The iPod Bandwagon

I jumped on the iPod bandwagon last weekend. I got myself a 60Gig iPod color. I must say, this is definitely the cadillac of portable players. I've now got my entire CD collection (about 30 CDs; a mere fraction of what I once had) ripped to the player. It's neat listening to all of my music in shuffle mode. I didn't realize that I had such a nice collection of music. When you're listening to it one CD at a time, its easy to get tired of the music and just let it sit on a shelf.

This iPod also stores pictures and addressbook contacts. I can also sync up my calendar to it. Even more impressive, it has a few relatively amusing games on it, ostensibly to pass the time while waiting at the doctor's office. The next accessory I want to get is the FM radio attachment so I can listen to my iPod in the car just by tuning to an unused radio channel.

At one time I used to buy a lot of music, but I've been turned off lately at how much time the RIAA spends litigating against single moms and elderly pensioners. Instead of taking the time to realize that there's an opportunity here, the RIAA insists on clinging to the old ways and litigating with their customers. Not a terribly wise way of running a business IMHO.

What's more interesting to me, than commercial music, is the various independent music you can find out there. I like the fact that I can pay my money directly to them, rather than through a bunch of lawyers. I also like listening to the various podcasts out there. I don't really have a favorite yet, but I tend to enjoy the NPR Science Friday podcasts. I also just finished listening to the first book in podcast form, called Earth Core. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to anyone.

I'm off to the Tom Petty concert tonight at the Columbia River Gorge Ampitheater. I'll try to get some pictures. The views are some of the best I've ever experienced in Washington and I hear that Tom Petty puts on a great show. Should be a fun evening.

Cats are expensive!

Damn cats are expensive. I picked up a stray cat a few months ago and have only recently gotten nearly everything straightened out with him. He had ear mites, fleas, worms, deformed leg, upper respiratory infection and some goofy form of respiratory herpes that only cats can get. On top of that he took forever to learn how to use a litter box, has the nastiest crap I have ever smelled, and has a bad habit of getting "almond roca" stuck to his hind legs, which he then tracks all over my apartment. At this point, and he still needs to be neutered in a month, the bill for this cat is up near $700.

After all of that though, I love this little guy to death. He runs in and greets me as I get out of the shower every morning, and is *EXTREMELY* playful. He's also got this goofy way of sleeping on his back with his mouth open, that almost makes him look dead.

Ethernet Bonding

Working on bonding my wireless ethernet interface to my cat5 ethernet interface on my laptop tonight. This way my laptop will dynamically choose whichever interface is up. If both are up, it should choose the faster interface. Not sure this is going to work though since it appears that the Orinoco driver doesn't support mii monitoring. I'm going to have a look-see into the code, since, in the past, I have noted that our 2.4Ghz cordless phone caused the wireless ethernet interface to disconnect and register in syslog, whenever the base station polls the cordless phones.

Spent most of the day today building a failover cluster with RHEL 3.0. Dual P3 1.4Ghz 1U servers with a snappy little external disk enclosure. Got most of the work done except for the UPS configuration. The majority of the work is going to be testing various failover scenarios.

Seattle Times

Bill and I were photographed today by Seattle Times photographer Steve Ringman. QLL is going to be featured on the front cover of the business section in the Monday Seattle Times.