Ignition....
18/12/06 11:36 Filed in: Personal
Well - after
what seems to be akin to a Noah-like period of deluge
in NW England, Saturday was both predicted, and
turned out, to be a fine day. I took the opportunity
to go out for a walk in the Lake District. However,
considering all of the rain we've had, I was careful
about which route and then factoring in time
constraints such as not getting started for various
reasons until 11am. I decided to start from High Oxen
and head around the Tarn Hows and then pick up one of
the great views of the Langdale Pikes from Iron Keld.
The weather was kind, a little rain, some hail and
lots of rainbows. The conditions underfoot were OK,
clearly the choice had been a good one.
Upon our circumnavigation around Tarn Hows, the NT are doing some work and a lot of trees, mainly pine, spruce, etc. had been cut down. I found it interesting to read that they are hoping to reduce the spruce, pine trees and plant some more native species and open the landscape. They pointed out that some areas were unsafe - I presume from the height of the trees and the depth (or lack of) of soil.
At the time, it reminded me a piece on the local TV news about the Lake District NP bidding for UN World Heritage status and the news programme had the usual vox populi section whereupon some said how lovely and natural it was. Pah! if it was natural then the lakes would probably be covered in dense forests almost up to the tops of most of the fells. It is the centuries of farming, grazing, forestry, industrial exploitation and tourism that make the lakes look like they are. For example, Tarn Hows is a man made reservoir to provide power to a saw mill, in a area that had much mining (copper) as well as slate and other quarries. Ironic I thought.
Still it was good to get ignited to get out, and I pondered on the difficulty of ignition - the hardest thing often is starting. I'm so full of good intentions it is the hardest thing to get going, but once ignited then for a while at least it is easier to keep going. I look forward to another walk in the forthcoming Christmas break.
Upon our circumnavigation around Tarn Hows, the NT are doing some work and a lot of trees, mainly pine, spruce, etc. had been cut down. I found it interesting to read that they are hoping to reduce the spruce, pine trees and plant some more native species and open the landscape. They pointed out that some areas were unsafe - I presume from the height of the trees and the depth (or lack of) of soil.
At the time, it reminded me a piece on the local TV news about the Lake District NP bidding for UN World Heritage status and the news programme had the usual vox populi section whereupon some said how lovely and natural it was. Pah! if it was natural then the lakes would probably be covered in dense forests almost up to the tops of most of the fells. It is the centuries of farming, grazing, forestry, industrial exploitation and tourism that make the lakes look like they are. For example, Tarn Hows is a man made reservoir to provide power to a saw mill, in a area that had much mining (copper) as well as slate and other quarries. Ironic I thought.
Still it was good to get ignited to get out, and I pondered on the difficulty of ignition - the hardest thing often is starting. I'm so full of good intentions it is the hardest thing to get going, but once ignited then for a while at least it is easier to keep going. I look forward to another walk in the forthcoming Christmas break.
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Review: AppleJack
14/12/06 17:22 Filed in: Computer
Tales
I would
recommend AppleJack to you, if you have a
Mac, are comfortable with the terminal and are
concerned that you may have problems. AppleJack is
a collection of scripts that you run from
Single-User Mode that perform a variety of tasks
to repair, help maintain and try to prevent
difficulties. However, if the term Single-User
Mode is unknown to you, then maybe AppleJack is
not for you.
Single-User Mode is initiated from start up by Pressing Command-S (aka Apple-S). You will get to a black screen with a very old-style command line. From there, you run applejack. Once done, then you can restart the machine, or let AppleJack do it for you.
Don't just take my word for it, see also MacFixIt - Troubleshooting Tools: AppleJack
I heard about AppleJack from the MacBreak 18 podcast and I'm imnpressed with AppleJack.
Single-User Mode is initiated from start up by Pressing Command-S (aka Apple-S). You will get to a black screen with a very old-style command line. From there, you run applejack. Once done, then you can restart the machine, or let AppleJack do it for you.
Don't just take my word for it, see also MacFixIt - Troubleshooting Tools: AppleJack
I heard about AppleJack from the MacBreak 18 podcast and I'm imnpressed with AppleJack.
Is the tide turning?
13/12/06 19:06 Filed in: Computer
Tales
It seems
strange, but I seem to know many people who now have
Macs, or are getting one, or are seriously thinking
of getting one. After all these years of wandering in
the wilderness preaching the Apple gospel, things may
be changing. What I do see is that people are liking
the totality of the Mac experience - whether it be
camcorder+iLife+Mac with Firewire or audio or iPod or
just trying something new. But I have heard good
things about the Apple retail experience - when
people go to the Apple Store and seriously talk to a
person. Though you could argue that improving upon
the level of expertise in most large stores (you know
who I mean) would not be difficult. But again this
philosophy of the totality of the experience is in
complete contrast to the other sides.
It makes me think how Apple could do something with the much-rumoured iPhone and the impending code-named iTV. The thing is, as a UK-resident, neither of these devices will be initially aimed at the non-US market. So it'll be the USA cell phone (aka mobile phone) standards and the USA TV standards (NSTC, etc.) that will get the fanfare of the initial products. But, as sure as the iTunes Music Store has (slowly) reached beyond the shores of the USA, the iTV will get PAL, I really hope that they get stuff to tie in with DVB-T and DVB-S and please even DAB radio. As for the iPhone then getting a service like the Apple Store experience will be a mighty challenge, because the most likely thing is that they will rebadge/leverage an existing service of the incumbents who stumped up the prices for the licences (the gang of 4 in the UK: O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and the other one: 3). Clearly none of these has the totality of the experience that Apple provides. I would not be risking too much to assume that this is similar with the USA incumbents such as Verizon, Cingular, etc.
All of this talk about the phone part of the iPhone talk is usually missing - others seem to go on about the iPod Integration or the User Interface, or whether it will have one or two batteries. Maybe we'll all be surprised in 2007 - even the Newton could be resurrected more than the Inkwell technology currently in OSX 10.4!
It makes me think how Apple could do something with the much-rumoured iPhone and the impending code-named iTV. The thing is, as a UK-resident, neither of these devices will be initially aimed at the non-US market. So it'll be the USA cell phone (aka mobile phone) standards and the USA TV standards (NSTC, etc.) that will get the fanfare of the initial products. But, as sure as the iTunes Music Store has (slowly) reached beyond the shores of the USA, the iTV will get PAL, I really hope that they get stuff to tie in with DVB-T and DVB-S and please even DAB radio. As for the iPhone then getting a service like the Apple Store experience will be a mighty challenge, because the most likely thing is that they will rebadge/leverage an existing service of the incumbents who stumped up the prices for the licences (the gang of 4 in the UK: O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and the other one: 3). Clearly none of these has the totality of the experience that Apple provides. I would not be risking too much to assume that this is similar with the USA incumbents such as Verizon, Cingular, etc.
All of this talk about the phone part of the iPhone talk is usually missing - others seem to go on about the iPod Integration or the User Interface, or whether it will have one or two batteries. Maybe we'll all be surprised in 2007 - even the Newton could be resurrected more than the Inkwell technology currently in OSX 10.4!