Blog

Posted on

New iMac’s arrived

My new iMac Dual Core arrived yesterday. My old iMac was about three and a half years old and lacking modern features that were actually forcing me to turn down work, so it was about time for an upgrade: I’ll be handing my old one over to my sister, so at least it’s going to a good home.

There has, of course, been a lot of fuss about being able to install Windows XP on the new iMacs, with many asking the not entirely invalid question, “Who would want to do that?” Well, I would. In fact, I’m going to try to get Linux running on it as well. Why? Because I have to write about Macs, Windows and Linux. Take two computers into my front room? No, I just want to triple boot and go…

Posted on

SCHWIF2004 beta available

I’ve finally released the beta of the next version of SCHWIF2004, my handy utility for creating complex HTML messages in Entourage. There’s a few improvements:

  • Added support for background images referenced using attributes in the body tag or in stylesheets
  • Fixed a problem with Exchange server address books following previous Entourage update
  • Improved the documentation slightly
  • Added a warning for pre OS X 10.3 users

Grab it over at the SCHWIF2004 page.

Posted on

Those jury service people sure are nice

I got summoned for jury service recently. It couldn’t have come at a busier time so I asked for it to be postponed to January. I was expecting all sorts of bureaucratic resistance, autocratic refusal (“you’ll come when we tell you to come!”) and so on.

Instead, I got a nice little letter yesterday, accepting my request for postponement and giving me a date in January to turn up. Now how good is that? So I’d like to thank those nice jury service people for being so helpful and obliging. God bless you all.

Posted on

McDonald’s: the positive side

McDonald’s gets a whole heap of bad press, doesn’t it? There’s the world famous McLibel trial, news that its food contains ‘transfat’ or something and the big dispute about McJobs. Then there were those awful ‘Sex and the City’ ads, and their desperate attempts to convince us that their salads and sandwiches are healthy alternatives, despite being crammed to the top with battered chicken. I could go on, but we all have a range of McDonald’s stories locked in our memories that make us shudder already: you don’t need me to remind you of them.

So it’s good to see a positive article on McDonald’s for once. In this case, one of Spiked’s good writers explains why everyone’s ‘favourite’ fast food chain is absolutely perfect for autistic kids. It’s actually quite heart-warming.

Posted on

More than just parroting?

There’s a parrot called N’kisi that apparently has learnt 950 words. Impressive, huh? He probably knows more by now, actually. I’m not totally convinced by the claims made for him, though, with word fabrication being one of the simplest claims and telepathy being the most extraordinary. If I weren’t for the telepathy bit, I’d be more convinced…