September 2005
Monday 26 September 2005
- Build system downtime: 9/26 - 9/29 - Some of our Tinderbox build systems will have downtime over the next 2-3 days as we move them from our old office to our new space. Mostly this will affect SeaMonkey-Ports and a few branch/trunk systems. The main Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey build systems will not be disrupted.... (11:55)
Wednesday 21 September 2005
Sunday 11 September 2005
- Nano Nano - I've owned a Rio Karma since November of 2002. It's worked well enough for me everyday since then. It's been with me through SuperComputing (2002, 2003), through NEES (2002-2004), Globus (2002-present... hi WFG). Champaign, Urbana, Mount Vernon, New Orleans, New York, San Diego, Phoenix, and my move from the Midwest to the Bay Area. But lately I've been despondent. You see, Rio's just gone out of business. It's sold all of its DAP assets to other companies and exited the field. For the past two years UKRE (UK Rio Engineers) have held out hope that the next-gen Karma will be just around the bend. Codenamed 'Chroma', it was supposed to do everything the Karma did but with a flash memory slot, a color screen, a bigger hard drive, and better media format support. And I've held up my end of the bargain. I was a loyal Karma owner. I dutifully reset it whenever the player hung. I defended it in forum posts and even tried to assist in debugging it. I waited for the Chroma. And I waited. And I waited. And it never came. Meanwhile, I got back into NPR, PRI, and KQED. Then I found out these stations offered podcasts of their shows. I found out that not only did iTunes handle podcasts but that iTunes handled podcasts beautifully. I didn't have to think about it. Then, on an innocent-looking day, Apple released the iPod nano. The iPod is okay. It does playback of MP3s with iTunes integration. But it doesn't support gapless MP3 playback. It doesn't have a built-in radio tuner. On the other hand, it's where the biggest mover in this field is at. It's what everyone has bought into. So I did, too. I named my new iPod nano nanite. It's got a day or two worth of public radio podcasts stored on it already. It has photos of my family, friends, and trips. And I like it. Actually, I don't just like it -- I RIP Rio. It's nano nano for me from here on out.... (22:16 | 4 Comments)
Thursday 1 September 2005