Jees…I read last night the interview with Stallman that recently appeared on Slashdot. I take the view that many have on him – he is very extreme and although I don’t agree with everything he says, he does have some good points and he knows what he is talking about. One thing I do feel he is wrong about however is the issue of Debian not being entirely free as they include links to non-free software on the site. Oh come on…I mean, there is zealotary (sp?) but this is extreme; Debian is about as free as you get with Linux…er, I mean GNU/Linux. I thought it was a bit childish in the interview to refuse to mention a commercial product so he does not promote it – I am sure I have heard him say the words Microsoft, Novell, IBM, SCO and various other companies who do commercial trade however.

Anyway, I have been trying to get Qt installed. I hit a compile error and it seems that the GUI interface for Stuffit seems to stuff up (no pun intended) long filenames. I will try and compile it again today.

Well, this was a weekend of metal and yesterday I was playing for 4 hours. I havent drummed for quite a while and as such my hands are covered in blisters – ouch!! It was cool to do some fast double bass playing though and I look forward to playing drums again…maybe some Nile next time (I think not!!).

Right, work to do…
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Got up today and I had got my Playstation 2 network PIN number through. I registered the console and then went to town with Sooz to take a picture for her work and I needed some drumsticks for tomorrow. I am gonna be jamming with a guy called Sam that I met at Wacken and my brother of metal Paul. We jam from 2 till 4 and then I have a Seraphidian practice from 4.15 – 6.15. I am gonna be knackered tomorrow!!

Anyway, I am now just compiling Qt/Mac Free Edition. I am looking forward to seeing what this is like as Qt AFAIK draws widgets itself instead of relying on the underlying OS’s toolkit – I don’t think Qt just maps to Cocoa, but we will have to see. Trolltech are pretty impressive company in my view and I am looking forward to seeing how they deal with this.

Last night I was also messing about with Dyne:abolic – a Linux distro for multimedia work and streaming. Everything worked apart from my wireless LAN card so I have mailed to developers to see if this can be resolved in a future version somehow. 🙂

The other thing I have been doing is getting Painkiller recorded. I did most of the drum programming last night and initial guide guitar tracks. Hopefully it will come out pretty well. 🙂

Oh yeah, and have you folks been keeping up with the latest Microsoft attacking worm? I was watching it on the news before I went to bed and they keep covering how to defend against it but never question why these virii can work in the first place – bad security in Microsoft’s products. With Smoothwall being free there is really no excuse for not protecting yourself against this threat.
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Well, Mr Craig Tucker Esq has just been over for a fleeting visit. It was good to meet up with him again. We will be seeing him next week for some curry that he may be cooking.

Today I will be writing, and then tonight I am heading off to the cinema with Sooz to see Freddy vs Jason. We have been waiting for this film for ages. We still need to see T3 also. 🙂

I am hoping to get a lot written today as I want to mess about with XML for a bit and play with the OSX Power Builder IDE and get Qt going. I might also see if I can get an X server running on OSX – I would like to get OpenOffice.org running but it needs an X Server as far as I know, although a native binary is planned.

Fun stuff and plenty of toys to mess about with. 🙂
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Well, last night I set up the Powerbook with the Applke developer tools. Unfortunatly I only have version 10.1.5 of MacOS X and the new tools just run on 10.2.x. I will upgrade when the new Panther MAcOSX is out. The tools look nice and it is good that they are all free – this means I could develop MacOSX software using quality tools for free – I think Apple have got this right. 🙂

I worked on some music last night. I am currently working on a cover of Painkiller by Judas Priest. I was working on the solo some more last night – most of it is done. I have also fattened up the guitars so they sound meaty. I might wait and record this when I get a new sound card – the latency on my current setup is pretty bad.

Right, need to do some writing today as usual. 🙂

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Well, at 11.40am my Powerbook arrived, and very nice it is too. All of it was boxed with manuals and CDs and the actual Powerbook is in pristine condition.

The powerbook is certainly a flash bit of kit. it is so incredibly thin and the screen is fantastic and big – I plumped for the 15″ screen and I can’t imagine needing a bigger screen. The 17″ screen must be a monster. Also, MacOSX is fantastic. It picked my wireless LAN up fine and I was up and running in minutes. It looks great, works great and has BSD as it’s core. 🙂

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Right, I am now waiting for a shiny Mac to be delivered here. It should be here before 12 I was told – lets see if this is actually the case. 🙂

It is now 10.28am and I am gonna get cracking on some writing; Nevermore is playing and I am full of Tea. 🙂
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Got up at 11am today as I was working into the early hours of this morning. I have been working away on my book and listening to lots of Decapitated, Cannibal Corpse, Helloween, Halford, Rhapsody and others. 🙂

I just got the heads up from the guy that I am buying the Mac off that it will arrive tomorrow. 🙂 I was reading the MacOSX for UNIX users PDF on the Apple site last night and it certainly looks impressive. It comes with a *lot* of software and includes developer tools, apache and other stuff. Good stuff I think, but the true test is when it arrives. 🙂

Right, I think I am gonna work for another half hour or so and then get some lunch. 🙂

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Well, I have successfully managed to gets my hands on a Mac. I have plumped for a 15″ screen Powerbook running at 800MHz, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD, Wireless LAN etc. I picked it up off ebay and now just need to pay the dude and get it sent to me. I am looking forward to seeing this jobby – I think things such as backlit keys, light detecting screen and other things sound pretty cool, and of course the beauty that is MacOSX. 🙂

Well today I am going to be writing until 4pm and then I am off out to see an old friend who has travelled over from Luxemberg. I used to go to Uni with her, bu she was in the year above so left last year. It will be fun catching up with things. 🙂

We saw The Hulk last night. Not too bad, a bit long though, and Eric Bana played the part well. Sooz and I were lent a video by Steve in Seraphidian called Chopper which starred Eric Bana, and we have become fans of him since he was in that. Funny guy.
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Well folks, I am pleased to announce that I am working on a new book. I am going to keep the specfics of it quiet at the moment, but the book will be related to free software and I have signed a contract with a publisher to ensure it is available in your local book store. The book will be ready by chrismas and published sometime next year.

I am keeping the specifics of it under wraps at the moment until most of it is written, and then I will let you all know. You can then rush out and buy it, and I might have a few copies to give away on this site. 🙂

Aside from this good news, I am currently looking at buying a Mac. I have been getting a fair bit of work recently for MAc magazines and such, but the lack of a machine has meant I have needed to turn it down. I have decided to plump for a Powerbook and I am currently just hunting around for a good deal. Let me know if you have a good site where I can get one. 🙂

Well, band practice today and then off to the cinima to see The Hulk tonight. Terminator 3 is on my list, but I am off with Sooz and friends so The Hulk it is. Looking forward to sitting in a small chair and having £4.50 sucked out of my wallet and spending £3.50 on an overpriced Coca-Cola ripoff. Bleeding cinema’s cost a fortune – roll on the EasyCinema. 🙂

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Well folks, I have returned from the mighty Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. It took a whille for to update you here because for some reason our server run out of disk space and as such I could not update.

Well Wacken was awesome – I saw some great bands. Bands that stood out for me were Twisted Sister (yes I was surprised also), Freedom Call, Gamma Ray, Primal Fear, The Crown, Nile, Rage and many others. I got some cool stuff from the metal mart and had a great time. I will be there next year. 🙂

Well, now I am back and I am working on a project I will be announcing soon. 🙂

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