22:30 going to meet Jörg and Carsten at the Schwarz-Sauer or at the Oderquelle, so no time for any blogging tonight...

Something's shifted. After one week without my mobile phone, one week of hardly looking at the watch, of getting up at night rocking a new-born baby, after one week of just being happy for every peaceful moment without pain. After one week without being able to do any of my usual stuff that I do, something is changing. I'm beginning to accept it. I feel like I have ascended yet another important step in my life. It feels really weird. But I think, I like it ;-)

At last, I'm feeling well enough to watch some more episodes of 24 on DVD with Mascha. Yay!

I first read about it on Critical Section and thought that it's a neat concept:

A HeisenBug is a bug whose presence is affected by [the] act of observing it.

Well, I finally got mine! I administer several Mac OS X Server machines. And of course I make regular, i.e. daily backups. To an external firewire harddrive, to be precise. For this I use a shareware called Tri-Backup. It's a cool tool and does what it does well. However, being a GUI-Application, it needs to be running in order to perform automated backups. Which in turn mandates, that a user with sufficient privileges be logged in. Also, it means, that in order to access its Error and History Reports, one must regularily access the server physically. Which I do every now and then.

Of course, each time I do that, I expect everything to be all right. So imagine my shock sometime last year, when upon unlocking the screen saver of a particular machine I was greeted with an error message:

"Oh no! No device, no backup! For how many days?!" Instant relief, though: all backups up until then had been carried out successfully. So I remounted the harddrive and came back next day. Same message! But: the backup had been performed, again. This time I waited a few days. Same thing. And now, yesterday, after the holidays I made a final check. And again!

So what seems to happen is, that the process of unlocking the screen (to check on the backup) somehow makes the Volume unmount. If I don't check: everything goes fine...

Oh, well, I've been meaning to switch to RsyncX anyway...

Bummer! Talk about perfect timing. Just over four months after I had my trusted first-generation TiBook serviced by Apple for whopping EUR 550,- (and thus one month after the new warranty had run out!) I felt a strange resistance when opening its lid yesterday.

No, I'm not talking about a guilty feeling that I should spend more time with the family and less with the computer (I've been quite good on that account recently, see yesterday's blog entry... there isn't one!)

As it turns out, the left display hinge is cracked. Kaput, as you can see.

I've got half a mind of simply getting a new powerbook (great excuse!) and use it in closed-lid operation with a 'surplus' 15-inch TFT as a replacement for the upstairs living-room CRT iMac. I could then sell the iMac and my wife could enjoy watching DVDs ;-) But what are my options for replacing it?

• G4 15" AlBook (obviously) 2.300,- / 2.900 EUR
• G4 12" AlBook 1.900,- EUR
• G4 12" iBook 1.200,- EUR

Actually, my gut feeling leads me more towards a Powerbook than an iBook but at the same time also to a 12-inch model. So the case would be quite clear, if there wasn't the nagging suspicion, that of all three models above, the 12" AlBook represents the worst value-for money.

Ooh, decisions, decisions... Any suggestions on this matter are more than welcome! I need to act soon: I'm really quite impaired doing my job, without mobile computing power at hand...