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Reduction in frustration
For work, we use a Cisco VPN. Unfortunately the Cisco VPN client for the Mac is a piece of crap. The software looks awful and isn't completely integrated into the OS. It gets quite confused if you switch networks without disconnecting; instead of it repairing the mess it made, it almost always requires a few restarts to get things going again. The problem is that it replaces /var/run/resolv.conf (/etc/resolv.conf is symlinked to it) with DNS for the VPN. So, if you disconnect properly, your original DNS settings are put back; if you don't disconnect properly, then DNS gets wacky.
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Mac Mini vs 1080p
Yesterday when I was playing back an HD show on the EyeTV, I heard the fan running like mad. The Mac Mini is a 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mac Mini. I thought that the problem was the processor being a Core Duo and not a Core 2 Duo machine, but then realized that the machine has integrated Intel graphics while the latest Mac Minis have separate NVIDIA graphics. My suspicion is that the new machines won't have to work so hard to play HD video full screen.
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Shattered (Media Center) Dreams
Now that I've made the leap to HDTV, I had to find a way to record HD shows. I thought that I'd turn a Mac Mini into a media center with El Gato's EyeTV. I bought the EyeTV 250 Plus, hooked it up and was immediately disappointed. I'm used to TiVo and the user interface is second to none for using and scheduling. While my wife isn't technology adverse, sometimes she's a bit slow in adopting the technology I throw at her. It took awhile for her to accept the TiVo, now we don't know what we'd do without it.
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Going green
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the company that handles my flexible spending only accepting faxes for reimbursement requests. Well, I sent them email through their contact form and got a reply back saying that they do accept submissions electronically. OK, it definitely wasn't obvious to me how to do it.