So I was waiting for Leopard to come out before getting a new MacBook (had to hand the other one back when I left, of course). It’s just less hassle to not have to upgrade the OS to a major new version… and Oct 26 appears to be the day that Leopard is released. Must say I’m a bit disappointed with the Apple front page – it had a countdown, and now that it’s zero the basic layout is still the same but no more numbers. That’s a bit rough for an Apple promo, quite sloppy one might say!

Another reason for waiting is that Apple upgrades the hw specs… my original MacBook was a Core Duo (32 bit), the new ones are Core 2 Duo. There also 100mbit wireless, multilayer dvd writing, and other new foo. I particularly like the change in the dvd writer, as the original drive had bad troubles that were never properly fixed. It flatly refused to import or play quite a few audio CDs.

Actually, I’ve been reading the “iCon” book, Steve Jobs’ biography. Damn he’s a bastard – but he’s a smart bastard, and delivers rockin’ industrial design. Yes, I’m an Apple fan ;-)
But the MacBook was really my first own Mac. Previously I merely coaxed my wife into getting a 12″ PowerBook (and she’s still happy with it), and a long long time ago I had an original iMac on loan for some work. That was interesting but less fun, it was so underpowered (lack of ram, etc), but still, it looked good. The MacBook on the other hand both looks good and performs well.

If anyone has an opinion on the MacBook 13″ or perhaps has looked at Leopard previews, please feel free to comment. I really like the form factor. I also have Parallels with Linux and other platforms, but I am now comfortable with the OS X environment also.

Cool, it appears I’ve been nominated for the 2007 Queensland Pearcey State Award – that’s quite an honour!

The Pearcey Foundation takes its name from Dr Trevor Pearcey who in 1949 led the team that designed and built Australia’s first digital computer, CSIRAC, and which was in fact the world’s fourth digital computer ever to be built.

Now, coming from The Netherlands I lack a certain amount of education in terms of Australian ICT history, but I was at the Melbourne Museum the week before (for the AUUG 2007 conference), and actually visited CSIRAC which is (at least some parts) on display there. It features nifty technology like mercury acoustic delay tubes and a magnetic drum (disk).

I first learnt programming on a DEC VT78 (PDP-8) around 1980, so I do have some half-ancient computer history under my belt – heck, I’ve even used timeshare terminals and punchtape ;-)
There’s an original PDP-8 at the Melbourne museum also. Hehe, the PDP-8 assembly code on the Wikipedia page looks *very* familiar. Quickly getting bored with the limitations of its BASIC, my friend Bas de Bakker and I quickly descended into PDP-8 assembly lingo to write a version of Pacman and other magical stuff going around the text-only screen. Later I got a Sinclair ZX80 but quickly went on to the Acorn BBC/B Micro. Anyway, that’s enough digression (feel free to comment with your own first computer platforms ;-)

I’m looking at whether I can go to the awards dinner next week. I don’t expect to win (I’ve seen the list of nominees and there’s plenty of very worthy people on it) but it’d be interesting to be there anyway. Plus a bit of a networking opportunity for Open Query, perhaps. We’ll see.

The Open Source Developers’ Conference 2007 Brisbane program schedule is now online!
Registrations are coming along nicely, but it’s a bit too early to project possible total numbers.

The organisers have decided that if you register after October 31st, you don’t get a conference T-shirt. Nanana.
But seriously…. Elspeth needs time to get them printed, and producing lots extra of various sizes gets silly.
So no worries, unless you slack and don’t register soon… earlybird ($275) ends October 14th, after that it’ll be $295 until October 31st, and from November 1st you lose your shirt and pay $325.
Full (non-student) registrations include the Wednesday conference dinner, until sold out.

From my good friend and anti-spam expert Tobias Eggendorfer, a note that a call for papers is now open for Safety and Security 2008 in Saarbrücken, Germany (2-4 April 2008). Sicherheit 2008 (the German name) is a conference on security and safety in computer science. Its official web page is available at http://www.sicherheit2008.de/.

This conference has a special session on email, voice over IP and SMS spam, chaired by Professor Dr. Jörg Keller, FernUniversität in Hagen (Chair) and Dr. Tobias Eggendorfer, Universität der Bundeswehr München (Co-Chair). The call-for-papers for that component is at http://pv.fernuni-hagen.de/si2008spam/cfp_en.html

Horay, we finally made it work. Registration for the Open Source Developers’ Conference 2007 is now open. For non-presenters, the earlybird price is $275 (until October 14th), after that the full conference price is $325. All regular tickets include the conference dinner!
Cool & affordable, right?

As a reminder: the OSDC 2007 conference dates are 26-29 November; location: Brisbane, Queensland. Peruse the overview of confirmed sessions. You simply must be there, otherwise you’re just not cool, and evil geckos will eat your undies.

So what was the holdup with the registration stuff? I’ll try to clarify:
Naturally we want to provide the option for credit card payment. The kind people at Common Ground where our conference system is hosted do provide that service also, but since it’s not their main gig and the processing is manual, the cost is significant. At least, for a low-fee conference such as OSDC. So, while we’re really appreciative of CG, we were looking at an alternative.
As it turns out, Paypal can do this now, visa/mastercard payments also for those who do not have a paypal account. Perfect. But getting this method blended into the registration process was a major chore, since the CG system of course does not expect this. Switching some options off actually upset the system greatly, but the developers fixed that.
I think we’ve now got a procedure that’s workable and not too complicated, and that’s what it’s about. The fees with Paypal are minimal, and that’s excellent.

What the OSDC organisers would love to see at this point is all you great attendees-to-be signing up right away!
Did you see the confirmed sessions? It’s going to be a fab event.