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Apple’s 30th anniversary disappointed with no new product announcements. Everyone was expecting the new video iPod or MacBook. Shortly after April 1, Apple surprised the industry by releasing a public beta of a new piece of software: Boot Camp.

So what is Boot Camp? Simply put, it allows users of new Apple hardware (those systems featuring the Intel Core processor) to install Microsoft Windows XP together with Mac OS. The dual-boot installation permits the machine to be booted to either operating system depending on what applications the user is interested in running. Boot Camp is a 83MB download.

Why is this so revolutionary? Prior to this, anyone with a Mac wanting to run Windows applications had to rely on emulators or purchase two pieces of kit. Emulators, including Apple’s Rosetta technology, are very poor substitutes for actual native applications. Certain functions cannot be emulated and many operations involve huge overheads. Now, Mac OS can be the primary operating system and Windows XP can be utilized for those applications not yet available on the Mac.

Instead of copping out and providing a platform for additional Microsoft domination this may actually be a smart move to draw the Windows crowd to the Mac. Cool hardware with the ability to run those applications one has been used to. All indications are that Windows XP runs extremely well on the Apple hardware. The installation is not straightforward, and numerous reports have emerged of drives being formatted unintentionally. Also, Windows XP SP2 is the only official alternate operating system that is supported. A valid installation CD is required, no upgrade CD can be used. There should be no reason why other Intel-based operating systems cannot be installed…maybe it’s possible to triple boot: Mac OS, Windows XP and Linux

On the hardware front, Apple yesterday released the new MacBook Pro 17″. The main feature is the 17″ screen. A built-in iSight camera for video conferencing, Intel Core Duo processor, ATI graphics with 256MB, Bluetooth and wireless networking and the new ExpressCard slot.

A really nice piece of kit! I discovered an interesting piece of trivia in Apple Confidential, the book I’m currently reading. During the development of Apple’s mobile computing strategy, Steve Jobs proposed a name for the new product line: BookMac. That was quite a number of years ago. Then, the name was derided and never made it. Shows you what switching names around can accomplish.

I’ve taken a few days before writing this post to get rid of some extraneous frustration and anger at being ripped off by a professional.

How else can one sell things other than by advertising? So, I placed an advertisment the Junk Mail. Didn’t have to wait too long either. A willing, urgent buyer soon presented himself by phoning me and requesting more details. Yes, of course he wanted the stuff urgently. Would I accept a cheque as payment? No: cheque fraud is rampant, so cash would be good. Cash is difficult – could I send him details of my bank account so he could transfer the money and his “son” would pick the goods up. No problem, as long as I see what’s happened by checking out my bank account.

Saturday morning, the phone call to indicate the payment had been made. In my mad rush, I checked the mini statement using my mobile phone. The amount had been deposited and was available. So the goods were collected and everyone happy…

Friday, a phone call from the bank to indicate that a cheque had been deposited as cash and had bounced. Obviously.

To Michael or John or whatever the fuck you call yourself in future (mobile number +27723202817): I hope you get what you deserve.

To banks: why the fuck is a cheque reflected as cash in the bank without having been cleared? Shouldn’t it reflect only once its integrity has been verified? Banks could easily eradicate cheque fraud by ensuring faster processing of clearing times and only issuing confirmation once the validity of the cheque has been verified. Then at least I’d wait before acting on an obviously erroneous payment.

To myself and everyone else out there: don’t accept cheques. Don’t accept any confirmation of funds until you haven’t verified the bank statement and the validity of the funds. Don’t act like the trusting individual you are: don’t release anything to anyone until you’re not satisfied that payment has been received.

End public service announcement.

Microsoft is releasing the Zulu Language Interface Pack for Windows XP. The description for the LIP is self-explanatory, no?

Ama-Language Interface Pack (LIP) eWindows XP Professional no Windows XP Home Edition ahlinzeka izimakethe zezilimi ezifufusayo nezimbalwa ngoxhumano nomsebenzisi oluhunyushiwe.

So: in a country where hardly anyone has access to a computer, where business needs to be transacted in English and where computer users for this language segment are hardly numerous, does it make sense? Sure, it’s cool to use a computer that speaks your language, but I hope to hell that Microsoft doesn’t go all RDP on us and develop a LIP for each of our 324 official languages! Rather stick the money for the development and translation into schools and for buying computers for rural areas.

Maybe its a way to get certain communities introduced to the concept of computing – who knows. Zulu ain’t helping you anywhere else except here. English, Chinese, Spanish and French maybe. Zulu: no.

Just my 3 cents worth…

Der Meister is back! Yeah, and I didn’t miss out the post after the last race on purpose either – work and home pressures have a way of making one forget Sunday F1 races! Schumacher managed to finish this one in first position to give Ferrari a much-needed win on home ground. Alonso hung onto his tail for quite a number of laps, but couldn’t beat him to the chequered flag. This moves Schumacher to the second place in the current championship race.

Current championship standings:

Everyone is getting into the open source mood. Lego’s new Mindstorms NXT kit was designed with the direct involvement of various Mindstorms fanatics worldwide.

Now, the software driving the robotic brain is to be released as open source. That means the software and operation of the robot can be modified to anyone’s desire. In contrast to the previous Mindstorms release for which the software was jealously guarded and homebrew was frowned upon, Lego is very keen to disperse the software and have hybrid versions in the wild. Sounds cool. Just gotta wait for the release of NXT in September or so…

via New Media Trends

Oracle 10g, the grid database release, has been available for a while. In the SAP environment, its readiness has just been announced. DBA’s already saw some cool features being integrated in Oracle 9. In the past, Oracle has been a very robust database but has had its fair share of intricacies involving tuning, monitoring and allocating space.

The recommended upgrade path to Oracle 10g is from a source release of version 9.2. The new self-tuning and self-analysis tool sounds promising, as does segment shrinking. Within the Automatic Workload Repository (AWR), Oracle provides different options for analysing the database performance. The Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM) is able to create tuning recommendations automatically, based on the content of the AWR. This should provide a nice addition to the built-in Oracle monitoring functions within SAP. I assume that these will be replaced in time with the content of the AWR and output from the ADDM. Segment shrinking permits the DBA to reclaim unused space in tables and indexes without a reorganization. The operation may be performed with the database in an online state and without consuming additional space. There are some restrictions, primarily involving tables with RAW fields.

Online reorganizations are a fairly new feature. The DBA is able to reorganize the database while in an online state. The feature makes use of a shadow copy of the relevant tablespace or objects – the amount of space required can be fairly high, depending on the size of the object. At least this cuts down on downtimes, a typical reason many companies tend to shy away from Oracle database reorganizations.

Some Oracle 10g standard features are not officially supported within the SAP environment. The recycle bin feature is not be used. This does not physically purge elements and objects until a physical purge command has been issued. This presents both a security issue and a potential space waster, which is why SAP is probably not too keen on seeing it used.

For users of SAP considering the upgrade to Oracle 10g it will once again be important to ensure that patch levels, SAP release levels and operating system versions are matched to the requirements stipulated by SAP. Check the product availability matrix in the SAP Service Marketplace prior to considering the upgrade.

Why not get your own copy to play around with in the meantime. Directly from Oracle.

Microsoft is working in very non-capitalistic ways nowadays: they’ve started offering various tools and products at no charge. Is the penguin causing them to panic, or is this just a push to sell more Windows?

Microsoft Express Editions comprises numerous tools for web and Windows development that you may want to try out. Downloads are roughly 40MB in size and include Visual Basic, Visual C# and SQL Server. I’ve just started downloading now, so I have no idea what is contained or what has been left out. In any event, this makes it affordable for hobbyists to tack together their own little applications.

ITWeb article

Yoghurt conundrum

Originally uploaded by MHertenberger.

Why the hell is it all low fat?

Another cure for AIDS

Originally uploaded by MHertenberger.

Eating Mopane worms is the latest miracle cure. We’ve heard of garlic and showering, but this is getting stupid. What planet am I on?