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Posts in category Reviews
No Remorse
About three and a half years ago, I baught my first mac laptop. At the time I was sure I would regret it.
I am happy and a little surprised that I can look back and say I don’t regret the move to mac computing at all. Yes it is expensive but it is quite simply the best computing environment I have ever worked in.
Three and a half years is a long time and a little over a week ago, I ordered a new laptop. Another mac.
I have to say, I am still not remorseful. Nope, not a bit. Even though, this time, it is less of a revolution, more of a refinement and update. More memory, more hard disk, faster processor, better screen, better battery!
And again, it all just fits together, all just works.
…. never changes it’s spots.
or so the old saying goes.
Well, its LEOPARD day for me.
And while it IS true, that spots they do not change, the new version of MACOSX is certainly SHINEY.
Its also prompted me to clean up my desktop.
I love the idea of stacks, but you have to be careful to arrange your folders nicely in order to make best use of them.
Spaces is nice, in fact its real nice. I used to use DesktopManager, but it always felt just that little bit slugish, Having similar functionality built in makes a difference.
Leopard also feels just that little bit faster. screens seem to open faster, and there are subtle changes to how things look that just make them that much shinyer.
One thing to know about stacks, is that if you use your dock on left or right, you won’t be able to use the ‘fan’ view.
As I realise about other changes, I will post comments to this, and please, feel free to comment yourselves.
Fifteen tracks, 3 songs.
Actually, 2 songs.
I like music, I love music.
Almost all music.
From Simon & Garfunkel, AC/DC, Emanem, Limp Bizkit, Holsts planets, The Nutcracker, Suzanne Vega, Jean Michel Jarre, Screamin’ J Hawkins, all sorts of music.
But, when I buy an album (yes, I am old enough to still call them albums) I expect an album of 15 tracks have have 15 songs.
Well, as I type this, I am listening to the tenth track on an album called ‘Everytime we touch’ by Cascada and so far, I have heard two, and only two distinct songs.
There is a passable ballad called ‘Another You’ and then there is the dance track.
The dance track has 30 seconds of a reasonably slow tempo and finishes at the start of the first chorus, where the thumping beat and drum machine twiddling starts and continues for about 150 seconds then it ends, thankfully. Only to start up again, at the beginning of the next track.
Now, I say two songs, there is a version of ‘Kids in America’, that wonderful pop song originally performed by Kim Wilde (again, yes, I am that old.).
And I had hopes, hopes of a third (if unoriginal) song. But, what happened 30 seconds in? Yes, you guessed it, THUMP THUMP THUMP.
I am currently on track 12 of 15, and am comfortable in the feeling that the count of songs is not going to higher, but, in the interests of blogging integrity I am going to sacrifice my eardrums and my musical taste to complete the evaluation, I do this as a service to humanity.
Now, Miss Cascada does have a few things going for her, white teeth, blonde hair, and thighs that just make the album cover, I can’t really comment much more, especially about musical talent, she may have it, she may not, we will probably never know. We will never get past the thighs, the white teeth and THUMP THUMP THUMP.
Ahhh, track 14. Another ballad (Truely Madly Deeply. sorry, 3 songs. In my defence, its a ‘slow’ version of track 2 which goes….. THUMP THUMP THUMP.
Moving Pictures … Moving Story
I have just finished watching one of the most innovative and moving short films I have ever seen.
Stop reading this. Go to this link and download it. Go on, do it now, you won’t regret it.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever
Or so the old saying goes.
About a year ago, I purchased an Apple Mac Book Pro.
It is the most expensive single piece of computer equipment I have ever bought.
I have never regretted this. The grin that was plastered on my face has faded. It took a while, but it did. But its faded because what I THEN considered wonderful has now become common place.
Expose is just part of my life. A consistent and unobtrusive interface that just lets me get on with what I want to do is just part of my environment now. It has sunk into by background like the wallpaper in my office or the carpet under my feet.
After the initial ‘honeymoon’ period was over, and I got through the whole expiring battery debacle I settled down to normalcy with my Mac.
Every so often however, something nice will happen. Something I had never even thought about will jump up at me and say… ‘Hey! we thought of that, and this is how we are helping you’.
Well, one of those things just happened.
I was copying some files from one folder to another, and the folder I was copying to was partially off screen. When I dragged the files to that folder, it slid onto the screen so that its entire area was onscreen. No fuss, no muss, no fanfairs, just… Hey, lets make Peters life just that LITTLE bit easier.
WONDERFUL!
Apple, and particulary, the engineer or UI person who thought of that, I promise, I will NEVER kiss you. And that, folks, should be recompense enough.
If you have never played with a Mac, please do yourself a favour, go to an apple store and just PLAY with one of the machines for a while.
But remember, beauty is NOT just skin deep, or not at Apple anyway.
The battle for a Heart and Mind (mine)
I sat in Cathay Pacific ( a chinese restaurant in the Trafford Centre ).
In agony…
Well, an agony of indecision, anyway.
On my left shoulder a lone white figure, looking a bit nervous and lonely, glancing over at the other shoulder.
On my right, three or four rather agressive looking red figures. Playing dice, scratching themselves, getting ready for the next round, but they know they have won. They have me on their side.
Across from me sits my wonderful wife. She is on the red side.
Its not looking good for white.
“You don’t NEED it. You already have a laptop and two pretty decent desktop computers. Its a lot of money. Your just about to start a new contract, its not a good time. Its VAT month this month.” All good points, perfectly reasonable, logical, obvious.
“It runs TEXTMATE. You have that whizzy thing to resize the windows onscreen to let you see what window you want. Its by the same company as your first programming experience.”
Its not looking good for white, he’s outnumbered, they have moved in and are giving his kidneys a good working over.
“Steve really knows how to motivate his teams. The attention to detail is amazing. You could let Alex have your other laptop, that would make life easier for Wendy when I have to go over to Liverpool and am working later. They have them in the shop to take away today! TODAY! You have wanted one for months. Ralf showed you how well it works as a development environment, and you have to admit it looks good.”
“Beep… Clear… Ka-Clunk… Its no good, he’s gone… Time of Death?”
Somewhere, an angel wife has just received a telegram. They have left and she is sitting in the dark. Why…
Why did it have to be a Mac Book Pro… What do I tell little Raphiel when he comes back from angel-elementery?
So, yes, I have finally joined the converted. Purchased my first Macintosh. (does anyone still call them that?) Sold my soul to Steve Jobs. Taken the coolaid.
…
Its a day later. Before, I had anticipated some level of “buyer remorse” but I am sorry, I am still unable to wipe the grin off my face.
Textmate is installed (and I am going to purchase)
Grapple is in.
Subversion installed
Mysql installed
Ruby installed and compiled
Gem installed
Rails installed.
I still have some work to do integrating it into the environment of my office.
I have to get an expanded KVM, and some PS/2 to USB converters (I just cannot be without my wonderful IBM Clickety Keyboard (thanks Mario, sorry Mario))
Its even prompted me to clean my office (well, a little!)
A Scanner Darkly
You generally can’t tell much from a trailer and I am not hopeful of a film translation of yet another PKD (Philip K Dick) book but…
I have to say that the trailer looks excellent.
I wonder if the actual film will be done in the same process or whether thats just for the trailer.
I am also not sure if it would be a good or bad thing if it was.
Anyway, here’s the linky goodness.
Pink Unicorns and the Goth Orgy
I am sorry, but this is truly abysmal.
I have just watched the debut? video by Maria Sernholt, titled “The Way My Heart Goes”.
All I can say is wretched.
The video does not stick to one metaphor, it starts with “Photo Shoot” then hops between “Purple Boudoir”, “Pink Unicorns” (in the clouds no less, I kid you not) and “Goth Orgy”, really!
There are others less memorable to mention but thems the highlights.
I just can’t stress this enough, STICK TO ONE SETTING.
Unless you are using it to make a statement (Kylie, you know who you are)
But, if it was a statement thing, I would expect the music to be better.
“Dum de dum dum, thats the way my heart goes”, well I am sorry to say my dear that any selfrespecting cardio doc would say you are having a heart attack.
The choreography is a mixture of Brittany like chin wobbles and arm movements and Christina like strutting with none of the (minimal) charm those two ladies bring to the party.
It DOES end in the setting it starts in (the camera shoot) but thats probably more by luck than judgement.
Don’t mix your settings unless you need to to get some message across.
I wonder if her producers could only get 5 minutes on any one set and so had to cobble something together from lots of bits, but I hate to think that someone maintains a pink unicorn set on the offchance its needed.
Oh, I have had enough.
Advice Time Folks
Before Christmas a berk ran into my car with his.
He caused damage to two panels on the passenger side.
It was his fault, he was coming out of a lane in a car park the wrong way.
But, long story short, the loss adjuster has just looked at it and sucked his teeth mightily.
It looks like they want to write the car off.
Thinking about it, although I do like my little Alfa a lot, it might be time for a change.
The next question is what to get, where from and what to do with my poor little damaged Alfa.
Answers on a postcard…