Category: Random

[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.”.

A brief ADSL related aside. Are you having problems with BTOpenworld? Then you need to know about btopenwoe.co.uk.

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…

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.

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.

“Doesn’t it wake you in the middle of the night. The feeling that someday they will pass that foolish law and come for you and your children? Take you all away?” Ladies and gentlemen, the X-men 2 trailer. ‘Nuff said, true believer…

I’m prone to ramble – so let’s start with the link: Public and Private – random unposed portraits of people taken on the corner of Edgware Road and Marble Arch. The site is beautifully designed, simple and elegant and the photos are of the highest quality and tremendously poignant. Perhaps it has a special significance for me because I travel through this part of London every day on my way to work, switching wherever appropriate between buses 6 and 98.

By way of meta-commentary – thinking about the process of choosing a link to post – I think it’s worth saying that I planned initially to post this link yesterday but I decided that it might spoil the impact of Cal and Denise’s amazing City Creator, so I managed to restrain myself. Is this tactical blogging? Is it immoral? It’s difficult to tell. Clearly there’s a value in the as-it-happens authenticity of weblogging.

As a further aside – this constitutes yet another link I’ve borrowed (stolen) from the wonderful Matthew Webb – who manages to post significant gems like this in parallel with commentaries about RSS/RDF aggregation and links about the wonders of anal bleaching – links that I’ve followed up myself on the interhighweb to uncover a particularly fascinating post to an agony aunt on anal advisor which includes the lines:

“Several people have written to me asking me about skin bleaching in the anal area. First, let me assure you that the way your ass looks now is perfectly normal; in most people, the puckered flesh of the anus is naturally a few shades darker—or a slightly different color—than the rest of their skin.”

From earliest times when man first scraped pointer cross pixel, the goal of all humanity has been the creation of almighty empires of pixels – vistas of microscopic blocks of brightly coloured light coming together to form perfect tiny universes populated by oddly chunky tiny little people. As harbinger of the wonders to come came eboy‘s pixel palaces – but finally we can all scratch out our little piece of tiny heaven out of light itself… Presenting CityCreator.com – a creation of Cal and Denise. Bow down, ye new Gods of the unantialiased – and bear witness to the dawn of a new age…