I Send A Message...

I went off instant messaging a while back because I had so many different friends lists in so many different programs and they would never marry up.

Until now.

This morning, after being compelled to download the new MSN Messenger (hoick, spit) I stumbled upon this little gem:



Yes that's right, all my instant messaging systems in one friendly duck. And with a bit of fiddling, it is a very handsome looking interface.

It is always nice to remove another piece of MSN from your life.

Ahhh...

Get it yourself, duckie.

Melbourne Gains A Pretty Fruit Basket

I have to say, the most interesting thing I've ever seen on the corner of Chapel and Toorak was a three storey high billboard of a gorgeous Country Road model. Apparently, according to Andrew (not that Andrew, the other one, the one that is going overseas again soon, yeah that one) I never saw The Fun Factory in its heyday.

And I never will. It is being demolished to make way for this rhapsody in medal and glass:


Excited? I am. Apple Stores, which are actually owned by Apple, are few and far between and tend to take in a whole range of functions above and beyond the two-bit resellers that we are accustomed to. They are real crowd pleasers too.

AppleInsider has the whole story and some more pretty pics for you to gawk at.

Now, if only they can find some way of including a three storey high model into the design.

How Much Damage Has Howard Done?

In the early 90s Keating made a concerted push to strengthen our economic and political ties with our neighbours and to locate our nation firmly within the Asia-Pacific region.

Howard, of course, set out to unravel all of that.

Why am I bothering to bitch about that now (especially when that "man" is the cause of so much more evil our country *cough* Hicks *cough* gay marriage *cough*)?

Don't worry, it is nothing if not self-serving.

I want an iPhone.



Or more correctly - I want an iPhone-loompa NOW!

I stayed up this morning to watch Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld San Francisco and this device is truly revolutionary. It is stunning.



Music, video, photos, phone, email, real web browsing - all in one device. Elegant touch screen technology. Full OS X operating system. I love that Apple has surpassed even the most outlandish speculations people had put out there in the lead up to the announcement. This is going to do to smartphones what the iPod did to the Discman.

But it doesn't come Stateside until June (or is it July?), Europe until the fourth quarter and Asia until 2008.

2008. And we'll only be included then if Fuck-knuckle hasn't undone Keating's work.

On the upside, by that time they may have ironed out any kinks, upped the gigage to more than 8 and improved the battery life (or even a removable battery) because 5 hours won't cut the mustard.

If you want to be amazed, you can stream the Keynote speech from here.

Is this a sign that Macs are becoming more popular?

The crew at MacRumours has posted that the first Mac virus seems to have reared its ugly head.

Perhaps the golden years are over.

Check it out: The First Mac OS X Virus? (A New OS X Trojan).

The Future (insert wild choral voices)

I have been marvelling at this for a while so I thought I would share it with you all, just in case you haven't seen it yet.

Recently Apple took out patents for touch screens, adding credence to the heavy rumours circulating of touch screen video iPods. The patents have quite detailed descriptions of how the actual data manipulation may work. Well someone has produced a little mock up of how it could all end up looking.

Nice!



The vid has nothing to do with Apple (though the photo manipulation looks decidedly similar to Apples new pro-ap Aperture). You can check out the patents over at MacRumours.

With Microsoft's new OSX ripoff, Vista, slated for release (finally) at the end of the year, it looks like Apple may be ready to pull the carpet out from underneath them once again by taking things to a whole other level.

Capitalism 4 Litigiousness 4 EVA

iPodding tells of a possible class action lawsuit going ahead against Apple because of the danger of hearing loss:

The iPod players are "inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss," according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.

Of course it could just be a clever little tactic by Microsoft, who is rumoured to be entering the portable music player arena.

So are they going to go up against Sony, Technics and Paisonic? They all have portable players and I am sure not all of them carry noise reduction features. This is silliness.

Click here for the story.

Funny, hee haw!

For fear of becoming a mirror site for the excellent Towelroad, which I know a lot of you read, I haven't been posting a lot of the stuff I have found interesting there but this is just too funny.

It brings together two great passions of mine: Apples and gay cowboys.


Click here for parody goodness from the crew at Mighty McPilgrim.

And if you haven't done so, check out Towelroad!

iPod Lurve!

I know a lot of you have these new-fangled music boxes. I know you spend hours every day "bopping" away to your so-called "rock" music. Well it has come to my attention that you can use your white do-hicky to improve your mind as well as depleting it.

Don once told me:

BTW: I found that Stanford are putting free lectures on itunes. Check it out if you are bored and feeling in need of some intellectual stimulation:

http://itunes.stanford.edu/

So I am giving to you the gift of wisdom. Seriously though, there are a wide range of topics and it is good to hear internal political analysis from the horse's mouth. Besides, you get to listen to that infectious banter that comes before a university lecture.

On a similar note, there is a bucketload of free, out of copyright, movies and audio clips over at http://www.archive.org/. You'll find some lots of old cartoons and silent movies as well as great American propaganda films from the 60s and 70s about the dangers of drugs, pornography and homosexuality. Beautifully kitsch but also a little scary, as the accompanying talkbacks manage to prove that not all that much has changed for some people.

A good example is: Boys Beware (1961).

Check it out! Slip it onto your iPod Video and watch it in the comfort of somebody else's toilet. (snaps to Stop the world Mummy, I want to get off)

UPDATE: Went over to find a little pic from Boys Beware to pop on the post but it seems to have disappeared. I'll leave the link up just in case it irons itself out.

3, 2, 1... Contact!

Hey you all,

Just wanted to let all of you know how to leave a comment here in case you didn't catch the link cos it is quite small. It looks like this (you just need to click on the underlined comment link next to the speech bubble):


Everytime you leave a comment it also gets emailed to me so I see it pretty quickly (plus I can rush and remove comments if things degenerate and you start slinging offensive language at each other a la the Brokeback Mountain talkback).

In other contact news, the other day I used iChat to video natter with Rick and JP and it works a treat. It was almost like being there but without the sweltering heat and the tennis. To prove to you the wonders of iChat (and to annoy JP to boot) I sneaked some screen shots. Get in and grab a look quick cos I know they are going to force me to remove them.



If you want to rush out and buy a new iMac or MacBook Pro (ooh flash) they have a built in iSight camera. Just visit the Apple Australia website. Otherwise, if you are cheap and don't care for style, you can buy any old camera and use a PC by downloading AIM. The two programs (iChat and AIM) are compatible, though I am not sure that I have managed to get it to work kink-free yet. My iChat username is noneckedmonster@mac.com

And finally, I thought I would post a few pics of me (me, me, me!) that I am trying to choose between for my profile. Ultimately I have to have them on the web to put them on my profile so I thought I'd put a few on so you could complain if you don't like the one I have put on. Talk amongst yourselves...



UPDATE: It seems you have been looking at my profile (cheeky monkeys!) so I will get on to that soon too.


Love yous all! XxX