Installed a few 'grams I've been meaning to set up on the Powerbook.

Finally a BitTorrent client for OSX that works. And it works like a dream. No need to drag myself across the tatami to the old W2K notebook to download torrents anymore. I'm not sure what my problem was but all previous attempts to install an OSX version turn out dud. I can guess, but I don't want to belittle myself in public. In any case, if you need it - and you do need it - get it here.

If you are new to BitTorrent, be sure to read the Introduction to understand how BitTorrent works. If you have any questions, please refer to the FAQ.

GnuPG was also a trouble free install, but then I've never had an issue with it on any OS. I decided to generate a new key set for myself and keep it on the Powerbook.

Mplayer OSX was a passing afterthought, but I'm willing to give it a go because as much as I like VideoLan Client, it's not really all that stable. Some DVDs will die after the main menu and other won't even start playing. Granted it's only a small number [under 10%], but when it happens it sucks. I'm hopeing MPlayer OSX will be better.

MPlayerOSX is binary distribution of MPlayer (The Movie Player for Linux) and comes with native GUI in MacOSX. After installation you can simply (by Drag&Drop) play almost all 3ivx, DivX 3,4,5 and other codecs files in the window or fullscreen mode. Rendering of very nice antialiased text-based subtitles is also supported.

And there's other reasons to have MPlayer installed. It's really powerful as a command line utility with converting video formats and if I can get the same functionality on the PowerBook that I do on the Linux boxen I'll be stoked. One plus already is that it doesn't have that stink-ass GUI you get with the Linux version. Some skinned apps just don't do it for me.

Linux Movies is interesting project on sourceforge.net.

The Linux Movies Group is an organization for the advancement and mutual support of motion picture technologists using the Linux operating system. Linux is the most popular operating system for animation and visual effects in the motion picture industry.

They don't produce any software but have a great listing of commercial and open source software that runs on Linux and allows professional movie makers to do there thing.

I'm seriously thinking about buying The Production Suite this weekend. One thing I'm unsure about is whether I should buy it here in Japan on order it from the US. I know OSX is multi-language, but what about Apple's other apps. The physical manual in English is no big deal, but I'd need the soft copy of the documentation to be in English. Guess I could just ask the guys at BicCamera, or make a phone call the Apple.

This might be worth having a look at.

Processing is a programming language and environment built for the electronic arts and visual design communities. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook. It is used by students, artists, design professionals, and researchers for learning, prototyping, and production.

The software is currently in a prerelease stage, but features and bug fixes are being made as we head toward a more complete "1.0" release. Processing is free to download and available for PC, Mac, and Linux.

Processing is used at many universities and institutions including: MIT (Cambridge), University of California Los Angeles, Interaction Ivrea (Turin), Yale (New Haven), New York University, San Francisco Art Institute, Universität der Künste (Berlin), Royal College of Art (London), Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota), HyperWerk (Basel), Hongik (Seoul), Ateneo de Manila University, and many more.

On a slightly related topic, Blender 2.35 has been released. It's a great version with heaps of new features and bug fixes, but I won't go into it too much, just download it and check it out yourself.

As far as good editors on OSX go, there's really not much choice out there. I'm still not sure if that's because the few editors around are so good, or if there's just not enough people into developing OSX editors. The commerical app BBEdit seems to get most of the praise, however I've never used it 'cause I'm kind of on an open source tip. After forking out the $ for a Powerbook, there's not much change to throw at apps like editors when you really want to save up and spend big on super-toys like The Production Suite, Shake or Logic Pro.

SubEthaEdit is a quality open source editor, which I've been using since I ripped the plastic off my apple box, but I've always had a few issues with how it handles selecting text, so I've kept my eye open for something else to try.

A while ago the DrunkenBatman mentioned TextMate, but without the ability to print and no preferences, I'll give the developers a bit of time before giving it a shot. It also costs $50, which also puts it down the priorities list.

I'm not sure where the name comes from, but Smultron seems to have some promise. I've only recently downloaded it, but so far it's been plainless.

Smultron is an open-source text editor written in Cocoa for Mac OS X Panther with many of the features that you might need. It features easy selection of the opened documents, line numbers, support for syntax colouring for many different languages, support for text encodings, code snippets, a toolbar, a status bar, HTML preview, multi-document find and replace with regular expressions, possibility to show invisible characters, authenticated saves, command-line utility, .Mac synchronisation of preferences and many more features.

Smultron has all the basic requirements for a good editor and a little bit more. The code-snippets feature is kind of handy, but I'm still not use to using it - old habits and all that. Smultron's interface is not as painful as some applications built using Cocoa. It has a similar feel to Kate, which I use on any Linux boxen I have to code on.

I'll give it a few weeks, see how it goes, then let you know.

Update: I read the Smultron FAQ and... Smultron is the Swedish name for wild strawberry and I thought it sounds kind of nice. Plus I didn't have to think about the icon for the application, I just used a photograph of a smultron.

While searching for images on Google I came across a link to the BBC's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy cult site. It brought back some nice thoughts from years ago when I watched the TV series as a kid. I remembered that I always got a kick out of watching the animations that occurred everytime the Guide was consulted. Through the site I was able to find a link to Rod Lord's website, where you can get some A3 prints from the original artwork negatives. I don't think I'm that keen, but it was good to have a look around.

Went for a short drive/walk today to get myself away from the LCD and stretch my legs. It's getting damn cold in Hokkaido now days. Yotei is starting to get a bit of cover, but it's only a slight dusting compared to what's to come. If this were in Australia, the ski resorts would be releasing copy like - "There was a massive dump last night covering the entire moutain, weather conditions are prime for a great season. Better start booking your trip now 'cause thet season going to be a busy one." - and would omit the part about them churning out the man-made snow 24/7 all over the slopes.

On closer inspection you can see it's not much, but it is the all important sign that winter is kicking in.

At the base of Yotei in several places around the mountain are natural springs where the water, that's taken 10 years to seep thought the volcanic rock from the snow melts, finally sees daylight again. There are no streams, rivers or any other form of surface water on Yotei, it all goes directly into the ground/rock. And it's a big hot with the locals and tourist alike. Cafes and restaurants usually let you know if they're giving you water from Yotei. Snak [スナク] bars and other drinking spots will make their ice out of the precious liquid. And people will turn out in droves to collect as many bottles as their cars will carry.

It does taste nice.

I'm posting this for my own reference 'cause I really want to check it out, but have just been too busy with work to do anything about it. It's just going to have to wait for a couple of months.

S5 is a slide show format based entirely on XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With one file, you can run a complete slide show and have a printer-friendly version as well. The markup used for the slides is very simple, highly semantic, and completely accessible. Anyone with even a smidgen of familiarity with HTML or XHTML can look at the markup and figure out how to adapt it to their particular needs. Anyone familiar with CSS can create their own slide show theme. It's totally simple, and it's totally standards-driven.

I know...sounds pretty cool right, and it's been mentioned almost everywhere I've visited in my recent short browsing sessions.

I discovered FoxyTunes via PHPComplete, and although I haven't installed it yet [I like to keep Firefox as lean as possible, and have no issues with opening another app to listen to music], I'm a not-so-quiet promoter of Firefox and it's benefits. Usually I mention Firefox's security benefits and it's adherence to web standards, but unfortunately this makes a lot of my friend's eyes go blurry just before they start breathing through their mouth and pretending to understand what the hell I'm talking about. Anyways...

# FoxyTunes is an Extension for Mozilla Firefox. It also supports the Mozilla Suite and Mozilla Thunderbird. # It allows you to control your favorite media player without leaving the browser. # The controls are positioned on the status bar or one of the toolbars, so no extra space is wasted. # FoxyTunes has several nice features. You can control the playback, adjust the volume, see what's playing and more.

Yet another reason to switch...umm...eh...change.

The powers that be have been promising DSL in my small town of Niseko for more than a year now, and the town has been screaming for it for more than that. After filling in multiple request forms some action finally seems to be taking place.

Today three guys came to my door and wanted to measure the distance from my phone jack to the street outside. Yep...three guys. This is Japan remember. One guy was there to take the cover off the phone jack and feed the measuring cable in. Another guy was there to produce a hand-drawn map of the room and where the phone jack was located in it. The third guy was just there to make sure everything went ok, although he did go outside with the drawer to find the other end of the cable. Perhaps he was there to take the offical measurement.

Apparently next week construction starts. I'm not exactly sure what the construction will consist of. Whether it will be the laying of the cable in the street or the laying of the cable from the street to my apartment is up for debate. Hopefully they'll kill both birds at the same time, but like I said, this is Japan.

I'm damn grateful though. Soon [touch wood] I'll have a 2MBit hard wired connection rather than a 128KB cellular. Although the AirH has been great, it's kindof expensive [about $100US per month for unlimited download]. And during the winter when the town fills with tourists the AirH connection become overloaded and unreliable.

At least Japan has a much better DSL implementation than Australia, which is monopolized my Telstra, and therefore totally crap. I used a DSL connection when I was visiting Australia and it was shocking. Telstra should contract the whole DSL game to some Koreans.

The MagpieBlog has been re-invented using WordPress. I've said it before, but Magie RSS is a great for parsing feeds.

Just another shot I wanted to post. There's no doubt in my mind the most interesting part of the road journey between Sydney and Adelaide is the Hay Plains. Even when it's pitch black, you still have shutter speed.

I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind yesterday. What a great film. And just when I was getting over 21 grams.