barnskiblog

I was on a course this week, and was one of three delegates. We all had to bring our own laptops; I use a Mac, one of the other guys was using Windows XP and the third guy was running Linux. This in itself was interesting; 5 years ago we would all have been on Windows. Clearly, a technical IT course is not going to be representative of market conditions in general, but:

a) Microsoft's strangle-hold on the O/S market is definitely slipping, and

b) Even at a techie course, Vista was not represented at all (the instructor was using a Linux VMware Server to host XP, 2003 and Linux VM's).

At work, we moved from Windows to OS X pretty much as soon as there was a viable virtualisation option to run Windows on Mac (we started with Parallels, but most of us now use VMware Fusion). We also all still believe it's the best choice - even the guys that switched to Mac for the first time as part of the change over now wouldn't go back to Windows.

As a result, I still have my old(ish) IBM ThinkPad - it used to be my work laptop and is now my backup should my trusty MacBook Pro ever be out of commission. It's a single-core Centrino jobber with 1.5GB RAM, a great keyboard and a pretty decently sized screen (even if it isn't widescreen). And yes, it says IBM and not Lenovo on the lid. I originally specced it with the idea that I'd run Linux as the primary O/S and use Windows VM's as required, but that never really worked out as Linux was always too lacking, despite me having tried various distributions.

Don't get me wrong; I love Linux, but configuring the WiFi adapter to connect to a WPA network was an unbelievable faff at the time, support for the 64MB ATI video adapter required some work, power management was questionable, etc. etc. I don't mind wrestling such problems when I have the time, but a work laptop needs to perform a set of tasks without getting in the way. If you have to fight your laptop network configuration for 10 minutes before you can get on with troubleshooting the server that's down, it's just not gonna fly. So, I went back to Windows XP as the primary OS and had it dual-booting Linux, until the Mac came along.

Anyway, I got chatting to the guy running Linux on his laptop at the course this week, and how he finds the current version of Ubuntu in these regards. He said it was all plain sailing now, and the problems I had fought all been ironed out in the more recent releases. So, this week I downloaded Ubuntu 8.10, and installed it alongside XP as dual-boot, like before, and...... it just works :-)

Everything is there; connecting to my WPA wireless network, all achieved quickly and easily through the GUI. Flash, Java, mp3 support, etc? - easy. Terminal Server, VNC connections? - no worries. Citrix ICA connections via a CAG/Secure Gateway? - not so straightforward, but only 10 minutes to get running. VMware Workstation install? - piece of cake. Hardware all automatically detected, including bluetooth; everything looks good.

Now, I'm sure that there are some items I'll have missed (mainly because I don't need them - I think the laptop has a WinModem for example, but I've never even plugged it in), and there may be a few hiccups yet to be discovered, but I am really, really struggling to think of a single, good reason to keep XP on it. Everything I need Windows for, I can do in VMware - I know this, because I have run this way on a Mac for almost 3 years now. All the benefits of not running Windows will also apply - reduced chance of attack from malware/viruses; increased reliability, Open Source goodness, Windows instances are sandboxed and snapshot-protected, etc. etc.

So, unless anyone has any strong justification to the contrary, the old Thinkpad and Windows will be parting company this week - Ubuntu will be the only O/S running directly on the hardware, and Windows will be confined to VM sandboxes, where (in my case, at least) it belongs.

I wrote this up, as it is an epiphany for me. I have been bleating on to techie mates for several years about how Windows is not the future (at least, not only Windows), and today, for me, the time has finally come when that is true. Not only because I can finally ditch Windows-on-hardware completely, but because I also think that Linux is also now a viable option for non-techies - the configuration and use of an Ubuntu system does not require any use of a CLI any more, and the interface is usable and attractive (once you get rid of that brown "human" theme!).

My last installation of Windows directly on hardware is being decommissioned, my entire computing world now runs on Mac OS X, Linux or VMware ESXi, and I am very pleased by the development. Don't get me wrong, Windows has it's strengths and it's place, but unless you're a gamer, I really don't think that place is necessarily anywhere outside of the office any more.

It's a record! - a full 6 months between posts. I'm just too busy / lazy / distracted these days.
Anyway, our man Wil Harris has been a busy fella over at channelflip.com - he's now got David Mitchell for 20 weeks, and has somehow snuck Bobby Llewelyn talking about machines in as a show too, without me even noticing.
My iTuneses are being configurised.......

This looks to be a genuine Tr2n trailer, leaked from Comic-Con (also at Gizmodo). There is no word that can convey the coolness that this promises.
No more needs to be said :)

Just had to post this quickly - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a new project by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, Serenity and all that good stuff), and looks promising. It's interesting, as it's not a normal movie release and will be posted on the internet for free, for 20 days only. See the plan for more info, but basically;
ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.
ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.
ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.
All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)
Awesome :)

Well, that's a record. Four months between posts. A third of a year. Sorry. So I thought it would be nice to post an update on what's what with this blog, as I don't intend to let it go stale.

That said, I am genuinely too busy to update it very often these days, and my usage model has changed since back in the day when blogs were the new, exciting thing. This blog has been running since February 2002, so it's over six years old now, but back when it was wet behind the ears a blog was a fantastic way to publish links to interesting stuff on the net. I used to check in regularly on other blogs to find links to new and wonderful things and people used to use mine the same way. That was how it worked.

Of course, over time, the links to fun stuff on this blog got interspersed with techy work links and personal views, rants, monologues and diatribes. The work stuff got broken off as you couldn't search a blog way back when, so I put all that gear into a personal Mambo site which has a searchable MySQL database on the back end. I still use that, although it's just for my personal reference now. I just can't be arsed to move it back to an online site at the moment, although I'd be happy to share the knowledge.

So that leaves the fun and interesting links and the personal views and rants.

Trouble is, these days it's just so much easier to use Digg or del.icio.us or any one of a number of other tools for finding and bookmarking content. I've just recently really started delving into del.icio.us, and am really liking it as a way to bookmark interesting stuff. Perhaps I'll post more on how I use it another time, as it's really handy for someone like me that might use any one of three or four computers, depending on where I am and what I'm doing. I've also been a long-time user of Digg, which I use more for discovering content rather than bookmarking it, but whatever works, you know?

Then there's MySpace (don't hit that too often any more), FaceBook (still check in on that fairly regularly), Pownce (developing nicely recently - might be really useful soon) and Twitter (inane for the most part, but still occasionally somehow absorbing). There's also other stuff which is more peripheral that I use, like Flickr and YouTube.

The thing is, I have no need to post links on a blog any more - del.icio.us is way easier and more useful. I wouldn't post pictures here either, as Flickr is so accomplished, so really that only leaves the personal views and rants.

So, that means that this blog is going to slow down, at least for a while. If I find something that I feel really have (or want) to discuss a bit, it'll appear here, otherwise please check me out on all the other online tools using the "Me" links on the right - they're just quick posts and links and such, and not written like this blog, but they're updated way more often. Oh, and my tumble log at Tumblr does nothing much other than aggregate my activity from this blog, del.icio.us, digg and twitter, but that's probably a good way to check in on what I'm looking at or doing online.

I guess that's symptomatic of the (online) times in which we live - too much easy, quick and thoughtless linking and commenting, not enough creative writing and thinking. Tags and shorthand are taking over from proper, human language online. Bummer, huh?

I promise that when the personal and work lives calm down a bit, I'll start posting more here. Even if that's in six months.......

I remembered; I'd seen a copy of Q Magazine over the festive break and they had the top 50 albums of 2007 listed (they only have their top 10 on the site), and I was horrified to see that Mr Hudson and the Library's "A Tale of Two Cities" was not in there. For my money, the album of 2007, no question.
(Oh, and that link didn't used to be a MySpace page - maybe they're working on the main site).

I nearly cursed just now. It seems no matter how good my intentions, it's always about a month between posts these days. Dammit. So I just got home from a good night with a good mate. Some shit was shot and a few beers were had, so apologies if this gets a bit random. Anyways.......
First, I can't remember what is first. I had something poignant and interesting to write floating about in my head and now it's slipped away. If I remember it, I'll come back and fill in this gap.
Next, Bill Gates' video of his last day at Microsoft from CES this year. Genius, respect where it's due etc.
Now, Kina Grannis, the girl that did the digg song, I have no idea why it's so appealing - it should be a slightly embarrassing geek item, but somehow is not. Actually, I do know why it's appealing - she is amazingly cute and sounds great, and also seems to be both talented and prolific. I hope she makes it. In fact, I just caught Try whilst writing this. F?*k; that's really, really good. I hope it's not some marketing trick (the production/engineering sounds dubiously well-done to me), but she is breathtaking in any case, so look after her, please.

Sheez, life is busy. Another month-long interlude on the blog. I keep seeing stuff that is interesting, and thinking "Oh, I'll blog that", but then good old life gets in the way and it all goes out the window.
Anyway, check out the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Interesting. Funny. Controversial. Probably about a month behind the rest of the blogosphere, but worth a looksee.
Next, the Amazon Kindle is apparently a genuinely good stab at an eBook device (at least, according to Steve Gibson), and I'm kind of interested to see how this pans out as I am a geek what reads on occasion.
Finally, and to complete today's random trio of links, I have found frixo to be a hugely useful tool when needing to know how the traffic is on the motorways near where I live. The simple map view is really, really handy when you're 5 minutes late out the door and need the info quickly.
Oh, and the quick iPhone update is that it's missing search and cut/copy/paste, which drives me nuts on occasion, but is still the most awesome device to have in your pocket. I just came home cross-country on the train, and was e-mailing, texting, calling, surfing and watching video all the way. It genuinely wasn't until using it like this that I really got it; although I loved it before, I am now well and truly hooked.

Well, it's finally here in the UK, and I have an iPhone.
I waited in line at the Apple store (pics, video), like a good (sad?) geek and had my mitts on one pretty much as soon as was possible.
So, first things first, it is absolutely awesome. I love it almost irrationally, and I wanted to get that out of the way before proceeding :)

I don't think anyone has summed up the experience and the hype quite as well as Stephen Fry did in the Guardian this weekend, in his piece entitled "Not sensible, but oh, the joy of it".
Also interesting was the fact that there were, by my reckoning, somewhere upwards of 150 people queuing at the Bullring Apple Store at 6:02pm, and yet the O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores were deathly quiet. Funny, isn't it?
Actually, there was one man who stoically queued on his own outside the Bullring O2 shop all day, with nobody but three O2 dolly birds to keep him company. Hang on, he may have been onto something there......... ;)

Anyway, my experiences so far have been almost entirely positive. Everyone has different requirements from a phone, and I know some people that are unhappy about things that definitely don't bother me (MMS messaging, for example - if I get an MMS, I have to use Safari to go to the O2 website and collect it that way). However, there are a few things that bother me, especially coming from a Treo:
1 - No search. I loved being able to search my Treo. If I forget someone's name but remember their company, or maybe don't recall someone's surname, search is really useful. Apple are also kings of search with spotlight, so I dunno what's up with this at all.
2 - There's only one calendar on the iPhone. I have two calendars on my desktop iCal, each in a different colour. It's nice. Why can't I do this on the iPhone? - everything is merged into one.
3 - No to do list. I like a to do list. I have one in iCal/Mail on my desktop; why is it not on my iPhone?
4 - No notes sync. Come on Apple! - what were you thinking? I have notes in Mail on my desktop. I have notes on my iPhone. Neither is synced to the other platform?!!
5 - No week view in the calendar. The list, day and month views are cool, but I do like a week view.
6 - Missing apps. I had a few that I really liked on the Treo (ssh client and encrypted text storage being the main ones) that are not possible on the iPhone. (Yet).
7 - Mail app on the iPhone doesn't support "Send As". I use this in GMail a lot, and it would be nice to be able to use it on the iPhone.
8 - No Flash support. Kinda annoying with some websites using it so extensively.

That's it so far though - not bad, really. There are loads and loads of positives, but I am currently really enjoying the easy, native synchronisation with my Mac. Palm conduits and all that bollocks were always a huge pain and caused endless problems if there was a twitch (which there was from time to time). The iPhone just works, as you'd expect.

I'd basically sum up by saying that it's not as flexible or well-featured as some alternatives, but what it does, it does supremely well. I can't see myself wanting any other phone for quite a while.......

Oh, and Apple have released 3 new TV adverts, all poking fun at Vista - "Podium", "Boxer" and "PR Lady". Enjoy :)

We last saw them together by London Zoo’s wolf enclosure, parting mournfully in the rain at the end of the most memorable drink and drugs bender in British cinema. Now they’re back for one more bender: Withnail and I get together again as Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann have been reunited at The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival after a young director plucked up the courage to ask them to appear in his short film.

digg story

Radiohead have just released their latest album, In Rainbows, as a download-only record.
What is really cool, though, is that there is no fixed price - you pay what you think it's worth. Which can be nothing.
Now, this is an interesting experiment, and I hope it works.
The way I see it is that the old-fashioned recording industry model is no longer sustainable. The internet means that the strangle-holds that the big record companies held over artists (mainly marketing and distribution) no longer work so well. If you can afford to record it, you can now distribute it for next to nothing. If you have a fan base or a good viral marketing idea, then marketing is a small cost too.
The other thing is that (and this is a guess) Radiohead are probably not in hock to a record company for this album. They are hopefully distributing it fairly directly, dealing only with an internet specialist like cachefly or akamai, which means that the only real cost is that distribution bandwidth. If they're pocketing the remainder, then me paying the five or six quid that I think is reasonable for an album means that they're probably making more money than if they did the traditional CD.
Of course, this all hangs on whether the average punter actually ponies up the cash, and I'd like to think that enough will do so to make this work.
So go on, download the album, give it a whirl, and if you like it, go back and buy it again to give them some money. Show the record companies that overpriced CD's and DRM-encumbered downloads are no longer necessary, or acceptable.
Oh, and if you do try the album and don't like it, just delete it. As an artist, I reckon it's better that someone who otherwise wouldn't have bothered listening to your work actually downloads your music for free and listens to it than never hears it at all, so that's cool too :)

Went to Diggnation in London last night, and it was awesome.
First: biggest audience ever for a live Diggnation show. The auditorium was supposed to hold a thousand, but people were carrying chairs in and sitting in the aisles well before Kevin and Alex came on stage.
Second: awesome show. Check it out when the podcast is released, but I thought that the guys were really on form. Also, I never really watched Diggnation as a social exercise before, but sharing with other people (and drinking beer) really did add to the experience.
Finally, a mention for Wil Harris, a really likeable and unaffected British chap who had a few beers with us. Also (more importantly?) a mention for his latest project, ChannelFlip - check it out.
All in all, a tip-top night of geeky entertainment. If you're really interested there are photos of some of us at the event here and here.

I've just looked back, and I seem to be managing a post about every three weeks at the moment, which is pretty poor, it must be said. I'll let myself off this time, as I have been away, but on the whole life is hectic and facebook is still sneakily stealing too much of my online time.
So, another quick compendium of links, top of which is this iPhone post on the blog of the truly mighty Stephen Fry (link passed to me by the increasingly scarce sofabum). I've always loved Stephen Fry; a funny, frighteningly intelligent and very English man. He's done some great stuff (I'm really liking QI), and he's also a long-time Apple user and advocate, but I had no idea he actually enjoyed technology on the level that his blog post reveals. A top gent; definitely on my dream dinner party guest list.
Also wanted to mention the new movie being made of The Dark is Rising. I read this Susan Cooper book when I was young; well before I had read any Tolkien and it really captured my imagination at the time. Kind of a Harry Potter for my generation, only less franchised (so far). It (and the rest of the series) are books that I keep meaning to re-read as an adult. Perhaps I will, as the movie apparently "introduces significant plot and character changes from the book". Actually, I doubt I'll have time before the movie comes out though, as I've recently discovered Peter F. Hamilton who is in my opinion (and Steve Gibson's) a spectacularly good Science Fiction novelist. Very highly recommended if sci-fi novels are your kind of thing.
Anyway, somehow that's another half an hour gone, so I'm off. Having just read that post back, it's all about the English today. Brilliant :)
Hopefully I'll post again before mid-October.......

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