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A hint of blue lies behind the veiled sky, below labors Attila. At first, he thought it was his starter motor. After returning with the parts, he discovered the starter motor mount had disintegrated, requiring a completely different sort of repair. He is happy and busy with his bits and pieces, and will soon have it all put to rights. Myself, I am busy with pears. We are the happy recipients of a half-bushel of pears. Beautiful, ripe and golden when they first arrived, brown spots are now appearing here and there. I think chutney would work well. I am on the prowl for recipes, on the Internet of course. On the desk sits a stack of unpaid bills. Redundant business cards, and other flotsam-and-jetsam from 2002, wait patiently to be put to rest. Slowly the piles shrink, very slowly. Determined to reduce clutter in my office, I have been making myself discard one item each day. Today's sacrifice is a printed map showing the location of Luna's first house, where she no longer lives, the original file is archived on a CD. It feels leaner in here already.
As I write, the MacWorld Expo is in full swing. Although I cannot attend, I do enjoy the excitement of new software to play with and hardware upon which to dream. Today I am giving Safari, the new Apple web browser, a run. In addition, I am in the process of downloading OpenOffice OSX (Beta) and OSX11 (Beta), just to see how they run. If the beta quality of Safari is any indication, OSX11 will install easily and then just work. Using it effectively is another "kettle of fish" entirely. OpenOffice OSX is a program from the UNIX X11 environment. I anticipate having problems getting this up and running. It is a problem of logic, as I see it. The logic set for using a GUI (Graphical User Interface) and a command line interface is very different. As far as I can tell, X11 is a GUI for the UNIX environment and is oriented for use by those who are first fluent in command line interfaces. The nature of the X11 GUI will reflect the underlying knowledge and orientation of its intended user base. The assumed skill set for using X11 effectively is probably far beyond anything I could pick up in an afternoon. To date, I have encountered no successful crossbreed logic sets, or humans. The command line people are friendly, and impatient with the GUI-only user's "apparent" lack of willingness to "pay their dues", and learn the basic logic and power of the command line. The GUI user is accustomed to seeing basic, often used functions available in an easy to understand, easy to use graphical format. GUI users are frequently stunned by the complexity of the advice given to questions regarding the use of software originally developed for the command line logic base. Apple has gone a long way towards marrying these two worlds. My own curiosity takes me beyond the safety of what I download from the Apple web site. Whatever the result, the process of exploration is pleasurable, and as always, there is a lot to be learned by merely making the effort. |
RECIPES :: Cast Worldly Distractions  Ready and Waiting By the Easy Chair Ravenshoe by Henry Kingsley (1862) (1949 Edition) Weather 17:01 EST Temp: 3`C Humidity: 81% Wind: SW 13 km/h Barometric:99.3 kPa Sunrise 7:55 AM EST Sunset 5:07 PM EST |
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