June 30, 2006
So long, and thanks for all the Guinness
I'm sat in the airport at Dublin waiting for my flight to Norwich, without internet access because eircom's wireless internet service accepts payments but dishes out incorrect username / password details (as Gianugo also experienced during his nightmare trip home). Whilst this means I can't do essential things like compulsively checking my email, chatting to people over IM, or reading news, it does give me a chance to write up some thoughts on ApacheCon.
This was my first ApacheCon, as I've somehow managed to miss the previous European events - London 2000 (too busy starting up Luminas) and Stuttgart 2004 (too busy running Luminas). In many ways I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was.
It's definitely a conference by geeks for geeks, but the business track had an awful lot of good content in it too. I particularly enjoyed Danese Cooper's "Challenges of Corp. Inv. in Open Source", and found much to agree with in Brian W. Fitzpatrick's "Apache: Code Isn't Enough". I think the highlight was definitely the Lightning Lottery Talks, which provided some much-needed relief after the mental exertions of the previous days.
There were a few niggles: the pre-conference organisation was pretty chaotic (talks and workshops confirmed or cancelled far too near the actual event); spotty wireless at the beginning of the hackathon (though this improved dramatically); most annoying of all was the totally inadequate number of power supplies. The last was especially frustrating since I usually carry a 4 socket power strip with me, but decided against it this time since the Cocoon GetTogether had lulled me into a false sense of security about provisions at Apache-related events.
None of these niggles were enough to seriously lessen the enjoyment of the event though, and the sense of Apache community really made it a great experience. I can't wait for the next one.
I've uploaded my photos to ApacheCon Europe 2006, and more photos can be found under the tags apachecon and apacheconeu2006.
Carsten's Cocoon talk
Carsten is currently delivering his overview of Apache Cocoon, to a good-sized audience. A quick headcount showed 40+ attendees, which is pretty good!
June 27, 2006
Dublin: ApacheCon EU 2006
This week I'm at ApacheCon EU 2006 in Dublin, which as always is an excellent opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones. The last couple of days I've been attending the Hackathon, where we've been working on Cocoon 2.2. This morning we had a discussion on the immediate future of Cocoon (getting the release out of the door), and this afternoon Daniel is leading a discussion on OSGi. Others are also blogging (Bertrand, Sylvain), expect more from me over the next few days.Sourcesense update
The new Sourcesense website is now live ... it's just an early draft, but we should be adding more content over the next few weeks and months.June 21, 2006
June 19, 2006
Switch?
The ongoing debate over leaving Apple, playing out over on Mark Pilgrim's blog (Bye, Apple; When the bough breaks; Juggling oranges), Daring Fireball (And Oranges), and Tim Bray's blog (Time to Switch?) highlights very nicely many of the thoughts I'm having of late, too. Right now, the decision is in the balance. I'd really miss iPhoto, Keynote, Omnigraffle, and to a lesser extent, Textmate. Hmmm.
I'd probably have already switched if PC laptops weren't so darned ugly. There's got to be a market out there for Macbook Pro clones, surely? (Preferably ones that run quiet and cool.)
June 9, 2006
Viruses and Spam
At the moment about 70% of the email I see in my inbox is either a spam or a virus. That's after server-side filtering and Thunderbird filtering. Suspicious that the server-side filtering wasn't working effectively, I checked up on the server. It turns out that since November 2005, 8.2GB of mail has been blocked. That's an awful lot of junk - about a gigabyte a month, and growing. Scary.June 7, 2006
Apple support
Matthew is about to enter the twilight zone of Apple support. I'd like to offer a few tips if I may, based on my own recent experiences and also good common sense. I'm sure most people do this, but it's worth repeating.
- The most important tip: write everything down. I'd go as far as writing down a clear description of your problem, so you can ensure you are consistent each time Apple asks you to describe it.
- Write down the date and time of each call.
- Make a note of the menu numbers you select, so you can press them quickly next time you call without having to hear all the options read out to you.
- Write down the name of the person you spoke to. Don't be afraid to ask them to repeat or even spell their names - they do the same to you, after all.
- Get an issue number if possible (and write it down, of course).
- If a resolution is offered, repeat it back to the person on the phone in words you understand ("so you're saying you will send a courier to collect the laptop, ..."), make sure they agree, and then write down exactly what they've offered.
- Be prepared for this to take some time. If it's a non-standard problem that deviates from their scripts, you will be passed from person to person, each time having to repeat your problem. If the problem is unusual, you will probably be asked to go to the nearest Apple Service Centre to get it verified.
- If you bought from the Apple Store online, you have the recourse of being able to return it by asking them to pick it up.
- Finally, set your expectations. Yes, you bought a luxury product, but don't expect luxury after sales service - in my experience, it was worse than the service you get on a £300 Dell computer. Keep some headache tablets handy!
Any other tips I'm missing?
Good luck!
June 6, 2006
TVMini
I recently took advantage of an Apple special offer and picked up a Miglia TVMini for my aging Powerbook, as a possible precursor to a full-on digital media centre setup. I've seen PVRs working, and last week I set up a Freeview box for the first time and was impressed by the service, so I was keen to see what can be done with a computer in the equation.
So far I'm quite pleased. The device itself is small, with a similar design and form factor to an iPod Shuffle. How things have changed since the bulky PCI card from ATI that I installed in my first PC! Installation is as easy as dragging the EyeTV application from the CD into my Applications folder and going through some basic steps the first time I ran it.
Unfortunately in the area I live, the supplied aerial was not sufficient, but plugging it into the regular aerial worked fine. Of course, this only gives you terrestrial or digital terrestrial channels - but to hook up to satellite / cable TV requires a rather more expensive box, and only really gets me a couple of extra channels.
Picture quality is good, and the software can automatically swap aspect ratios depending on the broadcast programme, which is an improvement on my existing TV. It's possible to watch at a range of sizes, including a NADD-fueling mini version that means you can surf and read email and watch TV simultaneously.
The most obvious immediate and cool feature of the TVMini is being able to pause live TV. This works extremely well, and is totally flawless - once you get over the mental barrier of thinking "I shouldn't be able to do that".
The remote supplied with the TVMini works well, even when there's no direct line-of-sight between the two devices. I doubt I'll be using the remote much, though - it's a bit big and bulky, and I'm usually close enough to the laptop keyboard anyhow.
The EyeTV software includes an integrated tv guide from tvtv, and a free one year subscription which allows you to set up recording remotely via their website (the desktop app checks at a pre-configured frequency, and automatically downloads new recording requests). The tv guide seemed to be missing a few channels, but had most of the important ones. Further subscriptions appear to cost £14.90 per year, which isn't unreasonable.
Recording seems to be reasonably light on the CPU, and I've been able to record to an external USB hard drive with no problems (even whilst reading and writing large files to the disk simultaneously). The only downside is that there's not much compression on the output files - an hour of TV is approximately 1.5GB.
Since the files are simple MPEGs, it's possible to watch recorded shows and record new shows simultaneously. Interestingly, the files are stored as MacOS packages, with the actual .mpg bundled with a bunch of eyeTV-specific metadata. It shouldn't be too difficult to re-compress the files if I run out of disk space.
There's still a few features I haven't explored, but I'd certainly recommend this to anyone wanting to try out TV on the desktop. Now I just need to save up the money for a 30 inch LCD screen...