Belated Pressie …

You know, now I come to think of these things, it seems that sometimes stuff get’s …

Overshadowed …

Meeting my nephew — especially as I don’t have children of my own — was rather powerful.

I’m getting mildly broody, I’ll be honest.

So the fact that I actually got a few pressies, this Christmas … ?

And was thinking about raving about them … ?

Looks a touch less important than it did.

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None-the-less, having already thanked the relevant gift-givers … ?

I did at least want to mention the fact that my Mum, along with Anna — the eldest of me two kid sisters — and Ruth — the youngest, and Jude’s mother — had clubbed together to get me an LaCie external hard drive.

A 1 Terabyte, LaCie one, that’s slowly becoming home to the piles of backed-up movies, tv shows and other extraneous bit’s and bobs that I’ve built up, over the years.

And one that comes equipped with USB 2.0, eSATA, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 interfaces.

Given the age and model of my Mac Mini … ?

I’ve hooked them up via FireWire 400.

Daisy-chained through my exterior optical drive, also hooked up via FireWire 400*.

And I’ll happily confess, the actual copying is going at an impressive rate of knots!

I’ve just copied 124.7 gigabytes of data from my old Maxtor USB external drive over to the LaCie — and I can’t help but think of it as HAL — in just under an hour.

It’s looking like the other 150 gigs is going to take about the same amount of time!

Like I say, I’m impressed … !

If ever I need to store disc images and need to burn them to disc … ?

Looks like I know where I’ll be keeping them …

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Something else I know I’ve been given … ?

Is a copy of Terry Pratchett’s latest novel, I Shall Wear Midnight …

Now, I know that I wasn’t totally stunned with Unseen Academicals.

And frankly … ?

Was fearing the worst for Tiffany Aching.

Now, I’m only half-way through I Shall Wear Midnight.

I’m loving it … !

I tell you what.

I’ll put up more, when I’ve finished it … !

* If I’ve understood thing’s correctly, part of the speed difference between USB 2 and FireWire 400/800 is the fact that FireWire doesn’t chew up as much CPU capacity. Again, from what I understand, Macs have always used it in preference to USB 2 to help deal with the amount of video work many film studios choose to use them for. How the introduction of USB 3 will affect, I don’t know but for me … ? Well …