forenoon filings

UK based Connectotel are currently beta testing a new service which allows Skype users to send SMS text messages to any GSM mobile phone user.

All that is required is that you have a valid Skype user ID (cost: free) and that you register for authorisation with Connectotel (currently free as well). Once this is done adding Connectotel's Skype contact ‘smsgateway’ will act as the message server.

Although this whole setup is free at the moment, their FAQs page does state that this zero cost is likely only to continue during ‘the period of the Beta test’.

Thankfully the art of satire isn't dead. And who's to say that a G5 mini isn't such a bad idea?

London based Spyce TV have established themselves as a new independent film production company. They have decided to focus their attention on the UK Short Film and Television markets - in fact their debut project is currently in post production and is entitled 'The Interrogation' (release is set for Spring 2005 on the Independent and Festival circuits).

Started by a two brother team (who have partnered as director and executive producer), Spyce TV is committed to raising the bar for the UK Short Film industry. A glance at the upcoming schedule certainly shows a busy year approaching.

After viewing excerpts from a preview screening, it is certainly within Spyce's 'Interrogation' to make a lasting impact on release.

We shall watch the progress of this debut short with great interest...

I'm sure that we have all had moments when we think "Did I just read that error message right?" - in response to the sometimes garbled or plain gibberish that our computers produce when they have encountered unknown errors.

Error 10 is a site which is a collection of the more eclectic and downright odd examples of errors that have occurred on applications running on Mac OS X. No doubt Windows equivalent sites are out there somewhere?

If there are any stat-hungry database querying enthusiaists out there, it will make you make even more happy to know that there are plug-ins that can be used to further enhance the reporting and analysis of your audio media libraries. In fact Audio Scrobbler is compatible with the majority of popular software media players, not just iTunes.

I have only signed up for it so it will take a few weeks for my stats to settle and resemble my true music profile - but a worthy (and discreet!) addition to the iTunes back office!

The new novel entitled Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is soon to be published.

I originally discovered his writing one lazy summer, whiling away time in the library. The first of his books I read was An Artist of the Floating World, and it is a novel that I highly recommend.

If you have never heard of Kazuo Ishiguro, then here are two reasons that I would recommend reading his books:

1. Sensitivity: One of the key strengths of Ishiguro's narratives is the way he makes the reader share in the sense of loss that his narrator experiences. He deals with the difficult subject of facism and war in his earlier works, and perhaps this is best demonstrated in his best known book the Remains of the Day (which was made into a critically acclaimed film).

2. Culture: It is well known that Ishiguro was born in Japan, and spent much of his life in England. As a result he is able to fuse these two very different cultures in his works. One aspect of the 'Artist' that captivated me was the fact that we see the thoughts of those who lived in World War II who were 'on the other side'. By no means is this an apologists appraoch, but we see the central character delaing with many layers of guilt and introspection. His later books seem to move away from a strictly Japanese setting. However, an interesting study of Japanese culture in an English setting can be found in his debut A Pale View of the Hills.

Never Let Me Go is set to be published on March 3rd.

In light of Nestle's 'shock' announcement, it prompted me to think about the sweets we used to have when growing up. Hats off to Nestle for generating a few hundred free column inches of publicity, but it did make me think if there was a way getting hold of all those old time favourite sweets again. The confectionary market can be so fickle sometimes.

It seems that this wave of nostalgia is getting to be quite strong. I have been ordering the odd box here and there from Cybercandy on and off - but a certain degree of experimentation is required.

For more home grown treats A Quarter Of fits more comfortably. Focusing on the UK market, they have amassed a large collection of long forgotten sweets that we all used to gorge ourselves when our daily allowance was less than 50p.

A browse of the newspapers at the weekend also unearthed this related article.

Not quite sure how this was done (and the whole site is in German - which I don't understand), but someone has managed to render film clips into ASCII characters.

Certainly a lot better than your standard 3 character smileys, and proof that not all art has to be entirely useful!

Is there a way of combining the love of playing Tetris with well built multi-storey structures?

Project Blinkenlights seem to have the answer. For the pinnacle of ultra large displays - how about playing Tetris using the windows of the Biblotheque Nationale de France as the screen?

These guys have done similar installations in Germany before and now you can do the same in France.

But what of the controls? Forward thinking as they are, they have managed to put together a system which lets you control the game through your mobile phone (assuming you can see the building that is).

OK, so the display is one colour only, but how long before we can expect to play Mario Bros on the side of Canary Wharf...

"All the software is so expensive!" This is a complaint that is often voiced by those new to the Mac community - and usually with good reason.

With a little bit of research, it is possible to get professional level software using Open Source and Free/Shareware. It does exist for Macs - so this is just a brief mini guide of five essential free or lo-cost applications that do exactly what they say on their respective tins.

Each have been deliberately chosen so that together they cover a broad range of interests:

1. Desktop Manager (Open Source): OK, so this is really a ‘borrowed’ feature from the Linux world, but having the ability to manage virtual desktops on Macs is invaluable – especially when juggling multiple windows in considerably less than 19” of screen real estate. The OS X native environment means that you can flip between desktops with that extra bit of swirling, flipping, rotating sparkle. Currently, this is in early its Alpha stages, but I think that this will continue to grow to become an essential part of any Mac user's environment.

2. Audio Hijack Pro (Shareware: Pro $32; Standard $16): This program is sufficiently mature in it release history to gain such a level of completeness in its features. In a nutshell, this application captures audio. But the difference is that it can capture audio from anywhere. Hard wired through Line In is no problem, but the real killer feature is its ability to capture audio from any software residing on the Mac! When delving into its features – it is then that you realise that a number of years of ago, such software would have been consigned to the most sophisticated studios. It is also highly configurable – with the user being able to define the compression method and quality, whether to apply Audio Unit effects to the capture, along the software’s tight integration with Applescript. This remains a firm favourite. Other noteworthy products from the same developers include Nicecast (broadcast over the web through iTunes), and the forthcoming Slipstream (send any audio through the Airport Express - a worthy companion to Audio Hijack).

3. Gimp (Open Source): Everyone knows that Photoshop cannot be surpassed for high-end image manipulation and editing, but what if you can’t muster the hefty asking price? There are cheaper applications available, but for the best cost:feature ratio, then nothing can beat the Gimp. The GNU Image Manipulation Program (to give it the full title) project has been running since 1995 on Linux. This is a port, but the size and length of its development staff have brought this software to very professional level of use. Oh – and its free. Unlike other applications on this list, this run in the X11 Windows environment.

4. VLC (Open Source): When it come to playing compressed video files, the transplanted Mac version of Windows Media player can be a bit limp. I was very surprised on loading this up, to see how effortlessly it handles different file formats, compressions and codecs (and it can even play VCDs! Does anyone still make them?!) If it ends avi, mpg, or some other similar format; if it comes on a 12cm shiny disc - then it will probably play.

5. Proteus (Shareware: $15) & Adium (Freeware): MSN Messenger on Mac is weak (missing video chat and it's features lags behind its Windows counterpart). If you’re coming to Mac from a Windows background, its likely you don’t know enough people who use iChat. Then just to annoy things, its probably true you know a few other people who use Yahoo! What is needed is an Instant Messenger that somehow brings these protocols together under one roof. I have actually included two, because two months after registering Proteus, I discovered Adium! Bad timing! Both of these applications are compatible with the more popular IMs around today – so which should you go for? Proteus offers a more integrated Aqua environment and dovetails nicely in with your Address Book contacts (due to its Cocoa development framework). Adium is (I think) the more popular of the two, even though it does veer quite a distance from standard Apple interfaces. Of the two, Adium supports more IM services, and is able to be customised - i.e. interface, theme, sounds. And to cap it all, it has a green duck for a mascot (although this can be changed...)

So Apple have given their PowerBooks a slight bump up in spec. A new feature that has been quietly added is that of 'Two finger scrolling'. This allows multi direction screen scrolling.

For the brave it is possible to tweak the mouse/trackpad driver to put this feature in - but this will only work for newer models. For now, this will remain a spectator sport for me...

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