YALoTRR: Yet Another Lord of the Rings Review

by Steven Garrity

The last thing the world needs now is another post about the Lord of the Rings movies (what is it that the world needs now, exactly?). However, if you’ll kindly bear with me, I do have a quick comment to get out of the way.

About half-way through the The Return of the King, the third and final movie in the series, I strange feeling came over me. While watching Frodo and Sam trek through Mordor, and Merry and Pippin fight hopeless battles, I could myself thinking: “It seems so long ago that Frodo and Sam where back at the Shire…”

I had a strangly real sense of time and history – which is what made the Tolkien books so great. I think the one-movie-a-year for three years delivery helped contribute to the epic sense that a great time had past, but still – I felt I was looking back on the long lives of fictional characters.

That is as good a compliment as I could ever pay to a director. Well done.

 

by Steven Garrity

Ian Williams talks up his new 2004 Toyota Prius

 

xPad: Take Note

by Steven Garrity

xPad iconI wrote a while back here on Acts of Volition about software for taking notes, and how I wished I didn’t have to save my files all of the time (why aren’t they always saved?). As a result of the current state of software I end up having to save a bunch of notepad files when I have to reboot.

Our fine readership pointed out a slew of good suggestions (my favourite of which was to just have a permanent scratch.txt file that I can add to and save). Still, I felt the real problem hadn’t been solved. Until now. Oh, and only if you have a Mac.

Fine weblogger, Garrett Murray, of ManiacalRage.net, has created a new note-taking application for Mac OS X called xPad. It is small, fast, simple, and elegant. There is no “Save” function, because your text is aways saved. There is good multiple document handling, and the application makes nice use of native OS X controls and functionality.

I don’t use a mac as my primary computer, but I’m fortunate to have a CRT-iMac on the side of my desk for testing. Thanks to xPad, the iMac has become the machine I turn to when I need to take quick notes (especially phone messages).

xPad is only $10, there is a free demo to download, and I recommended it.

Oh, and for extra cool – my name is in the About screen!

 

Luna Blue Theme (v0.2) for Mozilla Thunderbird Update

by Steven Garrity

Update: Luna Blue Theme (v0.3) for Mozilla Thunderbird is now available.

I’ve prepared an update for the Luna Blue theme for Mozilla Thunderbird. This update will work with (and only with) the latest Thunderbird 0.4 release. If you haven’t updated to 0.4 yet, it’s worth it.

Zip Icon Download/Install Luna Blue (v0.2) for Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4

lunabluethunderbird_0_2.jar – 637Kb RAR File

Here are the changes and updates to the theme:

  • Added small toolbar icons to primary toolbar and compose toolbar
  • Fixed visual glitch with double shadow on status bar
  • Added contact list icon
  • Cleaned up some old icons that were no longer used
  • Lightened disabled toolbar icons (to 80% opacity)
  • New window layout icons in the General Options window
  • Minor updates to some of the box styles and borders in the main mail window (tree view, mail pane, and preview pane) [Note: this isn’t finished and has a few rough edged – however, I wanted to get a working release out for 0.4 ASAP]
  • New throbber – dropped the Windows logo throbber, which we should probably never have used, and added a new throbber based on Garrett LeSage’s excellent BlueCurve theme from Fedora linux (which is now my primary operating system).
  • Some new IMAP, Newsgroup icons, and secure icons that were missed in the first release (a few are still missing)
  • Cleaned up group headers in address book details
  • New Copy, Cut, and Paste icons in Message Compose toolbar
  • Update for new separate attachment inditactor in inbox pane (nice new touch in 0.4)
  • Icon for new Mark toolbar button

I’m not planning on going too much farthur with this theme as I’m more interested in working on refining the default theme rather than a niche (however large) theme.

 

by Steven Garrity

Best/worst CSS joke ever

 

Other Links on the side bar

by Steven Garrity

A new feature on Acts of Volition: Other Links. It’s a running list of links and notes that didn’t warrant a full post, but were worth sharing. It’s basically a place for links that I previously would have sent via instant messaging to a few friends. The idea is stolen from Jason Kottke’s Remaindered Links.

There is an RSS feed for the Other Links as well.

 

by Steven Garrity

Real vs. imagined customer service at an internet cafe

 

by Steven Garrity

An anonymous reader bought MetaFilter founder, Matt Haughey, a $1,000 camera from his Amazon wishlist

 

by Steven Garrity

Looking for a job? How about Director of Highway Safety & Information Technology?

 

Acts of Volition Radio: Session Two

by Steven Garrity

Acts of Volition Radion: Session TwoThe reaction to the first session of Acts of Volition Radio was generally positive. Here, then, is Session Two:

Acts of Volition Radio: Session Two (57MB MP3)
Nine great live recordings. Recorded during a snow storm on Sunday, December 7, 2003 by Steven Garrity. Run time: 1hour.

Session One Playlist:

  1. Jellyfish – Ghost at (live)
  2. Ben Folds & John McRae – Fred Jones (Part 2) (live)
  3. Ben Folds – Brick (live)
  4. Sloan – Deeper Than Beauty (live)
  5. Pearl Jam – Yellow Ledbetter (live)
  6. Tragically Hip – Nautical Disaster (live)
  7. Radiohead – True Love Waits (live)
  8. U2 – The Fly (live)
  9. MxPx – KKK Took My Baby Away (live)

Some technical notes: I will try to get one of those foam microphone covers before the next recording to try and cut down those annoying punchy ‘p’ and ‘t’ letters. Does anyone with any recording/engineering experience having any advice? Should I be compressing or normalizing the voice tracks?

Also, there is an RSS feed for the Acts of Volition Radio posts.

Next week: an hour of name-dropping – songs by people I’ve actually met – and maybe an interview with the president of the internet.

Acts of Volition Radio
Acts of Volition Radio
Acts of Volition Radio: Session Two
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