I’d mentioned recently how I’ve been using Crossover to run Internet Explorer for Windows from my MacBook Pro, without having to install Windows. That works rather well, but doesn’t give much flexibility - only a relatively small subset of applications run under Crossover.
Today, I downloaded the MacWorld-announced Parallels Release Candidate, and grabbed a WinXP SP2 install CD. It took about 2 hours to get Windows installed and updated, but once that was done, Parallels is pretty darned cool. Coherence mode is sweet, hiding as much of Windows as possible, and letting the Windows applications’ windows float freely as nearly first-class citizens on my Mac desktop. I installed iTunes and Quicktime to see how they perform - pretty darned well, surprisingly. I then went to install a real testing application - Quake3Arena - only to find that Parallels doesn’t support OpenGL. Yet.
I just finished the first pass at upgrading this blog to Drupal 5.0. Looks like almost everything is working right out of the gate. I hit a few minor glitches:
spam.module has a strange bug, where it fails to display nodes with ID larger than 1519. Node 1520 and higher failed to display at all until I disabled spam.module and switched to Akismet.
CCK - my bikelog is MIA. not the end of the world - actually, I’d hoped to just go ahead and retire it and do what normal/sane people do: get a cyclecomputer. But, enough people find their way to that page from the CCK/Calculated Fields page that I’ll give ’er a shot when I get a chance.
The K2-derived theme I’d been using borks under D5. Again, not the end of the world. I’ll take a look at upgrading it later. For now, I’m kinda liking the new default Garland theme…Theme updated. Borrowed snippits from Garland to get the scripts etc… properly included.
TinyMCE appears to be shy. It’s installed and enabled, but refuses to show up. Again, not the end of the world, as I’d just as often write raw text/html or use Performancing for Firefox, which works just fine. Update: I grabbed FCKEditor, and it’s doing a decent job. I miss having the user setting that let me turn off rich text editing by default, so it doesn’t bork embeded code, but maybe FCKEditor doesn’t do that…. Bork embedded code, I mean. I’m really not a fan of FCKEditor’s lack of semantic markup (using br br instead of wrapping paragraphs in p elements, for example) but it works.
The code I’ve been using to automatically generate the colophon (list of active modules, etc…) borks under Drupal 5.
There may be other gotchas. I did the upgrade on my desktop box, then moved it into place so I’m relatively sure nothing is pouring smoke…
But, there’s a better way. Crossover for Mac - it’s a polished commercial version of the open source Wine tool/library which provides a way to run Windows applications in MacOSX without having to install Windows. Basically, it provides a self-contained environment where applications are tricked into thinking they’re running on Windows, but they’re actually running on a bridge between the Windows API and MacOSX (and X-11 for display). You set up a “container” or a “bottle” to hold an application or two, and Crossover takes care of system-level stuff. You get an application icon that’s right at home in your dock, too.
Northern Voice is definitely the most community-oriented conference I’ve heard of. First, they keep the cost so low it’s essentially free when compared with other tech (and even non-tech) conferences. If you’re in Vancouver, there’s not much of a financial barrier to attend.
But, what if you’re not in Vancouver? What if you’re a blogger/student from Small Town BC (or beyond)? Well, now there’s the Northern Voice 2007 Travel Bursaries. All you have to do is write a blog post or record a podcast that describes how you meet a few criteria, and you may be awarded one of 6 travel bursaries of $500CDN each so you can offset the costs of attending. How freaking cool is THAT? There’s no mention of the source of the bursaries, whether a philanthropist or corporate donation was involved, or if they come from registration fees. Either way, it’s awesome, and something I’d like to see from more conferences (many offer student discounts, some even comp admission to individuals, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a conference offering to reimburse people for travel expenses too).
I got a MacBook Pro this week, and am absolutely loving the thing. The little remote that controls Front Row (and other apps) is so elegant, and I miss it sometimes on my G5. At home, I set up the MBP on top of the fireplace so it’s visible everywhere, and fire up iTunes or Movies. Very handy and cool.
But, the Photo display is tied to iPhoto. I just moved up to Aperture. So, for now, I’ve got my end-of-life iPhoto library sitting next to my shiny new Aperture library. Wasting 18GB of disk space just so I can look at photos from Front Row.
Jeff Han gave a presentation at last year’s TED conference, showing his tactile interface system. Forget mice and keyboards. This is a less-creepy version of Minority Report. Or Star Trek’s LCARS interface.
I’ve watched it 3 times today. I want my next computer to work like this. How about a 30" Cinema Display that tilts backward to become a tabletop surface with tactile interface…
One of the tasks that’s been on my desk for awhile has been giving some love to CAREO. It sorta stopped working a few months ago, and nobody really cared enough for it to be a High Priority Urgent Fix. The hard drive started to corrupt, and services went from spotty to unavailable. And stayed that way.
Actually, I think it’s a pretty impressive statement about Institutional Repositories that something that was once trumpeted as The Next Big Thing can be out of action for 9 months without many people even noticing. Relevance of top-down, centrally ordained institutional Repositories?
Wow. iPhone. Must have one. It’s like Newton 2007. I wonder if Inkwell works with it…
Now, if it is possible to write apps for it (or even just web apps might do) this might be an awesome platform for education. A community outboard brain in every pocket. I imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before there are Bluetooth laboratory instruments - pH meters, thermometers, GPS, photometers, voltmeters, etc… Your own personal laboratory instrument manager and data tracker. Tied to your blog, Flickr, wikipedia, del.icio.us, etc..
It should be a blast. I’ve been following Chris and Jon’s (and of course Brian’s) blogs for a long time now (I’m sorry Sylvia - I don’t think I’ve seen your blog yet, although I’ve seen your tracks on many of the blogs I read). I’m not completely sure what I’ll talk about for my portion of the panel presentation, but I’ll likely share some experiences from weblogs.ucalgary.ca, our incredible success with the student teacher blogging/journal program, and the shared social software hosting environment I’m working on with BCIT for BCCampus.
