My new ipod
After battling with the idea of whether I should buy an ipod or not, I finally bit the bullet and bought a new 30GB video ipod. When Apple came out with these slightly improved babies (models), I figured that if it was good enough for all those million users then it was good enough for storing my mp3 collection.
After accidentally repartitioning the ipod, becuase it didn't seem to show the partiton using fdisk -l on Linux, and then finding out that I had just destroyed the the firmware partition, I had to go through the hassel of downloading the latest version of iTunes for my Mac mini just so I can download and install the firmware from within it.
But on a positive note, that process installated the firmware on an Apple HFSPlus filesystem, which of course was far more superior to that of Microsoft's FAT32, which was there by factory default.
Getting everything working on Linux was a snap thanks to GTKPod. All I had to do was to compile the hfsplus module for the Linux kernel and it automatically mounted as I plugged it in. While not all the features available through iTunes for the newer generation ipod, worked with GTKPod, I was neverthekless able to do the essential basics such as upload music/videos, create playlists, modify meta data and create smart play lists.
Podcasts
Another thing that kept me away from Blogging was all those great podcast shows. Now I don't want to sound like I've been living under a rock, not knowing about podcast. Actually, I've even created a video podcast with Arunan, which of course was too lame to be properly released. But the fact that I can have a bunch of these podcast on my ipod, ready for listening on my way to work and back was just ideal and highly addictive. Instead of listening to lame DJs go on and on like a theme from Titanic, I now get to listen to geeks go on and on :) So I now get most of my geek news from podcasts.
Console mania
Tracking the launch of the Sony PS3 and the Nintendo Wii was another one of those things that took away some of my blogging time in trade of doing research into these awsome nextgen consoles. I admit, I'm a fanboy of both these consoles (ok even M$'s Xbox 360 is pretty awsome). It was very exciting watching a video on utube showing an 8 penguins lineup (as a result of the 8 core processor) as Fedora Core Linux PPC version booted on a PS3.
The Wii with its motion detector and the ability to emulate the classic NES/SNES and perhaps with an optimistic possibility of even running Linux (Wii is also based on PPC) did keep me awake at night. So I do somewhat sympathize with all those losers that stood in 2 week ques to bye it :)
CBN Sat
We were all doing fine, and I've even forgot all bout that gadget, until that is, they started shouting about how the courts had allowed them to broadcast immediately. Well, its been a couple of days but nothing much except for a few minutes of the green light. The channels are not yet back on online. And so we wait, reading the CBNSat blog, reading the humorous comments by people who are formulating crazy plans to get even with their enemies.
So there you have it folks. The top 5 reasons why I was away from my blog (the 1st being work of course).