1,3,7-trimethylxanthine

It is a new year, or so they say, we are however still existing on the same timeline as we always did, and the only reason that we start a new year when we do is because some guy, about 2764 "Years" ago said it should be. I have not been very productive during December regarding anything I was wanting to do last year, but I have managed to keep very busy with multiple random things. I managed to finish a book I was reading: Spud Learns to Fly . I have started reading Scar Tissue . Work official starts again tomorrow, and I am looking forward to it, and will try get back into a regular routine, including getting all computers set up the way I need/want them to be. I have felt extremely "offline" over the last few months, and would like to correct that as soon as possible.

In a post last week I mentioned that my ppp0 connection would keep dropping whenever IP_Forwarding was enabled. Over the weekend I was trying again to get it sorted out.  I was using a Windows computer to test with, and I got it working perfectly.  I thought everything was cool, until I connected my MacBook again, and the connection started dropping, like it did before.  I really don't know what a Mac would be doing differently, but it just doesn't work (WiFi and Ethernet do the same thing). The plan was to put a different OS on the MacBook anyway, so I decided to do that, and then see if it worked. I did not manage to do this ether.  The optical drive in the MacBook is giving trouble.  It wont accept any disk.  It will sometimes the MacBook Installation Disk, but it wont work with any other disk I tried. I had burned the Arch Linux installation disk from the Windows computer, so I wanted to try burn the disk from the MacBook, but it would...

I have been wanting to write a post for a while, where I go through each app I have on my iPod Touch, and then find an equivalent for my Android Cell Phone.  I have not had time to do this yet, but it is on it's way. I have mostly been busy with moving. I am busy moving in with friends at the moment, maybe there will be more on that sometime, who knows. Another mini project I am looking at is putting Linux onto my MacBook to start playing with that again.  I installed Debian on my MacMini a week or two ago as well.  It is running, and I can get it online, but as soon as I enable IP_Forwarding the ppp0 connection goes up and down.  There are a few things I want to try, to see if I can sort this out.  I have been using iptables for forwarding, but I can also try other things (I really know nothing about NAT and Masquerading, etc).  It looks like something called iproute2 might be an option.  I can also try changing the MTU of the ppp0...

The biggest thing I have been missing from my iPod since moving to an Android phone is the ability to listen to podcasts at double speed. For podcasts I am using an application called Listen , from Google Labs, but it does not have a speed option, the way iPod does. I found a website this morning called PodShifter .  What this lets you do is paste the RSS feed of the podcasts you want into a textbox, and choose a speed (from 0.6x to 3.0x).  It gives you another feed, which can then be added to Google Reader 's Listen Subscription folder, and now I have all my podcasts at double speed.

So, I used iPhoto this morning. I wanted to upload two photo albums to Facebook. I first tried from Picasa, I downloaded a plugin that was supposed to do it, but it did not work. I used iPhoto and it was just click-click-done. The next album I wanted to try Picasa again.  The only way I could get it to work was to export the album, and then use Facebook web interface to upload it. iPhoto does include buttons to go straight to Facebook, and straight to Flickr, so it does have advantages, but I am sure better integration will come soon.

I am trying to let go of Apple. I don't mean completely, my main home computer is a MacBook, and I don't want to, not do I need to get a new computer for home. The main problem is with the two applications I use most on the Mac are just starting to annoy me. The first is iPhoto.  I don't use it every day, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  I think Google Picasa is just as good, and some things that I might even prefer about it (firstly it is cross platform).  iPhoto hasn't been updated since early 2009, and if a new version of iLife came out if would have to have some super features I can't even think of to make me want to upgrade, and it probably wouldn't be long for Google to catch up anyway. The next application is iTunes. It has actually always been a program I have liked, but it really does seem to just be getting slower every time it is updated. I have also realized that iTunes is music prison.  Once you are in, it is very difficult to get o...

I want to start enjoying coffee more, so I will go step by step. I have been using a french press for quite some time now, and I have now also added a  moka pot . I am enjoying the coffee from that, and it should keep me going until I can afford a decent espresso machine and a proper grinder (I am using a cheap blade grinder at the moment). I am also thinking of getting one of those water jugs with the built in filter, if I want to buy a decent espresso machine, I don't want unfiltered tap water going straight into it.  (does anyone have a comment on that). Anyway... Keep enjoying coffee.