More cultural mashups from Kittahcore. It had to happen I guess. O-Hai-Ku

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happy fur teh web kittahs

iz been teh famous - kittahcore

If I'm a passenger in a car I can't read a book without getting motion sickness. It's been a curse since I was a child (though luckily Rhiannon doesn't seem to suffer from it) but I'm fine reading on a bus, ferry or aircraft.

I've never managed to work out why that difference exists but I've just accepted it (and been grateful for the fact I can read on planes because I find sleeping incredibly difficult).

For various reasons this week I've been using my laptop on the way home from work on the bus. Or, that is, trying to use my laptop. 10 minutes into the trip the nausea comes roiling in and I have to turn everything off and stare out of the window unless I want to embarrass myself and inconvenience my fellow riders!

I had no problem reading a magazine or playing Chuzzle on my phone.

I'm hoping this isn't going to be a generic thing - I've got a few flights coming up and want to be able to use the laptop to make the time productive.

I wonder if it's the screen or the lighting or... any ideas/solutions?

I'm no big fan of DRM. It seems the march of technology into entertainment has been accompanied by a reducing in fair use but at the end of the day it's not a show stopper. I can still buy or rent books, DVDs and CDs and the world is good.

That doesn't stop the tinfoil brigade getting all paranoid that just because there are some new standards for DRM and content protection and they are supported by Vista that Microsoft is own to own their entertainment and eventually their mind.

One of the biggest proponents of this fear, uncertainty and doubt has been Peter Guttman who has published a long rambling paper sub-titled "The Longest Suicide Note in History" which is apparently a well researched, factual breakdown of how Microsoft are out to rule the world through DRM.

I tried reading it once after seeing a lot of chatter in the blogsphere about it, but decided that it wasn't worth the effort to wade through the rambling tome. I know some researchers can be a bit eccentric but at least they usually make sense

It turns out that I wasn't alone in that opinion. Ed Bott has started a three part analysis and examination of this work of art to actually correct some pretty fundamental mistakes.

It makes great reading and clears up some of the mystery... or at least adds some common sense and real analysis to the subject - Everything you've ever read about Vista DRM is wrong"

I do however share Mr Guttmans (warning: Strong Language Ahead) view on Lotus Notes (though I'm not sure I see the point in posting it as an Acrobat document when there are perfectly acceptable graphics formats available for the Internet that are not encumbered with useless DRM)

Over the years I've tried alternatives to Windows on a number of occasions. I'm fairly technical (I can find the Ctrl, Alt and Del keys 9 times out of ten) but even then I've struggled on a number of computers to get various Linux distros working to a point where I'd be comfortable enough to switch.

I did spend a year as an OSX user which was interesting, but even there I still relied heavily on the Microsoft Office suite and Entourage to get things done (and VirtualPC was my friend) but despite the fact the new Macbook Pros are great machines I've been back on Vista for a while now.

I was interested to see that Dell, amongst others, are releasing consumer machines pre-loaded with Linux. There aren't embedded Consumer Electronics devices, or bleeding edge hardcore geek machines but the sort of thing my Mum might consider.

Given my experiences I was hoping to hear that Dell had produced a machine that was as slick and painless to use out of the box as Vista Home Premium for basic every day stuff. According to Walt Mossberg though it looks like they've a little more work to do in order to get it polished.

The good news... hopefully getting Linux distros in front of typical users will help to push the quality of the product... which in turn will drive more improvements in both OSX and Vista (a little bit of healthy competition for the user experience can only help the user at the end of the day)

On September 19th 1982 Scott Fahlman proposed in a post on the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science bulletin board the use of :-) as a joke marker and :-( for messages that were not jokes.

As Scott himself points out he might not be the first as the use of coded emotion cues had existed since 1857 when the number 73 was used in Morse code to represent "Best Regards"

Back in 1989 a very clever, and funny, man called Douglas Adams got very frustrated because it was difficult to keep documents in sync across multiple machines without jumping through hoops and even manage content from different sources within a document elegantly.

Luckily in the years since Office file formats (both Office Open XML and OpenDocument) and the various Office suites have become smarter and more flexible (and dare I say "open") but the problems of keeping things in sync so the user isn't concerned where he edited the document when he wants to print it are not quite solved just yet.

Things like Groove and FolderShare are making it easier, and hopefully the promises of computing in the cloud will continue to accelerate the pace of development.

Sadly Douglas is no longer with us, but memories of Frank the Vandal live on...