intodimensions.com

Come on - I dare you - press the red button.

According to news out of Sweden [in Swedish only] some Swedish municipalities vote to go with Linux instead of Windows as their computer desktop environment. According to the article “Jönköping, Hallsberg, Luleå and Filipstad are the latest examples of municipalities and government organizations that have chosen to go with Linux-solutions as their IT-platform to build services around”. In the article an IT Manager for a municipality says that they save money on licensing fees, but the decision was also based on the importance of creating open, flexible and secure solutions which is important when they are to start offering electronic services 24 hours a day.

In the Gulf News today on page 5 we can read a story about Malaysian national James Liang Lee Kiow who at 71 went to a private hospital to get checked for chest pains. He was told he had to have treatment right away so he was admitted. After five days he found out that the treatment would cost Dh65,000. When he said he couldn’t pay the hospital called the police. The hospital said they wouldn’t press charges if Mr Kiow would give them his passport so he did hand over this important document. Now the hospital won’t give it back unless he pays at least half his debt and Mr Kiow has only 15 days left to stay legally in the country.

Now what’s wrong with this picture?

In the Gulf News today on page 2 we can read:

… a Gulf News reporter, was taking pictures of the moon near the Thailand Consulate off Wasl Road when she was stopped and questioned by Dubai police. She was taken to Bur Dubai Police Station. Upon learning she was a journalist, the police released [her]. Gulf News would like to thank Dubai police for their understanding.

Now what’s wrong with this picture (no pun intended)?

There are always rumors before major Apple conferences and “media events” and they’re for the most part wrong but the most frequent rumors often contain some grain of truth. So the rumors about a Intel Macs being introduced at MacWorld Expo in January might be true, or they may not. I don’t think it would surprise many if they turned out to be true. Originally we were all set on getting the Intel Macs sometime in May or June 2006 but perhaps Apple has been able to finish them sooner than that and there’s every reason, I think, to push them out to consumers then. That said, here’s the current rumored timeline:

• January: 15-inch Powerbook (dual-core 2GHz processor) and 20-inch iMac (the “media center” version with iSight)
• Spring: Mac mini and iBook (looking more like iPod)

Is this over confidence or just a typo? You decide!

Perhaps the most unique feature of MontessoriTrac is that it is web-based. Teachers, administrators, and parents can access their records via the web. Our system is secure, so unauthorized access is not even a possibility. This gives every one using the system the ability to get reports, manage school resource materials and get information at their own convenience. Users cannot access the features without passwords, so usage reports remain accurate.

In my mind, anyone who claims that “unauthorized access is not even a possibility” either A) knows something about computer security that the rest of the world doesn’t, B) knows too little about computer security, C) made a typo, or D) ?.

A clue as to which the correct answer is can be found on another page:

Memory Requirements
128 MB RAM is necessary for minimum performance. We recommend 256 MB or more for optimal performance.

Hmm… “256Mb for optimal performance” - what current OS runs at “optimal performance” with 256Mb? Windows XP runs with 256Mb but certainly not at “optimal performance”.

Hardmac.com:

The iBook 12″ is an excellent compromise between mobility, robustness, performance and price. It can also be transformed to become a strong competitor for its brother, the PowerBook 12″. However, it is impossible to equip the iBook 12″ as a PowerBook 12″ via the BTO from the Apple Store. So, it can be tempting to buy a basic iBook 12″ model and upgrade it yourself into a highly performing mobile computer. This article is intended to provide you help to perform such transformation.

Cool - perhaps we can “mod” Crystal’s iBook.

Update: Or better yet, my Powerbook is showing severe signs of aging. The display is wobbling a lot and the case is coming apart in several places. Perhaps I can take the SuperDrive and the 80Gb hard drive (which both still work fine) and put them into an iBook.

[posted with ecto]

Slashdot links to a guy who ripped all six Star Wars movies and played them side by side. He found some interesting (and many not so interesting) things during his experiment but more entertaining than his description is some of the Slashdotters’ comments. I really like technoextreme’s comment:

Buying books on PHP: $30
Buying robot kits online: $100
Visting robotics confrence: $750
Building a webpage: $75
Realizing there are people more pathetic than you are on Slashdot: Priceless

I think this falls in the category of having too much time on your hands

[posted with ecto]

ZDNet UK Reviews:

Mac OS X will not be available on any old x86 PC, though, as Apple wants to retain control over its hardware platform. From the company’s point of view, this is an understandable position, as the margins on Apple-branded computers are much higher than is usual for standard x86 PCs.

Were Apple to put the x86 version of its� operating system� on general release, Dell would begin to manufacture Apple clones. This would put enormous pressure on the price of Apple’s own computers — something the company is naturally keen to avoid. Apple would prefer to manufacture and sell its own high-margin Macs, while denying� companies like Dell the chance to endanger its hardware business. This is the motivation behind Apple’s decision to restrict the x86 version of Mac OS X to its own hardware.

When Steve Jobs announced the platform change, he publicly demonstrated Apple computers with Intel processors running an x86 version of Mac OS X. The OS is bound directly to the hardware by a special security chip. However, some developers have succeeded in circumventing this coupling, allowing the operating system to be installed on any x86 system, as this test report shows.

This is cool stuff - Mac OS X running on a Toshiba notebook. ZDNet concludes:

Mac OS X looks in amazingly good early form on the x86 platform. As far as power consumption and OS performance are concerned, it can already keep up with Windows XP. Application performance clearly lags behind, though, and still needs to improve.

[posted with ecto]

Phil Collins concert

Originally uploaded by mnystedt.

We went and saw Phil Collins in his “First Final Farewell Tour” concert in Dubai last night and it was both a very nice and a very bad experience. First the good. Phil Collins and his band were excellent. Phil looked not as excited as you would perhaps want him to look but I think that’s just the way he is. He’s not the jump-around-all-over-the-place kind of performer. He was backed up by very good singers and musicians making for a very nice musical experience. In total they played for around two and a half hours and they didn’t really stop. As far as we could tell Phil was only gone from the stage for around half of one song. During the first half of the show they performed many of their slower songs, like “Groovy kind of love” and “Feel it in the air tonight”. The audience was with Phil but at times not really into it 100%. That all changed when they heard the first bars of “You can’t hurry love” which really got everyone into singing and clapping along with Phil and the band. The up-tempo songs continued with “Invisibly touch”, “Easy lover”, and a string of other well-known pearls. All in all an excellent concert experience when it comes to the performance.
So to the very bad. The seats were too cramped and extremely uncomfortable. There were too few places to get something to eat and drink andj the queues were very, very long. Seems to us that when you sell around 15,000 tickets for a concert you should be able to figure out how much the crowd would want to eat and drink.
However, what was worse than the queuing for food and drink was the situation after the concert. We had taken a taxi to the concert thinking it would be a nightmare trying to drive especially back once the concert was over. Instead it turned out to be a nightmare trying to find a taxi. We asked a guard when walking out where we could get a taxi and he said “just go out”. Further on we asked a taxi driver standing by his car waiting to pick up someone and he said “further down the road” so we kept walking. After a little bit we came to the large roundabout on Emirates Road which was full of heavy traffic and soon of people wanting a taxi as well. Some really ugly scenes were played out where concert attenders all but fought physically to get a taxi while at the same time trying their best to get run over by the other traffic. We watched some really close shaves as people tried to catch a taxi. Soon the roundabout was almost at a standstill, truck drivers were growing increasingly impatient, and more and more people were trying to find a taxi. After about an hour and a half of waiting for a taxi, we had almost resigned to the fact that we would be there for a long time to get back to the hotel.

To our rescue in their large Ford Expedition came Margaret from Brazil and her daughter. The pulled up alongside us and asked if we wanted a lift. We obviously said yes and they took us to a hotel where we could jump straight into a taxi which took us back to the hotel. So the evening showed us the worst sides of people (those fighting with each other over taxis) and the best sides of people (Margaret and her daughter).

The company responsible for arranging the Phil Collins concert clearly didn’t do their homework very well. There were far from adequate parking at the venue and taxi-service was just all-but nonexistent. This is one of those situations when you cannot really think of bad enough words and expressions to describe something, it’s just that bad. You would think that the arrangers would know that a lot of people would want taxis after the concert and arrange, beforehand, with the taxi companies a taxi-line which should be managed by some security personnel. Then make sure there are plenty of clear signs for people to follow to where they need to go.

So summing up - Phil Collins and the band: A+, concert organization: F-.

[posted with ecto]