G'day Mate: January 2007 Archives

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January 31, 2007

Fletcher to coach England in cup

According to the SMH:

DAVID Morgan, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, has given a categorical assurance that Duncan Fletcher will coach England in the World Cup despite the depression hanging over the team in Australia.
Although John Carr, the ECB's director of cricket, will arrive in Australia this week to conduct an "audit" of the disastrous Ashes tour, only a shock Fletcher resignation would prevent him leading England in the Caribbean.

This would be the same Fletcher that was earlier commenting on the performance of the English team:

England coach Duncan Fletcher has apologised for his team's dismal nine-wicket loss to Australia in Adelaide on Friday.
Australia romped to victory with more than 25 overs to spare after England collapsed for just 110 in their tri-series one-day international. Fletcher has defended his team throughout their disastrous tour of Australia but could deliver only apologies for the defeat.
"We have to offer an apology, we just didn't play any good cricket," Fletcher told the BBC.
"The boys are very disappointed. We have to make sure we keep them going - there's still a lot of purpose there."
England captain Andrew Flintoff was at a loss to explain his team's continued failure. England have lost all nine matches against Australia on the tour and Friday's defeat came just three days after New Zealand hammered them by 90 runs.

I think that England has a clean sweep - they appear to have lost every single game this time. Maybe we need to organize a schoolboys team.... Hmmmmm. Maybe we had better make that a primary school team....

Posted by Ozguru at 07:00 AM | Comments (1)

Jobs to launch Vista?

From the always entertaining CARS Site:

Vista Launch To Get Special Help.
After scores of mixed reviews and years of criticism over delays, Microsoft has decided to turn to the only person capable of pulling off the Vista launch tomorrow: Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
...
Reached for comment, Ballmer did admit that Jobs would be delivering a Vista presentation on Tuesday.
“It really made sense because Steve already has experience introducing these features,” Ballmer said.
“We knew the Vista rollout was in trouble because, well, it’s a piece of crap. Yeah, I said it. It’s crap software. Crap-crap-crappity-crap-crap. So we wanted the best possible person to present it.
...

Hmmmm. Could be interesting....

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

January 30, 2007

Some bstrd cut my garden hose....

Let me explain. In the front yard (small as it is), we have a leaky old tap. So as to not waste any water, there is an old bit of hose connected to the tap which runs up and over the former carport (which is now a frame with no roof) and sort of hangs into a garden bed on the other side of the driveway.

The hose is long enough that you could cut four feet off the garden-bed end without materially affecting the usefulness of the hose.

The b*st*rd cut only a foot off but he (or she) cut it off at the tap end. That's right. They left the rest of the now-completely-useless hose entwined with the carport frame and cut the foot of hose closest to the tap. Sort of guarantees that it can't be repaired or replaced.

If someone had knocked on the door and asked for some hose to fix their car, I would have given them some (I have spare short pieces in the shed) but to cut off the tap end of my hose - that is just being a b*st*rd.

Maybe I should get the hose dusted for fingerprints...

Posted by Ozguru at 06:30 AM | Comments (1)

ImageCaster

I happen to use an excellent piece of software called ImageCaster. It means that the kids (at home during the holidays) can see what Dad is doing at work.

The camera in my work-based iMac, takes a picture at regular intervals and then uploads this to a gallery page. There is a tutorial on how to do this but it overlooks one small problem....

Chances are, when you first play around with this, you will use the default settings (or perhaps fiddle with the naming convention). If so, following the steps in the tutorial will not work perfectly. In fact, I had been using 'wrap' for the file naming and my final gallery page had no images at all.

A quick dig with 'View Source' suggested that the webpage created by the tool was looking for the wrap-based filename (which is the wrong format).

To solve this, make sure that you set the file saving options to shift *before* you chose gallery, then everything else works properly.

[The moral of the story is - use the source, Luke....]

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2007

Various Vista Versions

If you have been wondering which version of Vista is right for you, then CARS has a good Q&A summary:

Q: I’m really confused about the different versions of Vista and I’m hoping you can tell me which one to install.
A: Well, I’d recommend Vista Home Premium. It has the see-through windows and pretty much all the consumer-level benefits of the operating system.
Q: Huh. Well, I like computers, but I don’t really consider myself a “premium” kind of guy. I just want a little Windows, you know?
A: Oh. Sure. Then how about Windows Vista Home Basic? it doesn’t have the see-through windows, but it has most everything else.
Q: Hmm. I don’t know. I live in an unfurnished apartment. I think “Home” is kind of a stretch.
A: Oh. Well, OK, maybe you should look at Vista Starter. You can only run three applications at a time and it’s limited to 256 MB of RAM.
Q: Three applications?! Jeez, who am I? Merlin Mann? All switching between applications and being all productive?
A: Uh, well, no, because Merlin’s a Mac user.
Q: Oh.
A: Look, maybe you should just get Windows Vista for Dummies.
Q: Ooh! That sounds good!
A: Oh, it’s not. Limited to 32 MB of RAM, one application and you get an electric shock every five minutes to remind you to reconfirm your license.
Q: Awesome! Man, Microsoft is so innovative!
A: It is… something… alright…

Of course the real version of Vista is the one which is tested extensively, is virus free and is not a cheap knock-off: MacOS X.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)

Alert: Bill Gates Discovers Online Video

From Slashdot:

"With an explosion of online video content on sites like YouTube and Google Video, Bill Gates believes that the Internet will revoloutionize the television within the next 5 years. 'I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had,' Gates told business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum. "

Wow. Really. Is this like Microsoft discovering the internet after it was already in place? And then, of course, claiming that they had invented it.

I guess, Microsoft still doesn't have a decent on-line music store so they probably don't know about the iTunes store selling videos yet. Maybe Bill should get himself a Real Computer(tm) :-)

Posted by Ozguru at 10:00 AM

January 28, 2007

King Kernaghan

It looks like Lee Kernaghan is the new King of Country music with four golden guitars at the Tamworth awards last night. Funny thing was that I was listening to 'Missing Slim' (Lee Kernaghan and Colin Buchanan) as I read the story.

There are ten of his albums in the Aussie iTunes music store - you might want to try 'The Outback Club' especially the first track 'Boys from the Bush'....

Posted by Ozguru at 09:00 AM

January 27, 2007

Misunderstood....

Sheik Taj El-Din Al Hilaly must be the most misunderstood man in Australia. First people misunderstood him when he compared uncovered women (i.e. not wearing the hijab)to uncovered meat (i.e. it was acceptable to assult or rape them). Then they misunderstood him claiming the immigrants who paid to come here (like him) should have more rights than those forced to come here (i.e. convicts). Next they misunderstood his threat to run for parliament and took it as a challenge. Then to add insult to injury he wasn't allowed to preach becacause he was being too political.

On the other hand, maybe he cancelled the sermon because he wasn't made Australian of the year...

The sheik is doing nothing to help those of his faith adapt to their life in Australia. This is not an Islamic country, it does have Sharia Law and the controversial nature of his remarks should have been dealt with uner the banner of racial and religious vilification. Unfortunately it seems that the anti-discrimination laws here were designed to stop the silent majority from stating their point of view while allowing (and encouraging) fringe lunatics to have their say...

Posted by Ozguru at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2007

Advertise on Google?

Today, being Australia Day, lots of people were out and about enjoying themselves. Some of those were actually trying to generate free advertisements on google. You see Google decided to fly over Sydney and take lots of arial photos to use in Google Earth.

One couple took the chance to advertise a dating service, another fellow tried to save his marriage.

What would you have done, given the chance?

Posted by Ozguru at 12:00 PM

January 25, 2007

A Sad Mac Tale

Way back in August (many months ago), my powerbook decided that it no longer wanted to read DVDs. It could read (and write) CDs but DVDs were completely ignored (or caused things to crash). This is a common problem (alignment of the lasers) and the powerbook was under AppleCare so I took it to the nearest friendly Apple reseller to get it fixed.

They noted the dents on the side of the screen and claimed that the damage was caused by dropping it. I explained that it had been dropped way back in 2004 (just after WWDC) and that it had been inspected and repaired, at my expense, afterwards. The dents in the side of the LCD panel were not repaired because Apple (at the time) did not sell replacement bezels - you had to buy the whole screen ($AU1,000).

After about three weeks of nothing happening, I got in touch to be told that they had replaced the hard drive and a drive cable....

A few more weeks and I got the machine back, I fired up the installer and noticed that the internal hard disk was dead. That's right, the new hard disk that replaced the one that had been working perfectly.

Back to the shop we go. Time passes. They can't get an 80Gb hard disk (apparently they don't make them any more). I collect the machine and use it with an external drive for a couple of weeks until a disk comes in. Back to the shop again.

This time when I collect the machine there is some sort of crap between the LCD pixels and the screen itself. Like dead pixels but they move around, covering the top menu on the screen.

I complain. Nothing happens.

I complain more. Nothing happens.

I complain to a friend who works for Apple direct.

Note that up until this point in time, I have only complained as an individual (and part time developer). My friend at Apple points out who I work for and how much influence I have when it comes to purchasing computer equipment. Now I get some response. Apple themselves suggest another apple reseller. I take my machine there and a week later I get an SMS to pick up the machine. The screen looks perfect (I suspect it is an entirely new display) but the machine won't power up any more. Back we go, this time for a new logic board.

I wait ten days and then call up. They don't know how long it will take. It is not high priority. I email my new contact at Apple. I get an SMS to pick up my machine - apparently it suddenly became high priority.

I now have my powerbook back (I think). It is installing a test environment as I write. In total, I was without a working machine for close to six months. In all that time, the only people to contact me were from Apple. There were no calls from resellers. No calls from tech support. No apologies for stuffing things up. No apologies for keeping my machine for almost six months.

Had it not been under warranty, I could have complained and refused to pay. But it was under AppleCare. Do you think I will buy AppleCare on my next computer? Do you think I will buy another Mac?

Posted by Ozguru at 08:00 AM | Comments (1)

iDream (of a new Mac)

Apple Announces iPhone Follow-Up Product:

The first follow-up product to the not-yet-shipping iPhone was announced in a surprise special Apple presentation today in Cupertino.
“The iDream will provide 1000 hours of full-motion, 7.1 Dolby surround dreams with the quality you expect from Apple, Pixar, and Disney,” CEO Steve Jobs said.