Who are the lucky ones?

We are. That is, those of us lucky enough to be within broadcast reception range of BBC1 television at 7:10 on Saturday evening.

I've waxed ecstatic previously on this blog about the spin-off series Torchwood, and now I can do the same about its 'parent', Doctor Who.

Doctor Who? Kid's programme, innit? Maybe so, but it has all the ingredients of ideal family viewing -- something for the kids, something for the grown-ups. The latest series (number three of the 'reincarnated' version), with David Tennant really getting into his stride as the Doctor, and Freema Agyeman in her first series as his not-so-ditsy companion, has shown us some impressive spectacles, including the strangely art deco Daleks in a decidedly art deco New York, as well as the Bard of Avon in mischievous mode.

But the zenith of series three so far for me has been the two-parter that concluded last week: "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". Scripted by novelist Paul Cornell (who adapted his Doctor Who book Human Nature), these two episodes reveal characterization to a much greater depth than previously seen, and reinforce the notion that I've always felt about great science fiction -- that it tells us more about how we live our lives in the present, than how we might live in the future. Not that this particular story was about the future, despite the tantalizing glimpses of times that might have come to pass for some of the characters.

The Doctor is being pursued by the Family of Blood -- a group in search of a Time Lord for its own nefarious purposes -- and the only way he can evade detection is to become completely human. And he does so in a pre-First-World-War English public school, leaving Martha to look after not only herself, but his own Time-Lordly essence. When, at the beginning, he asks her if she trusts him, he's really asking himself if he trusts her.

Despite its historical setting, this story exhibits well-known SF tropes, such as an invisible space-ship, time travel (of course) and (hooray!) ray guns. (Or should that be hooray guns...?)

I'll not risk spoilers here, as I know that there are people not as lucky as those of us in the British Isles; impoverished souls who have yet to relish these episodes, condemned to wait until their local TV networks deign to show the latest series, and therefore reduced to squinting disjointedly at blocky YouTube fragments, or ploughing through online directories purporting not actually to host anything at all (apart from dubious thumbnail images that predominate in an excess of exposed skin).

For those less fortunate, but willing to search, may I suggest that entering such terms as "Doctor Who Human Nature Family of Blood" will harvest a veritable torrent of results.

Oh my, you have a treat in store.
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Apple TV: useful at last?

Steve Jobs gave tantalizing glimpses of some Apple related things, and remained tight-lipped about others, in this interview with Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal's D Conference (via Podcasting News).



The stuff about Apple TV is what interests me. To date I've remained unconvinced that Apple TV would be useful to me (see my previous rant here). But now that Apple TV is offering YouTube browsing, I hope that this signals further developments that might make it more useful to me. Apple have announced a fatter version of Apple TV with a 160 GB hard disk, so this does seem likely.

But what I need to know, before even considering buying one of these, either fat or thin, is this: will the Apple TV work with a monitor rather than a widescreen TV? I can't justify the purchase of a widescreen TV, but I do have a 19" widescreen computer monitor with a DVI input. This works with my Panasonic DVR using an adapter cable (HDMI to DVI) and it works with my MacBook using the same cable plus Apple's adapter. It seems reasonable to suppose that this set-up would work with Apple TV, but I don't know.

Anyone?
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My problem with God

Maybe you don't want to read about my problems. Maybe you don't want to read, in particular, about My problem with God.

I appreciate that -- along with politics -- religion is something that should probably be given its own discussion space. So that's why I've started a new blog, called Notes from an Evil Burnee, where you can find my various musings on faith, rationality, religion and scepticism (or skepticism for those beyond the pond).

I've discussed matters of faith before, here at Who says I shouldn't do this?, but such discussions will henceforth be posted over at Evil Burnee.
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Never thought I'd see the day...

I've read the UK edition of Computer Shopper from the very first issue, when it came on saddle-stapled newsprint and cost only 50p. Since the passing of all those fondly remembered home computers such as the ubiquitous BBC Micro and Sinclair Spectrum, and the not-so-ubiquitous Oric, Memotech and (one for the uber-geeks) Jupiter Ace, Shopper became -- and has remained -- PC-centric.

So it was with surprise bordering on disbelief that I spied this page of buying advice in the latest (July 2007) issue:



Look at that recommended PC in the bottom right-hand corner. If you think your eyes are deceiving you, here's a blow-up:



Yes, it's a Mac.
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This tech stuff is too hard

I use three computers on a regular basis. My PC is a full-tower monster with two hard disk drives and two DVD rewriters. It's not new, and over the past few months it's been giving me grief (other than the usual...). But that didn't matter too much, as I've been enjoying using my MacBook since last June. I also have a G4 Mac mini, which was my introduction to OS X and the modern Mac. (I've had a second-hand MacPlus for a few years, complete with maxed-out RAM -- all four megabytes of it -- and the legendary programmer's switch, just to prove my genuine geekness.)

I have only one printer in use, an Epson Stylus Photo R300, and until last weekend it was connected to the PC. But as I said, the PC has been giving me grief -- refusing to boot until the box had been powered up for five minutes or so, and even then shutting down a second or two after turning on. Sometimes it didn't shut down, but just sat there shouting at me (yes, really, the damn thing actually spoke -- something about CPU test failure). Other times it would begin its boot-up sequence but then stop with an 'overclocking failure'. This I could cope with, simply going into the BIOS settings and immediately saving and exiting -- it would then boot up okay.

But as you can imagine, this was getting to be a pain, especially when I wanted to print something. The PC is on my home network, and that's how I printed stuff from the Macs. Recently the PC has refused to boot up at all, and I've had to wait until the next day. I had already done some research to establish what the problem was, and had decided that the most likely culprit was the power supply. My PC has a good ASUS motherboard and a decent graphics card, but the manufacturer really skimped on some other components. The keyboard and mouse were utterly repellent. I replaced the keyboard within a week and the mouse within a month. It seems the PSU was a similarly cheap unit, and replacing it with a Jeantech 600W unit completely solved the boot-up problems.

So I could again print relatively easily from anywhere on the network using the shared printer connected to the PC. But if the PC wasn't on, I had to wait for XP to start before anything appeared on paper. I had already looked at print servers some time ago, and nothing seemed suitable (or reasonably priced) until I noticed that Linksys made a USB Print Server with a 4-port Ethernet switch, which looked like a good deal. I read some reviews on Amazon and elsewhere that made me think twice -- especially the point about the status monitor not working, which would mean you could run out of ink and not know which one of the six cartridges to change. I then found the manual on the Linksys website, in which it was pointed out that it's in the nature of network printing that two-way communication with the printer is lost -- it's not specific to Linksys.

During the course of my deliberations the printer did run out of ink when I was printing from the MacBook, and I realised that because the R300 has a small LCD status screen, the software status monitor isn't strictly necessary.

I decided to risk the purchase of the print server, given its price. It installed okay, using the supplied setup CD on the PC, and it worked fine printing from the PC.

There's no Mac software provided, but how hard can it be? Answer: very hard.

Following Apple's guidelines for installing a network printer did not work. The best I could get was page after page of Postscript commands. Other times I ended up with page after page of garbage. Trawling various forum posts, and the aforementioned Amazon reviews again, led me to believe that very few users had managed to make this thing -- the Linksys PSUS4 USB PrintServer -- work with Macintosh.

However -- and this is the purpose of this post -- I did get it to work, from both the MacBook and the G4 Mac mini, and here's how to do it:

It shouldn't be necessary to use the Linksys setup CD, as the PrintServer has a web interface accessible from a browser, but I'm assuming your setup is similar to mine (Windows XP PC and Macintosh OS X Version 10.4.9 on a home network using a wireless ADSL router). Here's what to do:

1. Install the PrintServer according to the Linksys instructions, using the supplied setup CD on the PC.
2. Using the Linksys utility change the PrintServer to static IP addressing, choosing a suitable address within the subnet.
3. On the Mac, open the Print & Fax system preferences pane.
4. Click the '+' button to add a printer.
5. At the top of the Printer Browser window, click 'IP Printer'.
6. In Protocol, select 'Line Printer Daemon - LPD'.
7. In Address, type in the static IP address you chose for the PrintServer, such as '192.168.1.8'. While you type, the Printer Browser will verify that you have typed a valid address.
   
8. In Queue, type 'lpd'.
9. You'll find that the IP address has been entered into the Name field. You can change this to something more meaningful.
10. Location can be left blank.
11. In Print Using, select the make of your printer from the list, then select the actual model of your printer from the model list, and click 'Add'.
12. Close the Printer Setup Utility.

(I'm not certain all the above steps are absolutely necessary, but they worked for me.)

You should now have the network printer on the list when you next want to print something from the Mac. For me, this has worked on both the MacBook (Intel) and the Mac mini (G4 PowerPC). I can't vouch for any other set-up, but reading the tales of woe in the Amazon reviews has prompted me to make this post, to show that it can be done.
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Tech, TV, Apple, DivX

I was fascinated when Steve Jobs announced the Apple TV. I like the idea of watching on TV media that has so far been confined to my computer.

There appear, however, to be a number of snags.

• First, my TV is an old Toshiba 4:3 CRT with SCART and phono sockets. No way would the Apple TV interface to it without an expensive conversion box of some kind. But what about a widescreen LCD computer monitor? -- these can be quite cheap, even with a DVI input, and Apple are already selling reasonably priced HDMI-to-DVI cables. That might work. Maybe.

• Second, some of the media I'd like to watch on my TV is intended for Windows Media Player, and I've installed various codecs into QuickTime so that I can watch this stuff on my MacBook. Couldn't I install these codecs on the Apple TV's internal hard disk? Highly unlikely. (I could transcode the files so that they play in standard QuickTime, but the idea is to make them easier to watch, not more difficult.)

But I've found a way to watch .avi files on my old Tosh TV.

Last week I bought from a local Argos Extra store, for £29.99, a Bush DVD2054DIVX DVD-player. So far it's played every .avi file I've tried in it, and I also found on the web a remote-hack to convert it to multi-region. It not only plays all my region 1 and region 2 DVDs, and my .avi files (whether on CD-R or DVD-R), but also mp3s and jpegs.

The 2054 is not listed in the current Argos catalogue or on the website. I went to the store to buy the 2051, which has an entirely different, compact form-factor. The 2054, however, is the conventional width, and fits better with other equipment. They told me when I paid that it might have 'some cosmetic differences.'

"Fine," I said, "as long as it does DivX."
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A theory with the intelligence designed out

While many of us in Britain have looked on in horrified fascination at the Intelligent Design debate currently in full swing in America, we may have become a little complacent that something like it is unlikely to happen here. But slowly, insidiously, it is happening here. Supporters of Intelligent Design are attempting to have Intelligent Design taught in UK school science classes. Search around a bit and you'll find plenty of evidence for this (though none for the theory itself).

I maintain that Intelligent Design -- as promulgated by such organisations as the dishonestly-named Truth in Science -- isn't actually a theory. Any argument that attempts to 'explain' observed phenomena by invoking a supernatural entity, about which we can know nothing, isn't explaining anything.

The ID-ists' arguments, when challenged by those who back evolution as a science-based or evidence-based theory, seem to be a combination of the following:

1. "You say ID is based on faith, but so is evolution. Evolution is based on assumptions about 'the unobservable past', and is therefore not scientific -- not susceptible to observation and experiment."
2. "You say that ID cannot admit of evidence because a theory that is faith-based springs from the pre-supposition that there is a creator/designer. But evolution is based on the pre-supposition that there isn't a designer."

These arguments appear to be attempts to place ID on an equal footing with evolutionary theory. But is seems to me that in order to assess the equality of these views one must look at the reasons for the respective pre-suppositions (if you accept that they are pre-suppositions).

On what basis can one 'pre-suppose' that

1. there is a creator, or
2. there is no creator?

(Note that these are mutually exclusive.)

Even if you find no evidence for a creator, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But as Richard Dawkins lucidly demonstrates in The God Delusion, the existence of a creator is extremely improbable.

The ID-ists' tactics more often than not are to try to turn the evolutionist argument back on the evolutionists, without actually answering any of the evolutionists' criticisms. It's a tactic that can be effective -- until recognised, when it becomes obviously transparent.

This table-turning is likely to happen to the argument about 'Middle World' perceptions, which explains why so much of modern scientific thinking seems to go against common sense. An ID-ist's attempt at refutation might go something like this: "Just as our middle world perception cannot comprehend the very large or the very small, it also cannot comprehend the very transcendence of the other-worldly -- such as God. A rational approach to theism, therefore, is simply not valid."

The very large and the very small, however, are susceptible to rational analysis, whatever our common-sense perceptions tell us, whereas the transcendence of a creator is not, remaining an assertion of faith, without evidence.

Intelligent Design isn't a theory -- it's an intellectual cop-out.
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Buying software for the wrong/right reasons

The podcast Security Now has been on my 'must listen' list for quite a while. Some podcasts I subscribe to are downloaded by iTunes, copied to my iPod and when they turn up in my "Unplayed" Smart Playlist I'll make a snap decision as to whether I'll listen or skip (this decision is usually directly dependent on the total number of podcasts in the "Unplayed" list).

But I'll always listen to Security Now. Steve Gibson knows computers. Not like some people know computers -- people who have used lots of software on several different machines, people who may have done a little scripting, or even programmed in 'C' or Pascal. Steve Gibson is familiar with the PC on a hardware level. His website, www.grc.com has loads of free Windows software utilities available for download. These are not the kind of idle utilities that someone thought up as maybe possibly useful, for someone somewhere. They are essential utilities that solve (and I mean solve, not just mitigate) specific problems with Microsoft Windows. I first came across Steve's utilities without knowing it. After suffering persistent pop-up spam windows on a new XP PC, I did a Google search and came up with something called "Kill The Messenger". I downloaded it, ran it, and have not been troubled since. At the time I knew nothing about Gibson Research Corporation, and didn't actually give it any more thought. It was only after listening to early episodes of Security Now that I went to the website and discovered I had successfully used one of Steve's free utilities several years ago.

Steve Gibson's flagship product is SpinRite, now up to version 6, and by all accounts is the world's best hard-disk recovery and maintenance utility. It isn't cheap, at $89, and some might balk at such a price for a download of only 170 kb. (Yes, that's kilobytes.) Remember, however, that Steve Gibson is 'old school' -- he programs in assembler, for DOS, so his utilities are really tight, fast and efficient. This is the ultimate low-fat software.

The Security Now podcast, part of the TWIT network, features Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson talking about various aspects of computer security, whether this is a comprehensive primer on cryptographic technology (and I do mean comprehensive -- this isn't something that you can give less than your full attention to; it's geeky in the extreme), or discussions on the underlying technology of something in the news -- such as the recent Sony rootkit debacle. Every fourth episode (which with typical geekness they designate a MOD 4 episode) is devoted to answering listeners' queries.

I've been considering buying SpinRite for a while, partly because Steve is providing a useful free service, not only via Security Now, but also to all Windows computer users via his Shields Up! website, and partly because if it's as good as everyone says it is, SpinRite will be a useful utility have instantly available. So today I purchased it.

A few months ago I bought a Maxtor 300GB external USB drive for my MacBook, and it began to regularly misbehave after being powered up for an hour or more. Apparently SpinRite is undiscriminating as to operating systems and file formats, and the recommendation is to extract the external drive from its case and mount it inside a PC before running SpinRite on it. Alternatively, it's possible to run SpinRite on a USB drive if the USB drivers are accessible by SpinRite, although this likely to be much slower in operation.

Well, I couldn't open the case, so I connected the drive to a USB port on the PC, just to see what might happen. I was surprised to find that SpinRite found the drive, and is now -- as I type -- doing its stuff. It will apparently take about five hours.

Watch this space.

Progress and promises

On the right-hand side of this blog you'll find some new additions (click here if you can't see them). I've added some word-counters for my novel-length works-in-progress. This is partly an incentive for me to keep the figures moving, and partly to let people know how I'm doing. (The names of the WIPs are in a sort of code, and don't necessarily relate to their actual, eventual titles.)

Stephen King's universal advice to writers is, "read a lot and write a lot," so I've also added a list of what I'm currently reading. Not that I'll be doing 'a lot' of either, given how much else I've got on, but at least I'll be able to track my progress.

Here's some of the 'else':

My podcast novel, The Plitone Revisionist, is up to Episode 13 (of about 23) at Podiobooks.com, and I have another two episodes to edit, assemble and post in the next couple of days. I also have the 'verbose' version to catch up with -- something that's proving more difficult than I expected, but which I am nevertheless determined to achieve. Listener response to TPR has been very gratifying -- via email, comments using the feedback form at paulsjenkins.net and comments on the Podiobooker blog.

And there's the podcast. The Rev Up Review has been sparse of late, but that too will be speeding up in the new year, and I hope to bring it back to something approaching its former regularity. I've plenty of content (it's been accumulating while I've not been producing regular shows), so there's lots to discuss, and I've some other ideas for RUR that I'll be floating in the new year.

I'd like to post more regularly to this blog, too....

Still here!

Yikes, it's been a while. And I've thought guiltily about this blog on and off for several months -- without doing anything. I could bore you with excuses -- ahem! -- reasons, but you don't want to hear them.

Instead I'll post an update on the MacBook saga:

It's still looking good. So far I've suffered none of the so-called horror stories. No overheating, no discolouration of the plastic, and only occasional shutdowns, which appear to have been fixed by the latest SMC firmware update (if indeed it was a problem on this particular MacBook).

I'm now using the Aqua Beta Intel version of NeoOffice, and have standardized on the Open Document format for my wordprocessing files.

I bought Audio Hijack Pro to capture RealPlayer output direct to disk (and a whole lot of other useful features that I've hardly explored yet).

I use Cyberduck for FTP server access, and Blue Harvest to stop OS X dropping '.DS_Store' files all over my employers' network.

The latest software addition is something I had expected to see eventually, but the reality of it actually running on the McB is just too amazing for words. At the MacExpo in London a week or so ago I bought a copy of Parallels Desktop for Mac, which is virtualisation software, allowing you to run other operating systems inside a window in OS X.

My original intention was to run a version of DOS, just so I can continue to use a couple of very old (but useful) applications from years ago. As it happened I didn't have quite the right disks in order to install MSDOS 6.2, or Windows 98 SE, or Windows 95 (any of which would have been suitable). I should be able to make the right set of disks, given time, but to test the installation of Parallels on my MacBook I decided to install Windows XP.

Installing WinXP in Parallels is a completely transparent and seemingly foolproof operation. XP looks better on the MacBook than it does on my desktop PC, especially as it recognizes the McB's wide screen.

The best thing about XP on the Mac using Parallels is that OS X continues to run underneath, so even using full screen mode for XP, things like Skype and Google Notifier are still running. When new mail comes in, the black Notifier window appears over the top of the XP desktop, in what appears to be a totally seamless manner. In fact the whole experience of running XP in Parallels in utterly charming.

I admit there's a certain satisfaction in watching Microsoft Windows XP running on what it thinks is a bog-standard PC, when in fact it's totally owned by a Macintosh application. And although XP is kept safely away from the computer hardware (so no viruses or other malware can stray outside the Parallels window) there doesn't seem to be much of a performance hit.

You want to buy a computer? You have a choice:

• That one over there, which runs Windows (or Linux, or DOS);
• Or this one over here, which runs Mac OS X (or Windows, or Linux, or DOS, or all of them at once).

Your choice.

Patrick McLean's The Seanachai: "Blame Abraham"

I've been a fan of The Seanachai for quite some time. Patrick McLean's short podcasts are little gems of mastery -- beautifully written, expertly delivered and flawlessly produced. Mostly he does serialized fiction; I particularly enjoyed his story about the man who shot his guitar.

But occasionally Patrick does a one-off commentary, and his latest, "Blame Abraham" cuts right through all the nonsense, spin and partisan hype surrounding the current Middle-Eastern crisis.

Listen to it. And then share it.

"Don't Buy a MacBook"

Despite my long-time use of PCs running Windows of various flavours, I have recently evangelized Macintosh -- especially to computer novices.

Apple's switch to Intel, however, has complicated this. The current range of Macs, which all come with iLife '06, offer complete computing solutions -- in essence, a Mac should give you all you'll ever need for doing the stuff most people would want a computer to do. But the Intel switch has resulted in a number of applications that aren't available on new Macs.

There's also the inescapable Windows-compatibility issue. In the run-up to my purchase of a new MacBook, I was fairly forceful in my recommendations for the new Macs. Someone to whom my Mac-evangelism was taken to heart is now somewhat annoyed with me, because -- in her particular case -- I've recanted my unequivocal recommendation. Two circumstances have caused me to moderate my enthusiasm:

1. One of the main uses to which this person wishes to put her yet-to-be-purchased notebook computer is video-chat with relatives in Canada. Of course, if these relatives were Mac users, then iChat would be ideal. But they use Windows, and Skype is only now, I hear, beta-testing the Mac version of its video-capable VOIP application.
2. I had expected there to be some months' delay before this person actually got around to making a purchase, by which time the availability of Universal versions of established Mac applications should not be an issue. At present it is an issue. Therefore, if she wants to buy a computer now, I'm suggesting she gets a cheap Windows notebook. She'll need to put up with the Windows user interface, but that's what she's used to at work.

This does not in any way diminish my satisfaction with my shiny new MacBook. True, there are some things I find awkward or annoying, but that's inevitable with a new computer. Nothing's perfect, but the MacBook is doing the things for which I purchased it, and doing them well.

Taking stock

I've spent far too much time this weekend in front of my computer(s) (ss) (sss) -- yes that's actually three computers that I use regularly, here at home. One of them is my shiny new MacBook, which is turning out to be one of the most pleasurable (if relatively expensive) purchases I've made in several years. But nevertheless my eyes have been fixed on one bright rectangle or another all weekend (and still are, as I type this).

Have I been wasting my time? I don't think so, but I did have some other stuff to do, which for one reason or another has proved not so easily doable, and I've ended up in front of the screen(s) again. The problem with computers is that they are so capable. You can do so much diverse stuff with them, it's sometimes hard to knuckle down and do the stuff you should be doing.

Such as writing.

I have a novel in progress, which I'm writing in a decidedly episodic manner. I don't have a plot, only a collection of characters plus a series of cool events that I want to incorporate into the narrative, so I'm writing several disconnected passages featuring one or more of the characters, hoping that I'll be able to pull it all together into a coherent and logical form later on. As a novice writer I believe this is a perfectly acceptable way to proceed. If there's one thing I've learned from reading a ton of writing-advice books, it's that there's no single correct way of writing fiction -- there are as many correct ways as there are successful authors.

My first novel, soon to be podcasted, was originally intended to be a series of linked short stories, the first of which I hoped to sell to a magazine and get a captive audience for the subsequent instalments. Eventually, after reading Muriel Gray's excellent first novel The Trickster, I decided to make it a novel from the outset, ditching the single-viewpoint perspective in favour of interwoven multiple viewpoints.

That novel (130,000 words) is finished, at least in a form that I'll be happy to release as a podcast, after spending more than two years messing about trying to interest agents, who seem to think it's acceptable to request three chapters and a synopsis and then sit on them for six months, only to reject them with an inane comment about 'not doing science fiction' -- despite my query letter being completely specific about the genre.

I didn't sit idle, in fiction-writing terms, after I completed the rewrites of my first novel. I now have 75,000 words (about three-quarters complete) of another novel written with a far more rigid structure -- alternate chapters told from alternate viewpoints. But that strict rigidity has been difficult, and I've yet to convince myself that it will work. Consequently I've reached a point when I'd rather be writing something else -- so that's what I'm doing.

The podcast novel will be in addition to The Rev Up Review, which even now is overdue for a new edition, but I'm determined that recording weekly episodes of the novel will not affect the (ir)regularity of The Rev Up Review. In fact, it's my intention that RUR will be a major asset in the promotion of the podcast novel.

Sometimes it worries me that I don't get RUR out as often as some other podcasters produce their shows, that I might be in danger of podfading. But I do it for fun, and to promote my writing, which I also do for fun. If it wasn't fun, I wouldn't do it.

And as far as this blog goes, I'll write it when I feel like it (such as, two posts in as many days, even after a year's break...).

Falling...

I've had my MacBook for nearly two weeks, and I'm loving it more and more.

The latest thing I've discovered is with the digital audio out (otherwise known as the headphone socket). I've used the digital audio out on my PC for recording streaming audio (BBC radio's 'listen again' service, for example) onto Minidisc, but my PC has only a coaxial digital output, so I normally use a coax-to-optical converter. This works well, but the recordings have the Sony SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) enabled, and are treated as digital copies, which means I can't make further digital copies from them. This is annoying, and inevitably leads to an additional analogue stage if the recordings need to be copied off Minidisc onto CD, for instance.

The MacBook, however, has TosLink audio jacks, so I can connect an optical cable directly between the MacBook and the Minidisc, and it appears that the recordings have SCMS disabled, so they are entirely DRM-free! Not only that, but plugging in the TosLink cable disables the MacBook's volume control, setting it to maximum, so I don't even have to remember to turn it up.

Needless to say, I'll be using the MacBook for all my future 'streaming audio to Minidisc' recordings.

Phew...!

Despite my previous concern over the unavailability of Universal versions of some of the software I'm used to, it seems that the problem is solved (after fashion, and for the time being). The latest PowerPC version of OpenOffice appears to run satisfactorily under Rosetta. Not fast, but adequate until the Universal version is stable and reliable.

So I do, after all, have compatibility with all my previous documents -- which is a relief, considering that this shiny new MacBook, for all its sooper dooper coolness and utility, is supposed to earn its keep with mundane stuff like wordprocessing.

It's arrived!

I now have a shiny new white MacBook. So far I've used it only in my kitchen, connected wirelessly to the router I bought a month or so ago specifically with the prospect of a new notebook in mind. The MacBook's wireless performance is impressive, picking up half a dozen networks I'd never seen before.

The screen appears extremely sharp, making my cheap 17" TFT look decidedly woolly, and even my 19" CRT now seems a bit furry.

I've been downloading software updates, as well as some other free and open source software I expect to be using. I gather that the Intel versions of DivX and other plugins for QuickTime are a bit iffy, so for the time being I'll be using VLC for playing AVI files.

I have hit a problem. My preferred office software, OpenOffice, isn't available as a Universal Binary in stable form yet, and I've discovered that the alternative, NeoOffice, won't run under Rosetta. For word-processing only, I've downloaded AbiWord, but the two times I've tried to use it (under Rosetta), it's bombed out. Not good.

That's how far I've got, in one-and-a-half evenings. More later.

I've had other delights as well...
...but you'll have to read my other blog to find out about that.

Macticipation

After nearly two weeks of dithering, I've ordered my MacBook. I knew my next laptop would be a Mac, but I'd been waiting for Apple's announcement of the iBook replacement before making a decision. The black MacBook is seriously desirable, but at a £90 premium I felt I was being taken for a fashion-conscious, cash-careless air-head.

I don't blame Apple for exploiting those who want to show off the rarity value of a black Mac. If the black iPod is selling better than the white, why not try to make some extra profit? People can always vote with their credit cards.

As I'm doing. I've ordered the white one, upgraded to the spec of the black.

Now I'm checking out which apps have been (or soon will be) released in Universal versions. I use mostly open-source software on my Mac mini, apart from iLife '05, and though I'm looking forward to using iLife '06, there are some apps which I'll be using under Rosetta, at least for a while.

Meanwhile, I'm checking my account at the online Apple Store every day....

The rumours are true

Steve Jobs was very impressive in his keynote at WWDC, even if he did seem a bit flustered in the last few seconds.

So, OS X has been running on Intel for the past five years? And this doesn't mean that OS X will be available as an alternative operating system for Windows XP machines? Isn't OS X based on Unix?

Linux runs native on PCs so why shouldn't OS X? Even if it's not Apple's policy to make available an alternative PC operating system it seems to me that it's inevitable. Mac and PC hardware has been converging for years, and many software companies have a wealth of experience developing applications for both platforms. Apple itself has iTunes and QuickTime running on both. Will we soon see bootleg PC versions of OS X available for download from dubious websites? My guess is that these versions already exist, and the only way Apple will stem the spread of unofficial 'PCOSX' is to release an official version.

What Windows user hasn't envied the sleek designer efficiency of the Mac? (Okay, some Windows users say they never have, but they're lying.) The cool usability of the Mac is largely derived from its operating system, and the chance to sample it directly on cheap PC hardware could be too tempting to resist.

Just think: the release of a PC OS X could be the one thing that takes PC design by the throat and hammers some rationality into it. Currently the main authority on what makes up a PC is Microsoft. If Apple started publishing strict system requirements and hardware standards for PCs to run OS X, we might start getting better designed PCs that weren't so prone to crashing.

And amongst all this speculation let's not lose sight of the irony that the originator of the PC -- and therefore of all the clones that followed -- is the company that Apple are now ditching in favour of the 'heart of the PC'.

Everything needs a purpose...

I've been wondering (and this is why there have so far been few blog entries here) what exactly I should be using this blog for.

The other one, The Rev Up Review, is the blog for my podcast (called...er...The Rev Up Review), and it's echoed at http://revup.libsyn.com/. Stuff that's related to the podcast will be posted on The Rev Up Review, so what's this for, given that it is kind of related to what's going on there?

I suppose I should use it for anything that isn't directly related to The Rev Up Review. Such as...

After my unforgivably stupid episode concerning the Windows Recycle Bin, which was prompted by a concern for how much bandwidth I was using, I have given up any pretence of regulating the amount of downloading I'm doing. Wanadoo state they're not checking customers' bandwidth at present, but when they do, I'm going to have to upgrade. Whether that's to one of their higher-capped packages, or to a competing ISP, is something I'll decide at the time. I could be seriously better off switching to cable, for both broadband internet and telephone.

NTL, my local cable provider, do several packages including cable TV, but frankly I'm not much bothered about the TV side of things. I have Freeview, which I got mainly for digital radio, but if NTL have a good offer at the time, including a box with a digital audio output, that could swing it for me.

Unbelievably, incredibly, utterly...stupid

I still can't believe it. How could anyone, even someone with even the briefest acquaintance with the mechanics of computing, be so thick-headed and...just plain dumb?
But there we are. I suppose some people just have moments of temporary insanity.

After a discussion earlier today about the options for getting my dad fixed up with broadband, I wondered how close I was to my 2Gb-per-month cap with Wanadoo. So I did a search in Windows XP of all my downloaded podcasts during the last 30 days -- just to get an idea of how much stuff it was. Only thing is, the search doesn't show the total size. So I copied the results into a folder on the desktop and used 'Properties' to see the total. It was 3.62 Gb, which means I'll probably have to go up to the next band when Wanadoo start metering usage.

Fine, I thought, it's what I expected. But I didn't want a 3.62 Gb folder cluttering up my desktop, so I dumped it in the Recycle Bin. And I didn't want all that still on my hard disk so I emptied the Recycle Bin.

It was only when I next tried to sync my iPod that I realised that I hadn't 'copied' all those files, I'd 'moved' them. And deleted them. And emptied the Recycle Bin. 3.62 Gb! How could I be so STUPID?

Well, to cut a long story short, I did manage to retrieve the majority using a utility (let's hear it for restoration.exe, available at http://aumha.org/a/recover.php), but I still had quite a few gaps to fill in.

So much for worrying about my bandwidth usage -- it's certainly gone up this evening....