Hahahaha aHAHAhahahahaaa... apparently XP Service Pack 3 wasn't fully tested on Apple laptops and the installation fails without a little hacking.  That's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.  Thanks Iain :-)

Windows SP3 on macbook with bootcamp | note to self

Riddick didn't say "Fuckin' disgusting", he actually said "Fuckin' insultin'".  Sometimes the quotes work better in my head than in yours.

"Fuckin' disgusting", to quote Riddick. Having had twenty four hours to digest it, those would be the two words I'd use to describe Iron Man.  This movie had so much potential and so much good about it, that it was disgusting what they did with the storyline. The blatant, offensive, irritating and just fucking disgusting racism in it was shocking to behold.  This is a movie that played ominous music whenever an Arab was shown on screen.  This is a movie where the "good guys" all work for or support the American military.  This is a movie where they showed the American flag and talked in terms of patriotism, winning the war in Iraq, and making better weapons to do so.  This is a movie where they lauded Stark's father, who helped create the atomic bomb.  Now, I have to add to all of this rant that this is how the comics were written originally.  At the time they would have been culturally relevant and not quite so politically incorrect.  Today however, it wouldn't work, and shouldn't have been made as it was.

The reason its such a pity is that taking out the blatant racism and American patriotism (difficult without changing the whole tenet of the story), Iron Man was indeed glorious.  The interplay between Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow was fantastic.  There were moments of pure frisson between the two of them that were just awesome to behold.  The suit was an incredible piece of special effects, being both completely believable and impossible at the same time.  Now, I'm not a great fan of the Iron Man comics, having read my last one about twenty five years ago, but from what I remember it all seems to have been fairly accurate.  If there hadn't been so much racism in it, then I would really have loved this movie.

As is it, I really cannot wait for the next one, so long as they lay off the blatant racism and silly patriotism.  I just can't tell you how much that spoiled it for me.

I'm typing this on the balcony, on a beautiful summer evening without a cloud in the sky.  There are some kids playing football on the grass below, and its all really idyllic.  So what's new then?  We just bought some furniture for the balcony; a very low table and some large cushions to sit on.  The table is rich dark solid oak, with heavy legs but not so heavy that it can't be moved around easily.  The cushions are low enough that you could sit on them and under the table at the same time. We also bought a bunch of coloured glass candle holders to provide illumination during the evenings.  Its all pretty cool really. 

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but the quality of housing here in München is so far in advance of London that it scares me.  We are paying overall substantially less here than we paid when living in London.  Not only that, but the quality of just about everything is better than it is in London.  Our apartment is in a managed building, so one of the tenants (called a Hausmeister) has a full time job to take care of things here.  He cleans all of the public areas (corridors, lift, cellars, washing-machine room etc), makes sure the rubbish gets taken out and collected, organises the recycling, keeps the heating running (not necessary at the moment!) etc etc.  Its all so very clean.  Even the underground parking has a car-wash in it. 

My one complaint, if you could call it that, is that the walls are too solid.  Wireless signals have to be boosted for every room or they just don't work.  Infuriatingly the signals travel better through the ceilings than they do through the walls.  I could therefore connect to several of my neighbour's WLANs with better reception than I would get on mine if it wasn't boosted by a second router.  In time, I'll change the whole thing over to 802.11n, but I really want to wait for the standard to be ratified first. The problem is that they don't expect the standard to be fully ratified until 2009 (yes FIVE years in the making).

So anyway, have to sand down the new table now, as I oiled it this morning...

There are three PCs at my desk at the moment. The first is a self-built desktop - Intel Core2 Duo E6600, NVidia 8800GTS, 2GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 (5-5-5-15), Coolermaster iGreen PSU @ 580W all on a GigaByte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard. There are currently two disks in it, one with 500GB and one with 400GB.  It runs the Vista Ultimate edition I received for beta testing that operating system.  It has a 20" Sharp flat panel display, 5.1 surround sound, a Saitek X36F HOTAS joystick and throttle, and as you can imagine its pretty sweet when playing games.

The second machine is a server that sits under the desk.  It has an eight drive hardware RAID 5 array in it, comprised of seven 300GB drives (all WD RAID Edition drives drives of the same model number) and one hot spare which would be used automatically if one of the drives in the array fails. It is a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with HT and 2GB RAM.  It currently runs Windows Server 2008.

The third is of course my laptop.  Its a Sony Vaio VGN-CR11Z/R detailed elsewhere, but suffice to say I do most of my work on it.  My desk is laid out so that the laptop is to the left of the keyboard, mouse and screen that controls the other two machines, which are linked with a KVM switch.  I prefer it that way as it means I have the best view of both machines at any one time. More specifically, I don't see as well on my right periphery as I do on my left, so while I'm looking at the monitor on which the desktop machine is running I am usually pretty much aware of what is happening on the laptop at the same time.  This is useful as I use a lot of smaller apps on my laptop, which update frequently. Case in point would be my Instant Message program; Twitter, and my social networking tools like Witty and twhirl.

I tell you all of the above merely to set the scene : My office / spare room has a fair bit of hardware in it, and I'm pretty sure about how I like it laid out. Last week I ordered a stand for my laptop.  The ergonomics of the desk weren't (and still aren't) perfect, and I was constantly switching to different levels to get to different systems.  The position of the laptop left a lot to be desired from the perspective of my wrists, as I had to raise them up slightly higher than the desktop keyboard.  So, I bought a Coolermaster Notepal S. It is a combination adjustable stand and cooler for laptops. It has actually made a lot of difference to how comfortable I am while working here.  I have support now for my wrists while working on the laptop, and the range of movement allowed me is enough to fully cover the whole keyboard.  It also raises the laptop screen up to my eye level which is better for my posture and more comfortable.  I now have both monitors on the same level. 

Unfortunately I still have to do something with the keyboard for the desktop and server.  It is under the  desk on a slide-out tray, which seems like a great idea until you realise that the mouse doesn't fit alongside it. If it did then I could very easily adjust everything to be optimally positioned.  While writing this post I have been experimenting with slightly different layouts for the desk, but I still can't find one that really works.  The desk itself is fully adjustable, so I can raise or lower it substantially. I think the solution is going to be to raise it slightly so that I fit  well under the keyboard tray, and then to lower the Laptop slightly to compensate. If all of this sounds a little hard to imagine, this photo shows how it is currently setup.  I'm probably making it sound more complex and indeed uncomfortable than it actually is, but often minor changes require the longest descriptions.  So, on with the adjusting...

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about the Notepal.  If you're looking for a good laptop stand that is adjustable and acts as a cooler then this could be the device for you.  It is adjustable to six different heights and seems to be pretty sturdy.  It comes in black or silver and feels very sturdy.  As passive coolers go it works just fine - there are slats at the back through which air can flow so the outside of your laptop should probably have a lower temperature then when it stands on a flat surface.  So far I'm pretty happy with it.

At last, someone has come up with a decent report on how insecure Facebook apps really are.  In this BBC report you'll see why I don't generally use Facebook apps.

Identity 'at risk' on Facebook

Way way back (this would be when we lived in Cork I think, which makes it when I was fourteen or fifteen) I had a game for one of my computers.  It was about keeping a ball up in the air and getting points for the most amount of kicks you could make. Someone has re-created it with a more modern slant and James linked to it recently.  Check it out for some time-consuming fun!

Jims Blog - Flash ActionScript has never been so much fun...

Interesting new product going into limited beta from Microsoft.  Its called Live Mesh, and it is apparently going to form the basis of their new internet-based file system.

Playing with Live Mesh: First Experiences | Sarah In Tampa | Channel 10

Yesterday we were looking to book some flights to Dublin for my Dad's birthday later in the year.  There are only two carriers flying direct between Munich and Dublin; Aer Lingus and Lufthansa. Unortunately Lufthansa seem to only fly on some days of the week, and we were looking for something more precise than their schedules.  Aer Lingus fly twice a day, and at first glance appear to be cheaper. 

I have to say I find the experience of booking with them to be very irritating. The first thing is that you appear only to be booking for one person, even if you have multiple passengers selected at the front page.  I went back a couple of times to check if that was an error on my part before proceeding, but it obviously was some quirk they thought would make the process more transparent. ie: price per customer rather than total price.  I can almost see how it would make sense, if they hadn't completely fucked it all up later in the process.

The next is that their session time isn't set to be too long, so one has to go fairly quickly through the pages in order to not have the transaction time-out and avoid restarting from scratch. I only had to do this once, but the simple fact that I actually had to go back and restart my transaction again from scratch irritated me no end. By the time I had figured out which dates we were going to fly, how long we were going to go for, and what times of the day we could fly, the process had to be restarted.  Now, I don't know about you, but I rarely know in advance that I want to fly at 19:00 on a Friday.  I typically know the days I want to fly, but there are so many variables when I book flights in advance that I can change my mind significantly.Aer Lingus's web site doesn't want that.  It wants you to know before you load it exactly when you're booking for, and you have no more than a few minutes per page to process those pages.  Also note that there is a LOT of small print to be read.

I have to pay (preferably in advance) for my luggage to go on the hold.  I discovered that only after I had gone sufficiently far into the process that it was just too much hassle to quit, and I had no backup plan anyway as they fly the most regularly on our route. It is a fairly large amount too - €18 per bag for a return flight.

After entering my credit card details and getting the transaction processed, I was presented with a further page telling me that I had to pay for seats. What.The.Fuck. Seriously... think about that for a minute.  Why would they go to the hassle (and expense for them) of running two transactions against my credit card for the same flight? Never mind the fact that I had just paid €400 for flights, now I have to pay for my seats too? What if I had said "no"?  Surely there's a cause for someone suing them for bait and switch sales practices?

So, my words of advice to you are these.  Aer Lingus has gone completely mad.  They used to be an airline I liked to fly with, and would chose over others if I had the chance, but no longer. Enough is enough.  Next time we get to say a warm and fuzzy "Fuck you, Aer Lingus". Next time we're flying Lufthansa (if it actually is Lufthansa and not an Aer Lingus codeshare).

I woke up this morning after having pretty much been asleep for the previous forty hours.  All of yesterday barring an hour or so in the morning and the evening, and most of the previous day.  Its all a result of having been vaccinated against a bunch of potential killer diseases.  So, with three injections, I was vaccinated against TB, Diphtheria, Polio, and two others I can't translate; one of which is part of the standard vaccination sets given to children here, and one to counter the disease carried by tics which you can encounter in the mountains here. 

I continue to be impressed by the quality of medical practice here, and the complete absence of payment except to out medical insurance group.  Don't get me wrong, we're paying about two hundred euros per month for that medical insurance, but it seems to be very comprehensive.  For example, most of our drugs are covered, all of our medical costs (so far) and access to specialists is particularly easy. I wanted to get a follow up test done for my cancer, and instead of needing to be referred by my GP, I can simply pick up the phone and call a specialist.

I have to admit to a certain amount of cynicism about medical things when we came over here first.  In London, we paid nothing for our medical costs either, but the conditions of the hospitals and GP practices were positively Victorian.  I have seen both sides of that system too, both the beautiful (private room in Westminster hospital overlooking the houses of parliament) and the ugly (public room in the same hospital where there were eight of us in a ward), and even the best of them left a lot to be desired.  Here in Germany you have to pay for medical insurance, and its typically pretty damn expensive, but you really get what you pay for.

Oh, that reminds me of something.  There is apparently no blood test for the type of cancer I had (seminoma), but they took blood from me every time I went back for a check up.  Have to go look at my medical records and see what they were looking for...