Well, Panther’s installed on my iMac now.

I had a few problems getting the automounter to work, but that was all configuration silliness on the Sun rather than on MacOS.

So, now the machine’s fully integrated on the network with NIS/YP for authentication and automounting NFS home directories.

As for the speed of operation. Well, it’s adiquate. I’m not sure I’d like to run the system on a slower machine or one with less memory (400Mhz G3, 390MB RAM). Overall, though, for a new OS on an old bit of hardware (iMac DV Summer 2000) it’s pretty impressive. Oh, and it comes with a half decent X server too! 😉

PS. (08:45am 21/11/03)
The best site i’ve found for MacOS X and NIS/NFS integration I’ve found is this one. Though I did replace their YP Makefile script with a perl script which does things a bit better under Solaris.

Yestday my copy of the Special extended DVD version of The Two Towers arrived.. so I watched it last night, admittedly skipping a few chapters which hadn’t been modified from the theatrical release so i could get to bed at a reasonable time. My impression is that it is a better film, though I can see why some of the scenes were left out, mostly due to stilted dialog and/or really bad singing. On the whole, there wasn’t that much more entishness but Faramir’s character was totally revised into something more similar to that in the book, ie. he no longer looks like a younger Boromir clone but shows his more thoughtful and measured side which is in stark releif to his brother’s impetuous manner.

This morning I stopped off at our local Apple dealer and bought MacOS X 10.3 Panther for my iMac. If I could I’d rather not use this outfit as they are totally useless organisationally but I need to use them to get educational discount. It seems that Apple are sorely let down by their distribution channels. Great products, great marketting, hopeless retail agents.

I got my bike back this evening. As I had thought, the shop fleeced me not only for the inner tube but also for a tyre. That was a bill of £18 in total.

I did say fleeced.

I got a puncture in the rear wheel tyre of my bike this morning when I was about a mile out from home. I was, however, only about a quarter of a mile from a bike shop. OK, so it was a bike shop I vowed never to use again after they took nearly 2 years to get a chain guard and then didn’t really fit it correctly. (Oh, and other problems when they attempted to fix my gears.) Still, there was no choice this time. I had to be in work to set up a digital projector before 10am, so I left the bike there.

I wish people wouldn’t leave bits of their vehicles laying in the road. This chunk was about 10cm long and 2cm wide, bent into a crescent and made of aluminium. it would have punctured a car tyre if a car had run over it. I don’t know how I failed to see it before I ran over it.

OK, a bit of a mega round up of a week’s events…

Monday night was filled with much merriment and hot food in Reading. Alec, Grim, Holly, Tom, Matt, Jon, Violette and myself met up in the Yellow River Cafe in the Oracle complex for a meal before going to see Matrix: Revolutions. It was a really fun evening all in aid of Holly’s birthday later in the week. I got home at about midnight but couldn’t get to sleep ’til a lot later.

As for the film itself. If you like hollywood action films and don’t mind a dodgy plot, in my opinion, you’ll love this film. If you’re hoping for a deep meaning which is what you may have thought you might get from the first film, you’ll be disappointed. It’s aimed squarely at the US box office 13-18 male demographic.. which is where the Hollywood studios believe the big money is.

Tuesday evening was spent out ont he town again. This time celebrating another birthday, Paul Freeman’s. Instead of far eastern inspired cuisine it was the more traditional curry. Good food and company was enjoyed. Home by half eleven.

The rest of the week was really just spent catching up with sleep. Happy hour on Friday was quite fun though. I was persuaded to sign myself up for the students’ geolsoc (Geology Society) pre-Christmas dinner, a week tomorrow. This does mean that I will somehow have to find a bow tie and “forget” to wear a jacket as it’s supposed to be black tie and there’s no way I’m going to splash out on a dinner jacket just for one evening.

Saturday night was spent celebrating yet another birthday. There ahve been huge number os of people having birthdays in the past week. So many that I’ve lost count. I think they must all be Valentine’s Day babies.

Anyway, the party was fun and went on ’til very early. Having taken Kat back to her college, I got home at 4am.

Yesterday I awoke at 9am surprisingly awake. Listened to Broadcasting House, where it seems Eddie Mair has been replaced. Got up at around 11am and then proceeded to await the return of my old bike from the postdoc who has been borrowing it for over a year. No phone call nor bike arrived, which meant that the day was wasted a bit as I couldn’t go out into the nice, crisp autumnal weather for a walk.

So, today, I’m back at work. I await the arrival sometime this week of the Extended Edition of the Tow Towers on DVD. I need to renew my car insurance and also need to get a new front sprocket and chain for my bike, as they have worn out after about 9000 miles in all weathers and are starting to slip teeth.

Onwards and upwards!

Today was my car’s third birthday. So, happy birthday to it. It’s done 20550 miles so far in its short life.

The unfortunately, it also means that anything which breaks on the car now are my own problem as the warranty has now expired. Oh well. Oh, and I now have to join the AA as a personal member as well.

On other fronts, I had a rather nice dinner last night at the Bear and Ragged Staff pub/restaurant in Cumnor last night. The meal started with a rather large bowl of lovely, creamy soup followed by a “Barnsley Chop with crushed vegitables in a port sauce.” Yum. Again, the portiton was most generous, which meant that I couldn’t handle the desert course.

Tomorrow evening I’m off to Reading to meet up with Grim, Holly, Nobby (who’s just returned from S.Africa) and others for a meal and then The Matrix: Revolutions.

Tuesday evening will be spent in various pubs and a curry house in Oxford celebrating a friend’s birthday. I then have 3 nights off before Saturday when it’s another friend’s party.

OK, so it sounds as if I have a packed social life. Well, not quite, just like buses, you wait a long long time and then they all turn up at once. A point in case is that I got a second invitation for a night out in Oxford to see the last Matrix film on Monday but had to turn it down. However, I have no other social occations after next Saturday for the rest of the month, or indeed until the Christmas party season.

Oh yes, before I forget, I splashed out on a new domain name for my home systems on Friday… lingula.org.uk. All I have to do now is find out how to assign an address to it! (Oh and build and install a web server on my SPARCstation 4, build a web site and reconfigure my router.)

Having cycled in, I can tell the sinus attack is still ongoing, though reduced in ferocity, as my balance isn’t fully up to snuff. Oh well. Maybe I’ll be able to shake it by the end of the day.

This weekend was supposed to include a nice social event at on of the lecturer’s houses. Unfortunately, my body decided that it wasn’t so keen.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling fine. I had a lazy morning then went shopping as usual (and picked up The Matrix: Reloaded in Sainsbury’s). I was looking forward to the social event in the evening.

Anyway, half way through watching my new DVD I started feeling pressure above the ear on the left side of my head.. the sure sign of a sinus headache coming on.

Suffice it to say that by the evening the headache had built and even popping paracetamol tablets was making very little difference. I did go to the dinner as planned but by 9pm I was feeling far too ill to carry on. It took my maximum concentration to be able to drive home and tumbled straight into bed as soon as arrived home.

Yesterday was mostly spent trying to shake the background headache. I did manage to go to Wickes DIY to buy a couple of backs of limestone chips to continue the path installation. If I continue this every week, in 10-12 weeks time the path will be complete.

I saw some telly last night from my bed.. such as “The Theory of Everything” on Channel 4. I wonder if they’re going to put forward the views of the phyicists who disagree with the strig theorists. Oh, and after that “The West Wing” on E4.

This morning I believe I might have got over the worst of the sinus attack, but I’m still not fully sure it’s gone.

Today was spent working on replacing the fence between the garage and the house with a sturdy gate with the help of my Dad.

Well, we managed to get a very strudy gate and reused the planking from the fence on it. However, due to a minor mis-calculation about the thickness of the gate and the distance of the hinges from the wall (which can’t be increased without adding a second post) the gate won’t open fully. It opens wide enough for most tasks, so that’s OK.

When I say sturdy, the frame of the gate is made from 3″x2″ timber and has wrought iron hinges designed for garage doors. Add to this a nice big bolt and the fact that the door only opens outwards and can only be opened from the inside, it should be reasonably secure.

I’ve a dodgy tummy this morning.. At least I’m getting fit running to the loo.