Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

-- Comment()
Weblogs by the numbers: "How many of us out there, really? Phil Ringnalda offers tentative numbers on the number of weblogs in existence that use the major blogging tools. I've added this as a data point for an eventual meta-analysis." [Seb's Open Research]

-- Comment()
Understanding Pipelining and Superscalar Execution: "For the current article, Understanding Pipelining and Superscalar Execution, I've gone back and completely reworked all of the previous explanations and analogies I've used to explain both of these concepts, and I've combined the results into one, coherent article." [Ars Technica]

-- Comment()
JD's New Media Musings: "Creative Commons offers a new set of licenses that lets copyright holders share their work according to conditions they specify."

-- Comment()
Today I used my new PowerBook G4 in a meeting. I started to think that the machine makes an audible noise, a bit disturbing. Then I put the PowerBook to sleep for a break, and the noise continued. It was the air conditioning making noise, not the portable.

I'm more and more satisfied with the PowerBook. I have to test the endurance of the battery a bit more, in real field conditions. At least 2.5 hours with really active use is possible with the machine.

-- Comment()
Microsoft unveils entertainment software: "Microsoft will announce on Tuesday availability of new personal entertainment software for Windows XP, featuring fresh tools for handling music, movies and photos on the PC." [Google Technology News]

-- Comment()
Paul Boutin writes: "My Poindexter story won the ego-surfing trifecta: #1 on Daypop, #1 on Blogdex, and top of Slashdot at the same time yesterday. Admittedly I'd rather see something based more on my own intrepid reporting making the rounds, but I guess you can't wag the Internet dog with the tale of your choice."

-- Comment()
The Linux Desktop Needs To Be Easier: "Linux is dirt cheap in comparison with Windows. You can install the OS on all your machines without feeling like a fugitive. And many Linux packages are fully equipped with not only an OS, but also a full suite of programs. With all these advantages, why does Linux have a tiny 2 percent share of the desktop market?" [osOpinion]

-- Comment()
Alternative Web Browsers: Revenge of the Lizard: "In the mid-1990s, Microsoft worked hard to erase Netscape Navigator's early lead over the Internet Explorer Web browser. But even though Microsoft successfully conquered Netscape, Navigator's open source offshoot, Mozilla, is overtaking IE in terms of features, if not yet market share." [osOpinion]

Managed to save a few postings after all -- Comment()
As I wrote earlier, I this morning lost four days of my weblog postings when the Radio UserLand application crashed. I managed to save some postings via the NetNewsWire Lite application, which had a cached copy of the RSS feed of my weblog. I republished some of the lost postings, but most are lost forever.

Replacing desktops completed -- Comment()
A year ago I replaced my home computer with a portable, an Apple iBook. Now I'm almost done replacing my G4 tower at work with a portable, an Apple PowerBook. I'm more and more convinced that this is a smart move.

However, there is the worry of realiability. If the PowerBook is not as reliable as the G4 tower (which had no problems whatever in almost three years of use), then I have made a mistake.

I have moved my documents from the G4 tower to the PowerBook, and rearranged them a bit in the process. Next, I'll make the first backup of the PowerBook, to an external FireWire hard disk.

There is still a lot of disk space available of the 60 GB, so I'm thinking of moving some documents from the company Unix machine over to the PowerBook as well. Things like the LaTeX sources for some of the textbooks I have written or edited, etc.

Here is a partial list of the software which I have moved over from the G4 tower to the PowerBook (or re-installed): BBEdit Lite, OroborosOSX, Fink, Chimera Navigator, Mozilla, OmniWeb, Watson, MT-Newswatcher, Citrix ICA, Illustrator, RealOne Player, Mathematica, Apple Developer Tools, LiteSwitch, and TinkerTool. The PC support pre-installed some software, such as Photoshop, Acrobat, and MS Office. Also, the PowerBook had a lot of software included, such as GraphicConverter, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, PixelNhance, and Snapz Pro X. And of course the Apple iApps, IE, etc. Last to install were Matlab (with some difficulty) and the Absoft Fortran 95 compiler.

I have still to install some essential Unix software with Fink. It seems that Fink 0.50a has some problems on Mac OS X 10.2.2. These problems will probably be corrected soon. In any case, I have a working X11 installation, which is enough for now.

I was pleasantly suprised how nicely all the Unix configuration files and settings were moved over to the PowerBook, even though this took some effort. This was manual work, either copying the preferences files or making the required settings by myself. It would be nice it there were a utility for transferring all the needed settings from a Mac OS X system to another.

-- Comment()
Keeping Track of John Poindexter: "Online pranksters have turned the tables on the man behind the government's controversial Total Information Awareness effort. They are posting his personal information on hundreds of sites. By Paul Boutin." [Wired News]

Not so noisy PowerBook after all -- Comment()
I wrote earlier that some think that the new PowerBook is noisy. I'm now having my own PowerBook G4, and this is not so noisy, quite pleasant to use in fact. The family is asleep, tv is quiet, and there is hardly any noise from the machine while I write this sitting in the armchair. Of course, the cooling fan comes on while I'm doing something demanding like reading a CD or DVD, but you couldn't call that sound "hoover-like".

-- Comment()
Google loves me: "I'm getting a little paranoid about how remarkably well Google finds the things I'm saying here. OK, I'm writing so that people might read what I write, but sometimes I just casually refer to something, and the next day Google seems to indicate that I'm one of the top authorities in the world on that matter. Meaning, I appear on the first page of matches, out of sometimes hundreds of thousands of webpages. I often appear higher than the articles I linked to, even if I didn't say anything very intelligent. [...] That all makes me a bit nervous, like I need to think of some better things to say, or I shouldn't talk about things I don't know about. And, even more unnerving, the fact that I mention these things right now will probably mean that the search engines will be a little more certain tomorrow that I know something about them. Uarrrgh!" [Ming's Metalogue]

Bioinformatics -- Comment()
Bioinformatics - the race to computerise biology: "For centuries, biology has been an empirical field that featured mostly specimens and Petri dishes. Over the past five years, however, computers have changed the discipline - as they have harnessed the data on genetics for the pursuit of cures for disease. Wet lab processes that took weeks to complete are giving way to digital research done in silico. Notebooks with jotted comments, measurements and drawings have yielded to terabyte storehouses of genetic and chemical data. And empirical estimates are being replaced by mathematical exactness." [Privacy Digest]

Finns at various temperatures -- Comment()
This is Finland tells non-Finns what happens in Finland at various temperatures: "-50C / 230F: People in California almost freeze to death. The Finns have their final barbecue before winter." [The Aardvark Speaks]

Republished weblog -- Comment()
Early Monday morning I cleared out the Radio UserLand cloud using the wipeCloud script by Andy Fragen. Then I re-published my entire weblog. I run into some small problems, which I hope are now corrected. Now I have 71% disk space free, compared to 63% before doing the wipe. Doing the republishing took almost a hour, so for some time this weblog was not available for browsing.

While republishing the entire weblog I made some modifications to the templates. I checked the validity of the CSS style definitions. It seems that nothing broke in the process.

-- Comment()
Creative Types: A Lot in Common: "The Internet is teeming with creative people who aren't famous or rich. A new set of licenses from Creative Commons will allow copyright holders to share their work according to conditions they specify -- and boost their profiles. By Kendra Mayfield." [Wired News]

-- Comment()
The Science of Star Trek: "One of the keys to the success of Star Trek is the fact that it is grounded in scientific credibility." [News Is Free: Popular Items]

Total Information Awareness -- Comment()
Great series of items: "There's been a really terrific series of articles, opinions, and items related to TIA this week on Declan McCullagh's politechbot.com site (and politech listserv). The volume of posts precludes my posting individual links to each of them, but visit the politechbot.com site and you'll see a number of related items clustered between Tuesday, December 10th through Saturday, December 14. Declan's work is consistently insightful and spot-on. IMHO, it's more valuable than ever right now." [Boing Boing Blog]

Four days of Radio postings disappeared -- Comment()
The Radio UserLand application crashed, and after restart I noticed that four days of my weblog postings had disappeared. I had already made a posting before I noticed this, so my weblog entries from four last days were already overwritten.

I wrote a plea for help on the Radio discussion group, but I don't have much hope of recovering the postings. This is the first time I have lost postings with Radio, so this came as a shock.

Using a PowerBook G4 as a desktop machine -- Comment()
I'm now using my PowerBook G4 as a desktop machine, exactly as I wrote in the review:

The new PowerBook can work with the lid closed attached to an external display. First you have to attach an external keyboard and mouse to the USB ports. Then you close the lid to make the system go to sleep. After this, you attach the external monitor to the PowerBook. (The system has to be connected to the power adapter.) Then just press a key on the external keyboard, and the system wakes up. The LCD screen of the portable will be switched off, so you can keep the lid closed.

At first I thought that this doesn't work after all, as the machine refused to wake up. I thought that perhaps my non-Apple keyboard and mouse were the culprit. But then I noticed that the PowerBook was not connected to the power adapter. Now the lid is closed, and I'm working on the 21" CRT display. I put my old G4 tower to sleep, and the room is blessedly quiet. (Although the G4 tower was not noisy compared to some PC's around here.)