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I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) for a while now. They just seem like such a neat idea. A DVB/Freeview receiver picks up a free digital TV signal, records the stream of data onto an 80GB hard disk allowing perfect playback and easy recording of about 40 hours of TV. Who needs VHS?

Today I was granted my wish. My wife wanted tonight’s ER taping and our rather nice Panasonic VHS machine – an extravagantly generous wedding present from my brother – is now useless as a recorder. It plays back just fine but the audio is intermittant on recordings.

This really was the perfect excuse. I could keep the VHS machine so the kids can watch the few videos they have and get the PVR I’ve craved for so long.

So I rushed down to Comet and looked at what was on offer. A Humax DVB PVR for �179. I was tempted, so tempted. The Humax is a very shiny gizmo. I like shiny gizmos. And hey, it even records radio programmes, so I need never miss Marc Riley or Andrew Collins on 6 Music.

I paced round the store several times, thinking. I looked at the DVD recorders. Some of them had 80GB hard disk drives in, too. But none of them had a digital tuner.

What would be really good would be a DVD recorder with a hard disk and a Freeview DVB tuner. That I’d pay �179 for.

Finally I came to my senses and thought about how much we actually record. On average it’s far less than 1 hour a week. It’s ER when my wife’s too sleepy to watch it, it’s Conviction on BBC2 when I’m working and The West Wing when the &*$@ers at Channel 4 show it at 7pm or 3am.

So I went to my local Sainsbury’s and bought a Philips NICAM VHS recorder for �45.

Job done.

I’ve never been much of a fan of Proportional Representation. I’ve always assumed it leads to weak coalition governments.

But I’m starting to think that it might be a good idea. The election we’ve just had was decided by a million or so voters in marginal constituencies. I live in a very safe Labour seat. No-one knocked on my door, no-one campaigned here so as you’d notice. No-one even sat outside my polling station asking to see my polling card – as they did when one seat was up for grabs in a local council by-election.

If we had PR, every vote would count and maybe some candidates would have knocked on my door and asked me what I thought.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first thing to be placed in the first bin liner of a new roll is the paper the new roll of bin liners were wrapped in.

And in other news, I went mad and ripped the CD writer module out of my terribly expensive Lacie firewire CD writer, and put it in my frighteningly cheap Firewire and USB caddy.

And now I can burn CDs over USB on my old 233mHz RevA iMac!

I really should have my own page on Lowendmac, you know…

I just got one of these.

It’s a �20 Firewire and USB enclosure for a 5.25″ hard disk, CD writer or DVD writer.

Amazingly it comes with two different kinds of Firewire leads and a USB lead, plus a screwdriver. You don’t even get a USB lead with some printers costing 4 or 5 times as much.

I put my RevA iMac’s old hard drive in the enclosure, screwed it together, powered it up and plugged it in to the iMac’s own USB 1.0 socket – it’s running OS 10.3 – and my old iMac’s hard drive appeared on the desktop, so I can get any data off that I forgot to transfer.

It’s a bit noisy (so’s my expensive Lacie FW hard drive) and a bit ugly, but for �30 all in, who cares?!

We’ve been trying to think of names – and I’ve been also thinking of the great song ‘The Name Game’ by Shirley Ellis (1965, apparently).

When I was about 10 or 11 I was inordinately fond of that song, and I remember going as far as writing out the logic (if not actually writing the code) for a computer program that would play the Name Game for any name you typed in.

For those of you who don’t know the song, here’s a sample:

Shirley!

Shirley, Shirley, Bo Birley
Bonana, Fanna, Fo Firley
Fee, Fy, Mo Mirley
Shirley

Now here in 2005 I thought that The Name Game would make a grand RealBasic project.

But someone’s already done it in JavaScript!

All togther now…

Henry!

Henry, Henry, Bo Benry
Bonana, Fanna, Fo Fenry
Fee, Fy, Mo Menry
Henry!

Okay then, how about this:

William!

William, William, Bo Billiam
Bonana, Fanna, Fo Filliam
Fee, Fy, Mo Milliam
William!

Curses, is there no catching them out?!

Perpetua!

Perpetua, Perpetua, Bo Berpetua
Bonana, Fanna, Fo Ferpetua
Fee, Fy, Mo Merpetua
Perpetua!

Apparently not.