Alex Harries's diary

Going through my cameraphone photos - almost a year's worth - I found this pic of a rare OS X "kernel panic" on my laptop, which is the computer's way of saying "that's it, something's gone massively wrong and I've had enough. If you're stupid enough to want to keep going, be my guest, but you're going to have to reboot me first"...

Not having experienced this on a Mac before, I guess that's one of the warning signs a more experienced (or geeky?) owner might have attributed to what was about to happen next. Unfortunately for me - but brilliantly for you if schadenfreude is the only thing that gets you through the day - I took no notice of this warning sign.

The photo was taken on February 14th. A few days later, my laptop's hard disk karked it in spectacular style.

Ah well, you live and learn... There's another 82 random photos in the set including a couple of excellent bits of graffiti that made I chuckle (which I'll write a separate post about shortly). Bored or suffering insomnia? You can find the rest of the pics here on Flickr :o)

(This is a fully-geeky entry, I'm afraid...) 

A couple of months back, I spotted that the previews of the website graphics I was working on in Photoshop were very washed out. I wasted the best part of a day trying to figure out why, and eventually sorted it after an afternoon of exercising unusually high levels of self-control to resist the urge to throw my mouse/laptop/desk lamp/chair across the room.

Wonderful thing that upgrades are, today I realised that Photoshop was back to its old tricks again and was saving graphics which looked like they'd been sun-bleached. For my own future reference, here's what I had to do to fix this problem:

1. Go to 'edit' > 'color settings' and set it up like this:
   
   
   Note the RGB working space is set to "Color LCD Calibrated" - it should be set to whatever your monitor is calibrated to, it seems.
2. Whenever you create a new document in Photoshop, make sure the "Color profile" option (under 'advanced', in the 'new document' dialogue) is set to the same monitor profile you set in step 1.
3. Also make sure your documents are set with the right proofing options, by checking 'view' > 'proof setup' is set to 'monitor RGB', and 'view' > 'proof colors' is ticked.
   
4. Finally, in 'save to web', make sure 'convert to sRGB' is un-ticked (click the right-arrow to the right of 'preset' options).

 Hopefully, next time this happens - 'cos it's bound to happen - this should work better than throwing the laptop out of the window....... ;o)

/al - geek geek geek geek geek geek, etc 

(Boring geeky ramblings below...)

Up until recently, I was a Windows user, and made a lot of use of Google's desktop search toy. Secretly though, I wanted a Mac so I could use the wonderful Spotlight search system.

Fast-forward a year or so and I barely ever use Spotlight because it's horribly, painfully slow. Quicksilver has deserted me - it crashes within a few minutes of opening it - and I miss my trusty Google desktop search.

Now Google have released a Mac desktop search toy, and I'm about to give it a go. You can find out more and download it from their free Mac software page, and read more about it on the Hawk Wings blog. If you haven't already installed this free wonder of technology, you really should give it a go :o)

Google might be trying to take over the world, but until I figure out what's so evil about their great free software, I'm happy to keep telling everyone I know how good I think it is. Sad but true... /al

Little update - it looks like I won't need to name and shame the high street retailer who sold me a used TomTom GO 510 as "new": they replaced it and I upgraded (for an extra £40) to the 710 as they "didn't have any more 510s in stock" (uh huh? Riiight...).

The not-connecting thing seems to have been resolved by installing the TomTom Home software in an administrative account, but I'm still having the problem with settings being deleted every time I dock the TomTom on the Mac. I'm going to give the PC version a try, but I don't know for sure if my Windows box has any USB 2 ports on it (I've never needed them as it's only a file server).

Another problem on the OS X version of the TomTom Home software: I can't use the "My TomTom GO 710" option to plan routes (or do anything at all) on - it just says something along the lines of "A required component is not available...". :(

The Bluetooth problems I was having - where I could only connect to my Motorola once and then the TomTom wouldn't connect again - seem to have been fixed by installing an app from the TomTom support site called "Clear Flash".

Still, on the plus side, the iPod control works brilliantly, and I now have an extra carry case and home dock.Hell, I think it will even navigate me to places using this new-fangled GPS technology I keep seeing mentioned...

/al - happier bunny...

(Further off-topic than a snowmobile in the desert. Or something...)

If you're interested in trying out Windows Vista, you can now download the RC1 version of Vista straight from Microsoft.

Because it's version RC1, it means Microsoft reckon it's almost finished - there are probably some bugs, but it's largely well-behaved. That said, you shouldn't really be thinking about replacing your working copy of Windows just yet, and there are some programs that probably won't work, but if you're curious ... ok, let's call a spade a spade here: if you're as much of a geek as I am - then you'll probably want to give this a go.

A couple of important things to remember:

• It's not a "final" release - things will crash, break, not work, misbehave... Basically, if your sanity hangs in the balance at the moment, this will probably tip you over the edge. Don't say you haven't been warned...
• You should install and run the Microsoft Upgrade Advisor before you try installing Vista - this tells you what software and hardware you have that won't work under Vista, and what software and hardware will probably misbehave.
• You can upgrade an existing copy of Windows (2000 or XP I think), but you can't uninstall Vista - again, if you use your PC for work, or have irreplaceable stuff - photos, music, videos, etc - you shouldn't do it, just in case it all goes horribly wrong.
• This version of Vista will work until May 31st 2007 - you'll then need to get the release version of Vista, or re-install an older copy of Windows.
• You'll need a "passport" sign in - if you use MSN Messenger, you can sign in with that e-mail address and password. Otherwise, you'll need to sign up for one.
  
• You will be given a working product key once you have signed in at the link, above. Remember to save the key - it'll also be e-mailed to you.

So far, I'm really impressed with Vista - it's actually faster than XP, has a lot of nice user interface touches, like the Launchy-style search in the start menu, and a search bar on every Explorer window. The sidebar is also a nice toy, and the gadgets actually work, which is always nice. It's probably a bit unfair to say Microsoft simply "borrowed" a stack of ideas from Apple's OS X operating system, but there's certainly a lot of inspiration there.

More information on this release of Vista can be found here.