alexist

Thursday night and Friday were spent dealing with the laptop. This was frustrating at first: it would connect to the wireless network, but couldn't use the Internet. Network Status said it was using a self-assigned IP address. So it could see the network but not get an IP. Eventually (after reinstalling Tiger and resetting the router, the latter of which caused problems when I couldn't reconnect to the internet--luckily I found some backup settings on the PC) i got it working. I'm still not entirely sure what the problem was.

I've got it working well now, I think. Aside from keyboard quirks, which I'll explain later (when my camera batteries are charged so I can take a photo, which will be easier than explaining it...)

I also realized another slight problem with having a UK laptop: R2 DVD! Of course, I can switch it, but I'm always reluctant to switch in case I use up the whopping 5 changes they give you (AFAIK there are no region hacks available for the Matsushita drives used in PowerBooks.) I was using my laptop as an R1 player because our DVD player isn't region-free. I've also got my little portable player, though, and that's R1 (and can be hooked up to the TV, if I find all the cables...) (Oh, and I know about VLC, but its DeCSS support is flaky--works on some DVDs, not on others. :( )

Neil's off in Devon playing bridge this weekend. I elected not to go as I reckoned I'd be bored--he'd be off playing bridge for 3 days, and I can't drive! (Soon to be fixed, I've got all my stuff ready to send to the DVLA.) So I've been a hermit. (Although I did make myself a real dinner last night, have done all the dishes and went to synagogue this morning. And I've done some tidying, though I have to scrub the bathroom. Not a favorite chore of mine...)

I was considering going to the cinema this evening, but there's nothing I really want to see and I'm not going to drag myself into town for the heck of it. So I'll stay home, watch TV, and bake a cheesecake for tomorrow's BBQ. :)

The UK Apple keyboard is slightly odd. It's like a hybrid between US and UK (PC).

Here's a photo:
Apple UK keyboard
(taken by me, because I couldn't find a shot on the web, at least not easily)

and for reference, a US keyboard:
Apple US keyboard (pic from Apple).

(for the North Americans: Standard UK layout, here.

The hash is not shown on the UK apple keyboard. It is alt (option)-3. Most of the option keys are the same, except for the 2 they're reversed: € is alt-2 and ™ is alt-shift-2. (On a US keyboard, £ would be alt-3, so they're also effectively reversed...) And this is different from Windows, where € is AltGr-4. It's very strange.

It's fine for ME, because it's all much more similar to the US layout, and means I can just use the UK one without swearing in annoyance (mainly at the " vs @). In fact the UK one is better for my purposes since I use both £ and € often!