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Roughly two weeks have passed since my left elbow has been stuck in a splint. Today, the bandages and the splint were removed. The x-ray shows that the injury was indeed rather severe and that the healing process will take quite some time.

Another visit to the good doctor in two weeks time while I start trying to get some movement back. Currently, my wrist is not interested in rotating more than a few degrees and my elbow is pretty much stuck to only a slight up and down motion. Needless to say that I won’t be cycling anytime soon

Like all other fanboys the world over, I can’t wait for the release of the Watchmen movie on 6 March. For an event we’ve waited almost twenty years for, another week isn’t too long to go. If you haven’t read the acclaimed graphic novel yet, I highly recommend you seek out your nearest comics retailer and pick up a copy.

It will take some effort to read and a second pass is a good idea. To get into the storyline in more detail, check out the excellent annotations at Cap’n Wacky.

If that’s too much work for you, I can recommend the Watchmen motion comic for the iPod Touch, which is a direct translation of the comic book including narration. A Watchmen video journal documents the making of the movie.

Boing Boing Video has a sneak peek at the Watchmen in a recent episode and Wil Wheaton has a spoiler-free write-up.

6 March 2009. Almost here.

A decent tripod can make all the difference. Not only for those long exposure shots, but also for framing and macro work. I’ve looked around for a while, deciding on a lighter monopod that accompanied me on our vacation to Australia.

The black Manfrotto 680B is useful, but certainly no substitute for a tripod. Any advantage gained by its reduced weight whilst travelling is quickly lost due to lack of proper camera support when the need arises.

Eventually, I made up my mind and splurged on the Manfrotto 055XPROB.

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Marvell, maker of a wide variety of eletronics components, has announced its Plug Computing initiative and introduced an SDK for its SheevaPlug product. The SheevaPlug is a computer in a plug-sized container and has minimal power requirements to make it cheaper to run 24/7. Not much to look at, the SheevaPlug frees up a lot of desk space and provides a 1.2GHz CPU with 512MB of flash storage and 512MB of RAM.

Network connectivity is provided by an Ethernet socket and peripherals are interfaced using USB. Various Linux operating systems are supported by the device.

With the price of MicroSD cards and flash memory in general being pretty low, I can’t understand why only 512MB is provided onboard – 8GB seems far more sensible for an unobtrusive computing platform, methinks…

Though promised for many months, the new Garmap Africa Series 2009 has only just been made available. After a number of fruitless attempts at trying to buy the ZAR 10 DVD from a variety of speciality stores, I went straight to the source and picked the DVD up from Avnic in North Riding.

The DVD contains both the Mapsource interface for users of Windows and RoadTrip for Mac users. A heap of extras are included on the DVD, such as the latest edition of the Garmin Training Center and USB drivers. Maps are the main reason you’d want this, as substantial improvements have been made. A much larger database of points of interest is bundled with the map data and more provinces now enjoy full map coverage.

I tried out the installation of MapSource on Windows 7 first. No issue with registration provided Internet Explorer is used. That’s a pity for Firefox fans out there. I was rather surprised that the MapSource version included seems rather old. Dated 2007, to be precise.

I don’t understand why the very latest version is not on the disk. The update of the product is rather easy, yet unnecessary as it could have been included by default. I suggest you perform the update immediately by selecting Check for updates from the menu.

The newer version provides a slightly improved interface and the ability to manage installed map products.

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Sunday’s A1 Grand Prix at Kyalami proved to be a great spectacle with plenty of action and noise. The ZAR 500 ticket price was justified in part by the excellent vantage point we had near the first two corners after the start/finish straight and by the fact that the event organization was spot on.

The few spectators attending certainly indicated that the ticket price for an event like the A1 is still too high. I was most impressed by the overall cleanliness of the venue: a constant flow of rubbish collection bags ensured that no unsightly litter piled up.

As a one-armed bandit, I was unfortunately unable to try out the 5D MkII at high-speed photography. Instead, I fell back to using the HF-10 camcorder to capture some footage.

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I miss cycling already and it’s been only a week. My injury involved bone trauma, and I know there is cycling gear featuring the human skeleton. This concept muscle skin suit would make an interesting sight on trails, too.

Here’s the detail of the design – maybe one could print one’s own…

The shenanigans of the ANC are becoming more and more ridiculous from minute to minute. My latest hero is Carl Niehaus, erstwhile spokesperson of said African National Congress. Since he’s admitted to approprating funds and lying about various qualifications, his first defence is one I consider both deplorable and rather dated.

There are a number of things wrong with his defence, least of which is the fact that he is little more than another crook in a political party full of like-minded individuals.  Considering the leadership he is under, I am not surprised that he tries his best to live up to party expectations.

For those South Africans still under the illusion that the ANC has their best interests at heart, I hope that this all-too common conduct is making you think twice about who gets your important vote in April.

Once G2S came back from its repairs, I decided to trash the Vista Ultimate installation and switch over to Windows 7 as a primary OS. That was roughly two weeks ago. As with my tests of the beta in Virtualbox and on the older nx8220, I’ve been extremely impressed. I chose to go the whole hog and installed the 64-bit operating system, wondering how much trouble I’d experience when having to add drivers.

Thankfully, all the important stuff works. The ASUS notebook does include a variety of non-standard devices, but the Windows 7 installation didn’t seem to fuss about those too much, getting the installation done in record time. If there’s anything to be pleased about, it’s the comparison of how labouriously things got going under Vista and how quickly similar tasks run on Windows 7. It’s snappy and whereas I’d wait forever for the system to be usable from boot in Vista, Windows 7 has the necessary stuff at the ready in a fraction of the time. Shutdowns, too, are much faster.

The user experience is very similar to Vista, with some changes that are easy to get used to. First off, I always change the look and function of the Start menu to classic view. In 7, this is no longer an option. What I don’t like about the non-classic Start menu is the arrangement of items – I’m pedantic and like program items in specific categories, so I always created my own menu items and grouped the relevant applications according to my preference. But since my Mac came along, I’ve become very accustomed to the Finder and a minimal set of icons on a launch tray.

The endresult is a huge benefit and time saving: I simply use the search bar in the Start menu to quickly find what I want. The most-often used programs are retained in the primary Start menu and easy to launch with a single click. No more having to worry about how messy the menu structure further down becomes…

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The first chance to be in line to purchase tickets for the 2010 FIFA World Cup commences on Friday. Two options are available, either by filling out an official application form or by logging on to the FIFA website.

Roughly the same process will be followed in all sales windows: provide details of matches to be viewed, provide guarantee of payment and then…wait for a notification that your name was selected in the ticket draw. All tickets will be provided only in April of 2010, so be sure to retain proof of your purchase

Opening match tickets range in price from ZAR 385 to ZAR 2233, with the finals costing between ZAR 700 and a cool ZAR 4500 per ticket. Pricing is dependent on where you choose to sit…and likely indicative of how much you’ll get to see.