What’s the hype about Tiger?

<rant> I never trusted the hype around Mac OSX Tiger, and this article just proved me right again. When will some people in the community understand that Apple just makes good computers and sells great lifestyle - no question about that - but that they”re not some sort of religious revelation? I have to say I am impressed by my powerbook and Panther, but any OSS upgrade beats what we get served with Tiger. </rant>

Reconnecting a bluetooth mouse

So I just bought this really cool mouse for my Powerbook and couldn”t believe I have to go through the bluetooth setup assistant in OSX everytime the pb comes back from sleep. Thank you Google for pointing me right to this website that immediately solved my problem: all it takes is a couple clicks with the mouse.

iTunes Musicstore Switzerland is open

Okay, so the iTunes Music Store for Switzerland has opened, but I”m only partially happy with it.

Good aspects:

• great search function
• very easy to use (any other shop we had so far in Switzerland was so difficult to use it was turned completely useless)
• adding tracks automatically to the “purchased music” playlist so one can easily distinguish the proprietary files from free files
• nicely designed sites for featured albums and artists, e.g. Ray Charles
• unlimited burning to regular music CDs - without this feature I wouldn”t buy a single song

Bad aspects:

• Only one - but a really bad one for me: too much mainstream music. I am currently looking for music by Tsushima Masaki, Tony Esposito, and Tillmann Uhrmacher - neither is featured in the iTunesMS. Well, they will gradually expand the list of featured songs, but I”m still rather a pessimist on this one.

Ironically, the Swiss iTunesMS doesn’t even feature all music currently in the charts, e.g. “Lift u up” by Gotthard - good song currently ranking on 3rd place, but nope, it’s not available. How is Apple trying to make money when they don’t even go the easy way and sell music from the charts?

The first two songs I downloaded from the iTunesMS are “Drive” by The Cars and “I drove all night” by Celine Dion. Looks like I am ready to get in touch with the sensitive side in me after killing braincells with DI for the last two weeks.

Team Microsoft has been beaten

Last Sunday we (the justlinux regulars) overtook the Microsoft team with our folding stats and we are still gaining speed although we’re currently missing an entire cluster.

Mnozil Brass Band

Last night I went to a show by the Mnozil Brass Band and I have to say they are more fun than a barrel of monkeys. They say of themselves they are having the funniest brass band show on earth, and although I am sceptic of superlatives, they are probably quite right. If they stop by anywhere near you, go and see them - even if you don”t like brass band music in general.