Status-Q

In October 1999, I was interviewed by Leo Laporte on ZDTV's 'Call for Help' programme. Yes, this is just another interview about the Trojan Room Coffee Pot, but it's interesting to me for several reasons.

Firstly because, even though it's nearly 20 years ago, I've only just seen it! They kindly sent me a VHS tape of the episode at the time, but (no doubt with good intentions) they encoded it with a rather unusual 50Hz variety of NTSC, and I've never been able to play it. It was only last week that, before throwing it out, I went to the trouble of tracking down somebody who was able to tell me that, yes, indeed, there was actually something on the tape...

Secondly, it was quite a challenge to do the recording. They sent me a camera in advance, and I had a slightly older PC which didn't have the brand new USB ports that were just starting to appear, so I had to dismantle it, install an ISA card, and then repartition my hard disk and install Windows 95, because neither the Linux nor the Windows NT operating systems I had on there were supported by 3Com's software.

But chiefly, it's a nice nostalgic snapshot of tech life not too long ago. The rest of the episode provides helpful hints like: you're probably used to installing hardware in your machine before inserting the CDROM or floppy with the drivers, but with USB it's a good idea to install the drivers first. Files you download over your modem may be compressed and you'll need a thing called WinZip to see what's inside them. And Chris Breen (later an editor at MacWorld), comes on to explain that if you're trying to play DVDs on your computer and they keep skipping, it may be because you're connected to a network that does something called DHCP. The PC can't do that and play back smoothly at the same time, so it may be worth disabling DHCP before you start watching. Oh, and there's also a section about how, if you have a laptop, you may find it a pain to be tethered to your modem, but there are some wireless networking options becoming available, and the one that looks most promising for the future is this thing called 802.11...

The clip I've uploaded shows the interview from the studio in California, with me in Cambridge, and we're joined by Don Lekei from Canada a bit later. It's hard now to remember just how rare it was at the time to see people on TV live from remote locations. That normally needed satellite linkups, or very costly kit attached to extremely expensive international ISDN calls. For Don and I to talk casually from the comfort of our own homes on opposite sides of the world was enough to get the hosts of a tech show pretty excited. You'll note that we both use telephones as well, though, because there wasn't any suitable audio channel...

Anyway, Leo is now the head of the substantial TWiT netcasting network, so I guess networked video worked out well for him too :-)

Step aside Myers-Briggs! Here's my latest psychoanalytical tool, for distinguishing between two fundamentally different types of personality.

When your subject is offered a food item that they don't recognise, do they say:

• Ooh - that looks interesting - thanks!

or

• Mmm... Err... What is it?

Ponder that for a moment. I think we can agree -- ignoring for a moment the statistical noise introduced by actual allergies -- that this simple test reveals a great deal about how someone approaches life in general.

It's certainly, I would suggest, something you should check with a potential fiancé before dropping the big question, for example.

And when recruiting key personnel for your next startup, I suspect this simple test may be more effective and revealing than many more formal recruitment methods.

But even if not, you've got to admit it's a lot more pleasurable...

A garage at Oradour-sur-Glane...

Just before Christmas, Tilly (my spaniel) and I went to the Dordogne and back in our campervan. I made a video about it, which, while it may be of interest only to travel vlog and 'van life' enthusiasts, does have a bit of novelty value, because I filmed it on a spherical (360-degree) camera.

This means that after you've watched it, you can go back and watch it again from a completely different angle and see what was happening behind you!

I'll put the link here, rather than embedding it, because this is something you want to watch on the YouTube site. Or, better still, in the YouTube app on your tablet, or phone, or VR headset...

You can find the video here.

If I had had more time, I would have made it shorter :-)

This was really just an experiment for me, and I learned a great deal about the challenges and opportunities of filming and editing this particular medium, which I may write about in due course.

Having recently come back from France, I've been typing a lot more characters with accents on them than I usually do! For common European accents, this is really easy to do on the Mac, but I confess that, for many years, I didn't know the trick until a friend showed me.

So in case you're of the anglophone persuasion and you've missed it too, let me enlighten you: all you have to do is hold down the appropriate key on the keyboard, and a little menu pops up; you can select the variant you want by clicking on it, or by typing the associated number.

Newhaven this morning, shortly after I disembarked from the Dieppe ferry.

The sky over my campsite yesterday morning; I hadn't seen any blue up there for quite some time!

And the sky over the same campsite as I returned to it in the evening:

My pitch was just under the darkest bit at the bottom right.

It soon settled down to the standard grey rainclouds again afterwards, though!

It's good to know, As the north winds blow, That there's plenty of eau, And the eau is chaud.

I'm in the valley of the Vézère river, just north of the Dordogne. It's been raining almost all day, but the moisture really adds vibrance to the splendid colours of the trees.

Fangorn

We met some local residents...

No, really! I'm very ferocious too!

Then we had a final brief pause in the rain, just in time for a dog-walk just before sunset.