Planet SUCS

I’ve now had an iPhone 3G S for a little over a day and thought I’d share my first impressions.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the battery was pretty much fully charged out of the box and also how easy the keyboard is to type on even in portrait mode. Of course, practically, you are limited to single finger typing as you’re generally going to be holding the phone in your other hand. More on this later.

Once I went through the registration process and set up my 60 day MobileMe trial, I headed over to the App Store and started downloading. There were a few things I already knew I wanted - to complement applications already installed on my Mac Boo Pro - notably 1Password and Things. I also got the iTunes and Keynote remotes, iSSH and a free VNC client. As a Tetris addict, I also shelled out for the official version of that at £2.99.

At that point, having spent £16.05 on software, I decided to stop spending money and started looking for free apps that I would find useful.

I now have 63 icons on my home screens - so I’ve added 46 items, four of which are websites. There are a few that duplicate functionality - for example, I’m going to try out a few GPS tracking apps to find out which I prefer. There are still a few holes in my tool set though.

Medication tracking

I currently use On Time Rx on my Palm Zire 72 to keep track of all my medication and there’s a lot of it to keep track of. It’s a well-thought-out programme, which does nearly everything I need from it. Obviously, I won’t want to carry both my Palm and my iPhone around with me all the time, so I need to find a suitable replacement app on the iPhone.

One of the main reasons I didn’t want to get the previous incarnations of the iPhone was because of their inability to schedule notifications when the app concerned wasn’t running.

With Push Notifications, that problem has been solved, but it’s too early to expect a niche app to take advantage of them. Even so, there are already a few medication tracking apps out there, albeit without Push Notifications. I’m currently using a free app called iPills, which seems to be the best of a bad bunch. It tries to be clever with a graphical pillbox, with trays to show which tablets you’ve taken and which you’re yet to take. Unfortunately, it falls short in a number of respects. I take tablets at five different times during the day - 9am, 11am, 3pm, 8pm and 11pm. However, iPills only provides four trays - “Any Time”, Morning, Afternoon and Evening so it’s less than ideal. With seven different tablet types in the Morning and Evening trays, it’s quite fiddly to select the right tablet to mark as having been taken. iPills provides no system to provide alarms to remind you to take medication. They suggest you create iCal events to do that instead.

As well as reminding me when to take my tablets, On Time Rx also provides detailed logging and stock control. iPills does logging of a sort, but doesn’t record the time at which you took the tablets, which makes it worthless. There is no stock control system, so you have no idea how many days’ worth of tablets you have left. I get my tablets prescribed at approximately three-monthly intervals so frequently have several hundred tablets of a given type in stock.

I may well end up writing my own iPhone app to do medication tracking properly.

iPhone shortcomings

While iPhone OS 3.0 clearly brings a great number of improvements and some new features and the 3G S is certainly very nice hardware, there are still a number of areas where Apple could do better.

The biggest of the shortcomings from my point of view is the lack of support for Bluetooth keyboards. Both my Palm Zire 72 and Nokia 770 support Bluetooth keyboards (although admittedly the Palm has been rather temperamental at times) and this makes them vastly more useful. On a number of occasions, I have used my 770 to take notes at meetings. Fundamentally, however clever you get with onscreen or pull-out keyboards on mobile devices - and the keyboard on the iPhone is nice - they’re always going to be too small to type on properly. My folding Bluetooth keyboard (a Dell badged Think Outside Keyboard) provides almost full-sized keys and is easy to type on. I’m probably slightly slower typing on it than I would be on a normal keyboard, but there’s not a lot in it. Being able to use it with my iPhone would effectively turn it into the smallest NetBook going!

As @mezzoblue pointed out on Twitter this evening, the current iPhone is roughly the same spec as a laptop was in 2000 - 256MB RAM, 30GB hard drive and a 600MHz processor. Add a keyboard to it and it becomes as useful as that laptop. It’s hard to see why Apple would want to deny people this.

Ok, I've taken the title of this blog from someone else's post but I agree with the sentiments it puts out.

Recently Twitter have made a "Small Settings Change" to the way twitter works.
This "Small Settings Change" mentioned on the twitter blog isn't optional, its been forced down your throat and you have to swallow the fundemental changes they have made to the way twitter functions by removing the partial discussions aka replies between people, you can still see mentions IE @usernames in the middle of text, but following random people your friends know through reading conversations and thus extending the social web seems to be a thing of the past.

While I may not know the technical reasons for the changes its already started a huge wave to move across the twitterverse, various Retweets (RTs) and hashtags (#fixreplies) are already in circulation to make the point of how they disagree with the new changes to the way twitter functions.

[url="http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/11465"@Scotthepburn put it best methinks - "OMG! I'm in a Bar and can only hear conversations between people i know! Its so quiet! This place is lame...I'm leaving."[/url]

This fundementally prevents people taking part in conversations that spark their interest between their friends and "new" friends they could find through further conversations. Maybe its just me but I don't like what they are doing

 

Anywhoo, I've got an exam tomorrow to finish preparing for, catch you all later

Its been a wierd week.

Positives:
*Going to go and watch Star Trek tonight at Midnight
*Handed in Reports
*Laptop should be back from staples tomorrow :D

Negatives
*Lack of Sleep

Then there is another point I'm not quite sure on.

I formally handed away my role as a forum moderator over at Petroglyph Games.

While I'm sure many of you will go "Who the hell cares?" let me put this out in simple english.

When I was a kid, I was always the loner, the guy on the outside. I found an escape from this through gaming, and when i was 17 i stumbled into online gaming forums. The main hub i found was over at LucasArts Forums. At this forum I must admit i was a bit of a troll. I had far too much enthusiasm and quite a few times was told to basically shut up, some things never change ;)

From Lucasarts forums i found other sites, branched out. I became active running a Fansite for Petroglyph Games, The Petroglyph Fans Forums. From there i matured a bit, was still a little bit eccentric, again nothing changes, and met guys who made the original Command and Conquer titles.

I've met a lot of people along the way, but with the way i see the company going I'm afraid I have better things to do than see work i've done over the years just wiped away.

Its been a blast but now it means i can focus more on Uni and other things like the redevelopment of EAWfiles and my personal website.

 

Oh yeah, expect more blog posts too ^^

Right, this post is a little different from my usual ramblings about, well myself mostly. Thanks to Frosty’s tweet I thought it would be a good idea to go through my iPhone and write down what I think about them, maybe introduce people to a few apps they might not have downloaded yet. So here we go! Feel free to leave comments about your own thoughts about any of these apps or any app that I have missed out.

Edit: Try loading http://www.tobeon.co.uk/wordpress on your iPhone!

Tweetie - £1.79
Tweetie is probably my most used app, although there are free twitter app alternatives out there I think if you are a twitter user/addict then it is definitely worth shelling out the squid or two it costs to buy this app.

The Interface/Appearance is superb, there are a few themes that you can choose from and the tweets themselves are presented nice and clearly, one big thing regarding the interface is that as Tweetie supports @reply conversations you can click on a tweet and then follow through that conversation forward or back (which is very useful).

Tweetie allows you to search for tweets by keywords or by your current location and it lets you load the current twitter trends. It integrates twitpic, yFrog and Mobypicture as well as Instapaper (which I use on pretty much every link that gets tweeted by my friends!) It also integrates with tweetshrink and tweetlonger plus automatically shortens urls using bit.ly for those times where you are having trouble with the 140 character limit.

It supports multiple users (which is great for me as I have my own tobeon twitter account and my urbandead twitter account tobeonUD). It also provides @reply threads, it

Finally one of the features which I love to bits is the fact that it saves your tweet as a draft, so if you hit the home button and then come back your tweet is still there ready for you to post.

So umm yeah, go get Tweetie now! :p

Daily Mugshot - Free
Straight forward app that lets you take your mugshot and upload it to your dailymugshot.com account. It can be a bit flaky at times but overall it pretty good and because its so damn easy I have managed to keep up (mostly) with my dailymug shots (linky)

ShopShop - Free
This app has been very useful for me, as I will inevitably end up losing a piece of scrap paper. This app let you add items to your shopping list and mark them off when you have bought them. It saves whatever items you put on to make it easier next time (so rather than having to type out the item name all over again you will prob find it after typing the first couple of letters). It is also helpful because you can add things as you think of them wherever you are, again very good for me who has a memory like a sieve.

Alcohol Aware - Free (tho there is a pay version)
It is quite a nice idea, this app lets you track your drinking habits and gives you some stats (how many units have you drunk in the last week? last month? last year? etc) it lets you add custom drinks with photos or you can just use the default ones (that’s what I do). Unfortunately once you get going and start filling it up it does slow down to a crawl and has a habit of crashing. As I have been using it for at least 10 months now I don’t think i’m going to stop even if it gets slower and slower and slower… been using it too long to quit now! Oh one down side, the name doesn’t fit on the homescreen grrrr

Wikipanion - free (although there is a pay version for £2.99)
I think this xkcd sums this app up pretty well. (Although it was talking about the kindle) simply put its a nice interface for wikipedia. Highly recommended

Cha-Ching - £1.79
I cannot praise this app enough, since it came out a month or so ago I have been using it to manage my money, it has been so ridiculously useful I cannot put it into words! Not only is it simply useful to help mange your budget, but it can come in handy in other ways. For example earlier in the month someone manged to clone my creditcard! OH NO! Of course I had to go through all the usual banking hoops to verifiy that i was who I am, how much did you spend on this date? when was the last time you put money into your account etc etc all things which I would never be able to remember, but with a quick look through cha-ching all the details were there! Oh and in case you are thinking “ummm details of your spending on your phone, that seems dodgy” you can password protect it (which I do). It also syncs to Cha-Ching for Mac although I found once I got the iphone app I hardly ever use the mac version any more. Overall this app is the number one most useful app I have or expect to ever have on my iPhone.

BBC News
Not an app just a link, but its pretty cool to be able to quickly load up the latest news in a nice 2min video summary

Shovel - Free
Digg, thats pretty much it! It has a habbit of crashing every now and again but otherwise it does its job well. Shame you cant actually digg things (but that is a restriction on the API its not a bug in the app). Shame it doesn’t integrate with instapaper, oh well!

Facebook - Free
I use this app much more than I actually use the facebook website, it is very stable and has a pretty damn good interface (other than a few nitty gritty things, like if you click on “soandso has commented on your status” rather than seeing the comment you get linked to soandso’s profile). It’s free so if you are a facebook user you should download it. Oh quick rundown of the features I suppose! It lets you see your news feed, your status feed and your notifications, you can check your inbox load your profile or other peoples profiles, check your friends list, view photos and it is integrated with the facebook chat service. You can post comments, wallposts, status updates the lot. It is basically facebook on your iPhone simple as.

Wordpress - Free
I posted the previous post using this app, it works pretty well although can be a bit slow, not many features other than to edit/post pages/posts/comments. but thats all you need really!

1Password - Free
Shhhh keep your passwords safe! I use 1Password to do this, I generate a nice big fat random password for pretty much every site I use, much better than using the same few passwords for pretty much every site. you still have a single point of failure but overall it is a lot better (I trust 1Password much more than that dodgy forum or the not-entirly-secure social networking site etc etc) . It syncs with 1Password on your mac so you can add passwords manually through the app or via the mac software. Simple straightforward interface, shame it can’t autocomplete your passwords for you but never-mind! The app is free, but the software for your mac isn’t.

Mobile Allowance - £0.59
Check up on your O2 balance, this app shows how much money you have spent, how many minuets and texts you have used as well as how many are left. PRetty straight forward it, it does it’s job well and I think its worth the price of the app just so you can keep an eye on your spend. If you are a heavy user it will most likely save you money as you will be less likely to go over your limit if you know how close you are too it!

Instapaper - Free (but there is a pay version for £5.99)
Wooo! Instapaper! This app is the bee’s knees, load up all those articles that you have marked “read later” it downloads them to your iPhone so that you can read them later even if you don’t have signal. The free version is must for any instapaper user, and I am planning (as soon as Chaching tells me I have enough money) to buy the full version, not so much for the features but to support the developer as he has made a service which I use all-the-bloody time :D

Movies - Free
Loads up your local cinema and tells you what’s playing when, there are other features such as boxoffice lists, reviews, movie release dates yadda yadda yadda but to be honest all I am interested in (and I imagine most people who download this app are interested in) is in using it to check the local cinema times. Highly recommended as you will never know when you will have that sudden urge for a cinema trip :D

Trains - ???
This app has saved my bacon more than once, it displays the next x trains to arrive/depart from your station of choice. This includes when the train is due to arrive/leave and what the actual predicated time of arrival/departure is. This is uber useful, a quick check can tell you the train you are meeting your significant other on is going to arrive early (so you better hurry up and get over to the train station pretty sharpish!) or if a train you are planning to catch is running late so you don’t need to panic rush to the station. It is a shame that you cannot lookup specific date/times but the app makes no claim to be able to do this. Definitely a useful app to keep on your iPhone, you never know when it come in handy :-)

Update: I can’t actually find it on the app store! Oh no! If anyone else can find this app then please post the link (and the cost)

FixMyStreet - Free
FixMyStreet is a service by MySociety (check out www.fixmystreet.com and www.mysociety.org), it let’s you report local problems to your local council quickly and easily. The App is very straight forward, make sure your contact details are set up (so you can receive a reply) take a photo of the problem you have found (pot hole, graffiti, fly tipping etc) write the description and press send. Then with the power of the inter-webs your geocoded problem report gets sent to the council. Although this (hopefully) is an app you wont have to use very much, it is very good to have in your iPhone arsenal so next time you see something that makes you grumble about how “the government man” should sort it out but never does, well send in a report because they can’t fix it if they don’t know about it.

Planets - Free
A brill little astronomy app that points out exactly what everyone wants to find in the sky… the planets! It gives you a little N E S W Map with the planets dotted in their appropriate places, it uses the iPhone’s GPS (obviously) and also gives you a nice screen which displays what time each planet is viewable and if it is viewable with the naked eye or if you need a telescope to spot it. So next time you are aimlessly looking up at the sky and wonder if that bright star is really a star well you can whip out your iphone to find out if you are looking at Sirius or Saturn.

Last.fm - Free
Exactly what you would expect from a Last.fm app, choose a radio, (personal, friend, tag, artist etc) and let it play! This app has had lots of bad reviews but that it is only because lots of people download this app thinking it is something that its not, last.fm is a service that tracks your listening habits and gearing a “radio” station to what you should like, it is not something that will let you choose an artist and listen to their music for free, it will however generate a station around an artist so you can discover new music that you might just like! This app has a nice easy to use interface and has been very stable with me. Highly recommend to any last.fm user.

Note: this will scrobble what you are listening to on the app, obviously as you cannot run background apps it will not help you scrobble tracks that you listen to on the normal ipod mode, however the Mac app will (once you sync your iphone it pops up asking if you want to scrobble all the tracks you have listened too on your iphone since the last time it synced). Just make sure that you have last.fm (mac app) running when you sync.

Geocaching - £5.99
This is the most expensive app that I have downloaded but I don’t regret it for a second! It is a must have for any geocacher (with an iPhone). It does everything you would expect a geocaching app to do, locate caches near you and guide you to them, let you read logs and hints (if you choose too) allow you to log your own finds, see all the caches with an inbuilt map find the objective of travelbugs and see what travebugs & geocoins are in a cache. It even lets you save caches for offline viewing (for those low-signal areas!). It has been a little unstable in the past but the most recent update seems to have fixed the teething problems it was having. As I said above if you are a geocacher this really is a must have app, you may not be used to paying so much for an iPhone app but it is just so damn useful, as you have it wherever you go you can check for nearby caches even if you were not planning on doing any geocaching (you might be surprised to find one within arms reach!).

Shazam - Free
I am sure we all know what Shazam is, a cool little app that lets you record a sample of music and will tell you what you are listening too. This is an app you probably wont be using all the time but if you dont have it (or had it and deleted it) you will regret it when that one song comes on that you cant quite place and it will just keep bugging and bugging and bugging you till you go insane!!!!

It keeps a record of the songs you have “tagged” so if your memory is like a sieve (like me) then you can look back to see what that song was that you heard, forgot, tagged, then forgot again.

Dactyl - Free (There is a Dactyl 2 for £1.79)
Ah Ha! We are on to the games now, although I have more games than I am listing here, these are the ones that have stood the test of time and I don’t think I will be deleting. First is Dactyl, simple little game where you have to try to defuse the bombs as quickly as you can (bombs turn red, you touch them to turn them black again) very quick and addictive game.

Mines Classic Free - Free (duh)
Some people play solitaire, others play freecell.. I play minesweeper. I have tried a few min sweeper apps in the past, but all were too gimicky. They put silly graphics or weird game modes in when all I wanted was normal minesweeper. This app is exactly that, it is the minesweeper that we all know and love. Use beginner mode if you want to waste a minute (or in my case 24 seconds) or play intermediate if you want to waste a bit more! This game is staying on my iPhone forever :D

PAC-MAN Lite - Free
Allthough this app is a little annoying, it has adverts and asks you if you want to buy the full version over and over and over etc etc etc I can grit my teeth and bare it because hell its pacman! Every now and again we all get the craving for a bit of old school retro arcade…. fun, plus whenever I play I get to go “wagwagawagawaga” and “woooowooowooowoo”. I recommend using the swipe controls where you swipe up down left right to change pacman’s direction. Sadly it doesn’t keep track of your highscore, but never mind as that means every time you play YOU WIN!

Texas Hold’em - £2.99
This is an Apple in-house game and it is pretty damn cool, it costs less than 3p per MB now thats a good deal. This is (in case you didn’t guess) a poker app, the single player is damn good at you get to progress through different Texas Hold’em games in different locations, each one with higher stakes, sadly I haven’t had much luck getting past the first few levels. One cool thing about this app is that if you hold the iPhone sideways you play like your usual virtual poker game with a top down view of the table however if you hold the iPhone virtually you get a realistic view of the game including seeing each of your opponents as they play, this is a good idea as each of the AI players have their own personalities and their own tells to watch out for. The controls are brilliant, you can tap the table to check or chuck your cards away to fold and even drag all your chips into the pot to go “all in”. This app even features a multiplayer mode but it only works with people on the same network (wifi) as you and to be honest if you are that close to each other why not play poker for real?

This is easily the best looking mobile poker game I have seen, but because of all them uber graphical pixelz it does sap the battery pretty quick, but that’s a minor issue overall it is a superb game to own for any poker fan!

Crash Landing - Free
Very simple game that was original a test of the iPhone physics shaky ummm stuff ^_^O It is very very basic, all you have to do is try to land the spaceship on the landing pad. You tilt the iphone forward/backwards to control the main engine and then tilt it left/right to control the directional thrusters. Be careful though there is a very limited about of fuel! It is a surprisingly tricky game but quite satisfying once you master it. I generally keep it around for a quick distraction every now and again or to give to people to play if they haven’t used an iPhone before (which I suppose now is few and far between).

Dizzy Bee - £1.79
Bzzz Bzzz pop! Aaah I love this game so very very much. The sound effects and nice cartoon graphics make this game what it is (the fun & interesting gameplay helps too!). The premise of this game is simple enough, just tilt your iphone to control the bee (he basically falls down!) and try to collect all of your fruit friends and take them to saftey before they get squished by the nasty baddies. While your doing this you can try to collect floating flowers for extra points (and we know what points mean!).

Update: Oooh there is a Dizzy Bee 2!

Labyrinth LE - Free (There is a pay version for £1.79)
Now this is probably the first app I used to show to people when showing off my new shiny iPhone. This is a virtual version of the old labyrtinth game you used to play with a little marble on a wooden maze (trying to get to the end without falling through any of the holes). You play it as you expect, tilting the iPhone to guide the marble through the maze, with the brilliant sounds and 3D walls this game is always fun and always gets a little gasp out of people who haven’t been introduced to the joy of the iPhone before. There is a paid version and although I wouldn’t want to discourage you from giving money to an obviously well deserving developer I do think that the light edition has plenty enough mazes in it to keep you satisfied as a fun little time waster.

Wurdle - £1.19
This game actually prompted Leanne to buy and iPhone. This a a straight forward word search game very similar to Boggle. You get a bunch of shuffled letters and you drag your finger across them to try to find as many words as you can within the time limit. If you get totally stuck then you can give your iPhone a shake to reshuffle the letters (but you will take a score hit!). It is very well designed and is customizable, allowing you to alter the look of the letter tiles and background colour as well as setting your game settings just as you like it. Of course it also keeps track of your best scores on all the different game modes and the longest words found etc etc etc. Once you finish a game you can see a list of all the possible words (Although sometimes thats a bit like a kick in the teeth when you see how many you missed!).

Flight Control
Even Mal Renoylds Caleb Captain Hammer Some guy in Halo 3 that I might have ran over with a warthog (sorry) Nathan Fillion loves this game so who are you to argue?

This game hits the Simple to learn, Difficult to master nail on the head. You simply have to guide planes (and the odd helicopter) to their landing strip/pad. Nice and easy to begin with but before you know it your trying to juggle a “fuckload” of planes & helicopters all wanting to land, it’s not long before you make a mistake and CRASH. Oopps! Oh well better luck next time.

The speeds of the aircraft differ depending on type (big red = very fast, small red = fast, small yellow = slow, small blue= painfully slow). It is really the brill controls that make this game so addictive, all you need to do is drag a flightplan out from the aircraft to the runway/pad. it’s easy to make quickly redo a path to try to avoid a collision however when you have lots in the air it gets very tricky very quickly.

In the newest update you also get an online profile that tracks your score as and shows how you compare to those around you (yay for gps) and it even joins in on the twittering craze (which of course I am a part of) and lets you link your profile to twitter so if you beat your highscore it will automatically tweet it for you.

————

Whew! So that’s all the apps on my phone that I thought were worth a few good words (or nearly four thousand words!) I was going to add screenshots and icons etc but if I don’t post this soon Frosty may hunt me down and kill me so here you go!

These days, my primary computer is a 15” MacBook Pro. It’s an amazing machine, but sometimes those 15” can be a little unwieldy (yes, that’s what she said).

Apple used to make a small, very portable laptop: the 12” PowerBook, which was unfortunately retired during Apple’s switch to the Intel platform. However, the transition did introduce the potential ability to run Mac OS X natively on non-Apple hardware. Whilst Apple don’t (currently) make their own netbook¹, a big community has sprung up around running OS X on non-Apple netbooks. I should note from the outset that installing OS X on non-Apple hardware potentially violates the OS X EULA. If you’re going to do this, in the very least ensure you own a legal copy of Mac OS X Leopard.

The current netbook au jour is the Dell Mini 9. BoingBoing’s compatibility list shows it as the only device that currently supports every piece of hardware² under OS X. And it does.

I bit the bullet and bought a Mini 9, which finally turned up a couple of weeks ago. It has a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM (user upgradable to 2GB), and a 16GB SSD drive. I ordered it with Ubuntu pre-installed - and let me tell you, this thing is fast. Ubuntu boot time was a respectable 30 seconds, and the user interface felt extremely responsive. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen OpenOffice load so quickly. I’ll go as far as to say that out-of-the-box, this was the best experience I’ve ever had with Ubuntu - things just worked, which has rarely been the case for me with desktop Linux before. I put an SD card in the Mini 9’s SD reader, and it instantly mounted on the desktop; I plugged an external monitor into the Mini 9’s VGA port, opened the display settings, and was able to rearrange the monitors / change resolutions / etc; Flash in the browser worked without needing to install or fiddle with anything; heck, even wifi just worked. If you’re not comfortable with sticking OS X on there, the Dell Mini 9 running Ubuntu is a lovely machine.

So, back to OS X. Aside from a few minor niggles due to my hardware setup³, installation was a breeze. This is one of the things that makes the Mini 9 such an attractive proposition as a Mac netbook - all of the wrinkles have been ironed out of the process by the clever group of people over at http://mydellmini.com. I won’t re-iterate the process in full here (I followed this guide), but in short it’s a case of:

1. Create a DellMiniBoot boot disc (either CD or USB) and boot from it.
2. Swap the disc with the Leopard installation DVD and tell DellMiniBoot to boot it.
3. Install Leopard.
4. When prompted to reboot, do so using the DellMiniBoot disc, and tell it to boot from your hard drive.
5. Once you’re in OS X, run the DellEFI application to install the fixes that’ll make sure everything works ok.
6. If you want two-finger trackpad scrolling, you’ll want to install these trackpad drivers.

It’s fairly straightforward, as long as you follow the guide. I had the odd problem crop up now and again, but a quick Googling saw me through - in particular, when rebooting after the installation, I had to boot into safe mode (using the -f flag) so I could get all the way through the post-install setup process. Other than that, it was pretty smooth.

The Mini 9 runs OS X beautifully. I’ve been using the Mini 9 a lot over the last 2 weeks and haven’t run into anything that hasn’t worked.

Things I like

• Tiny and light.
  This is überportable. I’ve been chucking it into my work bag and taking it to the office with me every day. By comparison, I’ve taken my MBP in twice in the last 6 months because it’s just a hassle.
• Silent.
• Fast. Very fast.
  Fullscreen HD flash video gets a bit stuttery, but hey, this is a netbook. Streaming 480p H.264 movie trailers works brilliantly, however.
• Convenient.
  For small tasks around the house, taking to work, to a friend’s house, going home for the weekend, surfing in bed, and assorted other scenarios, this is a brilliant solution.
• A built-in SD card reader.
  Works flawlessly, and is extremely useful.
• Cute.
  C’mon, look at it! It’s tiny!

Issues

• Somewhat cramped keyboard on the right side.
  For some reason, our UK keyboard seems to have had an extra key squeezed into each row, meaning that the keyboard is a little more cramped than the US one. It took a little adjusting to - the tiny right-hand shift key, which is the one I usually use, was quite easy to miss at first.
• Screen size is a limitation in some situations, although for what I’m using it for it’s generally fine.
• I’ve had one occasion where the mouse didn’t work properly after waking, and one or two other assorted issues where it hasn’t-quite-woken-up-properly.
• Very very occasionally, it doesn’t boot (the spinner doesn’t appear on the boot screen). If that’s the case, just turn it off and on again.

One final point it may be worth making is that this is not a replacement for a full-size Mac. This is a netbook, and a compliment to an existing machine - don’t go thinking you’ll get the same experience you will from a full-sized MacBook, because you won’t. Rumours are that Apple may be creating their own netbook-like device to be introduced later this year. Time will tell whether this is true or not - I’d be very much interested to see Apple’s take on the whole netbook thing.

I was going to finish off by filming a walkthrough showing how well things run on the Mini 9, but Mr Andy Ihnatko does a sterling job of it himself:

Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh Test Drive from Andy Ihnatko on Vimeo

Over the last week or so, I’ve migrated this blog from WordPress to Jekyll - a ‘blog-aware static site generator’, written in Ruby.

Jekyll takes a directory of posts and layouts, runs them through various converters, and produces a static website. Posts are stored in plain text files written in Markdown which makes it super easy to write HTML documents without the need to actually write HTML (and thus lose your flow). For example, making bold text is as simple as **this**. When Jekyll runs, it takes these posts, converts them into HTML, inserts them into an HTML layout, and produces a static HTML file. It’s really rather neat. If you want to see an example of how the back-end’s organized, check out this example of a Jekyll website on GitHub.

The main advantages, for me, are:

• It’s much faster than a PHP/MySQL based website like WordPress. You can’t really get much quicker than plain ol’ HTML files. There’s nothing for the server to process other than serving up the files the user requests.
• Posts are all stored in plain text files, which means they’re instantly accessible and usable anywhere I may want them - I don’t need to worry about having to export/convert posts from a database. I can also write my blog entries in my favourite text editor, TextMate - which is good, as I really don’t like blogging via a tiny textarea on a web page.
• Because the posts are in plain text, I can very easily version control my entire site; everything’s kept neatly in a Git repository and I can roll back to any previous version of any file/post if I need to.
• It’s ultimately a much simpler, smaller solution than using WordPress: I know exactly what’s in every file that makes up my website (and there really aren’t that many of them). WordPress is a much more complex system, and I really don’t know what half of it does or how it works.
• It makes blogging fun again!

One downside of static files is that this means that the site can’t run its own commenting system. However, I’m using Disqus (a javascript solution) which seems ok. It’s a little more intrusive than I’d like, but I can live with it.

Using Git allows me to automate the regeneration of my site when I write a new entry. I write the post in a local clone of the site’s Git repo (or, on my server if necessary), commit my changes, and push them to the master repository on the server. When the server receives the changes, a handy little Git post-update hook that I wrote pulls the changes into the ‘live’ repository, and runs Jekyll to regenerate the site. It’s rather cool.

Now to work on:

A. Writing more.
B. Writing better.

Well as Jess is reading till the end of the chapter of her book (Company of Liars) I thought it would be a good chance for me to get started on a blog post and as both Nick & Kat have both recently posted blogs from their respective phones I thought that I should jump on that band waggon (plus my macbook is in the living room and I am already in my pajamas).

So as you may (or may not) have noticed since I failed the Blog-A-Week challenge I have been quite lax in my posting (in that I haven’t posted at all!) Which is pretty bad considering I said I would try to continue to post at least once a week even though I lost the challenge. Oh well I’m postig now and I guess that’s all that matters :-)

So what has happens this month? Well we bought a dryer

*******************
well today is annother day, (I stopped typing and went to sleep sorry!) I may as well Continue on anyways:

So yes we bought a dryer and have now finally cleared the backlog of clothes, bed sheets towels etc that was building up as with only one radiator to dry things on we could keep up! So now the flat is looking a bit tidyer which is definitely a good thing. Did we so anything over the last month that was more interesting than buying a dryer? Well we set a date & place for our wedding! 6th November 2010 at Canada Lodge (keep that date free!) that’s exciting isn’t it :-) chek out the photos of the lodge ok their website it’s v pretty at night with the lights lighting up the lake. So the first big wedding hurdle has been umm jumped? Passed? Completed? Whatever the correct terminology is :-)

More recently (as in today) I went geocaching with rich. We managed I get 4 in mumbles, it was a brill trip we go to climb up hills and carefully traverse tretrious(sp?) cliff paths and see some fantastic views. Sadly looking back at the geocache map it turned out there was annother cache right by us that we didn’t notice! We will have to go back and get it annother weekend.

Check out photos on flickr

Well as the clocks go forward in about 1/2 hour it’s probably best that I go to sleep!

(thank you iPhone for being kind enough to let me post this post with you!)

On Friday, one of my favourite shows ended, Battlestar Galactica.  I wanted to write something about it, as there has never before been a show that has made me feel such a strong connection to the characters, the morals or the story that was told. So before reading, I warn you that there are spoilers throughout, and that this will only interest those of you who have seen the show, and the finale. EDIT: To alleviate confusion: May I also add that this isn’t indepth analysis of the finale, just about the show and how it made me feel, and how I felt throughout watching it, there were things I liked, and thats mainly what I talk about here, in another post I will analyse it more in depth, and talk about the things I didn’t like, or the points I mention bellow in more depth. However, there is a nice discussion going on in the comments section!

There’s only one word I can use to describe the finale, Incredible.  I can’t think of anything better to say, or that sums it up more succinctly.  Everything I could have hoped for to be answered was, and in my opinion, in the best way it possibly could have been.  It seems silly to be talking about a television show in such a deep and affectionate way, but thats how it made me feel.  Every episode, even the worst of them, had characters I loved, and cared about.  I can recall many occasions where I was sat on the edge of my seat, completely taken aback or on edge about who was killed, or who may be killed off at any moment.  No other show has come close to making me feel that rush of anxiety and fear that I felt whilst watching the season 4 two parter, The Oath and Blood on the Scales (both about a mutiny carried out by a key character, who has always been on the “right” side).  I watched the second episode with James and Hannah, and the three of us couldn’t stop “whooping” and cheering, and hiding behind things, wondering if anything may go wrong, and if Adama would be killed.  Roslyn’s speech in that episode, where she refuses to break down and give in still gives me chills, and was one of the most amazing moments I have ever seen, on stage or screen:

“NO! Not now… not ever. Do you hear me! I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eye teeth to end you. I swear it! I’m coming for all of you!“

The delivery was amazing, and heart felt.  It was just…great.  And that’s the other side to the show, where as I said, I would always worry about who may be killed next, I also longed for the moments of happiness, and cherished the moments where the characters got together, and when the happy times flourished.  The show was rife with dry wit and humour, deep characters, heart felt sentiments, morals, real life situations, real life connections and so on… Everything about the characters was, for want of a better word, real.  There’s so much to discuss, the music, the favourite scenes, the action, the special effects, etc, and that’s for another entry.

In this entry I just wanted to acknowledge how fraking awesome the show was and to emphasise how much I am going to miss it.

So onto the finale, again, one of the best finale’s I have ever seen, another “on the edge of your seat” moments, and just incredible.  All the clues paid off, all the hinted at iota’s of information expanded and explained, or left so open to interpretation that it didn’t feel like a cheat, or that the writers had no idea what to do, instead it felt that that was precisely the only way it could have happened.  For example, Kara’s disappearance, and the Head Baltar/Six revelations, I wasn’t asking for any more detail than was given, and am happy to apply my own interpretation to it, the show didn’t force you to accept they were angels, or demons, related to God as we know it, but to assume that they were working for some higher power, brilliant.

The action scenes were immense, the humour brilliant, the story incredible and the characters, fantastic, and of course, heartbreaking.  I, along with some others I watched with, couldn’t hold back the tears when Roslyn finally passed away.  ”For crying out loud, it’s a television show!” I was shouting in my head, but it made no difference, so strongly I felt about those characters that I found those moments of her and Adama together until the end amazing, and so totally heartbreaking that I almost didn’t want to watch.

I can’t get over how it ended, and it stayed with me for the last few days.  I finally saw it on Monday night, and found it so difficult to take everything in, my brain just couldn’t process it all.  It all tied in so well, the opera house payoff, the Kara Thrace payoff, and the final tie in with mitochondrial eve, brilliant.

I can’t help but feel a bit sad though, and wish there was another future glance, even 10 years, or 20 in the future, showing everyone gathered at Adama’s cabin, which he will have named Laura, eating food, catching up, just to know that at least they all saw each other again once.  I really hope the separate ways they went weren’t for good, and hold onto that hope that they saw each other again, Lee, Saul and Adama at least.  Again, it’s only a TV show, but I can’t express how much I feel for these characters, or convey how awesome the show was.

I think that’s enough for now, I will probably post a more constructive, and specific blog about the finale after I rewatch it.

For now, good bye Old Girl!

I got a package from Dabs today:

After reading Andy’s Post, and being in the writing mood, as seen in my previous entry I decided to have a go at my own Drabble :)  (For those who don’t know, a Drabble is a story consisting of EXACTLY 100 words, was fun trying )

There was time, there had to be time. “It can always be fixed” he thought, “always”.
The traveller hastened his pace, as fast as he had been, he knew he must be faster. On his tail, untiring, and unrelenting, rode the fire brethren. Horse and man could not be distinguished, as one wreathed in fire and drenched in death. He could not falter, he had summoned them, and he must warn the others. One last attempt at penance.

Clang, the warning bell tolled, Clang, it rang louder. The gates to the city swung open. “They have returned, please forgive me”.

There was nothing for her here. Past the template-punched houses she trudged, the old soldier staring through the same grey pavement. She had taken the bullet, and somehow the world was more silent now. A gust of wind blew and corrected her posture like a loyal friend. She stopped and leaned into the air, eyes softly shut. The air caressed and cradled her body as it passed her by. She smiled. It had whispered its secret to her. Arms straight at her sides, she caught the air and rose into it: the baby on Mother’s shoulder, high above it all.

This is in reply to Scott’s drabble meme blog entry. I’m not sure I completely understand the rules but the ones I’ve read so far have been good reads so I thought I’d have a go, too.

[Link]

Discounting the last week, my last blog post was on 24 October, then 3 July, then 18 April. Prior to that I was posting a couple of times a month. So what happened to my blog in 2008?

I started using Twitter.

Twitter has been getting some mainstream press lately, mostly though celebrities using it — especially Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross. As with any new communication medium people are asking: what exactly is it good for? On the Twitter website the synopsis is: "What are you doing?" Well, that doesn't quite describe how I use it. Here's what I use it for.

I use Twitter for semi-realtime conversations.

It may have started out as "What are you doing?" but really, that's just the starting point. Sometimes you really do say what you're doing and if your friends find it interesting, they can comment on it. And not only what you're doing — what you're reading and thinking too. I made only two "QOTD" blog posts last year because I was using Twitter to point these out instead.

Using TwitterFox, which makes my followings instantly available, it's more immediate than a blog and its comments which you have to dive into a feed reader to follow. It's also more uniform than blogs-with-comments, in the sense that the original message and its replies have the same status — they are both just tweets, whereas a blog post is somehow more important than the comments attached to it.

But at the same time it's less immediate than, say, Milliways, or IM. There was a gaping hole between realtime chat and blogging in terms of immediacy and Twitter fills that gap, which I think is why it's so popular. Nobody really wants to know what you are doing every minute of the day and of course letting them know can be dangerous. But it's for sparking discussion and carrying it on, in a way that's in the present yet not demanding that you pay constant attention.

My Twitter followers and denizens of Milliways will know that my MacBook Pro died while I was at my sister's on Friday. There was no video from either the built-in display or via the external DVI port and the machine would alternate between failing the POST and booting successfully with no video.

Fortunately, there are two Apple Stores on the way home from Maidstone - at Bluewater and Lakeside - so I dropped in to the Bluewater one, only to discover that it would take them two weeks to replace the logic board. They suggested I go to the Regent Street store the following day, but as I was going past Lakeside anyway, I tried there. Their estimate was 3-5 days, so I left the machine with them. It was indeed 3 days - on Monday evening, their website confirmed that my laptop was ready for collection.

I went down to pick it up this morning, having booked an appointment to see a "Genius" so I could get them to take a look at the optical drive. It took them another couple of hours to swap that, so I went and had a coffee and then came back to play with the various shiny toys in the Apple Store while I waited.

On getting the machine home, I discovered that as the internal ethernet port is built in to the logic board, the machine's MAC address had changed. I quickly updated the dhcpd.conf on my server and then discovered that this also prevented Time Machine from using my existing backup.

A bit of googling revealed a Mac OS X Hints post on the subject, but having followed those instructions I discovered that it was still creating a brand new backup.

At this point, I thought I'd give Apple phone support a try and called the number for the Lakeside Apple Store. Unsurprisingly, when I'd fought my way through the IVR system, I was put through to Bombay Bob (as one of my customers always refers to Indian tech support). I explained the problem and he kept not listening to me, telling me on several occasions to configure "Time Capsule" (the Apple proprietary wireless NAS), which I don't have.

Eventually, after over 10 minutes of being utterly useless, he put me on hold. After five minutes of hold music, I got "The other person has cleared" as he hung up.

Fortunately, after a few more minutes looking at the problem, I was able to solve it myself, but I am very unimpressed with Apple's phone support. It's a good job their in-store support is rather better.

The problem was that I had missed the third step of the process:

$ sudo xattr -w com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress 00:1a:2b:3c:4f:56 Backups.backupdb/MyMac

because Safari 4 didn't render it. I've submitted a bug to Apple.

Twyt 0.9.1 has been released and is available to download from the usual place.

This release cycle has been pushed along by suggestions, patches and testing from users of the twyt command line client, so the twyt Twitter API module has only undergone some tweaks and just a few additions to the set of supported API methods.

Changes to the twyt client include:

• A ’namecache’ subcommand, intended for making tab completion scripts more useful
• Better support for using twyt in pipelines (you can now pipe messages into ’twyt tweet’)
• Now prints screen names instead of real names (by popular demand)
• A ’sing’ subcommand (it’s silly, but it gets used)
• Better non-ASCII character handling

The #twyt hashtag is getting used quite regularly now, but for bug reports and patches please stick to good, old-fashioned email.

[Link]

With the encouragement of a large German following, and news of the inclusion of Shtaggle on the next MACup magazine cover CD, I present version 1.2.1…

WITH POWER PC SUPPORT!

It isn’t as functional as the Intel version (the transport progress bar doesn’t work properly.) but it does the task it is required to do - tag sh..music.

For those that don’t know, Shtaggle is a music tagging app for OS X, with help from the last.fm community. It also gets lyrics (from lyricwiki.org).

In this version there is also support for Spotify, though limited, and better integration with Last.FM’s web services - including syncronising your tags from last.fm back to your library, so they match up in both places (no tags are deleted, only appended).

Download it here (or Direct link)

Oh, and, if you can, please do blog this or mention it in a post sometime - I’d appreciate the exposure!

-Steve

Update on gardening: there is a *lot* of mint root in that little patch… all went well though, and Chris and I fashioned a compost heap out of rubble from the building of our wall. Its very homebrew.

Got some seeds and pots yesterday, so growage should soon commence.

Pinax Prettiness you ask? Well yes, yes indeed. Pinax is a sort of package I guess that is built on the Django project. Its a collection of Django apps which together make an ‘out of the box’ social site. Its what I built http://badlist.co.uk on (but was sorta bodged a little bit because I was finding my way around it) and it is now what I have built the new-look http://synfinity.net on.

It was far too easy.

My thought process went “Hm I could do with a repo for coursework PDFs (for comparative analysis with coursemates) and a place to sort of ’show off’ some bits (CV etc)…”

Django went “How would you like to do that really fast? Here’s a framework for you to store things and manipulate them. Files? Yeah we can do that. Files in different subjects? Yeah, no worries.”

Pinax went “Wanna be able to manage all that really quickly and not worry about the user-login-maintainence cruft? Oh I got some nice apps here if you wanna feed in all your media feeds too..? Oh your coursemates want to upload their work too? Yeah thats cool, I got some funky user profile things built in. Don’t worry about templating too much, I’ve got a nice standard styled template that looks pretty awesome. Change the logo if you like.”

jQuery went “Doc viewers? Don’t do it statically! Here, bosh a bit of AJAX in this page… yeah, then a little nav bar (oi Django, give us a hand!). Sweet, there we go. Oh, I got some rounded edges if you’d like that?”

Steve went “HOLY FUNK! It is done.”

2 to 3 days… could have been done quicker but for interruptions and hosting woes. Pinax is perfect.
Not to mention the creator and co-conspirator (’jtauber’ (James Tauber) and ‘brosner’ (Brian Rosner) respectively) are awesome, dedicated, bright, friendly, helpful… thats 5 characteristics you dont usually find together in the geek world… This project will go far and fast.

-S

PS - if anyone would like a demo/explore of Pinax I would be happy to acquaint you with it.
PPS - if anyone wants a project doing FOR them, and has a little cash to throw at me, I’ll do it for them!

This blog post was brought to you by Welti Productions.

Well, lets look at the targets:

1. Be up everyday by 8am - Fail Got up at 9, which is better anyway
2. Go for a walk every day - Pass
3. Regain my work ethic and concentration by sitting at my desk and working for at least half an hour before a break - Fail, still in the habit of 6 lines and stare at the screen for 45 minutes
4. Take a decent photograph every day next week (Mon -> Sun) -Fail, got a picture but not very good, see below.

We shall try this again today, which has certainly started better anyway!

Over the past couple of months I’ve found myself becoming sluggish, and very slow at completing various tasks. This all reached a peak when I found myself unable to sleep a lot of the time so just over a week ago I went to the doctors. Since then I’ve been diagnosed with depression and put on some anti-depressents to try and alleviate things a bit.

The problem I have now is that I have lost my work ethic because of the past few months of lethargicness. I’ve now also found it relativley difficult to actually get out of bed in the mornings. In order to try and rectify this I am giving myself a couple of challenges.

1. Be up everyday by 8am
2. Go for a walk every day
3. Regain my work ethic and concentration by sitting at my desk and working for at least half an hour before a break
4. Take a decent photograph every day next week (Mon -> Sun)

As far as I’m concerned, 1 and 3 will be the most difficult, however they’re the most important in that list as it stands. Each day I’ll try and post a progress report, and my photo of the day.

Looking through old files and found this. Damn I was smart back then - I wonder what happened..

----------------------------------

Earth. The blue planet. Third rock from the sun. Our home. A speck of dust in an unfathomable universe. And yet, to us, the Earth is an area far too vast and intricate to ever fully comprehend. And beyond that still, the borders of our lands and towns and villages. People live out their entire lives, rarely straying from their familiar territory. Many seem afraid of what may lie out there. Out beyond the Starbucks and McDonald's, the pubs and clubs, the corner off licenses and greasy fish and chip shops, past the parks and playing fields, the hedges and the streams, beyond the hills, valleys, and lakes, mountains, deserts, forests, oceans. Past the limits of our small and humble homeworld and into the infinity of the unknown.

The sheer size, scale and grandeur of the universe is awe-inspiring, the rugged and untamed beauty of our planet is breathtaking, the ingenuity and splendour of nature itself incomprehensibly spectacular. And yet, how many people stop and look and listen? And realise the beauty of existence? The preferibility of presence as opposed to absence? The magic of light, dark, empty, full, good and bad?

Life, examined closely, is a fine-tuned ballet of super complex mathematical precision and programming. It can be explained quite simply. You would, probably, associate biology with life. Right? A living being can be described as a biological entity of some kind, be it animal, plant or microbe. But what is biology? Merely a fine balance of chemicals, reacting in a manner which metabolises and generates electrical energy in such an intricate fashion that it forms self-aware, self-replicating units of life. And if we examine that chemistry under the microscope, we see that each atom is comprised of energy, manifested in condensed form. Chemistry is, to all intents, a means of describing the physical behaviour of matter. Chemistry is a level above physics. And physics, of course, is maths. Quantities changing, shifting and altering according to algorithms. Life is bound by mathematical precision. Matter behaves according to fundamental universal principles in the real world, much as it does in that of a computer game. But what is outside our box? How did the laws that we take for granted come to pass?

As human beings, we are all wrapped up in our own tailor-made universes. Too busy to sit and contemplate the obsurdity of the cosmos, to indulge in unadulterated thought and speculation. I wonder why we're here. All cogs spinning in a universal machine. But to any higher purpose? Surely this race of bizarre creatures serves no useful function? Are we here just for the hell of it?

I wonder if I'll ever get the answers I seek to my questions. But I say this now. I am very much afraid of death. And am dreading the day that I draw my last breath. Consciousness is the single most fascinating thing I know and I cannot comprehend the lack of comprehension that the lack of life and consciousness would bring.

But my end looms, many many horizons away. I try not to think about the end but it often returns to plague my thoughts. Death is inevitable. My memories and awareness seemed to fade in as I aged from birth to my present age of 18. Will my thoughts fade out similarly until I'm completely mentally deconstructed? Or is there a robust fundamental element comprising my being which exists in an untangible format long after the death and decomposition of my body?

I will probably never know... And so I believe I should live out each day of my life, doing my best to absorb all I can from this world before the timer runs out. To experience as much of life as possible before it's too late. To take more risks and have more fun, to live life in happiness, laughing and smiling, singing and dancing, running and jumping. A brilliant bouncing ball of appreciation, love, compassion and happiness.

Manifesto for mistake for SUCS Treasurer

Why Should you vote for me?

Because I am a calm, confident and reasonable collected person with experiance dealing with bureaucracy that comes with things such as the Students Union. I'm also a former Cadet RSM (Regimental Sergeant Major) where I occupied a position of trust and responsibility, and helped to run my detachments tuck-shop type thing, mainly working as the treasurer.

What do you think you can bring to this role/ What are your strengths?

I think that i can bring my past experiances as a Cadet RSM/ working as a treasurer will be a great benifit to the society as a whole, and i'm not afraid to ask for help when i need it.

Where do you think the society is at the moment?

The obvious (and pedantic answer) is 'in a cupboard unders the Students Union building'. The less pedantic answer, and one i feel is; The society at the moment is currently very strong despite the feeling its populated entirley by nerds, and people do depend on us for a huge array of services, mainly website hoasting.

Where do you want the society to be in a year/ What do you want to achieve?

I would like to see/ help organise a SUCS @ 21 (mainly because 21 is the actual coming of age age with guest speakers etc, but i understand that this is quite a difficult thing to achieve due to the fact no-one really has the time to organise something of that size.

How do you think you can make your goals for the society happen?

If there is going to be a SUCS @ 21 party/ seminar/ whatever then it definatly needs to be organised with the consultation of the membership, rather than just the exec/ admin as the SUCS ' 20 one seemed to happen.

Why Should I Vote for you as Treasurer?
Because I'm a responsible, fairly sensible sort of person. I've got some experience of managing money belonging to organisations, and I'd like to thinkI'm trustworty

What do you think you can bring to this role?  / What are your strengths?
I'm relatively organised, and I'm used to dealing with money for groups. I've been a director for the WYFSD [http://www.wyfsd.org] for several years, so I'm used to managing money that doesn't belong to me.

Where do you think the society is at the moment?
Having only started uni in september, I find it hard to say where the society is. It seems to be a strong society with a good number of members, and I was suprised to see how many people showed up for the admin meeting.

Where do you want to the society to be in a year? / What do you want to achieve?
I'd like to see more activity on the various SUCS projects, and in general.

How do you think you can make your goals for the society happen?
Tidying the room up just needs people to give up some time to sort things out, getting more people involved with projects is trickier. You can't force people to get involved.

Dear Microsoft,

Why on earth did this dialog pop up when I tried to open a zip file?

Also how  are you ment to respond to a security flaw which is both unspecified and theoretical?

I landed in Florida in the dead of night amidst a wild spring storm. The plane sailed onto the runway in a cloud of spray and mist and I found myself in Tampa awaiting a taxi.

The journey in via Houston had been fun. West Texas is absolutely _absolutely_ vast. Heading East from Santa Ana over the mountains, the landscape swiftly transformed into a pale, yellow smear of featureless and barren plains, interrupted occasionally by a lonely road cutting straight through the empty space. These vast horizons persisted for hours as we hopped across Arizona and New Mexico to the Texas border.

A dusty city materialised below. I asked the friendly flight attendant whereabouts we were. El Paso. I smiled and enjoyed the view of this desert city beneath, glad to see the welcoming signs of life amidst the emptiness. The attendant and I shared a moment as a granddaughter tenderly helped her centenarian grandfather through the plane.

"Man, what a sweet kid."
"Yeah..."

I smiled and sipped my complimentary Coke. US soft drinks have the dubious pleasure of being flavoured by the controversial high-fructose corn syrup. This sticky goop is a main ingredient in many American sweets and is well known for causing and contributing to health problems such as diabetes and obesity. Combined with bucket sized portions and the health issues that plague the world's wealthiest nation are suddenly less puzzling. And the free refills policy across the nation can't help much either.

Houston airport was a stampede of multi-chinned entities, bumbling about between gates and terminals. A charismatic crew of surly people carrier drivers whisked about the corridors, yelling at anyone in their paths.

"Beep beep!" barked a portentous gentleman as he encouraged me out of the way.

Many hours later, I awoke in my hotel in Channelside, Tampa. The rough weather of the previous night had swept away and the air was a warm caress of sunlight and humidity.

I explored the surrounding area in the inquisitive fashion that befits me. The weekend's highlight was definitely the Florida Aquarium. An awesome array of fish, birds, mammals and reptiles devoured my morning, follow by an afternoon whizzing around Tampa Bay watching dolphins.

Streamlined shapes slipped and sluiced and raced, splashed and spluttered into foamy depths. With over 400 Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins in Tampa Bay alone, spotting these beautiful creatures held no difficulty.

I smiled and realised I had no idea what I'd done the previous weekend. Whatever it was, it certainly didn't involve dolphins. Refreshed, invigorated and happy, I returned to my hotel and investigated the possibility of refreshments.

The iPhone 2.0 software was recently released, and with it came the ability for users to download native apps (i.e., not web sites) directly to their phones from within the iPhone UI or via iTunes. Developers (anyone who pays Apple 59GBP for the privilege) can then write their own apps and have them available for purchase in the App Store.

One limitation of the Apple-sanctioned SDK is that only one application is allowed to be running at a time. This presents a problem for apps such as IM clients, music players and other programs whose functionality relies on being able to run in the background. Another example (courtesy of James) would be an app that takes advantage of the iPhone 3G's GPS chip to create a log of all the places you visit.

However, there is a neat trick that I discovered: your app will only get terminated if you switch away from it, and hitting the iPhone's power button while your app is in the foreground doesn't count as switching away. The upshot of this is you can create apps which continue to run while the iPhone is in your pocket - perfect for the GPS example.

Achieving this is as simple as implementing two methods in your UIApplication delegate - applicationWillResignActive: and applicationDidBecomeActive:. Here's a simple example to demonstrate the effect.

In your UIApplication delegate header file, add a new ivar: BOOL activeApp. Then, in your implementation, add the following three methods:

- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application {
	NSLog(@"resigning active status...");
	activeApp = NO;
	[self performSelector:@selector(sayHello) withObject:nil afterDelay:1.0];
}


- (void)applicationDidBecomeActive:(UIApplication *)application {
	NSLog(@"becoming the active app...");
	activeApp = YES;
}

- (void)sayHello
{
	NSLog(@"Hello!");
	if (!activeApp)
		[self performSelector:@selector(sayHello) withObject:nil afterDelay:1.0];
}

Then run the app on your iPhone, hit the power button, and watch the log fill with pointless but oh-so-cool messages.

Of course, when the phone is put into standby mode by the user the expectation is that barely any juice will be drained from the battery, so it's a good idea for your app to reflect this. Indeed, you can make a big difference by halting your updating of the UI; the user isn't going to see it when the screen is turned off.

This isn't a perfect method, and won't be helpful in situations where the user wants to do other things with their phone while your app continues to run. However it might come in handy for certain scenarios.

In the unique style of the top five list, I proudly present The Five Best Comedy Instruments Ever:

1. The bagpipes

2. The tuba (even the name is funny!)

3. Er, drums? ("what do you call a guy who hangs around with a band? The drummer." Actually, all those jokes are about the man, not the instrument...)

4. The flute (I always hated American Pie. I think it was because they forgot to hire a writer.)

5. Sousaphone (like a tuba, but sillier. Actually, shouldn't this be higher up than the tuba if that were the case? Curse you, relentless one track mind!)

Next up, the The Five Best Comedy Fruit Ever:

1. The banana (phallic. Also slippery)

2. The melon (especially in pairs)

3. The raspberry (Monty Python know their stuff)

5. The grapefruit (as do Morecambe and Wise. Also, I guess you could have a pair like melons)

5.  The lemon, I guess? (Sometimes people make funny faces when they eat lemons... Ok, so it's a stretch. Man, this top five list thing is hard...)

 

And now, the Five Best Comedy Cars Ever:

1. The Skoda

2. Um, pink limousine? (Actually, I think that one has migrated from the Five Best Gay Comedy Cars Ever list)

3. Er, the Skoda again. (it's still funny, though, right?)

4. F1 cars (not actually very funny. Also, people have died driving them, which if you think about it is more tragic than comedic... yet, still funnier than...)

5. Clown cars (also tragic)

 

Er. The Five Best Comedy Dinosaurs Ever: (honestly, who is coming up with these ludicrous categories?)

1. Tyrannosaurus Rex (hehe, little stubby arms are funny)

2. Diplodocus (king of dinosaur stand-up. Inexplicably.)

3. Stegosaurus (funny plates are all funny)

4. Archaeopteryx (funny name. Funny looking. Negative points for possibly not really being a dinosaur.)

5. Those dinosaurs from Dinosaur Comics (is the comedy inherent to the beasts themselves or is it just the writing? Who knows?)

 

The Five Best Comedy Rainbows Ever: (what the fuck? Er, ok then. Here goes:)

1. Single Rainbow (Hilarious)

2. Double Rainbow (Doubly hilarious. Also inexplicably further down the list)

3. Bifrost Bridge (not hilarious. On the plus side, actually a rainbow, unlike...)

4. Dylan Moran (Hilarious)

5. My Sandman collection, which has colours on which are kinda rainbowy when they're all together. (Tragi-comic. No pun intended.)

 

 

 

 

 

For all those people with those magical things called iPhones and iPod touches, you HAVE to check out Raging Thunder:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrO65-jperQ

It's available to download from the installer app. It's bloody hard to get used to because you have to steer by tilting the iPod, and you can't slow down so if you get a boost you're almost certain to crash. I'm very impressed with the graphics though.

I stumbled upon it because I was researching openGL and the graphics in the game are generated with it.

In response to James's meme, I thought I'd join in the fun and share a few of my favourite games. So, in no particular order, here are five games everybody should experience at least once in their lives.

Lander

Grand Theft Auto IV

Crystal Caves/Commander Keen

Half-Life 2

Starcraft

Next, I tag Steve to share his list with us all.

Sometimes I see a bandwagon and some people jumping on it. Oftentimes, I jump on it too and we roll on to our destination, like an enormous, beautiful katamari. This is one of those times.

I'm rating the following games based on a few things: obviously graphical quality will only be worse the further into the past you go, so I'll try and rate them as they appeared at the time. Equally, they'll be rated partially on the influence they had on the games that followed them. I'm trying to avoid personal preference, so my list of my Five Favourite Video Games Ever would be different to this one. I'm obviously not going to include anything I've not played, that would be silly. I'm not keeping spoilers out of these, the most recent one came out around eight years ago and you've no excuse for never having played any of them. I'm only reviewing the games as they appeared on their primary system (i.e. for the first time), no GBA ports dated a couple of years later nor things appearing on the Wii virtual console.

With all that said, my own opinions do move back and forth a bit, it all depends on my mood. A bit like asking which my five favourite bands are. If I ever get around to playing GTA: IV then that might make this list. Spore too, depending a bit on what it's like. Anyway, enough equivocating, here's game number five.

5. Planescape: Torment (1999) Metacritic score: 91

You begin the game as a heavily scarred man, who knows nothing of his identity, waking up in a mortuary; your only companion, a sarcastic floating skull. Things get stranger from there. You discover you're immortal and are haunted by a question: "what can change the nature of a man?" Never before or since have I felt like every action I took had a consequence, for good or evil; law or chaos. The NPCs you can have in your party are a strange but massively compelling group. Some of the other people you meet are even more so. Highlights include challenging a rather arrogant preacher to a suicide-off (which, unsurprisingly and hilariously, you win.) and debating with a man until you convince him he does not exist. At which point he stops. The setting is a far cry from your standard D&D with Sigil, city of doors, an incredible place filled with different factions vying for control. Your group even finds itself in the middle of the Blood War on Baator and later in the Abyss at one point. The script is unparalleled, probably more dialogue than in any other game I've ever played and every single line worth reading. The very greatest thing about it? The name. Planescape is only the setting, as it were, the actual game's name is 'Torment', the one thing that drives every single character in it. Vital for heavily influencing Baldur's Gate and its sequel, which would take the importance of NPCs in your party to an even greater level, although few of them would be as cool and individual as Fall-From-Grace, Morte, Nordom, Ignus, Anna et al.

4. Super Mario 64 (1996 Japan/US, 1997 Europe) Metacritic score: 94

The level design is unbelievable. The graphics, for the time, were unbelievable. The sheer level of exploration required to get all 120 stars is unbelievable. The camera was innovative and having complete control over it was unbelievable. The entire damned game is pretty freaking unbelievable. Ok, so it lacks a bit in terms of the storyline, which is why the last few games beat it to the top, but this game did so much for the 3d platformer as a genre, I can't even begin to describe it. Oh, and the last ingredient? A healthy dose of fun. Few other games are more fun to simply jump into and go and grab a random star. This game showed the true power of the N64 and made it the must-have system (unless you preferred the Playstation, which I heard was good too). This game's existence was directly responsible for dozens of others, including the recent Super Mario Galaxy and the next one on the list.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) Metacritic score: 99

If Super Mario 64 gave some indications of what the N64 could do, then this game was the one to really let loose with everything it had. Again, the graphics for the time were absurdly good, especially things like the draw distance. This game, to my mind, took the series back to the quality of A Link to the Past, a game I have very fond memories of playing on my cousin's SNES, after the disappointing Link's Awakening. The time travelling and ability to move from being an adult to a child made was an idea that had not been implemented as well before. The dungeons were exactly the right length to dip in and out of and the use of music, not just the orchestral score (which naturally was brilliant) but also the use of the titular ocarina to teleport around. Without this, there would not have been any Majora's Mask nor Wind Waker nor Twilight Princess nor countless other similar games.

2. Deus Ex (2000) Metacritic score: 90

Terrorism. It's a complicated word these days. Deus Ex was fortunate in exactly when it was released, I doubt that a character who starts the game attacking terrorists (who have in the past blown up the Statue of Liberty) in said statue's ruins would have been approved of in late 2001. I'm reminded of the exploding buildings at the end of 1999's Fight Club film. Very much a product of its time, it owes the style mostly to The Matrix and cyberpunk more generally and its plot to numerous conspiracy theories and leftover fear about the Millennium Bug mixed with some incredibly interesting philosophical questions about the nature of humanity as found in Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell. In short, then, these are a few of my favourite things. The gameplay is sort of FPS-y with added stealthy bits taken from Thief: The Dark Project and RPG inventory management and an experience system. Quite apart from all of that, however, Deus Ex has something that is all its own. It combines these things fluidly. In any one mission, you have multiple different ways to go about things. That was, essentially, totally new for the time. The choice to be extremely stealthy one mission and then blow up everything in sight the next still staggers my mind. I've not seen any game, not even the sequel, that attempted to keep up the multiplicity of choice throughout. Not only that, but the decisions you make have huge and lasting impacts on the game as a whole. For example, when I first played it, JC's brother Paul was killed. I assumed that was scripted and 'just what happened', but no. Paul can live. Right through the whole damn game. There are almost no characters you're forced to kill at all, in fact. You can go through the entire game and just tranquilize your enemies. This was beyond mindblowing. Combined with superb set pieces and a plot that dragged you in until you practically forgot that a world existed outside this futuristic globetrot, I was stunned. Shame the sequel sucked a bit. But the one thing that the game owes the very most to? The last game on my list, of course.

1. Half-Life (1998) Metacritic score: 96

This game brought me into gaming. Sure, I'd played other things before, but this was the catalyst that made me into who I am today. This totally rewrote the book on the first-person shooter. As revolutionary as Wolfenstein 3d or Doom or anything else, but perhaps more so. It took the rest of the industry years to catch up to Valve. Even simple things at the time, like the water effects, were very cool. The AI was the best at the time bar nothing. The fights and oh dear God the beautiful, beautiful set pieces. Each one like a short movie that defied you not to drop your jaw. An example: you're in a nuclear silo of some sort, where a rocket engine is being tested. But wait, what's that banging sound? No idea. Keeps getting louder the closer you get to the centre of things. You go through a door and see a scientist grabbed by an enormous tentacle thing. And then you realise that the only way out is past a whole bunch of tentacles. Oh, by the way, they were making the banging with their enormous, razor sharp nose things. Razor sharp nose things that kill you extremely dead if they ever make contact. Scary, immersive and wonderful. This was the first FPS I played where you didn't start with a weapon. No, instead you are a scientist. So you walk around, interacting with other characters and then the entire world goes to hell. It was also the first FPS I played where they actually took away all the nifty weapons you'd found up until that point and had to get them back again. This trick was used later in nearly everything ever. Even now, I still play the game occasionally and, even if it looks pretty dated, I am still immersed and sucked right into the gameplay. The sequel undoubtedly has its fans and I'm tempted to give that the equal first position. It brought a much-needed level of humanity and plot into a game that had previously been mostly "Kill aliens. Kill soldiers. Do a jumping puzzle. Kill a helicopter. Do a teleporter puzzle." although Valve did become quite keen on the physics puzzles. Still, the vehicle sections are great, the physics engine is great, especially the gravity gun and the set pieces. Oh my yes. Yesyesyes. If you throw in Episodes 1 and 2, you only get more of the character interaction I like so much and a bit more of a feeling of the world. I'll admit that the game has its flaws, but I'm not sure there are many games out there that really are totally flawless. Anyway, time for the Honourable Mentions.

 

Starcraft (1998) Metacritic score: 88

Any game that is still regularly played for its perfect multiplayer balance a full 10 years after its release is worthy of this sort of list. The single player campaign is brilliant too, especially the events of Brood War. And the cinematics conjure up the sense of an epic space war at least on a par with Star Wars. Seriously, look on YouTube for the Starcraft: Brood War opening and I dare you not to get a tingle in your spine when that music starts. I'll admit that it owes a lot to Warhammer 40K for the world, but it's still a damned awesome game.

Goldeneye 007 (1997) Metacritic score: 96

The game with a sniper rifle in it that meant that essentially every single game after it also had a sniper rifle in it. Also fantastic multiplayer, even if four of you were squinting at a tiny screen and jostling for position with controllers and whatnot.

Day of the Tentacle (1993) Metacritic score: 93

I like the Monkey Island series. I like it a lot. But I played this first. Sometimes that's enough in a game to change your mind about which is best. All the classic SCUMM games fit in here, though.

Baldur's Gate (1998) Metacritic score: 91 and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000) Metacritic score: 95

A much more accessible and traditional look at the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Following the life of your protagonist from random level 1 guy to the epic hero they become is a fantastic experience. If the isometric thing gets to you, play Neverwinter Nights, it's not as good, but I know how some people can't actually play games that don't have 3d graphics.

This has gone on for a long time. Rather longer than I'd intended. I guess I'll just have to revisit this list and see if there are many other games that I would load onto someone who had never experienced a game before. Probably a few. Thanks for reading.

Check out http://www.shipais.com/ it shows the (nearly) real-time position of a significant proportion of the large boats within UK territorial waters.

PC: And I'm a PC...

Mac: I look all white and sexy...*click*....

PC: I'm boring aparantly...

Mac: *click*...I have cool software like GarageBand and...*click*...iLife...*click*...

----------------------------------------------------------

I recently bought a MacBook and was very pleased with it. It took a while getting used to...twas awkward not having a task bar but I've got the hang of it. I'm mainly going to keep the MacBook for "fun", e.g. music, vidoes, photos etc. and then keep my Windows laptop for "work", e.g. programming, essay writing etc.

BUT...the reason for this blog is that I am having to take the MacBook back today! Every so often (ranging from every 10 secs to every minute" the MacBook was making an annoying clicking sound. I did some research and found out that it was due to the hard drive parking it's needle too often, something which should only happen in older hard drives. So seeing as the laptop was less than a week old, I was not happy.

I rang technical support first and they took me through a few things to try n fix it, but to no avail. The most annoying thing is that there isn't an Apple shop in the whole of Wales! So I'm taking the train home to Birmingham to return it there. Ah well, at least I get to see my girlfriend :D

So yeah...Gwant am cwy :'(

Oh...and, is it just me...or does anyone else feel reeeeaally guilty when they get a new computer? Every time I was using the Mac I could hear my laptop shouting at me going: "What about me Grant? Don't you love me any more?"

The dirty bugger.

Steve only went out and made a porn site.

*I might be lying here, the term 'porn' tends to attract a lot of traffic.

Is weird.

 I haven't been terribly bloggy have I?

On a random trawl through teh stuff and things that is the internet, I found this - check it out, it's rather cute, in a morph / pingu etc sort of way!

www.lejo.nu also available here

I despise group projects. Ive had ones in the past, but this is awful. I have no idea how im going to pass it, and everything has to be in in 2 days. I dont see why i should have to do it and have pretty much no sleep but otherwise I cant see how its going to get done.

Fun times- suckstobeme™.

I was browsing youtube for a Drum and Bass video, namely 'Download' by Clipz. I found it, but in the right hand side 'related' pane I saw a mentioning of Swansea Uni - cool! When I saw it, it turns out it was the set i was front row at, so you can see me dancing like a twat by the MC's chest at 1:04. yay!

I have started a blog, lets see how long this lasts, the odds of it lasting terribly long are not good, as I really don't seem to say anything anybody wants to hear, but we will see how it goes.