The website of the month for June 2010 is the well-known and respected XDA Developers. The website is famous for its forums which feature, along with tips and information, cool applications and ROMs for phones that improve upon or change what can be found in the official ROMs for phones. XDA Developers really should have been the website of the month many years ago, but I was waiting for an appropriate moment - now that their main website has been improved, they're partnering with PDAdb.net and, most importantly, they're moving onto a new era with the departure of Flar, who has been the admin for over 4 years. XDA Developers is an enormous website which deals with both Windows Mobile and Android devices, with a bias towards HTC's devices and is one of the largest (if not the largest) and oldest online mobile device communities, though there are reasonable alternatives around if you somehow get bored of XDA...

Ross Anderson is a very clever guy and a good lecturer - he was one of the authors of the "Chip and PIN is Broken" paper. Indeed, when demonstrating my group project (no, that's not me presenting it but yes, that is my HD2) earlier this year he seemed quite interested in the details of the project and I enjoyed explaining it to him and justifying our various design decisions while reflecting on the difficulties we encountered. Here Stephen Fry interviews him about the Y2K bug. Enjoy!

Yes, you heard me. If you are based in the UK, get out there and vote for the Liberal Democrats. I shall elaborate later today (just hoping to catch early voters at the moment).

Update: 22:10 (Voting is over now):
Clearly the current Labour government needs to be retired so that it can be refreshed (I do feel that Gordon Brown is unable to take the country in the direction he wants because he has been a senior figure for so long and perhaps supported Tony Blair more than he should have), and the Conservatives will be the government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. Therefore, the only party that can realistically bring change for the better is the Liberal Democrats. Before the election campaign, most people didn't even know who Nick Clegg was, whereas the television debates have helped to show off both Nick and the policies of the Lib Dems (as they are often called) to the British public - consequently the Liberal Democrats have risen from the perennial third party in British politics to a serious contended for this election (indeed, they were even the most popular party at one point recently, according to several polls). Newspapers and even celebrities have switched their loyalties to the Lib Dems, including people involved in comedy such as Tim Minchin (who I did a post about recently) and possibly, by implication, Graham Linehan (creator of shows such as Father Ted and The IT Crowd) (I offer you this information not because I think you should use celebrities as inspiration for your vote but, rather, because their comedy exposes their views and the way in which their mind works, whether or not you feel your views align with theirs will tell you to an extent, whether or not you are likely to want to vote for the same party). Even the internet in general seems to support Nick - I highlighted abuse of David Cameron several months ago, but here is just a taste of the Lib Dem support.

I could go on for ages about various issues, but nobody likes reading through a huge amount of text on a blog, so comment if you want me to talk about more stuff.

The new series of Doctor Who has been running for a few episodes, and some of the music from it has found its way online. My favourite part of the soundtrack is below, (specifically the bits at 0:36 and 1:51). The volume seems a bit erratic in this recording - presumably this will be fixed when the soundtrack is properly released. Click through to the version on YouTube for better quality sound...

The Eleventh Hour (The Eleventh Doctor's Action Theme)

The website of the month for May 2010 is Grooveshark, a website where you can listen to virtually any music for free. There is a Windows Mobile Grooveshark client that costs money, but the free GrooveMobile (formerly known as Groovefish) has everything I need.

I hereby apologise both for the lack of posts recently and, in advance, for the lack of posts to come - preparation for exams, as well as other stuff such as trying to find something constructive to do this summer, is keeping me very busy. Both physical and digital files are beginning to live in odd places and everything is in dire need of a good cleanup, defrag and virus scan.

However, I do have one more blog post that shall appear soon...