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Why I got inked

Published on May 5, 2012 by in Tattoos

 

I have wanted a tattoo for quite some time, but it took me a long time to decide what it should be, and where on my body.  I had heard and read a lot of stories of tattoo regret, the worst kind of buyers remorse, since it’s very expensive to have them removed and apparently as painful or more so than getting them in the first place.  And it’s probably hard to stop the tattooist halfway through.  So mindful that this was a permanent addition to my body, I felt it should say something about who I am.

I toyed with a few different ideas, drew up some rough drafts and searched loads of tattoo sites (which resulted in some pretty odd browser history!) and eventually settled on a Chinese dragon as the first part of what will become a full calf sleeve.  The reason for the Chinese element is that I have a Chinese ancestor who we know very litte about, and since it’s something that isn’t physically obvious given my largely anglo inheritance, I wanted a way to recognise that “hidden” history. Once that decision was made, the next part was obviously finding the right artist to do the job!  I wasn’t too keen on the work I had seen locally so I asked my good friend Ifan, who is pretty heavily tattooed, and learning to tattoo as well.

Ifan suggested Third Eye Tattoo in Footscray, Victoria.  I had a look at their site, and decided to get  in touch with Tim Dywelska, who specialises in asian style tattoos.  I called well ahead of my planned trip to Melbourne (to see ZZ Top!) and since I was only going to be in town for a couple of days, Tim generously agreed to come in on his day off, which was fantastic of him.

So the day before the appointed day, my mate Andrew and I took the tram out to Fitzroy and met with Tim.  Wearing the badge of his career all over him, Tim was well covered with great designs.  This immediately told me he knew good tattoos, and he knew what it would feel like.   We talked for a while, sorting out the differences between Chinese and Japanese dragons, discussing the mythology and mystery and my reason for choosing the dragon as my first tattoo.  I looked through some of Tim’s vast collection of books, most on tattoos from different sources, but also general art books.  Tim pointed out a design he thought would work well, and I immediately knew it was the one.  He took it home to sketch and modify to suit, and we left to go get dinner before going to the concert, which was great!

The next day found a nervous but excited Neal waiting to see what Tim had come up with.  I’m a pretty big guy, so he’d enlarged the design quit a bit and reversed one of the front paws for better symmetry.  It looked fantastic!  Tim decided we could go bigger again so he went to produce a larger stencil which Tim then applied to my leg.

For the most part, the pain wasn’t as bad as you might think.  There were the occasional spots that felt like he’d jabbed the needle all the way through my leg, but for the most part it was all right.  Straight lines and areas close to bone like the ankle were definitely the worst.

 

Tim Dywelska now operates out of his own studio space above.  Highly recommended.

 
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ControlPlane – easy location/context management

If you take a Mac laptop back and forth between work, home and other locations then you’ll probably find ControlPlane as useful as I do.  ControlPlane is the continuation of MarcoPolo which is what this very useful program was called when I first discovered it.  The really useful things ControlPlane can do: change network settings based on context – time of day, devices connected, and now also using CoreLocation under 10.7.

Mac OS X has provided a very simple mechanism for switching network preferences for different locations for as long as I can remember, although many people may never realise it’s there, and it takes at least two clicks to change locations!  ControlPlane goes beyond automatically changing network settings and can open or close applications, mount network volumes, and run scripts, which makes the list of things ControlPlane can do very comprehensive.

Here’s what I use it for:

When I open my laptop at work, ControlPlane detects that I have connected a Thunderbolt Cinema Display.  I’ve set this rule at 100% certainty, as I don’t have one at home.  This then activates my work network profile – Display Ethernet with our work proxy, DNS and other preferences.  It also mounts my work network volumes, disables WiFi, enables Bluetooth for my wireless keyboard and Trackpad, and shuts off BitTorrent.

When I get home, ControlPlane turns on WiFi, turns off Bluetooth, and changes to my Home location, which is pretty much vanilla with my home WiFi network.

For a free app, ControlPlane is flawless.  I love the automatic location switching, and the ability to change not just the network settings but to also “automagically” change my computer context from work to home is terrific.  I’ve actually just thought of some other things I want to add, so I’ll go do that now!

 

 

 

 
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Rule #34 of the Internet: confirmed.

My friends and I somehow ended up discussing Rule #34 of the Internet, which states:

34. If something exists, then there IS porn of it. No exceptions.

We tried (not very extensively) to find Discworld Porn.  Since we didn’t find any, we created some!  Thanks Fred!

 

 
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End of the Xserve

Apple’s server offering has gotten better and better over the years, developing into a robust and powerful offering for the enterprise market.  Today however, the Xserve has reached the end of the line, with final orders set for January 31st 2011.  Mac OS X Server is set to continue on Mac Pro and Mac Mini hardware according to Apple’s server transition guide.

So what was once part of the most powerful super-computer built using “off the shelf” machines has become a piece of a long list of discontinued systems.

My question now is, what happens to Mac OS X Server?  There has been some speculation that Apple may revise the server license terms to allow virtualisation on products like VMWare’s ESX, which in many ways would ease Apple’s entry into the enterprise datacentre.  Time will tell.

 
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Apple stores adding small business focus.

Published on July 26, 2010 by in Apple, Stores

Following on from my post on Apple and the corporate customer, Apple are looking to target the small business market, as reported at AppleInsider.

The Business Manager role advertised at Apple Australia is asking for someone to “delight. Enrich. Impress. Engage. Inspire.”

According to the AppleInsider article “People familiar with the company’s plans said the strategy has proven successful, as some stores have seen their revenue more than double after implementing the program.”

 
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Vader calls Apple about his iPhone 4

 
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How to fix common Mac startup problems at Cult of Mac

Some handy tips here folks.

 
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Apple and the corporate customer

Published on July 23, 2010 by in Apple, Windows

Most people only ever see the retail side of Apple, either through their physical stores, retail partners or online.  Some will know the inner workings of the retail aspect from having worked at an Apple store or a reseller, as I did.  I’m going to share my experiences of working firstly as a government and corporate sales representative for an Apple reseller, and secondly as a government client of Apple’s Enterprise sales and engineering team.  Bear in mind this is just my perspective, I have no affiliation with Apple, and I’m posting this as an individual, not as a representative of my employer.

The corporate world is still largely dominated by Microsoft and the other top level companies such as Dell, HP, IBM etc.  Apple is primarily a retail focused business, and though these businesses have their presence in this market, it isn’t their main revenue source as it is for Apple.  This is one of the main difficulties corporate customers have in dealing with Apple.  Where Dell etc. give preferential pricing and stock availability to their corporate customers, Apple would rather get as many iPods/iPads/iPhones into the hands of your average Joe customer.  This is not a situation that sits well with most IT managers, and here’s why I think this has come about.

Imagine you’ve been treated like royalty for years by almost everyone you deal with.  They hang on your every word, try to anticipate your next move before you make it, and generally bend over backwards to please you.  While I am overstating it, this roughly describes the typical business relationship for most IT departments and their preferred vendor.  It also applies to Apple and their customers.  Resellers typically exhibit this kind of attitude to their customers as well.

Now imagine you have to deal with someone new, but they can often be seen to put the needs of others before yours.  This is unfortunately how most IT managers have found dealing with Apple.  The company focus is unashamedly on the consumer market,  understandably when you compare their earnings from these two vastly different sectors.  To add insult to injury, your typical corporate customer will buy at most a few Macs for their designers or their in-house developers who are delving into iOS based development.  If it was your business, would you be overly concerned about a customer you may not sell to for another three to four years?  Of course you want to please them, but where is the benefit in treating them any differently than customers of a similar scale?

As a colleague said recently, it’s a matter of perception, and unfortunately perception becomes reality.

I’ve been known to say that Microsoft’s biggest stumbling block is their legacy support habit.  I think this is true of any company as time progresses.  Apple’s legacy is shorter because they’ve taken opportunities to trim it as it presented, like dropping OS 9 support once OS X was mature enough, and dropping PowerPC support (I know this hasn’t fully happened yet as Rosetta is still there, but I expect it to disappear with 10.7).  The real “legacy support” issue for Apple when it comes to corporate customers is the retail market.  Of course Apple have their corporate and government sales teams and engineers, and I have to say they really are excellent, as are the resellers corporate sales teams.  They have to be, because they’re fighting a battle on two fronts.

The first front is the naysayers of the corporate world.  Believe me, selling Macs into the government and corporate market is very tough work.  The perception of Apple that these folks carry with them is generally outdated, and goes as follows;
“Macs are more expensive, can’t run the same programs my users expect, and anyway, they aren’t compatible with our Windows network.  I know, because the last place I worked at had Macs and they were a pain.”  Of course, that was ten years ago, the Macs in question were running OS 9, and the Windows environment was NT4.  The best solution here is to get them using a Mac, preferably on their current network so they can see that Active Directory authentication and accessing files is not an issue.

The second front is Apple Inc.  From a local perspective, Apple’s corporate and reseller channel is distinct from the online store and the Apple stores, as the corporate and reseller channel is locally managed, and the stores are US run.  Availability of stock is controlled by Apple US, so no matter how genuinely the local guys want to help, if they can’t get you the goods from Apple US there’s very little they can do.  This has been the case for years, and as Apple’s popularity has grown, the issue hasn’t improved.

Here’s another anecdote to illustrate the problem;  Apple US controls the developer channel.  If a government agency or even a large business in a non-US  region applies for an enterprise developer license and the US gatekeepers don’t recognise the organisation, they’ll either ignore or deny your application, rather than forward it to the local corporate team for confirmation.  You have to take the application code that gets generated during the application process and take it to your local Apple rep for manual approval.  Again, not ideal and the local guys acknowledge this and try to paint it as positively as they can.

So where to from here?  I know Apple are keen to improve their standing and presence in the corporate marketplace, and I know their products work well and overall can actually cost less to implement and support.  The challenge really comes down to supply and demand, and the willingness of Apple US to see beyond their own borders.  It’s the combination of these two challenges which are the true crux of the matter.

 
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Applejack updated

AppleJack is a really useful tool for keeping your Mac in top notch performance. It’s just been updated to version 1.6 which brings with it support for Snow Leopard.

AppleJack menu

Here’s how to use it: download and install AppleJack from the link above, and restart your Mac while holding command and S. After a screen full of white text has stopped scrolling past, type applejack and follow the prompts.

 
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New iWork coming soon?

Looks like iLife and iWork ’10 are not far away, according to Softpedia and other rumour sites.  Any thoughts on what might be different?

 
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