theOlster.net

Oooooh….

Right, I know that my spelling is pretty atrochous atroshus bad, and one thing that really bothers me is that Wordpress (my blogging software) does not come with a built in spell checker. I had actually been putting together a little review section on all the spelling plugins I could find and rate how badly they worked with Wordpress 2. However, the Wordpress camp have announced a built in spell checker for version 2.1. And about time too! Thanks guys.

Update…  The new (and most excellent) version of Firefox seems to have this included.  Whilst this is good news, I can’t now see myself using the Wordpress version, especially since Firefox is so good.

I know that this video has been going around for quite some time now, but I only came accross it recently. I really love the song by Sick Puppies, and went to their website to find some more tunes, is such a shame that the other songs on the site wern’t quite as good.

So my MacBook finally arrived. The wait is over, but it was well worth it! I’ve been putting off writing this, mostly because there are loads of other bloggers who are switching, and they all have something to say.

My switch to Apple has happened for three reasons. Firstly, I was fed up with Windows. OK, more than fed up, really pissed off. Having to re-install my operating system every six months, because it is too slow, keeps crashing, and just can’t cope has left me wondering whether Microsoft are really the best solution for a desktop operating system?

Secondly, I’ve been using Linux for a while and it is just not user friendly enough for my purposes - e.g. lack of support for proprietary software such as Dreamweaver & Flash.

Thirdly, I am attempting to launch myself as a website designer/developer. I’ve always loved design and appreciate something that is functional as well as just looking cool. Not only does the MacBook and OS X fall into these categories (since they were developed with these attributes in mind - even the packaging looks great!), but I hope that they will help to inspire me to come up with some really cool designs. Working in a Windows/Linux environment just doesn’t have quite the same vibe.

So, enough about my reasons… (I’ve already written enough on this before!)

How am I getting on with it? The main reason for switching as I’ve already said is from a web-dev perspective. At the moment I have absolutely nothing to report on this front. I bought Macromedia Studio back in March, which came on a dual Mac/Windows install disk. To install this on the Mac I need a replacement serial number from Adobe - this is still pending and after a week of emailing and phoning backwards and forwards I must admit that I’m starting to get a little frustrated. I’m sure that Adobe will come through good in the end, but it does mean that I am left a little high and dry!

Office… As much as I hate MS and Windows, I have to concede that they do have the best Office suite on the planet. OOo is not quite good enough yet, but is getting there. In the end I have decided to give NeoOffice a go. I’m told that it is based on OOo and so far I love it. It’s has a simple launcher for each application and works well from the word go. I haven’t really had an opportunity to really test it yet, but I will do soon and I hope it lives up to my requirements. I really miss MS Office, but I can’t afford to go back to it yet!

So to sum up – this is a great system and I love it. Everything is so easy a child could work it. Let me stress everything just works! No messing around, real plug and play. If you haven’t considered getting one yet, I urge you to try it out.

My comment’s on Oxford’s Ugliest by Nuno Leitao:

Wow what a photo I love the style - I can remember when those escalators worked. I must have been about 5 or 6 so thats a good 20 odd years ago - but they didn’t look much better then.

I’m so pleased that the council has never fixed them because they would be such a waste of our money and the stairs work just fine. One word of warning, if you think the toilets in this place are bad - you should try using the lift.

After a considerable and necessary break from writing here, I have decided it’s high time I started again. I have been considering what this site means to me - as a blogger, how I feel about it, what I want to get out of it, and what I need to change about my writing to reach these goals. This thinking has lead to the removal of some previous posts, because they are either complete drivel or they cover topics that I don’t really want to have on my website. I have also been considering a site re-design (rather than the current wordpress theme designed by someone else) that is in the early development stages, and the plan is to have it released in the next few weeks - but you know how these things are…

So, what’s changed since mid-July. My Open University degree is now coming along nicely. I’ve just finished a rather enjoyable module on the basics of Java programming - ahem… I should say that I’ve nearly finished this module because the exam is in just over a weeks time. This module has been really beneficial to me as a programmer, and I hope to put many of the tools that I have learnt into practice in some of the projects I’ve been working on.

This previous post mentions my frustrations with using some of the modern desktop operating systems available today. Rather inevitably, I have decided to switch over to the Mac. Despite recently having the opportunity to get to the Apple shop in Birmingham I have decided to buy my MacBook from a very local re-seller in Eynsham. They seem like a great bunch of guys and apart from the great deal that they offered me, I hope to be able to rely on them for support in the future. Although I am not yet in possession of my MacBook yet (they are having a few problems getting hold of stock at the moment) they have been kind enough to lend me an iBook G4. So fingers crossed for it’s arrival this week, and I’ll do a full update when it comes.

Plenty of other cool things have also being happening (mostly non-geeky things) but I’ll save them for another occasion, because if I don’t get some sleep soon this will just be another post consisting of mostly drivel which may require some heavy handed editing in the morning.