Pete's Eats

This is our dog, Kai. He’s a neurotic but rather handsome Cocker Spaniel.

Technorati Tags: kai, dog

About half way through my flight home from Japan last week, I opened the window shade and was met with this anvil cloud formation. The anvil shape is a definite indicator of stormy weather below, and around. I couldn’t see how far this stretched to the left of the picture (so, in front of the plane) but just as I took the photo the Captain switched on the seat-belt sign, followed moments later with a request that the crew also took their seats.

“Clench”, I thought. In the end however, the turbulence wasn’t that bad – or maybe I’m becoming desensitised…

Technorati Tags: flying, travel, weather

Cycling and earphones are a bad combination in traffic, and yet some good music or podcasts can really make it go a lot faster/easier. Enter Slipstreamz – a unique design that allows you to wear your earphones outside the ear which allows you to hear ambient noise, like idiot Brighton bus drivers, bearing down on you as well as your listening material.

£7.49 from iWorld.

Technorati Tags: coolhunter, cycling, music, commuting

Wow – Photoshop for Flickr? Awesome…

Technorati Tags: flickr, photography, photoshop, preloadr

An old friend of mine, Roger Fischer, has launched a QR code reader for Series 60 handsets. QR codes are very popular in Japan and basically allow you to convey pieces of information such as URL’s to a reader-capable device. To my knowledge this is the first such freely available app for Series 60. I think this will really help to make QR codes popular over here too.

I downloaded it and installed it on my N90 and it works perfectly. Go check it out and let the QR revolution start…

Technorati Tags: mobile, Kaywa, QRCodes

Mike Chambers has posted a photoset to Flickr of some old Macromedia Discs and other packaging. The late 90’s came rushing back at me when I saw them! I still have most of the stuff in the photoset too – now I’m thinking of framing some of it for posterity

So cool though, thanks Mike.

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I finally got around to installing Ubuntu on my Macbook today. I’ve decided to hold off with a complete installation and I’ve used Parallels instead for now. It wasn’t without hiccups though, so here’s how I did it…

1. You must have Parallels installed on your Intel Mac
2. Go to Ubuntu’s website and download the x86 desktop CD iso
3. Create a new VM in Parallels based on Linux Kernel 2.6 (no official Ubuntu option yet)
4. When the iso has finished downloading either burn it to CD or mount the iso as a drive in Parallels
5. Start your new VM

Now, a quick pause at this point to highlight where I made some mistakes the first few times round. So, it would make sense to download the Ubuntu Server edition and start a new install on your VM considering how this is going to be a permanent install right? Well, if you do, you’ll find that Ubuntu installs perfectly, but on the first run it will fail at uncompressing the kernel. The way round this, I found, was to run the Live CD option (which doesn’t install anything – it just runs from the CD) in a new VM. Anyway, onward:

6. Your new VM should now boot from the CD and initialise an instance of Ubuntu
7. Right on the new Ubuntu desktop, you’ll see an ‘install’ icon – double click that
8. Follow the ensuing instructions to install Ubuntu (very painless)
9. Remove the mounted iso file and reboot the VM

That’s it. Job done. Ubuntu should now run straight from the VM with no problems.

Parallel’s will cost you $50-ish and Ubuntu is a free download. The Intel Mac is a little bit more…

Technorati Tags: parallels, ubuntu

Joi pinged me about his average daily speed so I checked mine too:

He mentioned that John Perry Barlow once may have mentioned something about the speed of a camel being as fast as the soul can travel. It brought to mind the idea of ’soul-delay’ that Gibson wrote about in his last book, ‘Pattern Recognition‘. I’ve always felt there is something to that theory because taking a week to get over an 8 hour time difference is definitely nothing to do with my fitness level…

Sign-up on Plazes.com to find out all sorts of interesting but ultimately useless facts about how globally scattered your life might be…

Technorati Tags: johnperrybarlow, joiito, plazes

As I left the office last night there was a Brighton bus who felt it was under attack and was shouting loudly about it too. I don’t know what kind of attack it was suffering, or where from but I can’t imagine actually calling 999 and telling them there was a bus ‘under attack’. V funny at the time…

Technorati Tags: video, bus, divx

Nete has been nagging me for ages to buy some new ’smarter’ shoes to replace my ageing 5-10’s. I finally went and had a look in Field and Trek at some of the Keen shoes they have and came across the Teva Durban too.

They look quite smart and were nice and wide too which is perfect for me. Then the sales guy goes, ‘oh, and they do this too’…

The Teva insole comes out and converts to a flip-flop! Wish I’d had these in Brazil… Anyway, the system is very well thought out. The Flip-Flop strap folds around the back of the insole when inside the shoe and then when you want to use the Flip-Flop you pull it out, ease the strap from behind the heel area and then pop the little buckle through a hole near the toe. Pull it all tight and ta-da!

I nearly bought two pairs

Technorati Tags: cool, flip-flop, shoe, teva