Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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the magical MacBook

Apple is running a weird MacBook campaign: MacBook. Knows all the hot spots.

MacBook detects wireless hot spots

Whether you're traveling the globe or sitting at a local café, MacBook automatically scans for wireless networks to join.

err, yes, but so does every other wireless notebook on the planet

So not exactly a unique selling point, there. posted by Richard at 13:03 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

bluesfest

I don't know why they even bother naming most of these festivals with music genres, they might as well call them all "a bunch of music fest, June" and "a bunch of music fest, July".

Anyway, saw Seu Jorge at Bluesfest.
I don't think you could possibly stretch the definition of blues to include Seu's music.

Anyway, it was good.
I continue with my hate of amplification.

Also he only did one song from his Life Aquatic David Bowie series - I would have preferred more like four. I highly recommend his Bowie album, incidentally. It's called The Life Aquatic - Studio Sessions featuring Seu Jorge (iTunes Canada link). posted by Richard at 22:52 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

PowerMac phone home

I was wondering what this was when it popped up the other day...

Francois Joseph de Kermadec writes about issues raised by Apple's phone-home anti-virus system:

For the past few days, the blogging world has been abuzz with that "dashboardadvisoryd" thing. Indeed, it seems Mac OS X v. 10.4.7 contacts Apple's servers ever eight or so hours and ensures you did not inadvertently download a malicious widget. This, however, raises a great many grave questions.
Contrary to what one might think, I am not outraged by Apple's decision to phone home. Do I like applications calling home without telling their users? Absolutely not. I can however understand the reasons that motivated this choice and, while I believe it to be a PR blunder of ignominious proportions, I'm sure it'll be an easy fix for 10.4.8, much like that iTunes problem we had a few weeks ago was. Engineers come with good intentions and that is what matter. They scratched their heads to improve security and they deserve applause for that.
No, what worries me is that we have, basically, re-invented anti-virus systems: provide "signatures" for rogue applications, perform a check against a known database and raise a red flag when the check returns positive. That, essentially, means one thing: there is no way to prevent damage (or, at least, one has renounced) so one relies on the next best thing, that is checking after the damage is done. The virtual equivalent of the difference between a condom and emergency "day-after" medication.

[See also Cnet's story, Apple widget checks raise eyebrows. -MacInTouch]

From Macintouch.

When are OS and software people going to learn that they can't put in this kind of stuff without telling people? It gets immediately detected. posted by Richard at 16:22 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

10.4.7

updated to Mac OS 10.4.7
seems fine

Also updated PowerPoint X to 10.1.7

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx#OfficeX posted by Richard at 08:38 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

green power

Switched to Bullfrog for green power. It's very easy to do - it just changes your billing, they don't need to touch your wiring. They had a pull-down menu for me to select to switch from Hydro Ottawa. posted by Richard at 17:28 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Pave the Earth

Albertans are sure kicking up their heels in Washington these days. The province's Premier, King Ralph, has been giving free advice to Vice-President Dick Cheney, the continent's visionary energy planner. King Ralph even encouraged Cheney this week to visit Saudi Alberta. Cheney, a regular hydrocarbon guy, would probably love it.

Everyone speaks English here, drives a big truck and owns an unregistered gun. Our schools may leak like hell when it rains but, let's face it, King Ralph has been too busy promoting energy exports to bother with those kinds of details.

Anyway, Cheney would appreciate our dedication to U.S. energy security.

Right now, Saudi Alberta supplies the United States with 12 per cent of its oil and, thanks to the oil sands, we'll soon be filling up 20 per cent of the U.S. gas tank. The United States gets half of its natural gas from Saudi Alberta, too. So we're booming; you can't even rent a porta-potty, things are so crazy. Cheney just might want to bring one along when he treks up here.

The big deal, of course, is the oil sands. More oil than Saudi Arabia they say. A few negative types claim it is the most expensive oil on the planet and costs about $78,000 per barrel in infrastructure to produce, but Saudi Alberta doesn't have much time for naysayers.

Everything is positive here. We believe you can build $125-billion worth of oil sands projects all at once without labour shortages, wage inflation, air pollution and housing shortages. Honest.

Unlike snotty folk in the Middle East or Venezuela, Saudi Alberta believes the United States has a right to cheap oil. Hell, we only charge a 1-per-cent royalty on the oil sands. No kidding. And we don't mind, either. We just make up the difference with revenue from casinos and video lottery terminals. That's right. We make more money from gambling than we do from selling oil-sands black gold. It was King Ralph's idea: Smart, isn't it?

Hee hee hee

from the Globe and Mail ("Toronto's National Newspaper") - Saudi Alberta: no place like it posted by Richard at 10:51 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)