The Underground Man

Smackbook Pro

This is so cool..

These guys have used the internal accelerometer of the MacBook Pro - which detects when the MacBook is flying through the air and tries to stop the harddrive before it hits the ground - to allow one to change virtual desktops with a tap
on the side of the screen.

Looks gentle enough not to damage any hinges.

I really like the hack..

(Credit to a co-worker for pointing it out to me)

Delicious Library

I first saw this app a little over a year ago when people were talking about it at SXSW. It makes your iSight or DV camera hooked up to your Mac into a barcode scanner. It's called Delicious Library and it's from Delicious Monster.

When you hold up a book, movie or music CD barcode to the camera, it scans the code, looks it up on the Internet, and loads in a bunch of information about that piece into a database stored on your Mac. It also downloads cover art, or book covers so that you have a visual representation of what is in the database.

It just rocks.. I had one or two of my first ten DVDs refuse to scan initially - I think it may have had something to do with the reflectivity of the plastic because every book scanned instantly.

It does have a "recommendation" engine that suggests if you like this movie you might like these others. What I'm wondering is has anyone created the inevitable mashup of this app with Netflix's queue/rating mechanism. Since I've rated 1500-odd movies on Netflix one would think there are all kinds of possibilities (I think it currently uses something from Amazon but I have to do some research).

A recommended app for use with OS X.

2nd chances

It's always nice to see a deserving person get a 2nd chance.

Robbie Fowler, legendary striker at Liverpool, has just been given a 1yr contract at Anfield. Great news.. I missed seeing him in his heyday (he's an aged 32 now) and he has been away from Anfield for the last four years.

Under Rafa Benitez, he seems to have a new lease on life - certainly a new attitude. He's in better shape than he has been in a long while and is looking to recover his scoring touch. Once called the best natural "poacher" in English football, his star has fallen so far that he hasn't been considered for an England team for at least the last eight years.

So good things for Liverpool in the offing I hope.

I love my new lens

Just got my first roll back taken with my new 90mm Elmar-C. I took this shot just
walking down a local street and was amazed by the lovely high-contrast look.

This is that famous Leica look I've read about. It's a very small lens, recommended (and bought from) my uncle. Now I just have to get a body of my own to go with it..

MacBook Pro battery life

I must confess I'm a little unhappy with my newly-provided MacBook Pro's battery life. I woke up yesterday feeling pretty crappy (allergy plus bad headcold) and so lay in bed and watched my latest Netflick - "A History of Violence". (An excellent movie but not perhaps one to watch before breakfast and coffee.)

When I began, the battery was 100% charged. When I was done, it had only 18% charge. That's not really great. Basically, I could watch a movie during a flight coast-to-coast but I would be SOL for the next three hours with very little battery charge.

That's sort of my barometer of whether the battery/laptop combination is satisfactory. My Titanium Powerbook came close actually. I was able to watch a full-length DVD and still have 30-40% battery life. Turning down my screen brightness I could probably squeeze at least another 60 minutes of usable time out of the hardware.

Of course, I should just try ripping the DVD to hard drive and see if that makes a big difference. I should imagine it will.

Test to follow next weekend - in preparation for my trip back West for Mother's Day.