Operation Endless Ennui

Well, I figure if Graham has started writing in one of these blog things, the apocalypse is upon us and I should maybe write a few words before the world comes to a complete end :)

Mac OS X v.10.1 was released this weekend and shows signs of being a major improvement over 10.0 and is helping to get me into working with Carbon and Cocoa for fun and killing time.

I recently had my Airport Basestation replaced by Apple due to a random bit of luck leading me to the Airport Power Supply Repair Experience site where it mentions that Apple is quietly replacing airports within a range of serial numbers due to bad capacitors. I felt a little guilty receiving a new airport after I had gotten over 2 years of reliable service from my original airport but...free beats $300 any day of the week. I also was a bit disappo
inted not to do the repair myself since my soldering iron is getting kinda rusty but...Thanks Apple :)

For any old farts who had macs back in the mid-80s and who remember 'Dark Castle' I recently found Color Dark Castle which has been ported to run on MacPPC. Try the demo and it will bring back all those hours of squinting at a 9" b&w crt trying to master rock throwing :) I'm still stuck on 70s and 80s arcade games while JHI is having fun with Diablo II and Summoner.

Since 11 September I've been trying to find something to read about the Middle East that is interesting to read and not written recently and I came across 2 titles Knopf has just re-released; "The Valleys of the Assassins" and "The Southern Gates of Arabia : A Journey in the Hadhramaut" by Freya Stark. I highly recommend them both as her writing is brilliant, engaging and a pleasure to read.

I bought a DYMO label printer with my tax refund from the US gov. There, I've done my patriotic duty of spending money on something I didn't really need. It was either that or a gas mask from the military surplus store...;)

There's an interview with Larry in the October issue of Linux Magazine. I read it in Borders and thought it was a nice interview if a complete rehash of the same old same old...and raised an eyebrow at the use of 'Perl guys' ...:)' Not worth paying for but if you see it on the rack have a browse and I'll make a pdf of the article once it makes it online.

email is 30 years old and is *STILL* the killer app.

....and Jarkko has iBook envy :) I've grown to love my little chiclet of joy so I think you'll soon see Mr. Jark hacking away at ugly Perl on a cute little iBook..:)