“bura bura” - wandering (Japanese)
That's right, Uni is over for the year… I had my last exam today. I'm so happy!!! This semester has been hell… tons and tons of assignments mixed in with a 20-hour working week and living out of home does not result in a terribly healthy existence…
So here's a round up of what subjects I did this semester (so I can finally get them out of my system… and if someone from UNSW happens to pass by this site):
Continue reading 'It's Over!!!'
While looking at MacSurfer today (instead of studying) I came across an… interesting post on "why the iPod sucks". Let's have a look at what this person has to say for himself…
Continue reading 'Paul's Blog: Why the iPod Sucks'
Slashdot has an article on a new electric car that can accelerate faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo (and can cruise for 200 miles on one charge - about ten hours). Not exactly fit for normal usage, but it's a step in the right direction!
Shelley Powers talks about Wordpress 1.3 being just around the corner. She also mentions some of the new features, which sound great!
New York Times: "When a Video Game Stops Being Fun"
Chris Clark noticed that his popup blocker didn't catch a popup spawned by ActionScript code in a Flash file. Uh oh…
Ben told me an interesting story a couple of minutes ago, about how Telstra Bigpond launched an ad in a paper today (I'm not sure which), directing readers to go to CaseyDonovan.com to visit the Australian Idol winner's homepage.
However… it turns out that when they visit that site, they're greeted with an image of a late, gay pornstar in the buff with the name… you guessed it, Casey Donovan! It seems someone forgot to append a ".au" at the end of the address, directing (potentially) millions of people to a porn site.
Oops.
News.com.au has an article on this.
I got home tonight to find that Robert Scoble has responded to my recent post on the Tablet PC. I'm flattered!
I'll address some of the points he makes…
Continue reading 'Robert Scoble's response to my Tablet PC post'
Erik asks who out there uses Fink.
*puts hand up*. I do! I use it most days for work, as we use Subversion for source code control. It's nice that Fink handles all of the dependencies for you. It can be a bit rough around the edges sometimes, but I think the core team are working hard on that.
EDIT: I should also note that I've been trying to package Trac for Fink, so I'm using it more than usual nowadays.
I maintain a number of packages myself, but most of them are probably far out of date. I simply haven't had the time to keep them all up to date! Sorry.
I haven't used DarwinPorts (which is mentioned in the comments to Erik's post), but have used Gentoo's Portage system and FreeBSD ports. It's quite nice to be able to define "flags" for functionality to be included when the package is built (such as x11, ssl support, etc), but I found them both less easier to use than Fink. Fink recently introduced "variants", which add a similar sort of functionality to the Fink package description format.
Mat was kind enough to lend me his AirPort Express that he received for free when he bought a 12″ PowerBook the other week. I brought it home the other day and set it all up, and I'm loving it!
It's great to sit in my room and be able to control what's playing on the sound system in the adjacent room (rather than playing through an iPod or over the PowerBook's speakers). When I return it to Mat, I think I might get one of my own. It doubles as a Wireless Access Point of its own, too, which is great.
I did have some troubles setting it up, however. I tried to get it to join the wireless network already created by my Billion 5100W ADSL router, which is hidden and has WEP 128-bit security on it, and it didn't complain during the setup phase, but after a restart of the AirPort Express, it didn't connect. I've found the wireless access on the router to be a bit flakey, so that might have something to do with it. I configured the AirPort Express to create its own wireless network, which my PowerBook is now accessing.
Once it's setup, it's a breeze to use, with a little menu showing up in the lower-right corner of iTunes. You can simply select between "Computer" and whatever you've named your AirPort Express as to change the speaker output.
My only gripe is that I have to be at my computer to control the music. Of course, there's the Keyspan Airport Express remote, which I mentioned the other day, but it's even more money on top of the AirPort Express, and uses Infrared. I could use Salling Clicker and my Z600 to control iTunes, too, I guess. However, if the product described in a recent report on AppleInsider comes to fruition, I might be able to use the iPod as the music source AND a remote! Nice.
It'd be great to be able to do the same for video, but I suspect that'd require more bandwidth than is available over 802.11g (52MBps). Maybe these devices are Apple's response to Microsoft's Media Center technologies. Apple, do you have something up your sleeve? 
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