parallel universe

I've been using my iMac with the Intel inside for a few weeks and have not re-booted it since it came out of the box. Until today when I installed the clever software called parallels workstation, which allows me to run the iMac with slave environment(s) of any version of Windows underneath Mac OS X.

Now don't get me wrong, I use Mac OS X for just about everything in my non work world, and with the Apple software that comes with the iMac it does most of the useful things straight out of the packet.


But having a Windows environment which can be simply booted like another browser session is quite useful for the times I need access to a piece of Windows world. And this brilliant utility lets me do it. Its far better than Apple's 'Boot Camp' because it works without rebooting, and lets the Windows session run 'inside' the Mac OS X environment. Its also fast because the Windows is running natively on the intel chippery.

I emphasise that I use Apple's standard Safari as my browser and iLife for lots of things like photography and making DVDs and iWork for word processing and similar.

And for the record I've rebooted Windows twice whilst I was writing this (installing updates etc), but of course MAC OS X didn't even blink.

If you are keen on Bootcamp itself, there's a handy little article about it here

Tag: iMac, windows, Apple, boot camp, parallels workstation, windows on mac, Macbook Pro, dual core, OS X

look out

The Smithy Code Solution

The Da Vinci Code carries on getting publicity - now we have the film with Tom Hanks, but also the coded message the Judge embedded in his 'no plagiarism' judgement. He set some of the letters in the judgement to be italic. The secret text reads as:

smithycodeJaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzv

Justice Peter Smith has dropped hints that the cryptographic methods in the books concerned (The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail) have been used. Options: substitution? number series? decoder? keyword? I'll keep an eye open for someone solving this - I think it has something to do with his entry in Who's Who. If you want to see the full (surprisingly readable) trial judgement (printed with the strange italics), its here

Tag: Da Vinci Code, Smithy Code, Justice Peter Smith, Tom Hanks, code, cypher

UPDATE 28 Apr 06:

The excellent solution, via Tom, is here and the answer would seen to be about Admiral John "Jackie" Fisher and the battleship Dreadnought.

Justice Smith's interests (as I originally commented, they are listed in Who's Who) include the history of Jackie Fisher, noting him as an admiral who modernized the British Navy.

loco roco?

metaatem

Now this is just fun to do, via metaatem and using flickr photostreams.

art bomb

Traffic in West London stopped today after five packages containing nails were found in doorways in Shepherd's Bush.

The emergency services, including police helicopter were called to the area shortly after 08:00. The concern was related to some kind of terrorist activity and police closed many commuter roads and tube lines around the area.

Four of the suspect objects were given the all clear by later in the morning, but a source said the fifth was mistakenly picked up by dustmen and police had to track the lorry down before putting a cordon round it and checking that it was safe.

Later in the morning, a woman walked into a nearby police station in connection with the packages.

It turns out to have been an art installation, which happened to feature packages with nails sticking out of them. One, on closer examination, consisted of three cardboard tubes supporting a polystyrene "altar" on which stood some flowers and a note which talked about the loss of a "Pelagius" and included the phrase: "Your absence has gone through us like thread through a needle. Everything we do is stitched with its colour."

Tag: london, terrorism, art

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Mont Broc

I've think I'm more of a biro person than a smart fountain pen user. There's always an unlimited supply of free ballpoints, everywhere, except next to telephones.

That's not to say I don't have a 'cheque signing' pen, which was a free gift after I took a couple of flights. Its a Mont Blanc, but has been rather unlucky.

Although I've had it for some time, there's an unfortunate design fault when it goes into a plane, where it seems to squirt ink into the pen, sorry - writing instrument - top.

As I don't use it very often, it also seems to run out of ink in a mysterious way, beyond the small amounts it leaves in pockets and bags. I used it for a while with a big bottle of Mont Blanc ink, but then switched to the more compact cartridges.

Then the barrel cracked and the specialist explained it was made from resin imported from Switzerland. I received the replacement but continued to use Argos and Reader's Digest freebies.

Now, today, I find the pen in the corner of my bag, in pieces. The cartridge doesn't make quite as much mess as the old rotary filler, but this time the Swiss resin will stay broken and I will use the twisty rollerball I picked up from the hotel yesterday.

Tag: pen, writing, ink

the big city

I was in Central London for a meeting today, in a hotel near to Park Lane and Mayfair. At the end of the meeting, I was in an elevator with a couple of London tourists, who were looking a little bit lost in the hotel surroundings. They were Brits and spending a couple of days on a shopping mission to the big city. I chatted breifly with them and then accelerated away.

I caught a couple of tube trains, then walked the last ten minutes to my next destination, spent around half an hour there and was then leaving when I saw two people pausing outside the entrance to the building.

It was the same two tourists, and they had remembered me from the hotel. We greeted one another and were equally surprised at the co-incidence that our paths would cross again in the busy-ness of London. Today's photos are from my phone, taken during the tube journey.

Tag: london, tube, tourism

Cry "England and St.George"

It is St George's Day today. St George is the Patron Saint of England and is famous for his dragon slaying. I had a quick browse for relevant pictures, but on most, the dragon was only the size of a carry-on bag, which I found somewhat disappointing. I expect that is why the Catholic Church demoted St George to a third-class, minor saint in the first half of the twentieth century.

After I wrote this, I noticed craziequeen has a good description of St George's day. Only in the year 2000 was George elevated once again to the role of 'national saint' and awarded his "day of solemnity" by the Pope. If little is known about the man, the myth is legendary - a maiden-rescuing hero triumphs over evil in a punch-up with a dragon.

Some say this goes back to the story of Perseus (son of Zeus) who fell in love with fair Andromeda. She had been chained to a rock as appeasement to insulted deities who sent a dragon-like sea monster to take revenge. Perseus (already slayer of the Gorgon Medusa) turned into an eagle and then caught out the winged monster and rescued Andromeda.

And back to George - as an historical figure, he was a soldier who destroyed Diocletian's edict against Christianity, which led to martyrdom following his execution in Lydda, Palestine (in AD 303).

So, circa nine hundred years later, at the Council of Oxford in 1222, St George's Day was declared a public holiday. Then later Edward III instituted the Order of St George and encouraged the battle cry 'England and St George!'

Tag: england, St George, dragon

Hey DJ

I help out across on Christina Nott's site and had a request to add some video (any video!) to a recent track made by Christina and her friend Jenny. I was also asked to do this quickly so that there was some sort of version of the track on Christina's web site whilst Jenny is still in Europe.

The hurridly assembled result is across at Christina's. I've had several people asking me about Vlogging (video blogging) and as I suspected, the amount of time it takes is significantly more than the time to create a normal blog entry (circa 10 minutes). So I think I'll keep to my current format of text and a picture with maybe a very occasional video.

Do check out the music at Christina's - both today's video and some of the earlier material like the music track 'Wind'.

Tag: music, guitar, Christina Nott

bug spattered on windshield en route to the enchanted castle

A 520 mile round trip today and one of the things I noticed was the windscreen of the car was splattered with insects by the end of the journey. It is quite early in the season for this and probably the first time this year that I've had to use the wipers to sweep away such carnage rather than to remove frost or rain.

I'm told that driving at less than 50mph gives bugs a chance to slipstream out of the way, but above that they can't take evasive action and its beyond their exoskeleton design point.

We are also in the time of year for low flying birds. Fledgling pilots take to the skies around now and some of them don't get the hang of crossing roads higher than the height of an average car. I noticed several examples on the twisty lanes on the way back.

Tag: art, insect, driving

my little piece of sky

Working from home today, I started with a telephone conference with Amsterdam and Brussels at 08:00UK. I've been on the phone pretty much continuously since then, interspersed with some email and IM-ing (is that a word now?). That was until my enforced break about an hour ago, which now finds me with adhesive fingers, a hole and some water in the wrong place.

Essentially, we had one of those moments when the sky fell, or at least a piece of ceiling decided to fall, accompanied by a reasonable amount of water. Lets just say I wasn't the cause of all this and the remediation to a couple of areas of home was already under way before I became involved, but it has disrupted the flow of the day with the flow of water, somewhat.

Most of the wet stuff is now back in places where wet stuff is supposed to be, the sky is back in the air again and a large expanse of carpet currently makes a squelching sound. By tomorrow I expect things will be back to normal and in about seven minutes I can resume my schedule.

Tag: plumbing, domestic, chicken little