My name is M and I'm an adict.

OK I did it.

Devastated...

From...


to...



how the might have fallen, however as the English say - It wasn't a bad old innings. Tis nice to have a mere 64 meg swap file to. Other than that I don't wanna talk about it.

Ironic really

Dirty dirty bootcamp.

I feel violated, and not in the good way. You see one of my more recent converts, lets call her Ms T. has been getting on famously with her new MacBook. Enjoying, iPhoto learning how the iLife hangs together. However part of the deal was that if she took the plunge and converted I would setup the safety net of Windows.

We discussed all what she used her old HP laptop for and the one thing that wouldn't transfer easily was CSI the game. So that instantly made the Bootcamp versus Parallels decision for me.

Installing Bootcamp was gonna be a new experience for me, and it turned out it was more than just putting windows on. I've been using Windows in Parallels for months now. That doesn't feel like cheating, Windows just feels like another application I need to use.

But watching that shiny white happy macbook boot up into a Windows XP setup, made me feel slightly strange dirty almost. Here is a picture of the sacrilege... gotta go now, Windows has crashed and requires my attention.

Worse Lollipops ever...

Yes that's correct. The evil dentist. As it happens in this picture I was only visiting the hygienist, actually the first time I've been to one of those. She was lovely, and her instruments were not quite as scary as the ones I had used on me today.



For a filling replacement, drilling, numbing and squealing and gurgling and water splashing... rinse please... horrible. It then take approximately 4-5 hours for feeling to come back in my lip so that when I put a cup to my mouth it doesn't feel like half the contents is gonna dribble on the floor.

This is what happened last time Ze went to the dentist... someone told on him... I blame the chicken...

Lunch...

Yes yes, a gorgeous Chicken Teriyaki and look how much we got!!!!!

New Apple Icon

I remember sitting on a rainy day in High School, before I was a mac man, reading a review of the first iMac. The white lampshade thing, the first mainstream (Could you call Apple mainstream in the nineties) computer without a floppy disk drive.

That was a brave decision back then in most peoples eyes but one that was eventually vindicated, so it was a surprise some ten years later to insert one of my more peculiar usb pen drives. For the desktop icon to be this when I mount it...



I'd never seen an OS X Floppy disk icon, twee isn't it.

Apple Ringtone

Fantastic...

The Knack

I was mucking out the stable that is my online hard disk and found this...
<BGSOUND src="http://musingsonamac.com/theknack.wav">

I forget who originally sent me this but thanks.

Pictures like this still scare me...

Look at my activated Windows Vista... aren't I all good.

So with that and my Cisco VPN, all I need now is an Office install and I'll have the best of all worlds. The ability to do work remotely, and the lifestyle applications and geek control of a mac user.

My little Vista crashing on boot problem was solved thanks to the great Parallels community. Here

Running apps in coherence mode whereby Windows' Windows appear on the OS X desktop is very strange. One of the latest additions under the new Beta and Release candidate schedule is that Windows Apps can appear on your OS X dock. Now clicking these icons doesn't cause them to behave in the best fashion, that a single windows won't gain focus. The entire windows machine becomes the active OS X application. I'm sure the development team are working on that.

Another cool'ish feature causes those same windows programs to gain a handle in the Mac OS X world. Finding one in your Parallels install folder and double clicking it will launch the program in Windows. Even if the Parallels machine isn't running it will start and run the application.

http://www.itoughttobesimple.com/essays/idiot1.htm

I especially like his example of the Ford car and the pedals changing functions after the distinct tug on the transmission. This puts amazingly eloquently an idea I raised when I started this blog, nearly a year ago, that not everything is the users fault.

Anyway enjoy.

Cisco sues over iPhone

Oh this is going to be fun...



This is in contradiction to earlier reports of an Entente Cordiale...



So it is clearly the season for renaming;
Apple computer to Apple
iTV to AppleTV
iPhone to sliPhone (maybe)

Other suggestions on a post case... miPhone (pronounced myPhone).... iPhone Pro (You know like the mac book)

The wonderful world of haribo

mmmm scrummy

Lucy in the Sky with an iPhone

When reading the coverage, I noted that Steve played some Beatles. I was excited by this, the people I was IM'ing can a test to this. Well now here appears confirmation that the Beatles are coming to iTunes.

Brief Keynote round up, phone.

Well it was, phone, the longest ever Jobs, phone, keynote running at just over two, phone, hours. There was no new displays, phone, not even any Leopard news, phone, no upgrades on any, phone, of the computer line up. That will keep, phone, the three people I've recently, phone, convinced to purchase a, phone, mac happy as their machine hasn't been, phone, usurped. Phone.

Steve opened with some, phone, news about the iTV - now dubbed the Apple TV, phone. A quick flirt with iTunes, phone, announcing that Paramount was to hitch up their wagon, phone, to the iTunes store. Then came the big announcement, not one but three devices in one. I was quite amused because whilst fellow pundits and I, phone, watched the incoming news in an irc room, phone. I said "I bet it's in one box" something about the way he pitched the three devices in one go. Phone.

Steve started with information about a wide screen iPod, phone, and showed off some pretty neat ideas, the gyroscope automatically detecting the orientation of the device, phone. Gave a demo of some new movies in full screen mode, showed off some, phone, pictures and then came the punch-line - "So I showed it to some people outside of Apple and they said, obviously it's gotta make calls" - and it does.

Ladies and gentlemen the worst kept secret this side of the switch to Intel, the iPhone (Yeah Cisco you read correctly.)


It does contain some cool gadgets, outside of the competition bashing. The motion and proximity sensors so it knows when it is next to your ear, so it'll turn off the screen and main speaker when you raise the phone to your head. This has the instant benefit of stopping people complaining about the cancerous heat they sometimes feel from extended use of their phone.

The only kicker is... it's partnered by Cingular and still so F'ing expensive... $499 for the 4 gig model... and you're stuck on a two year contract. Anyway, announced today ready for June and Europe by Q4, Asia by 2008. No word on who those partners may be.

There was a quick call to"Jonny Ive" everyone's fave British vice president of industrial design. You know what though, Steve has clearly been hanging out with him too long, twice he referred to it as a mobile phone... it works on a cell dummie.

I'm sure better analysts than me can give you the skinny on the device, but for now, the two hour Keynote was so devoid of any computer equipment or operating system information, that Apple took this to heart and have renamed the company. Now just Apple Inc, not Apple Computers inc.



There was a picture of the word Computer vanishing but I can't find it now, enjoy.

Edit: Found the better picture here


The iTV or TV (that might not turn out) can be ordered today and ships in Feb. None the less, nice fast wireless standard, looks like it only works with your own stuff or stuff off iTunes not however your own DVD purchases.

Mac World Bingo

There ya go...

http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2007/1/7/6514

Applications icons vanishing

I noticed the strangest problem recently, well not so much problem. nothing stopped working. I didn't need to call anyone for assistance. It was a glitch that lead to some of my icons in the Applications folder disappearing.



Programs effected if in my dock their icons were still OK. All programs still launched fine, it was just annoyinhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifg to notice this weird behavior in the applications folder.

The only thing I can think of that I did before I noticed it was run this tip from macosxhints.com. My open with menu had some duplicates in there and they were also not causing any problems other than being annoying. I have not idea if this effected my icons at all but like I said the only thing I remember doing that was slightly classed as tinkering.

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Flip4Mac Drive in

Last week I downloaded a new app Drive-In. It's from the the flip4mac people, whose work I like. I didn't install and tell you about it then because it wanted a reboot and those who know me, know I like my uptime numbers big - like snooker, not small like golf.

However since I needed an uncustomary reboot for my Samsung printer (See last blog) I decided I'd give the drive-in a whirl.



Install was well behaved and speedy, it's only a small application after all. I let it reboot, much against the grain. I actually wonder what it is that drive-in is doing in that reboot.

When I launched I'm shown a simple interface, four lit buttons and a simple instruction insert DVD. Perhaps know I should clue you all in on what drive in purports to do. Simply it images your DVD collection allowing you to play them back from hard disk. I'm a sucker for hard disk based media storage. I've got three external drives just drammed full of my ripped music, TV programs I've recorded etc. All because it's much quicker to double click or drag into VLC than it is to search out the DVD from my shelves which for 2007 will mostly be out of reach behind my bed.

I insert a DVD and I can enter all the information about it, or I can have the program download the info.


What I would have liked to see here instead of having to manually enter the bar code information - that's Mission impossible if you care.


What flip4mac should have and could have done would be to license the technology from Delicious monster and utilize the iSight. No however they didn't. I had to enter it manually, bad flip4mac.


Initially the search failed, I had to manually set the country for which it should search Amazon. Why it didn't pick this up from the OS or ask me on first launch I don't know. Once correctly chastised the details for my DVD were filled in for me.



I clicked the shiny "Create Image" button, only to be told I had to create an account and that any DVDs I imaged would be tied to this account. I assume this is to keep the RIAA nasties off my and flip4mac's back. The annoying thing is, this is a Beta release - could have let it slide until the first major copy hits the virtual shelves, also I have no idea what the price point will be.



Backing up took appx 30 minutes, the orriginal estimate was accurate. I can't decide if I like the feature that it preserves the menu structures and I assume special features. If I'm on a flight or trip, it is unlikely I will want the directors commentary or alternate deleted scenes. I'll want easy entertainment. Hence maybe time and hard disk space would be saved by allowing me to chose what portion I want, like handbrake does. Lets face it, with my Parallels install hitting 10 gig, my iTunes library being over 20, photos taking 11 gig. I don't really want to lay down 6 gigs on mission impossible.

Overall it's a nice application if you want menu structures - I can't fault it. I click play the imaged file and DVD player launhed and it worked just fine menus included. The file itself is even given the movie cover as it's icon. DVD player doesn't seem to differentiate between the image and the real disk because when I clicked play, I got the FBI warning then DVD player skipped right to the credits as I have DVD player set to continue from last time when I put a disk in.

The time to make an image isn't horrendous. If you're going away in a few days you could easily throw on a few movies to take with you. You'd save battery power too not spinning the real DVD, and given that the new MBP 15" replacement internal drives are available now, meaning you can add another 160 gig in place of the DVD drive.

I didn't like being forced to sign up for an account, makes you feel like you're not trusted to even try the app out. I always remember something that Ryan Carson said about letting the users take away the app and try it out without annoying them.

You can watch the Geek Brief review here.

Old Samsung printer drivers

In our post Christmas attic clear out I was ordered to quell the rising tide of ancient computer equipment, there is a classic Mac, Old hard disks, CD writers and power supplies - just in case. Tonnes of defunct applications, downloaded CD etc.

Well one of the things I had to justify keeping was an old laser printer a Samsung ML-1750. So on the box it says it's compatible with mac. I plug it in and start printer setup dialog it knows on the USB bus but the drivers weren't available.


To be honest I could be culpable for that, I do remember on a spring cleaning exercise recently I did decide to blow out a bunch of drivers I decided I didn't need in the printers folder.

I inserted the CD that was supplied the 6 years ago with my laser and found that the installer wouldn't run on this system I'm assuming it's a driver / rosetta / intel issue.

As always google is your friend and after sliding around the cyber ooze for while I discovered a great little installer. Not directly from Samsung, but from free-driver-download.com what is weird the next page that starts the download appears to contact product.samsung.com

The install looks pretty samsung like to...


Well I ran that, and it had to reboot which I hate and had forgotten how common it was on Windows compared to how unusual it is on Mac. None the less after the reboot the add printer tool, when I clicked the USB connected printer knew what driver to use. Hoorar.


Now I've just go to put it back in the box and leave it up in the attic for another 2 years.

Battery maintenance

Just like I have to do with all my batteries, this weekend I did a bit of conditioning with the laptop, to be fair I've not done it since I got the replacement battery after whole first generation battery problem. I re assessed it with coconut battery again and as you can see it's a but healthier.



To calibrate I used it one night until it forced me to sleep, then left it unplugged over night so when I woke up the laptop light wasn't snoozing, then plugged it in for the day at work and then ran coconut battery that night.

Napster is no more.

Which phone is right for you...

youTube is getting a lot of traffic from me recently.

Should I stay or should I go...

This is British Prime Minister Tony Bliar being spliced into the song "Should I stay or should I go" by the Clash. The other two people are Gordon Brown who wants to be the next British PM. And the chap in front of the blue screen is David Cameron, who also wants to be the next PM but for the opposition conservative party.

It must have been pain staking to put together and works quite well over all.

I got some positive feedback on my silly Apple video yesterday, which was nice.

Steve's keynote is two hours long

I'm so kicking myself, I could have gone with some friends I know. Even more because I realized the other morning, that when I flew Virgin Atlantic over the summer and they offered to bump me off my flight in return for a free return flight to anywhere in world and I said no. I could have taken the hit and then I could have afforded to go to San Francisco for what is lining up to be a truly awesome Macworld.

New Apple homepage

This clearly needs to be accompanied by a bit of music....



Like a good boy, I'm declaring all sources here...

http://www.macmonkies.com/Etc/Steve_Jobs_1920.jpg
http://www.fizyka.umk.pl/~duch/Wyklady/komput/w04/Apple-imac/iMac-LoRes.jpg
http://www.mp3-music-player.com/news/05_05/images/Apple_iMac_g5.jpg
http://www.avrev.com/gifs/ipod/apple_ipod.gif
http://www.mavromatic.com/images/ipod-video.jpg
http://21talks.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/apple_iphone.jpg
http://images.apple.com/home/2007/images/welcome2007_20070101.jpg

Musing from The London Theatre Orchestra 2001: A Space Odyssey

A little ditty

A programmer started to cuss,
Cause getting to sleep was a fuss.
While he lay there in bed,
looping 'round in his head, was
while (!asleep)
sheep++;

Edit: Yeah alright, someone else sent me this... I did mean to add attribution but forgot.

Ordered Wi-Fi list

This was a new tip for me. When viewing the menu for WiFi networks if you alt+click you get the list of available networks ordered by strength. Rather than alphabetical.



Another option for a more detailed view of the available Wireless networks is a gorgeously simple app called cocnutwifi available here

I am a fan of another coconut application called coconutbattery available here The battery app lists information about battery capacities and charge cycles, useful for monitoring and diagnosing any snags with low time battery storage.

Victory again islamic extremists

So the most decisive victory against extremism we've had, wasn't won by us. Rather two allies, the Somalis shouldn't feel belittled by the Ethiopian assistance. The two allies retaking a country for the democratically elected government. As the baddies run away towards Kenya they also offer support by re-enforcing their border with Somalia to stop the Islamist melting away into the background to regroup, AGAIN.



OK Sure the Ethiopian army is US armed (shhh no one knows) and has provided diplomatic backing at the UN requesting a military mission from the African Union. Diplomacy... how original, and blow me it's dash well working.


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more tasteless Saddam humor...

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it's bad...

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OK If you really want it...

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Saddam after the new year's celebration is feeling a bit ropey.

Happy New Year

I love this video, expect it to be trotted out for the next few new years.



To all my friends who sent me best wishes for 2006 it did fuck all. For 2007 could you please send either money, beer or petrol vouchers. Cheers.


don't read further down unless you want to read the first Saddam joke someone sent to my cell phone...

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don't do it. It is offensive...

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I'm telling you, you might be embarrased to be my friend...

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What an ignorant twat, I've just rung Saddam Hussein to wish him a happy new year....and he's hung up....saying that I've been told he did celebrate hard, and he might be a bit hung over.