I’ve upgraded my Mac Mini (3,1) to 8GB of RAM. It was getting pretty slow – mostly thanks to Firefox using 600MB or so of RAM, and it only had 1GB. But lots of other applications would make it swap, for example, iTunes would take quite a while just to quit, having to swap in before saying “goodbye”. I also bought OSX Lion, which I’m pretty happy with so far. It’s interesting that the UI changes for support of multi-touch, such as full-screen modes also make it better for people like me who like to avoid grabbing the mouse and use keyboard shortcuts for using the desktop.
It looks to be using roughly 3GB to run with my typical things going on, so it never swaps now, and seems much faster, and certainly more responsive to input, application switching, etc. The 8GB memory cost me $52, and took about 15 min to put in. Cracking the case open was pretty tricky, requiring patience and care, but easy enough after watching videos of the process.

My Android phone (HTC Incredible from Verizon) updated itself to 2.3.4. This seems to a fixed things generally, and it seems a lot smoother, though I’ve yet to see any big changes. I’m getting a 16GB microSD card for it so I can fit all my music on it. I’ve switched to WinAMP as a music player, and it seems really nice. No iTunes-on-Mac sync though, so I’ll still be using the iSync stuff, which is barely functional. I’d love to have the time to put a front-end on rsync to get the job done, but I’m not sure if that would cover iTunes’ Smart playlists.

The capacitors arrived, and I soldered them in then reassembled the TV. When I powered it up and it came right on, no clicks or multiple attempts. After a shot celebration I noticed the picture looked pretty crappy. So I took it apart again and reseated a few signal connectors. On reassembly it powered up and looked back to normal.

I used “High Temp” 16V capacitors as replacements, and they’re bigger but fit just fine.

Well, I’ve confirmed my TV has the dreaded bad capacitor problem. Actually, I’m relieved, as this should be a cheap fix. We’ll see. It looks like there’s 5 1000uf 10V caps that are gone.

The bad news is that the new connection while better (25 Mb/sec down and up, as compared to 20/5 previously), is more expensive: $70/mo. As I recal, I started out at $40. Verizon no longer offers 20/5. It’s either $55 for 15/5 or $70 for 25/25. The pricing/feature war with Comcast is apparently over. The other thing is that I got an e-mail notifying me of a 1 year contract that was not mentioned by the helpful sales rep, and that I never signed or verbally agreed to. It’s got early termination fees and everything. Wouldn’t it be great if Verizon retained customers on the strength of their service instead of imaginary contract lock-in?

I tried moving some of the the computing stuff over to the TV, Which didn’t workout – too much crap in the living room. So when I moved it back, I thought I’d try raising the desk to bar height so I could stand, or sit on a stool. This also gave me room for my guitar gear and speakers. For standing, it’s still a little low – I need it to be another 2-3 in. higher.

After a bit of reading and shopping, I settled on a set of Stan’s No Tubes Flow 29er wheels bought direct from notubes.com with Stan’s ZTR hubs. I watched the video about mounting tires on their site a couple of times, and mounted my Panaracer Rampages on them Friday night. The process went without a hitch. I used my regular floor pump to get them inflated. I had to pump like mad, and the front wheel wouldn’t go without the removal of the valve core. But they sealled up quite well. All told, including transferal of rotors and the cassette it told me a couple of hours.

I tried them out on my usual trail ride yesterday. I’m very impressed. The wheels are really solid and stiff. Running without tubes makes quite a difference – they roll better, and are much smoother over roots and rocks. The wider rims (28mm) make for a noticable increase in width and volume. I ran them at 28 psi – I’m pretty sure I can run them lower, especially on snow this winter. Weight-wise, the rims might be a bit heavier (I checked: sunringles are spec’d at 450g, flows are 525g), but are compensated by the lack of tubes. We’ll see how the hold up, but right now I’m pretty happy – it feels like a whole new bike.

The resolution has taken me by surprise. It’s really true, I can’t see any pixels even with no vision correction and the thing 8″ from my eyes. That, and the faster processor are worth the price alone.

It’s an iPad killer.

On my typical rides I don’t use the little chain ring much, if at all, so I thought about getting ride of it, as well as the front derailer and shifter, making the bike simpler and lighter, as well as less controls to clutter the bars. I had done this on my old 26″ bike, and the lighter I get, the easier it is to live without the granny ring. But I there are still some climbs that I can do better with the granny ring, and on some days my knees complain, and it’s nice to let them rest by spinning up hills.

The main problem with my two-ring set up is that the front derailer overlaps the tire, and since I’ve switched to 2.35 tires, it’s kind of annoying. Without the large ring, there’s no need for the overlap – this picture shows the gap between the bash ring and the outer part of the cage:

The cage has a rivet in exactly the wrong place (note the red dot in the above picture. Here’s how it lines up with the tire:

Either I needed to modify the cage somehow, or look for a smaller, double-chaining derailer. After a bit of looking, I noticed Shimano sells one to go with the two-ring (22/36) version of the SLX crank – The FD-M665/667. I found one for $36 delivered, and installed it today. Here’s how it looks. The cage matches the bash ring nicely:

And the tire clearance is all the way back to the chain stay. I’m betting I can get 2.4s or bigger on there now for the snow!

The only minor complication was that the clamp partially covers the lower water bottle mount. The top-swing might avoid this, but I don’t use the mount so I just removed the bolt.

The learning curve on Live looks pretty steep. Unlike Garage Band, it’s a tool that assumes you’re going to spend some time with it to learn. At first, I had no idea how to even get started. Then I found that it’s got integrated tutorials, and I was off and running. The Axiom works nicely with it, giving physical controls that will make using the gear creatively much more natural. Somehow, having to grab a mouse, find a virtual control, and mess with it’s pixels clears most if not all creative musical ideas from my brain. Having physical transport controls is a huge gain all by itself.

The keys on the Axiom are really nice – in fact, hard to believe given the price of the thing. I almost wish I’d gotten the bigger 49 or 61 key version, but there’s no run on my desk for that, and I’m not a real keyboard player anyways.

The Axiom is also pretty complicated. I’ve not done MIDI years, and the jargon and conceptual model has changed a lot, particularly with integrated digital audio and software synthesis. I’m looking forward to getting back up to speed.

I won’t be buying one, as I don’t have $500 to blow on upgrading my IPod touch, or money for a cellular data plan. If I did, I’d rather spring for an Android mobile phone, or wait for an Android or Lunix-based tablet, mainly because the closed-source, walled-garden approach is not something I can continue to feel good about supporting, and is already lagging behind more open technology and business models (see IPhone cut and paste, lack of IPad camera(s), etc.).

So, great prototype, Apple.