Managing structural genomics data

I recently discovered the website of the TB Structural Genomics Consortium. It’s very nicely designed and cross-referenced, allowing users to navigate the TB genome and rapidly locate information about protein structures.
The reason that I mention it is that the lab where I work is involved with a structural genomics project and they desperately need a way to manage their data. At the moment it’s a bunch of files in the group Wiki, which is clearly inappropriate for structured data of this nature. I’m resisting the urge to code up a MySQL schema and PHP frontend in the hope that someone else has already done so. I wonder if the software that drives the TB website, or other SG sites, is available? There seems to be a market for this kind of application.

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be

Ah, the 80s. Musically-speaking, such a strange mix of brilliance and utter garbage. Much like…well, every other decade before or since, really.
Via Stranger Fruit comes this huge list of 80s music videos on YouTube. So much material, so little time to waste.

YouTube sound fix for Firefox 1.5/Ubuntu 6.06

One day I had sound in YouTube videos, the next I didn’t. Doug’s blog to the rescue. Basically:

sudo apt-get install alsa-oss
edit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc and ensure that you have “FIREFOX_DSP=aoss”
restart all Firefoxes

and you should be right.

I don’t think the Dapper team have quite got the hang of not breaking things that worked previously on system upgrade. My advice is – if you have a Breezy box working perfectly, stick with it. If it’s a new box, Dapper is fine.