jeudi 3 juillet 2003

Talents well worth some shillings Today is the day of well-deserved rewards. A promise belatedly to be kept after those miracles just worked with the fairy-tale accounts programme, which included exploring and deciding on how to budget properly month by month. Now I've got an allowance for software, the time has come to pay a handful of the increasing number of developers who've given me "conscience-ware" -- they call it "donation-ware" -- I've tried, liked and decided to keep. This "best of the bunch" includes a hitherto unmentioned extra for Safari, one of dozens of offerings. I find four of these indispensable. PithHelmet, a real system-tweaker, "adds some some basic but powerful content filtering" to this browser. "The basic purpose is to block ad images, but there are other potential uses as well (blocking Flash, Shockwave or horrible midi loops)." It has joined them. This was in spite of mixed crits and a few may object to yet another application which requires an admin code to use. Some contend that the programme misbehaves after a while or slows down Safari. But I think not, with a finger to point elsewhere. Past weeks have led me to suspect the latest 10.2.6 upgrade to OS X itself for a range of little glitches. There can also be a bad memory leak (voilà, Jean-Claude, we're back with the Jargon Dictionary already). Further investigation discloses that I'm not alone in finding this flaw, which is not supposed to happen with OS X. There's plenty on MacFixIt and elsewhere. My 10.2.6 runs fast, with no problems with PithHelmet and other such applications, once I've run rather more than the standard maintenance routines. The latest easy way to do this without going into the terminal is Cocktail, free ... or donation-ware. Utilities of this kind (I now have several, but this one is singularly well put together) deal with major memory problems not supposed to happen in OS X. But I've seen for myself how 10.2.6 can, as MFI put it, play badly when "Safari and iPhoto chew up several hundred MB of RAM". To be further probed. Like me. Other beneficiaries of the bonanza (perhaps not the right word for some modest largesse) include Reinhold Penner for Safaricon and Caminicon (long overdue but too often praised to link to again!), R.J. for Audioscrobbler (enough here already this week) and Michael Thole for Neo (a P2P entry). MacRumors also deserved a bit of a boost. They got that late last month. I've decided to pay for and keep the benchmark utility Xbench, which is actually useful. Not just a pretty face and a gadget (checking graphics here), it provides information about the Mac's performance which is very helpful if you're as prone as I am to tweaking the operating system. "Note: the Xbench comparison site will be down the month of June, while we go on vacation, and move hosting. We regret any inconvenience. And that bit of the site's still not back. Tut tut! June has been prolonged... On utilities, I've joined the queue waiting for DiskWarrior 3.0 from Alsoft. This being a virtually indispensable repair tool but also a commercial application, it shouldn't count here. It does because that queue is so long that the bootable OS X CD won't get mailed before next month's software budget day. Since Alsoft doesn't bill until your goods have been "shipped", there remains room for a little bit more extravagance in July, once I remember who made what. Four to six weeks is a long time to wait for DW, but a woman at Alsoft confirmed to me that the previous version still holds good for Jaguar, even if you have to launch it from OS 9 and it takes an eternity to do its thing. I thought eternity was a long lunch-hour. It isn't. It's clearly very many long, long lunch-hours in exceptional cases where Disk Warrior has been tested and approved. To say just how many might get somebody into trouble, though I'd dearly like to do so! 10:15:59 PM  link   your views? [] Devious ways of stirring it up The problems Alastair Campbell has raised for T. Blair over alleged fiddling with intelligence which saw Britain join that war have taken yet another turn, with the poor old prime minister betrayed by the technology of erstwhile friends at Micro$oft. Remember this? "The Labour Party was yesterday accused of having an unhealthy relationship with business after a visit to Microsoft UK. Tony Blair spent about an hour at the software giant's Reading HQ, where his party chose to launch its business manifesto. Tony and Cherie were given a ten-minute demonstration of Windows XP surrounded by gawping Microsoft staff. At one point the self-confessed technophobe PM reportedly quipped to his wife: 'I hope you're following this'. Meanwhile, the opposition parties raged against what was seen as Labour endorsing a commercial product." Old news? Yes, very. Refreshers from May 2001 at 'The Register' (more of the above) and at 'vnunet.com. The latter chipped in with a quote and comment: "Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: 'Any politician has to be careful about associating themselves with such a dominant company as Microsoft.' But the Blair government has been nothing if not keen to associate itself with the Redmond giant." And the new twist? "Microsoft Word documents are notorious for containing private information in file headers which people would sometimes rather not share. The British government of Tony Blair just learned this lesson the hard way." Darren Shrubsole unearthed this piece on how 'Microsoft bytes Tony Blair in the butt' for his latest entry (yesterday) at LinkMachineGo (blogrolled). Great stuff, if complicated. It gets more so. The full, nasty tale of alleged plagiarism and editing was by Richard M. Smith (direct link) at Computer Bytes Man. The generous Smith gives us the incriminating Microsoft Word doc, which has been removed from the Downing Street site (I've double-checked), but can be downloaded here with a click. Was that the knock on the door already or do those people just break it down? 'Cos it's on this machine of mine now too. A score of interesting pages which begin: "IRAQ - ITS INFRASTRUCTURE OF CONCEALMENT, DECEPTION AND INTIMIDATION This report draws upon a number of sources, including intelligence material, and shows how the Iraqi regime is constructed to have, and to keep, WMD, and is now engaged in a campaign of obstruction of the United Nations Weapons Inspectors. "Part One focusses on how Iraq's security organisations operate to conceal Weapons of Mass Destruction from UN Inspectors. It reveals that the inspectors are outnumbered by Iraqi intelligence by a ratio of 200 to 1. Part Two gives up to date details of Iraq's network of intelligence and security organisations whose job it is to keep Saddam and his regime in power, and to prevent the international community from disarming Iraq. Part Three goes on to show the effects of the security apparatus on the ordinary people of Iraq. While the reach of this network outside Iraq may be less apparent since the Gulf War of 1990/1991, inside Iraq, its grip is formidable over all levels of society. Saddam and his inner circle control the State infrastructure of fear (...)" Hang on. There's nothing about a 45-minute capacity to use weapons of mass destruction, so don't jump up and down. In this tangled web, Smith instead leads us to a Cambridge University lecturer, Dr Glen Rangwala. He tells a very familiar story indeed: "The document claims to draw 'upon a number of sources, including intelligence material' (p.1, first sentence). Now this is a bit misleading. More precisely, the bulk of the 19-page document (pp.6-16) is directly copied without acknowledgement from (...)" ...and the penny drops with a clang. A post-graduate thesis reprinted in the 'Middle East Review of International Affairs', which has long since, with humour, asked for any more questions on plagiarism from MERIA. What I relish most is the M$ connection, threaded deep into the story. Unless Blair still likes Bill much more than I do, perhaps it's time to sever a few links. zzz There was no knock. No Nigeria pics before Monday or Tuesday, after all; my source has a very busy life. But I'm delighted to learn that Béa is another near neighbour. Such taste! I'd begun to think that most of AFP's Paris-based friends had migrated from this Left Bank of the river, northwards to their own villages in the XVIIIth and XXth arrondissements. I've tweaked yesterday's entry. The bit about my considerate colleagues should now stand out more. Some found it, but desk chief Jo told me she'd sent my little note to them straight to the trash. That's what comes of writing topic lines those who get scores of missives each day take for part of the spam. Unless to say "thanks" and be silly enough to use a smiley has become a capital offence at the factory. Claire is completely forgiven for having failed to note my absence. It's a joy to know I'm so inconspicuous... zzz The picture dates. Libé published it on June 20. But André Baudier kept it for me, after I saw him reading the issue at "the canteen". I got it later, having been exceedingly struck by the astounding headline. 'Vivement la rentrée!'? Could 'Libé' be serious? Does this once radical paper really have that to say to the French just as the holiday season is beginning, even for strikers? La rentrée is the miserable time at the beginning of September when the country buckles down to work again, after the government has done all kinds of nasty things on the sly. It's when we all find out just what they were. I'm perhaps ill-informed but unaware of any strikes right now, nothing in particular to take to the streets about. Discontent just rumbles on beneath the surface. Like Métro trains. I can only hope 'Libé' is being ironic, because otherwise I'll hurl that headline back at them after the summer, when all hell breaks loose again. When first I arrived here in 1980, the paper was a very good read, full of touching small ads, useful tittle-tattle and other flotsam and jetsam still floating in the wake of Mai '68. Journalists I knew there then still dreamed of workers' co-operatives and all that sort of thing. Still a good read sometimes, it's now part of the establishment furniture, of course, like those who run it. Today, it's riling them at one of my favourite quality shit sites. Only too keen for la rentrée, 'Merde in France' informs us that "we don't need your stinking Summer Festivals". To stir it all up even more, but I only noticed today, the bilingual frogblog also spat venom at some poor ... AFP journalist (no, I don't know all of them personally). This -- 'The Intelligentsia lets it hair down' -- was relatively mild-mannered in English compared with the French, which says something totally different. That's cheating... You may look up the word conasse for yourselves. I just shake my head, I really do. Does Josette get a right of reply? 9:55:27 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.