bitdepth

SBook5

I was recently reading an article on the O’Reilly Network about “Freeware Gems for Mac OS X” and found it interesting. One of the neat things about OS X is that it has spawned a whole new wave of development and applications. The great thing about OS X is that it combines the Mac with Unix in a pretty package. You can admire and use the system mainly on the surface or dive into development and manage stuff with the command line. The most interesting free app in the article is an address book called SBook. SBook was created by Simson Garfinkle in 1991 for NeXT (which OS X owes a lot to).

I’m actually quite happy with the built-in address book in OS X and I love how I can use iSync to keep my address book on the machines that I use and my Handspring Visor in sync. But I thought that I’d try out the program as I like Simson’s writing and if he went to the trouble of reviving a program I should try it out. What intrigued me is how he mentions in the description that the search algorithms are quite paoerful and that they are very fast and parts of them made their way into Mail.app and the OS X built-in address book. So I tried it and really like it. I love how it’s a free-form address book, so you don’t need to fill in certain fields. It figures out what is what… a name, a business, an email address, a phone number, etc. So you can type lots of notes explaining things and mix it all together however you like. Then you can go to a Web site, send an email, dial the phone, or print an envelope or label. It’s fast and searches almost instantly. You can even drag pictures into it! I think that this is going to be my address book of choice soon. I still miss a feature of Apple’s Address book such as being able to look up a map by clicking on an address, but I’m sure that it will show up soon.

May 8, 2003 contacts, handspring, isync, mac, mail, next, osx, sbook, simsongarfinkle, software, unix, visor

Resonance FM

My regular Internet radio source has pretty much been Soma FM‘s Secret Agent feed, but occasionally I need to listen to something different. Gair Dunlop is back on this side of the ocean for a while and he mentioned a London radio station called Resonance FM that has a feed available. I tuned in and the first thing I heard was a program that was all…backwards… the next time that I listened it was more of a disco and dance mix with some entertaining banter in between the songs, and then a music and spoken word program. Now I’m listening to a program about fruit machines, which I’ve learned is what slot machines are called in England. Definitely eclectic and interesting. It’s a radio station in London that broadcasts at 104.4 FM is operated by the London Musician’s Collective. Resonance FM was 1 year old on May Day.

Reading about and listening to the station it reminded me of my days in (on) radio in New Brunswick when I worked on a comedy show and then returned to do a news and public affairs show. The station was CHSR-FM, based at UNB in Fredericton. They have a feed as well.

Resonance FM broadcasts live at noon (GMT I suppose) every day for 12 hours (a bit longer on the weekend), but they also have a recorded loop that runs during other times. One of the neat things about the station is that it is live and commercial free… there is something that I love about live radio… the knowledge that there are people on either side of the microphone and speaker who are connected either through the radio waves over the air or the signals flying through the Internet. A great combination of the human and technological.

May 7, 2003 audio, chsrfm, england, fredericton, gairdunlop, londonmusicianscollective, music, radio, resonancefm, somafm, unb

Guardian Unlimited Weblog

During the war in or on Iraq I relied a lot on online news sources…in general I’ve been getting more and more of news from online sources and not tv… the only exception is CBC radio… so not a lot of tv news. The most fascinating reading during the recent events in the Middle East were the BBC Reporters Logs which were halfway between brief news reports and notes from reporters to the world. But an earlier and still-running collection of links to a broad range of information about what’s currently going on in the world is the Guardian Weblog. I rely on the Guardian‘s journalism and their Weblog keeps me informed as well…and I recently checked out some of the “Weblogs We Like” sidebar which had me surfing around for a while.

May 6, 2003 bbc, blog, cbcradio, news, theguardian

Gardens

I have to say that I love gardens, but for some reason I am horticulturally challenged. A few years ago we tried to grow some vegetables in our back yard, but everything died or was eaten by animals…but the animals would have starved as we only had 1 or 2 pathetic tomatoes. That’s why a beautiful public garden is impressive to me. There is the peaceful and relaxing nature of the environment and then there is the fact that someone had to think about how it all fits together and grows and looks.

Yesterday I was walking home from lovely downtown Wolfville and stopped in to the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens at Acadia University. It’s another one of those things where you live close to something and walk or drive by it and never really see much of it. Carolyn and I walked around inside the gardens on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and vowed to return when everything was in bloom.

Still in the garden mood, I heard that the Halifax Public Gardens were open today and I went for a walk. It’s an amazing place to go, right in the heart of Halifax. It was the first public garden in Canada and was opened to the public in 1837. A beautiful and authentic Victorian garden it’s a large and comfortable place surrounded by iron gates and a pond with ducks…just the place to spend some time on a sunny day. I have to get out more!

May 5, 2003 acadia, carolyn, gardens, halifax, halifaxpublicgardens, harrietirvingbotanicalgardens, victoriangarden

Square

One of the things that I love about living in Nova Scotia is that I keep discovering lots of talent all around…it’s not that there hasn’t been talent in other places where I’ve lived and grown up… there is, but being a little bit “from away” gives you a bit of a different perspective. The latest NS musical discovery that I’ve made is a guy originally from Mount Uniacke called Buck 65 (with his secret identity being Richard Tefry). He’s got a Tom Waitsian sense of language, but combined with a great hip hop sense that is based in his reality, which is closer to my own reality which has it’s own rural elements.
Every now and then you realize what a small place this part of Canada can be. I drive a lot and listen to the radio or music a lot as well. In the lead up to the East Coast Music Awards there was a lot of coverage on CBC Radio of the musicians nominated for awards and Tefry was on the radio with a great interview and an intriguing song. A day later a guest I had brought in to my class at work turned out to also be Buck’s manager, so then I figured when I had a chance I should pick up the latest CD, which is called Square. The cover looked familiar and I realized that it was drawn by James Paterson of Presstube fame. Jeez… he studied in NS too…and used his Flash skills for the site supporting the CD (where you can listen and decide to buy it for yourself). The CD is great (which is probably why it won “Best Urban Recording”) and is divided into 4 tracks. Definitely not a collection of singles, but a series of long-form explorations of different ideas, beats and sounds… I really like it and will be a regular consumer of his work.

May 4, 2003 buck65, cbcradio, cd, ecma, flash, jamespaterson, mountuniacke, music, novascotia, presstube, richterfry, square

X2

The sequel to X-Men isn’t like the original, even though pretty much everyone is the same on both sides fo the camera. X2 is a lot of fun and not as serious as the original. Sir Ian McKellen (who’s web site has a great personal touch) pretty much steals every scene that he’s in…he’s very watchable and obviously loves what he’s doing. Much like the first film, part of the pleasure is watching a great actor bring life and depth to a comic book that could become campy…and the scene between McKellen and Patrick Stewart is a pleasure to watch. Alan Cumming also brings a suprising degree of feeling to the character of Nightcrawler, which shows that Brian Singer’s casting instincts are solid. Another acting highlight is that Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is given more lines and more of a role than in the first film. Overall I liked it and wasn’t disappointed at all. A great cast with a good comic book story.

It’s interesting that I’m writing more about the acting than the special effects and action…well, it’s a comic book film… and it does it very well… the first one has more depth, but X2 is a lot of fun, but it suffered from me seeing the Matrix Reloaded trailer for the first time on the big screen before the film. Now that’s a film that will have some pretty amazing action.

May 3, 2003 alan cumming, film, ian mckellen, patrick stewart, rebecca romijn, review, sciencefiction, x-men, x2

2 / 3

SBook5

Resonance FM

Guardian Unlimited Weblog

Gardens

Square

X2

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