So, I just got my copy of Parallels 3.0 and it’s really a great upgrade. The new coherence mode lets you run Windows apps in “free floating” Mac windows, lets you have the familiar Windows “start” button & system tray on the bottom of the Mac screen, and generally integrates the two OS’s very well. You can launch OSX files into compatible windows apps, and drag & drop across the OS’s. This is really the best of the Mac & Windows. I do have one USB peripheral, a Fujistsu scanner, that doesn’t work under Parallels, but that’s the only thing I’ve found that’s not working! Check it out if you are a Mac user who needs to use Windows from time to time…

Well, I have been using a little Toshiba linux appliance for my internet gateway for probably about 4 or 5 years now (an SG10; actually, I have two of them) and I finally decided to retire it since I was not using any of the disk storage nor any of the features from having a linux box as my gateway; in fact, I got a “nasty-gram” from dyndns.org about a glitch with the dns updates.  So, I said, what the heck, I’ll just use my Airport as a router, not a bridge wireless (got the Airport a couple months ago when the 5-year old linksys AP finally died).  Well, it was not straightforward.  It didn’t like being converted from bridge to router, and then, for some reason I can’t parse, though it purports to support the RFC 1819 addresses of 10.0 and 192.168, it didn’t like to route the 192.168 setting, and that killed an hour or so until I figured that out.  I dunno why.  Then, I tried to use a USB disk with the Airport, and it rebooted…but it’s not all the Airport’s fault.  I also had a run-in with the software to configure TCP ports for an old Kyocera-Minolta laser printer.  Seems that it has to reboot when you take out the old port, and reboot when you add the new port, and if you try to short circuit and only reboot once on the XP box where I was setting this up, then it gets really unhappy.  Earlier in the week, a disk died on an old Gateway box I have (gotta rebuild it this weekend).  Grrr….

So, I’ve been pretty excited about Web 2.0, mashups, etc.  Lots of cool stuff going on.  However, I’ll also admit concern about the amount of unauthenticated content on the Web today, as well as the growing amount of noise, relative to meaningful information (i.e. the signal to noise ratio is going down).  Blogging (such as this!) requires nothing but a bit of web space, and no knowledge on any subject, just the desire to make a statement which may have no veracity and be something that wouldn’t be said in polite society.  I am a “first generation” webbie; I’ve been doing this web stuff since 1993, back when web servers were rare (only about 5000 when I put one up in November 1993, at UNC-CH where I was working at the time).  I believe in civil discourse, and have been around long enough to try to live by “read twice, click once” so that you don’t consign things to the ether that you will regret.  Anyway, with that intro, here’s that post from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, with a variety of interesting links…

Well, my first attempt to download didn’t get the whole file (~160MB of MP3’s in a zip file, 82 files in all this time).  Second time got it all.  I loaded it into iTunes last night, and listened on my commute (~50 minutes of drive time) this morning.  I like this, but I’m thinking that I’m unlikely to get through a whole issue before the next weekly one comes out, especially if I listen to any NPR.  Looks to be about 8 hours or more of running time.

I like the way they did it.  The production is good, and they change readers with each piece so you get different voices and that keeps the interest up.  If you are a subscriber, check it out!  If you are not, you might want to give it a look…an excellent magazine!

This is really cool…I subscribe to the Economist magazine (a really great news magazine) and now, they have supposedly put the whole issue on a podcast. Am looking forward to listening to it on my commute. Getting ready to go download now!