, who claim to be the UK's best-selling internet magazine. There's a feature article titled "Save Money Online" and we're tip number 39 of 60. They certainly know what they're talking about. Thanks guys!

webuser

Kindle UK release date

When Amazon launched the Kindle eBook reader in US it was done with little fanfare. The product itself got a lot of criticism yet it managed to sell incredibly well. No wonder really. Users get a free subscription to newspapers like the New York Times which arrives on the device every day, and you're given access to the first chapter of each of the 80,000 ebooks in the store at no cost. For more info, there are some good videos on the product page.

***Discount books***
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Tags: Kindle, book

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Blu ray or HD DVD? Who will win?

The format war over the high-definition video market has been going on for a few years, and it now looks like the eventual winner is pulling ahead. So I'm calling it for the blue corner - it's Blu-ray. Hope I'm wrong though, because I would much prefer HD DVD to triumph. Why? Because it would be better for the consumer.

The main pros and cons for Blu-ray and HD DVD are as follows: Blu-ray can hold more data than HD DVD, 25GB vs 15GB. Compare this with the 4.7GB that a standard DVD can store. However, it's also more expensive to make - an expense passed on to the buyer with a percentage slapped on top no doubt. Blu-ray discs can also be region-encoded. Again, not something the public would have voted for. (To be fair though, about two-thirds of all releases so far have been region-free.)
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Related: Blu-ray, HD DVD, high definition, hdtv

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Pantomime season

Made using a webcam and Flix, here's a time lapse video showing the huge amount of effort that goes into preparing a panto for the public. Thanks Jon!

See also: video, theatre, pantomime, Flix

Google Pagerank Update January 2008

It's happening... the Google servers are giving different numbers for PR, so I'm guessing we're in the middle of another update!

Tags: pagerank, webmaster, Google, seo

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Symonds not Big Monkey

The row about Harbhajan Singh racially abusing Andrew Symonds by calling him a "Big Monkey" is still raging on, but I've just heard on the radio (so it must be true) that Harbhajan was speaking Hindi and said, "Abey bik mangey, teri maa ki" which means "Beggar, go f*** your mother". Still not very polite, but probably more acceptable. I can believe this. The Aussies grasp of Hindi probably isn't that good...

Andrew Symonds

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