thepopcast!

tpf.podcast has become thepopcast, and is due to debut this sunday at noon

after a coupla days of sweat and toil, the launch site is now online at www.thepopcast.com; check it out to learn more and subscribe!

sri lanka

having spent a fantastic week in sri lanka, i got back to blightly on monday with a tan, hangover and delightful dose of delhi belhi

after spending the first few days on the beaches at unawatuna, we hired a driver for a tour of the island's interior. we visited the tea plantations and colonial railway of the hill country, learnt about ayurvedic medicine, visited the ancient sinhalese sites of kandy, sigiriya and anaradhapura, and spent our evenings drinking arrack and discussing the finer points of buddhism and the tsunami with our guides!

having not realised that our visit coincided with sinhalese new year, i couldn't have picked a worse time for conducting research, as all the schools were closed! in its place, i visited the unicef offices in galle to talk with the staff and picked up some great contacts...further details are in my research blog

windows on macs

interesting article from the unofficial apple weblog...


The Real Reason Behind Apple's Boot Camp

Posted Apr 5th 2006 1:00PM by Damien Barrett

I think I've realized the real reason why Apple has released Boot Camp, and why it'll be part of Leopard when it's released. As C.K. suggests, it's a move to be more competitive in the desktop PC market, but it's more than that. Apple's marketshare in some of their traditional strongholds (like Education) has been slipping for some time, and Boot Camp is nothing short of an all-out frontal assault to reverse that trend. Here's how it works in most schools and large organizations:

- most universities still have both PC's and Macs. Of course, some have moved entirely to Dells, but the majority still have both.
- the computers in schools and large organizations tend to be refreshed every 3-4 years as part of a refresh program. This is hardwired to the IT budget; it's scheduled to happen.
- computer labs and classrooms are designated either a Mac classroom or a Windows classroom, by necessity.

Imagine a school budget that simply replaces all the computers campus-wide with new Intel Macs that can run anything we throw at them. Need to run Windows? Image the iMac with the WinXP image. Need to run Mac OS X? Image the iMac with the Tiger (or Leopard) image. Need to run either (because it's a dual-purpose classroom)? Install both and teach the lab assistants and instructors how switch between the environments. It might even be scheduled to reboot the classroom between classes so it's transparent to the end-user.

Now imagine that you're a sysadmin and you could tell your boss that you could outfit a classroom or a lab with one model computer that could run either your Mac image or your Windows image, or even both of the images? Suddenly your rooms are dual-use rooms. The AutoCAD kids can simple boot the computer to Windows to turn their software and two hours later, the Graphic Design students can boot the computers to Mac OS X to run their design applications!

Boot Camp is a bombshell change in the PC desktop marketplace. Suddenly, there will be options available to us sysadmins that we've never had before. This development is going to allow an organization to achieve the holy grail in computer workstation management--complete standardization on one model computer (e.g. the new Intel iMac). I'm so excited about this possibility that my workchair is spinning. Certainly, I'm not alone

assembly job

a letter from the welsh assembly arrived this morning telling me that i'm not eligible for the placement, as it's intended as an industrial placement for undergraduates. i'd been a bit disillusioned with it after the interview anyway, so the job hunt continues...