Status-Q

I think this is fabulous.

The video is worth watching, at least for those of you who haven't already considered the possibility of sticking your Mac to the outside of a train using suction cups....

Great advertising opportunities here.

...you'll probably like Logorrhea.

One of the things I discovered when I moved from academia and research into the business world is that there are an awful lot of rules that you're supposed to follow. A lot of received wisdom, and if you are reluctant to receive it, you won't get taken seriously by others. That's a problem if you are dependent on them for funding, for orders, for recruitment or whatever. Things that seem to normal people as if they might be a good idea because, say, you'd buy one and all your friends would too, are countered with a whole barrage of reasons why they wouldn't work because "it isn't done that way". If you live with it for long enough, you learn the rules, build a proper business, and stop having good ideas that appeal to normal people.

One thing that is traditionally held to be very important for a business is a very clear focus. As someone once put it, "If you chase two rabbits, you won't catch either of them". This makes a lot of sense, and I have repeated it to others.

But an inner, rebellious, part of me rejoices when I read an article pointing out that Apple, whose recent share performance is the envy of suits everywhere, breaks many of the cardinal rules.

The article will shortly drop into a premium-rate archive, but you somebody you know mght have a PDF. Thanks to Creative Generalist for the link.

The iWood is a rather nice-looking wooden case for the iPod Nano.

For all you dedicated Apple fans who want all your accessories to match your veil, iPod and those white headphones on your wedding day, Apple has today announced the iDo wedding ring - the essential choice for any young person getting married in the coming months.

Also available in black, for those who like to Think Different, the iDo is carefully sculptured for maximum comfort.

"We're seeing Apple styling becoming an important part of every aspect of people's lives", said an Apple spokesman. "Why should you give that up when you get married?". All models can be engraved with a special message in Apple's traditional Garamond font.

Apple has refused to confirm reports that, in an attempt to encourage more 'switchers' in the run up to Valentine's Day, it will soon be introducing an entry-level engagement ring named the iWill.

Well, OK - I made all of that up. I'm actually just learning how to use the amazing Open Source 3D modelling package Blender. You can read about Blender's history here. It's quite an amazing package, especially since the Mac version of the application is only 12 MB! But nobody should expect to learn it overnight. If you thought Photoshop was complicated...

It may seem strange, given that I am so immersed in the IT world, that this morning I did (I think) my first ever installation of Windows XP. I have sat in front of XP machines before, of course, but I switched to the Mac in the Windows 2000 era and have never had to install XP from scratch on a PC. Until today.

Actually, today was an experiment - I have a copy of VirtualPC for the Mac and was interested to try it out. I've never had a need for Windows myself, but sometimes it can be useful, if I'm trying to help somebody on the phone, to duplicate their actions on my local screen. This software lets you install Windows within a 'virtual machine' on your Mac and run a complete version of Windows and any Windows-only software. It seems to work pretty well, albeit slowly.

But what amused me was the very first thing that popped up on my screen after I installed a nice clean, fresh copy of Windows XP on my Mac.

If I had just paid £170 to upgrade my PC to Windows XP Pro, I'm sure I'd be pleased to see that message. If you 'Click this balloon to fix this problem' it takes you to a site which lists the places you can spend more money to buy antivirus software. To me, that's like buying a shiny new car, sliding happily into the soft leather driver's seat and discovering a note on the steering wheel: "A helpful tip from Mercedes: The locks on your doors may not work. Here's a list of local garages who can repair them for you."

The sad thing is, they're right. And I was grateful for the reminder. I need to make sure that the virtual Windows machine only has very limited access to the rest of my Mac files...

If you ever need to transcribe audio recordings, I recommend Express Scribe, a lovely utility which is available for Mac and for Windows, and which is now free.

I set it to play back the audio at half-speed, and assigned a couple of global control keys to stop, start, and skip back 5 seconds. Then I could control the audio without ever leaving my wordprocessor and my rather poor typing could just about keep up with it. Very nice.

I almost never use the Sherlock application that ships with Mac OS X, but if I find myself in a U.S. city wondering what movies are playing nearby, it is one of the easiest ways to find out.

I fired it up this evening and found that all the channels seemed to be missing. An empty window - even less inspiring than some of the movies on offer at the moment.

If this happens to you, go to ~/Library/Caches/Sherlock and delete what you find there, then empty the Trash. That fixed it for me. Elementary, my dear.... oh, never mind.

If you're on a Mac, running Tiger, using OpenOffice or - my recommendation - NeoOffice, then you probably want to install NeoLight to make your documents searchable with Spotlight.

At Foo Camp I wrote about the fact that Mac users seemed to be account for about 50% of the attendees.

I counted here at Our Social World and it's about 25-30%. The difference is probably partly due to a slightly less techie audience, and partly due to not being on the West Coast, but it's still well up on the overall Apple market share.