D'gar HQ

Hacking People - Round 2

2011-09-30T22:20:00.000+10:00

I just got off a half-hour-ish long phone call with a ^Representative of Microsoft^ who was kindly ringing me about a problem that my computer had reported to them.

It's nice to be ready.
Referring to Hacking People

So this time I decided to click an imaginary Start Button.

The phone call was pretty much identical to the one mentioned in the previous post.

The charade continues...

"Ok, I clicked Start."

"What do you see?"

Damn, I was afraid of this. I'm sitting in front of a Mac. Time to draw on those decades of Windows experience from the time 'of PC'. "Um, lets see, there's All Programs...and..."

"Okay, click on All Programs."

*whew*

"Yep, okay, I clicked on All Programs."

"Okay, what do you see."

"Um, there's Accessories.. and some of my programs are there..." It's been a while...

"Okay, now your next menu to click on is ..." I couldn't understand what she was saying so I asked her to repeat herself... twice. Turns out it was Accessories. I'm struggling with her accent as much as she's struggling with English - particularly when it comes to S's. We continued this painful guidance through the Windows Start menu until we opened (on my imaginary Windows PC) the command prompt.

She spelt out what she wanted me to type. "M is for monkey. S is for Sally. C is for Charlie. O is for Orange. N is for Nelly. F is for fox. I is for indigo. G is for gun. Did you get that?"

I did. I had it at MSC, but I got her to repeat it "...just in case I got any letters wrong."

The System Configuration Utility sprang up on the screen my imaginary Windows PC. I may not have used a Windows machine for a few years, but I know quite well what MSConfig is.

She continued to guide me though to the "Services" tab for another round of lingual issues, and then she asks me to look at the list on that tab. "What do you see there?"

"Oh, there's a heap of writing there..."

"Do you see some of them are running and some are stopped?"

I squinted at my imaginary Windows PC "Ummm... hey, yeah. There's some running and some are stopped! You're right!" I guessed.

"Yes. That's the viruses. They've stopped those programs from running because they've corrupted the files."

"Really? All those programs are supposed to be running?"

"Yes! They're what makes your computer work."

"Wow. And the viruses have broken them huh?"

"Yes, the viruses stop all those programs from running."

Windows has plenty of services and programs that people never run. They don't run by default and are of no interest to anyone except perhaps the occasional Network Administrator or Power User. There're all installed, just not turned on.

"How do I fix that?"

"That is what I'm here for. To help you fix your computer. I show you where the files are..."

More lingual difficulty followed as she got me to close MSConfig, press and hold the Windows key and press R (I got her to repeat R three times) to open the Run dialoge, type cmd and click OK. Much better than finding the Command Prompt through the All Programs menu. ImaginaryPC (iPC?) popped a command prompt up on it's imaginary monitor.

"I have a black window up with a white thing blinking."

"A black window. Okay, I'll show you where the security code is. Type in..." and she proceeded to sound out each letter I needed to type in... three times. I still didn't get it. It didn't matter. iPC got it. I told her I got it and pressed the imaginary Enter key. "ooohhh...." I said.

"You see all the writing?" she asks.

"Yep."

"See the code at the bottom. I will just confirm that this code is yours." She began reading out a code and it was a long one. It was more than her English skills could handle.

Mid sentence, she was replaced. The voice spoke better English and had a mountain of confidence. No-one said anything about putting me through to someone else, or I'll just put you onto my supervisor or anything, just suddenly it was a new voice. Similar though - as if she'd took a pill that gave her another 5 years experience in doing what she's doing now. I didn't mention it. It wasn't important.

She explained that the command I typed in will show a "'Security code' called a CLSID" She read the code off.

"888DCA60-FC0A-11CF-8F0F-00C04FD7D062" Making sure she gave a word for each letter to be sure there are no mistakes. I didn't actually get the entire code. Language problems again. She asked me if that was the same code that I had on my screen.

"I think there was one letter wrong. I think. I'm not sure. Can you read it again?"

She did.

The command she asked me to type in was ASSOC which is a windows command to display a list of Windows file associations. File associations are how your computer can tell which program to open a particular file with, so that Word files open with Word for instance. Windows computers by default recognise a file extension called ZFSendToTarget and being that it starts with Z it will be on the bottom of the list every time - on every Windows computer. This file association has what is called a CLSID - that long number, which is also the same on every computer. She is simply reading me a number that is guaranteed to be there and guaranteed to be the same.

"Yes, it IS the same."

She got me to close the command prompt and now we were getting to the crux of the scam.

"Press Windows and R." The imaginary 'Run' dialogue opened again and she spelled out the following command.

iexplore www.ammyy.com

I opened Chrome on my Mac and visited the site.

AMMYY - Free Remote Control Software

For Remote Desktop Sharing.

Yep, that's all they need really. There's nothing more I need to know. Now to keep them on the line for as long as possible... someone there must be paying international rates... besides, my imaginary PC isn't even connected to the Internet yet... and the only option I have to get it online is imaginary dial-up!

"It's opened Internet Explorer. It wants me to connect to the Internet. Hang on... it takes a little while... I'm on dial-up."

"That's okay. Take your time." For a scammer, she was very nice.

I did take my time. I remember dial-up.

"Okay, it's online now. A website came up. A green one."

"Yes, a green website. That's it!" She was pretty happy about getting me this far. "Do you see the green button?"

"Yes, I see a green button..."

"Okay, click the green button, and when the button comes up, click Run."

I clicked the link. Chrome for Mac downloaded a Windows exe file a little over a meg in a blink. The file name: AMMYY_Admin.exe

"Okay. It's downloading" I said, sticking to my dial-up story. After a minute I said "It's finished downloading, do I click Run now?"

"Yes, click Run." she replied.

"The screen is all blue with white writing on it."

"The screen is all blue? White whiting?"

"Oh, my computer just rebooted. Is it supposed to do that?" Turns out even imaginary Windows PC's will crash at the worst possible time.

She didn't understand most of what I said, I guess it was a long way off script. I spoke slowly and explained that my PC (omitting that it was imaginary) had crashed. "There was a blue screen. The computer turned off by itself. It's starting up again now."

"Oh, your computer turned off by itself. Oh, that is very bad. Viruses can be very bad. You must have a lot of viruses on your PC."

"I'm just glad you're able to help me get rid of them. Thank you for being so patient with me. These computers can be so confusing sometimes."

"Yes, that is why I call you. I can help you fix your computer."

"Thanks, you're really helpful. Okay, the computer is all started again. I'll just connect to the Internet again. Hang on."

"Yes, okay, connect to the Internet."

iPC sat there obediently connecting to it's dial-up Internet.

"Okay, it's connected." I told her. "Do you want me to do that Command R thing again?"

"Command?"

Oh damn! The jig is up! Being a Mac user has blown my cover!

"Oh, um, that Windows Key and the R key thing we did. Do you want me to do that again?"

"Windows R, yes, umm... yes," she found her place on the flowchart. "Yes, press Windows and R keys."

^Whew^

"Okay. It's still got 'iexplore www.ammyy.com' in it."

"Yes, good. Click OK"

"Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay, Internet Explorer is opened and there's that green website again."

"Good. Now click the green button."

"It's downloading." I waited a while "It's finished, do I click Run?"

"Yes. Click Run."

"Okay." *Click* "I have a blue screen. It has white writing on it. My computer is rebooting."

"Ohh, you have very bad problem. You need to take your computer to a computer doctor. You have got a very bad virus."

"A computer doctor? So you can't help me?"

"Yes! Yes, I can help you. This is why I am here."

"Oh. Good." I was enjoying this far too much. iPC rebooted and the dial-up was reconnected. For a third time we used the Run dialogue to open Internet Explorer and go directly to the green website. We continued following her flowchart and clicked the green button, downloaded the exe and arrived at the Run dialogue.

"I have the Run dialogue again."

She's still following the flowchart. "Yes. Click Run."

"Well, I've done that twice before. When I click that Run button, my screen goes blue and then my computer turns off all by itself. Are you sure you want me to click the Run button?"

There was a pause. It was brief, but there was definitely a pause.

"There is one thing you can do."

"Okay."

"You can go to hell. You hear me? You can GO TO HELL!!!"

I couldn't reply. I was laughing too hard. She hung up. What a dear. I hope she considers a career change.

Dear Telstra,

2011-05-19T03:28:00.010+10:00

A fault arose with my phone line in February this year (2011), resulting in my wife and I being without a home phone and cut off from the Internet for about a week. Telstra provided us with a free service that forwarded incoming calls to our mobile phone. We were charged full price for our line rental.

The same fault presented itself in March, this time taking over two weeks to get fixed. Again they promised to provide a free call forwarding service to my mobile phone and, as compensation for both faults, they gave us a twenty dollar discount on our line rental. However, when we received our bill, although we had our $20.00 discount, we had been charged $16.60 for calls that were forwarded to our mobile phone, a service which was supposed to be free.

I spoke with two of the contractors that arrived at my home at different times to check out the problem and they told me that a cable had been accidentally dug up and re-buried by a back-hoe operator in a new estate being constructed nearby. They also told me of a 200 meter length of Telstra cable had been strung across a public park on Kirkwood Rd, on top of the ground. They said that this above-ground length of cable is the source of my problem. I was told by Telstra and one of the contractors that came to my house that the damage done to the cable was too great to be repaired by local contractors and that they would have to send a specialised team to repair it properly.

The fault returned again and I reported it on the 28th of April. Telstra told me that someone would be around to have a look at the fault on the 4th of May. They contacted me again to extend that date to the 6th of May. No-one came and I was still without a home phone. I spoke with Telstra on the 9th of May and they gave me yet another date - the 16th of May - making it three weeks without a home phone or Internet access. On the 14th of May I got a txt from the contractors that were working on it, advising that my phone had been reconnected. My ADSL was still down but after a quick call to my ISP, we managed to get my Internet connection working.

I have registered a couple of complaints to Telstra now, but never directly to their Complaints Department. I’ve had my mobile phone battery run flat while waiting on hold to the Complaints Department. Their Complaints Department does not seem to be interested in returning my calls. I received a text message from them on the 28th of March claiming that their complaints department would contact me within the next 24 hours. That call never came. I have never spoken to anyone from the Telstra complaints department.

Internet access at our house is our primary means of communication. We use Facebook and Skype to keep in touch with family and friends across Australia and around the world. Our bills are now sent by e-mail so they don’t have to be printed on paper and we use online banking to pay them. We get our news and weather online. My wife maintains a YouTube channel and I have this blog. Being cut off from the Internet causes us far more inconvenience than losing access to our telephone service. We pay $69.99 per month to TPG Internet for ADSL which we are unable to access while we have this fault on our Telstra phone line. Because we are not using Telstra’s own Internet company, BigPond, no-one at Telstra wanted to know anything about the money we’ve paid for our Internet access - access that has been cut off to us from by this fault.

I was getting pretty annoyed with Telstra by this time and they must've realised it because they assigned me a case manager. My case manager has been very polite and he's tried to be as helpful as the bureaucracy he works for will allow. It's interesting to note that once Telstra has assigned a case manager to you, no-one else at Telstra can deal with you. It's certainly better than talking to a different person every time you ring them up, but when I rang up one day and he wasn't there, I was told that I would have to wait until he got back to work to discuss my problem. Even when I asked to be put though to "someone who is being payed enough to be yelled at", she told me that the only person I can be transferred to is my case manager, and as he's not at work there's no-one I can talk to. When I did get a hold of him, my case manager was very keen to help out. He fixed the overcharging on my bill and in a bit of a win for us, he even gave us a payment to cover the month of Internet we lost.

I went with a mate to find this cable strung across the park. It didn't take long so we snapped a few photos. I couldn't believe what we found. I had been offline and without a home phone for about a cumulative six weeks this year. I had been told on more than one occasion that a special team from Telstra was going to fix the fault because the job was too big for their local contractors. This last fault took three weeks to get fixed. These photos were taken the day after I got the 'repairs complete' message. While talking with my case manager, I offered to send him the photos so he could see for himself why I'm so unhappy with the results of the repairs. He told me that due to privacy concerns he could not give me an e-mail address to send them to, so I'm posting them online here.

The cable comes out of the ground at the edge of a pond beside a bridge amongst some swampy reeds.

It is strung along the top of the ground through a garden beside a path in the park.

It looks as though someone has pulled it up from a shallow covering in the garden bed.

Example one of damage to the cable.

Example two of damage to the cable.

Example three of damage to the cable.

This shot shows the three damaged sections together. On the right side of the photo you can see the well-used exercise path that runs through the park.

This is probably example four of damage to the cable. It's a black plastic bag held on by a couple of wraps of electrical tape. The cable goes in one side and out the other.

About 200m from where it comes out, it disappears back into the ground.

After taking these photos, I have to wonder... which one of these plastic-bag and sticky-tape repairs took three weeks to complete?

I get the feeling I've been lied to. More than once.

I would really like someone from Telstra to explain to me:- If the repairs are just some plastic bags and electrical tape, why did it take three weeks to get my phone back on? If a specialised team of Telstra technicians was here to do the job - as I was told would be the case - how could they just leave a cable that supplies phone and Internet to me and my neighbours, sitting on top of the ground next to a path in a public park?

Hacking people.

2011-04-19T02:57:00.003+10:00

I asked on Facebook if anyone had received a strange phone call from someone claiming to be from a computer security firm saying that your computer has contacted them over the Internet and let them know you have been infected with some kind of virus.

I've had two calls like this. The first one I was pretty abrupt with the guy and told him that my computer most definitely did not contact them and most definitely does not have a virus. All my computers are up-to-date and have antivirus and firewalls installed.

He said in the kind of tone that you might imagine a drug pusher would use "Really? You don't think it's been running a little slow lately?" which in the world of Windows is any computer that hasn't been defragged in a couple of months.

I told him "No, my computers are running fine."

Then I began asking him questions. I first asked him about how much information my computer sent him.

"Can you tell me what Operating System I'm running?"

His reply at this point was a rather weak "... Windows...?".

"Nah mate, all my comptuers are Macs."

"Your computers are Macs??! oh.."

click.

The second call started out very similar. It was a woman this time and sounded like she was reading from cue cards.

"Your computer has contacted us on the Internet to tell us that you have a virus and we'd like to help you fix it now."

I put on my surprised voice. "A virus? Really? On my computer??!! What should I do? Is it bad?! Is my computer going to die?"

Instant confidence on the other end. "Oh yes, very bad virus." She had an accent and had trouble with the 'V's and R's so it was more like 'bedy bad bydis", but I understood well enough. "But we can help you get rid of it. Just go to your computer and I'll tell you how to get rid of the virus."

"Go to my computer. Okay." I said.

There was about a minute of silence.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Are you at your computer?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Is you computer on?"

I couldn't help myself. "You want me to turn it on?"

"Yes. Umm. Please turn your computer on."

"Okay, I'm turning it on now."

I watch the clock on the wall silently for about two minutes... Windows computers can take a while to boot up sometimes.

"Ok, my computer is on."

She's speaking as carefully as her broken Engrish can carry her now, "Your computer is on now? Okay, now click on the Start button and then click 'Run' and you should see a box come up with somewhere you can type in?"

This is where the charade ends.

"I don't have a Start Button." I tell her.

She quickly jumps straight to what I'd imagine is the last of her cue cards. "Unfortunately we are unable to help you with your problem today. Bye."

click.

I have to be happy with the fact that I could cost these scamming bastards at least some time and money.

Modern operating systems are increasingly difficult to hack. Sometimes it's just easier to hack the user directly. I still don't know what the end result of this scam is but if they're starting with a run dialogue it's already looking pretty nefarious. From there they could direct you to type in commands to send your information directly to them over the internet, or to download an install a trojan, disable your firewall and antivirus, or even e-mail them your Internet browser history complete with all your passwords.

This is the kind of hacking that all the McAfee and Norton security suites in the world can not protect you from.

It's interesting to note that it's still only Windows users being targeted so far. Even old computer-illiterate grandma would've survived these two calls provided she wasn't running Windows!

Hung Parliament.

2010-08-24T09:29:00.005+10:00

I like the NBN idea. I don't like the proposed mandatory filter. Labour were in favour of both. Libs wanted to scrap both.

*Gazes off into space and imagines the entire Parliament. Hung.

Y'know, this hung parliament might be alright. The balance of power in the minor seats, it seems to me, could force the two sides to work together. Wouldn't that make sure that really good ideas like the NBN gets completed while completely useless things like the filter will be deservedly scrapped in favour of more effective programs like better education and online tools for parents? Wouldn't it allow the entire government to have a say in how projects like the home insulation scheme and school buildings program are run - both of which could have been run better. Could we be in for a term of Government where both sides are in a position of equal responsibility - and blame? Will we see a Government formed that will accurately represent the will of the people of this country?

A hung parliament seems like a pretty good opportunity to make this happen. I'm no expert on politics and government. Am I mistaken in this assumption?

Watered down gaming.

2009-12-10T12:53:00.010+10:00

It's something that I've written about a few times here. Adult games that in most other countries that would receive an R18+ rating, get banned here in Australia because there is no such rating for computer games here.

Now I'm not talking about those weird Japanese hentai games that would probably require an X rating. It's blockbuster games like Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto and Left for Dead 2. None of these are kids games. All of them are designed to be played by adults. Like a lot of adult movies and novels, they may contain violence, coarse language and sexual themes.

Most games that are refused classification get re-released in a watered down and edited version so that it passes the Australian Government Classification Board's guidelines, often resulting in a washed-out game that lacks the very elements that make it great. Recently IGN did a review of the censored Australian version of Left 4 Dead 2. The review did not go well.

Look, I'm no sadist – I don't get off on violence, but I do like decapitating zombies. That's not wrong. I must have been leaking the lizard when the Australian Classifications Board suddenly deemed the undead 'too realistic' to be savaged by virtual machetes and cricket bats. Censorship sucks.-Patch, IGN.

It's clear that every time a game is refused classification, the game makers have to spend quite a bit of time rewriting code, altering artwork and perhaps even re-recording sound so it passes our classification system.

Essentially, it's the same as forcing the makers

of the Saw movies to rewrite and reshoot the gory bits of the movie just in case a five-year old child walks into the room while you're watching it. Would you go to see that?

So it's nice to see UK game maker "Rebellion Developments" taking a stand. They're simply not going to spend the time and money destroying their new game "Alien vs Predator" just so it can pass the Australian Government standards.

"The content of AvP is based on some of the most innovative and iconic horror movies, and as such we wanted to create a title that was true to the source material. It is for adults, and it is bloody and frightening, that was our intent. We will not be releasing a sanitized or cut down version
for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices."
-CEO Jason Kingsley, Rebellion Dev
elopments.

According to the "National Classification Code", "Computer Games" will be refused classification if they "are unsuitable for a minor to see or play;" which doesn't really go along with the first opening principle of the code which states:

"(a) adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want;"
-The Code, Commonwealth of Australian Law.

Hopefully a lot more game makers will make the same stand. The computer game industry is growing faster than both the movie and music industries. For example, Spiderman 3 holds the record for opening day ticket sales for a movie at $59 million. Grand Theft Auto IV clocked up $310 million in sales on it's first day. The result of banning blockbuster games will be a loss in revenue for Australian game distributors.

Some gamers aren't content to simply do without and will order the forbidden games through overseas websites. New Zealand has a R18+ rating for computer games and it's online games stores happen to be on the same Internet as we are! I did a quick Google search. Note the "Sponsored Link"?

The solution is simple. Give games an R18+ rating and don't sell them to children.

Problem solved.

The end of USB?

2009-09-28T02:30:00.003+10:00

Intel are developing a fiber-optic connection standard that will replace USB, IEEE-1394 (Firewire) and HDMI to name a few. The standard will support multiple protocols and multiple devices on a single cable meaning that it will be used to connect your printer, camera, monitor, portable storage devices and just about anything else that connects to the computer using the same plug. No more wondering if you've got something plugged in correctly! Cables can be up to 100m long and transfer speeds will start at 10Gb per second. That's ten times faster than Gigabit ethernet - imagine transferring an entire blu-ray movie in under 30 seconds! Just another step in making our computers faster and easier to use. The technology is called Light Peak and we should start seeing this appear on computers and devices some time next year.

USB 3.0 is just around the corner too, and although it doesn't boast the speed and operational distance that Light Peak has, it will be backwards compatible with older USB devices, so it's unlikely that we've seen the end of USB yet.

My two favourite subjects!

2009-09-18T15:22:00.003+10:00

I caught a news article today. Gene Roddenberry - creator of Star Trek - was given the first ever Mac Plus to roll off the assembly line. This story made news because that very computer is going up for Auction. In case you are wondering, no, it's not being sold on e-bay, but at an Auction in Hollywood.

Where No Mac Had Gone Before - Technologizer

The article has a few other interesting tid-bits for the Star Trek/Mac fan too.

The Value of Data

2009-08-21T17:06:00.002+10:00

I've been going on about ZFS for a while now, trying to "have" it, searching and downloading and researching. Sorry about that. But for anyone who wants to understand why I'm so wrapped up in it, you have to understand the high value I place on my data. At the moment, we have a digital camera that we've taken thousands of photos with, a digital video camera (or two) with tons of footage, an iPod with enough mp3s to fill it over a hundred time. This is my stuff. I want it to be both safe and accessible. ZFS has the tools to do this. For those of you who like comics, the Nexenta have an eight page comic on their website. Check it out.

Linux + ZFS = Nexenta

2009-08-21T16:05:00.003+10:00

I stumbled across Nexenta, another OS that runs ZFS but behaves like Linux. I thought OpenSolaris looked and behaved like linux, but hey, what do I know? Hoping it might have a more user friendlier approach to ZFS, I think I might give it a try. The community that supports Nexenta seems to be geared a little more to beginners, something that most Linux users are used to. So I am continuing the epic quest to set up a hassle free network access storage server.

ZFS Fail

2009-08-14T10:48:00.003+10:00

So after a reinstall of OpenSolaris and starting from scratch and carefully going through the newly learned steps of setting up my home file server, I finally got it working to the stage when the server had a ZFS pool and could share it over the network and I could read and write to it. I recorded the terminal commands that I used to get it going in a Google Doc if anyone wants to try if for themselves.

However, every time I tried to copy anything big to it, it would disappear off the network until it was rebooted. Not sure what is causing this and the OpenSolaris community aren't newbie friendly. In fact, they're not helpful at all. The problem could be a hardware fault, but I don't know my way around OpenSolaris well enough to determine that and operating systems that require terminal commands to get anything done just seems so... '80's...

I'm not giving up just yet though. Today, Uncle Phil is donating his old PC to the cause. It's a PC that he doesn't use anymore because he now has an iMac, something that's been happening a bit in our circle of friends lately. Phil's old PC isn't shabby at all, with a Core2Duo processor and plenty of RAM so it'll be interesting if this makes a difference.

Here we go again!

A Win Followed By Another Problem

2009-07-30T19:51:00.010+10:00

Yay! I googled and googled and googled and eventually found a few blogs with useful information and guides to get Windows to see OpenSolaris shares, and if Windows can do it, the Mac can.

If you've happened on this page looking for the answer I found, I apologize. It was like 4am when I got it working and I went to sleep pretty much immediately but I'll post a few pages from the history that I think were helpful.... I was pretty tired.

A good place to start if you're just considering using OpenSolaris for NAS (network access storage)
Simons Blog:A Home Fileserver using ZFS
I started following the guide at:
Corner 11:Adventures in Opensolaris - Build a ZFS pool as a network share

but he got a bit vague on a couple of steps but got me most of the way.

The Observatory:Accessing OpenSolaris Shares From Windows.

This one cleared up the steps I was having problems with.

Anyway, the point is that after yet another fresh install of OpenSolaris and lots of reading and typing terminal commands, I can now access my ZFS File server from my Mac. That's what the "Yay!" was about.

I've only been playing with OpenSolaris for about a week now in it's painfully obvious to me that I still have a lot to learn. A fact that hit home hard when I tried to copy something onto the file server. I couldn't. In fact, I couldn't even copy a file to the ZFS volume from OpenSolaris. So my next challenge is to decipher folder permissions. I think I have a clue... it's starts with chmod.

I'm sure there's a whole lot more reading and probably some lengthy terminal sessions involved... Mick suggested that I visit a OpenSolaris IRC Chat Room, a suggestion I took about a day before I received. OpenSolaris comes with Pidgin - a multi service chat client (like MSN or GoogleTalk but more useful) and checking out the IRC channel (#opensolaris at Freenode.net) was what I was doing while googling.

Is it too soon to say googled with a little 'g'?

I like to scope an IRC channel before I blurt out a question - especially a channel full of techies. I've worked as a computer tech so I know what it's like to be asked stupid questions - often the same questions from different people, and some tech-type channels have rules like "Don't ask questions that are already answered in our FAQ" and "No Noobs". So I said "hi" when I entered and sat back to see if I could understand what everyone was saying, to see if I had learned enough to jump into a conversation.

Considering OpenSolaris is kind of like the 'in-development-bleeding-edge' version of Sun Solaris, it wasn't surprising that these guys were talking like programmers and developers, not a newbie helpline.

Still, I might ask them about chmod... nah!

Foray into ZFS

2009-07-29T17:23:00.004+10:00

So, as I was saying, I've installed OpenSolaris onto the old rig, which probably can't be called 'old' anymore because it's got a new motherboard, new RAM and a new CPU. I've discovered some things about OpenSolaris. It's a lot like Linux. It uses the Gnome GUI. Getting ZFS to work requires use of Terminal which is like a DOS box, only more useful, but is easy enough after a few online tutorials.

The PC has four hard drives all of different sizes. The first one accommodates the OpenSolaris install. The other three are all grouped together into a single partition that is both striped and mirrored and is also expandable! In layman's terms, it means this - those of you with large video/music/photo collections will be able to appreciate this: You have a folder shared across your network that any computer can access. It contains all your media. These are quite common now and are usually referred to as a Media Server or Home File Server. Normally when you run out of space on your hard drive you have a couple of options - delete something to make room or add another hard drive, the latter option being the one we're interested in. When you add another hard drive, you format it and share it as another folder on the network meaning you'll end up with folders like MOVIES1, MOVIES2, MUSIC.A-J, MUSIC.K-Z, etc... and that's just annoying. The ZFS feature in OpenSolaris allows you to "join" your hard drives together so that when you add another hard drive it simply creates more space on the partition. The hard drives don't even need to be the same size! On top of that, ZFS can sustain a hard drive failure, so if you have one of your hard disks crash, OpenSolaris will be able to rebuild the data that was stored on that crashed disk when you replace it with a new one!

This is very impressive technology, which is why I used so many exclamation marks. However, while there is a lot of documentation online on how to set up OpenSolaris and ZFS, getting it to play nice with my Macs over the network is insanely difficult and complicated.

OpenSolaris comes from a *nix background so it shares certain traits with UNIX, Linux and even OS X in some ways, but this very same *nix background brings with it a veritable Fort Knox of security features with dozens of User levels and Groups, and the vast majority of configuration options can only be accessed through a Terminal window using long and complicated commands. Needless to say, it's a steep learning curve for someone who hasn't had experience with Linux style operating systems and Joe Average can just forget about it.

It's a shame that getting network shares working on OpenSolaris isn't easier. Everything else was pretty much configured automatically. The network is there and configured, I can access the Internet with Firefox and can ping the other computers on the network. It came bundled with a few applications like Firefox and Thunderbird for e-mail, a package installer to get more software, a media player and everything on OpenSolaris works quite well... until you want to configure something on the system. Then it's that damn Terminal window again...

Although I've had it installed and running with ZFS for three days now, I've still yet to browse a single network share on the new OpenSolaris box, from either Windows or Mac.

Back to the forums I guess...

Super User!

2009-07-25T11:33:00.001+10:00

I just discovered the # su command! All doors have opened!

OpenSolaris

2009-07-25T07:43:00.005+10:00

I'm installing OpenSolaris, a free UNIX operating system on my old windows machine today. I'm hoping to turn it into a network file server and try out ZFS. This could be the fate of Blackpearl.

Conroy - Super Villian

2009-07-15T13:25:00.003+10:00

Australian Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy won the Internet Villian of the Year Award at the 11th Annual Internet Industry Awards by the Internet Service Providers Association in London this week. Check out the story on iTWire.

Congratulations Mr Conroy, the entire world has formally recognized your Internet filtering scheme as the worst thing that's happend to the Internet ever. Well done!

Parties, Maps and the Flu

2009-07-08T05:49:00.005+10:00

We went to Brisbane on the weekend to attend Jemma and Nick's engagement party. We took the X-90 down for the drive, the first time I've taken the little Suziki for such a long trip. It handled really well, although the seats stop being comfortable after about three or four hours.

The party was great! We caught up with a lot of Cilla's family and got to meet some of Nick's relatives which was really good. Nick's clan seems like a top bunch. We're looking forward to catching up with most of Cilla's family again at Xmas. Nick show me his new iPhone 3G S which is a very tidy bit of gear. iPhone is a bit smaller than I thought it would be. I really really really want one...

We had a few days free to do whatever and we were trying to think of who we know near there to drop in and visit. The Gilberts are pretty much just across the NSW border, and Mick and Anna aren't far away in Dalby, but the choice was made for us when Cilla woke up with a cough and the sniffles. I'm sure no-one want's a visit from someone with the flu (especially with a house full of kids) so we headed home.

We did drop in to Maryborough to stretch our legs and give our arses a rest, where we caught up with Reid and met his Grandmother Beryl. She didn't like my long hair at all and didn't hesitate to tell me so. She's a funny old dear. She cooked us up a little pizza and sent us on our way.

It was nice to crash in our own bed after a long trip but we were both sick as dogs. Of course there was that little voice at the back of our heads saying "...it could be swine influenza..." so on Monday we gave Queensland Health a call and let them know we had the flu. They interviewed me over the phone and asked me lots of question along the lines of "are you dying?" and "are you dead yet?" and finally said it was likely just normal people flu and I should just go see a doctor.

Our regular doctor was booked out so we booked in at another medical center. And what a wanker we ended up with! He quizzed us about smoking and then blamed that on why we were sick and then told Cilla, who works at a cafe at an airport that she'd be ready for work in two days. Knowing the risk of taking the flu into a cafe at an airport, she asked to have until Friday, but the doctor refused saying she can go back to work on Wednesday. So without a medical certificate from the doctor, Cilla has been forced to go to work before she's recovered.

And get this! The antibiotic that this doctor prescribed came with a "Consumer Medicine Information" sheet which says:

"Doxyhexal is an antibiotic and belongs to a group of medicines called tetracyclines... Tetracyclines will not work agains viral infections such as colds or flu."

So what the fuck is up with this doctor? To the untrained eye, it looks like he has no idea of what he's doing. To the conspiracy minded it looks like he's trying to spread the flu as far and wide as possible. Perhaps he's just an anti-smoking campaigner posing to be a medical practitioner. Whatever his problem is, he does nothing to promote trust in his industry.

Other news. Google have added Real Estate search to Google Maps. Try it out like this.

Visit maps.google.com.au
Type "real estate" into the search box
Click the "Search Maps" button
Click "Real estate on Google Maps" link in the left sidebar of the webpage - it has a little blue house icon beside it.

Now you should have lots of little red dots all over the map. These are properties for sale or rent. You can narrow the search field using the options in the side bar and you'll see dot's disappear as you do. This is a very neat tool and an extremely practical use of Google Maps.

Gotta love Google!

Who are the targets?

2009-06-30T03:54:00.004+10:00

Senator Conroy and his Internet censorship goons have, until recently, been selling their compulsory filter idea as a way of protecting young Australians from kiddy porn, but if Conroy is allowed to implement his Great Barrier Firewall, he gives our federal government a filter that lets them block any information they deem unsuitable for your viewing.

Let me stress that point.

If we ALLOW our Federal Government to force this censorship scheme on us, it lets THEM decide what sites are not suitable for YOU to look at, download or purchase. They will have unprecedented contral over your access to information and what you are able to purchase because, as they have since revealed, the scope of their censorship goes far beyond blocking unsuitable porn.

Todays rant is inspired by articles in the news recently describing how Conroy already plans to expand the scope of his Internet filter to block out any websites that sell or allow you to download computer games that fall outside the MA15+ rating given by the Australian Film and Literature Classification Board. Australia is the only western country in the world that doesn't have an R18+ rating for computer games!

Do any of my readers play Second Life? Be prepared to kiss that little diversion goodbye - anything that lets it's players get creative and make whatever they want is definitely going to fall outside our ratings system!

Fallout 3 was banned in Australia for depicting drug use until a censored version was released.

Most of the GTA games have been banned in Australia because they depicted sex scenes. Censored versions have since been released.

F.E.A.R. 2 was banned because it was too violent. The publishers appealed the decision and it was reclassified as MA15+.

There is quite a list of games banned in Australia.

Basically, computer games get refused classification (and subsequently banned) because of drug use, sex scenes and violence - the very same reasons we have an R18+ rating for video and film releases.

The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) recently conducted a survey revealing that the average age of the Australian gamer is thirty years old. Not really surprising considering the average price of a latest generation gaming console or games-capable PC tends to be out of reach of most pocket money budgets. So we know that the people buying games are - on average - adults. The same adults that can rent or purchase a whole range of R18+ movies depicting all kinds of drug use, sex and violence. In some places in Australia, these same adults are legally allowed to purchase X rated material. Yet when it comes to gamers, we are treated by our Government as children no matter what our age.

Savvy gamers in the past have simply ordered their game from a civilized country like New Zealand, a country like every other western country in the world that has an R18+ rating for their games, allowing adults to enjoy their games as they were meant to be.

Our very own Internet Villain Award Nominee, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy plans to put a stop to all that. His blacklist will now include any sites that provide access to games that have been refused classification in Australia. This means that any site that sells R18+ games will be blocked even if you wanted to buy a PG13 rated game.

And even if you think this is okay, even if you reckon gamers should wait until our Government to listen to the thousands of Aussie gamers crying out for a fair rating system for our games, you'd be naive to think that Conroys Internet Censorship scheme will stop at blocking computer games. The blacklist that blocks these 'unacceptable sites' can be added to at a whim. If the Government don't want you to see it, they can put it on their secret blacklist and you lose access to it just as if the owner of the site had pulled it down.

I have put a widget on the side bar of my blog where you can sign a petition at GetUp! who have had some success in promoting awareness about this censorship situation. This censorship scheme of Senator Stephen Conroy's has the potential to destroy the freedom we have online in ways that you won't realize until it's gone. It will give our Government the power to block your access to anything - independent news websites, entertainment sites, community networking sites, even blogs like mine could end up being blocked.

We have already seen the blacklist block legitimate business sites with the Queensland dentist who was added to the blacklist without any warning or explanation, costing them business because the site was down, costing them service and maintenance trying to figure out why their site wasn't working, and no, he will not be getting compensation.

A point I'd like to make here is that our current rating system was designed to apply to movies, films, television shows and also printed media and radio broadcasts. When applied to media, this kind of rating system makes sense. You can be assured that when you hire a DVD rated PG13 that your young teenager should be able to handle the content and you can make informed decisions on watching R rated or X rated content.

But, and this is a very big 'BUT', the Internet is not a one-way media. It is a communication system in which information is sent both to you and by you. Censoring the Internet is like censoring your telephone. It is like censoring your personal mail. It is taking away your access to information. It is removing any option to you to choose to view R rated or X rated material. It is removing your freedom of choice.

Don't let this happen. Sign a petition. Discuss the issue with your friends. Write about it on Facebook. Let Stephen Conroy and his pals know that we are Australian adults and we can choose for ourselves what we watch, what we listen to and what we play. We grown ups now, we like our freedom and we can decide for ourselves thank you very much.

Google Wave

2009-06-04T13:02:00.006+10:00

Google have announced new technology called Wave. They say that they asked themselves one question.

"What would e-mail be like if it were invented today?"

As usual, Google have not failed to impress. After watching the keynote on their homepage on what we can expect to be able to do with Wave once it's released, I am excited. It marries Instant Messaging style chat to e-mail style conversations to forum style discussions with wiki style editing options... and much more than that!

Here are a few points in the video that I'd like to list that I'm really looking forward to.

Character-by-character chat.

No longer do you sit and wait while you stare at the notice "Fred is typing...". Instead, you see Fred's message as he's typing it, so you can be already formulating your reply. If you begin typing your reply before he's finished, he can see you doing so, character by character as you type.

Photo (and other rich content) sharing.

Something that is difficult to do with online photo albums today is allowing many people to add to a single collection. Wave makes it really easy to share photos and ideas under a single topic for everyone to see and add to. For example, your young child has a birthday party and you post some fun pics on a wave to share with everyone who was at the party, and other people could add photos that they took to the same collection.

Which brings us to

Collaboration

This system really allows for groups of people to work on one thing all at once. The character-by-character nature of the communication means that many people can be editing the same document at once because you see everyone's changes and additions as they're making them.

Spell Checker

They also demonstrated a new spell checker that is actually context sensitive. It can fix those mistakes that most spell checkers miss, like the difference between to and too, or there, their and they're. This is technology that draws upon Google's vast amounts of information at their disposal, by creating a massive database on language usage and how sentences are formed and what people are talking about. If information is power, then this is an example of an enormous amount of power being used for the common good of the Citizens of Earth... but wait, they're about to prove that spelling and grammar are not the limit of their power...

Language Translator

I was just completely blown away when they demonstrated this. The translator supports forty different languages and can translate between any two of them. It, like everything else, is character-by-character, so as your French acquaintance is typing you can see their text appear as they type it, with the translation appearing below, as they type.

So while Microsoft are playing a fanfare for the launch of Bing, the search tool that censors your results but has a pretty picture behind it, Google are coming up with the next big thing.

Remember the original question? "What would e-mail be like if it were invented today?" One of the things that makes the forty-odd year old e-mail standard so successful is that it remains an Open Standard, meaning that anyone can write an e-mail program, run their own e-mail server and still send and receive e-mail with anyone in the world, regardless of what software or server they are using. This is the benefit of using Open Standards so Google are releasing Wave as an Open Standard too, allowing anyone to create clients, extensions and add-ons that take advantage of the new Wave protocol.

This is what Google reckon e-mail should be like, and I like it!

Let's see, what's new?

2009-05-30T02:01:00.006+10:00

Well, Windows 7 is landing with a big splash. It hasn't even been released yet and already the NSW Dept of Education is installing it on student laptops. Not surprisingly, the students are liking it. It's actually quite good. I've had Windows 7 loaded up on my iMac with Bootcamp for a while now and it seems to work really well. It doesn't deliberately go out of it's way to piss me off like Vista did, although it has still inherited many of the classic faults of the Windows Operating System.

By loading up Windows 7 on my computer I agreed to a non-disclosure agreement which prevents me from discussing my Windows 7 experience with anyone but Microsoft, which is why I haven't blogged for a while. So I'm not going to tell you any more about it - except that it's the best Windows OS I've ever used and is easily as good (in terms of OS features, security and ease-of-use) as the previous version of Mac OS.

If you want to try out Windows 7 visit the official Microsoft Download page and you can try it for free until July 2010. You'll need a "Microsoft Account" to acces it. A Hotmail/Live/MSN account... y'know, one of those... if you use Microsoft/MSN/Windows/Live Messenger, that's the account you'll need. I wish they'd just settle on one branding!

Look out! Here comes another one! Bing!

This picture is an accurate representation of what Google has done to Microsoft's previous forays into online search. Google is so successful at online search that the two words are interchangeable. People don't search for something anymore, they Google it.

If we can give Microsoft credit for anything though, it's that they just don't give up. Enter Bing, Microsoft's latest brand sporting an uncharacteristically creative name which they hope will be the search engine of choice for Netizens of the future. I reckon Google are already preparing the backswing for this one.

Essential Leopard Software.

2009-04-23T19:46:00.007+10:00

I've been trying out lots of software on my iMac to see what works best for me. Here is a list of things I've installed to make the Mac computing experience easier.

1. Logitech Control Center.

Support for Logitech keyboards and mice. The one thing that Apple makes that I can't stand is that pathetic excuse for a mouse. Sure, it's got a nice multi-directional scrolling ball thing but it only has one button which - when you go to play a game - is absolutely useless. And before anyone tells me that it can be configured so it can detect right or left click, it doesn't change the fact that the mouse physically only has one button. Go ahead, grab your Mighty Mouse. Hold down the left button and then click the right button. You can't can you? Because the one and only physical button is already being held down. Most useless mouse ever. So I use a decent Logitech wired optical mouse and the Mighty Mouse gets to sit in the drawer as a spare if I ever get that desperate.

2. Flip4Mac WMV.

This is Microsoft software. It adds Windows Media support to Quicktime so you can watch .wmv and listen to .wma files as well as watch Windows streaming media on the web. Typical of Microsoft, they have a couple of different versions of the same thing with different levels of functionality and price. Stick with the free one. The alternative is to get Windows Media Player for Mac and no-one wants to do that!

3. Perian.

Perian is known as the swiss-army knife of QuickTime components. Basically it adds support to your Mac for lots of different video and audio formats allowing these files to be used in your other Mac software.

4. Growl.

This is notification software and is very popular. It links into the Mac OS framework to deliver notifications of software events that happen on your computer like letting you know when someone comes online or when your torrent has finished downloading. With a bit of extra fiddling, you can install the Hardware Growler which comes with it. Then it will monitor your computer hardware which provides information about your network, notifies you when you plug something into the computer or if a disk has been mounted or ejected.

5. MacFUSE and NTFS-3G.

It really does suck when your Windows using friend comes around with their external hard drive to find that your Mac won't even read what's on there. This solution comes in two parts.

Part one is the installation of MacFUSE which is written by Google. It establishes a mechanism within OS X that allows it to connect with non-native filesystems. Simply put, with this installed, you can 'teach' your Mac to read disks that are not formatted for Mac.
The second part is the installation of the NTFS-3G driver. This is the bit that 'teaches' your Mac to read Windows formatted NTFS disks.

It took me a while to get this working the first time but that was on the Mac Mini about a year ago. The latest versions were easy to install. One, then the other. Done. I can read all my mates external hard drives now. For all those using Boot Camp, this lets you read and write to your Windows drive too, but that may screw up your Windows install... like I care about Windows anymore...

6. Safari 4.

At the time of writing this post, all Macs come with a web browser called Safari but currently you get Safari 3 which, while it's a capable web browser and it's quite quick, it doesn't shape up too well against most of the competition. Safari 4 is still in beta but is a vast improvement over it's predecessor, integrating the tab bar and the title bar together to give you more space for the pages your looking at and the Top Sites feature that shows all the sites you visit the most on one screen with thumbnails so you can easily recognize the site you want to go to.

7. UnRarX.

Leopard has support for most compression types built in including the most popular - ZIP, but some of the archives we download are compressed in a RAR file. To open these, I use UnRarX. This utility won't add full RAR support to your Mac, it does nothing but decompress RAR files. It's small, light and does the job.

Back to Mac!

2009-04-16T12:29:00.004+10:00

The new iMac arrived. Doesn't she look pretty?

Okay, lets get the specs out of the way...

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.93 GHz dual core CPU with 6MB L2 Cache.

4GB (2x2GB) 1066MHz DDR3.

1TB 7200rpm hard drive.

ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB GDDR3 memory.

24" display @ 1920 x 1200.

That's the bits most want to know about, but I'll continue...

Built in:-

Firewire 800.

USB 2.0.

802.11a/b/g/n wireless networking.

Bluetooth 2.1.

10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet.

Optical digital audio.

Stereo speakers.

Microphone.

iSight camera.

8x DVD/CD burner.

IR Receiver.

It looks great and I was surprised at how quiet it is after using a PC that sounds like we have a concord in the room! Ahhh, the serenity...

I could go on, but I won't. Most of you already hear too much about me going on about Apple...

Later!

Facebook

2009-03-19T01:49:00.007+10:00

Being the technology fan that I am, there are a few online services that I have come to really appreciate. Google is obviously at the top of the list with their search, mail and calendar firmly entrenched in my everyday life. I dislike MySpace because it always looks so cluttered and poorly formatted. There was an idea there, but it didn't really have a properly defined goal and seemed to lack direction.

My next foray into the social networking website scene involved Orkut, Google's own attempt at this growing market, but it didn't seem to work very well either. There is an awful lot of spam comments littered throughout the site making it quite an unpleasant place to visit.

I initially dismissed Facebook as another doomed-to-failure attempt at the social networking website genre and I didn't expect it to go very far, but when we really needed to find so people it amazed me at how efficiently I was able to track down and get in touch with them.

Earlier this year a friend of ours was involved in a terrible accident. When we initially heard about it we had very little information. Using Facebook, we were quickly able to track down friends of the people involved and by the end of the day we had made contact with several people we were able to share information with.

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, as my regular reader will already know, and the fact that they have recently bought into Facebook is a little worrying. I've seen what happens to websites that get bought by Microsoft. HoTMaiL is a prime example of how Microsoft can screw up a perfectly good service website.

There is no doubt though, that Facebook is 90% crap. In fact the crap level is probably closer to 97 or 98%. It's filled with stupid surveys like: "Do you think your friend's mother's chiropractor is sexy?", "What are your top ten David Letterman Top Ten lists?" and "Rate my sports clothing company's sex appeal". Then there's those silly time-wasting games that go nowhere, although I do click through the Pirates! game. Anyone thinking of sending me a fish for my coral cove should be aware that I drained it months ago and anyone thinking of sending me a plant for my Lil' Green Patch should be aware that it's now nothing more than a big slab of concrete. I stopped accepting those silly gifts when some dude send me a virtual diamond ring! That worried me a bit.

Underneath the crap though is an excellent network that allows me to keep in touch with friends around the world. We keep in contact with our friends Kerry and Bevan who are travelling Europe for the next several months. They drop a little note on their Facebook page nearly every day and post photos of their trip. At the same time they keep up-to-date with everything that is happening back here in Australia. Another friend, Kaaren is in Thailand at the moment and she's keeping us informed of her adventures over there. My good friend Steve "The Drummer" recently got onto Facebook and immediately found and contacted members of his family over in England that he hasn't seen or spoken to in over a decade! It's allowed a level of communication among our family that we've never had before with every single member keeping in touch with everyone else with very little effort.

I like it. I like the way it keeps me in touch with everyone on my friends list. I like the way I can set it up to restrict my information to just people on my friends list. I like that people can find me, but when they do, they can see only my name and profile picture and nothing else until I confirm them as a friend. I like the way I can share photos and stories with all the people that I care about. This blog has been a great way to keep everyone updated on what I'm doing, but people have to come here to read it (unless you subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader like Google Reader). What makes Facebook work so well is that you only need to visit your own page because has all your friends posts already on it.

I'm a fan.

Preparations

2009-03-11T11:08:00.006+10:00

Defrag finished last night sometime so it took approximately four full days to complete. The last fifty per-cent was obviously a lot quicker than the first. I analyzed the disk again with Microsoft Disk Defragmenter and it recommend that I defrag it!

I wonder if Microsoft plan to fix this problem in Windows 7? It doesn't look like it though.

Right now I have to finish the few jobs that are still on the computer and get it ready to live out its life in "server-tude".

Four days so far...

2009-03-10T21:05:00.002+10:00

Defrag is at 42%.

Did I mention how much Windows sucks?

World Record Defrag Time

2009-03-10T07:33:00.005+10:00

7:30am Tuesday morning. Defrag at 36%

The cyclone seems to have missed us. Pretty much zero rain for the whole time that the cyclone was off the coast. It was funny how most of the town went into panic mode, stocking up on supplies and fuel. The supermarkets were packed with people when Cilla went to do the normal weekly shop with lineups at the check-outs going all the way down the aisle. We heard similar stories from friends that went shopping at different times of the day, so it sounds like the shops had a good week this week. Nothing like fear to drive spending. Just the threat of a natural disaster is enough to open the coin purses of our economically challenged community.

It looks as though a lot of people have stocked up for nothing. The cyclone has missed us completely. It would have turn around completely and double back on itself to present any threat to us now.

We've had some nice cool, breezy and overcast days but it would've been nice to get some rain out of it.

Missed us

2009-03-09T16:28:00.003+10:00

It's 4.30pm. The cyclone is keeping it's distance, moving parallel to the coast. We've had a windy day but we havn't had any rain at all.

Defrag is at 27%.

I ordered a new computer.

Thunderf00t rejects Atheism

2009-03-09T10:12:00.001+10:00

Hamish approaches

2009-03-09T09:40:00.001+10:00

-Image copyright of Bureau of Meteorology.

We're certainly not worried about being blown away. The cyclone seems to be staying off the coast but the Bureau of Meteorology are keeping the warning current for coastal regions between Yeppon and Hervey Bay. We didn't get any rain last night, although we did get 8mm the night before.

This weather makes for some refreshingly cool days though. Overcast skys with a good breeze make it pleasant to work outside.

It's twenty-to-ten and my defrag just clicked over to 21%. Damn Windows sucks!

Defrag & Blog

2009-03-08T23:10:00.003+10:00

It's 11:14pm on Sunday night and Cyclone Hamish is knocking at our door. It's just started to rain and the wind is picking up. The cyclone warning on Weatherzone says that it should be off the coast of Gladstone by tomorrow afternoon but by then it should be down to a Category 3.

My computer has been the source and subject of some hostility over the last couple of days as it practically ground to a halt, taking forever to do even the simplest of tasks. I checked 'defrag' and was told that I should defrag my C: drive.

That was early yesterday morning. It's been 'defragging' for going on forty hours now. It's a 250GB HDD with 21% free space - and it's 17% done!

Windows just seems to get in my way when I try to use the computer to do stuff I want to do.

Did you know that OS X has built-in safeguards against fragmentation of data on the hard drive?

Every day of your life that you waste using Microsoft Windows is a day of your life wasted.

Mac Mini + Games... Finally!

2009-03-04T21:58:00.005+10:00

So Apple have updated the Mac Mini to include a GeForce 9400M, finally ditching the Intel GMA 950 graphics chip that let the Mini down in terms of 3D performance.

I've spoken about Apple's game console and how great it would be to have had a decent graphics chip in the Mac Mini in a previous post.

Now you can get a full-blown computer with a 165 mm² footprint that runs OS X, burns DVDs, has WiFi, bluetooth, 5 USB ports, Firewire800, optical SP/DIF audio and plays games for under AU$1050.00, freeing you from the tyranny of Microsoft and locking you into the shackles of Apple... but they're extremely well designed shackles and they feel really comfortable.

Die X-Box! Die!

WWWWII

2009-03-04T12:19:00.005+10:00

There is a war on in the web-browser market. Some call it "Web War II". Others say it's "The Second Browser War". All we know it that it's really good for us.

I've spent some time getting to know most of the popular browsers out there, so lets start with the most well known browser in the world.

Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer, or IE, is the browser that comes with every copy of Windows. It's ugly and cumbersome to use and has historically been slack on security to the point that in 2004 the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team [US-CERT] recommended users switch to a different browser. While Microsoft have become a lot more security conscience since, I honestly don't have anything good to say about this browser. Even the latest version seems to be a poorly implemented copy of feature sets from competing browsers.

Firefox

Built by the Open Source community and the Mozilla Foundation, Firefox seems to be the current market leader. It's fast, stable and secure with hundreds of plugins, themes and add-ons available. It's usually the first thing I install on a computer.

Google Chrome

There are a lot of great ideas being implemented into Google's Chrome minimalist browser. It's super fast and (apparently) built from the ground up for stability. However, it's very new and I found it to be lacking somewhat in the stability department. Knowing Google, it will probably be in beta for many years and undergo many improvements with constant updates. If for some reason you don't like Firefox, this is a great alternative for Windows users (currently there is no official Mac version of Chrome). As it matures, it will only get better. Google, after all, know a thing or two about how the Internet works. While using this browser, I really missed some of the toolbar add-ons and customizatioin options that I had in Firefox which brings me to...

Safari

Safari is the browser you get pre-installed with every Apple computer. While Safari 3 works great on the Mac. It's fast, stable and secure. The Windows version however, was not really what I would call a great browser... or even a good browser. Like Chrome, Apple have taken a very minimalist approach in the design of their browser, so like Chrome I once again miss the toolbar add-ons and customization options that I had with Firefox. So even on the Mac, we ended up replacing Safari 3 with the OS X version of Firefox.

Safari 4 was released recently and since it's release I've been using it on both my Mac and my Windows machine. It's got the same minimalist approach but it's been redesigned almost in the image of Google Chrome, but with the sense of style that only Apple seem to have. It's still in beta so the Windows version is as stable as a straw house in a fairy tale. As to be expected, on the Mac, it's awesome. It has the three most important things. Speed, Stability and Security.

So while I love the way it does it's "inline spell checking" which is great when I'm blogging, I may very soon finish up my evaluation of Safari 4 beta on my Windows computer and go back to Firefox, at least until Safari 4 comes out of beta.

On the Mac, Safari 4 beta has been impressive. The top sites page and the ease at which you can find something in your history make it so you don't even need to set up your browser anymore. You just start using it and it sets itself up for you. There was only one thing we missed - a particular Firefox add-on that allowed us to monitor our download usage called "Internet Usage Meter".

Readers outside of Australia: Most Internet service plans in Australia have a limit on the amount of data you can download each month. Those that can secure a plan with unlimited downloads usually have to compromise the speed of their connection. Some plans even charge you for every MB you download over your quota.

Problem solved. For all those Mac users in Australia who subscribe to TPG Internet (yes, I'm talking to all 7 of you!) There is a Dashboard widget that can monitor your download usage. It's for TPG users only and it's called, unsurprisingly, TPG Usage Meter [TUM].

End of ramble.

Minnie is fixed

2009-02-25T13:24:00.007+10:00

I ordered a new Pioneer slot-loading laptop DVD burner for our Mac Mini. It arrived yesterday and I installed it. I have opened up the case before but removing the DVD burner and replacing it was a little tricky - and a lot nerve-wracking, but I managed to get the new drive in without breaking anything so I'm very happy. The computer recognized it and after asking me to confirm the region code, it worked straight away without any problems. The 'action' on it when you put a DVD in is a little different from the old drive. It needs a little bit more of a push to get it to 'eat' the disk, but at least now it ejects it as it's supposed to. Something interesting that I noticed with the burners was that both of them had their manufacture dates on them. The original burner from Apple with the Apple logo sticker on it was manufactured October 2007 but the new one that I just put in was actually manufactured 3 months earlier! No wonder it was so hard to find someone with that model in stock.

Apple released a new version of their Safari web browser and I'm trying it out both on the Mac and on my Windows rig. So far, it's working really well. It's fast and tidy - like a cross between Firefox and Chrome. It has a similar start page to Chrome and an interesting place for the tabs - in the title bar! Not sure how they managed to do this on the Windows version, but they did and it works quite well for me. It even spell checks as I type this blog. Handy.

We've had a few good showers over the last couple of weeks, filling both our water tanks. It seems that out of all of Australia, we've been extremely lucky with the amount of rain we've received with just the right amount to keep Cilla's Garden looking great and keeping water in the tanks and pond. Other places in Australia have not been so fortunate. North and North-West Queensland have had far more rain than they bargained for with entire communities being cut off by floodwaters. To the south in Victoria they could really use some rain to help with the fight against the bush fires that are still burning down there.

This blog - Our Spatial Planet - has some satellite images of the bush fires. It gives you some idea of how vast these fires are.

Guild Wars: Free Trial! - Become a Fantasy Legend!

2009-02-15T12:03:00.002+10:00

Guild Wars: Free Trial! - Become a Fantasy Legend!

Posted using ShareThis

Welcome to Earth Matthew

2009-02-04T06:00:00.002+10:00

Brock told me today that his sister Katherine had a baby boy this morning!

Matthew decided to arrive about five weeks early but he's strong and healthy. 5 lb 1½ oz.

Congratulations Katherine and Scott!

Google Ocean

2009-02-03T15:02:00.004+10:00

Google Earth has had a big update to provide us with even more science and geekness. The latest update includes Google Ocean, where you can view the 3D topography of the ocean floor, track pods of whales that have been fitted with global positioning systems, view up-to-date info on lots of marine life and check out plenty of photos, especially showcasing our own Great Barrier Reef.

It'll have to do until we can go SCUBA diving again.

Australia Day

2009-01-26T21:19:00.004+10:00

-Wild ducks enjoying the rain and our pond.

We enjoyed some wet weather over the long weekend, putting some much-needed water into our tanks and topping up the garden pond. The garden is greening up and we may see a new episode of Cilla's Garden sometime in the coming week. We often get wild ducks visiting our pond but during the showers these guys really seemed to be having a good time so I grabbed the camera and snapped a couple of shots. It's hard to photograph wild animals with a consumer digital camera. Our Coolpix only has a 3x zoom, but it takes a 7.1 mega-pixel shot so it still captures plenty of detail. These ducks saw me coming and one got out before I got close enough to take the picture.

New Prez for US

2009-01-20T20:20:00.005+10:00

Barack Obama takes the top job in the US in a few hours. The whole thing is being broadcast live on TV starting at 1.00am. I've never seen a President get sworn in before so I'm going to stay up and see it. Barack writes some good speeches and, you never know, he might say something important.

Sid

2009-01-16T11:40:00.007+10:00

Yesterday, we received the most terrible news.

Kris and Sid, who we visited in Toowoomba earlier this month for their wedding, were involved in a road accident in Victoria while on their honeymoon.

Sid died in the crash. Kris was injured and taken to hospital.

Everyone who knew Sid knows that this tragedy has taken from us one of the most compassionate, intelligent, gentle and loving souls we have ever known. We are all going to miss him dearly.

Krissy's family flew down to Victoria yesterday to be with her.

Our thoughts today are with Krissy and the family that Sid leaves behind.

Mac Mini Stuck DVD

2009-01-14T11:13:00.009+10:00

Or "Superdrive Me!"

Or "Minnie Swallows but Won't Spit!"

OUR FAVOURITE little computer, Minnie - our Mac Mini - decided it was going to play up on us. Cilla put a DVD in the little thing and when the movie was over, Minnie didn't want to give the disc back.

When we go to eject, the superdrive tries to spit the disc out by it doesn't get out the slot. The disk get swallowed and mounted again.

This is a little different from the majority of the problems on the net. If you Google "Mac Mini Stuck DVD" there are many websites that tell you several different ways to eject a disc. Nearly all of them are software solutions and are no different that pressing the eject button on the keyboard with the exception that some methods can eject a disc that isn't recognized by the computer. For those that have surfed in to here looking for a way to make your Mac spit out a disc that it simply can't see, try the suggestions given on macfixit.com for a software eject solution.

Use Disk Utility to eject. The first and simplest method, if you only want to unmount a single volume on the disk, is to use Disk Utility, located in Applications/Utilities. In Disk Utility, simply select the volume you want to unmount and click Eject.
Hold Down the mouse button at startup In some cases holding down a connected mouse button at startup will cause a misbehaving optical drive to eject its media.

Unfortunately, this method will not work if you are using a Bluetooth keyboard.

Also, for Xserve users, make sure that the machine is unlocked (using the included allen wrench) before holding down the mouse key during startup.

Boot into Open Firmware and eject. If you have a Mac that will not startup properly and has a stuck disc, try booting into Open Firmware by holding down Command, Option, O key and F key during startup. After booting into Open Firmware, type the command eject-cd.

Using the Terminal There are two commands that can be used in the Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities) which can be used to force disk ejection:
The first command to try is drutil tray eject. Simply type in this command and press return.

The other method takes a little more work but can work in instances where the first method fails.

Type the command drutil list into the Terminal and press return . This will provide a list of all currently connected removable devices. [ScreenShot 1-DiskEject] -- connect FireWire/USB drives for this
Use the command drutil tray eject 1
In the above command, the number "1" should be replaced with whatever drive number you obtained in the first step.

Enabling an Eject menu. As a side note, you can enable another means of ejecting disks by opening the folder System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras and double-clicking the file "Eject.menu". An eject icon will appear in the menubar that can be used to close and open selected optical drives.
-MacFixit.com

None of these solutions worked for me - I have a hardware problem. My Mac Mini does recognize that there is a disc in the drive - it just won't give it back! My problem was going to require a hardware solution.

So I opened Minnie up. There are plenty of guides on the Internets on how to pop the cover off your Mac Mini. The screws holding the top casing of the DVD drive are very small but once we found a screwdriver that fit, they came off we were able to lift it up and expose the offending disc. A little upwards pressure beside the spool under the disc encouraged it to pop off the spool. We closed the unit back up and within an hour, Cilla had put another disc in the drive and we were back at square one again.

Well, not quite back at square one. We know the DVD drive is stuffed. It's only a bit over a year old, about two months out of warranty, and I really don't want to send it off to Apple to be fixed because, aside from the cost, we will be without our media center for weeks. So, it looks like I'm stepping back into the technician shoes for this project.

Many of the online guides and suggestions for removing a stuck DVD suggest poking a business card, credit card or thin ruler into the slot to 'help' the disk out. I don't recommend doing this - at all. The drive has many moving parts made from thin, mild steel. Poking things into the drive can easliy bend and damage the mechanisms and the scratch the stuck disc. The drive's laser lens is on the left side of the unit, exactly where the suggestions tell you to poke things in and wiggle around. Sticking things in your DVD drive that aren't meant to go in there is a bad idea - especially when you can't see what's going on. Leave that sort of stuff up to the four-year-olds of the world.

This video is pretty long so unless you actually have a Mac Mini that you intend to pull apart - save your bandwidth and skip it.

The drive model in my system is a Pioneer DVR-K06 which I should be able to get a replacement for without too much drama.

Shopbot.com.au is usually my first stop for computer parts and accessories.

Wish me luck!

Kris & Sid's Wedding

2009-01-03T18:36:00.001+10:00

An awesome park wedding with a lake view in Toowoomba. Congratulations guys! Well done!

We had a great time. Thanks for having us!

Road Trip to Toowoomba

2009-01-02T16:58:00.005+10:00

We bought a camera today! It's a Nikon Coolpix L16. Cheap as, but not too bad. We are heading down to Toowoomba to go to a wedding and we have dearly missed having a digital still camera since our Canon died.

We took the 'back way' to Toowoomba, a route neither of us have navigated before, consequently we ended up taking a few wrong turns here and there but that just made for a more scenic drive.

On the way down we say something strange. There was a tiny church on the side of the road that look as though smoke were coming out of the steeple on it. But it didn't quite look like smoke. Then we notices that the tops of many of the gum trees were were passing had a similar clouds flowing from them. Obviously not smoke. We stopped to take a few photos.

When we stopped we immediatly notice one thing. The flies! There were millions of them. We quickly realized that the dark clouds hanging from the tree tops were hundreds of thousands of flies. So we got the hell out of there.

It was overcast for the entire trip which made for a cool ride for this time of year and there was evidence of recent rain all the way down. It's nice to see that Queensland is getting a bit of rain.

We arrived in one piece, our scenice route taking about seven hours. We go to the wedding tomorrow!

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-02T07:41:00.004+10:00

I hope everyone had a great time over the last week. Everything was great here... until last night...

Disaster struck with a pipe leak draining out our water tank. Lucky we have a second tank and it has some water in it, but we lost pretty much a full tank, which sucks a lot.

Anyhoo, we seem to be getting a little bit of weather over the last few days, if it continues we should have a full tank of water again in no time.

Here's hoping...

Seasons Greetings 2008

2008-12-25T08:21:00.008+10:00

Dear Readers,

It's been an interesting journey this year with many notable events colouring this lap around our Sun. While I usually only brush upon a subject once or twice in my blog it would seem that it has inspired at least two of my readers to look further into some of the topics I've shared my view on and create blogs of their own.

In January the world said farewell to Heath Ledger, one of Australia's most famous and talented actors. The Internet turned 25 years old, Apple was making headlines with record breaking sales, we were still excited about Wii and LG finally fixed our air conditioner after six months of waiting for them to honour their warranty.
February saw the purchase of a new Epson printer - the worst I've ever owned, we got a huge storm and the Writers Guild of America ended their 100 day strike.
March was a big month. We launched the Cilla's Garden channel on YouTube, I watched a Queen tribute band called Killer Queen for the second time at the Gladstone Harbour Festival - they rock, and the guy that co-created Dungeons & Dragons - Gary Gygax passed away. Sadly, this was also the when our loyal and faithful Great Dane, Merlin, passed away.
I didn't have much to say in April. I was missing my dog.
May started with a bang when some construction guys came around to measure vibrations in the ground from explosions they were setting off nearby and we finished paving around our house!
June was mostly tech news stuff. FireFox 3 and iPhone 3G were released. Bill Gates goes on something of a farewell tour preceding his retirement from Microsoft and I discovered the Potholer54 Made Easy series of science videos on YouTube.
July was a big month with my sister Kathy walking down the aisle with Adrian in a larger-than-life fashion with an incredible church wedding. My very good friends Greg and Nat tying the knot in a special ceremony on the beach.
August and September saw more tech news. Google launch street view in Google Maps and the Chrome browser. Apple introduce a feature into iTunes called 'Genius'. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was turned on and worked.... sort of... then they turned it off to... sort of... fix it.
New tech releases continue into October with the release of OpenOffice.org 3 and Google add maps of The Great Barrier Reef to Google Maps. We also saw the loss of another canine friend - Steve's staffie, Beavis.
November brought a new President-elect to the United States of America in Barack Hussein Obama. Mick and Anna had a baby daughter - Zoe. I did two recap posts....oops...
In December I decided to speak out against the Government's proposed mandatory web filter which attracted some comments from new readers.

So lives both wound onto and fell off the mortal coil. Governments changed - but somehow managed to stay almost exactly the same. Technology surged ahead in leaps and bounds with Google, Apple and the open-source community leading the charge.

Of course there was plenty of other interesting stuff that I didn't write about. NASA did some fantastic stuff throughout the year. I learnt about these cool dynamic architecture buildings being built in Dubai, amongst other wonders of engineering. Leaps in hydrogen fuel-cell technology have allowed us to build cars that run on hydrogen, with water as it's only emission.

Like every year though, not all news in good news. Further effects of global warming are becoming much more apparent. Wars still plague our race. It's not just the wars you hear about either. There are wars in Africa being fought by children with AK-47 rifles, fighting over land, food and water. PNAC have reinstated their crazy neo-con website. The Zeitgeist continues...

But this is the season to be jolly. It's the time of year to be with family and friends, to celebrate the good times and to remember those that are no longer with us. Eat, drink and be merry.

I would like to thank all my regular readers for taking the time to visit D'gar HQ. A special thanks to those that have taken the time to leave comments, especially those observers that have been bold enough to voice an opposing view. There is no better way to celebrate free speech than to listen to someone who sees things differently.

Have a very safe and happy holiday.

Best wishes,

Jon.

D'gar HQ.

Load of bullamakanki

2008-12-02T05:22:00.005+10:00

Bullamakanki. It took me a while to work out the pronunciation, but what a cool word. Say it aloud. I like it. It sounds Australian. No-one should apologize for using it. Google can't find the word anywhere, but this post should fix that. Although there is an Australian country music group called Bullamakanka...

This post is a response to 'Observer' who commented on my last post with the suggestion that I over-stated the reaction of the general public to the Governments plan to censor the Internet by describing it as a 'massive uproar' and saying that I was making 'misleading, incorrect and exaggerated claims'.

Well, I have to say, I stand corrected. The fact is that the general public are not even aware of this scheme. The general public won't know about it until they're paying more for an Internet service which runs slower and prevents you from accessing sites deemed unfit by the Australian Government. And even then most will only notice when they can't reach their favourite porn site anymore.

'Observer' goes on to explain that there has been an Australian censorship authority which has been censoring all other media for one hundred years and that there has been no uproar about that at all. To quote: "Nothing, nada, nichts, zero...".

Well, if I'm to understand the gist of the word correctly, that right there is a load of bullamakanki. Censorship has created an uproar in Australia many times. A lot more than zero times, I can assure you. The Office of Film and Literature Classification formed in 1970 is the "censorship authority" which is responsible for deciding what you can and can't see on television, DVD's or videos, what video games you can and can't play, which books you can and can't read and what music and audio you can and can't listen to.

There have been many calls from people who play video games for an (R) classification for video games. Currently in Australia, any video game that exceeds (MA 15+) cannot be sold in Australia. As someone who has worked as a software salesman in a retail store, I witnessed an uproar among the gaming community whenever a new game comes out and Australians had to wait for a 'dumbed down' version to be especially made to comply with our (MA 15+) rating. This damages commerce and increases piracy as gamers seek other means of acquiring an un-cut version of the game.

It's not only members of IT related industries that are complaining about censorship in Australia. Art exhibits, for example, are often under fire with some exhibits being put in sectioned off rooms with warnings and others being banned entirely.

I could go on further about how censorship in Australia has caused 'uproars' - from Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's days as Premier of Queensland having police beat and arrest student demonstrators to books being pulled out of our school libraries by people who have never even read them, but I think I've made my point. Anyone who thinks there has never been an uproar over censorship in Australia should perhaps do some research of their own.

Don't get me wrong. Censorship isn't always bad. I have very little issue with the way censorship works on the television for example, with adult themed content restricted to late night viewing and proper warnings for content that is particularly gruesome or disturbing.

The reasons that Senator Stephen Conroy give for implementing the Internet censorship scheme are honourable. He tells us he wants to implement his Great Barrier Firewall to protect our children and teenagers from child pornography and other "unwanted" content.

The reasons that George W. Bush gave for invading Iraq seemed pretty honourable at the time too.

Senator Stephen Conroy tells us that other western countries like the UK and Sweden already have an Internet blacklist and IP blocking scheme just like the one he's proposing. This is a lie. This story reveals the truth about how Internet service providers in Europe handle their blacklists and it's a far cry from the plan that Mr. Conroy is proposing.

An Australian Senator lying to the public to win support for a scheme that restricts what websites we visit should be cause for alarm. An Australian Senator lying to the public should be cause for alarm for every Australian citizen.

But don't just take my word for it that this Internet censorship scheme is a bad idea. Here are some of the things that the leaders of three of Australia's biggest Internet service providers have to say about Senator Conroy's plan.

"...the idea that ISPs could filter the Internet is technically impossible... and is a bad idea anyway."
-Telstra Media's Justin Milne

"...the Internet is full of anonymous proxies - none of this stuff actually works."
-Internode's Simon Hackett

"...I do worry that this is the thin end of the wedge, that the government will come in with a small list of sites for the ISP to block and that just includes the real stuff that everyone agrees on like child pornography and bestiality. And so we say 'We're willing to comply with that', but it becomes an area which can then be used for so much more. So you might see the next step as an attempt to block out XXX sites or hate speech sites, and you think 'maybe, we can live with that', but then after that, it could be to block out competing political positions, or to block out sites about religion or sexual orientation that the Government says is no longer suitable for children in Australia"
-iiNet's Michael Malone

You can see these people saying these things on a video interview that you can watch on ZDnet.com.au.

So I thank you, Mr Observer, for pointing out the inaccuracy in my previous post. Australian citizens are not in a massive uproar.

But they should be.

This scheme will needlessly cost Australians money by raising the cost of our online access. It will damage the performance of our Internet connection resulting in slower network speeds for everyone. It is not possible for it to do the job it is intended to do because of the open nature of the Internet. Anonymous proxies, encryption techniques and tunneling networks make it impossible for ISPs to monitor the content of data being transferred .

So I ask all my readers to join with me in creating a massive uproar against this ill-fated, costly and useless attempt to censor our Internet. Let your friends, family and work colleagues know what our Government is trying to do and educate them about pitfalls of such a plan. Sign the petition at GetUp.org.au with your e-mail address. This is important to us all. We must be heard.

Internet Censorship

2008-12-01T12:02:00.008+10:00

I'm very concerned with the new government proposal to censor our Internet by creating a private blacklist of sites that contain "unwanted content".

The Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, is ignoring the massive uproar of Australian citizens and, not only is he going ahead with his oppressive censorship scheme but he is expanding the list of censored material to block pretty much anything that the he or anyone else in the Government deems unfit. It seems that no matter how many people cry out, no matter how many angry phone calls and e-mails are sent, he is of the opinion that he has the power and he shall do whatever he wants!

Please take the time to read the following items.

ISP-level content filtering won't work - Brett Winterford and Julian Hill, ZDNet.com.au
Doing as we're told - Mart Vernon, Townsville Bulletin
The internet filter we still have to have - Jennifer Dudley, Courier Mail
Children's welfare groups slam net filters - Asher Moses, Sydney Morning Herald
If You Hate The Idea Of A Filtered Internet, You Should Probably Sign This... - Nick Broughall, Gizmodo
Internet filter to block 10,000-plus "unwanted" sites - Jennifer Dudley, Courier Mail
Net porn: Whose rights matter most? - Clive Hamilton, ABC News

Despite the debate and despite the politicians wanting to implement this censorship scheme, Telstra - the company that pretty much owns the copper that most people use for their broadband and also owns the most extensive 3G network in Australia - say that the scheme is impossible to implement. Telstra, iiNet, Internode and just about every IT professional in the country is telling us that this trying to implement this scheme will cost enourmous amounts of money - only a small fraction of which will actually be paid by the Government, the rest of the cost will be passed onto the consumer - and in the end, it won't work.

Technically the scheme is impossible to implement.

It will cost many millions of dollars trying to implement it, most of which will be paid for with higher Internet access costs to the consumer.

If it is implemented, the Government will decide what is suitable for you to look at, read, watch or listen to online.

I signed the petition at GetUp! Action for Australia. GetUp! sucessfully rallied to help get David Hicks out of Guantanamo and sucessfully fought for Work Rights in Australia and are now on the case for Internet Freedom.

Save our Internet... again!

Justnowism

2008-11-17T22:08:00.002+10:00

As the days go by

2008-11-17T03:06:00.004+10:00

I just went back and checked out the first posts that I ever made on this blog back in July, 2006.

Cilla and I got our Open Water Diver certification on Great Keppel Island.
I was giving advice about using Windows instead of advising against using Windows.
Our video business had just kicked off.
We owned a dog.
Advertising in the Observer seemed like a good idea.
James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek) passed away.
My computer was new and modern.
There was a month-long war in Lebanon.
There was no paving around our house.
We had a digital still camera that worked.
I vowed to switch from Flickr! if Google created a photo sharing community - which they did, and I did.

It's been nearly two-and-a-half years since I've started blogging. The blog has had over three-and-a-half thousand unique visitors from accross the world. I clearly have nothing better to talk about.

Zoe Thackray

2008-11-17T02:42:00.006+10:00

Mick is a dad! Again!

Read about his new daughter Zoe on his blog.

Backup in time.

2008-11-15T22:39:00.012+10:00

I worked with this guy in a computer shop a long time ago, we'll call him Dave - an intellectual, a musician, a fellow geek whom I've known for many years as a competent computer technician. In a comment to one of my previous posts, he directed me to some nice backup software to help cope with the problems we have both experienced with Windows.

I can't see why we need to try and develop or purchase all these work-arounds for the failings of Microsoft's OS. To be fair, WindowsXP has backup software built in but even this guide to using it on Microsoft's own website says most people don't know think about backing up and even if you do, you have to do some digging to find the program to do it. And then the whole back-up process is totally manual, requiring you to select everything you want to back up, tell it where you want to put the backup - network drive, blank CD - and then you have to set up a schedule and maintain that schedule, which few people are able to do. Also, a complete and regular backup using this method would use an enormous amount of data storage because you back up everything, every time, even the stuff that didn't change since the last backup.

Dave's suggestion was some imaging software - Acronis - which essentially takes a snapshot of the entire system which you'd then burn to a disc or save on an external or network drive. Disk imaging is usually time consuming and best for quickly performing clean installs. I haven't tried Acronis, but their site doesn't give a lot of information about how their software works. It says they have an incremental backup feature suggesting that it can identify your files that have been changed and add them to the backup which saves a lot on data storage.

Both above methods can be stored on a DVD which makes it hard to accidentally erase the storage which can happen with external hard drives but even DVD are not infallible.

I also had a comment on my last post from an anonymous user - lets call him ~~Mick~~ Frank - who suggested that I back up to the cloud. While I already keep a lot of information online under my Google account - Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, Google Video, Picasaweb - I am rather selective about what I upload to these sites. One should ask: Do I really want to place my information in the hands of another person or business? I don't think of these Google services as somewhere to store my backups. They are a place to share ideas with others. As for anonymous ftp servers, there are serious bandwidth issues for most Australians. In this country we have limits on how much we can download with nearly every Internet plan, limited either by speed or by the amount of downloaded data. There are speed issues. How long does it take to send a modest 35GB backup to an FTP server on the other side of the planet? There are privacy issues too. Where is the server located? Argentina? Zimbabwe? China? USA? What is to stop someone looking through all my stuff? More to the point, will that server still be there tomorrow? No thanks, I prefer to hang on to my data myself.

OS X has a backup feature called Time Machine. First of all, it's included with the OS and not only is it easily found, it's one of the most advertised features. This is what I needed to do to get it going.

Plug in a big external hard drive.
Open Time Machine
Turn On Time Machine
There is no step 4.

Now our Mac is backed up. A complete backup. When I import a new CD, it detects that there are new files and adds them to the backup. When add a riff to my musical composition it is automatically added to the backup. If the Mac were to suddenly die in a billowing cloud of smoke - touch wood - the last entry I put into the calendar, the last note I jotted on the desktop and the last web page I bookmarked are safely backed up on my external drive.

So how did I end up in the situation I described in my last post?

Fact:
No-one backs up until about 10 minutes after they need to.

I had even done step 1. Plug in a big external hard drive. but I still just couldn't be bothered with clicking the mouse a few more times to back up all my data. At the time it all just seemed too much hassle...

...and then there's that tendency to erase hard drives without thinking...

Apple seem to have put data protection up front. We all know that computers crash. Macs and PCs alike, all are susceptible to a hard drive failure, but Apple are actively doing something about it. Not only with the most easy-to-use backup software in the world, but even the hardware is being re-designed with data protection in mind. Apple notebooks have the option of shipping with solid-state hard drives that have no moving parts. Wherever there are moving parts, there is wear and with wear, failure is inevitable. So if you have anything on your computer that is irreplaceable - back it up.

Make up a check list.

Documents
Pictures
Music
Videos
Address Book
Bookmarks
Financial Records
Downloaded software
Game saves
Whatever else you can think of... and think hard!

Backup now... before it's too late - although, as I showed in my last post, even when it's too late it may not be too late!

The past eight years.

2008-11-09T08:39:00.011+10:00

November 4th, 2008 was the day Obama was elected President of the United States and America, indeed the world, celebrated change after eight years of an extremely unpopular government.

November 4th, 2008 was the day my wife and I celebrated eight years of marriage. We've had (nearly) eight years of living together in the bush. The Australian Bush.

Eighth anniversary. Cilla pulled her little book of irreverent information out and informed me that the appropriate gift for this anniversary is an electrical appliance. Although it sounded unlikely to me - eight-year anniversaries have been around for a lot longer than electrical appliances and marriage has existed for even longer - she assured me that her book is correct, albeit a little modernized. So we thought about what we wanted and decided on expanding our beloved Mac Mini with an external hard drive. Romantic eh? We thought so!

We found a good deal on a 1TB USB hard drive called WD Elements. It was about $185.00 delivered and took nearly a week to arrive, but arrive it did and we set to the task of setting it up on Minnie.

Yes. We named our Mac Mini "Minnie". So what?

First things first, back up docs and videos so I copied them all onto the external hard drive. Then in a flash of wisdom we thought we'd refresh the OS X install on the Mac. There was nothing wrong with it. Everything worked fine, but the install was over a year old and had been upgraded to 10.5 from a pre-installed 10.4 and sort of felt a little sluggish from when we first got it. It's certainly better than the average on my Windows machine which has had about six reinstalls in the same time period.

So a fresh install of Leopard underway, completely formatting the Mac hard disk in the process.

Wiping out everything I forgot to back up.

The iTunes collection - about 40GB of mp3 music we've collected since before we've been married.

Not a huge loss - music is replaceable and we still have our CD's and you can collect iTunes store purchases without any problems.

The big one was the iPhoto collection. About ten years worth of photos of everything Cilla and I have done. Wedding photos. Pics of our dive holidays. Photos of Merlin, our late great dane. And none of it was backed up and all of it just got wiped.

That sucked to say the least.

Anyway, I did manage to recover just about everything. After a little bit of googling I discovered a program called Data Rescue II and it spent about three hours last night looking at the empty bits of my mostly empty hard drive for any trace of what was there before. Despite the length of time and the amount of stress, it was very impressive with the amount of information it managed to retrieve. The drive was re-partitioned, formatted and had OS X installed on it and this software managed to recover all my photos and music - as well as a handful of other stuff that I also forgot to back up.

I suppose it's time to learn from the mistake. Time Machine would probably be a good start, but backup to DVD disks is probably a safer option. Time machine doesn't prevent some idiot formatting the hard drive!

Windows 3 put to rest.

2008-11-06T20:28:00.005+10:00

When I first started using PC's in the nineties after playing with various other computers like Amiga 500, Macintosh II, Amstrad and Commodore 64, PC's running DOS seemed like an archaic operating system compared to AmigaOS and Apple's Operating System with their icons and pull down menus and mouse pointers. The only way to make a PC look and behave anything like those computers was to load up Microsoft Windows.

A friend of mine- back in about ' 88 - once tried to teach me how wonderful Windows 1 or 2 was and showed me how he could use windows and icons and a mouse! Wow! A mouse! Needless to say, having a colour Macintosh at home, I left unimpressed with his demonstration.

But when I left the Apple camp and discovered PC's for myself, through a new phenomenon called "Deathmatch" in the form of the original Doom game played against up to three other computers on an IPX network over coax cable, Windows was up to version 3.x. That was some time during 1993-94 - before Windows95 was released.

Well, something that I think most people didn't know was that, although support was discontinued in 2001, you could still buy a license from Microsoft to run Windows 3.x.... until.... now. Microsoft, after over eighteen years since the release of Windows 3.0, is no longer selling licenses for perhaps their most landmark OS.

Techspot have a story about it.

Obama wins.

2008-11-06T03:40:00.002+10:00

I told you he would do it! heh...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=tQGsP8mnHsg

Good on him... good on America!

Free Anti-Virus for the Mac

2008-11-05T02:11:00.003+10:00

While the Mac has been practically immune to virus and worm attacks, the ever increasing number of Macs continue to make Apple computer users an attractive target to malware writers. Apple themselves have said that Mac users should be aware that although we have enjoyed a peaceful existence we need to maintain safe security practices and be aware and alert to possible dangers. There are Mac viruses out there. I began using a free antivirus package called ClamXav and although it didn't seem like a very polished product, the price was right. It was quite a resource hog though and I found myself shutting it down to prevent the computer from slowing down due to a virus scan which kind of defeats the purpose of having it.

Back in July '08, PC Tools released iAntiVirus, a free version of their commercial antivirus package for home use - just like Avast! or AVG for Windows. It promises to be discreet and be light on the resources so I'm giving it a go. If it works well enough, I'll let you all know. We need to maintain good security regardless of what kind of computer we have. With all the unprotected Macs out there with no virus protection at all we are in danger of suffering from an epidemic like Windows experiences with the "I Love You" and "Melissa" viruses hit. Of course Windows users that maintained proper security - antivirus and firewall - were not affected, but it goes to show how few people back then actually took security seriously. So Mac users shouldn't be caught like that - we are not immune - and it would be really embarrassing.

I'm not surprised, are you?

2008-10-23T04:22:00.002+10:00

Broken Windows, What a Pane

2008-10-22T19:45:00.005+10:00

I've been suffering from some Windows problems lately.

It was about this time last year that we got our Mac Mini. We got it to replace a Windows Vista Ultimate Edition media center and it's been a significant upgrade. For the purpose we use if for it is extremely more suitable than it's predecessor. The Mac Mini has been a very well behaved computer, perhaps the most well behaved computer I have ever owned. It sits in the lounge room with EyeTV and works as an Internet connected media center. Since we've had it I've upgraded OS X from 10.4 Tiger to 10.5 Leopard, installed and uninstalled countless apps and small games, as well as played Guild Wars on it using CrossOver Games. We've had about three or four crashes on it in the time we've owned it - all of which recovered with a reboot, but I've never had to reinstall the OS.

My Windows rig is a different story. In the last year I've had to reinstall Windows three times because the computer wouldn't start at all. Each reinstall requires hundreds of megabytes of security updates and service packs to be downloaded. I've had the computer slow to a crawl and require a reboot to become usable again countless times. I've had blue screens and random reboots. Even though in my humble opinion Windows XP is far superior to Windows Vista, neither of them come close to the stability and usability I find on the Mac.

Then there's the hardware. For one to own a high end PC one must have sufficiant cooling in the system. The vast majority of PC's have fans that circulate air through the case to keep the components cool. If one of these fail you can risk overheating your computer which can lead to irrepairable damage. I had a chipset fan fail - it is supposed to cool one of the major pieces of silicone on the motherboard. The fan that I got to replace it ran at a very high speed and so generated quite a bit of noise. I could hear it's hum from accross the room with no problem, but I got used to it. Like most background noises, after a while you don't hear it anymore. This fan failed too after about six months but this time the failure of a $15 fan caused damage that required me to replace a $300 motherboard. And of course the replacement motherboards available after a year wouldn't take my old chip and RAM so I needed to replace those too. So much for an upgradable open system. Add to this three - count 'em - three hard drive failures resulting in data loss and more downtime. The two faulty sticks of RAM (expensive Corsair XMS gear no less) that wouldn't allow the computer to boot at all also deserves dishonerable mention.

I can see how Apple's computers are very quickly increasing their market share. They have become competitive. Not by making their products cheaper than the competition (although prices have dropped accross the Mac line a lot over the past few years), but by making them better. The superior OS and wealth of really useful and fun bundled software certainly help as well.

Still, many of my friends are gamers. PC gamers. And although Apple build great computers, they still have quite a way to go to get the gamers on board. Perhaps this new line of aluminium MacBooks with nVidia chipsets that has been completely sold out accross the world since it's release will help to fix the games problem. Having a lot of computers with the hardware capable of playing games has got to be an incentive to write games for that platform.

We'll see.

Regardless. I have written this post immediatly after having to do a repair on the Windows system because the computer wouldn't get past the loading screen. Windows really does suck. I can't wait to be rid of it.

OOo ahhh

2008-10-20T04:40:00.004+10:00

OpenOffice 3.0 has been released. For those loyal readers of mine (I have no idea why I have loyal readers, I'm certainly not a loyal writer!) I recommending visiting OpenOffice.org and getting this cross-platform, fully functional and free office suite. For Mac users this version does away completely with X11 which is nice. Those of you using Microsoft Office should seriously consider upgrading to OpenOffice. For Windows, Mac, Linux or Solaris.

OOo

Bye Bye Beavis

2008-10-04T10:08:00.005+10:00

Late last night our cheerful friend Beavis passed away on the operating table at the vet. Our thoughts are with Steve today as he grieves for his loyal friend and companion. Beavis will be missed.

Slice of News

2008-10-03T04:23:00.005+10:00

I'm in a rush so I'm going to just post some quick links to stuff that I found to be an interesting read.

Roundup of NASA's 50 years in space, the retirement of the shuttle and what's it all about?

Google Maps Great Barrier Reef

Fifty years in space and 100 years on the road - Ford celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Model T and have a car design competition. The winner is an air-powered three wheeler!

Take a look at these picture. They are actual photos of clouds floating across another planet's sky! Courtesy of Phoenix Lander

Skype users? China is listening!

Chrome - Googles new Internet Browser

2008-09-13T22:43:00.003+10:00

It's a bit hard to go on about Chrome. It was launched very quietly and had it not been for a friend pointing it out to me, I probably wouldn't have discovered for a while yet.

Google have launched their own Internet browser. My first thoughts were "Why do we need another Internet browser with so many others like Safari, Internet Explorer and my beloved Firefox?". Like most software from Google, it's very spartan, yet usable. Most of what's special about it is under the hood. To the end user, it's a very basic browser with very few features. It has more screen space than any other browser. It's faster and more stable than any other browser. It looks pretty good too.

Google have created a comic style help file/manual for those that are interested in the inner workings of Chrome. It was the comic that convinced me to give it a serious try so I'm using it as my default browser for a while. So far the only thing I miss from Firefox is the GoogleBar addon because it allowed very good access to Google Bookmarks, Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Maps but the single search/address bar seems to have an uncanny knack of knowing what I'm asking of it.

So far, so good.

Genius Bar on the side

2008-09-12T12:51:00.007+10:00

iTunes 8 has been released and has a new feature called "Genius Sidebar". It's a playlist creator for people with large music collections. Our music folder fills out to a respectable 40GB and I'm sure I've only listened to about 10% of the entire collection. The Genius Sidebar lets you start playing a song you like and when you click the Genius button it populates a playlist of 25, 50, 75 or 100 songs that you might enjoy. It's quite impressive although it doesn't work with every song I choose. I work up this morning feeling like a little classical music and thought the Genius Sidebar might be able to pick out some compositions that might satisfy, but every time I chose a piece by Mozart the sidebar informed me that it doesn't work with that song. It's worked with pretty much everything else I've chosen so far. But for the songs that it does work with it does a good job.

Atom Smashing Machine

2008-09-08T02:46:00.006+10:00

Billions of bits of currency to build a machine that can fire two beams of protons in opposite directions and bend them around a 27 kilometer circle track buried 100 meters beneath the surface of our planet to smash into each other so scientists can check out what the big bang was like.

Some say the machine will create dark matter, others say it'll give God a rash. The health and saftey mob gave the project the go-ahead and said if it creates a black hole, no-one will notice because everyone will be dead.

All good then!

The Real Dr. Seuss Impersonator

2008-08-25T00:52:00.008+10:00

I recently received a cool poem in my e-mail that rhymed and carried a rhythm well. It was entitled "Why Computers Crash" and was attributed to Dr Seuss.

I've been an admirer of the works of Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr Seuss) since I was a kid. One of my favourite books during my childhood was called "I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew" which was about a guy who went looking for a place to escape his troubles and went off to search out Solla Sollew "...where they never have troubles, at least very few...". It was such a popular book in our family that when we bought a farm in 1981 and ran the place on solar panels we called the property "Solar Sollew". Clever eh?

However, knowing that Dr Seuss had passed away in 1991 I went off to find the origin of this poem and found the answer via Google at one of my favourite websites - Hoax-Slayer. (I might just add this to my links list while I think of it.)

The original poem is quite a bit longer and carries the Dr Seuss feel all the way through. However the poem was written in 1994 by Gene Ziegler. It can be found in it's entirety published online by the author on his Cornell University homepage. The poem is actually called "A Grandchild's Guide to Using Grandpa's Computer".

Then some bastard edited it, renamed it and re-attributed it to Dr Seuss - digital vandalism.

Apparently Gene was unimpressed and he tears some virtual shreds off his dastardly digital nemesis with a second poem entitled "Hang the Information Highwayman!" - also a good read knowing a little of the history behind it.

Of course this abridged version of the poem has been circulating by e-mail since 1995 and has probably had the title changed numerous times since it's original plagiarism. The e-mail I received had the acronym risc incorrectly spell corrected to risk and even thanks Bill Gates for supplying the experiences described in the poem, yet it was written about a Macintosh computer about a year before the release of Windows95.

So if you get this e-mail sent to you, be sure to let the sender know about the original. Not only for Gene's sake, but also for the readers, because the original poem in its entirety is simply a better read.

Environmental Terrorism

2008-08-15T18:35:00.005+10:00

I read in my Google News today an article on The Australian news website with the headline:

Diverting water is an 'act of terror'

in which the Premier of South Australia said:

"...it's my view that anyone who is illegally involved in diverting water in the Murray-Darling system during this crisis is engaging in an act of terrorism against the people of Australia..."
-Premier of South Australia Mike Rann

While I understand that water is a precious resource that must be protected, I don't see how anyone taking water out of a river can be classed as a terrorist. Mr Rann is quoted using the 'T' word three times in this short artical - about once every three paragraphs!

Last time I checked we speak English here in Australia - it's similar to the English that they speak in England, not that crazy US English that seems to pollute every corner of the Internet - so I refer to the Oxford English Dictionary.

terrorist

• noun a person who uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
— DERIVATIVES terrorism noun.

That sounds right. Mr Rann doesn't seem to have used the word in it's correct context though. I wonder if it's a good idea for someone to lead when they don't really have a good grasp of the English language. It didn't go well for America.

Lets have a look at the headline which uses another very common term - 'Act of Terror'

terror

• noun 1 extreme fear. 2 a cause of terror. 3 the use of terror to intimidate people. 4 (also holy terror) informal a person causing trouble or annoyance.
— ORIGIN Latin, from terrere ‘frighten’.

I gotta say, the thought of someone throwing a pipe in a river and starting a pump doesn't make me fill my pants. I might be a bit upset, maybe a little angry if it was my pond or water tanks that are getting drained, but I wouldn't suffer from the extreme fear that you might get when a guy walks into your coffee shop with some kind of improvised explosive device strapped to their chest.

Just for the record Mr Rann, someone illegally involved in diverting water from any river is a criminal - not a terrorist.

Street View for Australia

2008-08-07T02:28:00.005+10:00

Google Maps has launched street view. I was going to write a big story about it but I'm lazy and will instead just post this video from Google.

The photos aren't all that current but the 'wow' factor is still there. My place is too far off the beaten track to appear on street view but it's been quite interesting to go and have a look at places I havn't been to in years!

Track your Laptop

2008-08-02T20:55:00.003+10:00

There is some free and open source software that can track your laptop with that may help you get it back in the event that it's stolen - provided, of course, that you had the software installed before it was stolen and the thief is stupid enough to connect to the Internet with it. It's very new software and is still being heavily developed, but a working version of it is available for Windows and Macs.

Adeona is named after the Roman goddess of safe returns. This system is the result of recent academic research started at the University of Washington, with participants now also at the University of California San Diego and the University of California Davis. The foundations of the Adeona design — and an analysis of its security and privacy properties — are published in a research paper at the 2008 USENIX Security Symposium.
-from the Adeona home page.

Did I mention it's free?

Adrian and Katherine

2008-07-28T10:18:00.004+10:00

My baby sister Katherine and her partner Adrian were married on 26th July, 2008 in Rockhampton. We don't have any photo's back yet but will post one when they arrive.

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Scriffignano.

Greg and Nat

2008-07-28T10:04:00.005+10:00

My good friend Greg and his soul-mate Nattalie tied the knot on the 12th of July, 2008. A beautiful wedding that was held in Canoe Point followed by photos on the beach.

Congratulations to Mr Greg and Mrs Nattalie Doherty.

OpFP2 news

2008-07-13T03:56:00.005+10:00

Codemasters have released a new video promoting the upcoming Operation Flashpoint 2:Dragon Rising game/military sim. I've mentioned Operation Flashpoint 2 on my blog before but it's always been some mystical game that would sometime - in the far flung future - arrive and rescue us from the monotony of C&C knock-offs and Quake clones. Something that actually brought some modern realism to the FPS genre.

Well, they've announce a release date for Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising!

2009...

2009 is a date!

Anyhoo, the video looks awesome and if they've managed to keep all the aspects that made the original Operation Flashpoint such a great game AND made it look as good as in this new trailer we are in for a wicked experience! No mention of a Mac version.

APC writer recommends Mac!

2008-07-04T15:06:00.003+10:00

I was surprised to find a story on the APCMag website (which bears Microsoft's NineMSN banner across the top) explaining why the average computer user should buy Mac instead of a Windows PC. It's a good read. Check it out here.

Why Firefox is so great

2008-07-03T02:51:00.002+10:00

Telstra finally pick up the iPhone

2008-07-01T06:01:00.003+10:00

I hope you didn't hear it here first... Thanks for the tip Bill.

Telstra have finally arranged a deal with Apple to distribute the iPhone 3G on the NextG network. There was talk of pre-paid plans but so far I don't see any. I still just want to buy one outright so I own it. I don't like contracts...

Potholer54 Made Easy

2008-06-28T04:55:00.005+10:00

This guy makes videos explaining what science has learned about life, the universe and everything. He has a bit of a poke at religion throughout his series with a very dry sarcastic wit. I like it.

I would recommend his series because he's Aussie, he's funny and he can explain stuff so that it's very easy to understand.

Enjoy.

Tech News

2008-06-25T20:13:00.003+10:00

Couple of noteworthy tech news items...

Bill Gates is retiring from Microsoft. Love him or hate him, one cannot deny the impact he has had on our lives. I have spent many years buying, using, fixing, playing with and even selling Microsoft operating systems and software. Although he is generally considered a lousy programmer, he was a great business man and in these later years he has improved his personal image dramatically through his philanthropy with his fortunes.

The Internet is about to open up to an unlimited number of top-level domain names. For a long time we've been pretty much stuck with .com, .org, .gov, or .country (.au, .uk, .jp). but now - if you can afford it you can have whatever top level domain you like. Expect to see .city (.sydney, .london, .tokyo, .nyc) and .company (.ford, .google, .microsoft, .bhp). Buying and setting one up will cost in the tens of thousands of dollars range so don't expect a .dgar anytime soon! :)

OS X is starting to become noticed by malware writers. Two new trojans have been discovered that can compromise the security of Mac computers. I've had antivirus software running on our Mac since we got it. ClamX is free antivirus software for OS X and has regular updates. Firewall is built in and on by default in Leopard but Safari seems to get some nasty security holes in it like Internet Explorer does! Perhaps the big companies should give up on trying to build Internet browsers and let the entire world create, build and use Firefox3.

Firefox3

2008-06-21T05:25:00.001+10:00

Firefox3 is out. Get it.

Guild Wars in a bottle.

2008-06-12T21:54:00.004+10:00

Well I'm impressed. I've installed the trial of Crossover Games by Codeweavers onto our Mac Mini and loaded Guild Wars into it. And so far it has progressed flawlessly! The trial is only for seven days so I've only have a week to try it out... and I've picked a week when my bandwidth is capped so I'm pretty much playing a brand new install of Guild Wars on Internet speeds comparable to dial-up and having to download each new area I walk into. It's slow... but it works!

Okay... settle down...

For those Mac owners that want to play Guild Wars, here's my specs.

Mac OS X 10.5.3
Intel Core2 Duo 2.0 GHz
2GB RAM
Intel GMA950

So that would mean that pretty much anyone with a Intel Mac, MacBook or iMac can now play Guild Wars without installing or even needing to own a copy of Windows!

That's cool.

It works on Linux too.

iPhone and WWDC

2008-06-12T03:04:00.004+10:00

The 9th of June marked the opening of the WWDC '08, Apple's World Wide Developers Conference where they've just announced the new and updated iPhone 3G. And that's about it. They talked about the iPhone. And not much else. No Apple TV, no new touch interfaces, no iMac overhaul, no games console, a little about the next version of OS X, but pretty much it was all about iPhone 3G and the stuff they're making to support it.

So lets go over it a little bit shall we?

iPhone 3G is to be released in Australia on July 11th. Don't actually expect to get one on that day as demand is expected to outstrip supply on a scale that rivals the Wii.

Telstra don't look to have it. They made some snide comments about how Apple should stick to making computers and keep out of the mobile phone market about a year ago. Apple may be feeding Telstra some humble-pie for their arrogance.

Optus and Vodafone do appear to have it - although neither have released pricing details yet. There has been mention of a pre-paid option suggesting you could buy the phone without a contract which appeals to me - I use a telstra pre-paid phone at the moment.

The thing is with Optus and Vodafone is that their 3G networks are pretty much exclusive to the capital cities. Outside of these areas they're coverage is minimal with a 900MHz 3G which is incompatible with the 3G iPhone, so when you're in these areas your iPhone will have to switch to the much slower 2.5G (EDGE) network. Telstra have rolled out an extensive 3G network that runs at 850MHz which the iPhone 3G can run on, but so far it doesn't look like you can get a iPhone through Telstra. That means that if I were to buy an iPhone 3G to use where I live in regional Queensland, my iPhone 3G won't actually connect to a 3G network... unless I jailbreak it to work on the Telstra network. But if it's pre-paid, it shouldn't be locked to a network provider should it? I've never been good with mobile phones...

Anyhoo.... iPhone 3G has Google Maps with built in GPS - cool. It's got Wi-Fi Internet browsing and it's capable of playing games. A 2 MP camera is on the back and it comes in 8GB and 16GB varieties. The 8GB looks pretty much like the old iPhone except a bit thinner and has a black back instead of the aluminium back. the 16GB gives you the choice of a black back or a white back. I'd still choose black.

They mentioned something about the next Mac OS at WWDC too which apparently will be called Snow Leopard. Meh.

Games are coming out for Mac. People are pushing for development. I'm going to try out this trial of CrossOver Games by Codeweavers which will apparently let me play Guild Wars on the mac without loading Windows on it at all. More on that when I try it out.

The Mick Thackray Experience has been moved to Blogger. Please create or update your bookmarks.

Waiting for games

2008-06-04T18:16:00.005+10:00

There are a couple of games I am eagerly awaiting the release of. Top of the list is Spore. Mum, take a look at this one, it looks like a lot of fun and it is to be released on the Mac!

Spore

Operation Flashpoint 2:Rising Dragon is next on the list of not-yet-released games that we're hanging for.

OperationFlashpoint2

Grand Theft Auto 4. The GTA series was born on the PC and is always best on the PC. They're working on it... I'm sure of it... aren't they?

Grand Theft Auto IV

Can't think of any to-be-released games that I'm waiting on. Is anyone still holding out hope for Duke Nukem Forever?

Seventy percent Mac

2008-05-21T23:16:00.005+10:00

Figures released in an article from Apple Watch have reported that although only 14% of all computers sold through retail channels during the first quarter of '08 were Macs, for computers bearing a price tag over US$1000 Apple account for 70% of all sales!

It has been my experience that the kinds of people that buy these kind of high-end computers are computer enthusiasts, musicians, video enthusiasts, and of course gamers. If game companies are watching these figures - and you can be pretty sure that they are - they have got to realize that with that many high-end Macs out there then there must be a market for high-end Mac games.

This other article from the same site is filled with similar news about Apple's second quarter for '08. With sites like Engadget with their "2007 Engadget Awards" listing Vista as the "Worst Gadget of the Year" and handing out "Best Gadget of the Year" to - yes, of course - Apple's iPhone. Apple scored about a dozen awards all up. Microsoft scored "Game Console of the Year" with the Xbox360 (considering what Engadget awarded Vista I can't see Microsoft advertising the fact). Despite everyone being wrapped up in the iPhone it was a Sony Ericsson that took away "Cellphone of the Year"

Those of you looking for a quality spare wheel cover can find one here.

In other news, Mick has started a blog where he tells of his switch to linux.

Paving pics

2008-05-19T23:49:00.006+10:00

Thanks to Steve for the loan of his digital camera to post the pics missing from my previous post.

Top 100 Mac Apps

2008-05-18T02:20:00.002+10:00

As a new-to-mac user I am always searching for cool software that I can try out on my new computer. I found this list of 100 programs at MacTipsAndTricks.com and while I use a few of them already, there are a many there that I have never heard of and a couple that sound useful enough that I'm going to give them a try.

Back to paving

2008-05-06T10:33:00.004+10:00

The long weekend was industrious at our place. We got stuck into paving again and now our paved area encompasses the house. Enormous thanks to Adrian for screeding like a professional concreter and to Bill for all his help. Without you guys it still wouldn't be done. Thanks heaps!

May Day Explosions

2008-05-01T12:40:00.005+10:00

Okay, so I had a slack blogging month. That's because there has been nothing to blog about. But today there was a little bit of excitement. Some guys that are working on the Kirkwood Road Project came around and asked me if they could put a sensor near my house to detect the effect of the explosives they are using to blast away rock on the road construction. So that was pretty cool. Nothing like some big explosions to start the day.

They used a little box full of sensors which stood on four little spikes that stuck into the ground and a little microphone on a stand next to it. I was going to take a photo of it but our little digital camera died a couple of weeks ago. Then they left to set up a second sensor on the other side of the blast area because they needed two sensors within 500m of the blast site to take their measurements. The guy told me that it measures sound, vibration, temperature, time of day and several other things and was sensitive enough to detect people walking anywhere near it. One of them came back to keep an eye on the sensor while the blasting took place. I could hear the chatter on his two-way radio - warning sirens, people checking in and giving all clear and then the ten second countdown. About five or six cracks went off in quick succession and it was over. From my place I couldn't see anything, but you could certainly hear it. I thought the sound would be a deeper booming sound but it was more like gunshots.

Pretty cool though. Some excitement for the day!

That great big dog house in the sky.

2008-03-31T13:48:00.006+10:00

Today our puppy Merlin passed away.

We say goodbye to our faithful friend and companion.

Those that knew Merlin are invited to leave a comment below.

Harbour Festival '08

2008-03-22T22:52:00.005+10:00

We've been in festival mode this week with the Gladstone Harbour Festival week in town here. The Harbour Festival marks the end of the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race and doubles as a better way to spend Easter than being nailed to a tree. We just got back from watching the fireworks display and live entertainment which featured a band that I saw years ago.

I am a Queen fan and have been for years. I have a framed collection of every Queen album on my wall (thanks Mum). The day after I turned eighteen I went to the Transport Department and got my 18+ card so I could see a Queen cover band playing at the Reef Hotel that same night. It was the first live band I had ever seen and while it was just a small pub venue I really enjoyed hearing some of my favourite songs played live and played well. The band called themselves Killer Queen and I watched them for a second time tonight - almost fifteen years later and they are still awesome.

The fireworks were pretty good too.

Oh yeah, and Queen are releasing a new album!

Cilla's Garden

2008-03-12T04:16:00.006+10:00

Inspired by the old hail storm video, I have been making some short (15 second to 1.5 minute) videos of Cilla's garden and uploading them to YouTube to create a channel dedicated to showing off some of the neat things iWife has been growing in her yard.

You can visit it here.

Old Hail Footage

2008-03-07T17:31:00.004+10:00

I was going through some old video tapes and found some footage of the hail storm that hit Gladstone on 9th December 2003. Although the content of the video is fairly interesting with the hail and all, what really blew us away is how much different the place looks now from then. Those that visit on occasion will know what I'm talking about.

Read the report from BOM if you are so inclined.

Goodbye Gary Gygax

2008-03-06T02:43:00.003+10:00

Ernest Gary Gygax, the man who co-created Dungeons & Dragons has died of natural causes on the 4th of March, 2008.

"I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else."
-Gary Gygax

We say goodbye to one of the greatest nerds the world has ever seen.

No wonder TV is rubbish

2008-03-05T09:34:00.003+10:00

As some of you know I produce videos. I have a couple of nice cameras, some powerful computers and some very flash software and it all works very well together for the kind of work that I do - wedding videos, corporate training videos - pretty much anything that gets filmed and produced as a finished product onto a DVD. All my work is in high definition because that's the way everything is going now... or so I thought.

Recently I've been commissioned to create a television ad. Too easy. Two days filming in different locations around the place and one day editing and producing. It was a quick and easy job and the client was happy with the results.

But have you got any idea what is involved in trying to get it to the television station to get on air? What a stuff around!

I've done stuff for the local news. They're easy. Send them the footage and away they go.

But for an advertisement you have to get classification by FreeTV.com.au.
To get the ad to FreeTV you have to send it to someone else - there are a few options, we went with AdStream.com.au.

So we send it to AdStream over the Internet and they have problems with my video. My video in high definition and it's in wide screen - just like every other video I produce. In this world of high-definition digital wide screen television you can't submit an advertisement unless it's standard definition and made for 4:3 ratio (square screen).

Un-be-liev-able.

So after uploading about half-a-dozen copies of my ad with the alterations and adjustments they ask for, they send it to FreeTV to get a CAD (commercial advice) number that the station requires before it can go to air - sort of like a classification or rating to make sure it doesn't offend anyone. We had to fax to FreeTV a full script of everything written and spoken in the commercial as well.

The commercial is supposed to go to air tonight and the station still doesn't have it. With all this double and triple handling of every single little thing it's a wonder that the station has anything at all to broadcast. I am so glad that the vast majority of my work simply gets handed to the customer on a DVD - end of story.

I don't even watch TV anymore...

Different

2008-03-04T01:37:00.005+10:00

Rap can be entertaining!

2008-02-22T01:54:00.001+10:00

WGA Strike Over

2008-02-22T00:40:00.003+10:00

The Writers Guild of America strike has ended after 100 days. Most television shows will now go ahead for the next season albiet a little late. Some shows like 24 however are going to put off thier next season until 2009. Apparently the strike cost LA about US$2.5 billion... like that hurt...

The damage is probably already done to the new Star Trek movie though.

Canon D-A-Bm-Fm-G-D-G-A

2008-02-20T01:29:00.003+10:00

To Firefox

2008-02-14T22:43:00.004+10:00

I'd like to dedicate this, the 200th post on D'gar HQ to Firefox, my choice of browser on any platform.

Videos deleted because they crashed Firefox! Funny!

See them at www.firefoxflicks.com

Careful, they crash Firefox there too!

Lots of rain

2008-02-13T12:18:00.001+10:00

We have been getting heaps of rain here for the last couple of weeks but yesterday it really bucketed down so I jumped in my X-90 and took it for a splash with video camera in hand. See the video on YouTube or Google Video.

And now... about Epson

2008-02-05T15:36:00.001+10:00

For the past three years I have been using Epson printers. I used to use Canon printers before that but there came a time when the Canon broke down and I needed a printer. It may have been that I couldn't find another Canon at the time, or it was more likely the case that I found an Epson that was substantially cheaper.

Enter my first Epson. It's official title is "Epsone Stylus Photo R210". It's a cheapie but it did great photos with six seperate ink tanks and could print directly to printable CDs and DVDs. I like the idea of having six seperate ink tanks. If one colour runs out you only have to replace that colour. Most HP and Lexmark printers (as well as some Canons) have up to three colours in one cartridge. So if you run out of yellow for instance, you have to throw out blue and red because they're in the same cartridge.

It came with some cool software called "Epson Print CD" that, as you might guess, lets you design your own CD/DVD lables and while it's quite limited, it was adequete for my needs.

Like most consumer electronics, it came with a one year warranty and developed problems within a month of running out of warranty. This one started having issues with the mechanism that fed the printable disk tray in and out of the machine and the print head started to fail.The second one, an "Epson Stylus Photo R230" was a direct replacement. Identical shape, just without the black semi-transparent lid. It even took the same cartridges so I didn't have to throw away my spares. It was even able to use the same CD/DVD tray for printing labels!

It also came with a new version of the Print CD software which was a good thing because although the printer seemed do be pratically identical, my old Epson Print CD software didn't think so at all. It was at this time that I realized that you can't seem to aquire this Print CD software without actually buying a printer. You can't download it from the Epson site, there are no updates for it and no one sells it.

It was four weeks out of warranty when it decided to stop feeding paper.I got this one last week. It is called an "Epson Stylus Photo R290". Clearly they have sacked the guy who was designing the R200 series. It looks different. It looks flimsy and cheap. Then again, they've all been cheap printers. The R290 is bigger and very much squarer. It uses a different CD/DVD tray for printing lables and uses differnt ink tanks too. Wasted are the six spare tanks I had in sitting the drawer. And then there is the included software.

Again, the previous version of PrintCD didn't like the new printer. A new version of Print CD was included on the CD that came in the box so I popped it in and installed the driver and the new Print CD software.

Then there were real problems.

The new Print CD would have an error every time it started up stating that it could not start because it was missing a dll file.

DLL stands for "Dynamic Link Library" and basically it is a file containing a library of commands or instructions that any program can access. There are hundreds of them in your Windows system and they are accessed by many of the programs that you have installed on your computer. During the nineties computer technicians referred to the complex mess of DLL files as "DLL Hell". Not much has been done to fix the problem since then.

Anyway, my new install was missing a file called "PICSDK.dll" so I went searching Google and Epson support for solutions. I found nothing helpful at Epson Support and Google found lots of people with the same problem. Some of them had contacted Epson about the problem only to find that Epson didn't care. Some forums reported being told by Epson that the dll was part of Windows and that they should get the file from Microsoft! A search of the Microsoft support site for PICSDK.dll returned no results so it definitly wasn't a Microsoft file.

After a bit more scouring I found a site that allowed me to download a copy of the DLL file and I put that into the Print CD program folder and it worked! Well... it opened anyway...

I was able to knock up a DVD lable but when I hit the print button I got another error message. It read "The EPSON printer driver dealing with CD printing is not installed.". I had installed the driver that came on the CD with the printer. Okay, no problem, I knew where the Epson support site was so I went back to it and got the latest driver for my CD printing printer. No problem, installed okay. Back to Print CD. Same error. WTF??

The workaround is to click "ok" and then click the "Manual" button and set up the printer through the printer properties to print using the CD/DVD tray. But I gotta say that this latest effort from Epson is bloody lousy. It's like they never even bothered to test the software and the driver together. In fact with all the updated versions of the Print CD software I have yet to see any tangable improvement to the inteface or functionality.

This is the worst Epson printer I have ever owned and although it does everything my previous printers did it manages to be bigger, uglier and more cumbersome. And the software intergration is appaling.

Might have to try out a Canon when this one dies. It would be just my luck that it plagues me with its unpleasantness for years...

Apple breaks own record.

2008-01-27T01:41:00.001+10:00

Apple reports that in the last quarter they shipped:

22,121,000 iPods
2,315,000 iPhones
2,319,000 Macs

There are certainly a lot more Macs around. This time last year I didn't know anyone with an Apple computer and only a couple of people even with iPods. Now I can name at least five people I personally know that own Macs and iPods seem to be everywhere. iPhones are yet to make it to Australia but the way we are with bleeding edge technology I reckon it'll be only weeks of it's release before we see people showing them off to each other.

Vista is popping up here and there but very few people I ask about it are enjoying the experience. Only one Vista user I have ever spoken to has actually claimed to "love" it so there are some admirers out there. The majority of people don't think very highly of it at all and most express a desire to go back to Windows XP.

I don't see the point in buying a PC or laptop with Vista on it. It's like buying a tape measure with inches and feet on it or a ... something else that's old and useless. It's too late, we've got better stuff now.

It must be hard to steal good ideas these days...

On the 1st of January this year a reviewer called Erika Jonietz published an article at TechnologyReview.com that is being quoted by like minded Windows users around the world.

Ironically, playing around with Vista for more than a month has done what years of experience and exhortations from Mac-loving friends could not: it has converted me into a Mac fan.
-Erika Jonietz, TechnolgyReview.com

With the fact that Windows Vista has had so many bad reviews it surprises me that people still go out and purchase a computer with it simply because, well, what else are you going to have?

Harvey Norman have even started selling a very cheap Linux based laptop.

Few people may remember a version of windows called Windows Me. Basically it was the last version of Windows98. Officially Me stood for Millenium Edition but ended up being known as the Mistake Edition. Never was there a more unstable and buggy operating system. WindowsXP was released very quickly after and everyone pretended that WindowsMe didn't happen.

It's happening again.

Vista is the new Me.

Hang on, that didn't come out right...

There is already talk of Windows 7. It will come out quickly and Vista will disappear. Microsoft will need to get this one right. 7 will have to be the new XP. Maybe they will...

hope not...

Postal service's "Snail Mail" label fair cop!

2008-01-26T14:01:00.001+10:00

The Poles eh? You are always wondering what they're going to do next.

Here's a story about a guy that actaully calculated that his surface mail took longer travel that it would've taken a snail travelling at 0.048 km per hour.

Happy Australia Day.

Christmas card takes 93 years to arrive.

We'll miss him...

2008-01-23T11:24:00.001+10:00

While I remember Heath Ledger most fondly from "A Knights Tale". Most of the world will probably remember him from the controversial film Brokeback Mountain. He had just finished filming his part in the upcoming Batman film which I'm sure he would've accomplished with the strength of character and passion that has always shone through in every role he's played.

My thoughts are with Matilda, his daughter who has lost her father at such a young age.

Goodbye Heath, you will be remembered.

Australian

2008-01-18T10:20:00.002+10:00

Spore

2008-01-17T05:24:00.001+10:00

Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, SimCity and a plethora of life simulation games is supposed to be releasing a game which looks incredibly cool. You play a "species" which starts off in the primordial ooze of an alien planet and you control its evolution all the way to interstellar travel. An amazing concept that has been executed with a stylish and intuitive interface like those we have come to know in his other games.

The guy speaking in this video is the man himself, Will Wright, taking us through the many stages of the game. The video is an hour long so you might want to fix yourself a cuppa before you watch it.

Oh, and apparently it will be simultanously released on Windows and MacOS.