Clarke Ching - Split Infinitives and Beyond.

Dave Barry's gift recommendations

From the Washington Post: Dave Barry shares weird and wacky gift ideas in his annual guide.

'tis worth clicking, but if you are in a hurry, then zip down to the bottom of the page and check out the 12 gift recommendations.  They are real, I checked.

First time this has ever happened to me

I bought myself a lovely little netbook last week.  It's a Samsung NC10 and even though it cost less than a quarter of what my last laptop cost me, I like it more.  It's easy to use, light, shiny, and - best of all - the battery lasts for ages.  It's got a nice big hard drive and it runs quickly.  I've installed all my favourite software and they all worked fine.  But then I got a surprise when I installed the HandBrake DVD ripping software.  I'd used handbrake earlier this year when I was travelling a lot to rip DVDs I already owned and watch them on my (since returned and refuneded) Macbook.  My wife and I managed to watch a few old episodes of The Wire, me in London, her in Scotland.  It took a few moments to get my laptop version and her TV version synced but then we watchedthem together chatting using my mobile contact's free landline calls. 

So I like handbrake.  But as I said I got a big surprise when I installed it on my netbook.  I don't recall this ever happening before on any other software, but HandBrake wouldn't work because the screen resolution was too small.  My lovely little netbook runs at maximum 1280 x 600 (or something like that - I can't be arsed checking) but the software need something like 1280 x 768.  I've never seen this before and, to be honest, given what I remember about handbrake i can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work at my netbooks resolution.  I installed loads of other software and they all worked plenty fine.

So I was annoyed. 

I was going to ask if anyone can recommend an alternative to handbrake ... but then I remembered that my netbook doesn't actually have a DVD drive, so there's no point.

Free copies of Marcus Buckingham's new book

I've got 5 copies of Marcus Buckingham's new book The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success.

Email me - clarke.ching@gmail.com - if you'd like a copy.  I'll randomly pick the winners out of a virtual hat and the publishers will post the book out. 

The book would make a nice Xmas gift to someone who's about to go off to college or start a new job.  Even better it's a quick easy read that might help you out if you're a little sick of your current job or career.

Obama - no more blackberry.

Poor Mr President: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/us/politics/16blackberry.html

If you like QI then you'll like to read this link about their new book (which would otherwise be hidden inside the telegraph newspaper).