Martyn Drake's Blog

Pride and Prejudice and Operating Systems

This will sound hypocritical of me, but I really dislike OS snobbery.  I've unsubscribed from the Greater London Linux Group (GLLUG)  a number of times due to the general bitchiness of some subscribers over their hatred for all things Microsoft, OS X, or any number of other operating systems that are not Linux.

I also hate to say this, but much of this snobbery seems to stem from Linux zealots.  I continually hear how crap Windows is and that Linux is so much better than every other operating system.  Similar things from the FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD camps too - although they tend to put their OSes above Linux.  As for the hard core Windows user, they bitch about Linux being unfriendly and complicated.  OS X users come into the fray and say their computers/OS is better than Windows, Linux and all other *ixes put together.

I have news for you.  No one operating system is any better than the other.  And it also all boils down to personal choice.  I've seen Windows, Linux and OS X systems compromised[*] (and I should note: none were any of mine!).  I've not been around FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD to say the same.  But certainly one cannot be smug about any operating system when it comes to security. 

In terms of usability, I've always found Linux desktops to be terribly inconsistent and fiddly - and not a little ugly.  But that's just my personal preference.  Windows has generally been a bit more consistent (although I am still getting used to some of the changes in Windows 7 where Microsoft have moved some regular options I used to the Control Panel), but it provides the biggest choice in terms of software and compatibility.  OS X has been the most consistent interface of all, and provides a very friendly and wonderful approach to user friendly computing.  But I'm not liking much the software availability and quality of some of the software that's available for the Mac.  Apple's own software products are, for the most part, wonderful, but there are still some issues that prevent me from loving Apple completely.

The reason I'm now rooting for the Windows/PC camp is that it suits my needs now.  I may well head back to Macs later down the road, but for now, the PC and Windows does what I want it to do.  I could even go to Linux as a desktop if the interface was right (Ubuntu comes very close to my ideal, but it still needs work).  In terms of hardware support, Linux has never had it so good.  And the same can be said about Windows.

I certainly grumble about OSes and hardware myself, but I *do* try to bear in mind about having an objective outlook on things rather than simply dismissing something simply because it comes from Apple, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, or whoever.  Each and every operating system has advantages and disadvantages over each other and I believe it is quite wrong to start slanging matches for the sake of doing so. 

[*] I'm seeing more people running obsolete versions of Fedora Core and even Red Hat Linux operating systems.  A few years ago I noticed a film distribution company running Red Hat 9 with telnet (not SSH!) and all available default services running (and all versions of those services were available for all to see) - and this was a server running the web site for a Terry Gilliam film.  I had to write to the systems team and advise them that this was putting their site (and reputation) in jeopardy.  Thankfully they then firewalled off the machine and fixed the problems.  The stupid thing is, this is still a common problem!

Goodbye Mac, hello PC

I've been using Macs and OS X full time since 2005 when I transitioned from PCs having been lured into the Mac world by a former VFX producer at MPC.  After a variety of kit (iBook, Mac Mini, iMac, Macbook Pro, Macbook, Macbook Pro and Macbook again) I'm heading back to the PC.  My love affair with the Mac and OS X is officially over.

I've had problems with software.  While I love the idea of OpenOffice, it's been exceptionally sluggish under OS X.  Office 2008 for the Mac until fairly recently was also very sluggish, but performance has slowly increased at the cost of a few rainbow beach balls and forced quits.  Using Sophos AV, File Vault and Final Cut Express is like working while sitting in treacle.  This Macbook's paltry Intel GMAX3100 graphics adaptor has problems with VMware Fusion 3 and is about as powerful as a dead hedgehog.

FileVault constantly reports overall disk usage incorrectly (it woefully exaggerates the overall amount of space available), and if I want to use Time Machine my backups are only taken when I log out.

In terms of the Macbook hardware, I have continually frustrated by this Macbook's iSight camera switching on during boot-up and remaining on while it's on battery.  You're unable to do anything iSight related while that blasted light is on.  I reported this to Apple and they have been unable to do anything.  Whether they're unwilling or unable to do so, I do not know.  Even after several major OS upgrades, nothing changes.  The Macbook 4,1 firmware has remained unchanged or updated since it's release.

I have plenty of other grumbles about Mac and OS X.  Namely that I cannot play anything other than region 2 DVDs without hacking the firmware of the SuperDrive.  I cannot play Blu-Ray discs full stop.  I cannot write Blu-Ray discs without additional software and an external Blu-Ray writer.  The SuperDrive cannot take certain types of DVD (either the smaller kind, or the more flexible/recyclable variety).

I've found this Mac, despite having a relatively decent amount of hardware under it's hood (CPU, memory, and a 7,200RPM hard drive) to be very slow.  Virtualisation has been a pain in the arse.  Boot Camp has been a pain in the arse (and one cannot run 64-bit Windows on a white Macbook despite it having a 64-bit EFI and CPU).

Now take my work Dell XPS laptop.  Despite some initial hardware issues with BOTH hard drives, Dell have replaced both drives in a quickly and timely fashion (and they did so at the office).  Windows Vista has been a complete arse, but with Windows 7 (which I've been running on the machine about two months after receiving it - first in release candidate form, then as a trial, and now fully fledged activated Home Premium) has been exceptionally quick and stable.  I have two NVIDIA 9800MGT graphics cards which can be linked via SLI.  I have 6Gb of RAM.  I have an easily overclockable CPU which can be changed through the BIOS.  I can natively boot Linux, Windows or any combination thereof - without virtualisation or the need for any special partition managers.  Virtualisation, when required, works flawlessly and guest OSes run at an acceptable speed.  I can play DVDs and Blu-Rays of whatever region I so wish.  Office 2007 works fine.  I (or Dell) can easily fix or replace hardware as and when without the need to hand it to a Genius.

I'm much happier now in PC land than I ever been.  I am beginning to think that Apple is not the be all and end all of a good computing experience, and no longer wish for either my work or my self to pay over the odds for doing so.

Utilising the power of the cloud at Memset - benefits of virtualisation

I now have a pretty decent email, web and DNS hosting set-up after migrating away from Google Apps.  While I have enjoyed using the Premier edition of Apps, it made sense for me to concentrate much more on self-hosting given that it's what I now do for a living!  I also like to demonstrate how one can make the most of Memset's miniserver technology to provide robust solutions to businesses looking to host their mission critical web and email.  Note that I don't use load balancing because (a) my blogs are hosted here at TypePad and the traffic certainly does not demand it.  But it's certainly possible.

So how am I using virtualisation technology for my own personal needs and lab testing?  Well, using three miniservers (virtual private servers) from my employers, Memset, I have two cPanel servers and one Windows 2003 server. 

One cPanel server is a production machine.  This hosts several web sites of mine. The other cPanel miniserver is an experimental machine - designed to test new configurations before rolling it out to the production server.  It also acts as a backup in case anything should happen to the production server.  I'm in the process of setting up a cron job to dump cPanel packages of each account nightly and rsync it across so that it can be restored immediately should there ever be the need to do so.  Similarly, I have cron jobs running on the production machine which do mysqldumps and hot copies of the MySQL databases which are rsynced across to the other machine.  If that wasn't enough, both machines have managed daily backups which take the contents of /backup (where the regular cPanel backups and my own MySQL dumps are stored) nightly and stores it securely on a Memset backup server.

The Windows 2003 miniserver is my main mail and DNS server.  It is a primary DNS server for drake.org.uk and other domains that I run.  Secondary and tertiary DNS is served by Memset's own slave nameservers (available to all customers who want to run their own nameservers).  MDaemon is the primary email server.  The two cPanel miniservers also serve as backup mail exchangers (MXes) which feed MDaemon *should* Windows or the miniserver ever become unavailable.

And all of this would cost a heck of a lot less than a single powerful dedicated server.  So here's to virtualisation!

Up, Up and Away!

Friday night turned into a bit of a fiasco, having volunteered to take over on-call while my colleagues went out for a free-for-all night out.  Sods law dictates that when this sort of thing happens, all hell breaks loose.  And that's what happened.  I even took a half day off that day and found myself working through that too.  By the time midnight came and went, I was still doing stuff for work.

Thankfully there was not emergencies throughout the night and we had a leisurely morning before heading off to Woking and Waitrose to pick up groceries.  Came back, dropped off the stuff, and headed out to Guildford to watch Disney/Pixar's UP in glorious 3D.

The only time 3D has ever really worked for me was Terminator 3D way back in 2000 at Universal Studios, California.  Since then, whenever I've seen 3D stuff, it's just not worked.  It's not helped that I have a slight squint and I have a lazy eye.  So watching UP in 3D was about as much good as watching the show in tap dancing clogs and lederhosen.

Lack of 3D action aside, Pixar have come up trumps again.  Absolutely loved this film.  Cried like a baby twice, much to Jennifer's amusement, but laughed uproariously at most of the gags.  This is a beautifully crafted film and has to rate as one of my favourite Pixar films of all time.

There's never a frown with Harry Brown

Thanks to Pearl & Dean on Twitter I managed to grab a preview ticket to the new Michael Caine drama, Harry Brown, which I went to see last night at the Guildford Odeon.  MARV (Matthew Vaughn & Kris Thykier's production company) produces one of the best British thrillers I've seen in a very long while.  It's quite literally a heart pounding roller coaster of a ride, having managed to jump out my skin a good number of times during the course of the film.  It takes a lot to shock me, but this film provided it in spades.

At first glance the concept of a vigilante OAP going around murdering feral teenagers who killed his best pal Leonard seems a little ridiculous.  But Gary Young's screenplay delivers a fine story - starting with Harry padding around his council flat alone, waiting for his wife to recover from a stroke.  When she dies, he only has Leonard left for company.  But Leonard is growing ever more concerned about the feral teenagers hanging around their council estate, with drug dealers opening dealing their wares in the very pub that the two OAPs are drinking (and playing chess) in.

It eventually gets a bit too much for Leonard who vows to deal with the teenagers himself, after almost being killed by somebody setting fire to old rags pushed through his letterbox.  Having taken an old bayonet given to him by his father when he was small, Leonard finally ends up dead having confronted a group of boys in an underpass near the estate.  This sets off a series of events which eventually sees Harry, a former marine, extract revenge from the gang that killed his friend.  And all of them meet a very violent end.

It's a wonderfully shot film.   The cinematography is excellent.  The colour grading in particular gives a washed out, grey look, which perfectly matches the mood of the story.  Music is put to good use, but similarly taken away when it's (not) needed, which made me extremely nervous at times.  The shocks themselves come thick and fast in places, and even I was sweating (my hands clenched) at a couple of points as I just had no idea where things were going to go.  The performances are top notch, and the whole thing is superbly directed by Daniel Barber.

In short, Harry Brown is one tight thriller.  It provides an intense, heart pounding drama that will make even the most hardened viewer jump out their seat once or twice.  The riot sequence is one of the most violent that I've seen committed to film.  The special effects are really well executed.

Go see this film.  It's not the feint of heart, but if you like a good thriller with some unexpected twists and turns, then Harry Brown is for you.   Highly original, highly entertaining.

Moving away from Google Apps made easy..

These instructions imply the move is done on a per account basis.  If you're looking to move an entire domain with loads of users, each with a significant amount of mail, you'll have to use a third party utility, something along the lines of fetchmail, to the brunt of the work.

You'll need:

• IMAP client - Mozilla Thunderbird will do at a pinch
• IMAP support enabled in your Google Apps account(s)
• IMAP support enabled in your destination email account

Set-up Thunderbird to connect to your Google Apps account via IMAP (server name: imap.gmail.com, and make sure you've enabled SSL support in your IMAP client).  Once established, set-up a new IMAP account to connect to your new non-Google Apps IMAP account. 

Once you've connected and the Inbox and associated mailboxes are showing in Thunderbird for both accounts, navigate to your IMAP folder (or "label" in Gmail terminology) and click on it.  After a while, message headers should start to be downloaded from Google.  Now drag and drop that folder/label over to the account name of your new IMAP account in the account/folder list.  This should kick off the copy process.  Repeat for each label in your Gmail account.

When complete, you should find that your new IMAP account contains all your old email from Google Apps/Gmail.  I did this with 300Mb of data from my Google Apps account to MDaemon and took about 30 minutes in all in all.

IMAP.  What a Wonderful protocol.

Drake.org.uk email migration from Google Apps to MDaemon

After just over three years of using Google Apps Premier edition, I have decided to make the move to locally hosted email.  Having used Alt-N's MDaemon product for Windows since it's 2nd major version (we're going back 1997/98 here), I'm going to dust off an old license and and re-use it on my Memset Windows 2003 miniserver.  It'll be hosting drake.org.uk, foem.org.uk and goldenhind.eu.

I have a variety of reasons for moving away from Google, but right now is not the reason to explain my motives.  Let's say that I feel more comfortable with hosting my own email, and having greater control over anti-spam and security settings.  I've not been particularly fond of Postini over the past three years and even now, the integration between Google Apps and Postini is still very distant and non-integrated.

As I switch MX records over (I'll have two backup MXes hosted on two other miniservers), there may be a delay in email reaching me.  I'll give it 48 hours before switching off Google Apps.

Windows 14

Have received our two copies of Windows 7 through Amazon today (via City Link rather than RM) having pre-ordered since the 15th July.  Will be installing my copy tonight, whereas we'll get around to Jennifer's laptop over the weekend.  Our house will eventually be rid of Vista, the operating system from heck.

I've been running Windows 7 since the Release Candidate, and just over a month with the RTM Windows 7 Enterprise trial, and I can honestly say that I've had no problems whatsoever.  Windows 7 has taken everything I've thrown at it and it's just worked.  It's much nippier and generally much more pleasant to use than both XP and Vista combined.

Let's hope Microsoft continue to uphold this quality of operating system.  I'd hate to see Windows 8 turn into Windows ME and Vista combined.

Daily Mail probes BBC's CIN Around the World in 80 Days..

This Daily Mail article about the cost of producing Children In Need's Around the World in 80 Days only reinforces my opinion that it is an ineffective and very expensive excercise in raising money that's not likely to yield the BBC and Children in Need much return.

If you want a REALLY good travel show from the BBC, I highly recommend Charlie Boorman's From Sydney to Tokyo: By Any Means 2.  Now THAT's how it's done.  Almost missed the show as it wasn't being promoted very well in the iPlayer.

Stargate Universe: It's very good, but take the camera folk off the caffeine!

I've been a huge fan of Stargate since the original Emmerich and Devlin movie first came out in the cinema back in the mid 90s.  When Stargate SG-1 first came to our TV screens a few years later, I even wrote an email to Centropolis Entertainment to ask if David Arnold was being brought back to do the music.  I was rather shocked to receive a reply from Dean Devlin (producer and co-writer of the film) telling me that they had nothing to do with the TV show and that should it should be boycotted.

A decade or so later, with many awards under it's belt and with one spin-off series completed, the Stargate franchise has spawned another new show: Stargate Universe (or SGU).  Having watched three episodes of this new show, I have to say that while I am very impressed with the storyline and am intrigued by the new characters, it's got a few things to answer for.

Firstly is the inevitable comparison to that other dark, nitty gritty sci-fi drama series, Battlestar Galactica.  Extensive use of hand-held cameras, darkly lit spaceships, in-your-face fight sequences, etc.  Then there is a similarity to Star Trek Voyager, in which a starship is hurtled thousands of light years away from home.  But this is Voyager done right - the crew are stranded on a deserted spaceship with very little provisions and very little air.  They most constantly find ways to replenish their resources otherwise they'll die.

What I dislike about this show in terms of technicality is the hand-held camera shots.  I kind of got used to these kind of shots in BSG, but coming from the Stargate stable which has traditionally relied on dollies, steadicams, cranes and tripods, this new shooting style is somewhat off-putting.  And some of the shots have been so far over the shop that one's eyes have tended to tire having the focal point judder about too much.  One's head doesn't jerk about like that, so why a camera should do so, I really don't know.  I know hand-held shots are supposed to provide a fresh and dynamic look to the drama (as if you were watching a news report from a war zone, for example), but all it does is wish somebody would spend some money on cameras with image stabilisers (or tripods, dollies, steadicams, etc.)  This technique is used by too many dramas at the moment, and I'm getting mighty tired of it.  I just think that this is not the right main shooting technique for this kind of show.

On the plus side, the visual effects are excellent.  They integrate exceptionally well into the live action and serve the purpose very well indeed.  I expect we can look forward to some pretty specatacular stuff later on in the season.  Also excellent is the cast, with Robert Carlyle heading up the team.

If they can only introduce a little more stability on the shots for future episodes, SGU has a great future and will continue to support the show.

BBC's new Around the World in 80 Days = expensive advert for Children in Need

Bring back Michael Palin, all is forgiven!  Not there was anything to forgive in the first place!

I recently began watching the BBC's new "travel" series, Around the World in 80 Days.  But hang on, didn't that Michael Palin do all this back in the late 80s?  Yes he did, but this is a new endeavour designed to bring in money for BBC's Children in Need appeal.

Where this program fails is in the direction and editing.  The format concentrates almost entirely on the travellers and Children in Need, and glosses over the places they're visiting - which kind of misses the point when it comes to travelling in the first place.  While Messrs Mack and Skinner ARE very entertaining, we barely have time to take in the places they're visiting or the people they meet along the way.  Yes, they've got a strict time-scale to get the travelling done, but Michael Palin and his team managed to strike a good balance when they did it the first time around.  The most we get to see is the Crown Prince & Princess of Serbia.  Everything else is too much of a blur and utterly forgettable.

Unfortunately Around the World in 80 Days just comes across as an expensive exercise/advert in getting more money for Children in Need (a worthy charity, of course) whereas the budget for this show might have been better spent putting it directly into the CiN collection tin.  This series is just not as inspiring as the one Michael Palin brought to us back in 1988.

Spotify and the Case of the Disappearing Music

Since Spotify first came to my attention several months ago, I have been a big fan.  Despite it being a streaming service, it's enabled me to find and listen to tracks that I would otherwise would have to pay a small fortune to iTunes for to listen to in their entirety.  Due to their partnerships with various record labels, Spotify is able to keep adding tens of thousands of tracks to the catalogue on an almost weekly basis.  I've supported Spotify by buying a Premium subscription and have done so for the past few months.

But there is a problem.  It's Achilles Heel, as it were.  Something that is making me re-think whether I want to continue supporting Spotify and the record labels that are supplying them.

While tracks are being added to the catalogue, others are being removed.  This is mentioned on each update posted to the Spotify blog.  It's claimed that these tracks are removed due to regional licensing and other matters, but it's infuriating - especially to somebody paying the Premium fee.  Even having the recently added offline mode cannot compensate for having tracks suddenly vanishing from your playlists without prior warning.

I'm sure Spotify is doing everything in it's power to ensure tracks that are added remain so.  I have no doubt that Spotify is working it's hardest to provide the best service imaginable.  But what's really spoiling this service for me is the record labels and people behind them who impose silly, ridiculous, and seemingly random licensing restrictions which may well see people move away from Spotify because one cannot guarantee that your favourite playlist may be reduced to only a couple of tracks due to them being removed due to licensing restrictions.  This wasn't such a big problem at first, and I could almost live with it, but I have started to notice that more and more tracks are going bye bye.

There is no warning at all as to what tracks are going to be removed, or when.  I recently added Elbow's One Day Like This to a playlist one day, only to discover it was no longer available the next.  It makes me wonder what else I can look forward to having removed from my playlists.

So unless the record labels can be more upfront with Spotify as to what can and cannot be played through the service, I'm not willing to support the artists or record labels of the removed tracks by buying those songs through iTunes (or elsewhere).  Nor can I fully support Spotify until this issue is properly resolved.

Gnat's Enough of Gnats - We're back from Croatia

We've just returned from Zadar (well, Bibinje, just opposite the Marina Dalmacija) in Croatia after a week of beautiful weather.  However I've been bitten more times than I care to count by little gnats who seem to treat my body as some form of banquet.

Croatia is a beautiful country, but it is not without it's problems.  The first is that the taxi service is incredibly expensive.  Expect to pay around £20-£25 to go only a few kilometres.  A 10-15 minute ride from Bibinje into Zadar's bus station costs £20.  From the airport to Bibinje is around £24.  A bus from Bibinje to Zadar's bus station is £1 each way.  If travelling by bus, prepare to join the locals in being pushed and pushing your way onto the bus since the concept of queues and orderly conduct are not something is a feature of the Croatian culture.

Secondly, a lot of café's in the centre of Zadar's old town don't serve food.  Nor do they have any menus.  Expect to interrogate the waiters as to what they have and what it costs.  Even when you do come across a restaurant, you're not immediately given a menu or are shown a seat.  I realise that this is not a busy season, but the waiters certainly seem to make you work for your food.  If sitting outside, expect smokers.  Lots of them.

Also, most tourist offices close on days when you want them the most.  In the shops around the Bibinje's marina, prepare to check your receipt carefully to avoid being overcharged.  The marina's shop is expensive in itself, but we discovered that they were charging over the odds for cans of coke which are priced by Coca Cola themselves as 4.99kn, but was going for 7Kn and was rang up under "Milk".  The bigger, more reputable shopping markets do not do this.

Finally, do not trust most road signs.  Most of them around Bibinje and the marina aren't exactly accurate and you should consult local maps (ironically from the Bibinje tourist office which I only found by accident).  Bus stops are not marked very well or provide much information either - the timetable for the number 10 bus to and from Bibinje to Zadar is found at the tourist office and NOT the bus shelter.

Favourite restaurants: Restaurant/Hotel Bepo and Tomislav Grill which are both just across the main road opposite the entrance to the Marina Dalmacija), and Restaurant Fereta (at the marina itself).  I would strongly suggest that you try Dalmatian Ham, it is most delicious!

That said, I did enjoy Croatia a great deal, and the people we were renting our apartment from were absolutely brilliant: very accommodating (I particularly enjoyed their home made grappa) and friendly.

Is it safe? Marathon Man's still in the running as a great thriller

Thanks to LOVEFiLM, I'm only just getting around to watching some classic movies on DVD and Blu-Ray.  The most recent that I watched was Marathon Man, which is infamous for it's torture sequence and Laurence Olivier's infamous "Is it safe?" line.  The more cynical in me would have assumed that it was about a dyslexic man who eats a chocolate bar full of peanuts and ends up looking for his local Nazi dentist.  Marathon Man is none of these things, of course, and is actually a pretty creepy thriller involving diamonds, Nazi war criminals, the McCarthy hearings, rogue US enforcement agencies, and lots of blood.

The cinematography still stands up to the test of time, as does the sound.  The screenplay, direction and acting is flawless.  It was good to see Laurence Olivier in this kind of role, and Dustin Hoffman made an effective victim, caught up in all manner of political and criminal proceedings.

Is it safe? The break-in at Babe's apartment and the torture sequence (not at all gory, but what's implied and takes place is far more effective than filling the screen with blood) will not make you feel safe at all.

Let's just hope they never come up with a sequel: Snickers Woman.

The future's bright, the future is non-scheduled broadcasting (aka Video on Demand)

When I read about Simon Cowell getting all upset about pitting X-Factor against Strictly Come Dancing, my thought was "how old fashioned".  In this day and age, more of us are watching television on Sky Plus boxes, on the various online "catch-up" services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player or 4oD.

Scheduled broadcasting is so 20th Century.  Our lives are getting increasingly busier and we often do not have the time or inclination to rush home to stick the television on and sit glued to the TV watching X-Factor.  And there are those that like both X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing but obviously can't watch both at the same time.  PVR (personal video recorders) and VoD (video on demand) services are becoming increasingly popular ways to record and watch television programming at the viewer's leisure rather than at the convenience of the broadcaster. 

Additionally, BitTorrent has shown that there is a huge demand for episodic drama from around the world - feeding people's needs for programs either before they've aired in their own country, or for those desperate to catch-up without waiting for it to become a re-run on come out on DVD.  Unfortunately using BiTorrent in this way is completely illegal.

Additional benefits of (legitimate) video on demand include greater statistics and tracking of viewing habits, including audience ratings, etc.  Advertisers can get interactive with the audience by inserting links directly to web sites for those viewing on a computer or set-up box which connects to the Internet.

So is linear/scheduled broadcasting dead?  Not quite.  Some genres suit themselves nicely for this type of broadcasting.  Live sport, for instance, and home shopping.  In fact, any live event at all. 

TV is changing, and I don't think that Simon Cowell has much to fear from broadcasters airing popular programs live at the same time.  Not unless he's into the sports or home shopping markets.

Is it 'have a go at cyclists week' or something? Is the Daily Mail anti-cyclist?

First we have James Martin, a TV chef, having a good bitch about cyclists and advocating (for that is what the article implies) knocking cyclists off their bikes by distracting them.  He later apologised, stating that it was all misjudged humour.  Yet it certainly attracted a large number of people in the comments of the Daily Mail and The Register (and elsewhere) bemoaning cyclists (and cyclists bemoaning car drivers).

Today, the Daily Mail publishes this article about how the West London borough of Kensington & Chelsea launching a new scheme to allow cyclists to go both ways down one-way streets.  Now, I'm not particularly thrilled about this idea unless this scheme has some form of method to allow cyclists and cars to travel safely down such streets.  However, the comments in the article are very vitriolic against cyclists again.

As somebody who has chosen not to drive, does not own a car (by choice) and relies on both cycling and public transport, I must object strongly to all this negativity against cyclists.  There are plenty of excellent and well-behaved cyclists as there are car drivers.  And similarly, there are plenty of bad cyclists as well as bad car drivers.  I myself try to obey the Highway Code at all times.  I do not cycle through red lights.  I do not whizz through pedestrian crossings.  I wear reflective clothing when necessary, and use front and rear lights when dark.  I do not mount pavements and should and force pedestrians out the way.  In short - I try to be a good road user.

As for the lycra debate, I do wear lycra leggings for cycling.  These stop chaffing around the vitals (and as such, I also wear long T-shirts to avoid any embarrassments), keep the dirt, rain and mud off my regular clothes, and are light and comfortable.  Surrealist statement of the day: my leggings do NOT make me go any faster or slower than somebody wearing jeans or loose shorts.

I also wear a helmet.  Regardless of how effective or ineffective they may be in an impact, it's certainly better than not wearing one at all.

I try to keep my breaks and other essential components well maintained.  As such I pass my bike to a specialist bike shop for them to do the work.  This ensures that I don't muck anything up.

No cyclist or car driver is any better than one another.  What's important is that we both share the road amicably and according to the laws set out in the Highway Code.  Sometimes we both may not get it right, but providing everybody is paying attention, then accidents should be kept to a minimum.

What we do need is more bike lanes if I were to be honest..

London Calling - the video montage.. part one

Have edited together some of the video footage I've shot whilst at the Natural History Museum.  There is no sound, and haven't yet found a good soundtrack to go along with it. Note: any slow-down/jerkiness (other than my wibbly camera work - the Kodak Zi6 has no image stabiliser - I'll have to get myself a proper HD camera one of these days - is due to the Zi6's somewhat temperamental H.264 encoder)

London Calling..

Jennifer and I have just returned from a wonderful weekend away in London.  We stayed at the De Vere Devonport House in Greenwich overnight and despite no air conditioning, it was a most comfortable stay.  That said, their breakfast menu has severe apostrophe problems.

On the Saturday, we went along to the Natural History Museum's Butterfly Jungle and was amazed by all the different types of butterfly that were freely flying around (video).  We also visited the main NHM building and was most taken with the Small Mammals exhibition (although taxidermy still doesn't sit right for me - especially when the animals are smiling at you). 

After the NHM, we took a river cruise from Westminster bridge up to Greenwich, checked in to the hotel, and got another river cruise back into Central London and went to Tootsies in James Street for our evening meal.   It was wonderful - Tootsies had produced some of the best food we've had in ages.  I opted for their Hereford Steak and Merlot pie, and the sheer size of the thing meant that I couldn't find room for desert.  Or a starter.  We then made our way to Hyde Park to see (or rather hear, given the distance we were from the stage) Terry Wogan introduce Barry Manilow and John Barrowman perform a few hits (which saw groups of people leave the compound in droves at that time - seriously!).  It got a bit too cold after Can't Smile Without You, so we decided to head back to Greenwich. 

On the Sunday we were going to go to the Movieum of London, but ultimately went for the Imperial War Museum instead.  It was a good choice.  We spent all day wondering around the First and Second World War exhibits before visiting the excellent Holocaust exhibition.  We even managed to find the record of my aunt's death by a flying V2 bomb on Smithfield's market (video) on the IWM's civilian deaths database.

Overall an excellent weekend.  But it could have gone a little better if Boris Johnson and his mates at City Hall and London Transport didn't keep doing these "weekend improvements" at the worst possible time.  And we had no idea that one could buy tickets on the bus - the details provided on the timetable/bus shelters provide no such information.  And we found buying tickets for the River taxis/cruises to be quite confusing too.  Again, a lack of information does not help.

iTunes 9 & iTunes Extras: Users short changed - Apple/film studios double dips

I'm sure my regular readers (all one of you - ha!) will know by now that I am very much an advocate for video on demand and content delivery systems.  I have been following (and using) iTunes for a good many years.  Similarly I have been using Apple products (iBooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs, Mac Minis, iPods, etc.) for equally as long.  I've come to see Apple as a company which tries very hard to provide the consumer with good value for money and fights to give consumers what they want.

With iTunes, we can rip our CD collections and organise our music.  We can now purchase DRM free music on demand (when iTunes started it was all DRMed to the hilt, but it brought convenience for the user of buying music on demand despite the inconvenience of locking everything down to a single portable platform and licensing system).  We can now rent and buy movies and TV shows.  We can even buy TV shows in HD (and I'm sure movies will soon follow).  iTunes is a media centre par excellence.

The downside to buying movies from an online store versus buying it on DVD or Blu-Ray is that you don't get the extras like audio commentaries, documentaries, etc. that come along with the physical disc purchase.  With the release of iTunes 9, this changes things - consumers can now buy movies such as Wall-E, Iron Man, Quantum of Solace to name a few, with extra features alongside the main film.

But what about consumers who have already bought these movies through iTunes?  Do they get to download these extras now that they've installed iTunes 9?  The answer is a big fat no. 

I've attempted to contact iTunes Store support to find out just what can be done about that, but so far I've had absolutely no straight answers from them.  All they've said is that they can't re-authorise the download of any films and that, when I got back to them to say that it doesn't answer my original question, they simply gave me 5 song credits to shut me up and once again avoided answering me directly.

I can only assume that if you have already purchased the movie via iTunes earlier than version 9 and want the extras, you're going to have to pay for the film again.  A neat way of making Apple (although to be fair, I doubt they see much of that cash you pay them - most of that goes to the studios) and their clients, the film studios, more money from the same content (you'll be paying for and downloading the film twice).

Given my previous post about how my boss, Kate Craig-Wood, has quantified the carbon emissions from producing CDs versus music downloads, I applaud Apple and the film studios for making video on demand more attractive.  But unless they either allow existing purchasers to buy the extras separately, or give them the ability to download them for free now, then I must question how well this system is going to work (one issue is that you can't resell these downloads unlike a physical CD or DVD).

We're off to Nodnol to see the Neeuq..

A rare treat this weekend; we're off to London to catch a bit of the Proms (well, the last night in fact), to visit a few museums (including this one, which will probably feel a bit like an ex-busman's holiday), to eat, and to relax. 

We'll be staying in my old stomping ground of Greenwich (which is where I met Jennifer for the first time a little over nine years ago now) and taking river taxis wherever possible.  It'll be interesting to see what has become of the Cutty Sark after the fire.  I do know that my old employers are no longer in the area, as well as one of the finest pie and mash shops in London.  But it'll be good to see old Greenwich again.