Woo Hoo, I've just been down the pub, now on to cooking tea!! Good job it's mainly cold!

Please look at me web site www.tombatchelor.com and this web log.

I think its about time I put in a new journal entry, if not only because there is something which has really got on my nerves today. What you may well ask, well I went shopping this morning with my girlfriend to Meddowhall in Sheffield and the first four shops we went into we were greeted by people offering us financial products. We only went to buy shoes and a pair of headphones, and these people give you rally funny looks it you ask if this is a bank and not a shoe shop!!

Apart from this however, all seems to be going well at the moment. In my last journal I mentioned that I was soon to be getting the results from the first half of my finals. Well I got them and learned that larger, champane, bitter, red wine and bitter should not be drunk in that order all in the same 24 hour period! I am fully revoered now and soon expect to make a similar mistake soon in the future, perhaps I could write a book on optimal alcohol combinations, may be I could get myself a physiology phd, may be not.

Here we go, another journal entry, another editor it is drafted in. What it is about computer science students that makes them continuously try new software, this journal entry comes courtesy of Kate (On PPC architecture utilising the works of Apple , KDE and fink.

The biggest change since my last journal entry has been the revamp of my web site which is undergoing work and of course comments are always welcome. My semester one exams are now out of the way and I am just waiting for the results which sould be not too bad. Also, to the previously mentioned, there are two items that I am particularly excited about at the moment. The first is my own game and the second is the iminent release of the "Sims Online" here in the U.K.

So, exciting item number 1, my game. This is being developed as part of a course I am studying as part of my Computing Science course. I have decided to go with developing a networked implementation of Pontoon in Java2D. I have chosen to do this as 3D programming is kinda beyond me and I have a perchant for Blackjack, the casino version of Twenty-One, of which Pontoon is also a version. This will be open sourced and I will initially be running the central server for the new Pontoon network!!! I am excited by "The Sims Online" as I think it adds the missing element to the original "Sims" game,i.e. the interactivity. I've not been involved in any of the beta tests and so have no real experience of it but I feel confident that it will be fun and will also significantly reduce my productivity.

In future a complete archive of my journal entries will be avilable at www.tombatchelor.com but without the comments as they exist on slashdot's servers.

It's now been three weeks since I got my iBook and everyday I fall further and further in love with it. Now I have added 256Mb of RAM to take it to 384Mb it actually performs rather well. I can now get Fink to install "ksnake" overnight and run my web server, ftp server, ssh server, ser browser, mail client, a terminal and Netbeans with almost instant hopping inbetween them. This is something my 256Mb 1.8Ghz Wintel box can not do (mind you the box cost 1/3 of the price at 350GPB)

The battery life in this thing is enough for me, considering that it still gives aprox. three hours whilst watching a DVD. The biggest factor in my transition is that I have now got used to the user interface and can hop between Windows, Linux (KDE) and Mac like I have been able to between Windows and KDE.

I used to be sceptical of Macs in general but since the realease of Mac OS X and more significantly the comment which has been made of it I have woken up. I am really glad I have. I decided that I could do with a laptop in the summer of 2002 as I spent more time tied to home so I could have access to my PC and my parents and in aws were not entirelry happy with this. Looking arround at the market place with an open mind, considereing that in the labs I use Linux and at home I have esentially a consumer Wintel box, I decided on an iBook. In a laptop I needed a bridge, something that could do all I could do at home and at work, and would provide a simple user experience for my girlfriend. Mac OS X fitted this bill compleatly and the affordable iBooks look great(however, the new 12" PowerBook would have been my prefered choice had it been arround then)

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So in conclusion Macs are great, I am compleatly turned, and for my next desktop my Bill tax may certiainly not be payed rather a nice G4 PowerMac with a flat screen. More to the point as soon as I get a DV camera the whole kit and kabbodle will come in to its own.

Also

I have also recently been rallying in cleveland and there are some photos on my web site , or a more direct link if you prefere.

I've now had my shiny iBook for a week now and I think it's absolutley great. I can now sit in my living room and surf in front of the box and thus not get winged at by my girlfriend. I think the user experience is good, although it is taking me a while to get used to not having to try to second guess what my machine is going to do all the time.

Also I heard about this amusing website today www.nippletherapy.co.uk on Lindsay Marhalls web log