Ölbaum’s Delirium

% updmap

!!! ERROR: The right location for map files has been
    changed for this release and the map file `dvips35.map' has
    not been found in the right location, but in the obsolete
    location 
      /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/dvips/tetex/dvips35.map
    instead.

    To fix this, please move this file into an appropriate
    subdirectory of fonts/map in one of your texmf trees.

I have kept my cool until a minute ago (jr will wonder how it’s possible), but now I shall fetch the appropriate tool and demonstrate my MBBA¹ certificate on the people responsible for this.

# Posted by Ölbaum, the wee hours | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A quick note regarding comments: your e-mail address will never be disclosed, even if you don't provide a URL. Therefore, any comment with a URL that leads nowhere will be considered spam and will be deleted before it even has a chance to appear.

Likewise, following Erik's new policy, if I want to send you an e-mail to the address you gave in the comment and it bounces at me, the comment will be deleted. I am not going to randomly send e-mail my fellow commenters, though. I only do so if I reply to your comment and think you would appreciate to receive the reply by e-mail.

These are reasonable measures I think and they are not likely to affect any legitimate comment poster.

# Posted by Ölbaum, the wee hours | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been quite disappointed when I read the excellent review of the iPod Photo on Playlist. When Apple released the iPod Photo, capable of displaying full screen pictures and thumbnails as well as playing slide shows on a TV screen, I thought that it would be the ideal companion for my digital camera. Paired with the Belkin Media Reader, it would allow me to unload my Compact Flash cards on the iPod, check that they have been transferred correctly (which is important because the purpose of unloading the card is to erase it to take more pictures) and when I get home, dock the iPod and play them in a slide show on the television.

Unfortunately, this is not how the iPod Photo works. When iTunes is used to transfer pictures to the iPod, it converts them to a format compatible with the iPod, with a lower resolution, and these are the only pictures the iPod can display.

Update: The iPod Photo (now iPod tout court) can display pictures imported from a camera on it's own screen but not on the television.

Therefore, when I see all the fuss that has been made of the lack of support for video in the newspapers and on some big news web sites, I can't refrain from thinking that all those journalists took the easy path, as usual, meaning they compared the iPod Photo announcement with the latest rumours and complained about the first missing feature they found. Had they made a tiny bit of an analysis instead, they could still have made some criticisms but they would have actually given some useful information about the limits of the product. Then again, maybe I am an idealist for expecting analysis and information from a journalist.

A nice alternative to the iPod Photo (as a digital camera companion, there is no alternative to the iPod for music) would be the Nikon CoolWalker. It features a 30 GB hard disk, a 2.5" colour display, a Compact Flash reader (optional adapters for SmartMedia, SD Card, MultiMediaCard and Memory Stick), USB 2.0, PictBridge support (to output directly to a compatible printer) a video output for viewing photos on a television and a remote control. It looks like a nifty little device.

# Posted by Ölbaum, the wee hours | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I need to remember this one (hat tip to Christopher Breen of the Mac 911 Weblog):

• On Mac OS X (obviously), go to System / Library / Frameworks / Python.framework / Versions / 2.3 / lib / python2.3 / test /

• Double-click on the audiotest.au file.

Here is a transcript.

# Posted by Ölbaum, late evening | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)