Firefox (3.0 RC1) introduces a new image icon - the first change I've noticed since Netscape (then Mozilla then Firefox) had the capability to actually display images natively.
Here's a screenshot of the (now subtly greyscale) image icon on my Mac. The missing image (the document with a tear/rip in) has changed too.
Wow, progress!
Actually, the ancient icon has bothered me as Firefox's UI has improved a LOT.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Disasters, disasters
It's interesting (and scary to say just "interesting" when thousands of people are dying) to see these very sad natural disasters in Burma and in China and how the respective (although not necessarily respectable) governments are dealing with the situations.
In Burma we see the authoritarian government (or government thugs depending on how you look at it) restricting access for aid supplies and aid workers. The aid is there, the people who know what to do with it are there. Sadly, next to nobody or nothing can get to the people obviously in need due to the actions of the government. Everyone wonders "why?".
In China however, a country in the news because of the Olympics and Tibet, we have another supposedly authoritarian government jumping into action, putting it's considerable military power to good use sending help immediately to a heavily populated region that needs help (is there ever an earthquake in China with a low death toll?). Even the Premier got straight into a plane and headed straight to the region either to do good or just as a PR stunt - but at least he went. Things seem to be happening.
You kind of expect a corrupt military junta to perform badly (awfully) in situations like this - hence the regional and international diplomatic upset.
You get pleasantly surprised when a firm communist government does a lot of good work and is open about the situation in their country (China used to have media lockdowns in these situations).
Then you get a similar situation to Burma with Hurricane Katrina, and a government who - like the Burmese - sat back and did little or nothing. Instead of a diplomatic outcry the world just looked on in horror and incredulity as a government you'd expect to do things well (they get aid to any country in the world faster than they got aid to New Orleans) failed to act.
Which is worse? A government that can get the resources to act; isn't actually expected to "do good"; and doesn't do what is right or a government that does have the resources to act; is expected to do good (and does for other countries); and sits on their hands?
One hopes that is a reckoning day somewhere for these, for want of a better word, evil governments. It's also nice to see some signs of positive change in other governments.
In Burma we see the authoritarian government (or government thugs depending on how you look at it) restricting access for aid supplies and aid workers. The aid is there, the people who know what to do with it are there. Sadly, next to nobody or nothing can get to the people obviously in need due to the actions of the government. Everyone wonders "why?".
In China however, a country in the news because of the Olympics and Tibet, we have another supposedly authoritarian government jumping into action, putting it's considerable military power to good use sending help immediately to a heavily populated region that needs help (is there ever an earthquake in China with a low death toll?). Even the Premier got straight into a plane and headed straight to the region either to do good or just as a PR stunt - but at least he went. Things seem to be happening.
You kind of expect a corrupt military junta to perform badly (awfully) in situations like this - hence the regional and international diplomatic upset.
You get pleasantly surprised when a firm communist government does a lot of good work and is open about the situation in their country (China used to have media lockdowns in these situations).
Then you get a similar situation to Burma with Hurricane Katrina, and a government who - like the Burmese - sat back and did little or nothing. Instead of a diplomatic outcry the world just looked on in horror and incredulity as a government you'd expect to do things well (they get aid to any country in the world faster than they got aid to New Orleans) failed to act.
Which is worse? A government that can get the resources to act; isn't actually expected to "do good"; and doesn't do what is right or a government that does have the resources to act; is expected to do good (and does for other countries); and sits on their hands?
One hopes that is a reckoning day somewhere for these, for want of a better word, evil governments. It's also nice to see some signs of positive change in other governments.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
F-ing hard drive!
I own a MacBook - the original series Core Duo based (therefore already obsolete as it is 32-bit not 64-bit) from June of 2006. Despite problems with it (the Ethernet's never worked but I don't need that and I had to get a new battery) I like it as a laptop although I do think my old laptop - the 12-inch PowerBook G4 - was possibly the best Apple laptop ever (I'm happy that it's gone to a good home - my Mum's).
However, in under 2 years that I've owned it I have suffered 3 hard drive failures - complete failures (head crashes). The deadly sound of a clicking hard drive (yes, I had an Iomega Zip Drive too!). The first just a few months after purchase (replaced on warranty), the second just as the warranty ran out (I did get a second replacement on warranty), and now the third yesterday.
Each failure occurred after a few hours of use on a reasonably flat surface while the computer was still. I've never been one for bumping my laptop around.
Apple must know about these faulty hard drives - there's even been a story or two about them. Despite this, every time I reported my hard drive failure to Apple they sent me a new model of exactly the same hard drive. As mentioned in the article - the techie says if you have one you may as well buy a replacement before you lose data.
Fortunately, I've had backups (thank you SuperDuper and now Time Machine too) - which became more and more important as I owned this MacBook. Apple's discussion boards mention bad luck - I work in Mac technical support and, while you may have platter problems on your hard disks, you rarely have whole drive failures so bad you can't actually access the disk. In an office of a couple of hundred (now aging) Macs, I've probably only seen a full hard drive failure once. Usually it's just having the platter going bad slowly.
This time I didn't try and get my hard drive replaced on warranty - I didn't want another doomed-to-fail duplicate of the ones I'd already received (3 failures in 2 years must be a record) and, it has to be said, I wanted a bigger hard drive. I picked up a Hitachi drive from the local PC World (after the local independent Mac shop tried to assure me that an external hard drive was an internal one), loaded it on, and restored from a 40 day old Time Machine backup. The only painful bit is I now have to load up Windows again as my attempts to back that drive up failed again.
Macs are promoted as places to store your music and your photos. Well, if you do - BACKUP! And if you own a first generation MacBook backup LOTS and preferably replace your hard drive while you can still do it at your leisure - do a Time Machine backup, swap drives, restore from Time Machine backup or do a SuperDuper clone, swap drives, restore from the clone (possibly easier).
Read that story now and check your System Profiler (Apple Menu>About This Mac>More Info then check under Serial ATA drives) to see if you've got the same model hard drive (I think later model MacBooks used different drives). If you do - change!
However, in under 2 years that I've owned it I have suffered 3 hard drive failures - complete failures (head crashes). The deadly sound of a clicking hard drive (yes, I had an Iomega Zip Drive too!). The first just a few months after purchase (replaced on warranty), the second just as the warranty ran out (I did get a second replacement on warranty), and now the third yesterday.
Each failure occurred after a few hours of use on a reasonably flat surface while the computer was still. I've never been one for bumping my laptop around.
Apple must know about these faulty hard drives - there's even been a story or two about them. Despite this, every time I reported my hard drive failure to Apple they sent me a new model of exactly the same hard drive. As mentioned in the article - the techie says if you have one you may as well buy a replacement before you lose data.
Fortunately, I've had backups (thank you SuperDuper and now Time Machine too) - which became more and more important as I owned this MacBook. Apple's discussion boards mention bad luck - I work in Mac technical support and, while you may have platter problems on your hard disks, you rarely have whole drive failures so bad you can't actually access the disk. In an office of a couple of hundred (now aging) Macs, I've probably only seen a full hard drive failure once. Usually it's just having the platter going bad slowly.
This time I didn't try and get my hard drive replaced on warranty - I didn't want another doomed-to-fail duplicate of the ones I'd already received (3 failures in 2 years must be a record) and, it has to be said, I wanted a bigger hard drive. I picked up a Hitachi drive from the local PC World (after the local independent Mac shop tried to assure me that an external hard drive was an internal one), loaded it on, and restored from a 40 day old Time Machine backup. The only painful bit is I now have to load up Windows again as my attempts to back that drive up failed again.
Macs are promoted as places to store your music and your photos. Well, if you do - BACKUP! And if you own a first generation MacBook backup LOTS and preferably replace your hard drive while you can still do it at your leisure - do a Time Machine backup, swap drives, restore from Time Machine backup or do a SuperDuper clone, swap drives, restore from the clone (possibly easier).
Read that story now and check your System Profiler (Apple Menu>About This Mac>More Info then check under Serial ATA drives) to see if you've got the same model hard drive (I think later model MacBooks used different drives). If you do - change!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Curse of the Golden Flower
As mentioned previously, after seeing The Forbidden Kingdom I had a hunger for more Chinese movies and I'd gone DVD shopping. I picked up Curse of the Golden Flower starring Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li.
It proved to be very enjoyable (if not a happy adventure). Oddly, at heart it was the story of a dysfunctional family. Great acting all around (how come Chinese pop singers make the jump to film so much better than English ones?) and lavish production.
The battle scenes reminded me of the comparison to leaders moving chess pieces although, as the battles progressed, you felt it was more like an imperial (and body count lethal) version of rock, paper, scissors. You thought one side was winning (the rock) then the other side would pull out the paper, then the first side would pull out a lethal pair of scissors.
It also made me think more positively of the royal palaces of China (like in the Forbidden City) - suddenly it looked like a killing field much like the entrances to classic castles like Carmarthen (which, when you know how their defences worked are very scary). So much for purely ceremonial.
The film also reminded me of European period dramas with (in a surprise for Chinese dramas) bodice popping (nice bodices).
But it was about a dysfunctional family that came to a rather gruesome finish after almost (oddly) Secrets and Lies style revelations. The only thing I wanted to know is what brought about the poisoning - a kind of chicken and egg situation, or 3rd wife on the way?
Anyway, the DVD came to an end and I was just about to enjoy the DVD extras when I had to sit through another f*&^ing FACT anti-piracy advert - screwing up my viewing pleasure. So, instead of downloading it from the internet, or buying a bootleg copy, I bought a legit version (from HMV - the newly branded Zavvi is such a lame sounding brand, pity they had to drop the Virgin Megastore name) and instead of getting cinematic joy (as I probably would have from the pirated versions) I got a rude, crude, crappily marketed interruption telling me I shouldn't pirate when I'm not. Almost an encouragement to get the illegal copies.
At least mute worked!
The DVD extras were OK though - seeing Chow Yun Fat kidding away (despite his very serious role in the film, you kept expecting him to crack a joke or a charming smile) and the interviews with the other actors and the director. They did awfully well not to mention Gong Li's relationship (for 10 years) with the director when they said they hadn't worked together for 10 years (they stopped working together when they split). Obviously they're real professionals to keep that working OK when they did this film.
I gave it a 8 out of 10.
It proved to be very enjoyable (if not a happy adventure). Oddly, at heart it was the story of a dysfunctional family. Great acting all around (how come Chinese pop singers make the jump to film so much better than English ones?) and lavish production.
The battle scenes reminded me of the comparison to leaders moving chess pieces although, as the battles progressed, you felt it was more like an imperial (and body count lethal) version of rock, paper, scissors. You thought one side was winning (the rock) then the other side would pull out the paper, then the first side would pull out a lethal pair of scissors.
It also made me think more positively of the royal palaces of China (like in the Forbidden City) - suddenly it looked like a killing field much like the entrances to classic castles like Carmarthen (which, when you know how their defences worked are very scary). So much for purely ceremonial.
The film also reminded me of European period dramas with (in a surprise for Chinese dramas) bodice popping (nice bodices).
But it was about a dysfunctional family that came to a rather gruesome finish after almost (oddly) Secrets and Lies style revelations. The only thing I wanted to know is what brought about the poisoning - a kind of chicken and egg situation, or 3rd wife on the way?
Anyway, the DVD came to an end and I was just about to enjoy the DVD extras when I had to sit through another f*&^ing FACT anti-piracy advert - screwing up my viewing pleasure. So, instead of downloading it from the internet, or buying a bootleg copy, I bought a legit version (from HMV - the newly branded Zavvi is such a lame sounding brand, pity they had to drop the Virgin Megastore name) and instead of getting cinematic joy (as I probably would have from the pirated versions) I got a rude, crude, crappily marketed interruption telling me I shouldn't pirate when I'm not. Almost an encouragement to get the illegal copies.
At least mute worked!
The DVD extras were OK though - seeing Chow Yun Fat kidding away (despite his very serious role in the film, you kept expecting him to crack a joke or a charming smile) and the interviews with the other actors and the director. They did awfully well not to mention Gong Li's relationship (for 10 years) with the director when they said they hadn't worked together for 10 years (they stopped working together when they split). Obviously they're real professionals to keep that working OK when they did this film.
I gave it a 8 out of 10.
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