found stuff and opinions

As I type this I have Adele’s Hometown Glory - from her album 19 - playing on repeat. It’s one of the most beautiful tunes I have heard in a long time. I’ve always been drawn to piano and strings based tunes, but in this one Adele manages to wind her powerful and carefully articulated vocals like laces through the tune, never stepping out of place.

It helps that she’s singing about london. I think. I’m drawn to the city with a strength that i’ve never felt before.

The Book. The great idea I had to write a novel, the great idea that - in my wildest dreams - will become a bestseller and finance my dreams of being able to do what I want every day. I’ve got a great idea, I’ve got the software to help me write it and organise it properly, and the only thing that is missing is the content.

As a constant reminder, I’ve added a counter to the sidebar showing the number of words written. Perhaps that’ll shame me into doing more!

This site used to be a repository of useful information on installing tracks on windows, including videos, many many pages of installation instructions, and was renowned as a hand holding guide (even though I say so myself!).

After scrapping my site recently, I also inadvertently scrapped all the content in relation to installing tracks on windows. ‘No great problem’ i hear you say ‘it was horribly out of date anyway’.

Well, you are right. I was about to start all over again, preparing myself for a complex install procedure, using lots of tools - when BSAG pointed out that the Bitnami Track Stack installer already exists, that does it all for you. I’ve tried it, and it works like a charm. 

Please consider my previous efforts redundant and unnecessarily complex - it’s all done for you now.

Now for another project to get my teeth into!

I’ve read a lot of posts from bloggers far more qualified than myself on the default installer behaviour of the Apple software update for Windows machines - yes, the one that installs the Safari browser as a ’software update’ to iTunes or Quicktime, if they are already installed on your system.

On that subject, I must agree - Safari isn’t an update to the other apps, and therefore shouldn’t be offered as an update to them. Or, indeed, setting aside the issue about Safari being an ‘update’, the installer shouldn’t tick the selection box by default.

Being the sort of windows user who keeps his eyes open to software that is being installed on his system - after all, I use the most widely attacked operating system in the world - I noticed the option to install Safari, and let it install as I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I’m hooked.

Right now, I’m typing this post into the wordpress post screen, in Safari. I use Safari at work to view my backpack page, and use it to view my gmail. I have a list of websites I read every day, and for the last three days i’ve read them in safari.

Why? Well… it’s a very subjective opinion, but the sites just seem cleaner and easier to read in Safari. It helps, I guess, that I happen to read a lot of sites whose authors use Macs, so perhaps the default viewing options are clearer in Safari - it’s very difficult to tell. Certainly my backpack page is clearer in Safari. That doesn’t strike me as a great surprise - 37 Signals are big supporters of Apple, and make no bones about it.

Whilst using Safari today, something else occurred to me - I use iTunes a lot now, as I have an iPod. I am more and more often using Apple software, although I’ve used Windows for as long as I’ve been using PCs (about 12 years now). I am seriously considering a Macbook for my next laptop. I am rapidly becoming a convert to the way of Apple.

So - the thought that occurred to me - has Apple offered Safari as another way of converting Windows users to the Apple way? Certainly, for me, it’s provoked me to think different. (Is that still the Apple tagline?)

P.S. I’d love to fully convert to a Macbook Air, but sorry - i’m not quite ready to spend over £1200 on a laptop, regardless of how small and sleek and light and thin and sexy it is…

Writing a book is a hell of a lot harder than I first thought. My procrastination skills have kicked in to such a degree I wonder if I’ll ever get started. So far I have taken mental notes (in detail, but not written down - god forbid that I should commit myself), set up a laptop as my writing notebook (completely unnecessary) and spent a week familiarising myself with my writing software (Liquid Story Binder XE from Black Obelisk Software) without once actually writing a thing.

Time to get started. Time to just write.

“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.”

- Barack Obama