richardirvine.net.nz personal weblog

geek


Clickity clack, proper typing’s back

Apple’s Extended II Keyboards and their ‘proper’ clicking keystrokes are back, thanks to Griffin’s iMate ABD - USB converter.  Coveted by the likes of Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, they feel very different to mushy, modern keyboards. Think more electric typewriter.

Good examples go on Ebay for big money, but I got one of the coveted model [...]

Simple guide to burning an .AVI to DVD in OS X 10.4.11

Here’s how I burn .avi files to DVD. For a guide to why this guide exists, scroll down. You can click the pictures to make them bigger.
1. Get ffmpegx. It’s free and marvelous. Install and follow all the instructions.
2. Open your .avi and set it to convert to .mov. I accepted all the default settings, [...]

Bloody focus

You should read Merlin Mann’s Better post. It’s a superior articulation of my goal this year: to contribute more and consume less. I’m the world’s best procrastinator. I also love the net. That’s a very, very dangerous combination, and I’m trying to redress the balance.
I have this blog and sportreview.net.nz - I do them because [...]

Me-ssa load letter

Check out Fark.com’s best photoshop contest for a while - Star Wars characters in other movies. Probably not dial-up friendly.

Style

I just stuck a 7 out of 10 in The Economist’s Style Quiz.
In your face, a barely working knowledge of spelling and grammar!

Dispatch from Dial-up hell

I was trying to upgrade OSX when the shit hit the fan. Some big downloads meant I’d teetered over my 10GB cap for the month, and my internet connection, my precious, precious broadband was grounded - back to 56KBps I went. For two weeks. Bloody hell.
Oh well, we survived for years on Dial-up - surely [...]

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