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Sun, 25 May 2008
[23:36] I love Magnatune!
Ever since I found out about Magnatune at LUGRadio Live I've been poking around on the site and checking out the music. I've bought a couple of albums for $18 (the maximum you can pay - I'm prepared to pay for music I like and $18 seems pretty reasonable for an album I like) and on Friday I decided to pay for a download membership since I was pretty much streaming music all day every day for the last two weeks. There are some truly awesome albums available and I highly recommend you check it out. My current favourite is an album called Future Forever by Ion. It's a pretty simple ambient album (think of the Vangelis Blade Runner soundtrack) that does a great job of drowning out the real world without impinging on whatever I'm meant to be concentrating on at the time (although the first track, Future Forever, is so good that I may stop just to listen to it). The beauty of Magnatune is that I can just share with you the whole damn thing:
The only difference between what I'm listening to and what you'll get from hitting play here is a brief message at the end of each track sayying what it was and where it came from.
[Posted at: 23:36 25/05/2008]
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Wed, 21 May 2008
[14:48] UltraEdit coming to linux!!!
Apologies for the excessive use of exclamation marks but, as Big Kev would have said, I'M EXCITED!
UltrEdit was the first editor I ever used that wasn't just an editor but was, like Eddy McGuire, a powerful tool in it's own right (see that, IntelliMouse Support, whoa). I think I jumped on board around about version 6.00/6.10, somewhere in late-1998. UltrEdit was so good that I (eventually) payed for it, even back in the days of dodgy warez! When I transitioned to linux I tried running UltraEdit on Wine, but it just wasn't the same. I tried Kate, jEdit, emacs, NEdit and a whole host of others before finally settling on Vim, mostly because of it's ubiquity across both Windows (natively or via Cygwin) and the variety of Unix-based operating systems I was working with and because I found out that it had block-mode operations available in Visual Mode. So, I do my work with Vim or vi as required, but I still pine for the good ole days and, every now and then I amuse myself by watching the latest batch of slavering UltraEdit-junkies, going through withdrawl after moving to linux, throw themselves against the unyielding walls of IDM Computing Solutions in the forums.
Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I stumbled across this thread and, more excitingly, this post which states:
Re: UltraEdit for Linux Postby penntap on Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:08 pm Hi Everyone, We just wanted to give everyone interested in this thread a little insight into our efforts towards porting UE to LINUX/Mac. Along with ongoing development of our products over the last year we have indeed been working on a Linux version of UltraEdit we call UEx. That's right...it does exist and we are very pleased with our progress to date! As DaveS indicated, this is not a trivial process but we do have the in-house resources to accomplish this. Furthermore, we are also adding additional resources to those already being applied to this task. We expect to have a Linux version of UltraEdit ready for market late in 2008 (Q3 -Q4). We want to assure you, our customers, that we have heard your requests and we are working hard to provide the Linux/Mac version of UltraEdit you all want so much to see. Best wishes, Ian and teamI did some digging and there's not a lot to see yet apart from that post and a very brief mention in the Jan '08 Newsletter which says:
I am also pleased to report that we are making good progress with UEX, our cross-platform Linux version of UltraEdit. We hope to have UEX ready for commercial release later in the year.I for one, pledge allegiance to our new text-editor overlord and will joyfully pay the new license fee when it arrives. Just one thing. Would it be to much to ask for a Curses interface too?
[Posted at: 14:48 21/05/2008]
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Sun, 11 May 2008
[22:02] World War Z - Rating: 7/10
I just finished reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (who's name you might recognise from the satirical Zombie Survival Guide). I was recommended and loaned this book by a colleague during a discussion of all things apocalyptical earlier this week (in return I loaned him Survivors which you can also read online - it's an interesting read) and I, in turn, recommend it to all and sundry.
It's not a zombie gore-fest but a series of vignettes told by survivors of "World War Z", the decade long war fought by humanity against the undead zombie hordes. There is the occasional graphically violent scene but for the most part it's interesting riffs on how assorted nationalities would fare against a zombie invasion, the aftermath and the rebuilding from a personal point of view. It's not going to become a socio-poitical textbook but it's got some interesting food for thought on various currently topical subjects mixed in with a great story! The tale covers several countries and the author manages to shift tone quite succesfully from narrator to narrator. Most of the main themes are American-centric with tangential references to things like the various wars being waged and the state of international relations at the moment, slightly spiced by being referred to in the past tense.
All in all, a nice bit of weekend escapism (350 pages with lots of spaces due to the interview-style dialog) with the possibility of some pondering on the meaning of it all should you wish to partake.
[Posted at: 22:02 11/05/2008]
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Fri, 02 May 2008
[11:33] Iron Man - Rating: 7/10
We went out to see the new Iron Man movie this evening and I was pretty impressed! I've never been a huge Iron Man fan but I know the general story line and the movie appears to stick pretty closely to that. Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant as Tony Stark and the special effects were most enjoyable! The whole film is similar to the Transformers in that it's a foregone conclusion as to what's going to happen, it's all about how you get there. Also, there's not a great deal of annoying boy/girl stuff to get in the way of the action :) I recommend seeing it if you're not going to get upset about basic physical and chemical laws from this universe being flaunted with impunity.
Don't forget to stay to the end of the credits for the Iron Man 2 teaser with Samuel L Jackson portraying Nick Fury. I was a little surprised that Jackson was Fury as I was under the impression that Fury was a white guy. Turns out that I'm incredibly behind the times and that there's this thing called the Ultimate Marvel Universe in which all of the characters have been "reimagined" to bring them up to date with current times and the re-imagined Fury was specifically (and with permission) modelled on Jackson!
[Posted at: 11:33 02/05/2008]
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