Two Slashes

If last week was the ‘Week of Problems’, this week is the ‘Week of New Things.’  And it has good reason to earn such a name, given all of the things going on this week:

(Technically, it’s last Friday, but I think it counts since I’m still having to deal with it…)  I’ve got a new hard drive in my dedicated server (see previous post) after the previous one failed suddenly, and everything seems to be working out so far.  Everything except TechCentric has found its way back up already, and I’m working to get the show back as soon as I can.  (And of course, the obvious side effect is that everything is reinstalled from scratch once again.)

Also, earlier this week, as the result of my newfound photographic habits and my recent camera purchase, I ran out of space on my Picasa account. (As a quick aside, why can we have 6GB+ for e-mail, and just a single gigabyte of photo storage?)  After looking into a couple of different solutions, I ultimately decided that sticking with Picasa was my best choice, and sank $20 into some additional space.  Hopefully I should be set for a while (and hopefully by the time I need to get more, they lower their prices a bit… ).

If you haven’t been keeping track, Canonical has released the latest version of Ubuntu, 8.04 LTS “Hardy Heron”.  This is their next long-term support release, which means that Hardy will get updates for three years on typical desktop installations, and five years for server installations.  This is also the first time I’ve been able to successfully use the automated upgrader without major issues (and a corresponding reinstallation from CD).  Of course, there are a few quirks I’m tending to, but it’s running happily for me on my crapified laptop.

It took a while to arrive, but today also marks the day my Pinnacle PCTV Remote Kit for Vista arrived from Woot.  It performs remarkably better than I anticipated, especially when you consider the one quirk that Pinnacle never did - using it on Windows XP.  Thanks to Paul Alger of Ironclad.net, you too can use it on Windows XP with the implementation of a hacked-up driver.  For those of you freaking out, the install is painless, and the remote is detected as a USB HID device.  The only issue I have is that not all the buttons work (and I’m currently looking for something that can pick them up so that I can remap them).  But nevertheless, it kills the basics of distant (I’d say remote, but that would be clichéd) media control.

Perhaps the most exciting (for me, anyway) of this week so far is my finally giving in and signing up with Twitter.  For those not in the know, Twitter is a service that enables you to share what you’re doing (though the people I’ve seen also tend to post random thoughts or occurances, which is also fun) via the web, SMS, or IM to make sure you’ve got a way to keep your “followers” updated.  It also appears that Twitter’s managed to grow themselves a cult, as there are several third-party applications and resources to make your Twitter experience all the more flexible.

I’ve only been using it a few days, but I’m rather enjoying it.  If you’ve got an account, feel free to follow me (see the sidebar on the homepage).

I hate to be all about me, me, me…but I guess I’ll let it go this once.