vendredi 1 août 2003

Bad vibes at 30 feet: iTrip interference "Perhaps the most furtive use to which the device has been put involves software theft. It is a simple matter to walk into a computer store, connect the player to an Apple computer and quickly transfer software from the computer to the iPod. Back home, the user can transfer the stolen software to their home computer and use it." I've yet to see a Mac shop in Paris where such a feat would be conceivable, though Jon Wurtzel said it has happened in a quick look at the popular iPod's new guises (Beeb) more than a year ago. Things have taken a sharper turn now the Brits have banned the iTrip. You could turn Apple's multi-gigabyte pocket music machine into a mini-pirate radio station (Beeb) using this accessory from Griffin Technology. Much of Europe could well follow suit, though the maximum range of the troublesome device is specified at 30 feet (nine meters). France, for starters, is almost as cautious about unlicenced broadcasting as the UK's Wireless Telegraphy Act. Lawmakers here are unlikely to even start scratching their pates about the device's fortunes until after the summer. The Griffin people, whose iMic stereo input and output device is used by two or three of my seriously musical friends with both Macs and PCs, make no comment on their website. MacCentral reports that UK distributor AM Micro (from whom I nicked the pic), hopes to get round the ban. A product which costs 35 dollars (around 31 euros) has begun to cause a mighty stir. The iTrip version for the latest iPod models, originally due for release on July 21, has yet to go on the market, while Griffin says "overwhelming demand" is stalling availability of the older one for up to two weeks. About a fortnight back, somebody named as "Reader 'Terry'" told iPoding that a Griffin representative put a sudden delay with the new version down to "political reasons". Could be quite a wait... 10:09:47 PM  link   your views? [] Building sites All 3½ of you may have seen this blog disappear at intervals. I've been as far into the entrails of Radio Userland as I dared and, perhaps unwisely, farther still... Among the Userland discussion threads (hard to access at "peak times"), somebody launched one complaining about a lack of response from the "admins". Others jumped on the bandwagon, with a chorus of "We paid for it, so where's the service?" This riled me enough to mention here. The pioneering Radio software is the work of people you could almost count on the fingers of one hand. They have their own weblogs and help pages too, often packed with info, such as Russ Lipton's 'Radio Docs' and Andy Sylvester's more technical Ruminations. Plenty, technical and otherwise, has been written by Lawrence Lee, aka Tomalak. If they responded to everybody who now uses Radio, asks questions -- and even benefits, like me, from space on their server at a more than reasonable price -- they'd be doing nothing else. Perhaps some small indication of just how many people use Radio comes from an entry on the same page by Dave Winer: more than 10,600 reads have been registered so far for a post where the Userland founder announces a new "Google It" feature. Responding to a "thank-you" note for purloined pictures, one victim told me he didn't quite get "the purpose of your website". He might be interested in Dave's potted history of weblogs. zzz I've also had to delve deep into the bowels of my Mac for a dose of more than routine maintenance. Easiest thing to do when my own insides were behaving so horribly that I steered clear even of "the canteen" for several days. It took much more prodding than I would have liked to get an update out of the specialist who probed me a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted news before he joined everybody else going on holiday for a month. Tomorrow I hope to see his full report; his attention has turned from my big intestine to the little one, not the pancreas after all. (Update:) Or maybe it's the bone marrow. The mystery gets as thick as my white blood cell count! zzz Lunch at the canteen was a welcome return from limbo. The pizzeria was doing nicely. The Métro station across the road has reopened, bringing the tourists with it. I went down the hole today and didn't see as much evidence of refurbishment as one might expect after a closure of more than two months. Often, the workers decided that most other people's lunchtime would be appropriate for the use of pneumatic drills, bringing joy into the lives of customers at the canteen and other nearby restaurants and cafés. Lynda, who occasionally helps out at the pizzeria when she's not pursuing her studies to become a world-famous architect, celebrated the end to the racket today by getting a computer of her own. When I realised that Das's cooking had put an end to two days of nausea, I followed Lynda and Sam to the FNAC to "help", knowing from experience what misinformed menaces a few of the sales people there can be. The fellow I found them with proved not to be one of them. Unfortunately, I didn't quite succeed in persuading Lynda to join the happy band of Mac users, but let her "borrow" my FNAC card all the same. The myth that Mac OS X software is still lacking is belied by sites like 'Architosh', but becoming an architect looks like an expensive business. Sam drove us back to Lynda's place, where both of us were impressed by her beautiful scale models of work in progress. A cable router was what I got at the FNAC, having installed a new modem this week. Too late now for any second thoughts about getting Marianne online with a Mac of her very own. 12:57:50 AM  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.