Yipee, at last a deal for Indie labels to release tracks on iTMS has been reached. WIll start having a look as soon as I have booted my Powerbook. More here.
Monthly Archive for July, 2004
Actually just did the MT3.0 upgrade it was quite straight forward have enabled comments with moderation, so people can comment again. Will slowly try out new features over the course of the week. Plus I must really fix the navigation and menu features since they are totally broken at the moment.
I was just floating around some emulation web sites earlier look for an old game in the arcade database, when I came across the Classic Gaming Expo UK which is happening this weekend. As it happens I am sort of free this Saturday so I might go.
Saw a review of the X-Arcade Joystick on Tom’s Hardware which I have been after for a while, however have been put off because of the fact that resellers don’t honour or support the manufacturer lifetime warranty. I know this thing is going to go wrong, so I don’t really want to deal with shipping to the US for repairs, however I think there is now an official distributor so I must look into this again.
Whilst on the subject of gaming, Doom III has gone gold, looks like August 4th will be Doom Day, having watched the trailer I think I’m gonna need a new graphics card, hang on I think I’m going to need a new PC. Hmm, perhaps a new Shuttle, they should be available soon.
Well Apple has updated the iPod again, they have addressed the battery problem which has been my biggest pain for the last couple of months, since I never got as much playtime as my first generation iPod. Likewise Apple have got rid of the buttons, now I never liked the buttons any way. I find they tend to stick, which really can be annoying, sometimes since pressing pause does not register until I tap the button a few times.
Another thing they have done is dropped the price a little however the 20GB model does not come with a cradle any more. They have also put out another firmware update for 3G model, haven’t quite worked out what the update address yet, now doubt I will be hitting download in a couple of minutes to find out though.
Oh well there is not much I can do about that, will just hope that in a years time when I want another iPod that it will be cheaper.
Been busy as per usual, was engaged in helping/attending a friend’s wedding over the weekend this is the first time in a couple of days that I have been able to get some real work done. Never actually looked at MT3 either yet, have been doing a little bit of playing with Mono since I’m thinking that Managed C++ on Linux and other UNIX might be a solution to my current project woes. The Mono site talks about C# but not about C++ on Linux, so I’m wondering if it is even possible, will keep investigating.
Well as rumours of a new G5 iMac solidfy, thanks to Apple confirming that they will ship in September. An interesting move not to pissoff consumers who want something now, but can’t get one easily. Whilst also not annoying the segment of buyers who would get upset when hearing of the G5 iMac. I don’t know if Apple are going to make a habit of this, since the main reason it would seem is because IBM can’t make G5 chips fast enough. Hence the reason for G4 iMac stock shortages. Some people are even claiming the other reason may have been that July was the target date for the new iMacs and the production lines for the old iMacs had already been converted.
Another opinion piece on Business Week I saw last week outlined six steps that Apple should take in order to increase market share. I personally think with the current XPC trend that is gripping the PC market. Apple should revive the Cube, which would address some of points made in the plan. Now it does not need to be a G5, however it would seem that now Apple are bringing G5 iMacs out it may have to be. Or maybe not, perhaps there is a market segment in the $750 arena a G4 cube could fit into. It would definately appeal to Switchers who have already invested in an LCD screen. Though at the same time I could see demand issues, since Apple’s other lines are so very attractive. I think Powerbooks seem to find themselves in the hands of the more geeky switchers any way. I know this because I know many people who fit into this bracket, as I do as well.
I just hope whatever happens that relations with IBM don’t deteriate and that IBM can deliver. I want a 15″ G5 Powerbook this time next year.
Updated : Well I wrote this a couple of days ago but never posted it because I got distracted with some real work.
Went to see Spider-Man 2 in the early hours of today, and I was not disappointed. Again many of the story archs from the comics have been compressed into an action packed in a 2 hour film. I can see why some of the more hard core Spider-Man fans might be a little upset with the ending however I think it was the right way to go. There is something for everyone, and a few things thrown in there for keeping the none fanatical people interested.
Alfred Molina does a great job as Doc Ock. Stan Lee did his usual cameo appearence, as well as Bruce Campbell who played an usher at MJ’s theatre. At first I thought he was playing the same character from the first film, though it’s quite obvious that he is not, tho there could be some aspect to that scene which was cut for some reason or another.
The framwork for the third film has also been put in place, hopefully we should see that in 2006. Past that I don’t know if Raimi will want to do a fourth film, plus as I remember reading somewhere that his deal is only for 3 movies. An informed colleague of mine, Nikki pointed me to this saying that Jessica Alba has signed up for the Fantastic Four film.
Well I think the storm over of the new licensing terms have passed. To be honest I could not see what all the fuss is about because the Developer Edition will cater for most users that are using MT on self managed servers or hosting accounts. Having said that I can still see a fair number lower tier users still stumping up the $80 dollars for the basic license, since to be honest $80 is not a massive amount.
I think I will deal with the MT 3.0 upgrade this weekend, however I won’t be able to use the comment tracking and moderating features. Since they will not be available to me without paying for a license. I think I will try out the comment interface on a couple of other sites before deciding on purchasing a license.
Bradchoate.com has a very good entry on the whole MT3 thing.
have flown by. Where has all the time gone. Well that is quite easy to answer really been working as per usual, still covering support and client site issues. Have hardly had the time to get down with development tasks on my plate.
The main thing that I have been being playing with is Exchange Server backups, Between the Exchange Backup API and MAPI, I’m not sure which is worse. One is documented well, but doesn’t quite work and the other is pretty much voodoo however real examples exist and they bloody work. I’ll leave it to you to work out which is which.
On the movie front went and saw The LadyKillers with Tom Hanks last night, As you probably know this is the latest Coen Brother’s film, however it is a remake so I was not quite sure what to expect because I could not remember watching the original, though quite obviously is an english comedy made in the 50’s. It thought it was quite good, the ending was quite dark but nothing out of the ordinary for the Coen Brothers. The humour was subtle I got the feeling that the majority of the audience didn’t get some of the jokes.
As an extra bonus last week, me and my brother went to watch The Cooler, unfortunately the times printed on last weeks schedules and e-mail were wrong. So there wasn’t actually a 22:20 showing only an 20:40 showing. Luckily for us the manager of the cinema was by the ticket counter and sort off knows us from attending other preview nights and things like that Vue has done since the cinema opened a couple of years ago (Warner previously). As it happened that evening they were screening a staff preview of Shrek 2, so we got invited to come in.
Last weekend I did a fair bit of tinkering with Python and wxPython, have been working on a couple of prototype applications which I should have fully operational in a couple of weeks time. Not going to talk to much about them right now.
