Thats all folks

Thats it. Game over. Closed down for good.
I may put up a new site or I may get a new domain.

I'll stick a holding page up in the interim.

Thanks for watching.

Regards, Alex.

Final edit to correct style sheet and picture links.

Click here to return to howboring.com

Blog archive here: http://www.howboring.com/way_back_blog/blogarchives/howboring_archive.html

btw the full archives should be here:

http://www.howboring.com/the_blog_years/blogarchives/howboring_archive.html

bleh

This whole blogging thing has really ground to a halt. So the site is defiantly going to be revamped very soon. I've got a few things in mind that should make the new improved howboring.com much more entertaining.

I've been Mr Busy Pants of late. We've just moved house which as anyone with more than a suitcase of stuff knows can be bloody time consuming. It doesn’t seem to matter how much stuff I chuck out, I've always got loads of stuff cluttering up the place. I've got boxes full of computer cables, RAM, Tape Drives, Scanners and so on that I have been carting around for years. I should make one last attempt to sell it or chuck it out. Boxes are another nightmare. Do you keep all the boxes for your stuff? Just in case I ever move again or want to sell it, in which case its easier if its boxed. Its a tricky one as I have loads of fucking boxes cluttering up the place. I'm not likely to move again for a long time, and I seldom sell anything. I should just be ruthless and bung the lot of it. Maybe I could hire someone to be ruthless for me. I'd go out for the afternoon and when I return all my junk has disappeared. Mmmmm..... Cathartic....mmmmm


Now that I've moved house I am back to a sucky old modem dial up connection. I'd forgotten how much modems suck! This is so slow its almost unusable. Of course it does remind me just how bad some sites are. I'm pleased to note that the recent sites I have developed for clients all load pretty speedily, even the graphical heavy ones. I'm not using he fastest of hosting services either, so I'm pleased about that. So anyway hopefully I will get ADSL, which while not as fast as my old cable connection should be more than adequate. Also I can get a provider that doesn’t block P2P ports or other common server ports. Which Optus loved doing, and which meant I couldn’t run a mail server and so on.

So what else has been going on for little old me.... Hmmm... Nothing much really I suppose. The house move has been the biggest thing going on. The house is kewl actually, and its good not to be renting. We were a little bit amazed the landlord didn’t try to deduct any of the bond. Actually the whole renting thing in Australia is very good. Any bond you put down is held by a central Bond agency. Then any disputes about bond payments are settled by an independent tribunal, who are very fair I am told. So anyway its great to have that all out of the way and stuff.

The new house is kewl. It has a central courtyard, roof terrace, 2 bedrooms, office, huge very well laid out and equipped kitchen, air-con and intercom, spa-bath and a double shower as well as a separate guest bathroom. Its very centrally located and is only a couple of roads over from where we were renting. I like this area so I am pleased about the location. Its also still very close to my Hapkido gym.


Talking of Hapkido I had the grading last week. That was for my blue belt, which will be the 3rd belt for me. I've been training like a bastard recently. I've been trying for five times a week. :-) You really do notice how much better you become when you train hard. You just enter another world of ability. Of course having a good club helps, and one that runs lots of classes is also very handy. :-)


Being jobless helps as well. I now have more time on my hands. I'm off to the UK for a brief holiday in January. So I will wait until then to sort out some work. I have no idea what I am going to do. I've got all sorts of things going around in my brain and I cant seem to find any focus. I think various, mostly unfounded, fears and concerns are blocking my ability to think clearly. Still I am confident that I can rule the world by the end of next year.

Talking of travel, I have developed mild anxiety about flying. I think its seeing so many plain crashes and destruction on the news. And being completely unable to control your own destiny whilst strapped in a aircraft seat is a bit annoying. I just don’t enjoy flying. It really sucks. I used to not be bothered, and view it in a somewhat matter-of-fact fashion. But now it bugs me and I hate it. I don’t get panic attacks or anything, I'd just rather not fly. If I had the time and money I'd take a boat.


So I reckon that’s all for now. I have a a Christmas preparation to take care of. Not that I could give a toss about crimbo really, but other people do, and I take a certain amount of pleasure from giving presents and stuff. Christmas is enjoyable, its just that I couldn’t be care if we had it or not.

Hmmm... I could rant about how I hate the adverts from the big chain stores asking people to donate presents to charity. Now there is nothing wrong with giving to charity. But when a store expects you to buy something from them and then dump it in a big container so that they can donate it to charity, well that’s just plain wrong. I don’t see the stores donating the profit from those sales. They also get all the publicity and good PR from appearing to donate gifts to the needy. If people would only stop and think they would realise that the only ones benefiting from this gift to charity bollocks is the fucking store itself. If you want to help people over Christmas then fucking donate some money to a good charity and go and volunteer. Don’t make your self feel better by making some useless donation of packaged plastic shite...... Oh, I did rant about it. :-)


That’s it for now. I have to go and hang up some washing.

BTW the new site and stuff should be coming soon. And hey, if you read my site and have been thinking "sheesh, he never updates it anymore". Well how about you send me an email instead, and maybe, just maybe, I'll reply. :-)

Love Alex - AKA "Scrooge McFuck"

Warcraft III - Lordaeron - lordoz - Player Profile

My WarCraft 3 ladder rankings. Im only level 3. Hmm. Not good.

News-A-Roo

-A word from our sponsor-

I was going to close the site down, and then I changed my mind and decided to keep it running. Mainly because I have better things to do than build a new site. The trouble is I'm not really posting much here either. So I dont really know what to do. I think I'll see how it all pans out and I am sure I'll feel one way or another soon enough.

-Geek News-
For some reason I have a desire to learn Macromedia Flash MX. Enough Said.

I have also invested in an Airport (AP). I got a cheap Graphite Base Station and saved my self $400 over the cost of a new Snow one. We've got house guests at the moment, and my office has been repurposed as a bedroom, and this is where my cable modem resides. So Airport was the obvious answer. I already have a router on my network, so it was a simple case of putting the AP into bridging mode and plugging it into the router. This works a treat, and I don’t need the extra functionality that the Snow Base Stations offer. I also put a new AP card into my laptop.

I am a little disappointed with the reception. The signal is pretty weak, and drops out a fair amount. I'm still investigating ways to improve it. Really though, the problem is the five concrete walls between my laptop and the AP base station. I've gotten around the problem by running an Ethernet cable from the router in the office and into the hallway. I've placed the Base Station on a little table in the hallway and hooked the ethernet into it. My lounge is at the other end of the hallway. This give me a clear line of "Sight" to the base station if I sit opposite the door in my lounge. However this isn't really an acceptable solution; I may find blue ethernet cable attractive, but I am alone in this I fear :-D. So I've been investigating some more. I do wonder if the TV is causing a problem? I get much better reception in the room next to the lounge (closer to the base station). And the TV is so huge it may be causing some kinda interference. I'm guessing at that, I don’t really know, I'd thought TVs would be shielded. I havent tested this yet. The TV is virtually always on.


I've located a product called Ars'" had an interesting piece on war flying a while ago. Not that I'm gonna do that, but you'll get what I'm talking about if you read it. I think the AP card in my laptop a CISCO one, so I may be able to use one a CISCO antenna:Kewl Cisco Stuff

More likely I'd have a go at building my own. Cant find a link at the moment, but there are plenty of how-to's out there.


Actually WarDriving doesn’t really interest me and its a bit stupid,done-to-death and just not kewl anymore ;-). Not as kewl as War-BBQing anyway. I'm kinda more interested in extending the point-to-point range of my wireless network. Also I have also been told that you cannot create a wireless bridge using two Apple AirPorts. Hmmm. I wonder if it can be done using an Airport and a PCI wireless card in a Linux box or some such. Other brands of wireless access points and routers can bridge so I reckon there must be a way.

Anyhow I'm waffling now and not making any sense.


-Dark Side-
The BIY PC is still in planning stage. Its looking likely I'll go for an Nforce2 board. But who knows. Maybe I'll do a build report once I've got all the bits.

-And finally-

Its damm hot today. Not sunny as such. But hot. Not super hot, but just hot enough to let you know it'll get hotter and that hotter will be very hot indeed.

AOC 7KLR 17" CRT Monitor Review

AOC 7KLR web site

Hopefully this will be the last CRT monitor I ever buy. For those of you that dont know: CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube, which is basically a normal monitor or TV to me and you. I only mention this because the cost of LCD monitors are rapidly falling and an LCD monitor would be preferable. LCDs look cooler for a start, and take up much less space. But for a tight arse like me the price isn't cheap enough and at the budget end of the range the quality just isn't good enough either.

So with this in mind I have been looking at CRT. I need a new monitor for use with my soon to be built PC, and to be honest I am finding the 15.1 screen on my G4 PowerBook a little cramped. This may sound a little unbelievable for those of you that have seen the G4 PB and are stuck with lesser laptops. Never the less its 1152x768 pixel resolution just isn't enough. That and I like to buy new toys and had a shopping itch that needed scratching.

I suppose I should point out the new PowerBooks have a resolution of 1280x854. Mine's a first generation G4PB which only does the lower res, but it does support dual head mode. More of which later.



I looked at lots of monitors from an amazingly large range of manufacturers (I am obsessed with product research) before settling on the AOC 7KLR. Now I admit to dismissing AOC thinking them to be an ultra cheap shoddy manufacturer of sub-standard monitors. Which just shows how wrong you can be! I am sure someone older and wiser told me never to assume anything, but I dont think I was listening.


The "AOC 7KLR" is a discontinued product and for this reason appeared on special over at Scorpion Technology for the handsome sum of AUS$295 inc GST.

Now there are cheaper monitors but they dont match the specifications of this baby at that price point.


Vital Statistics:
Max Res: 1600x1200 at 75Hz
Best Res: 1280x1024 at 85Hz
Viewable Diagonal: 40.6cm (16")
Dimensions: 410x402x420mm (16x15x16.4")
Video Signal Connector: 16-pin mini D-sub male (no DVI)
Video Cable Length: 6ft (very important that)
On Screen Display (OSD) Function with OSD Shuttle Knob (very cool)

For a full specification list you can visit the AOC web site here: 7KLR



I've decided that 1600x1200 is really too high a res to be useable with a viewable diagonal of only 40.6cm. Text is just a little bit too small to read, but its nice to have the option and i suppose I might use that res for gaming. I'm using it at the moment with a res of 1280x1024 at 85hz. Here's a resolution comparison diagram:





The case is pretty bland and inoffensive. Apart from one amazingly useable feature; the OSD Shuttle Knob. The OSD it self is very comprehensive and isnt lacking features. It has all the usual geometry adjustments, brightness & contrast as well as colour temperature and moire reduction. Which is nice. All of this is accessed using the shuttle knob, which is essentially a dial on the front of the monitor which can also be pushed like a big button. So to activate the OSD you push the button in, then you just turn the dial to select an option, hit the button again and turn the dial to change the values. All very simple, incredibly tactile and so enjoyable to use. Adjusting monitor geometry has never been so much fun. ;-)


The picture quality of the monitor is excellent. Its bright, crisp and stable. I really cant fault it. OK, so I have seen better monitors. The offerings from Sony are awesome, but cost twice the price, as do my favourites from Mitsubishi. Never the less for my use the AOC is much better than I had hoped. Of course I am coming from the 18 month old LCD on my laptop, which in comparison now looks dull and washed out. But I have recently been testing the monitors from the likes of LG, Philips and Samsung, and the AOC comes out champ' IMHO. There is the Philips 107P 17" which is damm fine display. Which for a 17" has an absurdly high max' res' of 1920x1440 and equally high price of AUS$535.

When describing the somewhat subjective virtues of a monitor it is very difficult to say just how good it is. With out doing side by side comparisons its nigh on impossible to say if one good monitor is better than another. You do certainly know if a monitor is really bad, its just so glaringly obvious and painful to the eyes. But with good monitors it really comes down to how much you liked it at the time.


I dont happen to have any calibration equipment so I wont even begin to waffle on about how good colours look. I'd be talking out my arse with nothing to back it up. Anyway this isn't a pro monitor, for that kind of work you could do worse than get a LaCie blue III. But if you are a budding digital retoucher on a tight budget you would not be disappointed. I have no idea who makes the tube in these AOCs, but its certainly not Trinitron technology. I'll see how the screen ages over time but I'm confident it will still be looking good in a year or two. Which is all I need it for. By then big LCDs should be cheap enough for the likes of me.

Some specifics about use with a PowerBook

My PB has a standard 15 pin external monitor connector on the back of it. So I could just plug it straight in. It worked and synced with no problems at all. Pleasingly both OS9 and OSX know what the display is and list it as "AOC Spectrum 7K". I even get a colour sync profile for the monitor. I dont know how that works, I'm guessing the profile is built on the fly and is just set to defaults. I went through and made a colour profile anyway using the built-in Display Calibrator Assistant. I am really rather pleased and it all looks really rather good. :-D

As mentioned earlier I can use the monitor in dual head mode with the PowerBook. Which means I now have two monitors. I can use the built in PB screen at the same time and have different things on each screen. I am amazed at the amount of people that have never seen this working, but its very cool. I can move windows from one to the other. its so useful; I can have the specs web page open for the monitor on one screen and my word processor window open on the other. Or the PDF manual for some software open and the application window. It really is a very productive way to work.

Which leads me to my one gripe. Its not a gripe with the monitor, more a strange weirdness from Apple. I play a lot of Warcraft and I play it under OS9 as its faster. I was looking forward to playing it on my new CRT as it was bound to look better, and the CRT should update quicker than the LCD so everything will look smoother. So I rebooted into OS9, set the main display to the CRT and fired up WC. And wouldn't you know it but WC appears on the LCD. Damm. So I then put it in mirror mode. Same thing. The CRT goes dark and it appears on the LCD. Double damm. Im getting annoyed at this point. So I rebooted into OSX and tried it agin. Oh joy of joys it worked fine. WC appeared on the CRT as expected. So I'm thinking it must be a software issue. I'm now cussing and abusing Apple for being such a bunch of weiners. I do recall having similar problem when I tried to mirror the iTunes visual effects out to a TV via S-Video under OS9. Apple stopping my party fun once again.

I did a quick scout around and found some hints over on the MacNN forums. I dint manage to solve it fully but I did find a work around which has an added bonus too.

You need an external keyboard and mouse for this to work.

The trick is this:

1. Close the screen on the PB.
2. Wait until its in sleep mode.
3. Wake up the computer using the external keyboard. Just hit any key.

Now the PB should wake up and sense the external monitor. It should at this point use this as the sole display and leave the LCD off. This has the added advantage of allocating all available video RAM to the one display, which is what you want for gaming. Video RAM in my case amounts to a miserly 8MB. Still WC runs, just about, with all the settings at minimum.

There is a minor down side: heat. The PB gets hot, damm hot, with the lid closed. These isn't much ventilation when its placed on a flat surface. So you can just open the lid again and the LCD should stay off. However I have read varying reports on this so it may depend on what PB you have. I also raise mine up about a centimetre by standing it on a few mini-discs I had laying about. This provides some much needed ventilation underneath. Ideally I suppose some sort of heatsink stand would be ideal for this. The PowerBook doesn't normally get very hot by the way. Just that when playing things like WC everything is working over time. The CD and HD are being constantly used and the G4 is processing its little silicon legs off. Which makes every thing much hotter than under normal non gaming usage.

It all temporary however as I should be getting my super duper new PC very soon. I'm just waiting to see how the soon to be released NForce2 motherboards work out. :-D

If you are one of those unfortunates that have to put up with the simply awfull look-&-feel of Windows XP, you could do worse than make it look like OSX.

Go here to find out how: Sone

Fuck

I've taken to enjoying swearing when I write. Either on here or in emails and so on. I'm generaly too polite and worry that someone might be offended, such as a puritan, diligent parent, Priest, Cyber Nanny, Grand Parent, elderly web surfer (or silver surfers as they are cringinly refered to at times). Its just a phase. I am sure I'll grow out of it.

Fuck this. I'm going to 'ave a little dwink now. :-D

Quick computer comment...

Of course what I'd really like to build is some huge bastard of a dual processor system. And then over-clock the fuck out of it and toy around with water cooling. Oh yes! Buts thats just crazy talk and far too expensive really. Plus it would prob go hugely wrong. Its bound to get struck by lightening or something and I'd end up with some huge cybernetic aquatic demon monster roaming around my house intent on taking over the world.
Which simply wont do as world domination is my job. And there can be only one King of the Universe. There may of course be many Kings or Queens of the multiverse, but thats OK as we shall be locked in an eternal pan-dimensional battle of good vs evil. Which would certainly keep me busy. Come to think of it a cybernetic-aquatic-demon monster might usefull in my eternal struggle against the forces of darkness.

Now I'm humming/singing/mumbling "together in electric dreams.... dum-da da-da... we'll always be together..."

For those of you who havent seen the hit '80s movie "Electric Dreams" you are missing out. Big time. Oh yes!

< h1>Oh yes, this is kewl too...
Every playboy centre-fold since 1954
Well it is if you like pictures of ladies.

Which on the odd occasion I have been known too. :-D

News in brief

--Site News--
I still have not made up my mind what to do with this website and stuff. Its low priority at the moment. As is my desire to update the blog in anyway.
Current recommended viewing frequency: weekly.

--Geek News--
I filled up the hard disk on my laptop.
Doh! Its only 10GB so its easily done. This caused it to crash. Actually it had been crashing a lot in the past few days. I'd just assumed it was because I was running Entourage. ;-)
Which is actually partially the case. After one crash it seemed to lose my desktop prefs; all my icons went back to big size. I like 'em small and organised by name.

So anyway Entourage also become unfeasibly slow. Probably dues to the 800MB mail database. Oh dear. Enterarse isn't really designed for this me thinks. It was taking forever to load and switch between mail folders and so forth.
Upon inspection I noticed I had over 700 items in my deleted mail. in total I about 6000 mails. My subscription to Rennlist accounted for around 1000 mails. So I have now archived loads of stuff. Everything is much better now.


--Audio pants--
My old Sony multimedia speakers were a bit shagged. Only 18 months old but one of them had developed a bit of a crackle.

So I have bought some Altec Lansing 2100s. Cant be arsed to provide a link. Do a search if you want to see some pictures. But they are very kewl. They are only 2.1s (2 satellites and a sub') but the quality is very good, and the sub is very very basey. Actually a bit too basey for me. So I have it turned down very low. Apart from when playing WC3, whence I like to feel the rumble as I march my troops around. :-D


--Dark Side--
I've been eyeing up build it your self PCs of late. Not that I wanna run windows. But I want better gaming performance, and my Mac aint fast enough. I cant afford a new Mac, so this is a good option. Secondly I can bung Linux on it and have a play with that too. I could put Linux on my Mac, but I still need OSX for some things, and a complete migration might be a bit shocking. Plus my disk space is a little limited...
Anyway for those that are interested I shall be going for AMD, because its much cheaper and the performance of even a 1700+ will be fine for my needs. I'm not sure if I will hang out for an Nforce 2 board, or jump in sooner and get a KT400 board. Case wise I would like a Lian Li or a Coolermaster, but I am not sure if I want to spend the money. Who knows. Its all still to be decided. Depends also on my finances a bit.


--Automotive News--
All the lights went on the Hyundai Coupe.
So I replaced the bulbs. Which fixed the high beams, but not the headlights.
I figured it ws a fuse but I couldn't find which one. So I put it in for its 105k service, which was due anyway. The total cost for a full Hyundai main dealer service was a whopping $159. My god, this car is so cheap to run. Even a service on a Ford Fiesta in $300. And for one of those loathsome Holden Commodores its over $600. I really cant see myself driving anything other than a Hyundai at the moment. Its just to cheap and too reliable. And its a pretty nice car too. That is until I can afford another 911. But then the Hyundai will probably stay anyway as an everyday usage car thing.

Oh yes, I replaced the bulbs with Xeon gas jobbies. Blimey! it is sooo much brighter than before. They are awesome.
Which I guess they should be at $20 each.

--Sporting Life--
Hapkido is going well. Recently went to the 25th Anniversary of Hapkido and Master Kimm in Australia ball. All very good stuff. They had Korean opera. Even the Korean foreign minister or some such was there.

Traditional Korean Poem:
(Author unknown)

The green mountain asks me
You live in this world without complaining
The blue sky asks me
You live in this world without tiny speck of dust
Take off any anger
Take off any hatred
Take off any greed
You live in this world
Just like the wind
Just like water
And then you disappear please


--And finally--
I just saw a bloke in a sheepskin skirt. Very odd. :-D

this annoys me...

Why oh why answer your phone just to say "look, I'm sorry I cant talk now, can I call you back later?".

Why not just leave the fucking thing turned off? or just not answer it!!!

Sheesh....

Dont mug yourself Melbourne....

The Streets were fucking awesome. I wasnt really sure what to expect. In the end it turned out to be a bit mental really. They played at the Hi-Fi bar in Melbourne which is just the right size for this kind of thing.

You really do get the feel that they are kinda new to this and havent practised very much. I dont know if this is true, but they make it seem like that. Its all very raw. Mikey was kinda alternating between lots of mumbling followed by shouting and crowd participation.

It was the musical equivelant of a hyper-active child running around for an hour before collapsing asleep on the floor.
The Streets are way more fun live than you would imagine. The songs take on a whole new perspective. I could go and see them everyweek.

archive listing format changed

Archives
You can access the archive via that link.

I need to hack the layout a bit but its ok.

This time last year i went to see Billy Brag.

This Year on this weekend I am going to The Streets. :-)

time for a change...

I'm thinking of changing the format of the site. The blog thing just doesnt seem relevant anymore. Also I dont get any visitors anyway, and I kinda dont think I want people reading my personal thoughts. I'm thinking of a domain name change too. Or I just start a new site with a different theme and focus. Maybe with more of an artistic magazine style content thing going on.

Either way howboring.com, as I and one visitor a day know it, will be coming to an end soon. :-)

Hmm... I'm prompted to mention something else here. I was listening to the radio the other night, I think it was one of the obscure community channels. It was a talkie style show and they were discussing Zen Buddhism amongst other things. They briefly touched on the concept of life after death, the concept of which cant really exist as such in ZB as everything is an endless river of energy. Never beginning or ending. Or so I gather. Anyhow the presenter had been talking to some religious guru of some sort and he said he could scientifically prove there was life after death. The religious freak was clearly trying to be cute, but this is what he said:

Before you are born you are dead.
And then when you are born, you live and then you die.
(It seems so unfair I want to cry... Morrissey)
Anyway I digress. So if you were dead once before and managed to be born there is no reason why you cant do it again.

Now he put it much more eloquently than I have remembered it, and come to think of it I am sure I have heard that argument many times before.

Anyway the end of this website is just the beginning of another. So no need to be sad or grieve or anything.

I must admit I do have more than a passing interest in the incomprehensible nonsense that is our existence. I'm a bit of a martial arts fan and am pretty heavily into Hapkido. The partner of which is SunDo. And not unusually for this type of thing, invisible energy and all that malarkey features pretty heavily. I Don’t think I really believe in the ability to harness some sort of universal energy to make me super strong and stuff. But a lot of people do and its a pretty powerful concept and I'm happy to go along with it, if I can learn how to be a double 'ard bastard. Maybe I will begin to believe it and maybe I wont, but I am open minded.

I don’t really believe in god or gods or whatever either. I like the scientific theory that our universe is actually part of a multi verse and we are part of a strands of energy and stuff. I think its Sting Theory or something. I take far more comfort in the ability of science to answer these questions than I do with the promise of meeting god after I die. For some reason I have this amusing, to me anyway, of god being a bit like Oprah. And when you die you have to appear on some sort of heavenly chat show where Oprah shows you footage of your life and asks you questions. And if you dare to ask Oprah any questions you'll never be asked back. Or maybe that’s hell? I don’t know.


So there. I have ranted about religion. All I need now is a huge post on politics and then website will be finished! :-D

I might just make the blog archive available and leave it at that. A timeless snapshot preserved for ever. A monument to me if you will. Can you erect monuments to yourself? Hmmm....

"All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer." -- IBM maintenance manual, 1975

nothing to say

I havent blogged anything for a while, and I cant see me blogging much in the near future.

All the life and enthusiasm is being sucked out of me by the parasitcal monstor that is this fucking loathsome job.

sorry, I had to get that off my chest. I feel better now.

Its just so depressing working here. Its so dull and horrible and arrghhhhh!!!

You get the picture. :-D

idle thoughts

Hmmm.... There is an XML-RPC blogger.com API.

I wonder if I could hack together an app in Apple Script Studio to post blog entries!

It all seems very do-able.

Just need to find the time....

bored

I'm so bored I have resorted to reading WC3 sites.

Here's one: the IN clan

Wife hired hitman to kill ex-Apple UK boss"
"The wife of former Apple UK boss Jon Molyneux today pleaded guilty to soliciting to murder her husband."


I know Apple products hit an all time low during Molyneux's reign, but it wasn't really his fault. Nether the less, I and many others have considered actual bodily harm to be a perfectly acceptable form of retribution for the crimes-against-Macintosh committed by many an Apple exec'. But murder is a bit extreme.

benry blog
Just a link to someone's blog I was reading. Its nothing too exciting, and nothing overly dull. Just a nice normal blog really. However the unusual thing is that he's gone to the trouble of categorising all the blog entries. Maybe a lot of people do this and I just haven't noticed. I suppose it isnt hard or time consuming to do, and has many advantages. Hmmmm....

rodent lovin'

Oh baby. Sweet mouse love. If its wrong to be physically attracted to a small piece of plastic, then Honey! arrest me 'cause I'm breakin' the law.

Logitech MX 700 Cordless Optical Mouse

Bonsai Kitten

That is just too odd.

It goes so far beyond weird.

Canon G3

Canon have released some new toys. A couple of printers and scanners and of most interest to me two new digital cameras.

I have the Canon G1 digital camera which is most excellent. But the new Canon G3 looks much better. Its pure techno lust however as the G1 is more than adequate for my current needs.

Anyhow DP Review have a preview article: Canon Powershot G3 preview

boring ibook info

'twould seem I am not alone in having problems with the speed of the iBook. Others have reported simliar problems. 'tis said that ye olde low level format and clean install has made all the difference.

nothing to say

I havent blogged anything for ages. Just had nothing to say. ho-hum. Just one of those months I guess.


Uninterestingly I have been running CPU monitor on my iBook. The CPU is maxed out at 100% most of the time. No wonder it feels so slow. I ran shadow killer to try to reduce the effort required to run Aqua, but it has made no difference. It does seem odd that it should be struggling so much to run OSX. Maybe something else is up.

Toys R Usualy not meant for this...

Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom

Just read the reviews.

MS migration update

The planned migration has been cancelled. Apple's mail.app, address book, and iChat really suck. In the words of Bart Simpson "I didn't think it was physically possible but this both sucks and blows."

Ok so iChat has its virtues, but it also has some big problems.

But I think I'll stick with Proteous.

So anyhow Entourage is staying.

However MS Office may be shown the door. Think Free Office looks good. Which despite its name is not free.

I haven't tested it fully yet so I donÕt know how well it works. Apple Works is also pretty good, but I have no idea that the basic support for MS Office document formats is, if any.

Spring time

Spring is officially here, bringing with it an unusually warm wind. The kind of wind that actually feels warmer than the sun. The Sun does not mess around here in Australia, even on a winters day if the sky is clear you could get sun burnt. Well I could anyway.

These winds come off the Simpson Desert. I reckon they hang out there all winter considering the coastal areas too cold during this time. But then, like a call to arms, they sense a few million gas powered BBQs being the simultaneously fired up and come rushing back to town.

There is a price to all this however. Once it arrives in town, like a good time Cowboy who has spent all afternoon drinking in the Saloon ,it picks a fight with the local Sheriff, who in this instance is the cold winter wind. The fallout from this little tussle is ripped up trees, torn off roofs and everything, and I mean everything, is left covered in a red sand.

Pretty cool huh! :-)


You can check out Satellite Weather images of Australia here:

http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/satellite/

Word to the wise, Geeky!

Dont try to install hacked GUI themes on OSX 10.2.

Just dont OK. I know how tempting it seems. But its such a bad idea I'm not even posting links to the files you (dont) need.

Lured by the promise of increased snappiness for the OSX GUI, I foolishly tried to install a non-transparent GUI to replace Aqua. This should have decreased the load on the GPU and CPU and given me increased responsiveness. My iBook is, at best, sluggish under OSX 10.2, so any promises of performance gains were hugely appealing. I guess its my fault that I didnÕt bother to confirm that they would work under 10.2, but hey you know, I like to play it fast and loose.(Gee, what a crazy guy I am!) ;-)

To make a short story long, after a quick reboot it all went crazy and started flashing and doing weird stuff. I booted into OS9 and tried to remove any dodgy files, but I couldnÕt really find what I needed. Nor could I run the app that hacks the GUI in the first place, which I thought might be able to remove the theme files, because it only runs in OSX. So I ended up doing a complete reinstall. My iBook is my work Mac as well so I was unable to use it for two hours this morning. :-(

So just stay away from OSX themes OK! ;-D

A quick OSX 10.2 install hint for you:

Choose to customise the install. Then deselect any language and printer driver files you donÕt need!

Wooden Mirror
Now thats kewl.

Show Off
On my iBook some of the graphical screen savers take ages to disengage. Show Off is just a cool simple functional screen saver. It shows uptime, date and time, load and amount of users connected. Its perfect if you use the passworded screen saver option to lock your machine, as I do. It makes a good substitute for the lack of a lock screen option ala Windows NT. OS X could also, like NT, do with a "log out user" option for a locked machine. Even better would be a log in as new user option. Perhaps all that would get a bit messy or complicated for the users?

blah

Put 3 new images up. Nothing exciting. Just bored.

I need to stop taking photos on my way to work and shoot something else. My subject matter is getting rather boring. :-/

Ho-hum.

Nice Pants

Customer Satisfaction. Much to my surprise I have received a satisfactory response from the customer service department at David Jones. I sent them an email regarding a pair of trousers I purchased. I shall not go into details, Instead I will let the emails speak for them selves.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 27/08/2002 14:26
To: contactus@davidjones.com.au
Subject: Complaints


Dear David Jones,

This is not really a complaint as such. I generally have an excellent
experience shopping in your stores.

But recently, less than 2 months ago, I purchased a pair of Ralph Lauren
Polo trousers; a beige soft corduroy.

Whilst I am very happy with the trousers in general they are wearing out
At an alarming rate!

The area around the crotch is virtually thread bare and worn to nothing.

Now I haven't worn the pants that much. Generally only to work on a few
days when I am not in a suit.

I realise that you do not manufacture these garments. But I do not know
How to contact Ralph Lauren directly. So I was wondering if you would be
Able to help.

I was hoping that some sort of compensation for having received a sub
standard product could be provided? Perhaps in the way of vouchers for
Your store? Or maybe a replacement?

I purchased them in the Melbourne store by the way. I am not sure if I
still have the receipt though.

Many thanks for your time.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Alex.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:26:09 GMT+10:00
To: Alex
Subject: Acknowledgement from David Jones Online.

Dear Alex,

Thank you for contacting David Jones Online Customer Service.

We aim to respond to your query within one working day.

Neil Boswell
Customer Service Manager,
David Jones Online.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 11:48:26 GMT+10:00
To: Alex
Subject: Re: Complaints

Dear Alex,

Thank you for contacting David Jones Online.

We have contacted our Bourke Street Store and they have advised that
can refund the pants if you have a receipt. If you do not have a receipt
you can exchange the pants but it is possible you might not get a
refund.

The store have advised once you are in the store and you lodge your
complaint through them they will pass it on to our Head Office who will
take charge of the situation.

If you have any further enquiries please do not hesitate to contact us.


Regards

Caroline
David Jones Online
Customer Service

fixed the pics

I fixed the picture window open thing. I didnt know I need to name each window. Actually I didnt know the windows were named, so by copying the code I was giving every link the same target window name. Hence each picture would open into the same window. Simple beginner JS stuff I guees. But then I'm not too sharp at this stuff. ^0^

Kettle full of Ants

Yes thats right. I had a kettle full of Ants. Who knows how long they had been there. All dead, all boiled, all floating, all the time. 24 hour a day dead Ants. Gross.

A female police officer pulled over a drunk driver.

She said "you are under arrest. Anything you say, can and will be held
against you".

Drunk replied: "Tits"

It would seem that my site is in fact so boring that people have stopped reading it.

Hits for August are terrible.

I'll have to do some shameless flash animation invloving breasts and teenage angst. That should net me a few hundred thousand hits at least. Or maybe I'll just go all out and offer free porn for a month.

Coincidently my hits seem to have decreased since I submitted my site to Google. Hmmm....
Maybe its not a coincidence?

Anyway I must get on with photoshopping pop star heads onto hard core porn star bodies.

I should know by now...

I should know by now not to be irritated by the amazingly annoying things that Microsoft software does to you.

To import an Entourage 2001 mail database into Entourage vX you need to have v2001 on your computer.

Hello! MS! Why?

2001 is for a completely different OS. I don't even have OS9 installed on my iBook. MS really do suck. Fortunately it imported my old mailbox and contacts just by bunging in the Office 2001 CD. It didn't try to launch the old version thankfully. So my question is why the hell does it need to know the old version exists? Entourage X already knows I am licensed by doing all the checks for the CD keys etc... So why check for the old version? It doesn't make sense. They even document the sheer stupidity here: MS Suck: Public Confirmation

This really is the nail in the MS coffin for me. I have decided to go fully sans MS on my iBook. I'll see how it goes before migrating away from MS at home on my PB Ti. I do some web dev at home so unfortunately I need to have IE installed to check pages. But Netscape 7 is now my full time browser so its not a big deal.

Anyway my initial plan and thoughts for an MS free life are as follows:

MS Office to be replaced by Apple Works:

Now I get a lot of price lists etc.. sent to me in Excel format. So I don't know how well, if at all, they will import. I'll need to find out. Im sure there must be some translators. I get the odd Word document but again they should be ok. The only PowerPoint stuff I receive is porn masquerading as serious business presentations, so thats the biggest problem. I'll have to look into that one heavily, and it could be a deal breaker.


Entourage is the really tricky one:

The new mail.app in OSX 10.2 should do my basic email very well, and the new Address Book app looks good enough to replace Entourage contacts, so thats covered the the basics. Not sure about the Tasks and Notes features of Entourage, I'll have to look into that. Also Apple's new iCal application isn't out yet, so I'll have to make do in the mean time. A quick scurry on Version Tracker should turn up a few potentials for list and calendar apps.


Internet Explorer and can be mostly replaced by Netscape 7 or Moz' or Chimera:

Its amazing how many of my vendors/suppliers sites dont work in Netscape. I'll have to try a combination of browsers I think. Between OmniWeb, Opera, iCab and Mozzilla something should work for all situations.


MS Messenger can be replaced fully by iChat now:
My last surviving MSM buddy has now begun to use iChat and a .mac account, so thats kewl.


Thats everything I think. Good bye sucky MS for ever, so long crazy bug ridden apps and a hearty warm welcome to my utopian computing future. :-D

How annoying

I'd almost finished writing something to post and I closed the bloody browser window. Doh!

Note to self: Compose in a text editor with auto save turned on in future!

Wow, crazy.

Bizarrely I was actually busy today. Shock horror. So I didn’t get around to doing a Friday link-a-thon as promised above. My company have just forced a new iBook on me. So I'm busily installing OSX10.2 and backing up my trusty old G3 iMac. Does anyone else think it takes way to long to install Jaguar? It seems to spend one hour of the installation processing foreign language files; Finnish, Turkish and spanish etc... Why the heck do I care about Finnish language files? I've never been Finnish, I don’t plan on being Finnish, so who cares if the language files get installed. Next time I install Jaguar I'll have a look to see if there is a custom install, and hopefully prevent it installing all the rubbish.


Gotta go. The install has just finished.

time for the Friday link fest

Comments on the new G4 PowerMacs:An unbelievable kludge

DVD ripping

Usefull thread on DVD ripping..

The JS for the picture windows doesnt work how I wanted it to.

If you leave a window open and then click another picture link it loads into the previous window, which is normaly the wrong size.

I didnt write the JS myself so it may take a while to fix. :-)

Anyone want to fix it for me? :-D

Flash - ahaaa - saviour of the internet...

But seriously though todays pick over at coolstop is the best excuse for Flash I have seen for ages.

Go take a look: typorganism

You will of course need the Flash player.

Here is that link:


Ars Technica » Ars OpenForum 2.0a » Macintoshian Achaia » Is the dual 867 crippled

Look for the posts by "natebrau".

Video Cards

Someone posted a good idea on the Mac forums over at ArsTechnica; sorry I 've lost the link.

Basically you just down spec the ATI Radeon 9000 card to GF4mx card on the BTO. Thus saving your self a few hundred dollars. Then when the Radeon 9700 comes out you simply buy that with the money you saved. Sounds like pure genius to me and exactly what I would be doing if I had the money to buy a new Mac in the first place.

Apple have released new G4 Power Macs. The ATI Radeon 9000 is now the standard grpahics card. Take a look at the Tom's Hardware guide review of the ATI Radeon 9000.

It doesnt look good.

The Radeon 9700 is obviously the one you really want.

Apple only have the GeForce 4 Ti on the BTO list. I wonder if the 9700 will work?

How Boring Tech Report

Once again my razor sharp insightful commentary is right on the money. Last Wednesday I commented that Dual G4s would be possible for the new G4 range. Low and behold now all the news and rumour sites are full of articles suggesting the very same. Maybe they read my little known site and steal from me!

Hop on over to MaCNNto read their version. ;-)

And Since I haven't added perma links to my site yet, here is a snippet from the posting on the 7th:

"From a purely speculative and wishful point of view I would love to see Dual Processors right across the range. I think its possible. It would certainly add value to the whole range in a way that people want. Everyone wants the dual G4s, but cant afford them. It also instantly provides a big perceived benefit over existing single processor Macs. Apple did it before, and I hope will do it again."

Oi Oi Oi

Some minor site updates and new photos added.

LCD Calibration?

Ever wondered about how colour accurate an LCD display can be?
Maybe you have pondered the benefits of CRT over LCD for colour sensitive work or soft proofing?

Or perhaps you are tempted to go for LCD over CRT due to the space saving and the coolness factor?

Well I have, I do and I am. .

This excellent article over at Mac World is a great place to start: Can Flat-Panel Displays Replace CRTs on Publishers' Desks

I think I will stick to CRTs for the time being. Cost is also a bit of an issue. I can buy a 22" Diamondtron for the cost of a 17"Apple LCD. Yes I know other LCDs are available for cheaper money but they are rubbish. No really, they are.
I suppose it makes the new 17" iMac look like a bit of a bargain really.

Whilst I am on the subject of Macs I am eagerly anticipating new Power Macs this month. And trust me they are coming. I can say no more. :-)

From a purely speculative and wishful point of view I would love to see Dual Processors right across the range. I think its possible. It would certainly add value to the whole range in a way that people want. Everyone wants the dual G4s, but cant afford them. It also instantly provides a big perceived benefit over existing single processor Macs. Apple did it before, and I hope will do it again.

I am also hoping for a new multi button mouse from Apple. I had considered the possibility of Bluetooth wireless keyboards and mouses. However this is unlikely I think. For one it would require batteries in the devices and that just isn't something that Apple want in a pro line of Macs. You can imagine how annoying it would be to have the batteries run out and find your Mac unusable. Unless of course they have built in retractable FireWire cables that charge them as well. Oooo, now we are talking. :-D

Airport as standard would be great as well. Ethernet is standard, so why not Airport? I don’t think the airport cards sell that well for Power Macs, so if Apple are to carry on making the ridiculous margins on the base stations that they do then they need to make them a more compelling solution. Basically if you already have a card or a number of Macs with cards then a base station seems like a much better idea. Who knows. My thinking is flawed on this, and I don’t expect it to happen.

The mid week post for the hell of it

Dont Link To Us
An amusing site which highlights the stupid notices that other sites put up about how you should not link to them.

Looks a bit odd in IE

The tables are not rendering as expected in IE for some reason. Maybe I'll sort it out and maybe I wont.

Its working fine in Netscape 7 :-D

Oh, the shoutbox is almost ready. Groovy baybe!

Dont Ask!

Please dont ask who Espial my science fiction twin is. Its just for fun and has no meaning! Nor for that matter does Power Atomic. Its really just inspired by Anime cartoons etc.. and just amused me. ^o^

The graphic needs some work. Its not very good really. But It was a rush job on a sunday afternoon.

I'll work on it more soon. I am even tempted knock up a digital "Espial - Power Atomic!" cartoon. But I think my ideas may far outstrip my abilities at the moment. But you never know, I have been known to surprise my self from time to time.

All I need to do now is bosh up a few more pictures and a comments feature and the site will be complete!

graphic added

site update

This is now the hand coded version of the site. I've had a bit of trouble getting all the blocks to line up. I'm sure I could sort it fully but, well... you know, its good enough and I cant be bothered to spend that much time on it.

WarCraft

Me and Slowburner actually won a team game. After an unprecedented losing streak we actually managed to fully own a team on b.net Asia.

Slow' came up with the amazingly cunning strat of building a few units really quickly and then attacking.

Needless to say it worked a treat.

The Streets
So good. Go buy the CD now. Thank me later. :-)

Things are a bit slow down here. I think its been out a while. So go get it if you havent already.

uhuh
sound of uhuh for Dan.

Requires Quicktime plugin and stuff and so on and so forth.

Note to self: add permalinks to blog entries.

M$ - License to shaft you

The new M$ licensing schemes is not hot news. But I am prompted to rant about it because it still causes confusion here in the office, that and as of the 31st July 2002 you can no longer "upgrade" to the new "upgrade protection" scheme for the discount price. Fortunately us happy go lucky Mac users only have to worry about MS Office, you poor unfortunate fools who use the Windows OS should upgrade your self right out of the nightmare and get OSX or Linux.

So what's my point you ask? Everyone knows that MS are a nightmare.

My point is that the whole scheme is contrary to the way computing should be going. If I have a stable platform I should not need to upgrade. For instance MS Word 5 for Macintosh is a fine word processor but it got rendered unusable by the upgrades going on around it. However the software industry has realised they people will not upgrade forever and so they are moving everybody to subscription based licensing. Even Apple are guilty of it. People fully miss the point of the new .Mac charges. Its not about charging you for something that was previously free, its about priming the consumer to pay subscriptions. And Its all about setting customer expectations so that the next time Apple stick on a hefty subscription based charge the customer wont be so surprised. Thin end of the god dammed computing wedge. "oh, but that’s not it" I hear you say "they need to ensure continued revenue streams, its a positive business strategy, you cant give free away services to consumers for ever". Positive business strategy my arse. Its just about fleecing consumers.

Now I didn’t have a problem with the .mac charges themselves. I was kind of philosophical about it and just thought what the heck, they can charge if they want to. At least they are trying to add value to the service now that they do charge. But seen in the context of a general industry shift I am not at all happy.

I don’t want to subscribe to a service just to get basic functionality in devices I own. I should be able to buy a computer and the software I need and just use it. If something is to become my digital hub then I need it to be stable and reliable. I don’t need to worry about updates. This is one reason that companies like MS and Apple may fail in making appliances of home computers. If Apple want my Mac to be my digital hub then they need to convince me I can rely on it. I don’t worry about my TV or Fridge being hacked or subject to a denial of service attack. Companies that make TVs and VCRs understand this. They have been selling the same technology year on year whilst constantly refining the manufacturing process and reducing price, these costs are then passed on to the consumer. Take VHS for instance, it is 25 or so years old and has only just been over taken by DVD, and manufacturers have been selling VCRs for decades and they kept getting cheaper. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a VCR given away with a box set of the Sopranos. The total cost of ownership of PCs has largely remained the same for over a decade. Sony did it with the PlayStation. Apple need to do it with the Mac and M$ need to carry on doing what they are doing because its all going to go horribly wrong for them. I hope.

(to be edited)

Movabletype
Maybe I should start using this service?
They do provide a built in comments feature. Which I want.

Hmm... I dont know. I've used blogger.com for a while and it works and is reliable. Maybe I should be moving towards using my own server to power the site. Dunno. Maybe I wont worry about it.

What We're Doing When We Blog
I was going to comment on this article. But I cant be bothered. Its almost worth a read. So go ahead and click the link. Its more interesting than the nonsense I write. ^_^

Pixelkitty
Part of the melbourne bloggers web ring or somesuch.

Maybe I should join. ^o^

additonal features

What do I add to the site?
Blog Comments, Shout Box or a Guest Book?

Or all three?

All three are basically the same, just implemented in different ways.

Game on

Is WarCraft III really any better than SC?

I am not convinced it is. It may infact be worse.

Getting pretty bored now...

I've just been to the BP Service station's 24 Hour convenience store. I purchased One 600ML Pepsi Max, one 50g packet of Werther's Originals, and one "shaker" of Smints - 8g suger free X-TRA Fresh! Peppermint flavour.

That was the highlight of my afternoon. I'd been saving it. Waiting for the right moment to venture to the store so as to provide maximum distraction. Too early and I'd have too much time after I got back, too late and it wouldnt be worth it. 3.45 is a good time I find. If dragged out the trip can take 15 minutes, and thats really pushing it.

But now I only have 3 Werther's left and then its onto the Smints. But they dont really go with the Pepsi Max.

Hey, have you, like me wondered what Xylitol is?
Its in Smints by the way. So if you have wondered you can find out here:
With Xylitol!


God I am bored. (^_^)/

Tag-Board
I just noticed that Shout Box has been discontinued, or rather the guy has stopped developing it and says it still has bugs. I could use Tag Board but I like the idea having it run from my own site. That way I have the archives and stuff. With Tag Board its easy to set up but they hold the data.

So I reckon I will see if I can get Shout Box up and running. I have a few minor problems that I'll have to sort later, because I am stuck behind a firewall at work and cant I get full access to my server.

I'll keep looking, but Shout Box is from New Zealand and its good to support stuff from this crazy upside down side of the world! ^o^

hey! hey! hey!

I havent posted in over a week. I almost have the excuse that I have been busy. I went skiing on the weekend. Twas my first time; I was a full on snow virgin. I decided to try Skiing first instead of snowboarding. I am not sure why, it seemed the right thing to do. Not that 'boarding looks any worse, it just seemed natural to go skiing. After a while though I was glad not to be associated with the snow boarding people. They just seemed to be trying to hard; trying to hard to be cool, use the correct slang and generally be a radical snow boarding dude. You end up sitting on the lifts with a lot of them so you get a fairly good idea. Plus they seem to go a lot slower and spend most of the time on their arse. I am sure I will try Snow Boarding though. It looks good, but I would like to do it somewhere I can do jumps and tricks and stuff. Or at least attempt to. If you are just going down hill then skies looked better. But hey what do I know, twas only my first time :-D

Naturally it was a good opportunity to de-frag my brain using that tried and tested utility known as beer. So all in all it was a top weekend and I feel better for it.

I should really get around to updating the site. I have an almost finished update, it just needs polishing. I have some more content too.

I have also been considering adding a comments system, mainly for my own amusement and because everyone else has one!!

But I may add a tag board or shout box. Which is basically a box on the side, or indeed anywhere, that people can leave messages on. Its kinda cool and makes all messages easily readable.
This one looks good: Shoutbox

If anyone has any suggestions about this let me know. :-)

I have considered writing my own in PHP but I just don’t have the time. I'd rather be learning RealBasic, but that’s another story. :-D

By the way I have so been over using the ":-D" emoticon.

Maybe I should start using Japanese emoticons instead :-D oops sorry I meant ^_^


I'll try to send out a general newsletter over the weekend as well. ^_^

Congratulations, you have passed

I can now say with all truthfulness that I passed my driving test first time! Something that rather irritatingly has been denied me for ever since I failed my first test in the UK. You see I have just converted to an Australian license, and to do so I had to answer a serious of very complicated questions about the Australian highway code.

The tests are computerised and require that you sit in a little booth and with a touch screen and an optional telephone for audio. It all felt a bit strange being surrounded by nervous teenagers all desperate to pass and me hoping they fail. Its clear to me that half the people in here should never be allowed to drive, ever. In fact I should be employed by Vic Roads. Who sound to me more like a contemporary artist; "'ello darlin'. Vic Roads, Artist, winner of the Turner prize, you may 'ave 'erd of me. Fancy a dwink?" but are in fact responsible for dishing out driving licenses. But I digress, Where was I, oh yes - Vic Roads should employ me to vet all the applicants based on nothing more than my immediate and no doubt biased opinion on who I feel should be allowed to drive.

Anyway I rather smugly completed the 32 questions in record time. Terri, the officer on duty, was somewhat shocked at the speed at which I completed the quiz. I finished so fast that at first she thought there had been an error with the machine. She was equally shocked that I aced the test. I made sure the smug grin on my face remained as I caught the eye of as many eager greasy teenagers as possible. The poor nervous fools.

I was also very pleased that Terri choose not to cut up my UK license. She clearly respected my superior intellect and driving prowess. Apparently they are rather lax at that office and often bend the rules. She instead discreetly stamped it "VOID". Which is good news, because an Australian void stamp means bugger all in the UK and so I know have two licenses. Of course I could just have ordered a new one from the DVLC in the UK, but now I wont have to bother and can keep my old skool green and pink paper license.

The only downside to the whole experience is the photo on my card. She kindly took it twice, as the first one made me look like a serial killer. However the second one, and the one I am stuck with for ten years, makes me look like a fat jolly retard. Ho hum. I think I would have preferred the serial killer look.

If you fancy a go you can take a practice test here:

A kangaroo jumps into the road ahead of you. Should you:

A: Try to avoid it by swerving wildly.

B: Apply your brakes firmly and smoothly.

C: Accelerate hard and hope to catch something for diner.

Dammit, if you're going to fellate yourself, do it on pure strength and flexibility or don't do it at all

Go take a look. Its well worth a quick read. Its the blog of girl who works in a large video store that carries a lot of porn.

David Hyatt
Gotta blog something at least more than once in a week. So theres a link.

The Little Green Desktop
I could be doing something usefull with my life. But instead I am looking at sites like that.

I so have ADD.

btw

The new version isnt uploaded yet.

Hand Coded

In less than an hour and using a third of the code I have replicated the lash up of a layout that GoLive put together. My version is faster and has far greater compatibility across browsers.

Oh yes, I never really explained why I was messing with GL and DW in the first place.

You see I am often called upon to recommend or provide an opinion on either DW or GL. Whilst I am happy to do this I actually didn’t really have an opinion either way. Most of what I knew came from other peoples recounts of using the sw. The problem is I now don’t feel inclined to recommend either.

DW not looking good

After spending ten minutes with DreamWeaver trying to edit tables I am not impressed. It was useless for editing the bizarre nonsense that GoLive had written, and when I decided to try to recreate some table from scratch it was just as unhelpful.

I've used DW before, but only really for creating multi rollovers in JavaScript. Which it does just fine.

But the support for table editing is worse than pointless. It just doesn’t seem to do anything useful.

I should qualify my use of the word useful. For something like DW to be useful it has to be quicker and easier than for a similar task to be carried out by hand. So far it is not. I just cant get on with it at all. Its just rubbish.

Also on my PB G4 screen it feels cramped which quickly becomes annoying.

It does have one thing in its favour: The icon for it is nicer than GoLive.

And that’s it really. There endith my experiment with graphical web design tools. I shall never touch them again.

I should add that a while ago I looked at Quark Xpress 5. I was surprised at how well it turned a page into a web page. I don’t know what the code was like, but it all looked good in the web browser.

GoPants

Its official. Adobe GoLive is pants. It really is shite. I dunno if its better or worse than Dreamweaver, I shall find out soon enough.

But I do know enough to be sure that I shall never be using it again.

I really cant see what it is good for. OK so it may have some site management tools and stuff, which I'll admit I haven't even looked at, but the basic features are useless. So who cares about bells and whistles.

It has a seemingly nice feature that allows the use of a layout grid upon which you can place text or picture boxes. You can then easily move and resize them allowing quick and easy layout of complicated elements. However it has severe limitations. Its essentially just an interface for laying out tables. But if you have a table cell that is auto filled with large amounts of copy as mine is then it becomes a nightmare. You cant really set the span values for cells. Not without dipping into the unusable slow and shite editor it has. And if you have to hand code what's the point of this tool.

It also kept changing my pasted in code for the blogger stuff. Why cant it just leave it alone! It kept, without warning, encoding stuff that it shouldn't. Which meant I continuously had to keep changing it back via the editor.

Even the basic HTML code it writes is a nightmare.

I also expected there to be some drag and drop java scripts or something. On this site for instance when you click a link to a picture it opens a window and makes it an exact size etc... which is done with JavaScript. This is a pretty common thing to do and I had expected some cool stuff in GoLive to help me make those. But no. Once again I had to use the code editor and coble together some JS to make it work. I am pants with JS so I had hoped it would make some uselfull stuff for me.


Essentially due to the mess GoLive made of my site I am now going to recode the whole lot by hand in my trusty copy of BBEdit.


Now I am not a pro web designer person by any means.

So maybe I am missing something here?

Is GoLive useless to all but the really stupid and lazy who wont learn some basic scripting & markup?

I'm going to give DreamWeaver a try as well to see if that’s any good.

I am not hopefull.

Site news

Most of the hard work for the new site design has now been done. There is still more to come though. I'm pleased with design for the most part. It wont win any awards, but its simple, easy to read and fast. Which is how I like things. :-)

I'm not that happy with the photos in the Visualise section. I applied a medium level of jpeg compression and I think they look a bit flat and gritty. But I guess its a trade off between quality and speed. I wonder if I should make some high res versions available. There are plenty more photos to come btw. Not that I am king of photography or anything, but its good to share and some people may find them interesting or like the photos.

Well I think that’s enough for a Sunday afternoon.

I might have a quick game of WC3 now I think. I need the practice after dd235 spanked me 2 to 1 last night. I need to work out the other Night Elf units. I think I need to tech up more and use the flying units and the magic druid dudes.

Update check

Just checking stuff is working.....

Graphical Web Design Tools

These things are useless. Its impossible to do anyting usefull with them. Its so frustrating.

More on the reasons why I am doing this to myself later.

site updates coming

I'm having problems....

aha! It would help if I published to the right place.

Geek notice

OSX server has a huge gapping hole in the mail server. One of clients is getting spamed to bits. I dont have all the details as of it. Apple doesnt have a fix yet either.

Geek Post

I'm thinking of getting a hardware router for home. I came across what looks like a handy article here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,36134,00.asp

I'm thinking of getting the Linksys LBEFSR41.

Cost to me is only $174 ex gst. Pretty good value I reckon.

Its either that or something from Netgear. I'm not sure what yet.

Note to self: Try not to say "roo-ter" when refering to Routers. Try to say "row-ter" instead. The word root has other meanings down here.

Officer Tony Tancredi

Damm. I got a parking ticket. The annoying thing is it sort of wasn't my fault. Apparently I was in violation of code 0745 - Parked not facing direction of travel.

How was I to know you couldn’t park facing the other way?!
I suppose I could have read the local high way code, but that’s not the point. Well, it might be the point but I don’t care.

Its a bloody stupid law and I am annoyed. The fine was only $60, but its the principal of the thing.

I take great care with my parking. I always have. The only other ticket I have ever received was a work related parking offence; Basically I was forced to park somewhere I knew I'd get a ticked, but the job had to be done, and work picked up the tab anyway. So if I had known about the stupid little law I wouldn’t have done it. I'd write to my MP if I was a registered voter and a citizen.

Yours Faithfully


Bloody Annoyed of Melbourne

Geek News

http://graphicpower.com/

Blimey. He's not happy.

You cant blame him really. Its pretty sucky of Apple to ban reporters just for printing rumours and opinion. Apple feel, rightly perhaps, that rumour sites hurt sales. Apple say people hold off purchases because a rumour site predicts a new product just around the corner. Apple are trying to smooth out sales figures. So don't expect to hear big announcements at the a Mac World Expo any more.

Perhaps if Apple had a current range of compelling products people wouldn't speculate so much about coming releases. Also if the current range of Macs was strong enough people would be happy to buy now as opposed to waiting for what may be around the corner. Everybody with even half an interest in Apple's current HW line knows its old tech.

And of course its not like Apple are getting desperate or anything. Oh no, its not Apple that have hoards of unsold G4 iMacs, eMacs and PM G4s. They don’t need to clear out old stock and fast. Watch out for eMac bargains in a store near you soon.

However do expect to see updated PowerMac G4s at MWNW. Updated that is to at least XServe spec. If not at MWNW then take a look in six weeks.

The Eagle has landed

A Blizzard War Craft III eagle that is. That little baby winged it way over night to arrive in my warehouse this morning. I was not expecting it until Friday. So once visual confirmation had been made, I was understandably excited. WCIII is mine. Its in my hands. Now enter the Fun!

I should add (or should I?), that no less than four people commentated on how sad I was. They couldn’t understand why I was buying Software; with my own money, for me. A couple of people offered to "lend" me a copy, but when I pointed out that I needed my own boxed serial numbered copy to enable me to play on Battle Net, they slowly backed away smiling and nodding.

The fact that I had it couriered from Sydney to be sure to get my hands on one of the first copies that entered the country failed to enhance my image.

But I don’t care.

Just don’t bother phoning for next few weeks.

Stop Moaning

So I have stopped moaning. I feel more positive today.
As has been pointed out to me, Cold Calling is just the start of a long term relationship with a client etc... Which is very true and I know this. I am just impatient and want everything all at once. I should take some of my own advice really, which I only to happy to dish out to other malcontents.
(if you would like some of that advice please email me at the usual address)

Its good for me to be challenged and to be in a position where I have to learn stuff. I spend far to much of my time being Mr Know-it-all-pants. So its a humbling experience to have to concede that you don’t know what you are doing.

I've had a nagging cold all week as well. Which is almost better. I hate being sick. Being sick sucks.

Plus I haven't been able to get to Hapkido, which is really annoying. Sickness and work are getting in the way. I need to get some balance back into my life. Once this cold is over I'm going to be making some changes around here. Oh yes, "La Casa del Moi" will be ruled with an iron fist from now on.

Hmmm... This has been a very honest and introspective few posts. Don’t expect it to happen too often!! ;-)
Its back to the usual irreverent nonsense from now on. Actually irreverent is too kind for my ramblings. Irreverent suggests intelligent or witty satirical comment. I think "inane nonsense" would be a better description.

Unreadable

This site is unreadable in Mac OS9. I wonder how it looks on Windows? Time for a site update I think.

B::O::R::E::D

I am so bored. This job is so boring and this is the digital equivalent of scratching my name in the desk. The only thing I have to do is cold call people. And I hate that. Its so pointless. Its just not my bag baby. It sucks. Cold calling is so intrusive. I don’t like being cold called so why should anyone else. As if people pick up the phone and think oh yes, this stranger seems like a good person to buy computers from, I've never heard of him or his company but I'll invite him over to quote on the major purchase I am about to make.

So here I am bored with a negative attitude. This is never going to work.

News and stuff

I've been pretty busy since I have been working. But I have plenty of stuff I need to put up here. Its just finding the time. I have also been sick with a cold. I haven't been sick for over a year, so I am sure its caused from being in stinky offices with sucky aircon.

It is almost a year since I arrived here in Australia. I will be sending out a big news update letter type thing very soon.

As normal I have been Mr Slack Pants at replying to emails and generally keeping in touch. Its nothing personal. I treat everyone with the same level of disdain. ;-) hehe

Feel free to drop me an email and tell me what you are doing. Even if its nothing, its always good to hear from people.


I really do hate working full time btw. It really sucks. I was talking to hair dresser on Saturday and he agrees. After he took a year off he cannot now go back to full time work. So he now works part time. He said the trick is to find part time work that pays full time wages. Thanks for that insight. Perhaps if I got two part time jobs I could double my full time wage! The mans a genius, he missed his vocation by becoming a hairdresser. Still he has a point though.

I could waffle on some more, but I'll save it for the email.

Oh, one last thing. Have you tried StarBurst Babies? They are Yum-O!
Its a great way to add colour to an otherwise dull afternoon.


One more last thing. I watched "Rat Race" last night. Its really funny, if you like slapstick movies. The ending was a bit rubbish though.
I also watched "Jay & Silent Bob strike back" which was also very funny.

Carry on up the Browser

Netscape 7 rules. It fully owns MSIE.
NS7 > MSIE 5.2 for OSX.

The tabbed browsing alone makes it worth the immense agro I endured to install the bloody thing.

Four times it crashed during the install. Four times!!!
OK, I know that NS7 is only a beta or PR1, but the installer shouldn't be! It should not crash during the installation process for gods sake. I almost gave up there. But it has had good reviews so I persevered.

My resolve was tested further by the release of MSIE 5.2 for OSX. Not a major update but it means that IE now has Quartz text smoothing. Which I NS7 doesn’t. So I was unsure if I wanted NutScrape at all.

Anyhow I finally got it installed. Oh btw and for the record I hate those download-the-stub style installers!!! GGGRRR!!!! Why not just let me DL the whole thing you bunch of wieners. It really sucks and is pointless.

So anyway I got it installed and was getting all excited. I should note that the installer was running in classic and I wanted the OSX version. I didn’t think anything of this as I just assumed the application would be super fat and that they hadn't gotten around to updating the installer yet.

But no. It was the classic version. For gods sake. How much irritation must one man endure just to have a look at a browser.

So more immense irritation and searching for a way to get the OSX version I finally found it here:

ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape7/english/7.0_PR1/mac/macosx/sea/

Netscape 7 is good. I think I have a new browser.
Its fast too. And tab browsing is yummy. As normal with Netscape browsers it feels a little bloated. Oh how I yearn for those care free and simple days when Netscape 2 was all I ever needed and dreamed I could want.

Thought for the day

I wonder if I am the only Englishman on the planet that could not give a toss about the Word Cup Football.

So OK, it would be nice if we won and a shame if we lost etc..

But its not like I give a damm. I havent even watched a single game.

Its just soooo dull.