Warming up!

It was snowing only a couple of weeks ago and this morning I rode to work in shorts and t-shirt. Beautiful weather and looks set to stay this way all weekend. 19 degrees yesterday!

If this keeps up I'll have to get a BBQ on...

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Trackball suggestions?

Trackman Marble FX

I've had one of these Logitech Trackman Marble FX trackballs for about eight years. Best pointing device I've ever owned ergonomically. The beauty of the design is that you don't twist your wrist. It's also one of the early opticals, so the only time you need to clean the rollers is when they physicially stop the ball from moving. The ball is nice and big, which gives you good control.

Sadly this one is now dying. The ball sensors are fine, but the right-click button is having trouble recording clicks and that's getting annoying.

So any suggestions for a trackball as good as this? As often happens with capitalism, this is a great product so it's been discontinued.

Ipaq music streaming

A couple of years ago I bought an Ipaq 3100 with a dud battery for £15 on eBay. My plan was to get it to do wireless music streaming so I could play music in another room without running cables from my computer.

Last night I finally got it working. I'm using esd and can play things from the computer, but I can't get esd with a remote server to work with mpd, my music player of choice. Will keep hacking on that.

Eventually I'd like to get it to work with a remote control, since it has serial on it. To test that out, I'll need a 9-pin null modem adapter. Anyone got one I can borrow?

When I get right into it, I might even end up with a user interface so I can see what track is playing. That would be cool.

Doh moment

Guess who managed to wash his mobile phone with a pair of trousers over the weekend? Doh! Amazingly, the thing still works. I let it dry out overnight, then tried switching it on and it's fine. Screen looks a bit odd, but otherwise works fine. Clean too.

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A real dump of snow

Stonebridge Park
in the snow

Finally a decent dumping of snow. Even Stonebridge Park looks nice in the snow. The picture shows the view from work, with Wembley Stadium in the background.

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My Windows ate itself

Looks like my work Windows XP machine ate itself on Friday. Completely destroyed itself. Impressive considering I hadn't installed any new software (except last week's Windows updates?). Doesn't seem to be a hardware problem so far. Ubuntu live CD works fine, and a memtest hasn't shown any problems. Quality software, this Windows.

Snow Crash, again

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

I'm out of books (read all the ones I bought off Amazon with my xmas gift voucher) and am back to reading the excellent Snow Crash yet again. Loving it, but I'd like to discover something written this decade that is as ground breaking and exciting.

Suggestions?