Doings a-transpirin'
The latter half of January has been chock full of wall-to-wall work. Catching the flu didn't help my work deadlines much. Other than that, it's been a pretty mellow life.
I'm still settling into the new pad. It's looking less like a display window for U-Haul. My lesser quests for shoe rack, pot/pan rack, bedside wall lighting, recycling containers, etc. have been vanquished with much success. I'm still looking for a coat/hat rack and speaker stands. The rosemary plant for my garden window hasn't croaked yet. Success. Lessee, there was the night G and I were shopping for a studfinder and some caulk, tee hee. Good times. My ever-so-sturdy CD shelves from IKEA, all three of them, decided that they could no longer resist the siren call of gravity. I came home from work one night to find the shelves and the CDs I had entrusted to them in a giant, capitulated pile on the carpet. It was unseemly. I had been meaning to properly attach the indolent shelves to the wall, but hadn't found the time. The shelves have been righted (thanks an awful lot to G) and properly screwed. I still need a name for my place though.
I've been having a swell time with my new toy productivity enhancer. Skip these next couple paragraphs if you don't dig on computers, especially Macs. First, I'm amazed with OS X 10.3.2. It's visually much faster than 10.2. The Exposé functionality is indescribably useful on a laptop. I previously had my mail server, web server, firewall, backups etc. set up on a Linux box, but I'm in the process of transfering all of that over to my previous Mac OS X desktop (an old 400 MHz G4). I set up wireless networking using an Airport Extreme Base station in the house so I can have my porn music in any room. Since my desktop has much more diskspace to spare than my laptop, I've got it rigged so that iTunes on my laptop will use the disk on my desktop over AppleTalk Filing Protocol (AFP). I tried using NFS, but it was a headache, especially when the laptop is NAT'ed. AFP is a little slower, but it also knows how to deal correctly with resource forks on HFS+ and can be used easily behind the Airport firewall. All I have to do is make sure the iTunes library DB between the two machines stays in synch. Streaming music this way works quite nicely at home, but is a little sputtery externally over the DSL connection (upload speed is something weak like 128 Kbps). BAM, take that stupid network-restricted iTunes "sharing."
Some essential Mac OS X software I've found (or rediscovered) while geeking out recently:
The team I'm in at work translocated to new cubes. My new cube is remarkably like my old cube. Parking at work has become teh sux. We are out of parking space. Someone alert the authorities. I'm looking forward to warmer weather for pedaling/riding to work.
I've really gotten into The Shins recently thanks to G. This last weekend Live 105 was playing mostly local bands, and it was the best thing that station has done probably ever.
Aren't you glad I used an ?
I'm still settling into the new pad. It's looking less like a display window for U-Haul. My lesser quests for shoe rack, pot/pan rack, bedside wall lighting, recycling containers, etc. have been vanquished with much success. I'm still looking for a coat/hat rack and speaker stands. The rosemary plant for my garden window hasn't croaked yet. Success. Lessee, there was the night G and I were shopping for a studfinder and some caulk, tee hee. Good times. My ever-so-sturdy CD shelves from IKEA, all three of them, decided that they could no longer resist the siren call of gravity. I came home from work one night to find the shelves and the CDs I had entrusted to them in a giant, capitulated pile on the carpet. It was unseemly. I had been meaning to properly attach the indolent shelves to the wall, but hadn't found the time. The shelves have been righted (thanks an awful lot to G) and properly screwed. I still need a name for my place though.
I've been having a swell time with my new toy productivity enhancer. Skip these next couple paragraphs if you don't dig on computers, especially Macs. First, I'm amazed with OS X 10.3.2. It's visually much faster than 10.2. The Exposé functionality is indescribably useful on a laptop. I previously had my mail server, web server, firewall, backups etc. set up on a Linux box, but I'm in the process of transfering all of that over to my previous Mac OS X desktop (an old 400 MHz G4). I set up wireless networking using an Airport Extreme Base station in the house so I can have my porn music in any room. Since my desktop has much more diskspace to spare than my laptop, I've got it rigged so that iTunes on my laptop will use the disk on my desktop over AppleTalk Filing Protocol (AFP). I tried using NFS, but it was a headache, especially when the laptop is NAT'ed. AFP is a little slower, but it also knows how to deal correctly with resource forks on HFS+ and can be used easily behind the Airport firewall. All I have to do is make sure the iTunes library DB between the two machines stays in synch. Streaming music this way works quite nicely at home, but is a little sputtery externally over the DSL connection (upload speed is something weak like 128 Kbps). BAM, take that stupid network-restricted iTunes "sharing."
Some essential Mac OS X software I've found (or rediscovered) while geeking out recently:
- ChronoSync - For keeping files in two places in synch. The interface is a little clunky, and it has no merge capability for any file types, but it does everything else super awesome. At $30, ChronoSync is a cheap alternative to the .Mac backup and synchronization. Besides keeping my iTunes library DB in synch, it's also backing up my Documents, Pictures, synching my addressbook, bookmarks, calendars, and copying notes to my iPod. ♥.
I tried a demo of the more-fancy-looking You Synchronize, but it didn't know how to deal with remote volumes. Um, ok. - LaunchBar - A launch-by-keyboard shortcut doo-dad. While I lurv the Mac GUI, I also hate the restriction of mousing every goddamn thing. This is a perfect way to get at anything (apps, documents, system prefs, etc.) quickly without having to clutter your Dock with a zillion aliases or resorting to popping open a Terminal.
- Fugu - A ssh browser (similar to WinSCP2 in Windows-land). While not as functional as RBrowser, it's price (free) is much nicer than the "pro" license ($40) you'd need to buy for RBrowser to accomplish the same basic remote ssh file browse/copy.
- MacStumbler - Wireless signal strength/network detector. Good for figuring out where your signal is weakest (and for homing in on other access points).
- XCode - Apple's developer software. Not included with my install disks, I was very confused as to why I didn't have a compiler out of the box, and where to find it in the install options. Turns out you had to go to the Apple developer site, log in (register as a developer if you hadn't), and download the 500+ MB behemoth your own damn self. Bastards.
- Other good stuff: Acquisition (spiffy P2P client), Audio Hijack (for when you'd really like an mp3 of some MediaPlayer or Real audio stream), X-Chat Aqua (my favorite IRC client with a nicely ported Aqua interface).
The team I'm in at work translocated to new cubes. My new cube is remarkably like my old cube. Parking at work has become teh sux. We are out of parking space. Someone alert the authorities. I'm looking forward to warmer weather for pedaling/riding to work.
I've really gotten into The Shins recently thanks to G. This last weekend Live 105 was playing mostly local bands, and it was the best thing that station has done probably ever.
Aren't you glad I used an ?