So that was weird

13 January 2006

I upgraded iTunes from 4.7 to 6.02. It was on 4.7.1 (first with podcasting) until the reformat, and today, I wondered where my podcasts were, and realised that plain old 4.7 can’t handle them.

So I upgraded. Then it decided to copy everything to my iPod again. Except it forgot a few albums I’d very recently ripped. Weird – hope it hasn’t lost random things throughout my collection. Bizarre. I’m re-ripping Lloyd Cole and Roots Manuva right now.

brief , ,

Fixing the “iChat instantly quits on launch” problem

11 January 2006

So, you may or may not remember that I was afflicted with this pain in the neck of a problem: namely, you launch iChat, it loads for a second, and then dies immediately. In trying to solve it, I funted my computer, and needed to reinstall.

Last night, my computer ran out of battery (at the 51% mark, no less – let’s hope this battery holds out), and didn’t sleep, so I gave it a hard reset and thought nothing more.

This morning, I realise I haven’t relaunched iChat – so I do – and it dies immediately. “Bugger,” I think, “this is the same problem as before”. It’s also the same problem my girlfriend’s iBook has.

Then, thanks to this helpful Apple Discussions post, I solved it. The issue is between the iChat in 10.4.3 and my Netgear DG834 wireless router – namely, the implentation of UPnP (Universal Plug n Play) in the Netgear box. My router, incidentally, is on firmware 3.0.something – the latest.

To get iChat working again: log into the router, scroll down the left hand menu and choose the UPnP menu. Then: untick the “enable UPnP” box, click Apply; re-enable it, click Apply.

iChat now works. Bizarre, but fortunately solved. It’s also apparently fixed in 10.4.4, released yesterday, but I’m not upgrading just yet due to being bitten on 10.4.3.

posts , ,

Free stuff!

06 January 2006

Wow! I just won a year’s subscription to Make in the O’Reilly ONLamp survey. I’ve every issue of the mook so far, and have been enjoying it hugely, so am looking forward to another year’s worth. Thanks, O’Reilly!

brief , ,

Big News

30 December 2005

OK, so my big news is public on the internets. I’m going to be speaking at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in March, over in San Diego. The talk is called From Paddles to Pads: Is Controller Design Is Killing Creativity in Videogames? (the title you can see on that page is the one I originally submitted it under, but then I realised that I’d much rather ask a question than answer one).

The talk is about hardware interfaces to games, what they teach us, what’s wrong with them, and how they’re fundamental to gaming as a whole. The precis over at that link is roughly right, but I wrote it a long while ago and it’s definitely subject to change – so don’t hold me to it 100%.

I’m very excited.

I’m also very scared.

Tips, advice, comments, questions, all appreciated. Looking forward to seeing some of you in San Diego, maybe.

personal , , , ,
more recent posts | earlier posts