This is my first entry from my new machine, which is a Mac Mini. I already wrote about the big switch over on LiveJournal, so read there for the political puling. I’m mostly concerned with getting everything over to the new machine and working. I think web updates are fine, I’m reading mail here, and I’ve got the music collection into iTunes, so that’s good. I still have a lot of adjusting to my workflow, but it’s working well so far. For example, instead of having a bunch of directories with photos flung into them and some half-ass scripts generating galleries, I’m moving everything over to iPhoto. That will make things prettier and easier to deal with, but it’s still a lot of work.

I think the next project might be a print book of the glossary. I am reading this book on the history of Apple computer, and it’s similar in a folklore sense, plus it’s that 8-inch square format that lulu just added to their roster, and I’d really like to do a book like that. I know absolutely nobody will buy a copy, but I mostly want one for myself. So I’ve been picking at the entries a bit. Some will go away - Ray is still convinced I wrote the entire project just to spite him, and so I will have to trim a few things. I also have a lot of ideas for new entries, and those are percolating. I now generally dislike the ones about people and like the ones more about concepts, or old stores or restaurants or whatever that have vanished. Lots of work ahead, I guess. Take a look at the site - I am making edits and syncing them to the head, so to speak, so they are all viewable. I’m also nervous I horridly fucked some pages when I moved the computer, so if you see anything weird, let me know.

OK, back to playing with iPhoto…

I think most of the computer upgrade disaster is over. I now have a new monitor, a new video card, and a new Linux installation. It took me about six hours to get everything installed with Linux and Windows 2000, most of that being Linux. I had to back up 9 gigs of personal info and work onto CD-R, then install RH8 three times, then I was stuck for an hour because networking didn’t work, and it turns out it was because I entered the wrong thing for the fucking gateway. Now, all is mostly well, except I have to undo all of the stupid Red Hat bells and whistles and get back to an actual functional operating environment. And as I say this, emacs looks deranged with all of these stupid banners and widgets and extra bullshit they have affixed to every side of my text window. They should put Richard Stallman on a hidden government installation hidden in the middle of the Nevada desert somewhere and do the world a load of good.

So now I have this monstrous screen - 21.1” actual viewable size, with a resolution of 1600x1200. It’s big enough that I can have a browser window opened to the maximum size and still have a fuckload of space. Text is very tiny, but I am too greedy to set it to a larger size. We’ll see how it works when I get some real writing underway.

Anyway, the monitor is cool. Also, the router fuckup let me figure out what was wrong with the Navy Seals game, and I got to play that online for a bit tonight. I totally got my ass kicked, but it’s pretty fun. And my iPod is on the way - it should be here tomorrow. It was back-ordered, so I slapped down another $200 to upgrade to the 20 Gig version, and it is in stock. So I’ll be all set there.

Very tired, and feeling a bit sick. Computer upgrades always stress me out, but at least it’s a short week next week…