Pixelhum

Well, I’m sitting here with my shiny new PowerBook on my lap, typing this entry. So far the experience has been good. The machine itself is a great example of minimalist design, and consequently it’s sleek and very functional.

I’ve been tempted for a long time to “switch”, and the reasons just become more and more compelling. The majority of blogs I read are written by Mac users, OS X just keeps getting better, and the line ‘It just works’ seems to be more applicable to Mac than Windows these days, which was brought home to me a little with my recent experiences with Bluetooth (expect a post about this). There’s some exciting stuff happening and it seems to be Mac oriented right now.

So, like Jonathan, I may well be buying one soon. Not a beast like the Dual G5 Powermac, but a nice portable 12” Powerbook.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 has a habit of rebooting the computer if Windows Update is scheduled to install updates automatically. This can result in lost data if you have unsaved work on your screen at the time.

Tim Rain has written a good article explaining why this all happens, how Windows determines whether to restart, and how to prevent AU from automatically rebooting.

Obviously, if Windows Update needs to reboot the computer then it should be rebooted as soon as possible, but this at least allows some control and prevents data loss.

I’ve been looking around for a suitable way to control MPD from either my desktop PC or my PDA (with wireless adapter). I couldn’t find anything that really suited me; they were either too bloated with features, or too simplistic. So… like a good little hacker, I started writing my own.

Update: First release is available.

Update 2: NeoMPC now has it’s own page.

Well, the parts for my media box project arrived last week so I spent the weekend putting it together and configuring Ubuntu Linux to perform media box type duties. The Software side is far from complete, but the machine build went smoothly and is documented here.