Dec2005 28

{mosimage}"MILLIONS of Australians who tape TV shows and copy CDs will soon get the right to do it with a clear conscience.



The Federal Government will next year legalise the video recording of television shows for personal use, and the transfer of songs from CDs to MP3 players, in a bid to overturn a ban which has made criminals of much of the population."



Click here for the full rundown.

Dec2005 28

{mosimage}When Oregon Scientific makes a product, you know it's gonna be packed with features, but how's this for a new phone they've released - the USB Cubic CU328 DECT Telephone. Yup, it’s a phone, but it’s also an FM Alarm clock, Calendar and MP3 player. Oh and it's wireless.



The Phone is powered by rechargeable batteries and you can even personalize your rings with MP3 (or *coff* WMA) files loaded over USB or SD cards.

Dec2005 24

{mosimage}Merry Christmas to you all - I hope Santa gives you all you desire.



Thanks for visiting my humble site over the last 12 months and if you've clicked on my banner ads, double thanks.



I've got a new design for the site in progress for the New Year, so stay glued for more. Peace.

Dec2005 18

Ramp creates power as Cars passA road ramp that uses passing cars to generate power has been developed.

Dorset (UK) inventor Peter Hughes' Electro-Kinetic Road Ramp creates around 10kW of power each time a car drives over its metal plates.

Click here for the full story.

Dec2005 13

{mosimage}Check it out ... the X-Men 3 teaser trailer is out showing a major battle between mutants (and possibly humans or sentinels ?).



This is the 3rd in the X-Men movie trilogy, at the end of 2, Jean Grey used her powers to save the others and is believed dead, except for the phoenix image we see underneath the water. The 3rd movie will also see Kelsey Grammer playing Dr Hank McCoy aka Beast.



Click here for the goods.

Dec2005 10

{mosimage}WeeWorld is the place to create your WeeMee.



So, what's a WeeMee ? WeeMees are characters that represent you. They can share your passion for extreme sports, cutting-edge technology, punk hairstyles or exotic pets.



If you haven't already worked it out, that's me.

Dec2005 04

{mosimage}Apple has released an update for the iPod Shuffle that, according to Apple, fixes some “bugs” with that particular model. Apple did not specify what changes were made with the new software. iPod Updater 2005-11-17 includes iPod Software 1.1.3 for the iPod Shuffle.



The update contains the same software versions as iPod Updater 2005-10-12 for all other iPod models and weights in at 37MB.


Here's hoping they've fixed the bug, where I was unable to continue playing where I'd left off. This was/is particularly annoying during long podcasts or mixes.


Update 7/12: I've noticed that the Shuffle now remembers where it left off, it also remembers the volume setting, whereas before, it would return to the middle.

Nov2005 30

{mosimage}Apple has released a new Security Update 2005-009, which delivers a number of security enhancements and is recommended for all Macintosh users.



This update includes apache_mod_ssl, CoreFoundation, curl, OpenSSL, Safari and sudo, to name a few.

Nov2005 27

{mosimage}Today, I went to Nextbyte and picked up an iSight for my iMac.



The main reason I purchased the iSight, was so I could use the very, well polished app - Delicious Library, for organizing all my DVDs. You see, when using Delicious Library with an iSight, you can scan the barcodes, so you don't have to enter in any of the information.



Can't wait to give it a whirl !

Nov2005 26

{mosimage}The Man of Steel is back ! Check out this teaser trailer of the up coming Bryan Singer directed - Superman Returns.



Personally, I don't know why Tom Welling isn't playing Superman. He should be. He's been groomed for the role in Smallville. Anyway, let's hope Brendan Routh can pull it off.



Still, how cool is it going to be with Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor ...

Nov2005 23

These days when you buy CDs or DVDs, you'll usually get them in a spindle. These disks come with no covers, so when you want to transport things to and from work or when you want to give a friend a disk, in the past, I had just been getting a piece of A4 paper and "wrapping" it in it. Whilst, this did the job, it looked shabby and I thought, surely there has to be a better ... surely someone has come up with an Origami version ... And guess what, I was right (and stop calling me Shirley :P)

First, I came across this site by Matthew Toledo. I started to follow his steps, but got stuck on his "this part is tricky". So, I did another search on the web and came across this PDF document.

This takes me back to when I use to make paper airplanes as a kid (I wonder if people do that these days or if XBOX's and Playstations have done away with that past time.) Anyway, after making a few, I'm like ... this is so cool, must share with the world.

Nov2005 13

{mosimage}



From its cel animation to its CGI effects, Appleseed is a very slick looking anime movie and is one of the finest displays of modern CGI blended anime. Bandai Visual has done an amazing job recreating (and extending) Masamune Shirow's original comic and making the 1991 anime look like a distant cousin.



Appleseed also benefitted by having a number of popular electronica artists included on its soundtrack including Paul Oakenfold, Aphex Twin and Basement Jaxx (I still get gossbumps to this day, listening to their remix of "Good Luck".)



Rating: "star"
"star"
"half
"half

Nov2005 01

{mosimage}Apple has release it's latest update to Tiger, 10.4.3 and it addresses several security flaws. The update addresses seven separate issues, including a bugs (1) in the Finder that incorrectly displays file/group ownership, (2) in Software Update that may not install certain software updates, (3) in group permissions under Mac OS X 10.4.2 Server where changes may not be immediately applied, (4) in Keychain which may display certain passwords after the lock timeout, and (5,6,7) in the kernel that may display memory information to local users.




Click here for the full story.


Update 2/11: After updating and restarting, I now have no desktop ... No icons and no Finder to access. Safari runs thankfully, Skype and Firefox don't, that's all I've tried so far. I guess the permissions are stuffed ... again. I can't even launch the Disk Utility, so I had to hunt around on Appletalk until I found out the command line to repair permissions.



As I could only launch things from my dock, I launched the Terminal, repaired the permissions using that command, unfortunately, I couldn't shutdown. When I tried to "su", that failed to accept my password.



So, I had to turn it off at the back and when it came back up it was all good ... now I just wish Apple would include an automatic run of the Disk Utility - Repair Permissions at the end of every update. Please.



Every update so far has caused one problem or another.

Oct2005 29

DOOM Movie Review

Posted In Apple |

{mosimage}On Saturday, I went to the see the game turned movie - Doom.
Wow ... what a bad movie. I didn't think it was possible to waste $60 million dollars ... now I do. Let's start with the story - written by first-time writer Dave Callaham. He claims that his story was altered (after being inundated with hate emails from Doom gamers), presumably by the screenwriter, Wesley Strick, who's credits include Cape Fear (Remake) and The Saint (TV Show turned Movie). Not off to a good start.


Now we have the director, the person who shapes the movie, who's vision of the story, is what we see. Andrzej Bartkowiak, who's credits include such B-grade movies as Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds and Cradle 2 the Grave. Why would you hand a project like Doom over to someone who has no track record. Like I'm not saying get James Cameron to direct it, there are a lot of other talented action flick directors who could have done a better job.


The music or lack thereof, was a major let down. No musical score to add suspense, some scenes just flopped because of this in my opinion. We were treated to some rock score at one point, which leaves just as soon as it enters. Now comes the acting ... well we weren't going to expect much from The Rock, now were we ? Karl Urban does the best he can ... but Rosamund Pike, I thought her acting was weak.


So, overall, I didn't enjoy this movie. It certainly hasn't done well at the box office overall. I've given it an extra half star, just for the First Person Shooter part.


Rating:
"star" 
"half

Oct2005 23

Over the past week or so, I've been busy working on providing the Haiku OS HD Images for the community.


These images are for testing purposes ONLY and are not to be used for product reviews. The images have been made available to test on real Hardware or Emulation, such as BeBochs and/or Virtual PC.

You can check out all the progress over at my Haiku Pref Team blog.

Oct2005 15

{mosimage}On Saturday, I went to the Southbank Parkland's cinema
to see Joss Whedon's movie length Serenity, a continuation of the
Firefly 14 episode TV show, that was shown on late night free-to-air TV, so I never got to see it. Whilst my
other half didn't like this movie at all, I thought it was not bad. The
overall production had a very TV-like quality to it, even though some
of the scenes were movie-like kick ass.



The dialog was very Whedon-witty-like and the story generally flowed,
however, there were a few uneasy things such as there
being no chemistry between Zoe (Gina Torres) and Wash (Alan Tudyk), and why was River (Summer Glau) being trained ? To fight the Reavers ? Jayne (Adam Baldwin)
had some of the best lines in this movie, and I felt River looked stunning in her
buffy-esque fighting moves againsts the vamp...err reavers.

I really like Nathan Fillion (Captain Mal or to Buffy fans Caleb, the Evil
Priest) as an actor. so I would like to see this project develop
into something else, either another movie or a new series for TV.



Rating:
"star"
"star"
"half

Oct2005 13

{mosimage}Apple is at it again ... once again giving it's current products a
facelift - the iMac, now comes with a Remote and a built-in iSight.



The
list of features the *new* stock iMac comes with pretty much compares
to ALL
THE EXTRAs I forked out on less than 6 months ago. Good one Apple. It's
almost as though they are
trying to get as much money as possible out of their "old stock" (PPC)
before going to MacIntels. I guess it's a "smart business move" on
their behalf, since all company's goal ae to make more money, still I
have a problem with Apple's "let's keep everything secret" attitude.



At least, we have a revamped iTunes - gosh, what happened to 5 ? Was it
that crap, we needed a 6 ? And the Video Store - hey Steve, how
about getting a Music Store in Australia first before you work on a new
model that hasn't even been proven.

Oct2005 09

{mosimage}"After many delays and almost a year since the last stable
m0n0wall release, I'm happy to announce the immediate availability of m0n0wall 1.2.



Several new features have been added, existing ones have been improved,
the webGUI has been made even easier to use, and many bugs
have been fixed."

Oct2005 06

{mosimage}The LifeDrive is back ... My brand new replacement arrived today from Handhelds Online.



Ever since getting my Palm LD, it's had battery issues where it would
only hold 80% of it's charge.



Here's hoping this new unit doesn't have
the same issue.

Oct2005 04

{mosimage}"The time has come soldiers. The 1.03 Update for Battlefield 2 is now available.



bf2_patch_103.exe (171MB)

bf2_server_103.exe (128MB)

bf2-linuxded-1.1.2551.0-installer.zip (133MB)



(get from downloads page)



Alongside the fixes noted in last Friday's community update, you can find out all of the fixes and tweaks included in this update in the changelog found HERE."

Sep2005 23

{mosimage}Apple have released Tiger's eighth security update for 2005. This security update delivers a number of enhancements and is recommended for all Mac users.



This update includes the following components:

ImageIO,
LibSystem,
Mail,
QuickDraw,
Ruby,
SecurityAgent and
securityd.



For detailed information on 2005-008, please visit this website.



Update 26/9: Also, you'll find there's 2005-09-23 Update for the iPod, which will enable iPods to work properly with iTunes 5. Finally! The nightmare is over, as ever since I installed iTunes 5 on my iMac, my Shuffle could no longer sync/receive songs. I can now report, that the update works and I was good to go for today :D.

Sep2005 17

{mosimage}Today, Samford Skirmish hosted the Samford 3man 2005, with 16 teams (6 Pro and 10 Div 1), on one of the best paintball fields in Australia.



Congrats to 3 Skins, who took out the Pro division and 3 Minute Men for taking out Div 1. Paint Savvy rocked it's way into the finals, holding out the final "best of 3" to 4 games (with a draw). In the end, we took out 2nd place in the Div 1 finals.



We played some great games. We formulated our game plan and we stuck to it. The reffing was excellent and we thank them and the staff for all their hard work. Overall, it was a great day of paintball had by all.

Sep2005 11

{mosimage}Paul Thurrott writes "Two days before the start of Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005, I've received exclusive insider information about the product editions, or SKUs, which Microsoft intends to create for Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn). While the exact breakdown of the Windows Vista editions has been the subject of much speculation, this list closely matches the editions list I first published on the SuperSite for Windows last year. Here's how the Windows Vista product editions break down."



+ Windows Vista Starter Edition

+ Windows Vista Home Basic Edition

+ Windows Vista Home Premium Edition

+ Windows Vista Professional Edition

+ Windows Vista Small Business Edition

+ Windows Vista Enterprise Edition

+ Windows Vista Ultimate Edition



Interesting, that Microsoft went away from having so many editions quite a few years ago, and is now doing a backflip and going *overboard*. Can you imagine the confusion with IT Professionals and users ? "So, what version of Windows do you have ?" "I don't know, it's Windows Vista something".

Sep2005 07

{mosimage}Well all the rumours were finally squashed, when the Apple Special Music Event went ahead today. This special event, held at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco, debuted several new products, some of which are available now at the Apple Store US back online.

Apple used the special music event to launch iTunes 5, the new iTunes-compatible Motorola ROKR phone, and the iPod nano, a smaller, thinner, flash-based version that replaces the iPod mini.

{mosimage}
Click the above image to watch the video

The nano looks a lot like the offspring of a mini and a shuffle (width-wise) and also seems to have addressed some of the shuffle's issues such as the "lanyard headphones", which integrate the headphone cables into the lanyard, so users can wear it around their neck without dangling headphone cables.

My real concern with all these portable devices is battery life - when is someone going to address this issue ?

Update 9/9: I've now tried to install iTunes 5 on 3 different Windows XP PCs with no success. They either fail to install or won't run citing that QuickTime 7 is required, yet the installer is meant to do both. Meanwhile, on the Mac, iTunes runs fine. This doesn't bode well for a company that is betting it's company on x86.

Aug2005 30

Palm Lifedrive

Posted In |

{mosimage}My new Palm arrived today from Handhelds Online. I must say,
pretty good service from them, they rang me yesterday to confirm the
order and sent numberous emails including one with a tracking link.



I immediately opened the box and put the Palm on the charge. I then
opened the Hard Case, I bought. Ugggh. What a crappy case. Like it
feels sterdy and strong - it's mainly made from the same as my previous
case which was made out of Shark. The difference is this case has a
metal door and here in lies the problem.



I tried to open the with no success. There's a tiny groove you're meant
to get your fingernail into to open it. Mine are too small and kept
slipping. I then tried a metal key and that slipped and put a dirty
great big scratch right across the door. Grrrrr. The only way I've been
able to open the door, is by forcibly using a 10 cent piece. Rating for
this case. 1 out of 5. I would not recommend it to anyone. In fact, I'm
kicking myself that I bought. I've just wasted $65 :(



As for the Lifedrive ...

Aug2005 22

{mosimage}Anyone who has ever run their fingers over the keys of a synthesizer, or danced to pounding electronic music in a nightclub, owes a debt to Robert Moog.

Moog, one of the early pioneers in electronic instruments, died Sunday at the age of 71, after being diagnosed with brain cancer in late April.

An inventor and entrepreneur, Moog came up with an early synthesizer that was among the first electronic instruments to be widely used by musicians, and was ultimately deeply influential in the development of many modern music genres, from rock to electronica."

Aug2005 17

BF2 Jet Guide

Posted In |

{mosimage}"Sure, just about anyone and their dog can hit E and jump in a jet, but do you really know what you are doing as you leave the runway?

This guide should help you get familiar with the different features you will have while soaring the sky's, so pay attention solider!"

Aug2005 12

BF2 Stats Widget

Posted In |

{mosimage}I've decided to release for public consumption the BF2 Stats Widget, that I've been working on for awhile.


The issue had been that the stat providers were changing their sig locations on a daily basis. It seems they've worked out all the issues for now, by having "delayed" stats.


Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.

Aug2005 07

On August 6th to 7th, Samford Skirmish hosted South Pacs 2005, one of the longest running and most competitive paintball tournaments in Australia.

Congrats to SWAT, who took out the Pro division and Apoc for taking out Div 1. Whilst, we didn't fair to well overall, we did okay in our own division (2W / 1D / 2L). We also had heaps of fun, there were no organization hiccups and we got to play against the best of the best including Oliver Lang, who played on one of the Pro teams for Day 1.

See you all in 2006 !

Aug2005 02

Mighty Mouse

Posted In Music |

"Meet the mouse that reinvented the wheel. The scroll wheel, that is. At $79, Mighty Mouse features the revolutionary Scroll Ball that lets you move anywhere inside a document, without lifting a finger. And with touch-sensitive technology concealed under the seamless top shell, you get the programability of a four-button mouse in a single-button design. Click, roll, squeeze and scroll. This mouse just aced the maze."

The Mighty Mouse is available from the Apple Australia Online Store for $79 AU and ships within 1-2 days.

{mosimage}

Aug2005 01

{mosimage}In its browser blog, Microsoft acknowledged that IE 7 would not pass the Web Standards Project's Acid2 test, which examines a browser's support for W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recommendations including CSS1 (Cascading Style Sheets), HTML4 and PNG (Portable Network Graphics).

"We will not pass this test when IE7 ships," Chris Wilson, lead program manager for the Web platform in IE, wrote in the IE blog. "We fully recognize that IE is behind the game today in CSS support. We've dug through the Acid2 test and analyzed IE's problems with the test in some great detail, and we've made sure the bugs and features are on our list--however, there are some fairly large and difficult features to implement, and they will not all sort to the top of the stack in IE7."

Opera was "very close" to passing Acid2 whilst, Apple has already said that its Safari browser passes the test in preliminary builds. The Mozilla Foundation said it was committed to "full support" of Acid2 in its Firefox browser but did not say when it expected to pass the test.

Jul2005 30

{mosimage}

Richard Richards, Sue & Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm - Meet the
Fantastic Four - Marvel's (or should I say Stan's) latest
comic-turned-blockbuster superheros. Overall Fantastic Four was a very enjoyable, fun movie. One could almost, dare I say was absolutely fantastic.


It's just a good film, one that I think entire family can enjoy. Avi Arad and team have done an excellent job with the casting - Jessica Alba was great as Sue Storm, along with Michael Chiklis as the Thing/Ben Grimm), even Aussie actor Julian McMahon played Dr Doom with such ternacity. Chris Evans, who plays Johnny Storm had some great lines in the movie which provided light comedy amongst all the action.


The effects in Fantastic Four were first rate - especially the scene on New York bridge. Props to all the CGI artist.



Hopefully we.ll get to see the foursome in another adventure soon.


Rating: "star.gif"
"star.gif"
"star.gif"
"halfstar.gif"

Jul2005 25

{mosimage}"Yahoo! Inc. on Tuesday will announce the acquisition of Konfabulator (now called Yahoo Widgets), a Macintosh and Windows application that allows users to run Widgets on their desktop -- the same model used by Apple for its Dashboard application. Yahoo! company executives said they would also be giving Konfabulator away for free, completely doing away with the US$19.95 currently charged for the product."

I still think Konfabulator is a better model than Dashboard on the Mac, but on Windows, Samurize wins hands down.

Jul2005 19

{mosimage}Ever wondered what it takes to get that Ribbon, Badge or Medal in Battlefield 2, well thanks to the phusioN, here's the unofficial guide.


"The contents of this website are 99.9% accurate. That said, everything here will work when you attempt it, but we may have worded something wrong - so don't hold it to us."

Jul2005 15

{mosimage}"The hotfix for Battlefield 2 v1.01 is now available for download. This update replaces v1.01 and fixes the said memory leak. Along with this update, we’ve made available an updated unranked server file for Win32 and an updated unranked server file for Linux."

Unfortunatelely, the game still crashes, this time instead of back to the desktop, the PC reboots itself. Something is to blame here ... EA/DICE or nVidia's driver ?

At least, I can now use qtracker to find my friends and join them for some team-based ass kickin'.

Jul2005 15

Well, I get home after a crap day at work, but it's Friday and time to play some BF2, except this time when I run the game, everything is blue.


This morning I lodged a support ticket with EA, so I'm waiting to hear any feedback that they have. In other news, the official site says they're currently "testing" the new patch. Maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel ?

Jul2005 12

{mosimage}Apple today released Mac OS X 10.4.2, which the company says delivers overall improved reliability and compatibility for Mac OS X v10.4 and is recommended for all users. It includes fixes for file sharing, authentication, autologin, AirPort/wireless access, several graphics updates, .Mac fixes, Apple's core applications, and more.

The company also included security fixes for a TCP/IP denial of service attack and Dashboard, which may install widgets that override Apple-supplied widgets. It is available via the Software Update for Mac OS X Tiger users. Both a Delta update for Mac OS X 10.4.1 users and a Combo Update for Mac OS X 10.4 users is available on the Web as well.

Jul2005 11

{mosimage}Last night, the Official Battlefield 2 website updated the community with this gob stopper - "we recommend that you reinstall the game". Reinstall the game ? Because of your buggy patch ? What about a rollback of the patch ? Surely, they would have included that in the patch process ... No, that would require planning and thought.

Firstly, the game wasn't complete, yet they released it, then the patch wasn't complete and released that too. Who's to say when this hotfix comes out, that it will actually work.

This is just very piss poor programming on EA/DICE's behalf. So much for proper testing. The "memory leak" issue, with the patch, was found within hours of running, so why couldn't EA/DICE do testing too ? They flogged on about their test centres during the developer diaries ...

{mosimage}

Anyway, since the reinstall, I've been dropped 5 or 6 times from servers for "connection issues" and/or dropped to the desktop with memory errors (ala above), bugs like seeing your allies as enemies and now qtracker doesn't work (it worked with the patch though).

Jul2005 02

{mosimage}With Apple's latest version of iTunes 4.9, it now has support for Podcasts via the Music Store (Yes, you'll have to turn it on if you've got it off, since your country doesn't have a store). Now, if you're unfamiliar with the term Podcast, it's origins began about 4 years ago and is basically an audio version of RSS feeds.

The beauty of Podcasting shines with the tool that is used to manage it, on the Mac, I tried awhile some time ago, iPodderX, a shareware program. It was ok, but in the long run, I saw no overall benefit to me.

Jun2005 28

SAVVY Squad

Posted In Tech |

{mosimage}Meet the members of Savvy Squad - the elite BF2 squad that can be found on various Australian servers.

Jun2005 26

Having reviewed and played the demo, I will summarize my review for the full game. In saying that, the full game offers quite a few advantages over the demo, including certain features that were turned off.

Jun2005 26

{mosimage}We finally have our Dark Knight, the one Frank Miller
(legendary comic writer) created in his graphic novels, which
portrayed a darker, more thought provoking Batman than ever before.
 
In
the Batman lore, Bruce Wayne's parents are killed and then the history
jumps to all of a sudden he's Batman with all the gadgets. Now for the
first time, Memento director Christopher Nolan fills in those gaps.

Rating: "star" "star" "star" "star"

Jun2005 12

{mosimage}Meet John and Jan Smith (Pitt and Jolie) - a married couple bored with their quiet domestic life. What they don't know, however, is that they're both assassins, but their separate lives are about to collide when each finds out their next target is each other.



Unfortunately, this movie was too long, at 120 minutes. They could have shaved a good half an hour off the movie, thereby speeding up the time it took for them to find out about their "secret". Both Pitt and Jolie worked hard (physcially) and they worked well together, however, in the end I just felt like I was mildly entertained.



Rating: "star" "star"
"half

Jun2005 11

{mosimage}On Saturday night, Pete, Shane, Dale and I ventured into the Valley,
to Brisbane's own little superclub - The Family.


Two of the best DJs in
the world, Deep Dish (Ali "Dubfire" Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi) played an awesome four hour set, along with the
Boogie Pimps and other locals in the other rooms.

Jun2005 09

{mosimage}'Battlefield 2 moves the franchise forward in time to invade the high tech frontlines of modern warfare. Powered by an all-new game engine, Battlefield 2 brings the intensity and excitement of its predecessors, Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam, into the modern era with the latest, most technologically advanced vehicles and weapons systems available to man.

In Battlefield 2, players will choose to fight for one of three military superpowers: the United States, China, or the newly formed Middle East Coalition. Armed with the latest modern weaponry, players can take control of any of the game's 30+ vehicles to engage in major conflicts with over 100 players in some of the largest online battles on the PC."

Jun2005 06

{mosimage}At Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference today, CEO Steve Jobs announced plans to deliver Macs using Intel microprocessors by this time next year, and to transition all of its Macs to using Intel microprocessors by the end of 2007.

During his keynote, Jobs revealed that Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life." Every release of Mac OS X has been built secretly for both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. For the last 5 years, Mac OS X has been "cross-platform by design." Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."

This opens up a whole can of worms. Are they going to continue to develop OS X for PowerPC and Intel for a period of time ? Does it mean the PowerPC based machine I bought this year is obsolete as soon as the Intel version is available ? I just hope I get to use my Mac for longer than 1.5 years, before I'm looking to either go stale (no updates) or look for another machine.

Here's UserFriendly's latest comic, along with a number of comments from Appletalk users in response to the news "Apple will be no better than alienware. Just a pretty case.", "I'm in shock! I can't believe it's finally happening." and "I've already got an intel box ... I dont need another".  "The Intel move could cause confusion for Mac users, hurt the open-source Linux movement, could create some short-term risk with AAPL stock, and may harm the Mac market in the short-term, according to developers and analysts" from MaCNN. 
 
Someone on Slashdot paraphrased Obi-wan ... "I felt something, a disturbance in the network, as if a million mac zealots cried out in horror and were suddenly silenced ". Classic.

May2005 26

I whipped up another Dashboard widget today, this time, the Energex Lightning Tracker for South-East QLD.







Click here to download

May2005 24

{mosimage}
After ducking the media hype of the opening last week, I decided to go
along to see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith today - and revenge
they got. In months leading up, we were warned that Episode 3 was going
to be "darker" and to a certain extent that is true, however, it had to be.



It
had to show Anakin's journey to the dark side, the forces that drove
him that way and how the Empire became the force that it was in
Star Wars: A New Hope.




Rating: "star.gif"
"star.gif"
"star.gif"
"star.gif"
"star.gif"

May2005 23

Since being on Annual Leave, I've had a chance to play around with
Tiger's Dashboard system - ala widgets. Here's a couple of widgets I
whipped up ...



BrizCam -
Displays two WebCams that are around Brisbane, QLD (Australia) -
Riverside Expressway and Gateway Bridge Toll; can also toggle been the
two.







Click here to download








BrizWeather - Displays a map of the current Rainfall around Brisbane, QLD (Australia) in a 128km radius thanks to the BOM.







Click here to download



Thanks to WidgetDeveloper.com for listing/hosting.

May2005 16

"Kylie"
Kylie Minogue has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and has postponed her Australian tour.
 
Whilst at home in Melbourne with her family this week, prior to her Australian Showgirl Tour, Kylie was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer," Ms Minogue's publicist said in a statement released a short time ago. "She will undergo immediate treatment and consequently her Australian tour will not be able to proceed as planned."

Ms Minogue said she was sorry to disappoint her fans.

May2005 16

I decided to throw this widget together last tonight as it's quite handy to
see if there's any rain about. I'll add some preferences in due course.



Here's a screenshot of a work in progress on my current Mac desktop:-




May2005 15

{mosimage}
Sikosis.com (previously Gravity24hr.com) has taken the plunge and severed it's ties from six (6) year web host, Interland (previously Communitech). Our corner of the web is now being hosted by UVC Host.
The hosting is considerably cheaper and whilst I will not have any sub
domains ($10 per subdomain per year ? No thanks), I keep coming back to
that price per year and for some reason, it's not a problem anymore ;).

As for their reliablility, I've been use to their stability and performance for awhile, as Scott Mc setup the BeDrivers
hosting there. I'm responsible for building, from
scratch, the site and setting it all up. I'll most likely migrate it to a Mambo install soon, just to make things easier on myself.

I'm
still working on the Dashboard Widgets, getting the code cleaned up and
making them solid before I release them for public (ab)use.

May2005 07

Since getting a hold of Tiger, I've been playing around with Dashboard widgets.



I'm currently working on two widgets.

  • XBench
  • MyFox
Below is a screenshot of the work in progress ... more soon, just off to Mother's Day Lunch and then a dinner.

{mosimage}

May2005 06

{mosimage}"The Matrix Online Team is pleased
to announce the Friends & Family Trial Program that will take place
from May 20th-29th, 2005 during the next major live event, "The Hunt
for Morpheus." On Thursday, May 12th all current subscribers to The Matrix Online
will be e-mailed 3 trial keys and a game client download link. Each of
these keys will allow a non-subscriber guest to sign-up and play the
game during this live event."



Awesome ... I'm a subscriber, so I'll get a chance to experience TMO.
I've been following this game for quite away, I entered the beta, but
chose not to play as I thought back to my beta Neocron days.

Now all I
have to do is pick 3 worthy mates ...

Apr2005 29

Tiger Released

Posted In Music |

{mosimage}I took the day off today, mainly because I was heading up the Coast,
but also so I could pick up my copy of Tiger, Apple's latest OS
release. My plans were put on hold when the reseller, Nextbyte, informed me that my copy
wouldn't be available until 6pm. So, unfortunately, I have to wait til
Tuesday (as Monday is a Public Holiday).



This is a shame, as I started to read about how other people in Australia, who
pre-ordered via Apple's Online site, received it at 8am. This
does nothing more than add fuel to the already raging fire over the
Reseller vs Apple debate.



I decided to check out if there were any reviews of Tiger to keep me
occupied. I first came across the rather heady and rant-filled, Ars
Technica
review. You'll probably want to skim read that one. Also, I
found CNet's, SuperSite (Windows Orientated site) and AnandTech's.



I've also seen a number of widgets popping up on VersionTracker. ;)

Apr2005 21

BextaBexta's web site
has an news article stating "iTunes is about to become available in Australia finally. And my album "conversations with ones and zeroes" is going to be one of the first available to download! It's launching in
about a month, so check it out. http://www.itunes.com.au"

It's been rumoured and reported before (twice), but this time, it looks like it's finally about to happen. Pricing hasn't been announced and people are guessing it'll be between $1.29 to $1.89.

Apr2005 15

{mosimage}Apple has released the latest Software Update (51.3 MB) for Mac OS X
v10.3 aka "Panther", which delivers overall improved compatibility and
reliability for  and is recommended for all
users.



Improvements include:

• File sharing and directory services reliability for mixed Mac and PC networks including support for NTFS formatted volumes :D

• Mail, Safari and Stickies application reliability

• Compatibility for third party applications and devices

• Previous standalone security updates



For a full list of features, click here.

Apr2005 12

Like a Tiger...

Posted In Music |

{mosimage}Today, Apple announced the release date of the upcoming update to Mac OS X, called Tiger.


The
next-generation of the Mac OS X operating system has more than 200 new
features and innovations including Dashboard, an updated iChat, a new
Automator workflow application, Safari with a built-in RSS reader and
Spotlight, Apple's new desktop search technology that lets users
instantly find anything stored on their Mac. "Mac OS X Tiger is the
most innovative and secure desktop operating system ever created," said
Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.


Well, he would, wouldn't he
? Hehe, but I've seen a developer preview release and Tiger looks like
the goods. I've already pre-ordered my copy for $199AU through NextByte (Brisbane).

Apr2005 09

Get Perpendicular

Posted In |

{mosimage}In March 2005, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies demonstrated an areal density of 230 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in2) on perpendicular recording technology, the highest areal density achieved to date based on vertical recording.

Word ... Now check out the Flash Musical ...

Gotta love that 70's nightclub scene ;)

Apr2005 07

ZDnet reports "An Australian security firm is about to launch a clustered Linux
distribution that aims to utilize the unused nightly processing power
of desktop PCs. Dubbed CHAOS,
the software is able to remotely boot a computer and run it on Linux
without affecting the local hard disk. With enough PCs, this has the
potential of creating a
distributed supercomputer."



Now, I like to know how it does that. Does it use bootip or is it a
CD-rom based filesystem ? The reason I want to know is, if you read
that paragraph again, it sure sounds like one hell of a virus.

Apr2005 05

Last night I wrote a rather length report on the Apple WWDC Preview
that was held in Brisbane. Unfortunately, when I clicked the submit
button ... at the same time, I lost my net connection (good ole
Telstra) and then couldn't go back without losing what I'd just typed.

Apr2005 03

Well I decided to make the site live this morning - so here it is. This
is the new site switched from Nucleus (Kubrick Theme) to Mambo
(Kubrick-ported Theme with Sikosis customizations). Whilst, I'm finding
Mambo pretty strange to get around, I'm still finding it pretty
customizable. It's just PHP and MySQL after all, but I find the loading
of components to be a complete pain in the ass.



As you'll see there is currently no News Archive, as there is no
component to do this in Mambo, pretty slack eh ? I found quite a few
people asking for the feature, with no responses, so I'll be working on
something that does the job soon. I'm also working on a component
maker, so that it make things easier when creating components, as I'll know doubt have to
create lots of them over the course of this year.

Mar2005 10

Colour Me Mac

Posted In Music |

ColorWare has announced that starting March 14 it will sell colored Mac minis
as well as offer to add color to customers' existing computers. The
service will be US$99 whether it's added to a computer purchased from
ColorWare or performed on a computer sent to the company.




ColorWare will offer 20 shades to choose from and will service both the
1.25GHz and 1.42GHz versions of the Mac mini. The company already sells
colored iPods, iMac G5s, PowerBooks and iBooks and can add pigments to
existing MP3 players and computers. It describes its process as "a
hybrid between the manufacturing and automotive painting industry."

Mar2005 03

I've been looking at these new accessories from XtremeMac for the iPod shuffle, in particular, the Wrapz.
I think whilst it both adds colour to the shuffle, it also adds full
protection and helps to solve the lanyard issue, whereby anyone could
just rip the shuffle from around your neck. And I must say the AirPlay FM Transmitter for the shuffle is also looking very nice. Perfect if you need to take the shuffle in the car.



I've contacted the Australian reseller, Techlynx, but so far no response. (Updated 28/3: Still no response. Sheesh - still I've got the Airplay on order from Streetwise.)

Mar2005 01

Andrew Sullivan of the Times Online
writes "There were little white wires hanging down from their ears, or
tucked into pockets, purses or jackets. The eyes were a little vacant.
Each was in his or her own musical world, walking to their soundtrack,
stars in their own music video, almost oblivious to the world around
them. These are the iPod people."



"But what are we missing? That hilarious shard of an overheard
conversation that stays with you all day; the child whose chatter on
the pavement takes you back to your early memories; birdsong; weather;
accents; the laughter of others. And those thoughts that come not by
filling your head with selected diversion, but by allowing your mind to
wander aimlessly through the regular background noise of human and
mechanical life."



That's EXACTLY why I listen to choons, to drown out everyone else on
the train. I don't want to be at work thinking about the conversation
that a couple of school kids had ... and don't get me started on mobile
phone ringtones ...

Feb2005 28

Nextbyte got back to me today
about my query about the Software Coupons that came with my iMac. They
said the coupons are actually issued by Apple and that all I had to do
was come into their store and pick up my copy of iLife '05, which is
great, because I'd been reading in MacFormat all about how to do stuff with iPhoto and iMovie, but I was like "Hey, I don't even have that version on my machine".



Now I have an iLife ;)

Feb2005 25

Yes ! I got my iPod Shuffle today from JB Hi-fi in the city after learning that they had stock from the Appletalk forums. There was still no response from Nextbyte,
which is kinda slack. I've sent them another email so we'll see what
happens. However, it appears there is a shortage globally and locally
with some companies having 10,000 units on back order ... looks like
I'm one of the lucky ones :D

Feb2005 24

I attended the Microsoft Security Summit 2005 at the Southbank
Convention Centre today. Sexpo was also on today ;) and at the keynote
they begged us that we not wander off into "one of the other events".



*** UNFORTUNATELY ... I typed up a really, really long review of this summit. Then I clicked Save on my CMS - Mambo and guess what, I lost my connection to the Internet, the page timed out and when I clicked back, I'd lost everything. This is where the Internet and writing packages that don't save to a file have a real issue.

Feb2005 23

A lawsuit claims the video game "Grand Theft Auto"
led a teenager to shoot two police officers and a dispatcher to death
in 2003, mirroring violent acts depicted in the popular game. The suit announced Tuesday (US) seeks damages from the game's manufacturers (Take Two) and two stores that allegedly sold it to Devin Thompson, now 18.



Now I have to say ... what a load of crap ! Whatever happened to taking
responsibility for your own actions ? I've played that game heaps and I
don't feel like going on a killing spree. When are they going to admit
that this boy has a problem not with games but with reality.



It's just like the dude who thought he was in the matrix. Errr ... hello ... you need a Reality Check.

Where's Soul II Soul when you need them ? ;)

Feb2005 22

If Cocoa is the "food of the gods" does that make Cocoa for Mac OS X, the framework of the gods ? Cocoa is an object-oriented application environment designed specifically for developing Mac OS X-only native applications.



I've just come back from being all over the city, checked out McGills
and Boarders and found no books on Cocoa besides dummies books. I then
went to Dymocks and found Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (2nd Edition) by Aaron Hillegass for $75 AU. Whilst I could have got this book cheaper from Amazon, I would have had to wait at least 2 weeks before it would arrive.

Feb2005 21

Aspyr today began shipping Command N' Conquer Generals Zero Hour, the first expansion pack for Command N' Conquer Generals.



"With new units, structures, and upgrades, as well as the all-new
Generals Challenge Mode, Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour
delivers all the firepower players need in the quest to become the
ultimate modern warfare General."



The demo for C&C Generals can be downloaded from here.

Feb2005 20

Now, I must say, I'm a little annoyed at how easy it was to break OS X.
I think there should be better controls in place, especially for the
Finder app as it is the crux of the OS and when it locks up, the OS is
pretty much useless (yes, you can't even open Terminal).



It all started after I'd installed two apps - OS X VNC and Virtue
(Virtual Desktops). I had configured Virtue and had it working nicely
and I then thought I'd better reboot the machine to see if it starts up
that way. The Finder would lock up immediately with the psychadelic
spinning pin wheel and then nothing would respond, the desktop, the
dock, nothing.

Feb2005 19

After having no troubles at all getting Samba happily working (copying
files from XP to Mac), I then decided it would be interesting to test
out the graphics card (GeForce FX 5200) in this iMac on a few of the
latest games.



So, off I went to MacGameFiles to see what's around.

Feb2005 18

Sluggish and Slow

Posted In Music |

I've been using the Mac for about an hour now and this mouse
slowiness/sluggishiness is starting to get annoying. This lack of
responsiveness reflects on the whole OS. Moving from OS X to another
machine running XP, makes XP seem like it's as fast as BeOS !!! (okay
okay ... temporary insanity ... no GUI is as responsive as BeOS)
Something is wrong here and with a little searching on the net, I've
found out why.

Feb2005 17

I must say I'm in awe of this machine. I stood there looking at the box
for a few minutes before I opened it. Unfortunately, my digital camera
isn't working at the moment, I would have loved to have taken photos
every step along the way.



It took me a couple of minutes to get the machine all plugged in and hooked up. Now for the moment of truth ...


Feb2005 17

Shiny New Mac

Posted In Music |

I'm now a Mac owner. I've just got approval from my boss so I can leave
work at 4pm today. I didn't tell him why, but between you and me, it's
so I can rush home and setup my shiny new iMac.



I must say it's heavier than I had originally anticipated, good thing
the car park is only a few hundred metres away :P

Feb2005 17

Mac-teased

Posted In Music |

I was out at one of our director's houses this morning, fixing his home
machines as they were full of spyware and viruses and his laptop
wouldn't connect to his Netgear wireless access point. I spent about 3
hours cleaning things up and still had no success with the Netgear when
Nextbyte rang to say my iMac has arrived ! I said I'll be there at lunch time.

Feb2005 15

Out of the blue my mobile starts to ring with the caller id, saying it's Nextbyte ... this must be THE call, I thought with anticipation.



I was waiting with baited breath on every word that dripped from her
mouth ... all up to the point where she said "your new iMac hasn't
arrived".

Feb2005 13

As well as old school paper reading, I've been trawling the web for Mac
sites to keep me salivating. And here's my favourites so far:-



    * <a href="http://www.macnn.com/">MacNN</a> - The Latest Mac News from around the globe.

    * <a href="http://appleinsider.com/">AppleInsider</a> - Inside Rumours/Goss on Apple.

    * <a href="http://appletalk.com.au/">AppleTalk Australia</a> - Australian Apple Community.



For more sites, check out my <a href="http://del.icio.us/sikosis/apple">del.icio.us apple</a> links.

Feb2005 11

Mac Magazines

Posted In Apple |

Since I ordered my iMac on the 2nd Feb, I've been scouting around all the local newsagencies for all the Mac magazines that I can get my hands on, so I can get a leg up when my machine arrives.

There were probably about 4-5 mags on the shelf with the two stand outs for me being Mac Format (UK) and MacWorld (AU).

Feb2005 09

The Waiting Game

Posted In Music |

I've now waited quietly for week. I just rang Nextbyte
and I was informed that there is a 2-3 week delay on new machines. I
said, is that because you don't have any parts in Australia ? to which
he replied, that all new machines are put together in Singapore and
then shipped from there. It all depends on how fast they're working.



I must say this is a very strange feeling for me. I've paid for it, yet I don't have it.

Feb2005 02

On Cloud Nine ...

Posted In Music |

I was on Cloud 9 for about an hour when I got a phone call from Nextbyte
to say that unfortunately the machine that they had in stock was a DOA
(Dead on Arrival). I was then informed they'd let me know.

Feb2005 02

Now it's my turn

Posted In Music |

Two weeks have past since my friend wanted a quote on a couple of Macs.
He wasn't overly interested, so he went and got a PC instead and had a
few days worth of hassles (due to incompatible RAM with the
Motherboard).



Anyway, so I went into the Mac store and said "I'd like to buy an iMac".

Jan2005 19

A friend of mine is thinking of getting a couple of Macs for their business - as Nextbyte
(Apple Reseller) is located just down the road from where I work, I
said I'd go in and get a few quotes for him. I'd always wanted to go
and check out the Apple store, now I had an excuse.



It was at this point, I thought to myself, I so want one of these
babys. The machines I got the quote on, I was told, I would be able to
walk out of the store with the machine. I thought great !

Jan2005 07

The first computer I ever bought was an Amiga 500. I lived with my
parents and brother who both owned 386s. With the death of Commodore, I
was left out in the cold and at this point my love for PCs began. This
continued for several years and still continues today, to some extent.



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