barnskiblog

2011-05-02T09:55:00.002Z

I've been using SmoothWall for a long time now; we have several deployments of the corporate product at work, but at home I use the Open Source Express version. It's a solid, Linux-based firewall with a friendly web UI to manage it - you don't need any Linux skills to use it.

Anyway, Update 8 came out early in April and I just got round to patching a SmoothWall Express that was in need of updating. All was fine, except that the machine shut down rather than rebooting after I applied the patch, and I'm pretty sure I did hit the reboot button. Might be a bug in the patch process, or might be me being a muppet, but could be a pain if you're applying Update 8 to a remote machine.

2011-03-29T13:23:00.007Z

Have recently completed my first restore of an entire computer using a Time Machine backup disk, and I have to say that (unsurprisingly), Apple have got this sewn up much better than the competition.

The issue was a failed hard disk. As I often have to explain; hard disks are mechanical devices with spinning parts, bearings, magnetic surfaces and moving arms inside. Sooner or later, they tend to go wrong. This is why you need backups.

Apple OS X offers Time Machine; a mechanism for performing automatic, regular backups to an external hard disk. This is better than Windows' Shadow Copy, which creates "restore points" on the internal disk, as we'll see.

In the situation I was facing, the hard disk in a MacBook had died. Click click clunk. Fortunately, the user had followed some sage advice and used an external hard disk for Time Machine backups. This is where Apple's solution is superior; Windows Restore Points would have been no use at all here, as they'd have been lost with the internal hard disk.

So, we replaced the failed disk in the laptop with a new, bigger, faster model. This is not uncommon; the old disk was maybe 3.5 years old, and disk technology moves on in that sort of time frame.

Next, we booted from an install DVD and used Disk Utility to partition and format the new disk before selecting to restore from a Time Machine backup. Follow the wizard, connect the backup hard disk and let it run for a few hours.

And this is really why I'm posting; it didn't work smoothly. After the restore had finished, we were prompted to reboot. System duly restarts, and then hangs at the "grey" bootup screen with the little spinner going.

I was gutted; this should "just work". My hunch is that the change in hard disk hardware somehow confused the process; Apple - please fix this!! - anyone with a failed disk will replace it with a bigger, better unit.

The solution was to perform a re-install of OS X. Note that in Snow Leopard, there is no longer an "Archive and Install" option; you just install over the top of what you have, and trust it to do the right thing. Once OS X had been re-installed, the laptop booted up with all data and settings from the restore present and correct.

The final step was then to download and apply the latest combo update for 10.6; the restore was from a 10.6.6 backup, but we were now back at 10.6 due to the OS X reinstall. After that, usual software updates to bring all up to date and we were back in business.

Before I'm accused of being a Mac zealot or Microsoft basher, I'm not. I do believe that on the whole, Apple tend to make better consumer computer systems, and that the underpinnings of the software are much better in OS X than in Windows, but nothing is perfect. This is illustrated by the "Archive and Install" required above (and I have other Apple gripes, too).

However, this is another example of Apple getting it right. Yes, you can make restorable backups of Windows 7 on external disks, but this makes a "system image" that is separate and different from a "file backup". I also interpret the Windows solution to be creating a new compressed image file for each system image backup. That's using 50% of the space on your primary disk for each backup. Finally, to configure Windows backup and restore, you have to navigate through pages of wizard menus.

Just for completeness, Linux has always had rsync which can be used very effectively by the command-line script aficionado for incremental data backups, and there are a few GUI-based tools such as flyback that promise a simpler method, but as is often the case with Linux, it's just not quite feature-complete yet....... (although the implementation of sbackup on Ubuntu does look quite promising).

The beauty of Time Machine is that you plug in an external disk, are asked if you want to use it for backup and click yes. That's it. Hourly backups are taken and kept for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the last month and weekly backups until you run out of space (at which point the oldest backups are automatically deleted). If you use a laptop, just plug your backup drive in when you can, and backups will be taken. Since backups are incremental forever, you get a lot of restore points on a Time Machine disk (mine goes back a couple of years, for example). Best of all, it's not just restore points; you can restore your entire system from these backups, too. Oh, and there's a shiny UI for this as well, that makes restoring files engaging and understandable for the non-techie.

This is how it should be - backup protection made easy. The fact that an external disk is used is right - it protects you against internal hard drive failure (or a lost or stolen laptop). The fact that it's easy is also right - non techies can and will use it.

Just fix the re-install issue, please Apple…….

2010-04-21T10:33:00.004Z

The Robin Hood Tax seems like a pretty good idea to me. Please take a look.

2009-11-15T11:11:00.003Z

Our good friend is making some lovely jewellery. Her startup is Paperbag Design.

Good luck, Leesa!

2009-11-04T09:19:00.003Z

Tales from a Kent Vineyard is the ongoing story of the resurrection of a vineyard in Kent, South East England. It's run by an old mate of mine, who I might even get round to dropping in on one day. Over to him: "The vineyard was overgrown when we took it and we are blogging about the day to day goings on as we turn the vineyard into a grape producing business, with good relations with local wineries and wine makers."

Good on you, Richard.

2009-04-10T14:09:00.008Z

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.

2009-02-06T18:29:00.002Z

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.......

2008-07-28T11:36:00.002Z

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 :)

2008-07-05T07:36:00.003Z

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 :)

2008-05-22T16:49:00.003Z

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.......

2008-01-14T21:17:00.000Z

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).

2008-01-09T00:31:00.001Z

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.

2007-12-11T20:25:00.000Z

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.

2007-11-12T09:35:00.000Z

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 :)

2007-10-22T18:29:00.000Z

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

2007-10-11T18:20:00.000Z

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 :)

2007-10-04T11:09:00.001Z

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.

2007-09-25T19:43:00.000Z

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.......

2007-09-03T15:29:00.000Z

Can't get to facebook at work? Looking for something else to smash the crap out of your productivity? Try faceball. Awesome.

2007-08-19T17:46:00.000Z

So, I needed to test some software that needed IIS. I had Vista up and running, so I installed IIS 7 on that. First time I connect to the web server, I see this image.
Anyone who has ever booted a Mac for the first time may find this a little familiar. That Redmond crew have no creativity at all, do they?

2007-08-18T19:57:00.001Z

Stuck In Customs - "unique photography for unique people". I like it.

2007-08-15T08:06:00.000Z

I'll follow up on that last post soon, but in the mean time.......
I was chuffed to see that Apple have finally improved .Mac for no fee, as it was pretty expensive for a pretty crappy service before. Thew new iLife '08 integration features are cool, but the features I use most are iDisk and Mail, both of which consume online storage.
The fact that my limit has been upped to 10GB for free is awesome, but there's a gotcha. I looked at the storage and thought "Hmm, I'll probably only need a few GB for Mail, so I'll use 7GB for iDisk". Which sounds reasonable.
However, since I use iDisk syncing, this immediately created a 7GB dmg file on all the Macs that I sync. If you've only got, say, 8GB free on an old Mac, this is a problem (I have had calls from relatives whose Macs have mysteriously run out of disk space all of a sudden too).
The real PITA though is that if you subsequently shrink your iDisk capacity online, it appears that your computers do not shrink the corresponding dmg file. I got round this by turning off iDisk syncing, deleting the archived iDisk and then re-enabling it, which created a new dmg file of the right size. This involves a fair bit of patience though, even on a fast broadband connection.
Just thought I'd share.......

2007-08-12T19:29:00.000Z

I'm gonna post some more updates soon, I promise. There's loads of stuff that I want to link to / comment on, including the new Apple stuff, facebook and orkut, pownce, tumblr, mountain biking and map my ride, drunken ramblings about music, fame and Badly Drawn Boy and some random links to some cool stuff. Trouble is, life is busy, you know?
Anyhooo, after whetting your appetites with those lovely links, I just wanted to say that I have just installed iLife '08 and have launched iPhoto. I've spent, like, 2 minutes playing with it and it rocks. I have some theories on what the Apple master plan might be too, but I'll save that for another post.......
...to be continued.......

2007-06-30T07:18:00.000Z

Sod the iPhone, I want an rPhone ;)

2007-06-27T11:33:00.000Z

The iPhone is now out in the States, so the reviews are coming in at last. There's a roundup here, and overall it's good news. I haven't bothered with them all, but if you have to choose one review, I'd suggest David Pogue's.

2007-06-12T07:55:00.000Z

I haven't watched it yet, but the WWDC 2007 keynote video stream is here :)

2007-06-08T14:15:00.000Z

The main reason that Apple's switch to Intel was great for me was virtualisation. I mean, fast, multi-core OS X laptops and workstations rock, but the killer feature for me is that I can now use a Mac full-time, as if I need a Linux or Windows machine for a specific task, I can boot a virtual machine. And I love it. :)
Anyway, the main contender in the Mac virtualisation space has always been Parallels desktop, as this is the only mainstream, supported, final-release product available right now. I have to say, it's very good and I use it regularly for running Windows XP at work. Their Coherence mode was killer when it first came out too.
However, I have long been a fan of VMware for virtualisation. I make big use of VMware Workstation at work, and VMware Server all over the place (still can't believe that VMware Server is free!). We also do the full-fat, enterprise-grade VI3 stuff for a living, which is unbelievable if you've never seen it. For this reason, I've also been using VMware Fusion on my Mac, as I can painlessly boot up VMs that I've built on other VMware hosts.
VMware Fusion is still in Beta, but I prefer it to Parallels for four main reasons:
1 - It supports more guest Operating Systems (and has much better support for Linux).
2 - It has advanced features that Parallels does not (Virtual BIOS and 64-bit guest support amongst them).
3 - I use VMware elsewhere and like the easy portability of my Virtual Machines between Mac, Linux, Windows and ESX hosts.
4 - VMware Fusion is just more polished; the GUI transitions in Parallels are well-conceived but poorly executed, with jerks and ugliness, whereas in VMware they are simple and smooth. After a while, VMware just smacks of quality in ways that Parallels doesn't.
This week has seen some interesting developments; just as Parallels released Desktop 3.0, VMware have released Fusion Beta 4. Even more interestingly, Parallels 3.0 now supports snapshots (one of my previous gripes), and VMware now does Unity, which is like Coherence. Once again though, VMware show how this is done properly - Unity just does it so much better than Coherence (YouTube Video here).
As Jimbo said to me, it's entirely possible that we'd never have seen Unity if it hadn't been for Parallels and Coherence, and don't get me wrong - VMware Fusion is not perfect, but I am pretty confident that when we see a final release it will be the superior (and probably more expensive) option.
For now though, I'm continuing to use and enjoy both.
Update: My initial experience is that Unity does not work with a Vista or Linux; only with XP. :(
Also, check out this digg article for a whole load of comments that echo my opinion: "Parallels does it first, VMware does it right".

Also, Apple have released a fourth iPhone ad, which has me drooling even more than before. I mean, that thing is slick, right?!

2007-06-08T10:44:00.000Z

I'm sure most good geeks have now watched Steve Jobs and Bill Gates interviewed live on stage together at D5. However, if you have some fat bandwdith and spare disk space, you can now get the hi-res video as a 1GB free download from iTunes (there's also an audio-only version).

2007-06-06T11:15:00.000Z

Camino 1.5 is out, and they have a new site to go with it, which is very slick, I must say.

2007-06-04T12:57:00.000Z

How do they do it? - Apple have just released three iPhone Ads and after watching, my enthusiasm for the product and desire to own one have been fully rejuvenated. The thing just looks so gorgeous.
Nobody else has this effect on me; I guess only Apple have the style and the product to get away with it...... ;)

Update: TUAW seem to agree that these ads are great :)

2007-05-30T10:57:00.000Z

I blogged a little while back about Jeff Han's multi-touch technology and how cool it was. It was also interesting at that time that he wouldn't discuss Apple, and we'd just heard in the iPhone keynote how Apple had patented their multi-touch technology.
So, it would be easy to leap to the conclusion that Apple and Han have multi-touch sewn up. If that were the case, what the hell is this Microsoft Surface stuff all about?

2007-05-08T11:09:00.000Z

OK, another list of various links......
Apple have 3 new "Get a Mac" adverts up; "Choose a Vista", "Genius" and "Party is Over". Entertaining, as always, but the poking at Vista is starting to get a bit tired in my eyes. Don't get me wrong; OS X is definitely the better O/S in my opinion (and we haven't even seen Leopard yet), but demeaning the opposition is an ugly way to try and get ahead, if you know what I mean.
I was interested to read this guy's post about moving from OS X to Vista as a positive experience. I don't buy it, but the comments make for good reading, especially the quote from Peter Cooper who (whilst talking about the underlying technical and philosophical aspects) said that using Vista is "like dating an extremely attractive psycho". :)
Peter also led me to this YouTube gem, which is almost as good as this one.

2007-04-13T11:10:00.000Z

Happily, I am now back on Ubuntu, and to cheer me up further, I have just read that CentOS 5 is out.
For those that don't know, CentOS is a superb Linux distro for servers and workstations - not bleeding-edge, but very stable and secure, and it's binary-compatible with Red Hat.

2007-04-13T10:42:00.000Z

I'm sitting here, waiting for a down-time window so that I can get on with a server migration. For various reasons, I am using my old Windows XP laptop today (it's a rare occurrence these days) and I decided to patch it.
Man, Windows is crap. Since moving to OS X full-time, and playing with Linux and Beryl part-time, it really does bug me these days; XP is ugly and messy and tired and generally rubbish.
What really annoyed me today though was "Microsoft Update". I kicked it off, and got the good old "checking for updates" bar in IE7. I then got bored waiting, so I updated Firefox, iTunes, Quicktime and my AntiVirus. IE is still "checking for updates".......
Winblows is the only O/S that is this crap at patching, and it's also the one that needs to be best at it.
Man, I can't wait to get back to a decent O/S; I'll be rebooting to Ubuntu as soon as XP is done with the patches.

2007-04-10T09:46:00.000Z

I blogged previously about a documentary called "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (spoiler follows).
One of the main arguments put forward is that Global Warming is a natural phenomenon, is a result of solar activity, and that our carbon emissions as human beings have very little to do with it.
I was therefore very interested to read that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.

2007-04-02T16:13:00.000Z

Oh, it's all happening........ :)
Apple and EMI are going to offer DRM-free music via the iTunes store.
Next, this Jeff Han video shows off more of his multi-touch technology, which looks awesome. It's also interesting that he's not talking about Apple too much. I mean, it's probably a long shot, but I am waiting for Apple to update their displays before I possibly order a new one....... ;) (and Leopard is due in a couple of months).
A French ISP have launched a unique web page.
And finally, Google have launched a top ISP service (check the date).

2007-03-29T17:07:00.000Z

Today I was on a Mac site, and there was an advert for Vista on the page. Finding this slightly offensive, I thought I'd click on it and see what Microsoft think they have to offer me.
I have two things to say:

1 - Microsoft still have their own special way.
It's interesting that the link from the advert took me to a page that doesn't work in Safari. It says "Experience Windows Vista", and then when you click the link, the flash hangs.
Irony, anyone?
To be fair, the page does work correctly in Firefox, and the next interesting thing is the interface that it uses when loaded - it's very reminiscent of Front Row (click on one of the four option icons to see what I mean).
I don't know if this is resignation, arrogance or non-compliance on Microsoft's part; maybe they've given up trying to convert Mac users (we're a lost cause as OS X is a far superior O/S and/or we're all too smug and/or they know they've ripped off our favourite O/S), they're not bothered about trying to convert Mac users (there aren't enough of us to be a worthwhile target market) or they just didn't bother to write the page in a way that is compliant with all major browsers (they still think that IE should be the only browser in the world).
Perhaps it's all three. Whichever, does it make me want to look at Vista?
No.

2 - My Initial Take on Vista.
As a systems engineer, I have been running Vista on a Dell PC for a few weeks now, just so I can familiarise myself with it. My view so far is that it is Windows XP with a spankier GUI and some useful changes under the hood. That said, it's still Windows. Once the eye-candy excitement has worn off, you realise that it's actually done nothing much to enhance productivity or user-friendliness (note that I am not discussing Office here) - a prime example is the flip3D application switcher that rolls all your application windows past you like a roladex. It's pretty, but this is absolutely nowhere near as useful as Expose, which really is a great and intuitive way to navigate many open applications, as you can see them all at once. Oh, and Beryl can do the Expose-type thing for Linux, too (I am really enjoying Beryl on my Ubuntu machine at the moment, btw - it's the maverick of 3D desktops; generally good, sometimes a bit insane, and occasionally awesome :) ).
OK, Microsoft have made some pretty good (and long-overdue) enhancements that aren't as obvious, particularly in the area of security, but they have also done some pretty scary things in the area of DRM. Overall, they have taken many of the features of OS X and copied them, usually pretty badly. They just don't get it somehow, you know?
Anyway There's lots of info on the net about this, so I won't bang on too much here (just Google Vista vs OS X, for example). Suffice to say, I won't be switching back to Windows, and that's based on a personal assessment of Tiger vs Vista, so I reckon Leopard will really put the nail in the M$ coffin as far as I'm concerned.

2007-03-28T20:21:00.000Z

Holy Crap! - This is real!.
I am living in the future....... ;)

2007-03-14T20:15:00.000Z

OK, another post that is just a bunch of links, but it's all quality stuff ;)
First, Red Hat have released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Lots of healthy Open Source goodness to feast on, but I haven't had the opportunity to play with it yet so I'll refer you to Linux Format who have.
I make no secret of the fact that I use a Mac as my client of choice, and use Linux wherever possible and appropriate (which is quite a bit). I often get asked about viruses and spyware by Windows users and get an incredulous or sceptical response when I explain that it's just not a problem on UNIX-based systems like Linux and OS X. This is a very pro-Linux article written by a geek for geeks that exlains why this is. It's a bit evangelical, but makes a good read if you're interested in such things.
Next, I recently watched The Great Global Warming Swindle on the tellybox, which was very, very interesting. It's also interesting to me that the reaction to intelligent, respected and qualified people expressing an opinion on this issue can be so severe. In fact, it pretty much lends additional credibility to the programme's argument.
Also read about this bloke who pranged his brother's car. I don't think he'll ever hear the end of that one.
Oh, and Microsoft quietly released Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003. This I have installed - it seems like a bit of a monster patch (over 300MB), but hasn't done anything squiffy to the cleanly built servers that I have applied it on. (Yet). That said, it does regress some previous patches, apparently.

2007-03-07T20:58:00.000Z

Apple Unveils New Product-Unveiling Product - more genius from those guys at The Onion.

2007-02-22T14:47:00.000Z

Jeez - it's been ages. Apologies, but life is getting in the way again.....
By way of a round-up of stuff and things that have been entertaining or interesting me recently:
I have been listening to the Russell Brand podcast from the BBC recently, upon the recommendation of a friend. People keep looking at me funny as I drive past them, alone in the car, howling with laughter. Recommended, and yes, it's available on iTunes.
In an almost planned segway, the BBC are also in the news for (possibly) tying users of their forthcoming iPlayer on-demand service to the Microsoft platform. It's all a bit unclear at the moment, but there is a petition you can sign.
To wrap up today's mixed bag, I have recently started playing with Xgl and Beryl on Linux, and it is pretty :)
More when I have time......

2007-01-10T08:35:00.000Z

It's here.

Just in case you haven't spoken to any self-respecting geeks or technophiles since last night, Apple have released a bunch of jaw-droppingly awesome new kit, chief amongst which is the iPhone.
There is also the Apple TV, and (ever so quietly) a new Airport Extreme base station.

All of them absolutely kick ass, and I don't have time for punditry right now, but quickly:
- iPhone not available in Europe until Q4 2007. Bummer, but I will be getting one as soon as they're available; every other mobile device available now looks old, and the Zune is doomed.
- Apple TV looks great, but still can't decide whether or not a Mac Mini might be a better buy for the living room. Need to see more.
- New Airport Extreme base station features 802.11n and ability to share USB disks over the network. NAS devices no longer needed in the home.
- Apple Computer now called Apple Inc.
- Keynote is here.

Update:
On the Apple TV vs. Mac Mini question; the mini has no HDMI out and costs twice as much, but that now gets you Core Duo since they seem to have stopped shipping Core Solo models. I need to see more of Apple TV to make my call on this one, but Mac Mini has built-in DVD player, full OS X with Front Row and all the possibilities that brings, and could be used for iChat via tha TV set with an iSight (if you could find one).......

2007-01-05T19:47:00.000Z

I'd read about this property development called "The World" before, which is a crazy-ass creation off the coast of Dubai that consists of over 300 man-made islands that together make an approximation of a world map. The whole project is pretty awe-inspiring in it's scope, conception, execution, opulence, extravagance and expense. I'm not going to go all political, but I might just say that it might be pretty hard to explain to a poverty-stricken third-world farmer.
Anyway, I ran across an article on digg mentioning that the first completed island is Michael Schumacher's, which prompted me to poke around for a bit more info.
What I found was a page with some quick stats and then the official site. You can also check it out on Google Earth. I'm still impressed.
What really prompted me to post about it now though was the official video tour. I don't know what it is, but this really brought home to me how bizarre this is and what life can be like sometimes nowadays. It's like something from an Iain M. Banks novel or a science-fiction movie, you know?

2007-01-05T17:26:00.000Z

Oh yeah, and what does this mean?.........

2007-01-05T16:42:00.000Z

I've been keeping an eye on the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project for a while now, partly because I love the humanistic idea of utilising technology to drive improvements in education in developing countries, and also partly because of the interesting technology in use.
Read the website for details, but as an overview; the computer has no hard disk, runs a custom, slimmed-down version of a GNU/Linux O/S and uses a low-powered CPU.
Now, it would have been easy to make this a basic, low-end computer in the mould of what we are used to. However, they haven't; the thing has a webcam, sound and wireless networking and automatically creates "mesh" peer-to-peer networks with other nearby OLPC devices. It also promises a fairly radical UI (called "Sugar") that uses the mesh to interact with other users nearby in the context of social features and applications.
There's an article about the O/S here and a couple of great videos of the UI and social features in action here and here.

2007-01-03T16:58:00.000Z

I have long been a fan of Samorost, which I first blogged about way back in August 2003. In fact, if you scroll right down this blog there are a couple of links under the title "Other Stuff" way down on the right hand side, and it's been there since then. I still haven't finished it either; I just love the atmosphere of the thing.
Anyway, Samorost 2 is here and has been nominated in the "Best Web Browser Game" and "Excellence in Visual Art" category for the 2007 Independent Game Festival. It has also won a couple of gongs, but that's all on the site. All I can say is that it looks just as lush as the original.
Enjoy.

read more | digg story

2006-12-21T14:20:00.000Z

Check out this user-submitted Firefox Ad at the superb firefoxflicks.com.
:)

2006-12-12T14:34:00.000Z

VLC 0.8.6 is out.
For those who don't know, VLC is a cross-platform media player that seems to play, well, just about anything you throw at it. The new version offers bugfixes, as well as new features, including improved H.264 decoding, a Fullscreen controller, and Apple Remote support for Mac OS X.
Nice :)

read more | digg story

2006-12-04T15:17:00.000Z

Apple - Get a Mac. 3 new TV Ads - "Gift Exchange", "Sales Pitch" and "Meant for Work" :)

2006-11-20T07:39:00.000Z

Way back in 2003, I posted on this blog about Yann Arthus-Bertrand's "Earth From Above" project. This dude takes the most awesome photographs (I've also seen his book, which represents the ultimate in coffee-table content).
Anyway, I came across his new site today, and since the one I originally linked to has gone, I thought I'd post again. The Earth From Above site is now here.

2006-10-29T20:20:00.000Z

Ninjai: The Little Ninja.
Kooky, cool little flash animation series.

2006-10-29T14:28:00.000Z

The new .Mac webmail interface is live and available. Now all "Web 2.0", it looks just like the Mail app you're used to seeing on your Mac desktop.
Very slick - we like :)

read more | digg story

2006-10-26T12:48:00.000Z

Spangly new stuff to get:

Firefox 2.0 is out, and it's sweet (much better than IE7). My updates have all been fine, although I have a friend who had a couple of issues on Windows XP.

Fedora Core 6 is out and available for download, and has some interesting features, including Compiz/AIGLX (I've posted about this before). Might be having a play with it if I get some spare time.
Fedora site down at time of posting due to heavy load.

And finally, Ubuntu 6.10 is here. This is a weird one, as I will not be updating most of my systems that are running 6.06 (LTS) as they work just great and 6.06 will be supported with security updates for 5 years on the server and 3 years on the desktop. That said, 6.10 (the "Edgy Eft") will be given a spin on my laptop at some point soon :)

2006-10-24T12:57:00.000Z

They're here at last: the MacBook Pro, now with Core 2 Duo.
The Apple goodness is almost overwhelming :)

2006-10-22T07:44:00.000Z

Democracy Player makes video on the internet way less frustrating and way more enjoyable. You can subscribe to channels of internet video, download videos, and watch them fullscreen, one after the other, all in one application. Internet video becomes internet TV. It's free, it's Open Source and downloads are available for a multitude of platforms (specifically Mac OS X, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo and Windows).
This is definitely something I'll be looking at / playing with / keeping an eye on, as although iTunes is cool, it looks like this is not constrained in the way that the iTunes Store constrains iTunes and will hence support way more feeds/sources. Also Open Source has benefits in the long run (support for other formats, hardware and O/S independence are a couple that spring to mind for starters). I'm a bit perplexed as to why they've chosen Quicktime over VLC as the engine for the OS X version though.

read more | digg story

2006-10-12T10:57:00.000Z

Apple - Get a Mac. 3 more new TV Ads - "Counselor", "Better Results" and "Self Pity".
Love 'em :)

2006-10-11T14:39:00.000Z

I use a Mac, and I use iPhoto to manage my digital photos. iPhoto 6 now has a feature called Photocasting, which allows you to create a photo feed for other users to connect to.
If you're an iPhoto user, Photocast feed invitations work fine - you click on the link, iPhoto launches, and you can subscribe to the Photocast.
However, if you're a Windows user, the experience kinda sucks, as getting any kind of reader to subscribe to the feed is a royal pain in the arse (a Photocast is supposed to just be an RSS feed, but apparently it's not standards-compliant).
Anyway, after much messing about, I have a solution, and it's as follows:
1 - Tell your Windows friends to use Firefox as their browser.
2 - Get them to install the Sage RSS plugin for Firefox.
3 - From Sage, have them open the photocast feed, but have them substitute the word "photocast" with the word "web" in the URL (you may want to do this for them in the invitation you send).
So, for example, if my photocast feed URL was
http://photocast.mac.com/myusername/iPhoto/myphotocast/index.rss
I would send it to my Windows friends as
http://web.mac.com/myusername/iPhoto/myphotocast/index.rss
Once this is done, the photocast renders nicely in Sage under Firefox :)

Note:
a) I have only tested this with password-protected photocasts.
b) I have only tested this using the latest versions of Firefox (1.5.0.7) and Sage (1.3.8) on Mac OS X 10.4.8 and Windows XP Pro SP2.
c) The photos are not cached locally - the Windows user can only view the photos whilst they are online with this method.
d) I have also tried Photocast Viewer (poor viewing interface), dmAlbums (buggy) and Opera (poor viewing interface, not straightforward to configure).

Update: During an e-mail conversation with a good mate about this, there was a misunderstanding. Basically, he picks up the feed for this blog using Google Reader and had e-mailed me about this post. As a result of the misunderstanding, he opened one of my photocasts using Google Reader, and it works just fine!
That's a lot less hassle than Firefox/Sage!!

2006-10-06T13:00:00.000Z

I love a good cup of tea (especially Twinings Lapsang Souchong) and have been drinking several cups of the stuff a day for years.
I was therefore particularly chuffed to read that Black Tea 'soothes away stress' and also several articles recently along the lines of Black, green tea may reduce risk of heart attack.
I'm off to put the kettle on........ :)
Cheers for the link Tufty

2006-09-19T07:41:00.000Z

I run a Linux mt-daapd server, serving up my music library over the network to iTunes clients. It works well, and I love it, but it's always really annoyed me that if I had an intel-based PC as an audio streaming client, I needed to run Windows so I could run iTunes.
I've been looking at this periodically for a while, as it makes perfect sense to me that an old PC/laptop could be used as a music streaming client, but I'd rather not run Windows and spend my life worrying about anti-virus, spam, malware and all that great stuff that comes along with it. Basically, I'd rather run Linux.
Previously I'd looked at TunesBrowser (painful install, never got it to work, doesn't seem to be updated that often), One2OhMyGod (Java, runs on anything, but a bit basic), and even iTunes itself under WINE (older versions only, breaks with new iTunes releases).
Luckily, I have now found Banshee, which is the answer I have gone for. It's in the repositories for Ubuntu Dapper (Universe, I think) which makes installation a snap and is how I'm running it, but many other distros are also supported.

Update: The version of Banshee in the official Ubuntu repository is somewhat outdated, it seems. After having a few problems with searching my network library (Banshee hangs) and general performance issues (hogging CPU), I found badgerports via an outdated page at the Banshee site. Using badgerports, all my mono stuff and Banshee are brought bang up to date, and things appear to be improved.... :)
Note, however, that a little command-line usage goes a long way with badgerports - do an apt-get dist-upgrade after updating the repositories as instructed to get all the goodness.

Update 2: Although Banshee was improved, I still had some issues with shared libraries, so I decided to copy a subset of my library to the local machine. When played from a local source, I got intermittent breaks in the audio. I don't know if this is just that the machine is sub-par for all the mono-ness (PIII700 laptop, 256MB) or what, but it was getting frustrating.
Next step was to try the default Rhythmbox player shipped with Ubuntu to play the local tunes, and hopefully avoid the problems. Guess what? - it works great, and also to my surprise, shows my daap-shared library in the source pane.
Now, I have checked this, and Rhythmbox does not find shared libraries by default in Ubuntu, so some of the stuff I installed to support Banshee has made this happen, but unfortunately, I don't know which bits..... still, I have a smooth, fully working music player with shared library support on the old laptop, and that music player is Rhythmbox.

Update 3: I have recently deployed an Ubuntu 6.10 (edgy) system, and achieved the goal of playing iTunes shared libraries from Rhythmbox without all the Banshee/Mono crap as follows:
apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.8-plugins
Then edit /etc/default/avahi-daemon so that
AVAHI_DAEMON_START=1
Restart avahi-daemon (or reboot), and Rhythmbox now discovers and plays all your local iTunes shared libraries.
:)

2006-09-16T13:32:00.000Z

Along with Firefox 1.5.0.7, Camino 1.0.3 is out, featuring security and stability updates.

2006-09-03T20:14:00.000Z

CodeWeavers is a company that produces enhanced and supported versions of WINE, which is a Windows API for x86 UNIX and UNIX-like systems (Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris). What this means is that supported Windows applications can be installed and used on those OSes, including Microsoft Office, iTunes and other handy stuff including some games. This is good because it gives you one less reason to run Windows (always a bonus) and also means that you can use licensed Windows applications on non-windows systems, which can have some really positive effects on licensing costs.
CodeWeavers has now released a beta of CrossOver for Intel Macs. So, when I move to OS X full time I can use my existing Windows software under OS X (I'm thinking Visio, Project and a few other bits) and also have VMware on tap to run a full Windows environment when required.
I really can't see any reason I need a PC any more :)

read more | digg story

2006-09-03T08:13:00.000Z

I've always been interested in computer and network security, which is fortunate as I get to do a fair bit at work these days. Recently, I've been looking at personal data encryption, i.e. how I can protect the data on my machines from being compromised, as it sometimes includes customer data that I want to keep private.
The best thing I can do (obviously) is to use a Mac. Both FileVault and encrypted disk images are built-in features and provide robust mechanisms for encrypting data so that it can't be compromised should a machine be stolen.
However, for now, I still use a Windows XP laptop for most of my work (although the move to OS X is imminent :) ) and I also use Linux file servers and workstations. Whilst Windows' EFS is OK, it's not too portable as it only works on Windows, and is difficult to manage in a non-domain environment as it's certificate-based. (Also, if you don't know what you're up to, you can permanently and irrevocably lock yourself out of your own data in some circumstances, even if you know all your passwords).
Recently, I finally got round to trying TrueCrypt as recommended by Steve Gibson on Security Now!, and I have to say, it rocks!
I now have all my important data safe in nicely encrypted files, and can access them on Windows and Linux (OS X support is apparently on the way) using only strong passwords, so if my laptop does go missing, I can rest easy knowing that the customer information on it is safe from prying eyes.

2006-09-01T11:27:00.000Z

Good news; Open Office is coming to the Mac in native form.
I might not even bother with Microsoft Office in the future :)

2006-08-29T14:22:00.000Z

I like to use Firefox as my browser on almost every OS except OS X (where I use Safari/Camino/Firefox). I also steer clear of IE as much as possible as it's less secure, too tied into the O/S and I hate the way it breeds non-compliance on the web (but that's a rant for another day).
Anyway, there's a problem with security even if you use Firefox, which is that of client-side scripting. Listen to Steve Gibson peoples; this is dangerous, especially if you're unfortunate enough to use Windows (which I still have to do at work sometimes).
IE does have a redeeming feature here, in that it supports security zones. You can use these to set the default security level of all sites such that they can't run client-side scripts, and then explicitly allow the sites you trust. This is a nice feature (but not anywhere near nice enough to lure me back to IE, even if it does have tabbed browsing in v7).
Anyway, there is now a Firefox plug-in that prevents client-side scripts running unless you explicitly allow a site to do so, and it's called noscript. I am now running this on my Winblows XP laptop and it seems to work great. I've yet to try it on other O/S's, but I probably will do so soon.......

Update: I've installed this on both OS X and Linux now, and it works fine on those platforms too. I'm not quite sure why I'd want to do the javascript blocking on OS X or Linux at this point, as neither of them are anywhere near as exposed as Windows is in terms of security risks, but as a general principle, more secure is better....... ;)

2006-08-28T17:58:00.000Z

Apple - Get a Mac. 3 new TV Ads - "Accident", "Angle/Devil" and "Trust Mac" :)

read more | digg story

2006-08-28T15:48:00.000Z

One for the geeks:
Sometimes, after a friend/family type person has been convinced to throw out their crappy old Windows9x PC and get a Mac at last, they come back to me with the old "Could I still use my old PC for something? - I don't want to throw it away" question. Or sometimes I get asked "is there a cheap way that I could have somewhere to store files/data?".
I have two solutions that I like to roll out here; one is to buy an external USB2/Firewire disk, and the other (lower-cost) answer is to use that crappy old PC as a home network server. The home network server would, of course, run Linux as it's rock-solid stable, reliable, and most of these types of users are too scared by command lines to do anything to harm their own server (as opposed to using Windows as a home server, which is invariably infested with crap within a few weeks).
One of the troubles with Linux (and I'm happy to accept that there are some, still) is that Webmin is about the only interface that is even remotely friendly for a non-techie to use to administer their home file server, and installing and configuring Linux (even a pared-down install) and Samba and configuring webmin takes an evening of my time.
Now, I'm not saying that I'd move away from Linux at home - I like the flexibility too much, but for a quick and dirty pure file server on old PC hardware, I have recently been very impressed with the BSD-based freeNAS. The install is a bit bumpy, so granny can't do it herself yet, but it is lightweight and fast and supports the whole gamut of network protocols (including SMB, FTP, NFS, SSH and AFP) and is administered purely via a web browser. Furthermore, you can run the O/S from a USB key and use multiple internal disks for software RAID storage.
It will require further investigation before I'd trust it enough to recommend whole-heartedly (how does it deal with failed disks? how can we back it up? if the O/S dies can we get our data back from the storage disks easily?, etc), but from the 10-minute play I had with it, it looks good. :)

2006-08-25T14:50:00.000Z

Found myself with a few periods of waiting for stuff to happen at work today, with nothing but a web browser to entertain me :)
So, I am looking forward to some movies; Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny and also the Borat movie. But, being a big kid, I was properly laughing at the trailer for Jackass: Number 2. Those boys are never right.

2006-08-21T17:19:00.000Z

Just read about Pandora, which is an online music service. The difference is that Pandora creates a profile for you and then uses that to make up a personalised web radio stream, based on your musical taste and preferences. It's populated with over half a million songs from unsigned artists and indie labels, and is free (although Non-US residents must enter an America zip code during the registration process to get it to work.)
There's no application - it works from a browser (also the site is slick), and the BBC have an article on it here.

2006-08-18T20:40:00.000Z

No link, no nuthin, and I know it's not new; it just made me laugh :)

In a prepared statement to the press BA went on to express "pity" for stranded passengers, but urged all customers seeking refunds to "quit their jibba-jabba".

2006-08-07T09:28:00.000Z

Holy crap! - it's official; VMware for Mac OS X is coming........ the above is on the VMware home page as of this morning.
This is big news for my colleagues and me, as we will finally be able to make the transition to OS X full time (yeah, I know about Parallels, but we have already invested quite a bit of effort in creating VMware images for the work we do).
Also, perhaps the timing of the announcement might be significant with the Apple WWDC keynote today?

digg story

2006-08-07T04:46:00.000Z

The Vader Sessions.
Genius. :)

2006-08-05T09:17:00.000Z

Kevin Rose (creator of digg, host of diggnation and a some time hero of mine) has launched a new personal podcast named Enjoius (link is to iTunes feed). The domain enjoi.us has also been registered, but at the time of posting just redirects to his blog.
Episode 1 is available via iTunes - I have yet to listen to it, and there's little information available, but it looks to be a kind of podcast scratchpad or something. Could be interesting, anyways........

Update: I just listened to ep. 1 and it was recorded March 14th. Seeing as it's now August, this is not really news!
Sorry.

2006-08-04T13:59:00.000Z

Elephants Dream is the first Open Movie.
What does that mean? Well, it's a short CGI film and was developed purely using Open Source software (mainly blender), primarily to raise awareness about, but also to prove and to improve the tools used to make it (more here). Also, in the true spirit of Open Source and Free Software, it's freely available for you to watch.
I haven't seen it yet, but it's on its way down..... :)

2006-08-04T13:43:00.000Z

I run a home server (hey, I'm a geek), and I use an old PC for the task. It's doing a sterling job, but it's big and noisy and hot, so I got to thinking about how I could improve things. I really want something small and cool and quiet with an Intel processor, so a Mac Mini would be ideal, but they're kind of pricey for something that will be a glorified file server.
Whilst looking about for an alternative, I recently stumbled across Mini Koobox, which is an interesting product. Koobox sell Linux PC's with Linspire pre-installed, and the Mini Koobox is a small-footprint machine with a Celeron-M or Pentium-M CPU. The price seems OK, too. That said, it's just not a Mac Mini ;)

2006-08-01T12:07:00.000Z

Sheeez - a month since my last post. That's pretty poor; I'll try harder from now on ;)
Anyway, check out the GP2X, which is a handheld console-type device that runs Linux. It does all the usual PSP-style stuff, but with Open Source goodness. If you're a hardcore gamer (I'm not) then it's maybe not for you, as the latest titles are not developed for the GP2X platform, but if you have any other interest, I'd say it's worth a look.

2006-06-28T10:19:00.000Z

I've been using mt-daapd on Linux as my home iTunes server for some time now, and love it. It's not as feature-rich as sharing from iTunes (playlists are more clunky and video support is not there in the stable version yet), but it is a true server, so you don't have to be logged in for it to be running. Also, I have found it to be rock-solid stable.
Anyway, it seems that the project has moved on, and is now the FireFly Media Server Project. It's still all done by Ron Pedde, but the project is expanding to include a server for Windows (beta) and support for Mac OS X planned. It would appear that since mt-daapd supports the Roku Soundbridge, Roku themselves are somehow supporting Ron's work, but it's all still Open Source.
Good news all round, I feel :)

2006-06-21T08:01:00.000Z

Camino 1.0.2 is out, featuring security and stability updates (although 1.0.1 was rock-solid stable as far as I was concerned).

2006-06-15T19:10:00.000Z

A mate introduced me to metacafe recently, which is a video site along the lines of youtube or google video.
Metacafe seems to be maybe a little less moderated, so you're more likely to end up finding something smutty and/or offensive, but these breakdancing kids are frickin' awesome, especially the last one.

2006-06-07T12:00:00.000Z

Google Spreadsheets: A First Look is a good overview of Google Spreadsheets from ZDNet UK. Note that Google Spreadsheets is a Limited Test from Google, so there are limited spaces on a first-come, first-served basis.
This is (IMHO) an interesting development - we all knew it was coming, but not in what form. I like the fact that they don't seem to be aiming for Microsoft Excel, but I am definitely in their target user base.
Let me explain: I use MS Office at work, on Windows, mainly because it's there (I know, I know, I should use OpenOffice.org, and I do at home). I am not a power user in any sense; I create documents with basic formatting (titles, headers, footers, tables etc.) and the odd embedded image. I also create spreadsheets for basic data tabulation and simple calculations. I don't use SharePoint services or Outlook, and use no advanced collaboration facilities at all. Very occasionally, I'll create a PowerPoint presentation that is a simple slideshow. That's it.
Now, at home, I use OpenOffice on Linux and iWork or NeoOffice on the Mac. Including MS Office, that's three office suites for one basic user (me). Even worse, I need to pay for MS Office or iWork for every machine on which I install them.
If I were a heavyweight user of Office suites, then it might be worthwhile me paying hundreds or thousands of pounds to have MS Office on every machine I use, but I'm not. OpenOffice is really good, but in the main is still overkill for my lightweight use at home, which basically consists of writing the odd letter and doing the occasional home finances spreadsheet.
Google Spreadsheets is therefore potentially a killer app for me: it has a zero-byte install footprint, is automatically available on any machine I use and keeps my data stored for me online, so I can pick up where I left off no matter where I log in.
This is the crunch; I don't need much more power than this in a spreadsheet program; it's free and it's ultimately portable. Seriously; why would someone like me pay upwards of £200 to Microsoft to be able to do simple spreadsheets and documents on one machine, when I will soon be able to do them on any machine for free with Google tools? (Google will no doubt be doing something tasty with writely soon to cover the word-processing angle). Then, for the odd occasion when I might be concerned about data privacy/security or need a more powerful tool, there's OpenOffice or NeoOffice on whichever machines I choose.
Gmail has already become a facet of my daily work environment, pretty much by the back door. I started using it as a secondary mail address to see what the fuss was about, but after getting used to it it became clear that it was by far the best webmail system available (and free, and with massive storage). I now use it as a mail client to which a number of my addresses forward all mail, and routinely use it on multiple platforms. In fact, I only use Gmail from some of the computers I routinely use. I can see Google Spreadsheets and Writely going the same way, and then users like me really won't need MS Office any more.

read more | digg story

Oh, and one other interesting tidbit is that Google have released Picasa for Linux, apparently using WINE to run the Windows version.

2006-06-01T16:11:00.000Z

Being a geek, I like to tinker with systems other than Windows (you may have picked this up if you read this blog with any regularity). Having grounded myself well in Mac OS X and various Linux distributions, I decided that it was time to look at the BSD's.
Since Mac OS X is my home O/S of choice, and is based on FreeBSD, I figured I'd give that a go. So I did a net install, and all is good - I have a geeky, command-line only FreeBSD box to play with when I next have a chance. Hopefully I'll learn some stuff.
Anyway, FreeBSD is pretty unfriendly to install, even when compared to some Linux distros, but I had previously stumbled across PC-BSD, which is FreeBSD all packaged up so as to be friendly for desktop use. Looking at it again today, I found that version 1.1 had recently been released, so I went to the download page to get me some install discs.
What I found will be a delight to any self-respecting geek - they offer iso CD images, but also a VMWare virtual machine image. This means that to have a go with PC-BSD, you don't need to install it or even run it from a slow old live CD - you just download the VMWare image to your VMWare host and boot it up.
I have to say that this is a great way of demo/testing an O/S, and I hope it catches on.
Oh, and I love the new FreeBSD icon/logo :)

2006-06-01T12:36:00.000Z

Ubuntu Linux 6.06 "Dapper Drake" is out and available for download.
I use Linux a fair bit these days; basically whenever I can't use a Mac and can get away with not using Windows (which is a surprising amount of the time). As a result I use quite a few different distributions, but if you're interested in getting started with Linux (and especially if you want to run Linux on a laptop), then I would suggest Ubuntu is a great place to begin.

Now that the sensible comments are out of the way, let's get all excited, because if you have some relatively spanky hardware to hand to run Linux on (I don't), then apparently Xgl and Compiz can be persuaded to run on Ubuntu Dapper. Why do you care? Well, as a discerning geek, you can now get your Linux machine to do desktop rendering in the graphics hardware which means that all kinds of OS X type GUI goodness is now possible. Check out the videos at YouTube and from Novell.

If they get this stuff working so that non-techies can install it, and Linux continues to get more friendly (Ubuntu is not bad already) then seriously, why would you want to use Windows any more? I really do think Windows will start losing market share in the coming years - we'll be using Vista for gaming and for corporate environments, but those are the only areas that it will still have strengths over free alternatives. Good times :)

2006-05-23T15:21:00.000Z

I've recently been working on a mambo website, which is a great open source CMS solution. It means that even a klutz like me can throw together a half-useful CMS site in a day or two without having to resort to any coding.
Anyway, the point of my post is that there are some elements of Mambo (and other sites) that don't play nice with Safari, which is my default browser on OS X (there are ways of tweaking Mambo to get it all happy with Safari, btw). For these occasions I had always fallen back to Firefox, but for this project, I have been seriously playing with Camino, and I like it. In fact, I like it enough that Firefox is now gone from my dock, and Camino has replaced it.
I blogged about Camino once before, but never really got round to trying it. I have to say now though that the only thing that Firefox has over Camino (at least, the only thing that actually makes a difference to me) is that Camino does not yet auto-update; you still have to check for updates. With that in mind, Camino 1.0.1 has been released - I recommend you give it a try.
Oh, and it's Mac only ;)

2006-05-22T14:32:00.000Z

Today I found myself with a spare 20 minutes, so I decided to look into some HD TV stuff. I have a Telewest TV Drive on order, and already have an HD-ready TV, so I can look forward to some tasty HD content in the future.
Now, my TV Drive was ordered mainly for the PVR functionality, so I can record programs on my Telewest cable service in the same way that Sky+ users can record their programs. The HD capability is more of a bonus for now as content is very limited at the moment, but I happened to know that the BBC will be broadcasting World Cup matches in HD, so I rang Telewest to ask what I'd have to do to watch them. The answer? - nothing! There will be a new channel appearing on Telewest shortly which will be BBC HD, and since all the England World Cup matches are on free-to-air BBC channels, I don't even need a premium sports channel subscription. Nice :)
Whilst looking around at what other content might be available, I stumbled across the Sky HD site, which (no matter what you think of the company) is a stunning site, but you'll need a decent computer and broadband to appreciate it.
If you're not sure what all this HD fuss is about, then you might want to try the Wikipedia entry or the more UK-centric Burn Your Bonus HD TV FAQ.

2006-05-16T13:45:00.000Z

Finally! - Introducing the Macbook.
Man, they look nice :)

Sorry this blog has turned into a bit of a macfest recently - I'll try and find some juicy tidbits that are not Apple-related over the next few days.
read more | digg story

2006-05-05T17:04:00.000Z

Apple - Get a Mac. You gotta love these TV Ads :)

2006-04-27T12:55:00.000Z

Fast OS Switching with Virtue Desktops, OS X, and Parallels: Users are now discovering that with an Intel Mac, Parallels Workstation, and Virtue Desktops, they can flip between multiple native-speed x86 operating systems with dazzling effects. Watch this video to see OS X, Windows XP, and Red Hat Linux operating on "three sides of a cube". Beautiful :)
read more | digg story

2006-04-21T09:07:00.000Z

Check out "A tour of the Mac Lab at Microsoft - 2000 square feet and LOTS of computers". These guys use 150 mac minis for software testing, and the Apple Remote Desktop setup looks sweet.

read more | digg story

2006-04-14T08:30:00.000Z

So, Firefox 1.5.0.2 is out, and the guys at Mozilla have made this release available as a Universal Binary for the Mac already (meaning it natively supports Intel processors under OS X). Security fixes are also included, so get it while it's hot.

I was also interested to read that some crazy geeks at Sun have already got Solaris running on the Intel iMac. This shows one of the interesting aspects of the Apple move to Intel - pretty much any O/S that runs on Intel PC's will end up on Mac hardware now, without requiring a different version to be compiled for PPC processors. That means more Linux distributions (some already supported Macs), BSDs, Solaris and of course Windows, as well as OS X.

My take is that this will play a more significant role in the server space - I mean I really like Linux, but I wouldn't run it on a Mac as a desktop O/S when I have OS X. However, it has long been known that OS X is pretty crappy at some multi-threaded operations where concurrency is a concern, and that Linux is much better at this. This is not going to be too much of an issue on a workstation, but on a MySQL database server, it has been shown that OS X is a poor competitor to Linux. Now we won't be tied to a few distros, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Linux on Mac servers becoming a solid choice in the data centre.

2006-03-20T18:16:00.000Z

Mapion - Amazing cell phone technology development.
I can't believe this hasn't been on Digg more - GeoVector have announced a partnership with NEC so Japanese users can just point their mobile phone at buildings, merchants or historical sites and instantly retrieve information on what they are looking at, or find what they are looking for.

read more | digg story

2006-03-20T17:54:00.000Z

Fedora Core 5 is available. Release notes are here, but as usual, it's full of the latest and greatest Open Source goodness.
I don't even actively use Fedora any more, but I probably would consider it if I went back to Linux as a desktop O/S. You can check out this screencast of some features and desktop goodies.

2006-03-10T13:55:00.000Z

Tech news this week;
I enjoyed reading about this test showing how vulnerable unpatched Windows is compared to Linux. Not much of a shock to me, it must be said, but nice to see it officially recognised for a change.

Also, Microsoft revealed that it will not support EFI booting for Windows Vista on its launch, or at any time for 32-bit processors. This means that you won't be able to directly boot Vista on your Intel Mac (at least until 64-bit intel Macs appear), as Intel Macs only support booting via EFI. I'm kinda glad.
This is in complete contrast with the wonderful page declaring It's Official: XP Boots on a MacBook Pro. Good work fellas.
Oh, and Linux will reportedly support EFI just fine.

read more | digg story

2006-03-02T17:21:00.000Z

Updates over the last couple of days that all good people should be using:
OS X Security Update 2006-001 addresses a recently reported exploit that left Safari users vulnerable to malicious shell scripts; corrects a vulnerability to Apple’s Mail software and also changes the way iChat handles file transfers to help prevent the “Leap-A” malware (link is to PPC download, Intel versions available from Apple Downloads, or even better, use Software Update).
iTunes 6.0.4 and iPhoto 6.0.2 are out - upgrades to support stability and performance in Front Row, for which version 1.2.1 is out, if you're lucky enough to have a machine that supports it. Again, all are available from Software Update.
Which brings us nicely on to the new Mac Mini, about which I am fairly excited. I always fancied a Mini as a media machine for the living room; after all, it's (relatively) inexpensive, small, quiet and attractive. And it runs OS X, with all the cool iLife apps that would make sense in a living room.
The problem I always had was that I figured I'd want to stream stuff to it sooner or later, and thought that Gigabit Ethernet would make sense. Also, as soon as Front Row was announced, it was obvious that we need that in the living room, which means a Mac that supports it and the Apple Remote. Front Row also didn't cope with shared iTunes libraries, and I already have all my music on another machine. Finally, the thing was crying out for enough grunt to handle Hi-Def. Hey, guess what? - they ticked every box (I'm guessing that the core duo model will handle Hi-Def). I am saving the pennies already....
Oh, and the iPod HiFi - a boom-box for the iPod? Looks cool, and I'm sure it sounds good, but if I have an Airport Express and a real hi-fi, I don't see why I need one. Nice, but leaves me a bit lukewarm compared to the new Mini.

2006-02-24T11:25:00.000Z

"Google does Macs" - In a move that will surely have both Google and Apple fanboys dancing a merry little jig, Google has released Dashboard Widgets for Blogger, GMail, and Search History. Its a good day to be a fanboy. Or to say "Its about freaking time!"
I have had a quick look at these, and they do kinda rock, especially the Blogger and Search History ones. Grab 'em here.

read more | digg story

2006-02-15T13:01:00.000Z

Tech stuff for today:
Mac OS X 10.4.5 is out - get it via Software Update for lots of lovely improvements (apparently). You'll also now get iTunes 6.0.3 as well as iLife updates to iDVD, iPhoto, iMovie HD, and iWeb, which presumably do something good for us, but who knows?

Sun are looking to Open Source their SPARC processor hardware, to help increase community participation in processor architecture development and application design.
Why do we care? - well, this is a smart move, as the next generation UltraSparc T1 is a kick-ass CPU, and if both Solaris and Linux fly on it from day one then we can expect to see some fairly compelling server offerings that the wintel boys will struggle to keep up with. (Bear in mind that Solaris has been a 64-bit O/S for years, as has Linux. Windows is still not there). The T1 is a 64-bit, 72W, 1.2 GHz chip that is almost 3 times (in SpecWeb2005) as fast as four Xeon cores at 2.8 GHz, which consume up to 300W. That's a lot of processing per watt. Maybe Apple should have looked at SPARC as well as Intel.......

Camino 1.0 is out - this is probably going to replace Firefox as my second browser on the Mac (and yes, I do sometimes still need to use something other than Safari). There's an interview with Camino Project lead Mike Pinkerton here that also gives an overview of the relative merits of Firefox and Camino on the Mac. Basically, Firefox has extensions, Camino is fast and integrates with the Mac better. Personally, I also think Camino looks nice.

2006-02-14T08:51:00.000Z

Blues Tide Rising are a bunch of my mates that gig locally as a blues band - they're pretty good, and they finally have a website.
Well, you gotta link to your mates, don't you?

2006-02-12T11:26:00.000Z

Check out these awesome pictures of little people doing their thing.

2006-01-31T16:01:00.000Z

Remember Mozilla? - it was a rolled-up suite of open source web tools, including browser, e-mail client, a web page composer and an IRC chat client. It's what I used in the good old days before the tools got split up (the browser component became Firefox, the e-mail client became Thunderbird and the web page composer became Nvu. There's also work on the calendar component as Sunbird).
Anyhoo, Mozilla Application Suite went off the boil for some reason and stopped being developed by the Mozilla Foundation (I believe they just switched their focus to Firefox and Thunderbird). Then some enterprising Open Source developers picked up the code and started hacking on it again to produce "production-ready code derived from the application formerly known as Mozilla Application Suite". This project was named SeaMonkey and is now looked after by the SeaMonkey Council rather than the Mozilla Foundation (although Mozilla.org still host the SeaMonkey website).
Confused? Good.
Put simply, Mozilla lives on as SeaMonkey, and today marks the release of Version 1.0. To borrow some words:
"The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to deliver production-quality releases of code derived from the application formerly known as "Mozilla Application Suite". Whereas the main focus of the Mozilla Foundation is on Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird, our group of dedicated volunteers works to ensure that you can have "everything but the kitchen sink" — and have it stable enough for corporate use.
SeaMonkey is available as a free download from its mozilla.org-hosted website, features a state-of-the-art web browser, a powerful email client, a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. For web developers, mozilla.org's DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools are included as well."
So, all good, healthy open source stuff, and of course it runs on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. Downloads are here.
There's also an interesting post here that claims that, ironically, Mozilla is a faster browser than Firefox overall, despite the fact that Firefox is supposed to be smaller and lighter. I wonder if this holds true for SeaMonkey.......

read more | digg story

2006-01-30T21:29:00.000Z

My Dad sent me a link to the Cloud Appreciation Society, who are are a bunch of friendly-sounding guys that, well, like clouds. They also have an awesome gallery of photos (I still can't believe that some of these are real) - this one in particular is superb.

2006-01-24T07:45:00.000Z

SkyOS is a new proprietary operating system (i.e. you will have to pay for it). It's still in Beta, but it does look very interesting - they've done everything from scratch, apparently (even if the icons are the same as those used by KDE).
I guess it seems like a halfway house between Windows and Mac OS X, so I reckon they might have a winner if the predicted demise of Microsoft on the desktop comes about. I mean, if you were to move away from Windows you would choose a Mac if you had enough funds. However, if you didn't have a bundle of cash and you wanted to re-use your PC hardware then SkyOS might make a fairly compelling alternative to Linux, especially if it's easy, multimedia-ready and well supported from the off.
Check out the video of SkyOS in action.

read more | digg story

2006-01-23T15:03:00.000Z

I meant to post this a while back, but in the madness of moving house, I forgot. If you're a Windows or Linux user, chances are you use the Open Source Firefox browser from Mozilla, or maybe their excellent Thunderbird mail and news client (version 1.5 recently released, btw). You might even use them on a Mac. In any case, if you like Firefox or Thunderbird you might want to consider buying some cool gear to help advertise and support the software. I recently discovered that they have finally opened the International Mozilla Store which means that if you live in the UK or other (non-US) parts of the world, you no longer have to pay ferocious shipping charges.
I am now the proud owner of a tasty Firefox tee :)