Saturday 1 November 2003

Roar of the Panther I got my copy of OS X 10.3 aka Panther this week and have successfully installed it on my iMac. I now have to install it on my Powerbook as I'm giving a talk on Panther at the next meeting of Clubmac on November 5. So far, so good. I had been worried that my iMac wouldn't be powerful enough - it's based on a 400MHz G3 processor - but that doesn't appear to be a problem. If anything, the iMac seems to be running a shade faster. The only thing that suffers is Exposé, Apple's new way of de-cluttering the desktop. It really needs Quartz Extreme to run properly but QE requires the Velocity Engine which is built into the G4 processor. I haven't delved into the intricacies of Panther yet, but one thing I have noticed is that the brushed metal interface is now used on all applications. Not to the same degree as Apple's own apps but more subtly. The new finder, which uses the iTunes and iPhoto metaphor also works well and I particularly like the fact that I can sort files by date when opening them within an application. This means my most recent files are always at the top of the list, which, trust me, makes things a whole lot easier. 11:59:32 PM    comment []  Google It!

They Came And Shaved Us It's been almost a week and I've recovered sufficiently to talk about it. They Came And Shaved Us was an experience. It was certainly different. Put together by Stef Lancaster, James Bacon and Michael Carroll it combined Victoriana, strange stuff, comics, other strange stuff and fun to create a truly memorable weekend. I didn't stay in the hotel - The Fairways Hotel just outside Dundalk. Rather I commuted from Finglas. People said I was crazy but I made the run in less time than it took me to get from Finglas to the Royal Marine in Dun Laoghaire for last year's Octocon. The Guests included Robert Rankin, David Lloyd, Paul J. Holden, Cardinal Cox and Padraig O'Méaloid. I even ended up on a Call My Bluff panel with Stef, Liam Proven and James Bacon. As usual I didn't go to many panels but I did hang out with people I hadn't seen for a while such as Jonathon "Jonjo" Jones and his Fiance Sharon Lewis, Mike "Dr Plokta" Scott, Mick O'Connor, Maura McHugh and others. I took some pics which you can view here What panels did I go to? Well I took part in the Fanny Ashes Special Olympics where I participated in the three legged sack race, the shot putt (using greasy water-filled balloons) but I drew the line at Chicken Fisting where participants had a chicken taped to their hand and then had to knock the chicken off the other contestant's hand. See the photo gallery for details. The highlight of each day's events was a disco. I missed Friday night's Heroes and Villans disco - I was at Jools Holland - but I did get to the 80s disco on Saturday and the Rock & Roll disco on Sunday night. I made it home safely each night but on Sunday by the time I got back to Finglas I definitely had a sore throat which I'm just about shaking off. I still managed to make it to the Dead Dog in the Porterhouse on Monday evening though to say goodbye to the stragglers. 11:47:25 PM    comment []  Google It!

© Copyright 2003 David Stewart. Last update: 01/12/2003; 00:07:16.