Archive for September, 2008

MacVim Team Drops Snapshot 34

Monday, September 8th, 2008

MacVim.jpg

This morning I got a notice on the MacVim Google Groups that they cut Snapshot 34 and so I had to go get it and kick the tires. It's great that MacVim is available - and the updates they make to it are really amazing. Now there's a plug-in interface to be able to write add-ons without digging into the core code. Incredible. Not Vim macros... compiled plug-ins. Cool.

This is something that I love having and use it all the time.

Adium 1.3.1 is Out!

Monday, September 8th, 2008

Adium.jpg

This morning I checked for an update to Adium and found that 1.3.1 was out! Excellent! I got the update right away and as I read the release notes, there were a ton of fixes to the app. It's wonderful to see progress on something like Adium as I use it every single day and would be lost without it.

I know they are planning on putting in video conferencing as well, but I'm not connected to enough fat pipes during most of my day to take advantage of that. But I do love IM.

Shutting Off Old Machines

Friday, September 5th, 2008
office-at-door

My office is filled with great, old machines. A nice SPARC20, an SGI Indigo2, a NeXTSTation, a Canon ObjectStation - lots of cool old hardware. But to be honest, it's not anything like my laptop or iMac for speed. I hardly ever use them. They are using power and heating up my office, and it was time to realize that they were my friends, and I'll try to hang on to them, but they are past time to retire.

I turned off five of them. I left on my two iMacs and a computer that's nothing but a print server, and as soon as I get new desks for the office, I'll put the printer on the G3 iMac and turn that guy off too. I'll go from nine to three. Big difference.

The heat will go away... it's already tons quieter, and I really haven't lost anything. I've got a lot more space in my office, and the new tables (from IKEA) will make it possible to put in a nice little loveseat that will be nice to sit in when I'm working on my laptop. Face it... that's what I do for 90%+ of the time I'm on a computer in the day.

If I get a new Mac Pro, I'll have room to put it in the new space, but at over $6,000 for the kind of configuration I'd want, I think it's a lot more likely that I'll just be upgrading the laptop when the new ones come out and leaving it at that.

It's a big change for me, and I'm a little sad about the silence. But at the same time, I'm excited about the possibilities.

I Hate Having Back Problems

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Ambulance.jpg

Today I threw out my back. I've had a lower-back herniated disc for many years. It takes something - or nothing, to aggravate it into making it so that I can't stand up straight and walk like a hunchback. I don't like it one bit.

[9/3] UPDATE: I went to the doctor today and got the steroid pack to reduce the disc swelling. It's going to work, but it's going to take time. I really don't like this. But it's part of the recovery process.