Ronnie Barker was my favourite comedy actor. I was very saddened to hear of his death and the fact that many Stars queue to pay Barker tribute is but one example of the depth of affection that people had for him.

via hbwt - NewsGator Technologies Acquires NetNewsWire:

..."NewsGator Technologies, Inc., the leading RSS platform company, announced today that it has acquired NetNewsWire, the leading RSS reader for Mac OS X. NewsGator also announced that NetNewsWire will integrate tightly with the NewsGator Online synchronization platform. Brent Simmons, the creator of NetNewsWire, will be joining the NewsGator team as a product architect."...

Warmest congratulations to Brent and Sheila Simmons on this news. I'm a long-time user and fan of NNW and never ceased to be amazed how a team of only two people could have developed and supported such a powerful and elegant application.

Typical! Almost two weeks ago I ordered a Mac mini for myself. My pleasure at the thought of taking delivery within a week - the Apple Store online said 'shipped within 24 hours - was short-lived as just after I had confirmation that the order had shipped I happened to stumble across the Mac Rumors: More Mac Mini Speed Bumps? and Think Secret - Mac mini revision ready for quiet update news. My Mac Mini still hadn't arrived after a week and so the Mac Rumors: Revised Mac mini Now Shipping? and Think Secret - Updated Mac minis arriving, details revealed [updated] news gave me hope that perhaps the rumours were true and that my order would be fulfilled with this latest revision of the Mac mini. Hopes were further raised by Mac Rumors: Upgraded Mac Minis Confirmed by Apple and Apple Confirms Some Mac Minis Have Unlabeled Upgrades

Apple Computer confirmed to eWEEK.com on Thursday that some Mac Minis currently being sold may indeed be faster and more powerful than labeled, with better processors and some improved peripheral features than is marked on the outside of the box.

Needless to say I have been trying to track the status of the order and the progress of the delivery using Apple's Order Status tracking service but apart from confirming that the consignment starting shipping on September 22nd no further useful information is available on-line. It seems that the wireless keyboard and mouse were shipped from stock and are being held at a distribution centre somewhere awaiting the arrival of the Mac mini before all three packages are shipped to me. But I was still hopeful that the delay in delivery was due to the fact that there were no 'old' Mac minis in stock and that I'd be getting a new build!

However, I received the invoice from Apple in the post today but still no sign of the Mac mini, keyboard and mouse so I phoned the Apple order hotline to ask about the ETA for the delivery - and to ask whether the Mac mini that'll be delivered will be a one of the upgraded ones. Needless to say until Apple officially announce the availability of the upgraded models the sales staff deny all knowledge of this and will only confirm that the Mac mini will be match the specification that was in force at the time the order was placed.

Now, according to some of the posts in the Mac Rumors and the Think Secret forums from people that have already taken delivery of the new updated model then Mac minis with a serial number that shows that the machine was built in week 35 (September) or later are from the updated batch. My invoice gives the serial number of the machine that is being shipped to me - ETA Friday! - and, alas, its serial number of YMYM531xxxxxx that when looked up using this lookup service confirms it was produced in week 31 (August). So it really looks like I'll be taking delivery of an 'old' version. If that's the case I'm going to return the Mac mini and take the hit of the restocking fee of £40.

Jim Turley is a regular columnist for Embedded Systems Design - Embedded.com. A lot of his output in 2003 is directly relevant to my Computer Architecture and Design course. For instance:

1. The Two Percent Solution
2. Do processors and instruction sets matter?
3. RISCy Business
4. Ten lies about microprocessors
5. Embedded processors of tomorrow

In my Computer Architecture and Design lecture yesterday a number of students picked up on my mention of the Relegate Important Stuff to the Compiler version of the acronym RISC as the most important point of the lecture. One of the hits for a Relegate Important Stuff to the Compiler - Google Search was one of my posts way back in April, 2001 - Intel to enlist foreign aid in optimizing IA-64 compilers - that had some link rot that I've just repaired and then added this post as a reply in its thread.

I wish Seth all the best for raising as much money for the Jimmy Fund as possible now that he's announced that All PMC Software Auctions Are Live:

"These auctions include a total of over $11,000 worth of software. Each disc -- whether Mac or Windows -- contains about $1,100 in applications, all donated by a lot of very generous developers."...

I've known Seth for more than six years and he's one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet - either virtually or physically! His fund-raising efforts for the Jimmy Fund deserves as much support as possible so I'm delighted that Robert Scoble is also encouraging everyone to Bid on software to help cancer research as his link will drive immeasurably more visitors to Seth's auction than I could ever hope to influence.

I've been bidding for one of Seth's Mac software compilations as over the years I've already personally purchased many of these apps for my iBook and I'm about to take delivery of a new Mac Mini so would like to have a as much commonality between the two machines as possible. However, I'd be happy to be out-bid as this means that Seth will be raising quite a sum for the charity. Good luck Seth!

Macworld: News: Analysis: Why Apple picked Intel over AMD

..."Why didn't Jobs, ever the maverick, opt for the scrappy challenger, Advanced Micro Devices, instead of the old-money establishment, Intel?

The reason, industry analysts say, is that Jobs has a clear goal in mind: innovative designs. And such designs require the lowest-voltage chips, which IBM and Freescale were not going to make with the PowerPC chip core - and which AMD has not yet perfected.