Back on a fast machine

Finally dragged my recording box (node name Harmony, currently a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron with 1GB of RAM) into the office, added a gigabit ethernet card, a Radeon graphics card (surplussed from work) and a 160GB disk, and upgraded the OS to Debian Etch. Took about two mornings and an evening's worth of work altogether, much of it spent trouble-shooting a sound problem that turned out to be caused by my userID not being in the audio group. Noted.

The current version of X is pretty cool -- no questions; it recognizes your graphics card and monitor and just runs. Works great unless you're on a KVM switch, in which case if you're not looking at it when it boots, it can't see your monitor and drops back to 640x480. Minor, and I can fix it if I want to. If I'm going to be dragging it back and forth between the office and the "studio", I probably won't want to.

Anyway, I'm now back to a machine in the office that's fast enough to mix and edit audio on, and without spending any money on it. This is good.

Evil. Pure evil. But cute.

Boing Boing: Plush Necronomicon

ToyVault's plush Necronomicon pillow is the world's awesomest child's toy based on the twisted mythos of a crypto-eugenicist lunatic. It opens up to reveal plush pages embossed with felt Necronomicon excerpts that will drive you mad with cuteness.

Just the thing for the child with demons under their bed...
( don't look! It'll destroy your mind! )