What is Becomming of Me?

This is turning into a software blog. I have to do something about it. Soon some non-software related posts. I am slowly becoming more geeky. Though hooray for that, though still no software next post. I am kinda geeky according to this extensive (but old) geek test. I forget what my actual delineation was, which isn't very geek like is it?

I have been downloading lots of torrents from legaltorrents.com where you can torrents of movies and music, a few books and audiobooks. All nice and guilt free as they are under the Creative Commons License. It's the music I am interested in right now. I have nearly all of the net.label stuff that is up there. I like Enough Records, Observatory Online, and Please Do Something stuff. One Archives is good too. In fact all prett much all of what I have heard, I like. It's electronica, beats, experimental type stuff; ambient, soundscapes, some drum and bass, technoish and idm (I don't like that term but there it is), that kind of thing, yer usual netlabel fare, although it is not your usual fare, there's some very good stuff out there. There is more a The Internet Archive.org that I must check out. I'm going to be making use of that external drive I recently bought. (LaCie Mini 300GB, nice, and doubles as a hub too, giving you 4 extra powered USB ports and 2 firewire.)

Firefox 2 Beta 2 (Mac)

Just downloaded the new Firefox 2 beta 2.
And Ooh it is pretty. It looks as though they have updated the icons.

And the little close tab cross on each tab now glows red when you hover over it.
Tabs not currently in use are faded out (I don't recall this before, though I may be mistaken).
There is a small arrow you can click at the end of the window that shows a list of all your tabs. you can then click to choose a tab and are taken to it in the browser window.

Very useful with the sprawl of tabs I usually have open. (Was this around in beta 1? If it was I didn't notice it)

I am excited about the new Firefox. I'm regularly using the spellcheck and the "undo close tab" and the "recently closed tabs" item in the history menu. And of course the session restore feature, which reinstates all your previously open tabs when/if you crash, (which is rarely happening for me now). Lifesaver. I think I have said all this before.
Oh and on the tab thing, you can scroll through your tabs along with some green arrows that appear, so no more "where have my tabs gone" worries. (and yes I think this was in beta 1 too, again I can't be sure, but if it was I don't think the arrows were green.)

Overall it just seems to me to be more a lot smoother to use, and nicer to look at. More Macintosh-y, though is it aqua looking?.
Well whatever, I am impressed.
I shall see over the next coming days how stable it is.

Things to Prettify Your Mac

Breve Creatures screensaver the breve simulation environment.

IdleWeb view and scroll through websites as a screensaver

LotsaSnow - Pretty snowflakes fall against a background or over your dimmed desktop. I love this.

FuzzyClock tells the time in an around and about way.

and many localizations including Pimp-not sure wether this will be a permanent feature in my menu bar.

vUpstream is fast and flashy, but quite nice.

Oh and

ShadowKiller removes window shadows and speeds up my aging iMac (G4 800mhz). Not a prettyfier, but it does change the GUI.

Links for 18/08/2006 or Thereabouts

TimeLapse Screensaver
If I had an iSight this would be excellent, though I am not exactly sure what it does (I wanna try it out).
WebnoteHappy Lite bookmark pages and make notes on them. This is something I've been looking for for some time. For all those times you want to check to something out later but don't want to add it to your "proper" bookmarks (Or del.icio.us or whatever). From Firefox adding a bookmark can be triggered by adding a bookmark in the toolbar and clicking on that or by adding a keyword to the bookmark and typing that keyword into the address bar, WebnoteHappy will be triggered to get the page you want bookmarked and allow you to make a note on it. You can then export these bookmarks and notes to backup or to bookmarks readable by other browsers (I'm assuming they are readable by other browsers, haven't tried importing any yet.)
Pingling this dockling that sits in the dock checking whether you are online or not by pinging apple.com, google.com or shrook.com.
I have a dodgy router so this is very useful.
Quicksilver changes everything. The wowee intro to using Quicksilver. Yes, this has been around for ages but I just got around to it.

Last.fm excitement

After having heard about Last.fm for some time form other people's blogs (e.g. Tom plasticbag Coates) I have just jumped in and begun tagging and discovering what Last.fm is all about. It's very exciting, though I will not understand the ins and outs of the site and its offerings I shall go a hunting, and a listening. Also I am brushing up on my UNIX basics. That is keeping me busy while it's windy weather. I doubt there are other ducks on Last.fm, but Im sure that won't matter a jot. The Web should be welcoming to those with feet of web.

Soon some links, they are waiting to be posted, but I am lazy.
Oh, and on Leopard (see previous post), though some people are expressing their underwhelm-ment with the Sneak Peek on Apple's site, I am quite looking forward to seeing what it has to offer, It looks good to me. I am glad that it Apple say it will be PowerPC compatible. Time Tunnel is might useful, and core animation looks promising. The new apple voice sounds fantastic too. I can't be bothered to link to everything I've just mentioned. It's all there at Lepoard Sneak Peek. And yes there Spaces does look like Virtue Desktops. (can't find working link)

One Word

Lepoard

A Few Things

I have been deprived of t'Internet for some time now. (about a week) so have no great list of links to give (not that I usually do).

I just caught the last half of Armmando Iannuci's "Time Trumpet" and loved the video comparison of Tony Blair and David Cameron's styles - similar gestures, photo ops, tones of voice, themes. Although o'course it could have been spun out of context, I think instead it illuminated the extent of the similarities, that I hadn't noticed before.
I love the way the episode ended with a (sort of) sing-a-longa by Blair and Cameron to "Heroes" by David Bowie complied with clips from speeches the two have made. Very good. Wonder how long that took.

I am also loving Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe, the man that tells you what you need to know about the teevee industry (among sneers at adverts and other tv fare). In the first episode proper (there was a three episode pilot type thing a few months ago) Brooker talks about his reintroduction to the world of Eastenders.

"The real Eastend has got Hawksmoor churches, fashionable nightclubs and a thriving Bangladeshi community; Walford has just got Keith Miller swabbing windows with a rag on a stick."

"Jim Branning still looks like a 95 year old Thom Yorke"

Excellent.

I have been discovering more of the Smiths and I'm liking what I am hearing.
There is alight that never goes out
William it Was Really Nothing
What Difference Does it make?
How Soon is now
Handsome Devil
Hand in Glove
Vicar in a Tutu
This night has Opened my eyes
The Boy with the Thorn in his Side
Frankly Mr Shankly : - (I didn't that you wrote poetry, I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry Mr Shankly.)

In no particular order.