General

How to use “Safe Sleep” in OS X: This is the most awesome thing I’ve seen in a while; software-suspend for my iBook G4. I always hated having to carry around a brick in order to swap batteries on my iBook; it was either that, or be prepared to save everything, shut all the way down to “power off”, swap batteries, and start up again. Since the latter involves remembering all of the programs you’re using, and starting them back up again, and also remembering what you were doing before you waited 4 minutes for your system to shut down and start up again, I pretty much avoided that plan. Which required me to carry around a brick: plug the brick into the wall (and the laptop, of course), pull the discharged battery, plug in the new battery, unplug the brick and stow it. This new development means I can just close my laptop, wait for the flashing light, and swap the batteries. I do see a few seconds extra while waiting for the “sleeping” light to start pulsing (obviously while the contents of memory are written do disc), and a corresponding wait to restore from sleep (when the sleepfile is read into memory). But that’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means I can have 8 or 9 hours of battery life without having to carry around that brick. ...

I finally got a chance to see this movie; I neglected to see it in the theater when it was playing. But I obtained a copy of the DVD earlier this week, and watched it Thursday evening (CSI was a rerun). It’s pretty good. There are some plot points that I don’t quite agree with, mainly the ending, but I did like the fact that it was a lot darker than the previous version (in 1971). I read the book a couple of times when I was a kid, and I remember it being much less “happy bouncy” than the movie (that is, the 1971 version. I definitely wasn’t a kid earlier this year when the new one came out). I did enjoy the “parade of freaks” near the end of the movie, showing the eventual fates of the other four children; that passage in the book really stood out in my memory, and I like the fact that Burton was able to include it in the film. All that said, the “Wonka’s memory” stuff, with the flashbacks and personal history, was pretty much crap. I’m sure some pretext was necessary in order to give the movie an underlying plot that would appeal to modern audiences, but come on… his father was a dentist who never loved him, and that’s why he turned out so weird? Snore. And the whole “Charlie loves his family” thing? I mean sure, family values are important and all, but I’m pretty certain that wasn’t brought up in the book. Charlie definitely didn’t say “no” to Wonka’s offer. ...

So there’s this new piece of software out there, based on Firefox, called Flock. It’s not too bad, but obviously still beta software. I’m posting this entry from Flock’s integrated blogging client, which is kinda neat. I don’t think it’ll ever replace ecto, though. But it’s nifty, if for no other reason than its novelty. One thing I really like that no other browser currently has, though: “Favorites”. They’re not bookmarks in the traditional sense. Flock syncs your bookmarks with your del.icio.us account automatically (well, after an initial configuration), and anything you “star” goes straight into your bookmark list. There’s even an option to tag the bookmarks as they go in. ...

Specifically, version 4.7.00 (0510), which I believe is the newest release. Bottom line: it works. Previous versions, up to and including the release immediately prior to this one, had trouble with split-tunnel traffic routing. Those problems are resolved, as far as I can tell. It worked like it was supposed to yesterday evening when I connected to the VPN at work (which uses some pretty complicated split tunnels), in order to reboot something. ...

I was bored, so here’s a screenshot of my current desktop. It’s kinda boring, but there’s a nice long list of apps in the Dock. Click for full-size version. Application list (i.e., what all those pretty pictures do) after the bump.

I’d like to give a big shout out to rabidchild, back from his foray to the dark continent (that’s Africa, ya know).

For the last week or two, I’ve been getting double-strikes on my iBook G4’s keyboard. (Double-strike: hit a key, get two letters). I decided to go into my local Apple store (the one at Barton Creek Square Mall) and have on of the “geniuses” take a look at it. I was initially disappointed because of the long projected wait (I put my name on the list around 2:00, and it said my expected service time would be at 4:30), but it’s 3:00 now, and I’ve been home, chilling and reading through my email, for about the last 10 minutes. It was amazing how quickly my problem was addressed, diagnosed, and scheduled to fix. If they’d had spare keyboards in stock, the problem would have been fixed in about 10 minutes; as it is, I’ll probably swing by either Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon and have the new one installed. And the best part is, with the 1-year manufacturer’s warranty, I pay nothing. Well, I have to pay for my gas to get to the mall, but hey… at least I’m not paying for the $54 replacement keyboard. Maybe I will sign up for that extra 2 years. ...

I can understand why it’s necessary to use a leaf blower to clean sidewalks off after mowing. It’s irritating, and who ever cared about a few hundred tiny pieces of cut grass, but whatever. What I don’t understand is why the landscaping company that handles the grass at my apartment complex felt it necessary yesterday to use those damn noisemakers twice. The first time was around 9:15, just after they finish edging (ya know, weedwhackers?). That’s cool, I’d just gotten out of the shower and was about to go to bed. That lasted for a while, and I settled down to fall asleep. Then the mowers start in, and that keeps me up. OK, now it’s 10:30 and I really want to fall asleep. Mowers finally turn off, great. And then the leaf blowers start up again? Couldn’t they have saved themselves 30 minutes (or more) of work by waiting to get rid of the clippings until the very end? Don’t even get me started on the fact that there’s not really any grass within 20 or 30 feet of my bedroom window, but they apparently still felt it necessary to blow gravel around or something, right outside of said window. As it was, I didn’t really manage to get to sleep until well after noon (mild insomnia, plus all the noise, plus the fact that I didn’t fall asleep fast enough so I got hungry again, etc etc etc). OK, so it was actually some time between 2:30 and 3 before the glorious attack of the Z’s. I got about 8 hours of sleep (more or less), but now my body clock is going to be fucked up for the rest of the week. ...

I just finished watching Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, and . . . wow. It’s like a 90-minute-long cutscene, only in a good way. Square-Enix really outdid themselves with this one. Voice acting (so far as I could tell, since it’s in Japanese) was superb, the action scenes were amazing, and at one point what started running through my head was Belushi’s line from The Blues Brothers - “We’re getting the band back together!” ...

Google Blog Search: devlogic: Woohoo! Of the 18 results for the search string “devlogic” on the new Google Blog Search, I have the top 18 spots. That’s right, all of them. I guess nobody else has a weblog with “devlogic” involved.