- Nya numret av TechWorld, med en ny krönika av mig (PDF) finns nu tillgängligt.
- Jag har skaffat en Thinkpad X61T. Snabb recension: Tablet PCs är supercoolt, handstilsigenkänning funkar verkligen (inte på svenska än, dock), 1400×1050 på 12″ är galet högupplöst, Lenovo gör solid hårdvara MEN Vista är rent osannolikt långsamt.
- Jag lyckades äntligen löpa på under 5:00 min/km under ett långdistanspass för ett tag sedan. Ett av mina mål för nästa säsong är att springa milen på 40 minuter, dvs 4:00-fart. Ambitiöst men inte omöjligt.
- Kvällens begivenhet: Ironman (det riktiga racet) sänds live på nätet – jättepepp!
Test av mobloggingen
Titta så fint mitt nya vevparti är!
Ofrivillig lågintensitetsträning
För några veckor sedan var jag på en intensitetsmässig formtopp vad gäller löpningen. 70 kilometer under en sjudagarsperiod – mer träningsvolym än jag någonsin mäktat med tidigare, och allt kändes jättebra.
Tills kroppen sa ifrån. En muskelinflammation i höger lår framtvingade en omarbetning av träningsprogrammet. I väntan på att den skulle gå ner gick jag över till att cykla långpass på Ekerö, och allt kändes jättebra.
Tills cykeln sa ifrån. Jag har nämligen aldrig bytt varken kedja, drivkransar eller kassett under de 500 mil som jag haft cykeln, och det är tydligen dåligt. Genom slitage har tänderna på dreven allt mer börjat anta formen av hajfenor, vilket gör att kedjan börjar hoppa så fort man trycker till litegrann.
Så medans jag väntar på att reservdelarna jag beställt ska anlända, och att det sista av inflammationen ska ge med sig, kan jag bara lunk-jogga korta sträckor, cykla utan att ta i, eller simma. Nåja. Lågintensitetsträning ska ju vara bra som omväxling.
OP-CENTER
Mac, Windows, Linux. Allt styrt från samma tangentbord. Damn it feels good to be a geek.
Längst till vänster är en Mac-desktop, körd av en mac mini dit tangentbord och mus är kopplade. I mitten kör min desktop-PC. För att kunna kontrollera den med samma mus/tangentbord använder jag Synergy – bara att föra muspekaren till kanten av mac-skärmen så dyker den upp på pc-skärmen. Eftersom min desktop har mer minne och processorkraft än ens XP kan konsumera, och dessutom ett dual head-grafikkort kör den även VMware Player laddad med en Fedora core 5-image. Det mesta funkar smutt förutom tangentbordet i Fedora (som envisas att tro att jag har ett amerikanskt tangentbord). Nu ska det crossplatformutvecklas!
Hardware sucks, part 2
A month ago the hard disk in my home desktop computer crashed. Yesterday, the hard disk in my laptop crashed. I’ve been using computers with hard disks for at least 15 years, and before last month, I had never had a actual, physical hard disk crash on any of my personal machines (I’ve had drives wiped out for various other reasons, but the actual drives were always usable). Is this the start of a bad trend? Having hard disk prices below 1$/GB isn’t all that great if the disks have the life expectancy of a Microdrive.
Well, all the important stuff is backed up elsewhere, and I only lost some blog subscriptions added in the last few weeks. Still, I should try to start using Unison again (I stopped using it when I retired my Linux machine, which acted as server storage area) — it’s a great way to keep all one’s important files (in my case, almost everything under %USERPROFILE%) in sync between machines. Use it to sync your work and home computer, and you have automatic offsite backup.
Stuff to add to your wishlist
Here’s the real reason why I wanted the blog up and running: So I could tell you all about the PlusDeck.
The PlusDeck 2 is a full-logic cassette deck for your PC. Use it to archive your old cassette tapes of 80s hair bands into digital media files for playback on your PC. Or better yet, archive your favorite audio files or streams onto cassette – perfect for playback in your ’78 Midget that is still not sporting an in-dash CD player.
Hard disks suck
So, my spiffy SATA hard disk crashed. I had most important stuff backed up, but sadly not the blog postings. I do have all the content in the form of a sharpreader cache file, so the stuff will come back, but it seems that all images and, more importantly, all comments, are lost. Sorry about that. New backup routines are established…
Now I have to write a little program to parse the cache file (which seem to be straight RSS) and convert it into the XML files that dasblog expect. I could go with VBScript and MSXML, which I’m familiar with, and get it done in 30 minutes, or I could go with C# and the .net framework XML classes, which I’m not so familiar with, and get it done tonight, or I could install python, sit down with the newly released Dive into python 5.0 edition, and be stuck for the rest of the week. Decisions, decisions…
By the way, the templates that come with dasblog look nice, but they don’t work so good in Mozilla. More proof that Clemens Vasters hates open source 🙂
Laptops rule
A few months ago, I built myself a new desktop PC (”monolith”) to use at home. I made
it ridicously overpowered, and even got a nice 17″ TFT screen to go with it, thinking
that if I had a home development environment that was better than my work environment,
I would be much more motivated to do more hobby development at home, something that
I really used to like to do. But it didn’t work out that way. While I use the
computer a lot, it’s mostly for surfing, writing/blogging, media playing and
home recording. When sitting down at the desk at home, I just can’t seem to get into
the zone required for development. I thought I was just stuck in a temporary rut and
that I’d start coding again soon enough.
Well, today I brought home my work laptop, sat down in the sofa, fired up Visual Studio,
and was instantly transfered to the coding zone. What more, it was really fun again.
Thinking back, the last time I did any serious coding home was before I got the home
computer, when I used to drag down my laptop every day. While I can be very productive
sitting at a desk at work, it seems that I need to be sitting in a sofa to be productive
at home. I just wish I had something beefier than this T21 Thinkpad. Maybe if I install
XP on the desktop PC and use terminal services to access it from the laptop…
My friend Rasmus started blogging again,
and set up a system called SnipSnap,
a wiki/blog hybrid written in Java. It looks really nice, and maybe it was part of
the inspiration for me to sit down and work on my own wiki/blog/bliki thingy (mentioned before).
New IDG column on its way
I’ve just finished this weeks column for IDG.se. This week, the news of Intels new
line of P4’s tied nicely into a rant about how we really do need ever faster computers,
even though not all of us may have a use for the cycles right away. It should be sent
out in tomorrows newsletter. Why not subscribe?
The one I write for is called ”IDG.se Teknik & Tester”, and is in Swedish.
The column should also be up on the web some time later this week.
Update: Here
it is
This one goes to 11^H^H8!
- 8-string
electric guitar, tuned F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb and Eb (low to high) or to customer’s
specs.- 3-piece hard rock maple, graphite reinforced through-body neck, with an ebony 24-fret
fingerboard.- Alder body with a maple top.
- Extended scale length for a clear and defined low end with superb overtones.
- Features an ABM bridge with fine-tuners, and a locking nut.
- One custom-wound Lundgren humbucking pickup.
This is the guitar used by Mårten Hagström and Fredrik Thordendahl of Meshuggah.
Even without the celebrity endorsement, I still would have lusted after this one.
Wonder how hard it is to learn to play? Then again, I probably should be a little
more proficient with the 6-string version first.
Update: Meshuggah has been scheduled to
play this year’s Roskilde Festival.
One more reason to go!