A few days ago I loaded an install disk for Ubuntu into my Macbook Pro.  I booted up from the DVD drive and it loaded in beautifully.  I thought that I might back up the drive and run bootcamp to create a dual boot machine.  Then I heard that the bootcamp beta license will expire as of 10.5 being released...in just a couple of days.  Presumably a new non-beta version of bootcamp will be included in 10.5...so I will wait.

The first time I ever set up a local install of Drupal was a copy of 4.7.4. I remember aspects of setting things up being a little convoluted. 5.x had not gone into full release--I believe it was in RC 1. So there was no installer and it proved to be an interesting challenge. With the advent of 5.x, things have become much simpler. I'm going to describe how to set up a local install of Drupal 5.x on a Mac--the process is similar on other platforms--and can be used on the beta of 6 if you want to mess around with the newest version of Drupal.

I am an Apple fan.  I've used Macs since the ][e and either owned or have heavily used a Plus, LCIII, Bondi Blue iMac, G5 iMac, iBook, and a Macbook Pro.  I've owned two different iPods.  When the iPhone was announced and then shipped, my wife strongly encouraged me to buy one and replace my aging Treo 650.  My current carrier is Sprint, which makes that problematic.  Besides, I rarely purchase hardware before it goes through a couple of revisions.  That said, I've handled the iPhone several times and it is slick.

I want one...

Carbon Copy Cloner is an OSX tool that allows you to make an exact duplicate of a drive. The software can be used to create backups of your computer. Recently I needed to make several exact duplicates of the same Mac Mini. The process is simple.

1) Boot up one Mini in target mode (hold down the T while the machine boots up.)
4) Using Firewire to Firewire, connect a second Min.i
5) Launch Carbon Copy Cloner on the source Mini.
6) Choose Macintosh HD as the source and Macintosh HD 1 as the target.
7) Click on the lock at the bottom of the window beside the "clone" button.
8) Enter the Admin Password for the source Mini
9) Click on the clone button
10)This takes about one and a quarter hours.
11)When Carbon Copy Cloner indicates that the cloning is complete, unmount the
source Mac by dragging it's icon to the trash.

This morning I noticed on the Macbook Pro that I use, that the sheathing covering the thin cord leaving the brick going to the mag safe plug had come loose.  It rendered the brick useless.  So over lunch I headed to the Apple store.  They replaced it without question at no cost.

Customer service like this really makes me love companies.  Thank-You Apple.

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Last night my daughter was baptized at the Wesley Foundation in Boulder. The Foundation is a United Methodist chapel that serves the student population mostly. What is the connection? My wife was the office manager there over a decade ago was baptized there. Eric Smith, in turn, married Paula and I in the Wesley Foundation in 1997.

Does this have anything to do with the Arts? One of the main challenges that the traditional arts seem to be having is engagement. How does an arts venue/product become relevant in a person's life? How does that art engage, nurture, and feed the consumer. How can you even get the consumer give your product a try?

Increasingly, the traditional arts, have lost audience. The institutions that serve and support arts organizations have become out of touch with today's consumer.

The arts community will complain that the general populace aren't engaging and how do we bring the audiences back to the theatre, opera, gallery, museum? How do bring value? Why aren't people engaged any longer? We can't reach them. Why don't they participate?

The nature of arts participation has changed so quickly in the last five years that many organizations/administrators don't recognize that participation is occurring.

• REVVER
• YouTube
• Flickr

These are three examples where participation in the arts runs deep.

Lessons from the Church

What I saw at Wesley, were deeply engaged young people who were playing musical instruments, singing, and using multimedia to strengthen the experience.

You'll notice that on the right of this picture there is a full band setup. On the left there is a screen--the screen had an LCD projector and an iBook being run by a young lady.

The Pastor was a young guy who rock climbs with his congregation. The service was made as accessible as it could be to anybody who was there.

• Listen to your audience
• Give them, at least a bit, of what they want
• When your audience looks at you, they should see themselves
• Alter your perceptions of what participation in the arts really means
• Find out where your targeted audience hangs out and what engages them--then seek them on that turf

Web 2.0 feeds into all of this. Young people hang out in MySpace, FaceBook, Revver, YouTube, SecondLife, and Flickr. They document large parts of their lives. They want to engage and be engaged. They want IN on the conversation, not be a passive viewer.

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The creators of Kazaa and Skype have announced a partnership to create a Internet TV service called Joost.

Viacom had forced YouTube to remove all of its copyright content from the YouTube.  It has announced that it will deliver content from its various interests like MTV, VH1 and Paramount.

Joost has announced a beta program to test the Interface.  They have also announced that while it currently is Windows only, 250 Intel MacOS testers are in the process of working through a Mac version.

I bought two Mac minis today.  One for work--we are going to try and make use of it for ZAPP(tm) juries in the future.  We need one on the bench to figure out what it can or can't do for WESTAF.  The second was for my daughter.  She has been drawing keyboards on a typing paper, folding them and drawing an Apple on the back.  I've set up the little computer between Paula and my work stations.

One of the things that I absolutely love about MacOS X is parental controls.  Paula spent about 45 minutes setting up the Internet sites that our kiddo can access.  No more, no less.  You can lock down access tight as a drum.  Very cool.

I purchased the first issue of MacAddict from a newstand many years ago. I thumbed through the pages and came the conclusion that I needed a subscription. Over the years the magazine has been a little kookie, irreverent, and often quite funny. I've watched quite a few writers come and go. It was one magazine that I always looked forward to getting in the mail. The magazine always came with a CD that had all sorts of great little games, utilities, shareware, and freeware. I discovered Ambrosia Software because of MacAddict and wasted a good number of hours playing Escape Velocity and then, later, EV Nova. I learned about new products and gleaned information regarding upcoming hardware. This magazine saw me through an LCIII, Bondi Blue iMac, TiBook, iMac 1.8 Ghz G5, and a Macbook Pro. It started out under the publisher "Imagine", which later turned into "Future".