Weekday Tiredness
It’s the strangest phenomenon. On weekdays when I have to go to work, I can barely wake up in the mornings. It takes a monumental effort to get out of bed, and generally speaking I am tired throughout the whole day. During the week, I tend to go to bed around midnight, and get up around 7.45am.
Then comes the weekend when I tend to go to bed later (1am or so), yet my body clock regularly wakes me up around 5.30am on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I don’t feel the same tiredness that I do during the week, and I have this urge to get out of bed and get on with my day.
What the hell is up with that?
Memorable Computer & Video Games
Some memorable games from my past. These videos evoke such nostalgia and happy memories, it’s great that you can find all this stuff on the Internet.
Manic Miner - ZX Spectrum
Super Mario Bros. - NES
Police Quest - PC
Space Quest III - PC
Sonic The Hedgehog - Sega Megadrive
Mario Kart - SNES
The Secret of Monkey Island 2 - PC
Virtua Fighter - Arcade
Sega Rally - Sega Saturn
Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time - Nintendo 64
Wipeout 3 - Playstation
Quake 3 Arena - PC
Hexic - XBox 360
Oblivion - PC
World of Warcraft - PC
100 Websites
A collection of 100 websites of things that I like (companies, products, bands, etc.).
8 Mac Annoyances
1. Window maximizing. What is the point of that green button on the top of every window? Why does it not maximize the window to fill the screen, like on every other OS out there?
2. The startup chime. Sometimes you want to use your computer discreetly, or without disturbing others, why does the startup chime not have a control panel where you can turn it off?
3. Window resizing. Why can’t you resize a window from any corner? It seems like a very basic thing to be able to do. For a company that prides itself on usability, it’s downright criminal that you STILL can’t do this.
4. One button mouse? C’mon Apple. This is the 21st century. Get with the program.
5. File extensions and associations. I’ve been using a Mac for 8 years now and I still don’t fully understand how this works. For all it’s faults, even Windows gets this right. For example, I want all txt files to open with Textmate, no matter which program created them.
6. Inconsistent UI. While this is better in Leopard than it has been in the past, there are still tons of apps that just don’t look like they’re sharing the same OS. Take Safari & Preview for example, the toolbar buttons don’t even match.
7. The finder. While I’ve gotten used to the finder now, I still don’t find it as straightforward as it could be. Give me Windows Explorer any day (hell, give me File Manager from Windows 3.1).
8. The keyboard. Ok, fine the @ and ” keys are swapped (for a UK user) but some of the other keys on that thing are just plain weird. Perhaps I’m showing my ignorance here, but why do I need a key labelled ‘§’ more than I need one labelled ‘#’. Sorry, I just don’t get it.
There’s a lot of things that Mac does better than Windows (read: most things) but the list above consists of really basic stuff that simply needs fixing to make the Mac experience complete (IMHO, FWIW).
Hide your NTFS Boot Camp Partition
Before you start, ensure you read this whole post carefully, including the word of warning near the bottom of the post. I accept no responsibility if this screws up your computer in any way.
These instructions are based on Mac OS X 10.5.
Once you’ve installed Boot Camp on your Mac, assuming you used NTFS as your chosen file system during the install, you’re now stuck with a redundant icon on your Mac desktop. While you can’t write any files to the partition from OS X, you can read the files. But how useful is that to you? If, like me, you don’t need access to that partition, you may want to hide it from view. You can do this very simply, by booting into Windows and renaming your C: drive to something that begins with a full stop (or period) eg: .Windows
This is a bit of a kludgy hack. OS X (like most Unix based operating systems) assumes that all files beginning with a full stop are designed to be hidden. The partition does still get mounted though, and shows up in various other places inside the OS.
If you’re feeling more adventurous, a better way to do it is to stop the partition from being mounted altogether. To do this, you need to dive into the Unix underpinnings of OS X and edit the fstab file.
Open up a terminal and type
diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *232.9 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS 240 GB IDE 151.9 Gi disk0s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 80.7 Gi disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *465.8 Gi disk1
1: Apple_partition_map 31.5 Ki disk1s1
2: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk1s2
3: Apple_RAID 465.6 Gi disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *465.8 Gi disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 31.5 Ki disk2s1
2: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk2s2
3: Apple_RAID 465.6 Gi disk2s3
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS 500 GB RAID *465.6 Gi disk3
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *298.1 Gi disk4
1: Apple_partition_map 31.5 Ki disk4s1
2: Apple_HFS 320 GB USB 298.0 Gi disk4s3
/dev/disk6
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *230.6 Gi disk6
1: Apple_partition_map 31.5 Ki disk6s1
2: Apple_HFS Personal 230.6 Gi disk6s2
This returns a lot of data, but what you’re actually looking for is labelled Microsoft Basic Data followed by the name of the partition (in this case “Windows”).
One you’ve found the identifier (in this case, “disk0s3″) you need to type another command
diskutil info disk0s3 (replacing disk0s3 with the identifier found in the above step)
Device Identifier: disk0s3
Device Node: /dev/disk0s3
Part Of Whole: disk0
Device / Media Name: Untitled
Volume Name: Windows
Mount Point:
File System: NTFS
Partition Type: Microsoft Basic Data
Bootable: Is bootable
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: SATA
SMART Status: Verified
Volume UUID: E0891F30-2D1A-4FC0-A26E-35CD27CA6756
Total Size: 80.7 Gi (86640836608 B) (169220384 512-byte blocks)
Free Space: 0.0 B (0 B) (0 512-byte blocks)
Read Only: No
Ejectable: No
Whole: No
Internal: Yes
Now, what you’re looking for is the Volume UUID, in this case E0891F30-2D1A-4FC0-A26E-35CD27CA6756.
Now it’s simply a case of adding the following line into into the fstab file.
UUID=E0891F30-2D1A-4FC0-A26E-35CD27CA6756 none ntfs ro,noauto 0 0
You can do this using pico, by typing
sudo pico /etc/fstab
and then pasting the above line into the file, ensuring to use your own UUID.
Once you’re done, press Ctrl-X and save the file, then reboot.
A WORD OF WARNING
Firstly, the fstab file determines which partitions and drives are mounted at startup. If anything goes wrong, you may not be able to boot into OS X.
Secondly, the drive will also be missing from the list of drives in the System Preferences -> Startup Disk preference pane. If you want to boot into Windows, you’ll have to hold down the Alt key when you hear the startup chime after switching your machine on, until you are presented with a list of drives. Note that this option doesn’t always work if you are using third party keyboards, or even an official keyboard not designed for your specific mac like the new ultra thin Apple keyboards.
Xbox 360 Blu-ray Player
I always thought that HD-DVD would win out over Blu-ray. My logic was that if people had to make a choice, it wouldn’t come down to technical ability, but more a familiarity with the DVD brand.
What I naively hadn’t taken into account was the weight that the film studios carry when it comes to media formats. While the HD battle was interesting to watch for the past year, I don’t think anyone could have predicted the speed at which HD-DVD finally crashed and burned.
Particularly Microsoft, it would seem.
They announced that they are ceasing production of their HD-DVD player for Xbox 360 and almost grudgingly stated that a Blu-ray player for the 360 was possible. But, frankly, each week that passes where people can choose between buying the PS3 with it’s built-in Blu-ray drive or the 360 with its standard DVD drive is another nail in the Xbox 360 coffin.
Don’t get me wrong, despite its flaws, I love the Xbox, but Microsoft have made a lot of mistakes with this generation of their console and I just hope they don’t add another one to the list by missing the Blu-ray boat.
Nintendo DS WPA
Nintendo Why!? We love you Nintendo, but you drive us crazy sometimes.
Need I remind you about the N64 controller or the Virtual Boy. What about the missing backlight on the GBA? The GBA SP finally got a backlight, but you removed the headphone socket!
We made a leap of faith to understand your logic when you decided to use cartridges in the N64 when everyone else had switched to CD-ROM. We loved the Gamecube, despite restricting developers with its graphics capabilities and mini-DVD discs. We know that sometimes you like to you fly in the face of convention and other times, you rarely stray from it. We can forgive the endless recycling and dilution of existing IPs because although sometimes you get it wrong, most of the time you get it very very right. But your inability to foresee the changing market during the SNES era meant that you were directly responsible for giving us the Playstation.
That’s a toughie to forgive.
We all mocked you mercilessly when you announced the DS. Okay, we admit it, you proved us wrong on that one. 65 million machines sold worldwide is a tough figure to argue against.
One question constantly niggles me though, Nintendo. Why, in the name of all things sane and sacred, did you limit the wi-fi connectivity of the Nintendo DS to just WEP encryption? If your answer in any way involves the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector, please make sure it also includes something about Mac drivers. With WEP easily cracked these days, encouraging its use is irresponsible and lazy. If Sony can regularly update the firmware on the PSP to include things like Skype, why can’t you fix something as simple as this?
Channel 4 Ident
The greatest TV channel ident ever made, by Lambie Nairn in 1982.
Dangerous TomTom Flaw
I love my TomTom. It’s one of the greatest pieces of driving technology, since the wheel was invented. But for all it’s brilliance, however, it does have an annoying and potentially dangerous flaw.
Let me explain.
Built into every new TomTom, is a database of speed cameras. The device helpfully alerts you, whenever you’re approaching one, with an appropriately loud “BONNGG” sound, and an icon on the screen, showing the correct current speed.
Why is this dangerous?
In an ideal world, we would all be aware of the current speed limit at any given time and we’d never make a mistake. In the old days, police were able to use common sense and a bit of discretion when it came to exercising the law. An otherwise sensible driver who happened to get caught doing 60mph in a 50mph zone (for example) could be pulled over and given a warning, rather than the 3 points on his license, and instant fine that is issued automatically by today’s modern speed cameras.
I think speed cameras make people nervous. I’ll admit it, there are times I’ve joined a new road, unaware of the speed limit, and end up braking at the last minute, slowing down to 30mph through a camera, on a 50mph road, just because I don’t want to be caught doing the wrong speed.
This is where TomTom comes in. It gives you plenty of warning, not only of the speed camera, but of the speed you are supposed to be doing. Granted, it’s not always 100% accurate (it rarely seems to know about temporary speed cameras, for example), but I can’t imagine anyone making the argument that it’s dangerous to be reminded to check your speed.
However, the icon containing the speed limit FLASHES on and off for a number of seconds before finally displaying statically just before you drive through the camera. There’s a 50/50 chance of you looking down at the display while the icon is in the off state. What I’ve found myself doing, is glancing to and from the road a number of times, until I happen to see it in the on state.
When you consider the number of people who slow down for speed cameras, this brief period of time spent not observing the road, could very well be the cause of a number of accidents.
Unlike all the other arguments about how mobile phones, alcohol or tiredness can cause accidents, this particularly issue could be so easily remedied with a simple software update.
Mini Reviews
Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens
The Canon 400D comes bundled with a EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6. At first, I couldn’t understand all the online negativity surrounding this lens, but as my understanding of photographic technique grew (along with my frustration at the shortcomings of the lens), I realised it was time to upgrade. The 17-55mm f/2.8 is a much faster lens, with superior optics, image stabilisation and a wonderfully quick and quiet ultrasonic motor. Any negatives? It’s not cheap, or lightweight. [Review Link]
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens
A no-frills 50mm prime lens (which translates to about 80mm on the cropped sensor of the 400D). The 1.8 aperture gives you a narrow depth of field and allows you to shoot in low light without the need for flash or high ISO. It’s cheap and plasticky, but considering the price (around £60), represents one of the best bargain lenses available from Canon. [Review Link]
Manfrotto 055X Pro-B Tripod
Supremely flexible tripod. It’s big, bulky and because I couldn’t afford the carbon fiber one, it’s a little heavy, but it’s built like a tank, and almost as sturdy. It still amazes me that this tripod can hold the camera steady anyway from a couple of inches off the ground, up to nearly 6ft high. [Product Link]
Manfrotto 460MG 3-way head
I decided to opt for the 3-way head over a ball-head because it seemed to suit my way of doing things. I don’t use a tripod often, but when I do, I favour precision, over speed. Manfrotto gear is top quality, and this head complements the above tripod perfectly. It also came highly recommended by a couple of good friends, John and Mike, both of whom use the same one. [Image Link]
Canon BG-E3 Battery Grip
A simple addition to the 400D which changes the camera in a surprising number of ways. Firstly, it allows you to add an extra battery, adding substantially to the already excellent battery life. Secondly, it makes holding the camera in both portrait and landscape modes far more comfortable. Thirdly, it adds a second shutter and wheel control to the portrait position which makes it far less cumbersome. Fourth, it adds a connector allowing for a very useful hand strap. And finally, it allows you to use 6xAA batteries in a pinch, in the unlikely event that you run out of power. Any downsides? You may need a bigger camera bag to hold it. [Review Link]
Acer Aspire 5720 Laptop
Bloody awful. You might be wondering why I bought a PC? It’s a long story, which I’ll probably write up as a separate blog post soon. Needless to say, I’m now even more disillusioned with PC’s than I ever have been. The laptop itself isn’t that actually that bad. It’s the fact that a shitty operating system (Vista) is forced upon you (no drivers for XP), which is compounded by the mountain of utter crap that Acer insist on pre-installing for you (hint: it takes hours to remove it all). Oh and yes I tried Ubuntu. It’s come a long way, but ultimately it’s still got that Linux quirkyness.
TomTom One SatNav
The cheapest satellite navigation in the store. I weighed up all the features of the expensive models, and dismissed them one by one until I was left with what I really needed, a powerful satnav with speed camera database. Has worked flawlessly on every journey I’ve used it on, and makes those long journeys (even when you know the route already) so much less stressful. [Product Link]
Wenger Synergy Backpack
Ever thought you could be passionate about a backpack? Like any self-respecting geek, I’m choosy about what I carry my stuff around in. It has to be hard-wearing, yet functional. Practical yet stylish. My last one from Blacks was starting to get a bit worn, and this is the new replacement. I have to say, it’s possibly the most well made and durable bag I’ve ever owned. The build quality is quite astonishing, and it has been really well thought out. While it’s a little expensive, it’s worth every penny. This is the Mac of the backpack world. [Image Link]
Guitar Hero III Legends of Rock
I’d been playing the demo of this on XBox 360 for months, and finally got the full game for Christmas. It’s immense fun, but unfortunately the one of the buttons on the guitar neck was not working and it had to be sent back for replacement. However, it’s one of those games that is fun, whatever your level of ability. [Product Link]