R-Log ยป R-Log http://www.phigmov.co.nz/ Another Website About Stuff en rpatel@phigmov.co.nz (Raj) Copyright 2016 PivotX - 2.3.6 Sun, 03 Jan 2016 13:13:25 +1300 60 Interesting Links http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=818 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=818#comm
People write about some interesting stuff -

How the Presidents Blackberry is secured, and from the same site, How Air Force Ones phones work. ]]> 818@localhost/ security Sat, 26 Jul 2014 21:21:00 +1300 Raj Yahoo Logo http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=817 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=817#comm
In fact its been so long I'd completely forgotten Yahoo still existed.

As a design and typography nerd (I'm not claiming to be any good at it but I certainly appreciate it) I enjoyed these two articles on the new Yahoo logo -

Logo Reveals Worst Aspects of Engineering Mindset

Logo Bullshit

Both great reads.

A reminder that just because 'design' looks easy, don't be mistaken into believing it actually is. ]]> 817@localhost/ windows Sat, 07 Sep 2013 20:13:00 +1300 Raj Back Up And Running for 2013 ! http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=816 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=816#comm
Not a great first post for 2013 but its taken a fair bit of motivation to get back onto the blogging bandwagon. ]]> 816@localhost/ web Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:07:00 +1300 Raj OS X Spleen - Scheduled Reboots & Shutdowns http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=815 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=815#comm
Why the flying fuck can I not schedule a shutdown time that is honored via the Energy Saver control panel ?

Prior to 10.7 if I set a shutdown time the system would shutdown.

Pretty simple, pretty cool, expected behaviour. Very Apple. Nice.

Now, if I do this, may Mac may (or may not) shutdown depending on who (other Mac's to shares) or what (iTunes wireless sync) is connected.

If I cared about syncing or shares I wouldn't schedule a shutdown.

If a setting resulted in unexpected behaviour, then a followup prompt to say "If you shutdown existing shares or synching will be affected are you sure you want to over-ride this and shutdown anyway ?" would be really cool.

Apple, please fix this !!

PS - for those of you that say you shouldn't ever need to shutdown, how about to save power or flush out the OS stack (aspects of which appear to have gotten less reliable with each OS revision) ?

PPS - yes I know I could cut through the crap by using a simple CRON Unix job but why should I have to resort to a command line to do something that has a GUI ?

]]> 815@localhost/ spleen Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:39:00 +1300 Raj iPad Spleen - Browser Cache Behaviour http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=814 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=814#comm
Maybe I'm just an edge case and people are so buried in their app-y goodness they don't necessarily care that the tool has some fundamentally frustrating flaws.

Still, its always interesting to see other people express similar discontent at Apples inability to get simple things right. I feel like there should be some kind of support group.

Browser cache, do you speak it?

and

Browser cache, do you fucking speak it yet??

Citizen Kane Slow Clap ]]> 814@localhost/ spleen Sun, 02 Sep 2012 10:08:00 +1300 Raj iPad Spleen - Copy & Paste (like its 1984) http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=813 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=813#comm
They're also massively frustrating.

But why oh why can't I draw or create something in one app and copy/paste it into another (draw something in Adobe Ideas or Studio53's Paper and shift it from one app to the other; I dare you to try) ?

Maybe I'm just old and reluctant to accept change or I'm missing out on something super subtle usability paradigm that obviates the need to readily shift content easily from one app to another.

I'm guessing all of the API's are there and its just app vendors laziness to implement a feature the world has been used to for 30+yrs ? ]]> 813@localhost/ spleen Sun, 02 Sep 2012 09:59:00 +1300 Raj Belkin WeMo http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=812 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=812#comm
Belkin WeMo

Nice feature overview here.

X10 is cool but complicated; whereas this looks cool and simple. ]]> 812@localhost/ linkdump Sun, 12 Aug 2012 10:51:00 +1300 Raj Bookcrossing http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=811 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=811#comm Bookcrossing.

Seems like a great way to redistribute your old books and having some fun doing it.

The basic idea - label your old books with a unique identifier, then drop them off wherever you like. Log the 'drop' on the Bookcrossing website for someone to pick up. If they log the collection you can track who and where the book goes. Obviously there are the usual anonymity options and if a non-Bookcrossing person picks up the book they may choose not to join-up (its free, they make money selling accessories like custom labels and bookplates).

Pretty cool. ]]> 811@localhost/ linkdump Sun, 24 Jun 2012 08:55:00 +1300 Raj Tiny Houses (Revisited) http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=810 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=810#comm Tiny Houses way back in 2006 - theres now a doco - posted in its entirety on Youtube. Its definitely worth a watch and theres some inspirational ideas for efficient use of space in here too - check it out. ]]> 810@localhost/ misc Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:04:00 +1300 Raj Some Stuff . . . http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=809 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=809#comm
To that end, some interesting stuff -

Seems like only yesterday that NT4 was the new cool thing (at least with SP3!) - but now the new Windows 2012 Server Beta labs are available.

An insight into Facebooks release management process.

A view on Microsofts new Cloud Management tools from a systems admin. ]]> 809@localhost/ tech Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:51:00 +1300 Raj WTF ?! - OS X Lion Deprecating Front Row http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=808 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=808#comm
Looking to upgrade my old 2008 Mac Mini to OS X 10.7 (aka Lion) with a particular view towards Front Row improvements. To my horror I noticed some notes indicating this was to be the last iteration of Front Row and that it was being dropped.

Aaargh.

The reason I hadn't discovered this earlier was that my Mini didn't have enough RAM to upgrade. Having bought some more memory I was keen to get back to the upgrade.

I guess there are two things going on here -


  1. Pulling Front Row will allow Apple to focus on Apple TV

  2. Apple have an awesome new Front Row replacement (squeee!)



I'd say its 90% about #1 and 10% about #2 - I'm happy to be proven wrong about this though.

My Mac Mini setup is great - apart from the age and inability to deal with 1080p it works really well. It starts up, logs in, auto-starts Elgatos EyeTV and drives my 32" LCD TV. A click of my Logitech Harmony and I can bring up Front Row, play my media (still ropey mkv support - whats with that?), play music and view photos all through a single easy to control interface.

Friends have bought the AppleTV and do rave about it but it just seems like another gizmo locked into another bit of the Apple eco-system. I'd rather get a Western Digital TV which is much more 'open' and I can playback content from my Mini as required. Even then, a WD TV can't do live TV thereby limiting its usefulyness.

What is the point of bundling a remote control if all it controls is iTunes ? How do you use a remote to switch froom iTunes to iPhoto or anything else that'll play media ?

Sigh.

Now if AppleTV built in a tuner, provided some pvr capability and enabled a plug-in architecture for media playback that might be a different story.

As for Plex and XMBC - they're fine efforts but compared to Front Row they lack elegence and simplicity. About all they have going for them is the ability to handle whatever media is thrown at them (and theres still no EyeTV integration). Oddly Plex is meant to be more 'Mac' like but XMBC is actually more polished. I know there are skins available to 'Front Row-ify' both of these tools but the process to download and install them isn't even remotely friendly - these tools both appear to have been written with tinkerers in mind; I don't mind tinkering but the reality is I have better things to do with my time - which is why I have a Mac and not a nerd-tastic Linux media centre.

And don't get me started on the Apple remote Menu button not doing anything post upgrade.

Grrr. ]]> 808@localhost/ spleen Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:23:00 +1300 Raj iPad Interface Consistancy http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=807 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=807#comm
The iPad has effectively driven me to it though.

Why can't iOS apps follow some decades old interface standards for the sake of consistency ?

Heres my most aggravating example - Flipboard. I actually really enjoy the application - its free and it just works the way I'd expect it to. It does have some annoying interface quirks though. Top of my list - why are urls not clickable ? In the 21st century having to 'visit the original' article which spawns a crippled browser that still doesn't give you a clickable url is surely punishable by something very nasty indeed ?

If the 'app-ification' of computing means roll-your-own interfaces I'll give it a miss.

Whats worse is that if this trend moves over to OS X I'll just give up upgrading. If I wanted 'At Ease' as a user-interface I'd have stuck with a Mac LCII in a teaching lab circa 1993.

Postscript - since first venting, Flipboard urls seem to be much better handled now and the book metaphor seems to be improving. ]]> 807@localhost/ spleen Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:46:00 +1300 Raj Network Security (2061-2561 AD) + More http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=805 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=805#comm
Charles Stross (Sci-Fi Author, his Singularity Sky is awesome) discusses Network Security in the Medium Term, 2061-2561 AD.

Pretty fascinating - Networking Needs a VMWare. Some of this stuff is on its way . . .

The future looks bright - Building a new filesystem - ReFS for Windows 8.

This reminds me so much of William Gibsons 'Bigend Books' (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History) I had to double check it wasn't fiction - Made Better in Japan. Theres also a touch of Umberto Ecos 'Travels in Hyperreality'. Remember, people - it has to be better than the real thing !

I caught this over on Boing Boing - pretty fascinating - Bringing a 50,000-ton forging press back to Life. Makes you wonder what other wholly unique mega-gizmos exist in the world ? ]]> 805@localhost/ links Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:58:00 +1300 Raj Mailorder Beer http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=803 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=803#comm Beerstore in NZ does a great job of distributing beer of all kinds delivered to your door.

I've used them a few times now and they're quick and efficient - I even had one delivery with broken bottles which the couriers obviously screwed up and within a couple of days Beerstore had another order on my doorstep no questions asked. Now thats service ! ]]> 803@localhost/ linkdump Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:40:00 +1300 Raj YouTube Music Video - Liturgy http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=794 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=794#comm
Having said that I will give almost any music a crack at least once. So it was that I clicked on the video at the end of a Popmatters article on the band Liturgys new album Aesthetica and was duly impressed.





For some reason it reminds me less of metal than late 80's, early 90's noise rock (Big Black crossed with Vineland ?).

Good to see the young people of today churning out obnoxious music (black metal) with an intelligent twist (transcendental).

For some reason I just can't help hitting play every time it gets to the end . . . ]]> 794@localhost/ music Tue, 31 May 2011 18:24:00 +1300 Raj New Header - Street Steps http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=793 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=793#comm Olympus Pen D2 and Kodak Tri-X 400. I'm amazed at how grainy this film is. I've read that the scanning process has a hard time dealing with the film grain so the scanned image is often much noisier than the negative. ]]> 793@localhost/ headers Sat, 28 May 2011 14:28:00 +1300 Raj What Good Is Wall Street ? + More http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=792 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=792#comm
In the wake of the sub-prime fiasco and subsequent bailout this makes for interesting reading - What Good is Wall Street?.

Yes, I know we're almost half way through 2011 - this interactive article has some cool stuff in the pipeline - NYTimes Top Ideas for 2010.

A couple of related articles The end of the IT Department and The rise of Shadow IT suppliers. Maintaining infrastructure is costly - more and more people are turning to innovation and service outside of in-house-IT.

A peek into the future - FutureStates TV. Brief docu-dramas about different potential futures for earth and humanity.

Nifty - 3D Strandbeests. If you've ever seen Theo Jansens creations walk across the beach you'll be pleased to see you can now print them in 3D.

Commentary at the Economist on the recent DropBox security warning - Keys to the Cloud Castle.

I seem to be predisposed to IT nostalgia - Markdown is the new Word 5.1. As a user-experience 5.1 was pretty much a pinnacle - everything since has just been fluff. I cut my 'GUI WYSIWYG teeth' on Word 3 and 4 which were also great - they were also the last versions you could run off a single 3.5" disk on a Mac (on a dual FDD disk system your OS was on one disk and your app was on the other). ]]> 792@localhost/ links Sat, 28 May 2011 13:56:00 +1300 Raj Backpacks Aren't People http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=791 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=791#comm Boing Boing.

]]> 791@localhost/ spleen Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:11:00 +1300 Raj New Header - Te Papa http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=790 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=790#comm Te Papa museum (top view here).

Shot on Ilford FP4 125 120 film with a Mamiya RB67. The camera is a complete beast (it weighs 2.6kg!) but it takes amazing pictures. ]]> 790@localhost/ headers Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:02:00 +1300 Raj SSD + MacBook = A couple of more years http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=789 http://www.phigmov.co.nz/?e=789#comm
However after all those years it was starting to suffer from cruft-accumulation. The disk was ticking, it refused to sleep and it'd freeze randomly. On top of that iPhoto was really starting to creak under a growing library of RAW files.

So, I replaced the laptop with an iMac for day to day processing and storage. There are some great deals on the Core i3 21" model these days.

For arm-chair surfing I contemplated the iPad but it still seemed limited. Instead, I went out and bought a 32Gb 2.5" SSD drive and got it installed (be warned - you'll need some of those annoying star-shaped torx screw driver heads to get the drive out of its tray). The drive itself was a relatively cheap ($150NZD) no-name brand unit.

After a clean OS X install, the MacBook now boots in 2/3's of the time it takes for a hard-drive. Apps launch marginally faster, the system seems a little more responsive and its marginally quieter.

Almost 90% of the applications I use are now web-based and I access my data from shares on my iMac so I'm hoping the small drive will extend the life of my MacBook by another couple of years. ]]> 789@localhost/ mac Sun, 27 Mar 2011 17:15:00 +1300 Raj