Pentankh Eternal’s Blog

Today I’ve had to drop Sienna off home so I could go into work. We had issues during the week with the bank’s network. It seems fixed but they want us to be onsite just in case something happens. I will be back again tomorrow mirning too. So here I am getting more acquainted with my new iPhone and all the fun games I have downloaded.
This week I downloaded Zen Pinball: rollercoaster and it is amazingly fun! Go google the name or check out the demo I put on the AusPUG Review forum.
One thing working well with this platform is I am actually paying for games. They are usually priced under AUD$10. Brilliant!
So far I bought Apple’s Texas Hold ‘Em Poker, Zen Pinball, Koi fish and Aqua forest. None were expensive. I rarely play games on any platform but this one I am really enjoying the funkiness of the iPhone. All were definitely worth the price and come with free upgrades.
Since so am already in the city I may as well watch Riverfire live. Fireworks galore woo! And a jet flyover.

Not much lined up yet. Have to phone my cousin Jo to see if the BBQ is on.
Got my wifi sharing going finally. Woo.
Swimming is on at 8am. Might take Sienna to the park or Geocaching this weekend and / or to the park.
One week of work left then a week leave with parents visiting then start new job!! Rawr!

Saturday morning Sienna and I went to her swimming lessons. She had a fabulous time and I watched Battlestar Galactica on my iPhone.

After that we went to the Post Office and picked up her present from Nonna and Poppy.. A Golden Circle book. I remember reading that when I was her age.  Well.. sorta remember. My remembery isn’t always that good.

We headed back home for lunch and my cousin Jo (on mum’s side) sent me an SMS to visit and see her new home.  She had just moved in recently and we hadn’t visited yet.  She had something on so we had lunch and headed on out.

We got there and she was still out so Kirky let us in.  We set up the Wii and started playing games.  Sienna discovered they now have a sandpit out in the backyard so she spent ages there making a sandcastle. I helped out.

After Jo got home with Tahlia the girls played the Wii and I helped Jo drink her new bottle of Vodka We relaxed for the afternoon while the girls played the Wii with their friends they invited over.  One of Jo’s friends came over and we had drinks, ate pasta and chatted the night away.  Was nice.

Saturday morning when we managed to get out of bed we headed down to the local park and the girls had fun while we had more talking.  Sienna and I took the dogs for a run around the park which wore out Sienna for about 10 mins then she went back with the other kids on the swings.

When it was nearing 1pm we had to go back to Jo’s place as she was having friends over for painting and socialising.  Sienna and I watched the house while she went out in case anyone turned up.  They didn’t until shortly after we left.  We came home and I played some Mario Party 8 with Sienna until it was time for her to go home.  I think Sienna likes my new iPhone. She was playing games on it while we were driving.

Today I bought the iPhone Texas Hold ‘Em game by Apple which I mentioned previously. I also bought the Koi Fish Pond game. I think Sienna will love that one a lot.

 Today I listened to Podcasts for most of the day at work. From 7:30am on the train until 5:30pm when I got home. It was on most of that time.

I also used the Telstra free WiFi connection in the Queen Street Mall for 50 minutes and played with a couple of games.  

When I got home and plugged in the iPhone into my USB port the screen shows I’ve used not even 1/3rd of the power of the battery. Sweet!

That’s gotta be a good result.  Tonight I’m going to test more free applications. I will wait until next pay to get an iTunes card from Coles and rent a movie or two. Jo says Chris liked the original Hellboy so I can rent that for $3.99 and watch it on my iPhone. Should be a good test.  I also want a Texas Hold’em Poker game and Apple themselves wrote a really great looking one called Texas Hold ‘Em for iPhone.

There’s a review on the Ars Technica website. "The other cool feature is a multiplayer option that lets you play against up to eight other actual, live iPhone or iPod touch users over a Wi-Fi network."

Yesterday I went to the local Telstra shop and bought my 16Gb black iPhone. Last night I updated it to the latest firmware and software. The first attempt failed so I had to do a restore and it worked. Then I spent the evening downloading free applications from the iTunes applications store and Googling hints and tips.
Right now I am typing this on my iphone in the Queen at mall on my iphone using the funky free WordPress client using the free Telstra Wifi access. This is nuts and totally fun!!!

 I’ve just got back from a long trip down to the Mid North Coast in New South Wales to catch up with my parents. I also went further down to Newcastle to catch up with a huge amount of my family at a big family gathering.

Last Wednesday Sienna and I left at 5:30am. We stopped at Grafton for McDonalds for breakfast. Yeh I know it’s not great but the breakfast is okay. I had a Deluxe roll with Bacon and Egg and a Hash Brown with a coffee. Sienna had 3 Hash Browns. Now, I had bought FOUR all up so I could have two and she’d have two, but she had other ideas.  She had a quick play on the playground equipment while I got breakfast then we ate and jumped back in the car.  We drove to my parents’ place and got there around 2pm.  We stopped a couple of times for coffee and petrol or a loo break.

Thursday we drove to Forster to do some shopping. I picked up some socks for myself and Sienna was spoiled with some books and things.  We also picked up some sparklers which has become a family habit due to Sienna remembering it from last time we were there. Every time we visit now we have to have sparklers every night.  We also got a new pair of school shoes for Sienna since she goes through hers rather quickly.

Friday afternoon Sienna and I drove to Newcastle and stayed overnight with our cousins.  Saturday morning we drove to the Blackbutt Wildlife park in Lambton Heights and met up with Chris and Jo and their daughter.  Sienna and Caitie had a fantastic time running around and playing on the slides and swings and stuff.  We headed back to my cousins’ at about lunch time and got there just in time for the family cricket match.  Sienna had a bat (with my help) and did well.  I had a go and had some good runs.  We also later played soccer.  Our team won 5-4.  I was the goalie for our team and fended off quite a few goals from the younger ones on the other team, so once we got to 4 I let Sienna take over as goal keeper and I went in to actually play.  My cousin’s daughter is about 6 or so and every time she got the ball I’d run up to her going "RAAWWRRRRR!!!". She got a fit of giggles and I stole the ball.  After we’d had enough of that, we had a BBQ lunch and a chat with everyone. Sienna played with her cousins Caitie and Jessie and Ivani and so many others I can’t remember all the names.  Another cousin’s daughter whom is about 2yo came over to talk to Michael and I and was telling us not to go near the Billy Goat because he will bite us.  She was very entertaining.  Michael and I wanted to have dessert, but could not be bothered walking all the way over to the table from our spot on a grassy knoll so when Sienna came over I sent her over to pick up a couple slices of cheesecake for us.  Kids are really handy for that sort of thing haha.  We left about 3:30pm and headed back to my parents’ place and picked up some chicken and chips to eat.

This morning we got up about 7:30am. Well.. I did. Sienna says she was up at 5am and it was still dark. Her poppy got up about 6am and she was already in the lounge playing my Pocket PC games I put on there for her.  We left about 9:30am and came back home.  We stopped a few times for rests and food and loo breaks.  I was getting over driving by the time we got to Ballina so we stopped yet again and Sienna had a go on a swing in a park for 15 mins while I took a break before we hopped back in again.  We also stopped at Nerang so I could use the Laserwash high-pressure jet gun to rinse my car. I can’t wash it properly due to having Paint Protection, but a blast of water never goes astray.  I also filled up the petrol tank and put water in my windscreen washer reservoir due to it being empty.  I dropped Sienna off home about 6:30pm and came home. I put on some food and had a shower then put my clothes in the washing machine and watched Dr Who and Rove then next is Dexter.

We had a fantastic 5 days of holiday away from home and work.  Mum and dad are coming for a visit in September so there should be more fun then.  In October, Michael (Mouse) is coming to visit for a few days as well.

Had a fantastic weekend. Saturday morning I took my daughter to her swimming lessons then into the city. We traded in two Wii games (The Simpsons Game and Catz 2) for Super Smash Bros Brawl. She kicks my ass in SSB:B quite a bit. Even taunts me. The little so-and-so.

We grabbed some Krispy Kreme donuts. I had told her we were going to get a surprise and as soon as she saw us walking past my old office she said "I know what the surprise is… DONUTS!". Too damn smart for her own good! hehe.

We picked up my costume from the shop and headed home to play SSB:B and Mario Party 8. We had lots of fun. I dropped her home and put on my vampire costume to wear to Mil & Jason’s party. It was Jason’s birthday so they combined it with a Hallowe’en Party.

I got there on time and walked around the back and straight past Mil. She had a red wig on and I didn’t recognise her at all! She said "You look lost!" and then I realised who it was. I chatted for a bit then sat down and her friend Dwayne and his girlfriend turned up. I had met Dwayne before so chatted with them for a while until my friend Raphael turned up. Raph and I drank our beers and talked with Dwayne and his girlfriend, Tina. We huddled around a big concrete fireplace Mil and Jason had set up in the backyard. The shape of it reminded me more of a giant BONG than anything else. I pretended to take a hit from it and inhaled some of the smoke. Yuk! My mouth tasted like burning wood so I got another beer (well.. that’s my excuse to do so anyway!). We stayed until midnight and I drove Raph home.. same as I did last year.. then I came back home and dropped into bed.

This morning I was talking to my friend Katherine on MSN and she asked what I was going to do today. I said I was going to clean the house and do some ironing and vacuuming. She said that was ‘boring!’ and she was going to the movies with friends. Well.. I took the idea and I already had a free movie ticket stuck to the fridge so drove to the local BCC cinema and got a free ticket to see The Dark Knight. I wandered around the shops for a while since I was 40 mins early then went back at 1pm for the 1:10pm show and got some popcorn and a coke. I got out about 4pm and came home to do my chores. I watched another episode of Battlestar Galactica Season 4 and then Dr Who on the ABC.

Before going with these, check the call prices and included extras, etc.  The following are for the 8Gb iPhone.  They are also for 24 month contracts.  Note that Optus offers a 12 month contract.

I’ve sorted out current low-cost plans from the 4 iPhone carriers in Australia, for comparison:

• Telstra’s costs

$279 upfront = $11.65pm : $30pm phone + $10pm internet = $51.65 pm = $1239.60 Total

160mb per month internet.

• Vodafone’s costs

$242 upfront = $10.08pm : $49pm phone + $11.95pm internet = $71 pm = $1704.72 Total

100mb per month internet

• Optus’s costs

$19 pm cap : $21pm phone + $0pm internet = $40pm = $960 Total

100mb per month internet.

$49 pm cap : $7pm phone + $0 pm internet = $56pm = $1344 Total

250mb per month internet

• Virgin Mobile’s costs

$0 pm plan + $70 pm phone = $1680 Total

1Gb per month internet

Well, it turns out I was correct when I said Microsoft should write a new No-Legacy operating system and use Virtualisation to support old applications, because that is exactly what they are doing!

Without even knowing it, I practically described the exact operating system they are code-naming "Midori". Here’s some info:

http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=32646

Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research’s Singularity operating system, the tools and libraries of which are completely managed code. Midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

One of Microsoft’s goals is to provide options for Midori applications to co-exist with and interoperate with existing Windows applications, as well as to provide a migration path.

Building Midori from the ground up to be connected underscores how much computing has changed since Microsoft’s engineers first designed Windows; there was no Internet as we understand it today, the PC was the user’s sole device and concurrency was a research topic.

Today, users move across multiple devices, consume and share resources remotely, and the applications that they use are a composite of local and remote components and services. To that end, Midori will focus on concurrency, both for distributed applications and local ones.

Midori will have provisions for distributed concurrency—or cloud computing—where application components exist in data centers. Doing so will require work in three areas: execution techniques, a platform stack and a programming model that can tolerate cancellation, intermittent connectivity and latency.

In that scenario, operating system services, such as storage, would either be provided to the applications by the OS or be discovered across a trusted distributed environment.

Programming with Midori
The Midori programming model will tackle state management, which Microsoft admits in its documentation is a challenge in Windows, by migrating APIs, applications and developers to a constrained model.

Other objectives are eliminating dynamic loading and in-process extensions; developing a failure model based on reliable transactions, so the system understands exactly which processes are impacted by a cascading failure and how to restart the computation; and having a standard way of dealing with latency, asynchronous behavior and cancellation, throughout the stack.

The Midori documents indicate that the proposed OS would have a non-blocking object-oriented framework API. This would have strong notions of immutability—in the sense of objects that cannot be modified once created—and strive to foster application correctness through deep verifiability by using .NET programming languages.

Midori’s applications would be created using .NET languages that will be compiled to native code using the Bartok compiler and runtime system, which is presently a Microsoft Search project. The Bartok compiler can typecheck machine code programs for programming errors thanks to its use of an intermediate typed language, according to the company.

The fundamentals
Unlike Windows, Microsoft intends for Midori to be componentized from the beginning to achieve performance and security benefits. It will have strong isolation boundaries and enforced contracts between components, to ensure that servicing one component will not cause others to fail, while keeping overhead minimal.

At its lowest level, Midori has two separate kernel layers: a microkernel comprised of unmanaged code that controls hardware and environment abstracts, and higher-level managed kernel services that provide the full set of operating system functionality.

According to the documents, the company plans to create Midori’s “legacy-free bubble,” both at the programming model and at the user level. The models differ in the degree to which Midori and Windows coexist, and virtualization could wind up in the mix.

Microsoft’s desire for legacy support has twin roots: It needs to establish a migration path that offers comfort to its customers, while avoiding the pitfall of users implementing virtualization to run other operating systems that would perform tasks better than Windows can. Such a future runs the risk of relegating Windows to the role of a co-resident installation that executes legacy applications.

Virtualization creates a motivation and need for Microsoft to do something to take back the initiative—and none too soon, said Jeffrey Hammond, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. “It may just be the developer crowd I run with these days … but I see more Macs in developers’ hands [today] than at any time in the last 18 years,” he added.

The documents describe the legacy-free objective as being a preemptive strike against non-Microsoft operating systems, enabling the company to compete head-on by enticing customers to replace Windows with Midori instead of a non-Microsoft OS.

As first reported by SD Times, Midori is being designed as a componentized OS and can run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

Read more in the above linked article. A very interesting set of articles.