Sunday - February 26, 2006Roger Baily: 26/05/1939 - 26/02/2006. My dad passed away today at 6:30am (GMT+10:00.) I don't have words right now. Words would be inadequate. Words could paint only a pale imitation of the beautiful, loving, decent, honourable man he was. Rest in peace dad. - I am Paul, son of Roger, of the clan Baily. Wednesday - October 26, 2005iTunes Music Store Australia opens (finally.)Huzzah! iTMS Australia is finally here. Yes, for
real, no aborted media events with it peeking at the audience from the wings,
it's here.
And it's as slick as everyone has said. Integration with iTunes is impressive, it all just works. Now a quick note for Sony BMG if I may... [...] Saturday - May 07, 2005Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger installed: Rawr!Seagoing trials with various apps continue, but
Tiger is
awesome.
More details to follow... Saturday - April 23, 2005iTMS Australia going live 28/04?Loose
lips...
Fellow Aussie Paul Sofronoff heard a very interesting slip o' the tongue by Russell Crowe on the John Laws radio show yesterday: [quoted from Macintouch] "Russell Crowe appeard on The John Laws radio show this morning in Australia to promote his latest solo tunes. He told Laws, "You can download some of my music from iTunes Music Store which is available in Australia on the 28th [of April]". Oopsie daisy. Think I just heard the screech of an Apple Australia Product Manager's car swerving off the road. Saturday - April 16, 2005Mac OS X 10.3.9 out: fixes PowerBook flickering brightness (oh, and other stuff.) [UPDATED]Available now via Software Update, Apple's page
detailing the changes is here.
[UPDATED: slight reword, clarify] This update has a bucket of minor refinements and fixes, including. v1.2.1 of the AppleLMUController kernel extension (kext.) In english, this is the critter that listens to a PowerBook's ambient light sensors (if present) and adjusts backlighting as appropriate. This version which, unlike the problematic v1.2.0 kext included in 10.3.8, is no longer hyperactive about adjusting backlight levels. I've covered this issue earlier and suggested that one workaround is to roll AppleLMUController back to the 10.3.0 version, which (for me) worked. The 10.3.9 update fixes this issue properly. No flickering brightness, no yapping-like-an-attention-deprived-Maltese-Terrier in the system log. [...] Sunday - March 20, 2005On me wey!By this time tomorrow I'll be in New Zealand
re-introducing myself to the clan Baily. It's been a good ten years since I've
been there.
See you in about ten days. Monday - February 21, 2005Tip: PowerBook Brightness flickering? Here's a fix.One of the nicest features of the 15" Aluminium
PowerBooks (and some of its siblings) is their ambient light sensors. Situated
under each speaker grille, these allow the 'Book to tell how bright its
environment is and adjust the screen brightness (and backlit keyboard if you
have one) to suit.
It's a thing o' beauty to put the machine to sleep in a full light office, wake it up in a low light environment at home and have the screen dim to a comfortable level and fade up the keyboard lighting. That was until 10.3.8 when things went slightly batty. The PowerBook developed a nervous tic. You could almost sneeze and it would drop the brightness down a bit then back up again, resulting in a maddening flicker effect. Until Apple fixes it here's how I fixed it on mine. [...] Monday - December 13, 2004The CD that iTunes wouldn't rip.One of my favourite CDs has resisted attempts to
be added to my iTunes collection (and therefore my
iPod.)
It's not one of those skanky copy-protected CDs (ie. a disc with measures deliberately added to prevent ripping, thereby making it not a valid CD) otherwise I'd have returned it for a refund as a defective disc. No, this one was merely badly pressed. It would play on my home CD players, but it wouldn't play reliably in the car and it wouldn't play (or rip) reliably on my PowerBook. What to do, what to do... why, call in the big iron in the form of a Power Mac 9600. Perfect for home defence (and for ripping CDs that won't be ripped.) Ah yes the 9600. They don't make 'em like they used to... [...] Wednesday - October 27, 2004You won't believe it...Almost spat my coffee out when I read this, it
looks like Apple are soon to release socks for the
iPod.
Not laughing so hard at the iSock now, are ya? ;-) Wednesday - October 27, 2004New iPods (as promised :-)Sure enough, as mentioned in previous entries,
since buying an iPod a couple of weeks ago forced an inevitable set of
developments in motion, Apple have restored the balance of the iPod continuum by
introducing new models:
The spiffy looking black iPod U2 Special Edition (the red scroll wheel certainly, er, makes a statement.) and the iPod Photo. I'm still blissfully happy with my model though, it's a star performer! Tuesday - October 19, 2004iPod: scratchproofing in the car.When I found that (for me) the ideal travelling
location for my iPod was the glovebox, I thought about how to protect my
precioussss from scratches. I mentioned something different? Here it is, and
once again in the interests of fairness I'll include
pics.
Slim form factor, great price point (buy one, get one free), flexible, complementary colouring, compatible with all generation iPods and iTrip. [...] Monday - October 11, 2004The day of the iPod.Saturday 9th Oct. Time to pick up the iPod. Also
incidentally the day of the Australian Federal Election. Unfortunately voters
showed the colour of their fleeces and voted the incumbents back in. Worse yet,
for the first time in ages the senate also looks like it'll have a majority of
the same party. This is scary because the senate usually can be relied on to
provide a sanity check on hair-brained policies the house of reps might try to
push through.
Anyway, nothing, not even that, was going to ruin this day. [...] Monday - October 11, 2004The day before the iPod.Friday 8th Oct. This
was
to be the day I picked my iPod up. Since the AppleCentre I'd used was close to
home, it was over one hour away from work, so I left the office at 3 to beat
traffic. Early? No, the Sunshine Coast is a holiday destination, and Friday
afternoon is when all the City Folk (I can say that now) head north to spend the
weekend in our backyard.
Nature had other ideas though. [...] Saturday - October 09, 2004Holy cow, it worked! (part 2)What did I tell you? Looks like the Good For You
part may also be working. Rumour sites are starting to talk up the possibility
of a new iPod. Thanks again, Mr. Murphy, our work is
done.
Read about it here: AppleInsider, ThinkSecret, apple-x.net, Insanely Great Mac, and even the (other) Reg. Not complaining one bit though, as I type this, a gorgeous 4th gen iPod is here suckling on its power supply before getting loaded for bear. Obligatory voyeuristic box-opening pics and impressions to follow. In the meantime I need to watch what I blog, because clearly Mr. Murphy is paying attention. Friday - October 08, 2004Holy cow, it worked!So I get in to the office this morning (I'd
worked from home yesterday, three extra hours in the day and time with the
lovely Reg is always good) and check landline voicemail. Sure enough, a message
from the AppleCentre in question, a shiny demon iPod awaits with my name on it!
Woohoo! I'll be picking it up after work
today.
Thank you Mr. Murphy, a gleeful git am I. Now let's see if the Good for You part comes true too. :-) Thursday - October 07, 2004iPod, where for art thou?The wait for my shiny new 40GB iPod continues, three weeks
and counting. Looking around the fora, a lot of people seem to be having similar
if not longer waits, and not just in Australia (where we're used to delays,
iTMS anyone?), so rather than having a whinge,
this entry is to fix that.
That's right, this very blog entry will help both you and me. No really. [...] Sunday - September 26, 2004I want a new toy (ohweyoh!)So let's say I've a penchant for gadgets and I
finally figure out that for less than the price of a pizza per week (hey, sounds
like a slogan...) I can pick up a gadget that turns me from mild-mannered geek
to hip silhouette dancing to a primary colour backdrop. What's a guy to
do?
Why, pick up the phone and say "Make it so." [...] Sunday - September 12, 2004PowerBook G4 15", meet Sony Ericsson T630.Turnover time recently for my mobile phone. After
reading reviews and kicking tyres, I picked a
T630.
So the guy at the shop showed off the box contents: Salesguy: "Here's your new phone, and the CD for your PC-" Me: "Uh, it's okay, I use a Mac, it'll work just fine out of the box." And it does Just Work. [...] Monday - April 26, 2004Remote Control iTunes from your web browser.Help! I've fallen down and I can't reach the
remote! (or my
beer!)
[...] Thursday - April 22, 2004Airport Update 3.4New update to the Airport software is out (see
Apple's page here),
and seeing as how I live by Airport at home I thought I'd hang back and see what
other peoples' experience with it was. As usual there have been mixed reports,
some say it works fine, some say signal level drops. I really wanted to take a
look at the new Airport Management
Tools (which require AP 3.4) so I went ahead and did it. And
lived.
[...] Quick Tip: Installing Riven on the hard disk Quick Pick: FUSkey. Troubleshooting printing from Classic in Panther. Panther does autorun/autoplay on CD-ROMs!? PowerBook G4 15" Part Two PowerBook 15": Just get one. PowerBook changeover: the feasting. PowerBook changeover: the fasting. Four words Huzzah! We're doing fine. |
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Total entries in this category: <$CategoryEntriesCount$> Published On: Dec 27, 2006 06:36 pm
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