Dear Mac readers, I know you because you are still using Safari as a browser (~ 1.5% of the traffic). I apologize for this post but…I couldn’t lie ;-)

Lot of buzz and emails concerning the coming new Mac OS X on 29th April. Also concerning the Dashboard. To my point of view, nothing new under the sun (sure, there are other interesting innovations!). Konfabulator does the same (excepted the cool waves effect) since months (Mac and PC). I’m using, as a registered user (yeay), Konfabulator on my laptop/workstation under WinXP since November 2004. Great tool for geek :-)

Dashboard of Mac OS X

My current desktop under XP, with Konfabulator

I must say I am *NOT* a fan of Mac at all, and this, since years. In the 80s, I was already using a Commodore 64, instead of an Apple II. Sorry for that:-)
Russell summarized my feelings very well (read his post completely to know what he is thinking about Mac!):

The Mac bothers me for all the same reasons it bothers others out there. It’s a closed system, running on proprietary hardware which always seems to be doomed to be both more expensive, and half the speed of the PC world. That and having to learn another OS and it’s foibles bugs me a bit. I’ve been using Windows for over a decade, so figuring out problems is second nature.

Restaurants

Wow, wow, wow. Very exciting and good French, Creole, Italian and Chinese cuisine to be tested in St.Barths. The concentration of good restaurants is terrible for your weight.

One of the best things about St. Barts is the quality and variety of the food.

This is true not only in numerous local restaurants, but in many local homes and villas as well, due to the unusually wide range of foodstuffs available at local grocery stores, and due to the quality of local catering services.

Shopping for food in St. Barts can be a delightful social pastime in itself.

[via St-Barths.com]

We tested the following restaurants, see our appreciation:

Pixoria released an update 1.8.4 of Konfabulator.

This update addresses the following issues:

Full review here.

Digital SLR

So, after having played for a while with my first bridge (hp 945, 5.3MP, 8x optical zoom), I decided to enter a complete new world for me – the digital SLR (Single-Lens Reflex) photography.

Canon EOS 20D

I read a lot of different tests and I decided myseld for a Canon EOS 20D, which is recognized as one of the best camera in this semi-professional field, i.e. for the so-called “prosumers”. You can find some tests here:

Functionalities Canon EOS 20D

Lens Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

I bought the 20D with the Canon lens EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 which is typically sold with as a package. This lens is a cheap one and I have known that I would have to buy another lens. This one is not really good and is more degrading the overall quality of the 20D. Again, a lot of readindgs, specially in the forums this time. I was laughing a lot during all these readings because the people have about the same behaviour as in the IT world (Microsoft vs. Open Source, XP vs. linux): nether ending discussions between fans & experts who are fighting for Canon, or for Nikon, for this kind of lens, for this one, etc. :-)
I hesitated between two Canon lens, which are completely different and differently positionned: the EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM and the EF-S 17-85mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM. The 17-40 is recognized as one of the best lens in this range of price, with very high quality optics. It does give you true wide angle coverage (equal to a 27mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera) and being an “L” series lens it’s built to professional standards, a silent USM (UltraSonic Motor) ring motor, distance scale and comes with a hood. USM motors are silent and manual focus (FTM = Full Time Manual) is possible without switching out of autofocus.

Have a look at theses reviews:

Some inputs & one picture as an example

[click to enlarge, size: 3’974KB]
ISO 400, 1/60s, f/4.0

I saw this poster yesterday in the office of a friend of mine. Great :-)

Shopping

A paradise for shopping, a nightmare for your cerdit card ;-)

St. Barths is a duty free port, and shoppers will be delighted with the range and number of shops: from a shaded table by the side of the road, to the elegant displays and marble floors reminiscent of Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré in Paris.

The highest concentration of shops is in Gustavia, followed by St-Jean, with its several shopping centers. It is wise to allocated more than a single afternoon to see what’s what and where’s where.

[via St-Barths.com]

Free and plays everything under the sun, including QuickTime and RealTime.
Last version 1.28 available here.
About K-Lite Codec Pack.

[via BetaNews]

Microsoft announced Friday that its $120 million acquisition of Groove Networks had completed, just days after a Delaware court threw out a lawsuit by a former Groove executive to prevent the merger. Michael Matthews sued because he claimed the deal was unfair to the employees of Groove Networks.

As planned, Groove will join the Information Worker unit of Microsoft, which develops Office. “While Groove and Microsoft technologies already work together in very powerful ways, we’ve only just begun to realize opportunities to better address the needs of information workers at a time when the very nature of work itself is changing,” said Groove founder Ray Ozzie, now Microsoft’s Chief Technical Officer.

As you (perhaps?) know, I am working for Helvetia Patria (fast 10 years, wow). Our annual results 2004 were presented today and they are…pretty good ;-) Have a look:

• Gross premium written: 5’105 million CHF (1 euro = 1.5 CHF ~)
• Result after taxation: 159 million CHF (+72%)
• Investments at market value: 25’989 million CHF
• Return On Equity: 12.3 %
• Combined Ratio: 99.2%

One of the best result within Switzerland and Europe in the insurance branch.
Yey :-) Good for us and for our bonus.

The complete results are available here.

[via CICLOPS]

CICLOPS means Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS. Very nice picture of Jupiter.

This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft starting at 5:31 Universal time on December 29, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced; the smallest visible features are ~ 60 km (37 miles) across. The mosaic is composed of 27 images: nine images were required to cover the entire planet in a tic-tac-toe pattern, and each of those locations was imaged in red, green, and blue to provide true color. Although Cassini’s camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter here looks the way that the human eye would see it.[…]

Everything visible on the planet is a cloud. The parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the white ovals, and the large Great Red Spot persist over many years despite the intense turbulence visible in the atmosphere. The most energetic features are the small, bright clouds to the left of the Great Red Spot and in similar locations in the northern half of the planet. These clouds grow and disappear over a few days and generate lightning. Streaks form as clouds are sheared apart by Jupiter’s intense jet streams that run parallel to the colored bands. The prominent dark band in the northern half of the planet is the location of Jupiter’s fastest jet stream, with eastward winds of 480 km (300 miles) per hour. Jupiter’s diameter is eleven times that of Earth, so the smallest storms on this mosaic are comparable in size to the largest hurricanes on Earth.