Jon's Blog

On Blogging

2007-04-14T13:16:00.001+01:00

So it's that time of year again, I'm stuck in the Sth. Ken library with nothing better to do that to play around with my old blog again.
I often wonder if I should post to this thing more often, but then I figure that the people who I would be communicating to already talk to me over IM or phone pretty much every day anyway.
Blogging is a great way for remote people you maybe can't speak to face to face, or over the phone.People you don't even know. Fans of your work say, or people researching something you write about.
I, however, don't have much to write that I figure people would want to read regularly. I don't have a specialist subject worthy of blogging, and people are fairly aware of my comings and goings via Facebook or Google Talk.
Back in school, and prior to the 'MySpace' revolution, it was on personal websites and forums that extra-curricular activities were discussed and photos were published. It was then that my blogging frequency was at it's zenith. I now use Facebook/Flickr for my photos, and any events are organized over Facebook and/or IM.
Besides, I have vastly reduced my involvement with the internet on a technical basis and am more a layman when it comes to my use of it. I Google, Email and Facebook like the common people now. Sure, I'm always interested in new technology, I'm not an old man yet. Though I'm also not one to live in the 'Beta Land' of new software as much as I was. I don't need Firefox Extensions to be a happy computer user, I don't need to know the latest programming language in order to navigate the internet (as I once thought I did).
For example, I own a Macintosh notebook, I know it has loads of geekiness under the hood, but I'm now only bothered about it's good looks and ease of use for the basics of computing.

The bleeding edge of technology is a good distance ahead of me now. I'm more knowledgeable than most, but I don't think myself to be an expert at anything anymore. And you know what? I like it back here.

Nobody Cares

2006-11-11T14:59:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6138486.stm

God is dead, the sooner people realise this, the sooner we can all get on with the problems he left us with.

P.S. Yes I'm still alive.

Google Talk

2006-09-05T14:52:00.000+01:00

I'm fed up with MSN/Microsoft/Windows/Whatever Messenger and am moving over to Google Talk (thus Jabber) permanantly for IM. I also want to use email more to keep my desktop less cluttered with windows.

It may not last, but I did the same 'cold turkey' apporach to switching from Safari to Camino and that made my life a whole lot easier.

Stuff

2006-09-02T17:35:00.000+01:00

So I'm in Liverpool still, feeling rotten this morning. So while I have no energy to leave my bedroom I figure I'd post something on my somewhat stagnant blog.
The last few weekends have been fun, I've been around the country a fair bit, mostly the south-east with the Great British Beer Festival in Earls Court early August, and Broxbourne the other weekend for Thom's moving-out party. Last weekend I was in Ireland again. As I mentioned before, they were house hunting and have now found, signed for and received the keys of their new house in Aughagower, Co.Mayo. So my dad and I drove over there to sort a few things out with the house. See what needs fixing/installing/buying and so on.
Whilst over there I spent a fair amount of time with the extended family. I watched the Mayo-Dublin All-Ireland Gaelic Football Semi-Final on the Sunday at my second-cousin's house. Possibly the best GAA Football match of recent times. I may tune in to the Mayo-Kerry final later this month if I remember. Up Mayo!

On the Mac front, a login problem meant I had to reinstall windows again on the Macbook. I'll be so glad when I finish work and I can start to use OSX on it more.
Also, I've been taking advantage of the TVMini and FilmFour more these last few days. I recorded the Godfather Part 2 the other day, and yesterday Apocolypse Now. Then using EyeTV's editor I quickly removed the ad-breaks before using the 1-Click 'Toast' button I can burn it to a DVD to watch later, no re-encoding required! *
I'm also going to keep an eye on CrossOver for Mac. A Wine-based platform for running Windows GUI apps on the Mac natively. So far I've tried a couple of apps on the beta version, to different outcomes. Google's Picasa 2 runs fine, whilst iTunes won't install and Google Talk can't connect to the internet. I've heard good things about running Microsoft Office on it though. Plus, if Half-Life 2 runs on CrossOver as well as they say it does, I may have to invest in the full version.

Nowt much else to say besides that I'll be back in London permanently from the 30th of September, moving into a new flat in Hammersmith. My 21st birthday is coming up soon after that, which I really must organise something for.
Until then I still have to decide how long I'm keeping the job here in Liverpool for. I may work until the 29th or I may decide to give myself a week off to coincide with pay-day.

* It spent 2 minutes 'multiplexing' before burning, nowhere near the usual encoding time taken for DVD burning.

Intel Mac (Windows) Apps

2006-08-04T10:23:00.001+01:00

I've been using Windows XP on the MacBook (via Boot Camp) for a few days now and have already (re)discovered a couple of key applications that are essential.

MacDrive 6
I gave myself 7GB of drive space for Windows XP. This is fine for the OS and a few core apps, but what if I need access to the Mac HFS+ partition? Step up MacDrive 6. With MacDrive installed, your Mac partitions show up in My Computer as normal drives that can be read from and written to quite naturally.
Update: Also works on USB/Firewire External HDs formatted in HFS+. This is how I first came across the app a few years ago.

Input Remapper
Using Windows XP with one mouse button and half the keyboard keys mapped incorrectly is a pain in the arse. With this simple system tray app it is possibly to add new features to the 'FN' key that allow right-click and re-enables the function buttons like brightess, volume, Numlock and so on...

Thats it for now, due to the fact that this is all you need to get your Intel Mac running windows more naturally. I'm now trying to get used to using Acrobat for PDF, Firefox for web browsing and MSN Messenger (eugh). Thankfully I'm only using Windows for work and specific apps like AutoCad when back at college. Nothing compares to OS X for day-to-day computing.

MacBook

2006-07-31T20:21:00.000+01:00

macbook.jpg on Flickr

Yesterday, after a fortnight of waiting, my new MacBook arrived. Wait a minute, I hear you say, don't you already have a 12" PowerBook G4? Well yes I do, though not for long. You see, I figured I should get on the Intel bandwagon at some point before I end up being relagated to a PowerPC limbo. So, as the PowerBook is two years old now, I figure if I sell it now I'll get as much cash for it as I ever will. So I did some maths, worked out the best value configuration and went about ordering my 13" White MacBook. Since I didn't want to spend a huge amount on it above the cash from the PowerBook, I went for the 1.83Ghz model but upped the RAM to 1GB. This, with AppleCare and the HE discount came to £756 off the Apple Online Store. Not bad considering I have been promised £250 for my old PowerBook G4. Anyway, moving on...
When I got home from work on Thursday there was a box waiting for me in the hallway. I decided however, to have some restraint and spend some time with Baz who'd just got back from the Vet's after minor operation on his paw. (Yes, you can say 'awww')
Still, I could only restrain myself so long, and before I knew it the glossy new MacBook was sitting on the table in front of me. I plugged in the MagSafe powercord...or rather I got it so far and then it plugged itself in, magnet magic. After a few minutes of setup time I was staring at a beautifully bright glossy screen sitting behind rows of odd looking keyboard keys (note the flat keys with weird looking gaps between). At this point I should also note it automatically configured itself to connect to my home network and searched the internet for OS updates. Crazy.
I didn't even last an hour before downloading and installing Boot Camp. I tried manually triple booting with Ubuntu Linux as well as Windows XP, but I ended up having to use the factory restore CDs on the MacBook within 24 hours of owning the damn thing because I messed up the partitions. I'm tempted to add the following to my list of core 'life principles':
If you want something done properly, always read the fucking manual first.

Anyway, in short. The MacBook is simply gorgeous. It looks great, it feels great, it works great. Far superior in build quality than the iBook was and it certainly feels nicer than the PowerBook G4 to use (though I havn't tried a MacBook Pro yet). As far as value for money goes I'm thinking this is simply the best Mac ever made.
Though I would say, if you want to put Windows on it, do so via Boot Camp, trying to install too many operating systems isn't big or clever, it could end up with you digging out the restore discs.

Thus my current system is:

macbook.jpg on Flickr

Update

2006-07-04T13:57:00.000+01:00

Since the question was asked, I'll answer briefly.

My exams were pretty shocking this year. I passed them, just. Better get my act together next year and try for a decent grade. I'm probably on a 2.2 at the moment though I'll know for sure once my mark breakdown comes in.
As for work placement, yeah I'm already sitting at the desk I'll be at for the next 13 weeks. Same place as last year, a small Structural/Environmental Engineering firm in Liverpool.
I'm hoping to do more stuff this summer, as in social stuff. Get some people from college to come to Liverpool or for me to go visiting others around the country.

P.S. Could people not leave comments as 'Anonymous', If you are asking me a direct question I'd like to know who's asking so I know what kind of details to go into! Ta.

While my guitar...

2006-07-03T00:08:00.000+01:00

A video of a my favourite song as sung by the man himself.

So yeah, I've not been updating much, I'll get around to it.

Macbook

2006-05-16T17:43:00.000+01:00

Hot diggety damn. Why don't I have any bloody money?

Ireland and beyond...

2006-04-16T12:57:00.001+01:00

Got back from Ireland on Friday morning, it was a supprisingly good holiday actually, I was expecting to be sitting around the hotel, wandering the streets and trailing behind my parents as they went house-hunting over there. More or less as soon as I arrived we had a phonecall from my mum's cousin to say that their daughter (my second-cousin) had been planning a night out in Westport for me to come along to. This showed a new side to Westport that I've not seen before, a nightlife that doesn't involve two pubs full of creepy old men. Instead there are a host of new vibrant bars, clubs and pubs filled with younger generations. Sure there were still the odd creepy people there, but they didn't bother us too much. I discovered Bulmers Cider (sold as Magners over here) as a good refreshing drink, depite me not liking 'ordinary' ciders.
I didn't take many photos, but there is an 'Éire 2006' set on Flickr you may want to browse.

Tomorrow I'm off to Somerset with a University field trip. It's probably going to suck since it's a Geology field trip. I just know I'll be following our slightly-alcoholic lecturer around the Mendips looking at rocks. Nevermind, I'm sure we'll make our own fun.

Couple of things

2006-04-05T19:52:00.000+01:00

Not really got much to say, still in Liverpool over the Easter holidays. Avoiding revision, trying to get as much time in the Land Rover as possible, learning a few new recipes to cook when I go back down to London.
Saw a friend's band the other Saturday night in the Magnet on Hardman Street. The gig was good, they've improved their live act since I saw them a few years ago. Probably going to see them again this Thursday at (i think) Bar Hannah down the road from Magnet.
Anyway, off to Ireland on Friday with parents, they are house hunting, I'm going to enjoy the Guinness and get out and about with my camera weather permitting. After that I'm off to Cheddar in Somerset for a week's field trip for College. I've heard reports from people that it isn't too bad compared to last year's field trip. Seems to be a fair amount of freedom, I'm looking forward to pubbing it with coursemates again.

On another topic, Apple's Boot Camp looks pretty neat. In a nutshell it is Apple's official patch that allows Windows XP to be installed on the new Intel Macs. It works by allowing a partition to be created non-destructively on your Intel Mac and allows you to install Windows XP on it, then when starting up your Mac, holding down the Option/Alt key will show a new bootloader allowing you to choose which OS you want. In my opinion there is no real choice, it's OS X all the way, but there are some of those Counterstrike junkies that need their fix even after getting a Mac. I don't have an Intel Mac, if I'd waited a month or two before getting my iMac G5, I could have got a swishy new Intel iMac, but Apple refused to give a definate date of release, so I missed out. G5 iMacs will be supported for a good few years yet so I'm not too bothered.

Planet Earth is cool, the BBC really know how to make documentaries. The Photography (or is it filmography when on TV?) anyway, the shots they take are fantastic. Some take months of waiting and tracking of the subject before a 5 second sequence can be recorded. For one shot of some Camels in the Gobi desert the film crew walked over 100 miles following several of the total 200 of these camels across one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. It makes you feel guilty for not watching it knowing how much trouble people have been through to film it. At least they'll have enough stock material to last a few hundred years!

New Phone

2006-03-19T18:43:00.000Z

SonyEricsson-K750i-3 on Flickr

My phone contract was up for renewal and I was entitled to a new phone...so I got myself a shiny new Sony Ericsson k750i. Such a great phone, solid design, brilliant camera functions, great bluetooth-to-mac compatibility. Within a minute of turning it on I had all my contacts,calendars etc, copied from my iMac with a few clicks.
Not really using it for it's music/radio capabilities since I have my nano, but it's still pretty neat.

In other news, how was everyone's St. Patrick's days? Mine was great, went to Kavanaghs in South Kensington with a good friend and drank a lot of Guinness and Whiskey...though I remember having some Tequila at one point. Nasty stuff.
End of term next week, better save some money for the inevitable piss-up that will be going down.

Front Row and Video Formats

2006-03-05T20:11:00.000Z

(This is a technical post, you may want to skip if you are feeling bored already)

I recently got Front Row installed on my pre-IR iMac using this walkthrough, Front Row being Apple's slightly basic alternative to Windows Media Centre, as a way of using that mac as a set-top box for your TV (in the case of the new Mac Mini) or as a replacement TV (if you are rich enough to own a 30" Apple Display).
Anyway, the app is all well and good using a keyboard, but the beauty of the newer macs is that you can use the Apple Remote to control Front Row from a distance. Enter Salling Clicker, a brilliant little app that allows you to use your Bluetooth enabled phone to do most anything with your mac. From controlling a Keynote presentation, skipping a song in iTunes, to even controlling the mouse. With this functionality, and a little plugin for Clicker which allows more refined control over Front Row, you are all set up to go with your new Mac Media Centre. Or are you?
Really, Front Row only acts as a composite front-end for iTunes, iPhoto, Quicktime and DVD player. So it turns out Front Row can only play a video that Quicktime can play. When checking my hard drive, it seems that not all the video files I have are Quicktime playable, seeing as I normally use VLC for my visual needs. So when faced with a couple of WMV, OGM files and those god-awful Real Media files, I was stuck. Before anyone says 'why didn't you just use 'Flip4Mac' to play WMVs in Quicktime. I have, and found it very unstable, so I need to convert them.
As anyone would do in this situation, I gathered my senses, loaded Safari and headed over to google.com. With the WMV and Real Media files I was in luck. A wonderful app called 'FFMpegX' is available that can convert almost anything to...well a smaller number of file types. But thankfully Divx/Xvid AVI is one of those formats. So off I go converting my video files to a common format. Real Media being the biggest pain in the arse for conversion time. 3 to 4 hours on a 2Ghz G5. Why do people use it? Real Media is a shocking format to encode anything in, audio or video.
Then I come across a .OGM file, I'd never heard of these before but it seems VLC can play them and Quicktime can't. FFMpegX also spits it out as being an unknown format. What do I do?
Well I google again. Googling does seem to be main vice at the moment. I google for everything. If you ever think I'm being clever when emailing you or over IM, chances are I just googled/wikipedia-ed it.
Anyway, I found a site linking to couple of neat Unix terminal apps that can split an OGM file into its constituent parts. Once done I found there was a Divx .AVI file and a few .OGG (Ogg-Vorbis Audio) files, one being the English soundtrack and the others in those funny foreign languages. Anyway, FFMpegX also spat the .OGG files out when trying to merge the Video and Audio. So I then set about trying to convert the .OGG to .MP3. Again I googled and seems I was in luck. Audacity is a free audio-editing app that allows you to export a .OGG to a .MP3, which took about 4 minutes for a feature-length audio track. Then the 'muxing' (Multiplexing) took another few minutes to combine the audio and video.
While apps like FFMpegX are coming together nicely and are supporting more and more formats, there are still a few that require such long-winded processes, some of which mean my processor runs at over 80% for extended times, which can't be healthy.
If everyone just used Mpeg or a common codec like Divx life would be so much more simple.

Traveling

2006-01-25T11:16:00.000Z

Paul posted his map, so I thought I'd do the same.

create your own visited countries map

And visited states.

create your own visited states map

It seems I've visited 10% of the world. More than Paul, but not as much as I'd like.

Edit: Technically I've also been to New Jersey, I've landed in Newark airport a couple of times. But then my only experience of Germany was an airport, so I guess it balances out.

Road Trip

2006-01-10T12:53:00.000Z

Dan and Map on Flickr

Well last weekend was fun. On saturday my housemates and I went on a little bit of a road trip to Europe.
I guess I'd better start this tale in our local pub 'The Goose' last Thursday night.
Chris' cousin was visiting for a week, we were all bored and had done nothing productive since New Year. Chris comes up with an idea, we take a road trip to France on Saturday to buy cheap beer and stuff. The instant unanimous decision was 'Well why not?', so it was set.
Friday night was the night in Metros, so we didn't get in 'till the early hours of Saturday morning. I set my alarm for 7am hoping for an early up for a shower and stuff before the trip. I then realised that it was 6am when I set the alarm. Bugger, I thought, one hour will have to do. 8am came and went and there was a violent banging on my bedroom door. "Wake up you lazy ****, we are going to France!", was Chris' traditional wake up call.
Anyway, a few minutes later we were piling into the cars (of which we have two of now that Jim has his with him), and heading off to Dover.
On the Ferry the chicken burger I had eaten that night really came back with avengeance. Jim described me as 'Night of the Living Dead' and that the bags under my eyes had bags under them, charming.
So we were in Calais, and Jim needed petrol as we'd been driving on fumes since the M20. We negotiated the automatic fuel pumps and found them impossible to use and must have an anti-english system on board. Instead we had to use a manual pump, and due to the French driving on the wrong side of the raod, meant that I as the passenger had to pay at the kiosk. Jim still owes me 30 Euros for that.
So we were sitting in the car park of a hypermarket deciding what to do with our 9 hours in France. Paris was one option, but rejected for time. Instead we settled on a trip down the Autoroute to Belgium.

Dunkerque on Flickr

We stopped in Dunkerque on the way for a toilet and beer stop, and because none of us had been to Dunkerque before.
The short journey to the border was filled with music and making gestures between cars. Jim, after his initial freak-out of 'Oh my god, driving on this side of the road is insane' and having to be reminded to go anticlockwise around roundabouts, was getting comfortable on the Autoroutes. Though he couldn't work out the kph-mph conversion, often resulting in myself or Dan correcting him.
The border between France and Belgium was little more than a blue sign saying 'Belgie' and then a subtle language transition on the road signs. Leaving us to decide where in Belgium we would go and what the hell we planned to do there.
Brugge was our first destination, but by this time it was getting late in the day, so Oostende was chosen instead. In the end we decided to get a Steak dinner and drive like hell back to Calais before the hypermarkets closed.
I have to say, while it wasn't the best steak I'd ever had, it was close to it. Tenderloin steak with green peppercorn sauce, ordered medium but arrived bloody as hell. Chris and Dan shared garlic snails and Frog's legs, the first time I'd seen the latter.
So it was getting late and we were still at least an hour from Calais, so what happens...traffic jam leaving Oostende. We assumed it was a crash or somethign but then we saw sirens and a sign saying 'Alcohol Police'. Now, while we had an instant panic, we soon remembered that Jim hadn't been drinking that day, apart from a 25cl beer with the steak. The Belgian police had a bit of trouble explaining that he had to blow into the machine to test for alcohol, but he got the idea. After passing the breathaliser, Jim recieved a free keychain from the Police for being a safe driver and a polite sendoff. If only our Police were like that.
The result of the police check was that our two cars were then separated on the way back to Calais. By this time I was starting to feel my lack of sleep and drifted off a few times in the car. Our car knew were we were going and managed to get a fair amount of beer in the Carrefour, but Charlie managed to miss the Calais Autoroute junction altogether and ended up missing the trip to the first Hypermarket. Thus by the time we met up again, we had missed the 9pm ferry and had to wait for the 11pm sailing instead. Great, more time for shopping! Two wine/beer warehouses later we had some very full cars. Mostly filled with crates of '£4 for 24 bottles' beers, excellent stuff. Chris' cousin bought a lot of Fosters. We ridiculed him appropriately for his purchase.
Off to the ferry we went, spending the short sail drinking our purchases.
We thought we had survied and it was easy driving back to Fulham from there. That was until we went through HM Customs at Dover anyway. We were driving through, confident that we were within our limits and that we'd sail though customs and off to the motorway. A customs officer comes to the window for some routine questions.
"How long have you been in France, what was the purpose of your journey..." and the like. Then came the question "Did you visit any other countries?", so we told him "Yeah, Belgium". When he asked why, we answered honestly, "For a steak dinner and a beer". With a very puzzled look, he directed us to a customs search bay, where the car in front of us was being torn apart and X-Rayed. At this point we were very worried, understandibly. Charlie rang me to say he'd got through no problem and was waiting outside.
The Customs man asked Jim and Dan to step out of the car, took them to the boot and asked them a few quick-fire questions about bookings, insurance, car ownership and such. Then had a look at our booze stash. Thankfully everything was in order and he seemed happy with our Belgium story, if a little bemused at going that far just for a meal.
To sum up the journey back to London, we took the same route we used to get to Dover and arrived safely. Charlie took a 'shortcut' and ended up looping back around and travelling back to Dover for 10 minutes before realising his error.

The Supply on Flickr

Now the house is full of 30+ crates of beer and various other bottles of wine.
A trip well done, and something we may be doing more often!

(Appologies for the poor writing here, I wrote half of this between lectures and the rest at lunch, so I rushed it a little)

Night out...

2006-01-07T05:39:00.000Z

Tonight was interesting, so we (me and my housemates) went out to the Fitzroy pub in Soho, we had a few pints and chatted for a while. Then come 11pm, we were thrown out of the Fitzroy and a few of us decided to go on to the 'Metro' club off Charing Cross road. So yeah, we stayed there until the wee hours and had a good time drinking and dancing and all that.
On the way home I took a detour to the cash machine because I wanted to get some food on the way home. Now, central London is a nightmare for getting money at an ATM late at night. Either there is a queue, or the machine isn't working, or whatever. Anyway, I was looking for a machine and a nice homeless woman directed me to a working machine. So after I got cash out, I decided to talk to her for a while. For the life of me I cannot remember her name, but she knew Liverpool well, and was a fairly articulate woman with a hell of a story to tell. It turned out she is pregnant and she did tell me a story as to why she ended up in London instead of Liverpool. She told me about her recent life on the streets, where she sleeps and all that.
Anyway, after an hour or two of chatting, I decided to help her into a shelter for the night, for which she insisted I choose a name for the daughter she was expecting.
Long story short, I felt good for helping a woman out for a night or two. I also proved to her that the world isn't such a cold, heartless place, and that someone would spare an hour of their time to talk, instead of walking past and ignoring her. If only that were true more of the time, then maybe the world wouldn't be so bad?

New Year and all that

2005-12-30T00:38:00.000Z

Well I'm back in London after spending Christmas in Liverpool with the parents. Sure it wasn't exactly a super exciting Christmas, but then a quiet one with the immediate family is often best. Especially with a heavy New Year's Eve coming up. We are having a bit of a party of sorts, and while I'm optimistic that it'll be a lot of fun, I'm also not sure how many people are coming along. Sure, the usual suspects will be there and we'll have a ball, but I was hoping to get some of the lesser-spotted friends around to add a bit of variety. I guess people don't understand R.S.V.P, even when you put the english translation with it. Nevermind eh.
After a bit of a rough weekend prior to christmas, which made me a little down over the holidays, I've started to cheer up a lot. Partially because I'm back to a normal routine and the usual freedoms associated with it, but also a post on a friend's website made me feel special, and for which I am very thankful.
I'm going to see if I can make some resolutions and actually keep to them this year. I figure they'll last a month or two, though I've included a cut-down on drinking which I doubt will last more than a fortnight, at least I'll try.

Well thats about it, I'll have more to say after New Year probably. For now I'm going to kick back and watch a DVD or something. Calm before the storm and all that.

Now Playing in iTunes: Am I Ever by The Lights

Pub Love

2005-12-07T15:38:00.000Z

So yeah, life is a bit of a roller-coaster at present. I like the fact that I'm seeing more people outside of my house here in Fulham and that I'm meeting new people all the time. I'm also still falling into my usual holes that I dig for myself. But I suppose you can't change your life completely.

In other news, I'm really liking these new licensing laws. Socialising in pubs is now far more relaxed I feel. 11pm seemed like a silly time to close pubs, since it felt earlier than it actually was. Now if a bar closes at 12am or 1am, you feel like it is a good time to stop drinking since it is officially the next day. Thus making the 'mad dash for last orders' less important.
Something I've noticed from the pubs in West London that I've been to that have later hours now is, that come 11pm the bar still empties out. I was out last thursday with some friends at the Lloyds bar in FBDY (Fulham Broadway Station), the bar was busy as ever at around 10pm with the bar at least 3 people deep with people waiting for drinks. Then come 11pm, the bar emptied out and the atmosphere changed to a more relaxed chilled-out night.
My belief is that people who are going clubbing will still leave pubs at around 11pm to get into the club while they can, freeing the place up for those who just want a quieter night out.
Tom summed up another benefit as: "If you get 100 drunk chavs and kick them onto the street at once, you are going to have a fight."
Maybe this won't last and people will just get drunk every night and we will descend further into Rome-style self-indulgance leading to the fall of western society. But at least we'll be able to drink a toast to it's downfall at midnight down at the local.

Lord of War

2005-11-14T11:01:00.000Z

I went to see a late showing of Lord of War last night and as it's the first new movie I've seen at the cinema in a while I thought I'd review it quickly.
The basic idea is Nicholas Cage plays Uri, an arms merchant/smuggler who makes his fortune selling arms to warring African and eastern European warzones in the 80's and 90's. He's damned good at it and manages to keep his entire family in the dark about the illegality of his business.
For a change, this is a Hollywood movie about guns/tanks/gunships that actually doesn't go too far. Sure there are a few scenes that are just artistic license, but for the most part the action is very believable and in some parts horrifying as the end credits claim that it is based on real events, though it does not go so far as to tell you how much has been changed from the truth.
Something I did like was, that while it was a serious theme, there was a bit of humour in it as well. No, not all out slap-stick, but character traits that got the odd chuckle from the scarcely populated cinema. One scene for this was when Uri leaves his cargo plain in the middle of nowhere in Africa. The motion is speeded up as the locals pick the plane apart for every nut, bolt and metal sheet. Resembling something from the Discovery Channel where insects pick apart a carcass. In 24 hours Uri is left with the skeleton of a large cargo plane with some local men rolling the last of the giant wheels down the road.
The message from the film is overwhelmingly about how the big nations are just as to blame for the death of a child in Africa from an AK47 than the small-to-big-time arms runners.

I do recommend this film as a decent watch and well worth the time and money spent going to a cinema.

Right, I'm off to get lunch. I really need to post more often, I'll try harder in future.

Remembrance Sunday

2005-11-13T17:08:00.000Z

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
 Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn,
 At the going down of the sun and in the morning
 We will remember them."

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Inexperienced on Flickr

Be There

2005-11-08T17:58:00.000Z

So after 6-7 weeks after we ordered it, our BeBox arrived allowing us to connect to the internet at up to 24meg. Well almost. We are all getting different speeds. I'm getting a good connection of a few megabytes per second, Charlie downstairs is getting barely above dial-up. So our network will need tweeking and maybe the service is just too new to get the full 24meg yet. However we do have the internet now and I can finally download the 160 emails that have been clogging up my college email server, not to mention updating OSX and other apps.
The ultimate winner has to be that we don't have to go into college to use the internet for free, which is a big bonus. I'm not a fan of a 30 minute walk just to check my email.

Grape and the Grain

2005-10-05T15:23:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd update, I have a splitting headache/hangover today after drinking far too much beer and wine last night. Still no internet in the house so I'm writing this in my department. Charlie had an angry phonecall to the people who are supposed to be getting us the internet, still no luck though.
Anyway, the house is comign together nicely, witholding rent from the landlord really gets him moving on fixing the essentials.

Well, not much else to say my head hurts from looking at the screen already. Lectures start tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to it, though there are some fresher events that I may tag along to. Any excuse for a pub-crawl. :-)

Moving In

2005-09-23T18:51:00.000+01:00

I'll be moving in to my house in London tomorrow, and I'm probably not going to be on the internet until Sunday at the earliest. Just in case you are wondering where I am.

Personal Google

2005-09-23T14:41:00.000+01:00

Fresh from the google labs (or at least this is the first time I've seen it), Google are going to make their homepage 'personalisable' if that is even a word...
You can view your GMail inbox, news and weather, stocks...and to top it all, you can add your own news/RSS feeds to the page. All you need is a GMail/Google account.
Clickety click here to have a look.

Sure this will mean that Google's* squeaky clean interface is now user corruptable, but still looks like a good way to get your 'must have' information on your favourite homepage.

* We'll have to start refering to the original Google as 'Google Search' or 'GSearch' as Google have expanded into so many different realms of the internet now. Like it or not, Google is the next emerging superpower, not China.

iPod Nano Spoof Video

2005-09-22T17:58:00.000+01:00

iPod nano spoof video.

See here for the original.

MSN Adverts

2005-09-22T13:36:00.000+01:00

Slots on Flickr

I think quality control at MSN Messenger is a bit relaxed at the moment. I just caught this unfortunate mistake today.

.Mac Updated

2005-09-20T19:10:00.000+01:00

Finally, Apple have updated .Mac. Most notible features are:
Backup 3:

At last Backup is a decent competitor on the data backup market. Backing up multiple macs to the same iDisk will be my favorite feature I think, really useful if you have a iBook/Powerbook and a desktop iMac/Powermac.
The interface feels more like a real app, rather than some kind of Applescript front-end. There are also a lot more 'default' backup items for quick backups of common data, such as mail messages, app settings, keychains etc.

And my other favourite has to be...

iDisk:
The iDisk now has a 1GB 'minimum' size, so anyone with the 250mb iDisk now has 1GB to play with. Which brings .Mac to a level with other off-site disk providers. Sure it's not exactly a dedicated server, but the level of integration with the OS is unparalleled in any other service.

These were the only things I was waiting for, I've not had a chance to look at this new 'Groups' thing. Still, .Mac is now better value for money, which makes me happier for spending the money on it.

Ubuntu Linux

2005-09-19T18:12:00.000+01:00

Ubuntu Linux on Flickr

Sweet, my free Ubuntu Linux discs arrived today. 20 CDs shipped for free, awesome. I ordered 10 PC versions and 10 Mac (PowerPC) versions, each come with the install and live CDs in them.
Why don't more companies do this with their distributions? It's a great way to get them out there into the users hands.
Not sure how long these puppies took to come, I ordered them a good few weeks ago, but again, they are free so I'll forgive their tardiness.

Hey, wait...

2005-09-17T22:36:00.000+01:00

I just saw a friend acting in a programme on BBC 1. One of those "Hey wait...isn't that..?" moments that makes you wait till the credits to find out if it really was them. Well it turns out it was him. Funny old world isn't it.

Blog Map

2005-09-17T16:00:00.000+01:00

Just found this on another blog. Pretty novel use for online map technology, you enter your website/blog address, then enter your street address or you Lat/Longitude (I got mine from streetmap.co.uk), then it shows where you are and a link to where other bloggers in the area are.

[edit]I did have my own blogmap here, but had to remove it as it was making the page load funny. I guess it isn't that brilliant after all.[/edit]

Not sure if I'd put this on my blog as a permanent feature, as it may draw from the 'keep it simple stupid' mantra I've been living by recently with regards technology.

Now Playing in iTunes: Politik by Coldplay

ROKR

2005-09-12T00:33:00.000+01:00

Is it just me, or do Apple seem to be forgetting that mobile phones have been playing MP3s for some time now?
My last two phones (Motorola MPx200 & Nokia 3260) have had full MP3 support, yet Apple are claiming this new ROKR ("Rocker") is some kind of revolution and brand spanking new innovation. Ahem...it's not.
Having a phone that syncs to iTunes is neat, but nothing to really go mad about.
When Apple design their own phone, then people will be impressed I'm sure. However the ROKR is horrible, I would have thought Apple and Motorola would come up with something like the RAZR V3 and promote that instead, which looks more like a modern phone.

This is better idea for getting music on your mobile. :-)

Vista Versioning

2005-09-11T23:30:00.000+01:00

Paul just gave me this link. The article describes the 7 versions of Windows Vista that will be out sometime in 2006. Yes, 7 versions.

Starter Edition
Home Basic Edition
Home Premium Edition
Professional Edition
Small Business Edition
Enterprise Edition
Ultimate Edition

Christ, that's just the client side, not the Server side.
Come on, Microsoft should be making it easier to get people who arn't that computer litterate to use computers. How do they expect that when people are stumped at the first hurdle of in-store questions of "Which of these pretty boxes do I need?".

Now Playing in iTunes: Never Let You Go by Third Eye Blind

A Weekend in London

2005-09-11T22:29:00.000+01:00

Just spent the weekend in London sorting some stuff out before I move in to the new house in a fortnight's time.
On the house, we've really got a good-un down there. Three storeys high and located on Lillie Road, Fulham near West Brompton tube station. It's a stones throw away from the Earls Court Exhibition Centre and 25 minute's walk from Imperial. There is plenty of stuff around in the area too. A number of pubs in the immediate area as well as take-aways, cafes and shops. North End Road isn't that far for places like Iceland, HMV and all that. Fulham Broadway is not much further for cinemas, restaurants and the like.
I went for a Vietnamese meal with a housemate and his father. My first try at this cuisine, though I found it very similar to Chinese food but with just a bit of Thai influence. Maybe that is just the British 'take' on Vietnamese food, as is the case normally. After which the few of us who were in the house went to South Kensington to the Zetland Arms pub. This decision was met with some argument as the pub was 20 minutes away and expensive. Yet they do a good pint of Abbot Ale in there. We ended up in Covent Garden with a bunch of Americans that Charlie's friend Tim had found. Events led to us splitting with them and we attempted to get a bus home. The bus driver was a bit of a dick-head and ended up stopping the bus at South Kensington to have an argument with a passenger. We walked the rest of the way home, grabbing a burger on the way. This is what I've been missing over summer, freedom and just having fun rather than being at home or work.

Anyway, I also managed to sneak into the Apple Store on Saturday. I ended up with one of these:

Yes that is a 2GigaByte black iPod nano. £128 with the Higher Education discount. It is without doubt the coolest iPod Apple have made to date, if not the coolest thing they have ever made. It's small (see my latest Flickr photos) for more size-comparisons. As a flash-memory-drive thing it is great, and good value. The last check I did on Ebuyer.com put 2GB USB drives at £100-120, so getting a stylish one that is also an MP3 player...what beats it?
The colour screen is fab and the nano has all the features of a full iPod photo it would seem. So it's a great replacement for the Mini and was the only logical way forward really.
iTunes 5 did well filling it up. As I have more than 2GB of music, iTunes found my favourite artists by total songs, play count and ratings etc*, then puts a few of their albums on it up to 2GB.
The only problems so far are that it scratches too damn easily. I put it in my pocket with my Nokia 6230 for 30 minutes, took it out and it appeared the nano had lost the fight with several light scratches on the screen and black bodywork. Shame, but I'll invest in some of these polish/scratch remover things.
Another thing is they don't give you the wall-plug power brick like they did on the older iPods. Instead you charge via USB 2.0. You can buy one from the Apple store, and existing ones do work (I charged my nano using my old 3G iPod's charger). Still, if this was all because they wanted to put it in a smaller box, then shame on you Apple.

In short:
It's small, it's good value, it looks amazing, it sounds amazing, and it's an iPod.
Go figure, it's great.

* At least I assume this is what it did

Now Playing in iTunes: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds by The Beatles

OK Apple

2005-09-07T19:50:00.000+01:00

iTunes 5 on Flickr

What have you done with iTunes, this isn't iTunes. You must be hiding it somewhere.
The new iTunes 5 interface is terrible. I can't believe they dropped the brushed steel look for this.

iPod nano

2005-09-07T19:22:00.000+01:00

The iPod nano is now on the Apple US and UK websites. It looks so cool. And tiny to boot. Costing £139 for the 2GB version and £179 for the 4GB version, no Higher Education discount as yet. However they do look good and may drop in price in a few months. By which time my 3rd Generation iPod will probably die.
One thing that puzzles me though, is why they release the iPod nano so soon after the iPod shuffle. I know that they have different purposes, but the iPod ranges have changed a lot this year, with the release of iPod Photos, then merging the lines. Now this? Will it be worth investing in an iPod now, or are they going to bring another one out as well?
I ask thee Apple, where is the sense?

Paul likes the black one, and I agree, it is the best of the two colours. So cool.

New iPod

2005-09-07T19:05:00.000+01:00

Photo 60 on Flickr

This is Apple's new Mini-Mini-iPod. It's colour and I think it uses solid-state flash memory instead of hard drives...I want one, nay, I need one.

Additional: Typical, the Apple store is out of action too.

Vista Requirements

2005-09-07T09:50:00.000+01:00

Nnamdi sent me this link today describing the requirements for Microsoft's upgrade to Windows XP, the underhyped Windows 'Vista'. More or less every low-to-mid-end computer system out now will be incompatible with it at some level, either with insufficient RAM, an incompatible graphics card or the fact that your spiffy new 20" TFT monitor will need to be binned if you plan to be watching movies on it in a few years time.

And people complained that Macs were expensive to buy. Thanks to Hollywood and Microsoft, Apple computers will only become more desireable, I predict anyway.

Flickrbooks

2005-09-06T22:55:00.000+01:00

These look really cool. QOOP will take all your Flickr photos, a specific set or photos from a certain date. Then they print them on good quality paper! I've heard from a friend of a friend that they are pretty good quality. Plus they ship international.
Perfect gifts maybe? Or just a good way to present a portfolio to potential clients. We'll see.

Wanted

2005-09-05T14:18:00.000+01:00

This thing is hilarious.

The Historian

2005-09-05T13:05:00.000+01:00

The Historian on Flickr

I don't think I ever reviewed 'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova, though I feel I should.
This is possibly the single best novel I have read all year if not this millenium. Kostova's writing style is different yet compelling. She keeps you reading and makes it very difficult to find a chapter to end your nights reading on. Her descriptive style of writing, which can sometimes be seen as dragging on a bit, allows you to picture every scene with great detail so that when she switches to the action again, you can perfectly envision the action taking place.
The story beneith the writing is fantastic. A whole new take on vampire myth set in our recent history. You find yourself in a story where you are convinced that vampire's don't exist and it's all just a coincidence, but never knowing untill the end if your doubts are founded or not. All the time you are being whisked around Cold-War Europe following the stories told from a father to his daughter.
I once read somewhere that this book was the Da Vinci Code for intelligent people, and I must say it's true. The story can draw similarities to the Da Vinci Code's "cryptic mystery" genre, but adds a whole new depth to the style of writing and the attention to historic truths as possible. Kostova has really done her research on this. I feel I've learned more about the Ottoman Empire and 15th Century Romania than I have anywhere else.
An excellent read, I recommend it to anybody who likes a good story.

In short:
It's got Vampires, violence, mystery, romance, trains and torture in it. All splashed with a bit of history.
What's not to love?

See more reviews here:
The Historian

Listen and Act

2005-09-02T21:52:00.000+01:00

Just listen to this interview with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. How the man's voice and attitude changes from anger to a deperate plea to his nation is heartbreaking.

So long...

2005-08-30T11:34:00.000+01:00

..and farewell to an old email address. I no longer use nonny@nonny.com as an email address, everything sent to it will be bounced now (with luck).
I got fed up of so much spam being sent to it. Just to let you know that you should use my college email to contact me now. Of course posting that here would only incur more spam, but anyone who would need it already knows it or will be able to get it off me by other means.

iMac G5 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mac

2005-08-28T23:05:00.000+01:00

Since it was requested by more than one person, I figure I'd review the iMac G5. Well, at least attempt to review it.
First impressions are normally key to most new relationships, and as much as we hate to admit, we always judge a book by it's cover. In this case it was the initial simplicity of the box that got me. A simple, elegant design, with the simple tag of "iMac G5 20" Widescreen Computer" as the Ronseal advert would say "It does exactly what it says on the tin." Well the iMac does a whole lot more than a tin of creosote, yet the principle of "You know it's good, we'll just tell you the size of the screen so you can drool a bit more".
Anyway, once the box is opened and the computer inside is removed, well before it is removed you suddenly realise that it is somewhat bigger than it looks in the website. However you soon realise that while it may be big for a monitor, it is certainly a lot smaller than a tower PC plus monitor, and you relax again.
Still, the first sign of how stress-free this computer is going to be comes when you set it up on your desk. You take one power cable, you plug it in the wall and into the back of the iMac. You then take the USB keyboard and plug the USB mouse into it, before plugging the keyboard into the iMac. That's it. No more than three wires. Plus, if you are like me and decided to get the bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse, one wire! Effortless.
So it's plugged in, you press the button on the back of the thing and 'Ta-da' it's booting up. Though, by the time you realise it's booting up, it's already finished and presenting you with a configuration wizard. A few clicks later and there I am, sitting in front of the most ingenious, polished and beautiful computer I've ever seen. Sure I'm used to OS X now that I've had the Powerbook for a year, but wow, it looks so different on the new upscaled screen. So much desktop space that my neck started to hurt just moving from one side of an application to another.
So I've been using the Powerbook for a year now, and have fine-tuned my list of must-have apps to install on the iMac. That is, I chose the six apps I use most, and added them to my Dock, seeing as the Mac comes with most them already. How nice of it.*
That's more or less it. What, you were expecting more? Well that's the point. The iMac is a fast, stable and feature-rich machine. Yet the whole experience is so effortless and simple that I barely notice most it. It just works, unlike PCs and other computers, you turn on the Mac, you do your work, you chat to your friends, you check your email and turn it off. No fatal errors, no driver problems, no blue screens (except for the default desktop background) and no re-installs. You can just get on with your online, offline and outdoor life and everything else just adds to the fantastic and stress-free experience that you can only get from a Macintosh.

But forget all that, did I mention it looks amazing? There it is, Macs are computers for shallow people.

* Speaking of which, I may soon have to update my 'Must have Mac Apps' list.

Major Major

2005-08-26T10:04:00.000+01:00

Conor's band Major Major have put up their first few songs on their website. I had problems playing the song because of Windows Media Player's licensing that Conor presumably forgot to disable.
I have converted it to MP3 and uploaded it to my iDisk so anyone should be able to play it.
To find it, click the here
and look for the file:
Major Major - Cheer Up Charlie.mp3

For a first time recording, it is very good in my opinion. I eagerly await their future releases!

Fixing mail-sending problems on Wanadoo Broadband

2005-08-24T22:39:00.000+01:00

For weeks now I've been having problems with sending email on any account and on any mail app while at home. I assumed it was something to do with Mail not being happy behind two firewalls and a router. Thus I was content to use webmail. Then it came to me, telnet the server and see if any errors are returned. For those lost already, 'telnet' is an app that lets you communicate directly with a server.
Anyway, I entered the following into the Mac's Terminal:

> telnet smtp.mac.com 25

(using smtp.mac.com as an example, you can try any SMTP server)

I got this:

Trying 17.250.248.48...
Connected to smtp.mac.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
554 Please check your SMTP server is set to smtp.wanadoo.co.uk. Further help is available at http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/......Long web address that messes up my lovely blog
Connection closed by foreign host.

Turns out you must use Wanadoo's SMTP server no matter what account you are using. Something I must have missed along the line.
Amazing what a little elbow grease will get you.

Anyway, the relevance to the world is this, if you have problems with sending email. Try this, if everything says 'OK' then I can't help, but once in a while a helpful error message lets you know what is wrong!

P.S. Apologies for the string of technical posts, but I just got my new iMac and am fiddling with a lot of settings. I'll have something more interesting to say eventually!

NewsFire

2005-08-24T19:08:00.000+01:00

NewsFire on Flickr

Well I've changed my RSS/Feed reader software. NewsFire is a really nice all-round app. It's fast, it's easy to use, and it looks great. It has lots of useful features, and no 'fancy-but-unnecessary' features that end up complicating the whole thing.
In my opinion, if you need an RSS reader, use this. It's only $18.99 (~£10.50)!

GMail and GTalk

2005-08-24T14:19:00.000+01:00

So the past year or so all you hear is 'GMail GMail GMail', and for a while you are interested, then you get bored of it. Then you find it laughable that the thing was ever a hype. Still you don't have an account.
Then Google releases Google Talk, and suddenly you 'need' a GMail account in order to test it. Cheeky.

Anyway, I have now tried GMail and Google Talk (GTalk). Here are my thoughts.

GMail: Well I can see what the fuss was about...to a degree. The interface is nice and clean. Fair dose of advertising, but then it is free and it is American, I let that pass. It is fast and full-featured, and 2.5GB of space is not a thing to be cast away.
To quote a miser: "I dread the day when a
hundred-thousand dollars two and a half gigabytes isn’t worth groveling for."
In short, I have two email accounts already. My University account seems to have no limit and has a powerful web interface (Exchange), and now my .Mac email which, while not the reason I get a .Mac account, I'm sure I'll have use for eventually.

GTalk: Google have once again muscled their way into a market with their now branded style of simplicity. GTalk is a Jabber based instant messenger client. That's it...nothing else, it is just an IM client. No Winks, Nudges, Pictures, Adverts...nothing. Just an IM. It is compatible with iChat AV over the Jabber network so it'll run natively on any newer Mac. Plus their are loads of free clients out there for all platforms.
Paul loves this, and I can see why. The big names in internet services love to cram in as many extras to their IM clients as possible, with the exception of such clients as MSN 5 for Mac and iChat AV. I for one like apps that have one purpose, and do it well. Just like Firefox has done for the browser world or Google have already done with their original search engine.
The drawbacks are, the only people I would ever chat to over GTalk are already on MSN Messenger. And sicne MSN 5 for Mac is a speedy and simple IM Client, why switch?

Still, while Google keep bringing out more services, it might not be long before they become a de facto monopoly in internet communications.

My advice is, well, there is no harm in trying either service. Myself, I'll be sticking to MSN and my current email accounts, but free alternatives are always welcome.

Now Playing Swallowed In The Sea from the album "X & Y" by Coldplay

iMac

2005-08-23T22:33:00.000+01:00

iMac

Woo, my iMac G5 finally turned up. It is possibly the coolest computer in the world. The screen (20") is huge. I'm not used to moving my head to find stuff on a screen. Check out this screenshot of Homeworld 2 to get a feel for the screen size and dimensions.
The Apple bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse go really well with it for keeping an uncluttered desktop. I do realise the desk is a bit of a mess at the moment, I swept an area clear to make room for the iMac.
I signed up for a .Mac account, which has made all my Address books, mail accounts and calendars sync up nicely. When Backup 3 is released soon I can get everything set up to back up stuff from both my iMac and PowerBook to the new swishy iDisk I got with .Mac.

New Blog

2005-08-23T13:06:00.000+01:00

Well I have been getting a lot of emails from Valuehost about renewing my domain hosting. I figured I wasn't using all the features that I was paying a lot for. So I've started cutting back on my web use to things I actually need to pay for. I figure I'll better spend my money on a .Mac account for backing up and synchronising all my data, and getting a free blog.
Thus I will be using Blogger for the time being instead of a privately hosted Movable Type blog (the old one). If I decide I want to pay for a better host in the future, it won't be a huge problem to do so. Ill have everything backed up, so I won't be losing anything really.

Anyway, the domain www.nonny.com will soon be redirecting to another site while I move everything around. My nonny.com email addresses will be checked for a while, but eventually I want to phase them out and stick with my Imperial College email and my .Mac email when I get it.
I will still keep my Flickr account as I have a year paid for and a year free to get though yet.

Anyway, more soon.