Programmable computing devices

Backpack for your mobile.

GeekBrief TV is a tech news podcast presented by "Cali Lewis". She's cute and informative.

The Amiga is back! This article is old and a bit of a tease but brings us more-or-less up-to-date with the Amiga computer. For more info see amiga.org, amigaweb.net, amigaos.dk, wiki.aminet.net, www.amigafuture.de, www.amiga-hardware.com... in these days of Mac and Windows it might seem an anachronism but imagine how its virtual memory multitasking OS would fly on modern hardware.

For both Mac and Windows: Subway maps for your iPod. Or for webmasters, how about a portable CSS guide: just copy the westciv Style Master CSS podGuide to the Notes folder on your iPod.

Rather than packing an obliterator ray in your holiday luggage, you can remove unsightly people from your snaps with Tourist Remover, a free online photo tool.

PC myths: IBM's BIOS.

macbillboard has smashing desktop wallpaper, especially some beautiful isometric artwork.

Get free PowerPoint templates from A PowerPoint Blog.

Persuasive game: Disaffected! sounds a bit depressing to me. It puts the player in the role of a copy shop employee.

Disaffected! gives the player the chance to step into the demotivated position of real FedEx Kinkos employees. Feel the indifference of these purple-shirted malcontents first-hand, and consider the possible reasons behind their malaise -- is it mere incompetence? Managerial affliction?

For Mac only: free games. Actually, most games are free for people like me who seldom get to level 3, thanks to demo mode. macgamefiles.com

David Weiss works at Microsoft as a software design engineer in the Mac Business Unit. A programmer, in other words?

todo.txt is a way of maintaining a to do list with text and scripts from the command line, on Unix or Mac OS X.

Julian Wright is doing superb work on mobile.feisar.com to make sure iSync works with all the latest Sony Ericsson mobile phones via Bluetooth and he also provides icons and themes. Makes me wanna trade-in my old Alcatel.

Mac Webdesign Workflow recommends some great software for making web sites - will he ever use Dreamweaver? Oh, the tension.

For all you presentation fiends, Les Posen's CyberPsych Blog is strong on Keynote. Al Gore and Steve Jobs do not use PowerPoint!

Hello Mac - the lost 1984 video clip collection. Steve Jobs spoke faster then.

I reboot my Mac at home every five or six weeks, when Apple sends me a system upgrade, otherwise I would never need to. Windows machines, on the other hand, need frequent rebooting. Crash Test.

The workaround is to reboot them periodically, and savvy Windows sysadmins typically do this as a matter of routine every month. If they fail to do this, their servers will progressively slow down, choking on their own detritus. Eventually, after a tad under 50 days, they'll automatically shut down, even if they're managing one of the most safety-critical tasks in the world.

Announcing the Apple iProduct. The riposte: Apple Haters Unite!

Dashboard Widgets Showcase.

Take a virtual tour around Apple Store Fifth Avenue.

Realize your strange ideas and creative desires with Apple's iLife Tutorials for iPhoto, iMovie HD, Garageband, iTunes, iDVD and iWeb.

Naughty. HandBrake copies DVD films to iPod or PSP format. Update thanks to Technorati Profile I know this now called MediaFork.

A new use for old Macs: MacQuarium.

Hrmpf! is a good Apple blog.

295 different Apple Mail icons. I use the Boris Karloff icon.

I have dreams about taking this to concerts. iTalk is a high quality stereo microphone for the iPod. In the seventies I took a big cassette recorder with me to lots of concerts and no-one seemed to mind. It's tremendously evocative listening to Hawkwind occasionally filtered by the unique acoustics of the toilets in the Hammersmith Odeon.

books... mostly sf

Triffids and Jizzle
Originally uploaded by jovike.

Elastic Press have published many of my friend Allen's books, including The Elastic Book of Numbers which has just won a BFS award, and on Saturday 4th November they have a special event to launch a new anthology with a musical theme Extended Play, edited by Gary Couzens, with an introduction by Jean-Jacques Burnel. The event features live performances from Lene Lovich, Tall Poppies and Ciccone. Ten quid for three bands and ten authors!

Another old schoolchum Nick Papadimitriou has an essay in the new book London: City of Disappearances edited by Iain Sinclair.

VISCO is the Visual Index of Science Fiction Cover Art with some good articles on various sf, fantasy, weird and horror fiction magazines. Another way to explore the cover art from VISCO is SF Cover Explorer, by Jim Bumgardner, of krazydad.com, a great programmer I met on Flickr.

I'm a member of the Penguin Paperback Spotters' Guild group on Flickr, devoted to the art and design of Penguin book covers. See also Penguin books at the Design Museum.

The University of Otago's online exhibition Straight Jackets notes that "the general neglect of book jackets has resulted in a scarcity of early examples".

Of course we would not have these fascinating images and great reads if it were not for physical books, a medium that will survive this digital age as explained in Chris Mitchell's review of Double Fold in Spike magazine. (What's coming after digital? Analogue again, probably.)

Bookshops: Fantastic Literature. They have a nice email newsletter in which old duffers like me try to remember the titles of sf stories they read as youths. For more general than genre titles, also available by the yard, try Any Amount of Books on Charing Cross Road. I've been to the shop and climbed to high shelves many times. Download their enormous catalogue and read their news and trivia. Another good source is AntiQbooks.

For real sf nuts (remember Skyrack?) eFanzines are obviously fanzines online, in web or PDF format. A labour of love. Or here's a more professional magazine from the US: Locus. I keep up-to-date with science fiction with Ansible's estimable email newsletter. Sf fandom invented words like fandom and fen - the plural of fan. trufen.net is stuff for fans.

Download free science fiction books!

Why not catalog your books online in a big library thing? I did this on paper once, thirty-five years ago (no laughing please) and I can see that online you won't get the benefit of my lovely handwriting and doodles. Anyway, here's the entry for Olaf Stapledon.

Buy me a book for Christmas! Or better still, buy Elemental a short story anthology to raise funds for tsunami disaster relief with contributions by big name authors Brian W. Aldiss, David Gerrold and Larry Niven inter alia.

"We contacted Sir Arthur C. Clarke," said Kontis.

Clarke, the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" among many other great works, lives in Sri Lanka and was directly affected by the disaster.

Savile assured the author that they were not asking him for a short story — because of his age and poor health, Clarke does not write much, if at all, anymore.

"We asked him to write the foreword," Savile said. "Within 24 hours, we heard back from him, and within another 24 hours, we had the foreword."

If you're thinking of using Writely instead of Nisus or Word or whatever to write, then head for Google Docs. Authors can collaborate online! There is a revision history and word count. Documents can be saved in plain, HTML, RTF, Word, PDF and OpenOffice formats.

Aspiring writers sometimes ask published authors which pen they use... The Write Stuff. And mind your apostrophes!

Book reviews are always to be found at The New Statesman, like this review of So Now Who Do We Vote For? by Suzanne Moore or a review of A Woman in Berlin by J. G. Ballard.

Literary blogs: many are linked to in the excellent This Space.

More Miscellany

Marconi Radio Telephone Apparatus
Originally uploaded by jovike.

Some old links that I meant to blog in 2004: these ones are still online:

Craigley Heath! This interview with Josie Lawrence with Danny Baker (from his old breakfast show on BBC Radio London), Amy Lamé and Mark O'Donnell is still there and well worth a listen. Is it life-changing? perhaps. (Real Player required) It includes an encounter with a stage-door Jenny and a priceless clip of Alec Guinness at his most misanthropic in response to a Star Wars fan. If you enjoy this sort of thing, then Danny Baker now has a show in the afternoon and the last five days are online.

The Skewed Worldview of Lubin Odana is a blog I'll be adding to the links on the side of this page. He's a bit crazy and we like the same horror films.

The Modern Antiquarian is a resource for ancient sites in the UK and Ireland, such as Avebury and Stonehenge.

The Search for the Spider Pool (NSFW) is definitely not safe for work. The beautiful location for many 1950s nude photos still has its secrets.

Dialectical sex and gender: Cunnilingus in North Korea. Interesting comments - good music too! Strangely this may be safe for work. It may be.

The dark side of Mary Poppins.

Dennis Wheatley wrote A Letter to Posterity which is linked to in this BBC feature. "Your life does not matter, but your freedom does."

Michael Moorcock's Miscellany is back up after a hacking attack. Still as difficult to navigate as ever, but worth it to keep up to date with the great man's words.

Roberts Radio Ltd. website has an interesting history section.

A reporter tries to find some good in the armpit of America.

Stream of unconsciousness: conversing with Denny's patrons. Denny's is a cafe chain in the US selling fatty sugary food - like MacDonald's but for breakfast.

Worst album covers ever including a link to ten more ghastly images.

The Human Design System seems as bad as Scientology. I wonder why people go for this stuff. HDS is supposed to draw "from science and esoteric wisdom" but no pointer is given to either.

The Hillman Imp as driven by the Man in a Suitcase.

Scary songs

His Master's Voice
Originally uploaded by jovike.

Huge comment thread on Jarvis Cocker's appeal for memories of unintentionally Scary Songs to which I have contributed Rolf Harris's 'Jake the Peg'. Rolf's performance on Blue Peter with three legs protruding from his long coat greatly alarmed me as a child.

Plastic Fantastic lists the Guardian's Laura Barton's favourite independent record shops; readers supply the rest of the record shops in the UK.

The Stranglers and the Finchley Boys - a three part article - were not as violent as they were often painted! I remember them from the Hope and Anchor in Islington and an Damned/Eater gig at my Finchley school in 1977. The poor old teacher who was supposed to be controlling this event was very circumspect, if not largely absent, during the festivities once this lot turned up mob-handed.

Stylus Magazine all about music, not cuneiform.

Shindig! magazine reviews the four CD boxset of the complete works of Fanny: First Time In A Long Time. I love Fanny - no really, I've got two of their albums on vinyl.

Lemmy is a charming fellow - I've shaken his hand twice at Hawkwind gigs - and he was the son of a vicar, after all. What Lemmy gets up to at home is his own business:

Then my solicitor sent them a letter saying, 'We are appalled by this accusation. Miss Wilson was not tied to the bed: she was hanging from the ceiling.' They didn't reply.

Two years ago Andrew Orlowski wrote about How the music biz can live forever, get even richer, and be loved.

The Perfumed Garden has many John Peel sessions in MP3 form, whereas John Peel Every Day is more keen on BitTorrent.

Funtopia is Mick Farren's weblog.

Greg Shaw obituary. He was a pivotal figure in the US music scene.

The Stop Ashlee Simpson Petition.

Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise is a weblog that mostly covers music.

Wendy James: The Racine World.

PSF is Perfect Sound Forever magazine. The Vinyl Anachronist: Part L: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the iPod.

Mike Patto was in 60s group Timebox.

Freeway Jam is a very cool music weblog. Hope they start updating again. There are also cool musicians who blog, it says here.

Extensive John Cale website: Fear is a Man's Best Friend. You remember - he was the cool one from the Velvet Underground. That's three cools. Some people say Lou Reed was the cool one. Not me.

Similarly extensive is the Kiki Dee Information Bureau - enough to fill a DVD! The timeline is worth exploring for the beautiful images of old fashions and record designs.

Martin Guy's Delia Derbyshire - An audiological chronology.

The Spirit of the Page site devoted to Robert Calvert has been relaunched to better reflect the zeitgeist.

Sean's Alexis Korner Discography. Did Alexis ever make a bad record? If so I haven't heard it.

LOL! Lol Coxhill's site features an interview with Buck Funk.

Julian Cope presents Head Heritage Unsung which reviews forgotten albums. On Julian's features there are MP3 streams too.

Amazing Doctor Who tributes discography - many memories! This is part of a bigger website as is the music from Danger Man, with cover scans and MP3 files.

Bad science: alternative therapy fans are like hi-fi freaks.

Independent music: There's a musical revolution going on.

Save Water!

The Mayor of London floats his solution to England's drought: Ken Livingstone says "if it's yellow, let it mellow".

Call this a drought?

Plants love it, says Ken.

Conserve water.

Water Company Hypocrisy! or is it? Unfortunate, more like.

No drought order yet. Phew.

I've made a poster to celebrate Ken's advice. To print it in various sizes, get over to Flickr by clicking on the picture then find the 'All Sizes' button. You'll need a recent version of Flash. Please print it and post it inside the door of the nearest thunderbox.

Update: It's August and the water is holding out. July's heatwave is fading away. The water companies are using emergency supplies. The government is talking about a national grid for water. We've had a few downpours but they have been the "wrong sort of rain": storms that mostly run off into the sea rather than wet weeks, so Ken's advice still holds!

Update: 1st November and the temperature in London drops below 10ºC for the first time this autumn. The trees are still green.