Part 15 of elf's Apple PowerBook G4 Journal
Recycle Old Computers
At Apple, our commitment to the environment is second nature.
Apple has begun a new program to dispose of your old computer when you purchase a new Apple computer or monitor.
Crystal Ball
| Jun | Intel releases Woodcrest (Xeon 5100) |
| Jul | Apple ships Xserve based on Woodcrest |
| Jul | Intel releases Conroe (Core 2 Duo, quad) |
| Aug | Apple ships Mac Pro based on Conroe |
| Sep/Oct | Apple upgrades Macbook/Macbook Pro |
| May/Jun 2007 | Adobe ships CS3 |
Based on information from Thinksecret and Creative Toolbox.
Superdrive Firmware Update
The SuperDrive Firmware Update 2.0 fixes burning speed to certain DVD media; available for 10.3.9 to 10.4.6. It seems Apple is doing it's best to kill my uptime. Why can't they release everything together? There is no way anyone is sane enough to use OS X in a corporate environment with this kind of haphazard release schedule.
Impressive results of the upgrade, below.
Gisèle Bündchen
A couple of days ago, TUAW posted an article quoting a statement on Gisèle Bündchen's personal website about her having done a photo-shoot for Apple.
It would not surprise me that she would be hired as a spokesmodel for Apple because after having looked at all the photos on her website (the hardships I endure for you, my loyal readers) I found that not only does she use a PowerBook, but the PowerMac G5 is used by her photographer to check photos during his shoots. (I'm not supposed to display the pics, so enjoy them before they find out and ask me to remove them.)
(Aside: someone on #emacs, from Porto Allégre, has a friend who not only went to school with Gisèle but still has her phone number and visited her family recently.
As long as we are dicussing models... I was searching through my image collection and came across some photos from 1998— it seems that my taste in impossibly beautiful women has not varied since then. I still find the ones I saved, quite attractive— (top row) Elsa Benitez, Heather Stewart-Whyte, Filippa von Stackelberg; (bottom row) Melanie Thierry, Winona Ryder and Laura Ponte.
I don't know what these women look like today (except for Winona, of course), and I would rather not know. 99% of beautiful women avoid eye-contact with me (if you saw me, you would too), but last Wednesday, this impossibly tall woman (very likely a model in her early days) made eye-contact (I was quite surprised, but it really made my week!).
Virtual DVD
Virtual DVD looks like a nice utility that enables a VIDEO_TS folder to be seen as a DVD in the Finder so you can just double-clicked the DVD and have it be opened by DVD Player, avoiding the whole "Open VIDEO_TS Folder..." thing.
Firefox 1.5.0.4 Update
Downloaded. Going to re-start...It worked!
SuperDrive Firmware Update Results
Let's just say that the loss of uptime because of the SuperDrive
Firmware Update were well worth it. My Maxell 8x DVDs that
previously wrote at 2X speed now write at 8X speed. I made a DVD of
some family video clips and instead of taking 30 minutes, it took 8
minutes!
Ordinary Sunday
Today began like all the other Sundays— I read the online comics, caught-up on SlashDigg, had a late breakfast, read the paper, and hung out on IRC. After tea, I recalled the Wikipedia mentioning that June 4th was the beginning of the Battle of Midway, so for my afternoon movie, I decided to watch “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, a story of the day that began it all. But before I could start watching it, David sent me an email with the 2006 Hugo nominees (with links to online copies of some of the stories); the annual ritual of choosing the best SF stories.
It just so happened, that a couple of weeks ago I dropped by the Indigo bookstore, in the Eaton Centre, to check-out Vernor Vinge's latest SF novel, Rainbows End; unfortunately, by the second page of the prologue, I was bored and had to put it back on the shelf. I continued browsing through the discount tables and finally ended-up buying “Architecture”, by Jonathan Glancey, one in the Eyewitness Companions series (review to come).
My love of architecture grew from going to work in a city with a varied collection of beautiful buildings, preserved from demolition through the tireless efforts of so many people. It seemed a shame to just walk by them everyday in ignorance at not being able to relate to their silent history in any meaningful way. So now, after reading the first three chapters, I know that Union Station is a Neo-Classical building just by looking at the tops (properly termed, "capitals") of the columns that line Front Street façade. And that makes all the difference.
Update Mon Jun 05 00:24:25 2006: I throughly enjoyed Connie
Willis' novella, Inside Job (not really SF, though; I have
to look-up her other books because other than Nancy Kress, I have not
enjoyed SF written by female authors). Next, I started reading
Burn (forgot the author's name), got bored and now, I am
half-way through Robert J. Sawyer's Identity Theft, a
Martian murder-mystery.
Apostasy
The whole problem with the world is that fools
and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so
full of doubts.
—Bertrand Russell
chromatic, a Switcher to OS X gives his reasons for switching back to Linux. I can completely understand his point of view and his reasons for switching because I used to share that outlook— he's the type that can't live without an xterm, who prefers to fiddle with absolutely everything so it's just right and who cannot "Think Different"— if you're that sort of person, then OS X is not for you.
Mark Pilgrim also switched back because of "unimpressive hardware offerings" and Rui Carmo had a few comments on the matter.
It seems almost pointless, then, to mention the realities of
switching to OS X.
Google Video Player
Standalone Google video player now available for download for 10.3.9 and above. Bravo!
??
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, the eyes, the eyes, not around
the eyes, don't look around the eyes, look into my eyes. [Snap]
You're under!
—Kenny Craig, Hypnotist
This morning, I had an idea for today's entry, and found the perfect epigraph for it, which you see above. However, I didn't have time to write the entry before leaving for work and decided to write it when I got back home.
Well, I just got home, had my dinner and unfortunately, I don't remember what I was going to write about.
*Sigh*
Update Fri Jun 09 06:35:42 2006: I just woke up and
remembered what I was going to write about! The idea was to use the
built-in iSight cameras to implement a prototype
focus-follows-the-eyes window management policy, instead of having to
use the mouse or Cmd-Tab to switch window focus. This idea came from
a discussion of whether having two cursors and two keyboards for
input into two separate buffers simultaneously would make one more
productive using Emacs (because a concert pianist can play two
different pieces of music simultaneously— one with each hand).
The Beautiful Game
Everything is complicated by the presence of the
other team.
—Jean-Paul Sartre.
The 2006 World Cup (Weltmeisterschaft) begins today. Google has some some tools to keep uptodate with the scores and stats and the Google Homepage has some widgets that continously update. I have also subscribed to the News Alerts— let's see how well this works. What I really want, though, is live coverage of the games via Google Video.
Update Fri Jun 09 18:55:26 2006: Video higlights at the
main FIFA site.
Google Browser Sync
Google Browser
Sync is a Firefox extension that allows bookmarks, cookies,
etc. to be synchronized amongst various computers (work, home,
etc.). I was surprised at the terms
and conditions that appear before installation. And having read
the FAQ, I would say that it has many limitations and it's not yet
ready for prime time.
DockArt
What a beautiful little app! Download DockArt
(written by Gregory Weston), copy the bundle into
~/Library/Itunes/ITunes Plugins, restart iTunes and the
green-note-on-a-CD icon you see in the Dock is replaced by a
miniature of current song's album-art.
DRM Protest At Apple Stores
If you legally acquire music, you need to have
the right to manage it on all other devices that you
own.
—Steve Jobs
Protests about Digital Rights Management are planned at Apple Stores across the the U.S., tomorrow morning.
Update Sat Jun 10 20:25:40 2006: Pictures of the
Cambridgeside Galleria Mall protest.
Google Hires Douglas Bowman
Douglas Bowman, of StopDesign, was hired by Google as the Visual Design Lead to, "establish a common visual language across all their collaborative and communication products". He had already worked as a contractor for Google on the designs for blogger.com so his employment is now permanent.
At one time, I had suggested that Google hire David Shea as their
web designer; I wonder if he was approached.
iTunes Visualizers
My iTunes is mostly minimized at the bottom of my desktop, but I do occasionally enjoy the eye candy visualizations that programmers have cooked-up. I installed two free ones— Fountain Music (options include changing the colours and type of the particle fountain) and RhapsOGL2 (three OpenGL solids visualizers in one: a sphere built from monoliths that disintegrates with the beat; a liquid bubble that distorts with the beat; and a rotating, bulging solid with a tiger-fur texture (?)).
Aside: Is it just a coincidence that Brigitte Bardot's
“Un jour comme un autre” generates the most
energetic fountain effects?
Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
“Wait, Wait,
Don't Tell Me” is a NPR radio show, in the traditional BBC
Radio style, that is freely available as an iTunes
Podcast. Recommended for many moments of hilarity.
New Versions of Google Earth and SketchUp
On the first anniversary of the release of Google Earth, new versions for OS X, Linux and Windows. They simplified the Google Earth user interface (something I had suggested in a feature request— the navigation bar was just wasting valuable screen real-estate and I suggested making it transparent and leaving just the buttons visible; also suggested simplifying the the controls by just leaving the directional arrows and the zoom buttons without the zoom-slider).
Update Wed Jun 14 21:51:04 2006: A MacWorld
report from the
Very busy week at work— no time to blog.
Login Hooks
When a user logs in, a login
hook can be used to run a script, that executes as
root. Logins/logouts can be completely customized.
iTunes Alarm
iTunes Alarm transforms your iTunes player into an alarm
clock (waking from sleep requires Tiger).
No More Fun
Dr. Fun, one of my regular
morning cartoons, is no more. My favourite comics were his Star Trek
parodies, and his geek-world related comics.
Quinn
According to all sources, Quinn is
the port of Tetris for OS X. The latest version, needs
Tiger, even does multi-player via Bonjour. I have tried the Panther
version (2.3.3) and it is very well polished in terms of
customizability and playability. The author's name does have a
familiar ring to it.
A Review of “Architecture: World's Greatest Buildings”
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of
your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't
keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off
to."
—“Fellowship of the Ring”, J.R.R Tolkein
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of
education; in the elder, a part of experience.
—“Essays,
Civil and Moral”, Francis Bacon
The 16th century teamaster Sen-no-Rikyu created a garden enclosed by a tall hedge that blocked the view of the sea from the house that stood within its walls. When the client first walked through the garden, he was unhappy, until he bent to wash his hands in a stone basin. As he lifted his eyes from the refreshing water, the sea was clearly visible through a precise gap in the hedge. The client smiled. He understood, intuitively, the clever connection Sen-no-Rikyu had made between the water in the basin and the waters of the ocean beyond, and so between himself and the infinite universe.
From a note about Japanese gardens, in “Architecture: World's Greatest Buildings...”
“Architecture: World's Greatest Buildings, Styles and History, Architects” (Eyewitness Companions series), by Jonathan Glancey, is written for the reader who will enjoy combining their love for travel with their love for architecture. In the introduction, the author regrets not being able to to catalog every single one of the world's marvels of architecture into a book that is compact enough to fit into a knapsack. So he has limited the catalog to the places he has travelled; at 512 pages, he is an experienced traveller.
The book begins with an overview of the purpose for architecture ("the self-concious act of building, not just with common sense, but with artistry") and the first civilizations that practiced it (Mesopotamia, 5000 BCE) and those that (some would say) perfected it to an ideal (the Greeks). Every page is filled with many full-colour photos of nearly all of the buildings discussed on that page; it has at least one 3-D computer generated rendering of an important building in each architectural era, including a re-construction of the Acropolis (now mere ruins on a hill near Athens). For each architectural period, the book summarizes the key elements that identify the era.
There is, understandably, a slight bias towards English architects— the last building mentioned in the book is the Swiss Re building in London, designed by Norman Foster (I love his ceiling of the Great Court at the British Museum). The Stata Center (the "broken buildings", as my nephew refers to them) on the MIT campus, designed by Gehry are notably absent either because the book went to press before they were completed or the author hadn't travelled to Cambridge to see them in person.
My main reason in buying this book was so I could identify the architectural styles of many of the buildings in downtown Toronto. After reading the chapter on Classical greek architecture, I was able to identify the style and period of Union Station, where I arrive and depart to/from home and work, and the Dominion Building located just one block away. I am not using the book as it was intended, but rather as a primer for learning about architecture (it has an excellent index and comprehensive glossary of architectural terms).
Many of the chapters, including the ones on Asian architecture,
will only serve as historical references that complete my knowledge
of architecture— I have neither the intention nor the interest
of ever traveling to these far-off places (I don't have a Ranger to
guide me nor a grey wizard that will rescue me from mortal
peril)— I am quite content seeing the world through people's
vacation photos.
What's Next
This morning, I was thinking what Mac would I buy, if I were to buy one today. If someone (specifically, a Windows user) asked me to recommend a computer, I would recommend a Macbook— I would mention the ability to run both Windows and OS X simultaneously as a feature. But would I buy one? No. My brother wanted to buy a new Mac; he asked for a recommendation. I told him to wait. There's nothing about the new Macs that appeals to me and the heat that the Intel chips are famous for, is what repulses me.
I really would like my next computer to be a Mac, but Apple isn't really giving me anything worth buying. There are rumours of a sub-compact notebook (akin to the Microsoft's craptacular Origami which suffers from the use of 10 year old technology, batteries, LCDs, CPUs, input methods) announcement in early 2007.
I would be interested in knowing what Woz would get as a
replacement for his 17 in. PowerBook.
Malebolge
Update Mon Jun 19 21:57:24 2006: David sent a link to a 2005 LISA presentation by Garett Wollman about the hardships (from an IT infrastructure perspective) he had to endure when two MIT labs had to move (then merge and move) to the New Stata Center. His biggest problem was that the I.T. group was never included in the decision making process when the building was being designed.
When the Electrical Engineering Department moved to a new building in the summer of 2004, we faced similar problems, but on a much smaller scale as one of the people on the building design committee was the head of I.T. in the Department. I think the problems would have been much worse if the University had gone ahead with Calatrava's design. Instead, they changed their minds and chose a lesser-known Canadian architect.
My experience with this whole thing is best summarized by the
last scene in the movie “Bridge on the River
Kwai”— the camera pans upwards and away from the
lone doctor who, surveying the destruction, keeps repeating one word,
over and over— "Madness!".
Reducing Downtime
The Best Student Paper Award at LISA 2005 went to Shaya Potter and Jason Nieh of Columbia University for, Reducing Downtime Due to System Maintenance and Upgrades. Apple should look at this method not only for OS X Server, but also for the desktop version. Last time I looked at the calendar, we were well into the 21st century, but the operating systems we run behave like they were designed in the last century.
Is it really too much to ask for all my applications to be
restored in the exact state they were in, prior to the computer
crash/restart/reboot?
Gminesweeper
A collaborative game of minesweeper
from Google. It includes a sponsored ad from Halliburton for laying
mines. How nice!
Mines Installed and Removed
Laying, removing, detecting, hiding. No-bid contract signup online!
www.halliburton.com
Free Utils
Many free utilities
from the company that made Audio Hijack— Soundsource enables
you to switch your audio input and output sources; LineIn connects
line-in to line-out; MemoryCell provides
an overview on the RAM being used by each application and Detour to
redirect audio from specific applications, with volume control.
Share Your Google Calendar
You can share your Google Calendar with other people.
OS X Feedback
This morning, I sent the following feedback:
Is it really too much to ask for all my applications to be restored in the exact state they were in, prior to the computer crash/restart/reboot?
I understand computers need to be patched, they crash, they have to be rebooted. But all these things wouldn't cause such grief if when the computer rebooted/crashed/restarted I was able to continue working where ever I left-off.
In the real world, if I go home at the end of the day and come back the next morning, my desk is exactly the way I left it the night before.
Going Native
Project Alky aims to convert
a Windows (video game) executable to a Mac OS X or Linux executable.
Backlight Visualiser
An iTunes visualizer that uses the keyboard backlight as eye-candy.
Natalie Portman on Sesame Street
Videos of Natalie Portman's appearances on Sesame street are on
Youtube. She seems to have lost her voice in the episode where she
takes over from Alan in the restaurant. There's another episode from
2003 where she appears with Elmo.
Podcast Reminders
It was only on Wednesday that I remembered that I had forgotten to listen to the latest Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me weekly podcast. It would have been nice if iTunes somehow reminded me to watch it— perhaps by blinking the podcast icon, or offering to insert an alarm in my calendar.
Update Sat Jun 24 09:44:50 2006: David suggests using
NetNewsWire, the totally excellent RSS feed reader, to subscribe to
the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me podcasts. Each
week when a new episode is available it will appear in my feed. Great
idea.
Google Sitemaps
Google Sitemaps is a (beta) service that provides you with statistics about your site. You first need to verify that you are the owner of the site by adding a HTML file (with a name that Google chooses) to the site.
I tried my abacus site, and the result was — "Verification status: Pending verification Last attempt Jun 23, 2006: Our system has experienced a temporary problem. Verification is pending. We will process this verification as soon as possible. Please check back later for an updated status."
So far, completely unimpressed.
NCC 1706
Starship Exeter, designated NCC 1706, is also the name of a fan site that has made 2 episodes of Star Trek fan-fiction. The sets, costumes, props and special-effects are excellent and match those of TOS). The scripts are pretty good and the acting is OK. Podcasts are also available via iTunes.
Two other sites, Starship Farragut (only
the trailer is available; special effects are excellent) and New Voyages (stories about
Kirk, Spock, McCoy characters; Walter Koenig reprises his role as
Chekov as do a few of the other regulars; the best of the lot, except
for the incessant music) were also featured in last Sunday's New
York Times article about Star Trek fan movies and Paramount's
lenient attitudes towards this whole enterprise.
Edge of Outside
The Edge of Outside is a Turner Classic Movies documentary about independent directors— Altman, Kubrick, Scorsese, Wells, etc.— who make movies outside the Hollywood system. They make the movies they want to make, without any studio influence and so have no hope of winning an Oscar, except perhaps a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The series premieres July 5 at 8PM on TCM. A video
clip of Thelma Schoonmaker (film editor) talking about Martin
Scorsese.
On Vacation
Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home!
Is this a holiday?
— Julius Caesar, I.i
I will be on vacation for the next few days so the updates will be minimal.
Font Design
Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes
Is oft but perseverance in disguise.
—Henry W. Austin
If you've ever thought that designing a font would be easy, Gunnlaugur SE Briem puts those misconceptions to rest with a detailed tutorial that takes the reader through all the steps needed to design a font and points out all the common pitfalls (where the strokes intersect) of the novice designer.
With architecture, it is the mastery of science that keeps
buildings from falling down, and the mastery of art that makes them
look beautiful. Font design, on the other hand, is not a science and
should not be undertaken by someone lacking style.
Automated Revision Control
It's 2006 and we expect the programs we use to manipulate data: document & program editors, photo & image editors, etc. to not lose our work when accidents happen. Most document and file editors make backup copies for this express purpose.
It's 2006 I expect the programs I use to manipulate data to remember all the changes I made to the document, image or photo and allow me to replay these changes and re-create the file at any point in time from the creation to the current state.
There are many revision control systems starting with the simplest, RCS, and progressing in increased complexity of use, CVS, DARCS, SVN, etc. But none of thses systems is integrated into any of the document and image editors so the user can easily replay revision history.
For example, the revision system should be able to show me the places where text was added (in green) and removed (in red). It should allow me to move forwards and backwards through time and show me the exact contents of the file at the various points in time when it was saved.
Once upon a time I had emailed RMS, the author of Emacs, a similar
suggestion— I proposed that since Emacs alread kept
undo-history, it was just one more step to save this undo-history to
a file, thus giving you a history database of changes. To view this
revision history, there would be the revhis mode which would show the
file changes in colour, and have key-bindings to allow the changes to
the file to be stepped forward and backwards in history.
MD5SUM
If you need a binary copy of md5sum (doesn't ship with
Panther or Tiger— shame Apple!), get xACT
which has a (modified) copy of the binary in the manifest.
American Apparel Models
I found a link to American Apparel (browsing a design blog), a
company that manufactures their clothing in the U.S. and it has slideshows
of some of the models (there a two Mexican models that are
standouts). The models, in general, are very natural looking (some
bordering on ugly) and surprisingly attractive (is it the clothes? or
is it their perfect skin tone?). I seem to recall vaguely that the
NY Times Magazine had a profile of the owner/photographer of
the company a few weeks back.
Is That A MacBook?
Umm...no, it just looks like a MacBook.
But it's totally white, has an integrated camera, hard-drives with motion sensors, Core Duo, WiFi, Bluetooth...
Well, we're just following the leader.
Configuring DocType
If, for example, you wanted all your .c files to open in
Emacs, but you wanted them to retain the pretty Xcode icons in the
Finder, there is a page that explains how to modify the
DocType plist to achieve this.
Quicktime 7.1.2 Update
Apple has released another update to Quicktime.
Google Web Toolkit Intro
The Register has an two-part introductory
tutorial on programming web applications using GWT, the Google Web
Toolkit; the Kitchen
Sink Demo illustrates all the widgets of the GWT.
Google Checkout Debuts
Google Checkout, for all
your online payment needs— one login, one password. You provide the
browser, the shopping list and the cash (or credit).
Impressive Resolution
Google earth has released amazingly high resolution footage where people are clearly visible in the shot. The footage is localized around a theme park in the Netherlands, called the Madurodam. Even more impressive are the tennis games taking place, just to the south, where the ball is visible in some of the games.
Update Thu Jun 29 21:56:54 2006: Found an obscured building in the vicinity. This is
unlikely to be satellite footage as the image is copyrighted
Aerodata, indicating a flyby with an aircraft.