The Whole Widget

Tomorrow marks the inaugural Highland Fling conference in my home town of Edinburgh. The Highland Fling is billing itself as

… an annual one-day conference in Scotland aimed at web developers and businesses with an interest in web standards and accessibility.

and since this checks all the right boxes for me I thought I should really show my face.The theme of the conference is Progressive Enhancement and the list of sessions and speakers looks very impressive. I've seen – or heard – most of these speakers before at d.Construct 2006 and podcasts of various Web Conferences through iTunes so can vouch for the quality of the line-up.As far as I'm aware tickets are still available, so if you think this is of interest to you go register now.

When I initially read yesterday about the possibility of this happening I thought it must be an April Fools prank. However, it looks like the beginning of a sea change to DRM-free music from on-line music stores has begun with the announcement by EMI and Apple that DRM-free copies of all the EMI catalogue will be available on iTunes starting in May.Not only will DRM-free copies of EMI music be available for purchase, it will be encoded at 256Kbps – twice the bitrate currently available on iTunes – but will incur an additional cost to the purchaser of 20p per track. Any album purchase will be available only as DRM-free and will remain at the same price point as before and as a bonus any previous purchases can be upgraded to DRM-free although I'm not too sure on the cost of doing so.This is the tipping point for me that means that it will now be worth my while buying content from iTunes and I believe I won't be alone. Hopefully all the other major and independent labels will jump on board soon and we can kiss DRM'd music goodbye.

Here's a recap of my evening of hell participating in the Mighty Deerstalker event.I was a little apprehensive at the start of the 10km Mighty Deerstalker as I had watched the leaders of the 5km run come in and they had all looked like it had been a fairly stressful challenge. These were all serious runners so how I was going to fare was not looking good, as I'm very much a recreational runner and was just doing this event for a laugh.The race started out at the back of 7:00pm with a small sprint to an obstacle made out of straw bales, about three bales high. Due to the sheer number of people taking part most of the field had to stop at this point and await their turn to climb over the bales. Once over the bales it was a matter of getting as far ahead of as many people as I could before reaching the next obstacle, so as to minimise waiting about.About 1km in and we were onto our first water encounter of the evening. I had expected the river crossing to be an ankle/calf deep affair to break us in gently but much to my dismay I was submerged up to my waist and was nearly bundled over headfirst into the water by the stampede of competitors behind me. Once out of the other side we were onto our first ascent.The ascent of the first hill followed the route of the Traquair XC cross-country mountain bike trail which was a reasonably steep incline, but I managed to run most of the way up. This stood me in good stead because once I got to the obstacle course near the summit there wasn't too much of a queue of people ahead so waiting time was minimal.The obstacle course itself was pretty tame, however, just before the summit there was an obstacle called the badger set to crawl through which had music blaring and reminded me of the scene at the Do Lung Bridge from Apocalypse Now. Luckily there were no flashbacks to Nam for me and I was able to check in at the summit in a respectable 39 minutes.The descent was reasonably uneventful but I found it much worse than the ascent, as I hadn't done much training involving such steep slopes and so my thigh muscles were taking a battering.After the first hill the route involved wading down a river for a couple of hundred metres before starting the ascent of the second hill. I found the river wading pretty tough as it was starting to get dark and it was very cold and slippery. I think at this point I might have hurt my left ankle but was unable to tell at the time as my feet and lover legs were numb from the cold water.The second hill ascent started off on an incline not unlike the first hill, then traversed across the hillside until we reached a very steep scree. Unfortunately this is what we had to climb up and I can only describe this as one of the worst things I've ever had to do in my life. I think the main problem was that I was stuck in a queue of people some of which were scrambling up the hill on hands and knees so were dislodging quite a bit of loose stones and rocks which were then falling down the hill onto the people below.After the ascent I was finding it quite hard to to stand up as my legs were beginning to turn to jelly. What better way to make yourself feel better then than to walk across a log bridge with approximately 10 foot drops either side? Remarkably, I made it almost the full way across the bridge before falling off and jarring my legs some more for good measure. After the log bridge was the summit and the second check in point.The descent down the second hill was not too arduous but required concentration as some parts were quite rocky and you had to be careful not to turn an ankle over in the darkness that had by now enveloped us.Once the descent was complete it was back into the same stretch of river as before for another couple of hundred metres. By now my legs and ankles were destroyed and so I managed to fall face down in the river on a couple of occasions due to the lack of light and the slipperiness of the riverbed. Unbelievably there were some poor sods still going in the opposite direction on their way to start the second climb. I couldn't help but feel sorry for what they had coming to them within the next few minutes and would have been surprised if they didn't complete the route until close to midnight.By now I was finding it increasingly hard to jog – never mind run – but at least the terain had levelled out and I was on the home stretch. Once more into the water to go through a tunnel, along the river bank then across the river for a final time and I was on the home stretch. I'd briefly considered just walking from here on in but the sound of music coming from the campground spurred my on to one last effort. All that was left was to crawl through some tractor tyres in the closing straight and I was finally home.I finished a provisional 158th with a time of 2 hours 21 minutes and I am very pleased with myself.To summarise I found the 10k very tough – but fun at the same time – and had a feeling that it was in fact a little bit more than what was advertised. I don't think my cause was helped by the fact that my running kit seemed to soak up a fair bit of water so I was effectively carrying around an extra half stone for much of the distance.As I sit here today typing this I'm not sure whether I'd like to put myself through that again, but I'm sure given a few days (or weeks) once the pain has subsided I'll think differently.Anyone care to share your views on how it was for you?

Tomorrow marks the start of my build up to this years Nairnshire Challenge when myself and my good friend David travel down to the borders to take part in The Mighty Deerstalker.The Mighty Deerstalker bills itself as a "10km Adventure Run with obstacles" so I don't really know what to expect. No doubt my worst fears will be realised and it will be akin to a 10km army assualt course up a mountainside.Here's what the organizers have to say about it:

Those who are not satiated by this challenge (the 5km race) can opt for the MIGHTY Deerstalker. You too will start on loop 1 and complete the same 5km course, but whereas the Deerstalker runners will cross the line in the event village and finish, you will cross that line, keep going, pick up a head torch and tear off again out of the event village and into the dwindling twilight. You'll do a second loop of another 5km and this one will be tougher than the first - rock and scree, sharper ascents and the added element of the dark to contend with...! As the lead runner reaches the high point of the course darkness will have fallen and he/ she will light the Deerstalker homecoming beacon atop the mountain, to show all those awaiting their return in the event village that they are homeward bound. The beacon pyre will roar with flame as the racers pass it high on the mountain and then make their way back to Traquair in the eery half-light of their head torches.

Wish me luck, because I think I'll need it!

Molly E. Holzschlag has signed on with the Internet Explorer team on a contract basis to work on standards and interoperability issues. Hopefully this will lead to further compliance to Web Standards for future versions of Internet Explorer.So, I wish Molly and the IE team all the greatest of success and look forward to a future when IE behaves with some consistency, with respect to the other popular web browsers, and I look forward to the day when I won't need to implement CSS hacks to get my web sites working in in Internet Expolorer.

I've just got off the phone from Marks & Spencer &More Card customer service and I am simply fuming.All I wanted to know was my account balance, but in order to do so I was asked such 'security' questions as:

What month does your car insurance come up for renewal?

and

What month does your home insurance come up for renewal?

Both of these questions were never asked of me during my application for the &More card so how were they supposed to use them for security, unless (shock horror) they just wanted to spam me with their own insurance products when the time comes for me to renew.Not only that, the man on the other end of the line wouldn't give me the balance on my card until he'd tried the old hard sell on card protection — that I had opted out of on application and had already told them I wasn't interested in on activating my card.To top it all, this was all being handled by an Indian call centre so I could hardly understand him and he could hardly understand me.Be warned, they might have a good interest free period on purchases, but their lack of online banking and automated phone systems has seriously put me off them. I think it's time to look for an alternative, and I've only been with them since November!

The new Apple iPhone looks absolutely tremendous and apparently Wall Street believes so too. At the close of Steve Jobs keynote, Apple stock was up over 8%.

Well, with under 24 hours to go until Steve Jobs walks out onto the stage at the Moscone Center to deliver his Macworld 2007 keynote speech, I thought I should post what I believe we will see tomorrow.

Summary of sales over the holiday period.

With Apple laptops and iPods literaly flying off the shelves I think it will be safe to say that we'll hear all about it and I wouldn't be surprised if Jobs doesn't take the opportunity to have a little fun at the Zune's expense.

iLife 2007

I believe that this is a definite addition to the keynote, but will see just a feature bump to the existing applications rather that anything earth shattering. Ideally I'd like Apple to open up the iLife applications so that they could seamlessly interact with on-line services such as Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps and Odeo but I wouldn't be surprised if there was further integration with .mac, which would be a shame as I'm no longer a member.

iWork 2007

I think this will see feature updates for both Pages and Keynote and will also see the release of a simple spreadsheet application along the lines of what is available in AppleWorks. I'm definitely not expecting an Excel killer.

Mac OS X Leopard

Progress report on how things are coming and a release date announced for late Springtime. Hopefully we'll see some of the super secret features that Jobs eluded to back at WWDC 2006 now that Windows Vista has been released. Expect Jobs to have another dig at Microsoft here.

Hardware Upgrades

I think that both the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini will receive slight upgrades—the Mac Mini moving to Core 2 Duo across the line hopefully—but the rest of the hardware line will remain unchanged.

iTV Released

The iTV will be released and we will all learn it's real name. Hopefully it's got something more up it's sleeve than this, but I have my doubts. I really can't see any advantage to the iTV over buying a Mac Mini and sticking it under my TV. Obviously it's cheaper, but with the Mini I get a proper computer and therefore have the ability to play and record DVDs as well as allow my kids to play their favourite games and surf the Internet. I'm hoping to be proved wrong on this one.

One More Thing...

The iPod Phone. I think this will be a slider mobile phone that looks like an iPod nano but about twice as thick. When closed it will appear—and act—as if it is an iPod nano with about 4GB of storage, but when the slider is opened it will change into phone mode and the keypad will be revealed. I also expect it to pack a 2 megapixel camera with a flash.That's it. Check back later to see whether I'm gloating over my prediction performance or hiding my face in shame.UPDATE: It appears that Intel have just launched their first Core 2 Quad branded processors so don't be too surprised if the MacPro line get bumped up to these chips.

This made me weep with laughter. :-)[youtube]mim90zCi34Y[/youtube]

This Friday I'll be attending the d.Construct 2006 Conference in Brighton. d.Construct is best explained by the following quote from this year's website:

d.Construct is an affordable, one-day conference aimed at those building the latest generation of web-based applications. The event discusses how new technology is transforming the web from a document delivery system into an application platform.

All the sessions look really interesting but I'm particularly looking forward to Derek Featherstone's session on ‘Accessible Web Applications in a Post Web 1.0 World’ and Thomas Vander Wal's session on ‘Understanding Folksonomy (Tagging that Works)’ as these two sessions are most likely to influence how I go about my day to day work.I noticed on the Backnetwork that I've had my profile pimped by fellow Scot, Gavin Montague. Thanks for the plug Gavin I owe you a pint and obviously, being a true Scot, it will be from the free bar at the after-party. Talking of socialising I'll hopefully be attending the pre-conference get together at Heist if I have time so hope to bump into some of those attending there.