Apple has gone and updated the Powerbooks again. New CPU speeds, better graphics and Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities. Still quite happy with my 12″ so I’ll just wait for the G5 Powerbook at the end of the year.
Monthly Archive for January, 2005
During my teenage years one of my favourite comic books was The Punisher. I still have a good couple of years worth of issues stashed away in the loft. Now they tried to make a Punisher movie back in 89, which sort of was true to the comic book, however was not very good. But they only breeze over the story of what drove Frank Castle to do the things that he does. Well last year they had another go. The Punisher which stars Thomas Jane and John Travolta. This version is better, though it is not true to the comic book underpinnings it is done well as an action flick.
John Travolta actually does a good job as the bad guy, Jane does okay as well. The film is not as bad as it was made out to be, actually I quite liked it. The story again is not faithful to the comics, but the spirit is right. The acting overall is not great, but watchable. If you want a semi-mindless action flick then watch this.
I think the producers were hoping that this would go down well, and had plans for making a second film. However it didn’t make much money ath the box office so there won’t be a second film. Which is a shame in a way because they did leave the scene set for a big second film.
I have been using Ubuntu build for AMD64 since I got my Athlon 64 back in september, the box had been up for a good month and had a bunch of updates applied, had to reboot todo something in Windows unfortunately, when I went back to Linux. All I got was a kernel panic, I think the kernel updates created some problem. I couldn’t be asked with the repair, so I thought I would gice FC3 a go since I had the AMD64 build downloaded already.
FC3 was amazing no chrooted jail crazyness for 32-bit support, multilib apps ran fine. All was well for a week, then I rebooted. Again kernel panic because of some AMD64 issue. I did google for the error but nothing more than a few other people noted the problem. I decided to grab Ubuntu’s plain 32-bit install and get back up and running since I needed to do some work. Fortunatley the CD came down within a few hours and the base install only took 30 minutes. Then a a good 45 minutes to get the updates.
I will probably switch back to Ubuntu’s 64-bit distro at some point however for now running CrossOver and WineX is quite important so I’ll stay 32-bit until the multilib support is complete. I quite liked FC3 however the RHN updater was a real pain in the ass. Ubuntu continues to be my current favourite, qucik and easy, debian based distro.
On another note I have also switched my WM back to Enlightenment like the good old days. Even tried to compile E17 just so I could get the new tools which rock. A MacOS X style dockbar app which is very nice.
I like GNOME 2.8 but I still think it is a little bulky, all I need is a handful of virtual desktops, a few xterms, xemacs, Mozilla and Thunderbird and I’m a happy bunny.
Went to the cinema last night to watch the new Clint Eastwood movie Million Dollar Baby. Now I always expect big things from Clint, and I’m glad to say I was not disappointed. An excellent film, I’m sure it will get recognition on Oscar night. The performances from Morgan Freeman, Hilary Swank and Eastwood himself were great. The story line is good, however the ending was not quite what I was expecting, definately worth seeing.
Well it has finally happened Apple has finally realised an entry level computer which is going to sell by the bucket loads. The Mac mini was unveiled by Steve Jobs at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco yesterday. Coming in at 2″ in height and the width a little larger than a CD. In a surprising move Apple are not providing a mouse and keyboard, saying that users can then choose which Apple keyboard they want or they can use their existing mouse and keyboard.
Also unveiled was a flash based iPod available in 2 memory configuration either 512MB or 1GB. Obviously the major selling point is the size, which is no bigger than a pack of chewing gum. The control mechanism is a simple series of buttons. However there is no LCD screen, however the main point of the Shuffle is going to be Random playing, you just load on the tracks from iTunes and the shuffle play facility will play through the song. Of course you can use standard playlists from iTunes.
Went and watched House of the Flying Daggers last night. It’s directed by Yimou Zhang who was behind Hero, had read a few mixed reviews and people had told me it was not as good as Hero. However I think in many ways it is actually better. The pace is just right, even though there are a couple of slow scenes in the second half of the film. The action scenes are amazing, the style and look of the film is different to Western movie production, the use of color is very clever. Definately worth watching.
… everyone. Just thought a quick post to say hi was necessary, have been doing the shopping thing. Hopefully will do some more site updates later tonight.
