This blog entry was dictated using windows speech recognition.  This entire blog entry was dictated using windows speech recognition.  The implications of this concept are saying really mind blowing. I have to say however, that the implementation doesn't match the implication.  That last sentence was originally dictated as "I have to say, for the invitation doesn't match the locations"  It is certainly very cool, but I'm pretty sure I could type it faster than I'm speaking right now.  Actually, I am completely sure that I could have typed this faster.  The problem with Windows Speech Recognition at this point in time seems to be that I simply haven't been through the voice training fully.  However, when I have my speech slowed down to a point where I am talking very deliberately and clearly, then it mostly seems to work.

Microsoft have just released a program called Windows Speech Recognition Macros (WSR Macros). This builds upon the windows speech recognition system supplied with Vista and allows you to programmatically control Windows.  The concept is fantastic, but even though I have been through the entire training program, I find that I could have typed this faster.  The problem seems to be that rate of recognition for many of the words I speak is hampered by something.  I think it may possibly be the level of the built in microphone on my laptop.  I have been tweaking the volume all throughout the duration of time it has taken me to write this post, but so far I still find it very inaccurate.  Some sentences are very well recognised and quick to dictate, but some are seriously slow.  There also seems to be a lot of crossover between dictating and using the system commands (e.g.: Dictating the word "delete" causes this application to the try to delete an existing post).

There is hope, however.  It is very possible that if I were to use an external microphone that the rate of correct word recognition would be greatly increased.  I do have an external Logitech USB headset around here somewhere that I could use for this very purpose, and as soon as I find it I'll give it a try.  Interesting stuff however, with a lot of potential. If I can sort out the accuracy then there's a good chance I would use this a lot more.

In nine years of blogging, I seem to have only mentioned The Pink Floyd about four times. I have no idea why this is, as they have been one of my (if not the) favourite bands for far longer than the lifetime of DaveWhite.Net.  I never got to see them play, to my great distress. In fact, I had the opportunity to see them on two occasions, but circumstances played against me. 

The first time was for the Division Bell tour in 1994.  There was a Rocky Horror Picture Show convention on in London that we (as cast members of the Irish Rocky) were supposed to go to.  I had quit my job about two weeks before that so I didn't go because I thought it would be a waste of money.  Little did I know that Pink Floyd played their famous Earl's Court gigs that weekend and that there were tickets for us to go to see them.  Those concerts were later immortalised on the P•U•L•S•E album. I found out about it on the Monday when someone came back and told me that the concerts were the best thing they had ever seen.  Typical.  The second time was for the Live 8 gig.  The problem with that one was that Anna came home from a trip to the US early, sick, and in need of care.  That trumps a concert in my eyes.

I have seen David Gilmour play in concert at the Royal Albert Hall for his On An Island tour, and that was awesome.  The particular night we were there was the one where David Bowie sang Arnold Layne and Comfortably Numb, and ranks up there with the best concerts I have ever seen.  I do have the DVDs, but I haven't ever looked at them to see if we can be seen, being usually too concerned with what was happening on the stage.  I think we (Trev, Dennis, Seamus, Duncan, me) should be pretty visible, as we were in a box centred on the left wall.  I must check that out sometime.

I have all of Pink Floyd's albums, and have downloaded some bootlegs and variations I haven't found in physical format.  Most of the albums are in CD format, but I think there's actually a couple of vinyl albums back in Ireland, that I'll have to dig out at some point.  They are all of course digitised and on my MP3 player, and taking up a lot of room as I have them ripped at a high bit rate.  Again, at some point in the future I'm going to make lossless rips of them (and possibly my U2 collection, actually probably most of our CDs, but that's a project for a later time) and to hell with the size implications.  Disks are cheap now days, right? One that I don't have (yet) is the new boxed set Oh By The Way that they just released.  Each of the CDs on it are miniature versions of the original albums and presented inside sleeves that look like the album slip covers.  I also have a couple of their VHS videos - Live at Pompeii and a recorded-from-TV Earls Court concert.

I have also seen the Australian Pink Floyd many many times.  They are perhaps one of the best tribute bands in the world, and have been around for a long time now.  Stumbling across their updated web site yesterday prompted me to write this post, though I can't remember the impetus for looking at their site in the first place.  It might have been something somebody on Twitter mentioned, but it eludes me now. Anyway, your chances of seeing them in concert are far better than seeing the originals, and while nothing will ever match the real thing, they're pretty damn good.  We've also seen them in the Albert Hall, where they performed the 30th anniversary tour of Dark Side of the Moon, which was pretty special.  Oh, I remember now what made me think of them.  There was a track that I was looking for online which is their version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, which had a sequence of sound before it (effects like the Skippy theme, Neighbours theme etc building into a slight crescendo and then fading rapidly to leave you with the familiar G minor opening sequence. It was in fact a rare moment that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up when I first heard it.  I couldn't find it online, although some of the effects are audible on some sequences of the embedded songs on their site.

I guess its pretty safe to assume that they are my favourite band.  As a general rule I listen to anything from metal to classical, but I have some staples in my taste.  Rock and Roll, a la Pink Floyd, U2 and Bruce Springsteen being my most listened to genre. Those are the bands that I used to go asleep to when I was younger, and the ones that I now have on my MP3 player and routinely play.

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.

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

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...