Mini player for ITunes that stays on top?

I use ITunes as my main music organizer on my machine and would LOVE to see a way to run in 'Mini Player' mode where the ITunes controller stayed on top of all other windows.

I accomplish this when I'm at work by putting the ITunes controller on my second monitor along with Outlook.  It doesn't stay on top over there either, but at least it's more on top than before.

But if there is a way to make the ITunes mini player always on top, or a programmable interface to ITunes that would allow me to do this, please leave me a comment.

 

Technorati Tags: ITunes

Music and musicians and geeks

Many of my 'geek friends' are also musicians.  My two older kids play instruments through their school, one playing the violin and one playing the clarinet.

My wife plays piano and I wish I had space for a piano in our house, I think that would be great.

I played piano when I was a kid, for about two or three years.  I can't play much of anything on the piano anymore, other than Dragnet. :)

But I'm considering learning an instrument.  I love acoustical bluegrass, and have toyed with the idea of buying a mandolin.  I love the sound that the mandolin makes.  From what I've read, I *should* be able to pick it up easier than some other instruments.

There is a store close to my office that sells mandolins, I'm going to see if they rent them as well and possibly rent one for a couple of months and see what happens.

Wish me luck.

Technorati Tags: Mandolin,Bluegrass

Backing up your home network

For the longest time, I've used small USB 2.0 hard drives of various sizes to back up the machines on my home network.  I have a very small home network, so it really isn't an issue at this point.

I've got two laptops and a desktop.

But I came across some software in 2007 called 'Windows Home Server' from Microsoft which purports to install on a server machine (very minimal specs except for disk space needs) and back up any machine on your network.  It also says that you can restore any machine by simply booting from a CD included with the Windows Home Server and it will restore the machine to it's previous state.

Sounds great.  I have a machine that I can use as a 'server like' machine to set up the eval version of the software. 

You can add more storage to the home server by either putting more/bigger drives in the actual server itself or attaching the drives (via USB or Firewire, given your configuration) to the server machine.

It looks like an interesting project.  You can also copy your MP3/Itunes library over and play it from any machine connected to your network (or with some finagling, you can connect to it over the internet).  I'm looking forward to installing it and trying it out.

Technorati Tags: Windows Home Server,Home Networks

This is a car I could easily get used to....

 

Called the Trev, from University of Southern Australia. 

Powered by electricity .  Seats two comfortably.  Travels about 100 khm on a charge.  It was built by the University in 2002-2004.  In 2006, they were going to get it road certified.  I don't know if they ever did or not.

But I would be interested in this car.  Like the Aptera, which I would also drive in a minute, given the opportunity.

Very cool ideas both, and for a majority of commuters who don't commute more than 30 miles round trip to work (and usually do it by themselves), this would be a blessing to the use of oil.....

I urge you to check them both out.  If anyone has more information, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: University of Southern Australia,Aptera,Trev,Electric Cars,Hybrids,UniSA

Why I use a PC and not a Macintosh

Steve Jobs had his state of the union address for Apple Computer (nee, Apple) to the Macintosh faithful at the Macintosh Users Conference (MacWorld?).

He announced an ultra thin Mac laptop, a $99 external Superdrive (can it be used from a PC?  $99 for a dual layer external DVD burner is pretty nice) and a few other things.

I've toyed over the years with switching my laptop over to a Macintosh, but the company I currently work for is a Windows company.  It's pretty much all I've known for my professional career.

But the new Mac Pros intrigued me.  8 CPU cores.  Very, very fast.  Would probably do photo processing at a very very fast rate, great for large photo shoots (softball tournaments anyone?).

So I went to the website and speced out a Mac Pro.  With two processors (3.2 ghz), 4 gig of RAM, 250 gig of disk space and two 30" monitors.  Because dual monitors, even for my lowly PC laptop increase my productivity quite  a bit.

$9,000.

Yep.  You read that right.  For $9,000, I could get a Mac Pro.  With two (albeit gorgeous) 30" Cinema monitors.  Four gig of RAM.  250 gig of disk space, with room for three more drives.

If I price out a comparable PC, even from Dell, I'm probably looking at easily only half that amount of money.

That's why I love the generic PC. 

I don't anticipate buying a desktop, as my work currently requires me to travel to an office.  But I anticipate some changes in 2008.  Possibly working from home more, possibly branching out on my own.  We'll see what the future holds.  Sadly, that future will not have a Mac Pro in it.

Technorati Tags: Apple,PC,Mac vs PC,Jobs

Sears Repair - Avoid like the plague

We had Sears Appliance Repair come out right before Christmas to fix our dryer (the belt had broken) and to look at our washing machine. 

They fixed the dryer, but weren't able to fix the washing machine.  They didn't have the parts.  They said they'd order the parts and have them shipped directly to me.  Alternatively, if I decided at a later time that I didn't wish to have the washing machine fixed, I could call, cancel the service and I wouldn't be charged for the parts.

About two hours after the repairman left, I spoke with my wife and we decided that financially it didn't make any sense to have the washing machine fixed and that we were going to just buy a new one.

I called the repair folks and canceled the order and the service.  I was also told that the charge would be reversed from my card.

Imagine my surprise today when my wife calls me at work to tell me that the UPS man dropped off the parts to fix our washing machine. Lovely.  So I checked my Sears account, and they indeed did charge me for the part.  To the tune of about $180.

So I call repair and ask them what I should do with the parts they sent me.  "Ship them back to us, at your cost and we'll refund your money.  We know, it's a pain, but that's what we need you to do."  I asked them about refunding the $180 off my card, and they said "We can't do that, we have to transfer you to the credit department.  Please hold."

They hung up on me.

So, I called the credit department directly.  They said I'd have to talk to the service department again (keep in mind I've already done this once).  I did speak to them (again) and they said that they would actually send someone out to my house to pick up the parts (score one for Sears).  They wanted me to set up a time to do that, between 1-5 pm on some day to do that.  So I'd have to take a half day off of work, or work from home that day.  Working from home is actually fabulous, I love to do that, but I don't know that my job particularly likes it when I'm not physically "there".

So I asked them if they would pick the parts up at my office.  They said that they would and scheduled an appointment to pick them up.

Next, I asked about the $180 charge.  They said that they (repair) could not reverse the charge but that they would transfer me to the credit department and they'd be happy to help me with that.

The nice lady in the credit department allowed me to contest the charge.  It will take 4-5 business days for the contested charge to be removed, but at least it will (hopefully) be removed in that time.

In the future, I'll be avoiding Sears Repair completely and totally.  I urge others to do the same.

Technorati Tags: Sears Repair,Horror