Take a seat. No really, sit down. You’re going to be shocked by this. Sony have decided to stop making Betamax VCRs! I know! I know! Who saw that coming?!
[Note added September 21st, 2002: There is apparently a new driver – version 2.0 – that is available for users of MacOSX. It’s available here. As of this date I haven’t tried it, because I’m too nervous that it’ll bugger up my connection. If you have tried it, let me know how you got on with it via e-mail.]
Firstly an apology to both my regular readers for going on about my problems with BTOpenworld and Alcatel’s SpeedTouch USB ADSL modem. Placing this information online may seem annoying to many of you, but the wonders of the internet and Google mean that if I get it online it will never die and can help people for months to come. That’s one of the other wonderful things about the internet and modern search engines – knowledge can once again become something that is added to by each and every person on the planet co-operatively without fear of it being lost. Or at least that’s the theory…
So to start off with here’s the good news – it seems there is a fix for the 1.6 version of the Alcatel drivers for OSX Check your current version numbers, because if you are using older ones then you’ll have no luck with this fix. The latest versions can be downloaded from from SpeedTouchProfiles.com. These drivers don’t work in and of themselves, but apparently can be made to work by altering ‘version number format and matching’, whatever that means. You can read the whole fix here: It takes a froggy to tame a frog!!
Now for the bad news. The fix is almost totally incomprehensible to me and looks like it’s likely to remain so for quite a while to come. If anyone can walk me through it, I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you pleasure in your life. In the meantime, the site you need to know about if you’re having any problems with running Alcatel’s ADSL on MacOSX is run by Antonio Strijdom.
Over the last few weeks I’ve become the semi-official online promotional orifice of the Guardian’s Best British Blog competition, and with just over a week and a half to go, it’s time to remember – if you’re planning to sell your soul down the river for £25 and a box of liquorice allsorts, you’d better get your bloody move on…
Yesterday I posted a substantial rant on kottke.org about the role of RSS feeds and readers. Here’s an excerpt: “Perhaps this is one of those times when we all realise that the potential uses for an adaptation of the technology exceed what people designed it for. RSS feeds are the palm-friendly templates that we’ve never all designed for, they’re the truly cross-platform designs for the site that open up issues of accessibility for people using alternative readers because of blindness.”.
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On BTOpenWOE
A brief ADSL related aside. Are you having problems with BTOpenworld? Then you need to know about btopenwoe.co.uk.
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Insane ADSL update…
Ok. The latest news for BTOpenworld customers struggling with broadband access via crappy alcatel modems is that you might just as well stick your thumb up your ass for all the help they’ll provide at the moment. In the meantime, according to a helpful correspondent who is high up at a Mac print-publication, Hermstedt ADSL modems (around £139) come with fully working OSX.2 drivers. Which is a nice if expensive solution. Equally expensive but apparently the solution if you’re planning to use Airport is the solution that Matt Webb suggested to me – buy an ethernet router of some kind and stick it between the Alcatel modem and the computer. Apparently this will help…
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MacOSX.2 and BtOpenworld
Warning: If you are an OSX user in the UK who is using BTOpenworld‘s broadband service and is thinking of upgrading to Appe’s latest operating system OSX.2, then be aware that the Alcatel SpeedTouch USB modem does not work with Jaguar and you will be left without any kind of web access. There are no functioning drivers for the Alcatel modem compatible with OSX.2, and no information on when there will be. I have discovered this to my cost, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
BTOpenworld have also helpfully declared that they no don’t even support OSX (“It’ll work, but we can’t give you any help on it and stuff”). I’m eager to spread the word on this one – and I’m also eager to be a bridge for any updates people might have. Mail me.
Anyone who’s worked in any kind of office at any point in their lives has probably had to sign a contract or a piece of paper that outlines what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behaviour in the office. As part of this often comes a short edict about ‘abuse of the internet’, which generally is taken to mean downloading child pornography or not getting any work done at all because you’re busy playing ‘Go’ on a network with someone in Japan. If you abuse the internet, you will get fired.
Of course abuse of the internet is a fairly loose term, which as yet doesn’t have a consistent meaning between jobs. I remember an article in the press in the UK a few years ago which held that a woman who booked a holiday during her lunch break at work could be fired for abusing the internet. Most of us who live at least a third of our lives online reacted with a certain amount of horror to that. After a while, the net becomes an extension of your head, or your hands, or your ears or your eyes. Being separated from it in a working environment becomes ridiculous. The capacity to chat to a coworker on AIM about a work-related matter becomes normal – as does the ability to ask a friend in another country for a link about icon design.
And then you get to the weblog, which may prove to be the latest thing to be legislated around: via blogroots comes this fairly reasonable policy on weblogs. It’s a balanced view of them – carefully measuring both the need of businesses to cover their own asses and the need for individuals to feel they have online free expression. Unfortunately, while it is eminently pragmatic, that doesn’t mean that it’s actually morally right. Something that seems eminently clear to me is that the needs of business impinge on the rights of the individual to have a life ‘outside work’ a hell of a lot more than they should…
The glorious Andy Pressman of beautifully designed Oh Messy Life! infamy has posted a picture of a singular poster. The poster reads, “Then it hit me, I’m not going to be famous, I won’t get to be a rock star, I am going to be stuck on the payroll doing work that doesn’t interest me for a very long time”. And it reminded me of something I posted eighteen months ago which read:
“It’s slowly beginning to dawn on me that I’m never going to be famous, I’m never going to be truly exceptional, or lauded over – I’m never going to travel to the moon, I’m never going to kill someone, I’m never going to gazelle on stage. This may be one of the most crushing realisations of my life”
But I was wrong. These are the words of the old world that we all used to live in. The world before the internet, before weblogs, before we realised the truth. In the future we will all be superheroes if we want to be. This is a distributed world – a world in which the barriers to flight have been lifted. You don’t have to be a multi-millionaire to make your mark, you don’t have to have all the luck in the world to rise up from your origins and hold your head up high. This is the post-American Dream – to live in a world in which you can get the respect you deserve simply by posting rubbish to the internet, by talking about your interests, your dreams and your interests. The man who made that poster has already proven himself wrong. His words, his image have been ripped from the streets of New York and broadcast into the ether. Hundreds of people have already seen it across the world and taken his words and thought about their lives. An impact has been made. And, like the impacts that we all make online, it should be celebrated. So this is my clarion call, here is my manifesto. Throw away the doubts that bind you. Shed your bodies and celebrate what makes you unique and important – all the stuff that helps you sleep at night – and take to the net. We need you. We love you. We want you. Nothing else is important.
Addendum: Thanks to Matt Jones for the related conversation over AIM that ended with us agreeing that an ISP with built in weblogging functionality and a low bandwidth limit could do worse than use the slogan: “In the future everyone will be famous for 15Mb”.
Related: Wired On the size of the weblog nation
When Wil Wheaton started weblogging, I though it was great. I loved the fact that the culture of weblogs allowed us all to enter a world that – for the most part – remains completely invisible to the general public – a world of faded celebrity, auditions and call-backs. I loved the fact that he actually seemed to be a pretty decent bloke and that he had a sense of humour and a sense of perspective. I got quite excited when I heard he was going to be in the next Star Trek movie – he’s my age, he’s exposing himself on the net – I kind of felt weirdly like one of my peers had made good again.
After a while, I moved on to reading other sites – Wil runs a very popular site, it’s not like he needs my patronage, and there are so many people out there to connect with, however fleetingly. But I was drawn back today by a fragment of news – that his scene had been cut from the movie – and read his commentary on the phone call he received, and it’s actually just really sad and poignant and weirdly affecting. Be strong, Comrade Wheaton. Soon thirty will come and the weight will be lifted and your perspective will change and all will respect and admire you. It happened to me. Kind of.