dkocher.name

I just discovered the great new Google Patent Search. I hope I don’t get sued by IBM because of the “Method and system for a user interface for remote FTP hosts” patent.

I finally managed to merge the current trunk of Vienna into my prototype branch for some experiments with the user interface, especially moving away from the metal look. You can download a snapshot of this prototype build here. Please note that this build is not official at all, has had only very limited testing and is not meant for daily use!

I would buy one on the first day released to replace my current 12inch PB.

Shimshal is the most remote settlement in Pakistan I was told. Only a few years ago a jeep track to the village was finished after several years of work – a winding lane between rugged mountains and the riverbed. This panorama I have taken about half way between the Karakoram Highway and Shimshal, where a glacier borders the road.

Qawwali Performance in Lahore, Punjab.
Qawwali.wav (23’55 minutes)

Muezin, Rawalpindi, Punjab
Muezzin.wav (00’53 minutes)

Sorry for the bad sound quality (I have taken them with my cell phone), but this still gives a nice impression.

When I was in Kashgar, they were just shooting ‘The Kite Runner‘, after the book by Khaled Hosseini. In fact I coulnd’t catch a bus to the border at this time because there were not enough passengers for several days. All Pakistani wanted to stay in Kashgar as they were paid good money to play in the movie.

At some book stall at the Wagah border (I went there to watch the hilarious border closing scene), I found the book last week and I am now reading it. I only just started the first few chapters but can already recommend it to anyone.

Apple made available the slides of WWDC 06 on iTunes. It works by authenticating you at developer.apple.com/adconitunes/ and then tells the web browser ot open a URL with a itmss scheme to be opened in iTunes. But if you want to access this content with a low bandwidth internet connection (as I usually have here in Pakistan) you often get timeouts and the downloads then fail to resume (See the nice error message below). It also opens the authentication web page in your web browser all over again. I know it is difficult to handle connections with a low latency properly, but then wouldn’t it be much easier to simply distribute these PDF slides at connect.apple.com (as in previous years). Why download PDF files in a proprietary audio player anyway? KISS please.

Yesterday was Eid-Ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, and all Uyghurs here in Kashgar gathered this morning in or outside the Id Kah mosque.

Even here in Kashgar, the possibly most remote town in China from Beijing in the very far south-west, upcoming Beijing 2008 is omnipresent mainly due to the merchandising efforts by its sponsors. Lenovo has appearantly even changed its product logo, now featuring the five-ringed Olympic emblem on every sold computer.

I just noted that I am no in the city known to be the furthest away from any sea ;). I have posted some images I have taken today strolling around the city.