Back in the misty prehistory of time I mentioned SFNovelists - the web site for a group of Science Fiction and Fantasy authors that I happen to be a member of. The web page has languished a bit over the last year, but Tobias Buckell has recently been jamming like a fiend on pulling together a great new site and it relaunched today. Instead of the simple blog-joining that the old site had now we've got daily blog posts created for the site by a rotating list of posters, the combined RSS feed, free samples from books and short stories, and all sorts of goodness. Stop by and check it out! I don't think I'll be posting stuff there right away, mainly because my professional promotion is lagging behind my actual writing these days (my current writing plan is in the dictionary - it falls somewhere between "dubious" and "dysfunctional") but it's a great site. I've been trying to kick in some help on behind-the-scenes techno-nerdery, so that's my contribution for the short term. Long term, we'll see.

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Tags: SFNovelists, writing

In a comment on the last post Tony suggested that I should go with a large god name for the Mac Mini. I though that was a good one, but as I kicked it around I decided that what I really wanted an elephant. It's a file server, so the elephant appealed to me. So I've named the machine Horton after Horton Hears A Who. An elephant never forgets, don't you know? I grabbed a nice Horton image from the web and embarked on some basic setup. I got Quicksilver, installed, along with Firefox and Flock. I'm posting this from Horton - an inaugural post as it were. At the moment it's busily copying a metric ton of data from my linux box. I'll get all the files moved over, then worry about moving the software services. I might get to mail tomorrow, but I doubt it. Web probably won't happen until mid-week. Among other things in order to move the web stuff I'll need to get Ruby and MySQL running on Horton. I'm still debating about trying to upgrade to MovableType 4 as part of the move, I might go ahead and just install MT4 on Horton and then see about moving the content across.

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Tags: OSX, MacMini

A few posts back I mentioned that I was buying a Mac Mini to replace my often-maligned Fedora linux box. I also had a brief blurb about Apple overcharging for RAM and pimped Other World Computing as a good source of Mac RAM. I stand by that but I have to say that upgrading a Mac Mini isn't for the faint of heart. I thought it would be like the Powerbooks where it's either underneath the battery (as in my 17" Powerbook) or under a special "RAM goes here" hatch (like the 12" Powerbooks). It's not - the Mac Mini has "no user serviceable parts" as the manual tells you. Other World has a video about it, but to get at the RAM starts with using a putty knife (!) to open the case itself and then a lot of fiddly screw-removal and connector-disconnecting. I dug it open before the replacement RAM arrived, but it took about forty minutes to put it all back together when I got to it. But it did work - the Mini (which doesn't have a name yet - Mini-Me is too obvious and I've gone and used TinyGod as the machine name for my big Mac Pro) is now running happily with it's expanded RAM. At the moment it's downloading software updates, but I'm not in the mood to start wrangling software onto it tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll spend some time with it. It's so green right now - it doesn't even have QuickSilver!

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Tags: OSX, upgrade, MacMini, RAM

Karin and I try to sit down and have a "movie night" on Fridays where we watch a DVD, usually from Netflix. We often make popcorn, but we don't use a silly popper or microwave popcorn or any such. No, we just make it in a quasi-old-fashioned way using the recipe from Good Eats. I haven't tried any fancy "gourmet" popcorn yet, we usually just use Orville Redenbacher's (because that's what the grocery store carries). The other day I was putting the plastic jar of popcorn away when I noticed there are instructions on the back of the label. They basically use a pot and a lid, which isn't as convenient as Alton Brown's metal bowl and vented foil technique but whatever. What bothered me was this part: The bold and italics are in the original. But why would you go to all the trouble of making real popcorn and then involve "Buttery Flavor Oil"? Blecchhh!

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Tags: popcorn, food, GoodEats, yuck