The Blogarhythm

Chilly's Winter Cocoa

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:19:00 +0000

Chilly's Winter Cocoa

This is my yummy cocoa recipe - takes about 5 minutes to make and makes one full, big mug.

Ingredients:

300 ml milk
cocoa - 2 heaped tsps
honey - 2 level tsps
ground ginger - big pinch
ground cinnamon - small pinch
ground nutmeg - small pinch
ground allspice - small pinch
ground cayenne - small pinch

Instructions:

Put all the milk in a small saucepan over a medium heat
Add the honey (lick the spoon)
Add all the spices
Gently whisk with a plastic balloon whisk until the mixture is thinking about moving from a simmer to a boil.
Pour into a mug and enjoy

... you can always add a drop of Baileys ;)

@chillyspoon

Red Faction

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:55:00 +0000

My retro gaming journey continued as promised with a dive into the Red Faction series.

Right back to the beginning and Red Faction; what a great start to a game - you're dropped straight into the mines, Total Recall style, with a few explosives and just let rip. The game was ground breaking in being the first that allowed players to selectively destroy parts of the environment. For example you might be blocked by a locked door and are able to use explosives on the surrounding walls.

I played through the version of first Red Faction now available on Steam and was pleasantly surprised .. the gameplay was immediately engaging and the storyline flowed well .. up to a point. There is a significant level of repetition in terms of how the plotlines flow and the "bad guys" to be killed. For example, the pattern of a character appearing for a short section of the game, assisting you and then leaving at an odd juncture but not allowing you to come along. Instead the protagonist is repeatedly left on his own in bizarre places.

Red Faction II .. I'm going to be brief here. My first impressions of Red Faction II are:

Utterly dire integration with Steam; I had to download a new executable patched by a hacker to get it running. Let's repeat that: I had to download a hacked executable to get software I had just purchased to run on its target environment!!!
The opening levels were so annoying that I didn't even bother persisting. Appalling attempt at a storyline and worse, forced channels of play - you can't go where you want, you must go where you are told and do certain things.

Red Faction III .. as bad as Red Faction II - brevity.

Red Faction III is possibly the most annoying game purchase I have ever made. Integration with Steam is tenuous at best, this time compounded by compulsory connection to the Microsoft Live gaming network, which - should you happen to be on Windows 7 64 bit - is akin to attempting teleportation.

I'm not even going to discuss it further. I loved Red Faction, its younger siblings made me cry. Lazy integration with Steam and modern versions of Windows are probably more the issue than the games themselves.

My faith in retro gaming has not been rocked however; I have gone a little further back in time to Shining Force II for the SEGA Genesis/Megadrive; purchased as part of Sega Classic Packs 3 on Steam and at the same time I have returned to Arc: Light of the Spirits on the PS2. Both are positive gaming experiences and I'll post a bit more waffle about them later.

Deus Ex - Human Revolution tip for Malik's Quest

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:06:00 +0000

This is a mini post just to help people out on something that has been touted as a glitch but it's more of a "quirk".

When Malik sends you to search Lee's apartment there are a number of things to find, well documented elsewhere on the web.

All I'll say to avoid spoilers is; close Lee's front door after you have entered the apartment.. all will literally become clear.

:D

Simon Community - Fun Run 2011

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:13:00 +0000

A few of us are going to be running (staggering in my case) the Simon Community Fun Run in a couple of weeks time, on Saturday 8th October, to help raise awareness of the homeless situation not just in Dublin but all around Ireland. If we can raise a few quid along the way it would be a good thing.

To that end the boss and I have a (rather empty at this time) sponsorship page on the Simon Community website and we'd be very grateful for any donations, small and large for this very worthy cause.

www.dubsimon.ie/FundraiserPage/tabid/189/EventFundraiser/251/Default.aspx

It's nothing short of insane that a country as small as Ireland has such a high level of homelessness.

I'll be the wheezing wreck at the finish line and herself will of course be ready for another run given how much fitter she is than me!

The day itself should be a bit of craic in the Phoenix Park so do come along. Even better, sign up yourself and participate - groups are welcome, kids can come along and join in too - costumes are optional!

Winding back to "Deus Ex" - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 10:30:00 +0000

I finally got around to taking the time to finish out my retro spin through the classic Deus Ex - Invisible War, that I purchased through Steam, and what a great game!

The playability, intertwining storylines and the freedom for the player to choose any of several outcomes to the game (which gradually fall away as you make certain choices) make it a seriously compelling play even against the amazing competition now available within the same genre.

I entered the game straight from playing my way through the original so I fell into the JC Denton ending immediately not realising how much easier I was making things for myself.

I then went back and played for the Renegade ending (or Omar ending) which basically means blow the crap out of everyone, which was much more challenging.

What I didn't get to see because of my choices was either the Illuminati or Templar endings but others have uploaded all of them to YouTube.

As I mentioned in my original Winding Back to "Deus Ex" blog, there are some quirks that you need to be patient with in terms of the game being brought into the Steam environment. These are mostly based around the complete disappearance of the app while it loads the next map. It 95% of the cases it does come back but crashes every now and then to keep you on your toes; save often.

If you run Crystal Desktop, disable it before playing - it doesn't play nice with Deus Ex - Invisible War.

I strongly recommend this game for some serious high end retro gaming; it's easy to not consider it as highly as the original given Deus Ex's classic status but that's not judging the game on its own merits, which are:

good stories
great playability
lovely visuals (factor in the age obviously)
some pretty tough game play in places but nothing likely to send a laptop out the window.

One thing I didn't figure out is why NG Resonance and some of her staff are bought directly into the game, locked in the cargo area of the Arcology on the second visit to Cairo - I thought I must have skipped a chunk of plot with my choices at that point. However, having looked up the character on Wikipedia and seeing some similar confusion there, I'm wondering if the game makers cut a bit of unnecessary plot involving her.

An embarrassing note about my progression through the game is that I got to the second tour of Cairo before realising that you could move around bots that you have dominated!! .. talk about making the game more difficult for myself. That leads me to a tip for the Renegade ending; use a bot to kill the other Denton clones.

When you get to the Liberty Dock and meet Tracer Tong, don't kill him straight away - instead pretend to be still working for the Dentons
Repair Tracer's bots and get him to deploy them to the Statue of Liberty entrance
Now you can kill him and strip the area of any ammo, energy cells etc.
When you return the Statue of Liberty you'll find the three bots sitting outside
Before getting aggressive with the Dentons

Listen to what they have to say as far as them asking you to step into the Helios machine
Disable both ceiling turrets and the two flame thrower bots
Open both doors to the statue base so you can clearly see inside

Now you're ready to dominate one of the bots and let rip on the Dentons

Watch your health and you should be able to get rid of both Dentons before having to make a break for it; then you can restock your energy cells and pick of the remaining "Greys" one by one with the Magrail

Lastly destroy the link with Helios and you're done!

Roll on Deus Ex - Human Evolution, it has big legacy to follow.. next on my list however is a revisit to the Red Faction series, right back to Red Faction itself.

Pork Stir Fry

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Thu, 19 May 2011 16:29:00 +0000

This is a tasty pork stir fry! (or chicken or turkey if you wish)

The only part of the recipe I claim is the glug of Irish Whiskey used to deglaze the pan before letting rip with the veggies. I've never seen anyone else using Irish Whiskey for this, although given the fundamentally asian recipe, that's hardly surprising, and I'm sure rice wine and various other local spirits are the norm in the appropriate countries!

These quantities are all "by touch" and serve two people with some seconds if you're little like me. The actual cooking time is just over 10 minutes, don't forget to put your rice or noodles on at the right time. If you're cooking rice put it into boiling water at the same time you start to brown the meat. If it's cooked a little earlier it will sit just fine while you finish the stir fry.

IMPORTANT: Don't do anything until you've got your meat prep'd and into the marinade. So, read the list of ingredients then go straight to prep the meat.

Ingredients

Enough pork for two.. this time round I used pork steak but you can use any of the cuts that suit high speed cooking.
1 large onion; coarsely chopped
2 medium cloves of garlic, very finely sliced
2 medium carrots; coarsely sliced (about 4mm)
1 chilli finely sliced; seeds are a personal choice; I taste a bit of the chilli and then gauge how many seeds should go in on how much I'm crying.
8-10 florets of broccolli
8 medium sized mushrooms, quartered or roughly sliced
About 10 black pepper corns (todo ferg check the picture)
About 10 coriander seeds
About 3 tablespoons of ordinary soy sauce
About 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce
A splash of Nam Pla (Thai fish sauce)
A glug of Irish Whiskey (about a tablespoon)
Some fresh chives (straight from the freezer!)
Some fresh basil (also straight from the freezer!)
Some ground ginger
Some brown sugar
Some chicken stock; home made is best, shop bought fresh stock is second best, organic cubes third, regular cubes last. (Tangent - see Jamie Oliver's simple stock recipe if you want to see how easy it is to make and have a look at Ian Knauer's guide to jointing a chicken to see how easy that is - the two tasks go hand in hand.

However, they aren't strictly necessary for this one, in fact I used an organic chicken stock cube for the stir fry in the pics because I wanted to keep the frozen homemade stock that I had left in the freezer for making a soup)

Marinade

Heat a dry pan and add the pepper corns to it; move them around occasionally and pop them into a pestle once they've just started to smoke. Grind them finely.

Now do the same with the coriander.

1) Chuck the soy sauce into a large enough bowl to easily contain all of the meat
2) Add about a teaspoon of ground ginger
3) Add half the ground pepper
4) Add all the ground coriander

DON'T ADD THE SUGAR NOW!

5) Cube the pork into bite size pieces
6) Add the pork to the marinade in the bowl, use a couple of dessert spoons to gently turn it over until all the pieces are drenched in the yummy liquid. The tip here is simply that two spoons stop you from flicking the marinade all over the place.
7) Prep all of your veg as described in the ingredient list above.

Cooking

8) Brown the meat, get the oil good and hot for browning the meat; the surface should be lightly rippling but not quite smoking. Using a spatula push the meat out of the bowl facing away from you, this is going to hiss and spit like crazy so you're less likely to get splattered this way.
9) Don't play with it too much, let it brown a bit and then shimmy the wok to brown another part. About halfway through the browning process, sprinkle over a teaspoon or two of brown sugar, this will sticky up the meat nicely.
10) Once browned pop the meat out into another bowl to rest - some useful juices will come out while we're cooking the veg, so don't forget about them
11) Deglaze the pan a couple of tablespoon of stock
12) Chuck in the heavier veg, we're talking the carrots and onions at this point - keep them moving and they'll soak up all of that stock and flavour from the pan.
13) Add a dash of whiskey, let the alcohol boil off - if you don't, it will taste bitter

14) Add the broccolli and mushrooms, fry them for about a minute then add the chilli
15) Sprinkle over the rest of the pepper
16) Add another few tablespoons of stock, put on a lid and steam the veg for about two minutes or so to make sure things are cooked properly
17) Scissor in the chives and basil, and gently stir them well through
18) Let the stock reduce a bit - if you like you can thicken it will a little paste made from a teaspoon of corn flour and a tablespoon of cold water

That's it you're done!

A Poacher's Tale

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:12:00 +0000

Gentles; noun. A soft maggot used as bait by anglers.

I am reading a book that I first read in my early teens; “A Poacher’s Tale” by Fred J Speakman and Alfred T Curtis.

Mr Curtis was a poacher and gamekeeper who lived his life immersed in the natural world from the perspective of having to feed his family, and Mr. Speakman, an author and natural historian who lived in Epping Forest.

The issue I have bought is the eight edition copy printed in 1979. It’s utterly pristine and I purchased it from Abe’s Books in the UK. My Dad has the 1960 first edition; it has been read many times and shows the wear. As much as I wanted to re-read the book, I couldn’t bring myself to borrow, and risk damaging, a volume with so much sentimental attachment for me. My version still has the same lovely dust cover with the drawing of a poacher’s hand holding up a ferret. I suspect Dad thinks I’m barking for having gone off and bought another copy.

I think it was worth every cent and I highly recommend this book as a window into the skilled and fascinating lifestyle of Mr Curtis and folk like him before, during and after WWII.

Winding back to "Deus Ex"

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:40:00 +0000

So I've been going old school with some gaming over the last few weeks, playing my way through the entirety of Deus Ex and now getting stuck into Deus Ex - Invisible War.

For some reason Deus Ex passed me by first time round, at that point I was embedded in the mayhem of Unreal and Half-life. Two amazing games, so worthy distractions.

Deus Ex still stands up. I played 35 hours of the first game and I'm a couple of hours into the sequel now.

They're quite different. Deus Ex still has that "constructed from blocks" feel, we associate with the early 3D games. Think the original Wolfenstein 3D and Doom for the extreme examples of what I mean. That doesn't take away from the fantastic gameplay, which is sufficiently non-linear to make the storyline feel dynamic and under the player's control. I love the system for building skills such as lock picking and computer hacking, that allow you to tailor how Denton develops as the game progresses.

Invisible War is heavier graphically and is encumbered with what appears to be some clunky re-work to get it to run happily through Valve's Steam. For example, returning to my Windows 7 desktop every time it loads a new scene and (damn it!) some random crashing - don't get me wrong though, they don't get in the way of the excellent gameplay, which even makes it worth the occasional restart. The game flows smoothly and it has a different feel to the original. To compare it with a modern game I'd go with something more like the Bioshock series or even Metro 2033. A minor complaint is that the controls are less intuitive than the original game. There are some unnecessary, rotational menu animations that I find myself willing to complete, as soon as they start. We'll see how I feel about it in a couple of weeks, I suspect I'll be just as hooked as I have been on Deus Ex.

Any Human Heart

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 00:13:00 +0000

I watched the Channel 4 adaptation of William Boyd's "Any Human Heart" over the last few weeks. Bloody brilliant. Screenplay adaptation by the man himself and excellently cast with particularly good performances from Matthew MacFadyen and Jim Broadbent.

I love the randomly dropped plot threads. For any would-be writer, it delivers something of a swift kick in the pants, a "no-one is going to do this for you" reminder to get on with it and just write.

I highly recommend watching it.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/any-human-heart

..

Autozam (Mazda) AZ-1

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 11:12:00 +0000

I've never seen one in the flesh but did see one for sale on CBG once; the Autozam (Mazda) AZ-1. Crazy, cool little Kei car:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autozam_AZ-1

Logical Progression

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:45:00 +0000

I have taken the plunge. I had intended releasing the alpha version of Deckwriter before migrating to GWT 2 but as wonderful as GWT prior to version two is, there was one major thing dragging me down; the Firefox rich text cursor bug.

In a nutshell when you create and then focus a RichTextArea class pre-GWT 2 in Firefox - the cursor remains invisible until the user leaves and then re-focuses the text area. Unfortunately that's a no go for a writing tool.

This means that I am delaying the alpha release - probably for at least a month but when the app does hit the ground it's going to be much further progressed than originally anticipated and running on Google's GWT latest platform.

In doing this migration I have also had to make the move to Jetbrains IntelliJ IDEA 9, which means refactoring some of the architecture of the actual development project itself. Some things that were possible with the GWT 1.x plugin appear to not work with the version of the plugin supprting GWT 2. For example over riding servlet definitions within the various GWT module XML files to avoid having to launch the Spring framework. Perhaps a reader knows a way around that? .. why wait for Spring to launch when you don't necessarily need or want it to?

.. so why the title?

Well firstly the transition to GWT 2 with IDEA 9 is a logical progression and secondly, while writing this, I'm listening to One and Only from PFM on the Logical Progression - Level 1 anthology.

@chillyspoon

What's going on?

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:52:00 +0000

Over a month since my last post! - what has been going on to keep me from the blogosphere?

The Parisian

I have been aggressively re-editing The Parisian for release in the 2010 Sci Fi Almanac. This story will be illustrated by an old friend of mine and is the second in my Tales of the Stones series following The Gardener. More on that when I hear it.

As many of you know The Gardener was meant to be published as part of the "Maybe Tomorrow" anthology, originally due for release last year but had to be pushed back significantly by the publishers. They're back on track now and the current release estimate for that anthology is early autumn 2010.

Deckwriter

A project that I have been working on in the shadows for some time now, is Deckwriter. I'm getting close to the point (eta August) where it will be alpha tested by users, with the public beta to follow by the end of September.

Deckwriter is software for writers.

The focus on writing multi-part documents, fiction, non-fiction or academic - books, scripts, papers and poetry - you name it. The bottom line is creating a tool that is transparent to use, that does not require training of any kind and does not tie the user to any particular way of working. Simplicity is key.

Please get in touch if you are interested in becoming an alpha tester.

HTML 5

Lastly, and as something of an aside; check out this excellent slideshow using the latest version of Chrome or Safari.

It demonstrates some of the new features arriving to the Web with HTML 5and showcases some of the great functionality that we will be able to bring to web applications.

Twitter: @chillyspoon

YouTube - Playlist "Shuffle"

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sat, 01 May 2010 10:17:00 +0000

Fantastic - it's back!

There was a period of immense frustration when YouTube removed the shuffle facility from Playlists. I'm glad to see that it has returned. It's still a little awkward to get at.

I find the easiest way is to go first to your "Account" (rather than your "Channel"). Then select the Playlist of your choice from the "Video" option and click any video within the list. "Shuffle" should now appear as a toggle switch on the top right.

As you can see, the wonderful "Rocket" by Goldfrapp is my choice for the screenshot. This is a cracking tune that I first heard pumped out by Phantom (@phantom1052) a while back.

Follow me on Twitter: @chillyspoon.

GWT to JavaScript and back again.

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:55:00 +0000

I just wanted to highlight one of the most succinct and useful examples imaginable for anyone needing to implement GWT code that is called from a third party JavaScript API.

How can I call one of my GWT Java methods from my application host page?

You can define the JavaScript functions in native JavaScript, necessary to comply with whatever third party JavaScript API you are implementing and then point those functions straight back into your Java code for execution within your GWT application.

A much more detailed blog on this in an upcoming post.

Mac without a Mac?

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 22:13:00 +0000

I've been experimenting a little with some Mac OS dock clones for Windows over the last day or so.

At the moment I'm using ObjectDock on my little Alienware M11x (the screenshot to the right - and yes, that's my Mini), it's running Windows 7 and it seems very content with ObjectDock's integration. One little quirk is that you can't (at least I haven't found out how to) increase the autohide rate; I want it to vanish a little faster!

At the office I'm running XP SP3 - the ObjectDock installer repeatedly hung halfway through installation while copying the theme icons so I tried RocketDock instead and it's great! Really quick to setup - no instructions required and I've got a very functional top shifted task bar (auto-hiding) and RocketDock at the bottom. Here's a screenshot; note my rather large desktop - split with VirtualBox running on the right with Linux Mint and on the left we have the visible part of XP with RocketDock visible at the bottom and Balsamiq Mockups open with a prototype view from OpSource Cloud VIP management (load balancing is a very powerful feature of OpSource Cloud).

We'll see how they go - perhaps I'll try RocketDock on the M11x too, so that I'm using the same one in both places. For the newbie user, it "feels" a little more integrated with the OS than ObjectDockThe jury is out on this choice for now.

Alienware M11x - A little power is a dangerous thing?

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:05:00 +0000

Well it has been quite some time since I lasted posted to my blog.

Reasons (in no particular order):

Work - we are very busy working on the next set of features for OpSource Cloud.
Writing - I have reduced my writing for a while to concentrate on a writing-related project. More on that soon!
Geekdom - I have been sussing out the Alienware M11x that I bought as a more powerful replacement of my fantastic Samsung NC10.
Entrepreneurial stuff - I'm assisting a good friend with a new venture that he has in early plannin.

I won't bore you with the details of all of the above. What I will tell you about is the little Alienware machine.

I've had it for several weeks at this stage and have been using it for all manner of stuff from its intended use as a gamer to my own professional needs in supporting OpSource Cloud and even for doing some serious SaaSware development (appalling pun). The massive leap in specs from the NC10 means that I can do things on the move that the little netbook shouldn't really have been asked to do. Such as random bits of coding and GWT development. The NC10 made a pretty good stab at running Jetbrains IntelliJ but there's only so much you can ask from the 1.6GHz Atom N270 and a full blown Java IDE running GWT isn't on the list.

It's important to state that the Samsung NC10 is one of the best netbooks produced to date and that the Alienware M11x is NOT a netbook. The two cannot be compared spec to spec. I simply needed a more powerful but easily portable machine.

Here's the core spec of the Alienware M11x for those that don't know:

Screen: 11.2" @
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 (1.3GHz dual-core)
RAM: 4GB
Video: 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M (switchable against built-in Intel gubbins for less power consumption on the go)

The little processor combined with that hefty whallop of RAM really does deliver when coding; I can have MySQL, Tomcat, IntelliJ and GWT (the older hosted mode) running simultaneously at a decent level of performance.

Switching between the built-in Intel graphics handling and the nVidia block is a simple key command and works smoothly. So far the only game I have tried is Halflife 2 and it's flawless. Ravenholm is as scary as it ever was and there's no lag when things get sprite heavy.

I've been using the M11x with a wireless Microsoft keyboard and a 19" LG HD LCD by the way (VGA rather than DisplayPort or HDMI - the external display has neither of the latter though the wee laptop boasts both outputs). This combination works really well - that and a USB KVM has me happily flicking between the Windows 7 set up on the M11x and my Macbook Pro.

My only big problem with the M11x is the expected one. Glare.

I purchased it in full knowledge that it's amongst the most reflective screens on the market (ref the above - I knew full well that most of my usage would be with an external monitor). I have the eye condition keratoconus so eye strain is a big deal for me - I would recommend anyone in similar circumstances to think more than twice before purchasing a high glare laptop. There are however remedies though - several manufacturers provide anti-glare filters than can be ordered to size and applied to your laptop screen to reduce the glare significantly. This is nigh on essential if you want to use the machine out doors or in a brightly lit office or other space.

The unit is very robustly built and yes, you can switch of the lights if you like. I play the odd game but I'm not a teenager anymore, so that stuff is just a waste of battery as far as I'm concerned. The great thing about the supplied tool for configuring the hardware lights is that it's pretty versatile. I was able to switch off everything except the keyboard which I have reduced to a subtle blue to make it easier for me to see in dim lighting.

My only other gripe is about the memory card slot; SD cards stick out and there's no "click" - I want to leave a 16GB SDHC in situ! .. tut tut (the NC10 sucked on that front too btw - hats off to Asus with my previous PC1000 and PC900, a solid click and the SDHC was flush to the surface) this means I can't leave the card in while I travel - it's a bit limiting. Why have to risk losing my tiny memory card while I'm on the move when there's a perfectly good slot it could be safely clicked into?

So that's about it - I ended with an negative comment but I should reiterate, the Alienware M11x is a FANTASTIC little laptop boasting some serious grunt in a tiny 11" form factor. I can see myriad commercial uses, particularly for those in media and technical industries and of course it's original target market of gamers have no reason not to love it.

Twitter: @chillyspoon

Shelley - I Might Be Sinking

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:31:00 +0000

A little piece of our youth, courtesy of Kev. I'm the little guy wandering about on the left..

Twitter: @chillyspoon

Some tech ramblings.

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:06:00 +0000

I haven't posted since well before Christmas. Head hung in shame at yet another year of mentioning, starting, and then not completing, my all time favourite Christmas movie list. Aw well - I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

So Apple eh? .. the day after tomorrow, we finally get to see what it's going to be like. It's going to have to be truly exceptional to succeed. If nothing else it will drive things forward. After all the Newton did.

On the 2nd of December I briefly blogged about the Asus Eee PC 1201N. I was so pleased - an Atom 330 powered Netbook with Ion graphics - it could only be good. Until of course I found out that once again they've strapped a mirror to it where the screen should be. Netbooks are meant to be used on the go, in cafe's, airports, trains and in the park. So what use is the the most reflective screen ever made?

It's truly frustrating. On a daily basis I have to stop myself from buying one. It has everything I want from a highly portable "chuck it in my bag" tapper but I can clearly see myself, scowling back - it's like the rear of an old PS2 disk. No matter how dark or bright the surroundings or the background being rendered and no matter what the screen settings are. I do not want to see myself - I want to see the bloody operating system!

Have a quick read through the product description on Asus' own site that I've linked above. For Pete's sake, when has "glare-type" been a feature that you wish to promote? .. it's not a good thing.

Something which is good however is Balsamiq Mockups - I have been using it for about six months now to design the user interactions for OpSource Cloud and I have to say it's one of the most creatively enabling tools I have used to date. A high speed, no messing about, Adobe Air interface that lets you get on with prototyping without having to waste time setting things up.

I have a couple of minor gripes; the lack of a zoom facility is annoying and on some widgets (e.g. progress bars), there is no way of switching off the borders. These are trivial complaints compared to the massive value it has brought to us. I highly recommend it for anyone developing human interactive software or hardware interfaces.

Hallelujah! .. a real dual core netbook

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:40:00 +0000

Asus have at last announced a dual core netbook - the Eee PC 1201N.

Ok, so the 12.1" screen is slightly pushing things .. but .. HD resolution, HDMI output, an Atom 330 dual core processor and Windows 7? .. great! I wonder how well it will run OS-X ;)

My much, much loved Samsung NC10 may have to move over if this one reviews well.

Robert Holdstock passes away..

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:42:00 +0000

Just a microblog to mark the passing of a fantastic author, Robert Holdstock.

His book "Mythago Wood" is one of the three books that made me want to write myself (the other two being Hyperion by Dan Simmons and Count Zero by William Gibson). It is a wonderful tale drawing on Celtic folklore that pulls the reader in, guaranteeing not only re-reads but a little more involvement with every one.

http://robertholdstock.com/

I highly recommend checking out his imaginative and unforgettable work.

Image: Holdstock, Robert. (1984). Mythago Wood. Publisher: Berkley Books

An excerpt from "The Parisian" by Fergus Neff

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:00:00 +0000

The Parisian is story two in my Tales of the Stones anthology that begins with The Gardener. It is an introduction to the world of humans without electrical power, where society has taken alternate routes to explore means of transport and industry. The Parisian is about an accident in the lives of three young people that changes the course of humanity.

I have published an excerpt at the Sci-Fi Almanac:
http://scifialmanac.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-parisian; reproduced below.

The Parisian

"Are you set?" Con barely heard Ben's sister Patrice shout over the nervous tension rushing through his ears. Beads of sweat formed above his eyes and on his forearms as he prepared to save his own life moments after take-off. Should he mistime releasing the wings, he was as good as dead.

"I'm ready. Set." His voice more croak than reply.

"We fly!" Ben bellowed. With both arms bulging he pulled back the release lever, unleashing thousands of kilograms of tension bound in the nest of tiny wooden branches encasing man and craft.

The wind roared in his Con's ears, his blonde hair blowing back as he and the folded glider exploded vertically upwards into the sky from the roof of the ruined forty storey 'scraper. Seconds passed; the increased gravity on his frame made him feel faint and disoriented. A full kilometre up, his eyes were blurred with tears and dust from the atmosphere, he finally managed to breathe in. Con looked to each side to ensure he had picked up no debris during launch, before he gently pulled the cord to unfurl his wings. The craft immediately stalled and he fell backwards through the morning air. He experienced a nauseating roll to the right and adjusted his controls; the sun crossed his wings and he was a bird. Man and machine gliding smoothly across the ruined Parisian skyline.

Twitter: @chillyspoon

Illustration of the Stone Pod for The Parisian by Keith O’Connor – Aug 2009.

Amazon DTP - Kindle, Mobipocket and the "no international authors" policy!

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:25:00 +0000

It is a rare occasion that I use my blog for a rant - however today it is required - for today I attempted to register at Amazon DTP to self-publish my books on the Kindle. It's a bit unedited and raw as a result so if I have anything wrong, please do tell me - I want to be wrong in this case!

Imagine my disappointment to find that Amazon are restricting publication to US residents and then imagine my disgust when I found out that if I go through Mobipocket - my work still winds up on the Kindle but I don't get paid! - didn't the audio recording industry have some complaints on this basis?

Of course the fact that Mobipocket is being pulled into DTP is probably related on that end of things. But that doesn't explain the fundamental question; why in the hell don't Amazon DTP accept international publishers? - it's nonsensical. Now before anyone starts waggling a "tax issues" finger I feel I should point out that this is an elderly and long since solved problem - including by Amazon themselves with their Marketplace.

Now let's add some more to the soup - noticing the age of the thread on DTP I decided to refresh the query for my fellow authors that live outside of the US. DTP will let me log in with my Amazon ID - in fact Amazon are quite happy to take my money for other Amazon goods and services - but whenever I click "reply to thread" I get bounced back to the log in screen. Argh! Oh and yes, I tried that in IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome in case you are wondering. Forgive me if I'm starting to suspect a conspiracy.

So that's where we are. Rubber hosed by what really smacks of lack of experience in dealing with international payments - which is quite ironic for a veteran like Amazon.

Perhaps some of this is why Amazon have repeatedly pushed back the release date of the Kindle in Europe. I say go out and buy yourself a Sony PRS-505 and forget about the Kindle until Amazon get their act together, I got one for my fiance for her birthday and it's great.

Hack your Mac; writing is back!

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:24:00 +0000

I have waxed lyrical many a time about my Samsung NC10 and what a wonderful netbook it is. Couple that with the combination of a dual boot of Windows XP / Linux Mint and I've got pretty much everything that I want.

The "pretty much" is the clincher. As you have seen in other posts and many a tweet, I've been searching for my optimum writing software combination and I'm oh so nearly there. However, after that earlier post where I pointed out that Scrivener really is "the man" when it comes to my personal writing needs, I realised that all I really want in that case.. is a Mac netbook (sudden intake of breath).

Now of course this has been blogged, speculated, dreamed and discussed for the last couple of years (just Google "mac netbook tablet"). Rumours of announcements for Apple netbooks and tablet variants that have failed to emerge have been abound and thus far the only Mac netbooks have been Hackintoshes, so that's probably where I should go for now.

Unfortunately it's the only thing that the NC10 is not good for! .. you have to change some hardware to get everything to work, an mucking about inside a teeny laptop is a place that I'm not comfortable to go to with my ropey eyesight.

So what netbooks make a good Hackintosh? .. and do any of them match up to the NC10 in terms of reputation? .. and at what level of interest in the Hackintoshing of netbooks will lead Steve Jobs to check the approval box for a netbook scale Mac?

Now even if I do successfully get a nice Mac netbook on the go - I still have the other problem that I don't want to be working from a memory stick for two reasons:

Bad: it makes netbook use on public transport difficult having a "thingy" sticking out from a USB port
Good: working from 2 machines means I always have two copies of my work very up to date - backup for free if you will.

Scooter Software's Beyond Compare has been my close friend for all manner of folder and file comparison for both Windows and Linux use - but there's no decent Mac equivalent. Each of the diff tools that I've demoed has been (really) utter nonsense compared to the industry stalwart that Scooter Software have been producing for the last several years.

The answer? - Sun Microsystem's VirtualBox, running Linux Mint, running Beyond Compare on my Macbook Pro.. now I can sync between the main Mac, notional Mac Netbook and indeed any outboard memory device we can think of as well as working in Scrivener on both machines.

We're really getting close to perfection.

The only problem is the I have to get a new netbook and then Hackintosh it.

Hmmn.

All is full of love

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Thought I'd do a wee repeat of a microblog and this one's worth repeating again and again. Bjork's sensational video by Chris Cunningham - "All is full of love".

Enjoy.

Underlining the writing software situation

noreply@blogger.com (chillyspoon) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:19:00 +0000

Passionless is the only word I can really use to describe how I've felt about writing this week. This happens from time to time and - while being a bit annoying - it's usually temporary. It's strange because I wrote a new song this week; something that usually does not coincide with a writing dry spell..

.. and what about all this nonsense to do with writing software recently?

I had an epiphany point during the week when I tweeted (with fear) that perhaps I was spending so much time assessing the various software packages as a means of not actually getting down to it and working on my writing. I guess I should cut myself at least a little slack, given that we are flat out at work preparing for the launch of OpSource Cloud.

So let's leave song writing and potential writer's block for now and at least document the results of my software frustration. I pose the following question about software designed to assist in the writing process - is it possible to find the perfect writing companion, or is it too subjective and hence an unachievable dream?

1) What type of writing?
Let's specify some usage criteria first of all - people have many usages of this kind of software, which can alter their preferences; script writing, screenplays, novels, academic and business technical are just a couple of usage examples.

In my own selfish case we're talking short story and novel construction - so my praise and gripes are based on that assumption about use.

2) How do you construct what you write?
We all have our own preferred ways of working whether it is a free flow, outlineless brain dump through to the opposite; a novel broken into an outline with parts, chapters and scenes - possibly to the extremes of phase drafting.

3) Visualisation

How do you prefer to visualise what you are writing?

I like three basic forms:

A part/chapter/scene breakdown - in some sort of tree structure
A storyboard; usually represented by some kind of card story board or cork board.
A fullscreen, no distractions text editor - for which I can globally (and quickly) set the default font.

So what's good and what are the problems?

Scrivener

I'll start with Scrivener because it's damn good - in fact it fulfils all of the three desires above.
However it has one huge problem for me in that it's Mac only. Yes I use a Mac when I'm writing in my little recording studio at home but the rest of the time; the bus, sitting in a cafe, out at my parent's house, anywhere not home! .. I'm likely to be using either Windows or Linux - usually on my netbook (these days I'm very happily tapping away on my Samsung NC10).

I should nod to the fact that using WriteRoom for iPhone + writeroom.ws a user can write remotely on their iPhone and then sync it back to Scrivener on their Mac later. If they have an iPhone.

Writer's Cafe

On to my biggest love/hate relationship within writing software. Writer's Cafe nearly satisfies all three of my basic writing software wants. It's a seriously feature rich application AND is 100% cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and can be run from a USB key. Fantastic? .. NO!

It's got some bloody awful flaws.

If you conceal your Storylines (the plot line kind of view) completely - there's no way of getting it back without resetting the entire display to its defaults (losing all of your fonts and layout etc).
The fullscreen editor isn't! .. and the scrollbars never work properly on small screens like a netbook. So you are left unable to scroll down to the work you wish to edit.
The way in which chapters and scenes are added is beyond confusing - sometimes you are trying to add a new scene and a chapter appears, sometimes vice versa.
Dragging and dropping chapter and scene cards in the Outline view causes random other chapters to appear when all you are trying to do is re-arrange what exists without creating new stuff! Undoubtedly this is due to user ignorance - but - as a software developer who specialises in User Interaction and usability, I find it reveals the shot gun feature addition that has happened with this software to the significant detriment of usability.

Writer's Cafe almost makes me cry - if they just made a simpler version, less icing and more decent cake please. A true fullscreen, distractionless editor (such as WriteRoom/Darkroom or the fantastic fullscreen
editor in Scrivener) and card/scene organisation that is uncomplicated and does not require re-reading the manual thirty times, it would be the perfect writing companion.

Scrivener Fullscreen 1:

Scrivener Fullscreen 2:

yWriter

yWriter is primarily for the Windows user and has the simplicity thing done perfectly. It's SO easy to use. You can get it running on Linux by using Mono (although I gave up trying after the first attempt - too much hassle). I'd really like a ".deb" or a ".zip" with a runnable application please.. but hang on a second, unlike Scrivener and Writer's Cafe, this software is free and there's a lot to be said for that. So no matter what the outcome, I say hat's off to the developer and a thank you for yWriter.

For project structure, locations and characters etc. yWriter has much to offer, just as much as Scrivener and Writer's Cafe in terms of those core story writing needs. Its big flaw? .. no full screen editor of any kind. If the producer was to integrate it with the DarkRoom editor it would be darn near perfect.

DarkRoom / WriteRoom Editor:

That's all that I'm going to go into, some others worth checking out are below which have different slants and StoryMill, I think I blogged previously, was my first foray into writing software on the Mac - not as good as Scrivener due to Scrivener's fantastic fullscreen editor but great organisational features and really simple to use. CeltX is more about screenplays and scriptwriting. Liquid Story Binder appears to be feature rich but I have not given it any time due to being Windows only.

Celtx (with online publishing features - http://celtx.com/)
StoryMill (Mac only - http://www.marinersoftware.com)
Liquid Story Binder (Windows only - http://www.blackobelisksoftware.com/)

Is there a conclusion?

The sad answer to that question is no!

I have no solution;

I *want* to use Scrivener on my netbook (maybe I should Hackintosh it)
I want Writer's Cafe to be simpler to use and have a fullscreen editor that is actually fullscreen and has sane scene/chapter organisation
I want yWriter to be accessibly cross-platform and have a fullscreen editor. I'm serious about the suggestion of integration with DarkRoom, that could really work.

I use different ones in different situations. I'm on my netbook now, so when I finish this blog post I'm going to Alt-Tab back to DarkRoom to continue writing.

Later, I'll use Beyond Compare (wonderful bit of software) on XP on the netbook to sync between the its drive and the memory stick that I work directly to from the Mac and finally paste the results into Scrivener. It's a hassle but it kind of works and is my most productive method at the moment.