richardirvine.com

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geek

  • Clickity clack, proper typing’s back

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    1 min read

    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…

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

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    2 min read

    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…

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  • Bloody focus

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    3 min read

    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…

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  • Me-ssa load letter

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    1 min read

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

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  • Style

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    1 min read

    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!

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  • Dispatch from Dial-up hell

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    2 min read

    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 –…

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  • Links

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    1 min read

    Wired magazine has an oral history of War Games, the film that made me realise Dad’s TRS-80 was capable of more than 10 Print: You are a dick and 20: Goto 10. Possibly. That shit’s *still* really, really funny Kubrick nitty gritty fans should take an hour to watch this, or the time-poor should read…

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  • Not quite the Jesus phone – the Noah phone, maybe?

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    1 min read

    Ernie Newman from TUANZ picked up on my iphone alternative. By ‘picked up’ I mean publishing the email I sent him.

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  • 1001 books and films you must see before you die

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    5 min read

    Inspired by Jason Kottke, I’ve been through 1001 books and films you must see before you die and ticked off my reading (28) and viewing (215). It’s fair to say I’ve seen more of the films than read the books on these lists- I tend to read more contemporary lit, and the list focuses more…

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  • Del.icio.us – where to-dos go to die

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    2 min read

    I’ve been using Del.icio.us since April 2005, and saved 2200 pages to the site. Recording and tagging my web travels is great, stopping all those wonderful links from slipping into the digital never-never land. Firefox makes link getting really easy, with Apple or Ctrl – click I get a good eight or ten tabs open…

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