Dragon's Eye News

I cheered her on and got some video, which I'll post on the main gallery later, and eventually the squirrel made a break for it. Unfortunately Sophie wasn't fast enough and the Squirrel made it to the roof where she proceeded to taunt Sophie with squeaks and tail swishing.

This is the picture that I mentioned in my previous podcast. Susan took it around sunset and once we got home played around with it in Picture Publisher (yep, she still uses it).

Larger versions and a close-up after the jump.

That was a user name I saw recently in a public forum.  I suspect they chose that name because iTunes has a thick layer of DRM covering it from end to end and that particular person is rabidly against DRM.  I know how they feel.  Granted, there are a few areas in iTunes where you don't have to accept a pair of handcuffs just to listen to some good music but those are still rare.

Thing is, iTunes isn't evil.

If Apple hadn't started sleeping with the record companies and accepted the DRM handcuffs we still wouldn't be able to buy single tracks of music at $1 a pop.  The record companies are still too attached to the "album" as a measure of performance.  They still don't get that buyers have never wanted a disk that's 50% crap just to get the few good songs.  If people had been able to consistently buy singles back in the 60s they would have.

Apple's no saint here but at least they were able to force something basically good down the throats of the record companies.

So iTunes/Apple is a bit of a slut but not evil.

And probably my last just because I don't have that much I feel a need to cast about and it's a bit of a pain to do.

Oh well, playing with the new microphone because I felt like it.

Listen here.

I heard about SpeedScript on jkOnTheRun and it looked intriguing enough to try. A faster keyboard is definitely something I'd like when I'm in slate mode and can't avoid "typing". I hate flipping my T4215 screen around when I'm grooving in slate world.

Unfortunately I've found some bugs and design flaws that are keeping me from using the program. I sent these to the makers of SpeedScript but haven't received a reply so off they go to blog world.

1. It appears to be designed for lefties that write with the pen pointing from upper left to lower right? As a righty I find that a fair amount of time the button I need is covered by the pen or a finger.
2. No way to customize the program? I couldn't find any way to change any settings of the program.
3. The included demo shows stylus pointing straight up and down. Who writes that way?
4. Doesn't save the startup position. I really wish it would save its position when shutting down and come back up in the same place. Its default location of the lower-left corner of the screen and partially covering the start button isn't convenient at all.
5. Frequently it doesn't work with remote desktop. I use RD a lot as I move around the office and maintain a connection with my main machine and SpeedScript often doesn't seem to even know it's running.

Unfortunately these all added up enough that I haven't been using SpeedScript. I'd like to. It looks promising but it's just not quite cooked.

That's what the music industry loves.

They get you when you buy blank media.

They get you when you buy a CD (don't share those songs with your friends because we'll come after you and ruin your life).

And they get people who may or not be making any money from playing the songs.

From Florida comes the story of tavern owners being shaken down for having live music or even just the TV on.

There's an interesting bug in ON 2007.  The ink recognition when doing a search is subtly different from the recognition when writing normally.

Earlier today I was searching for "Lon" and ON came back with a hit on "Contact".  You can see in the image that when I created this page, ON correctly interpreted my writing as "Contact" but matched "Con" with "Lon" when doing the search.  Huh?  How many recognizers does the program have?

Click on the image for a larger version.

It's still missing in ON 2003 but why didn't the service pack implement support for these gestures?

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms818591.aspx

Even more, why aren't they a basic part of ON 2007?

I finally got tired of resetting Cleartype whenever I rotated my tablet screen and started work on Cleartype Rotator.

This is just the beginning. At the moment it can capture your font smoothing settings for each screen orientation and automatically restore those settings when you rotate your screen.

The UI is just an work-in-progress interface for testing the functionality. This will evolve into a utility that lives in the tray and with no real UI. You'll be able to quickly load the Cleartype Tuner and have CTR capture your settings when needed, rotate the screen to a specific orientation and enable/disable CTR.

If anyone is interested in trying it out, let me know.

Microsoft says.

I say no way.

I used vista on an HP TX1120 for part of a week and really couldn't wait to get back to XP.

XP is faster.

XP is more stable.

XP doesn't assume that you're an idiot. UAC anyone?

XP supports more devices in use today.

I'm waiting for SP1 before I try Vista again.

The only feature in Vista I would like to have today are the TIP improvements. The cost of the rest of Vista isn't worth it.

The trees on the property of Majagua were very photogenic. Hopefully one day my drawing skills will be able to capture then fully.