In preparation for my Mac Mini media centre I am currently using my Dell PC (see previous post about sale!) in order to rip all of my DVD collection to .mp4 files so that I can use them on the Mac Mini media centre.  It takes some time.

The photo shows my task.  I have a large wallet of DVDs and I am currently a third of my ways through them.  I have already ripped them all to iPod size, now I am doing them all at 720p (DVD size).  It takes about 40 minutes for each DVD to run through handbrake and leave me with a file that I can play on Quicktime on any machine.  Well worth it in the end I think.

Today’s photo is short and sweet.  I will be selling the Dell PC below very soon, once I have finished using it to rip all my DVDs to MP4 files.

It is an excellent machine that does this job well. I could do it on my Mac but it is one of those things that you need to let it run without using the machine, which is not practical really.  The specifications are:

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 processor (3.00GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB cache)
• 4Gb RAM
• 300Gb Hard Disc
• Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium – English
• Internal PCI 802.11g Wireless Network Card
• 256MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 2400 XT graphics card
• Dell™ 22″ Black Wide Flat Panel (E228WFP) – UK/Irish
• Dell 2 Button USB Scroll Optical Mouse
• 16x DVD +/- RW Drive
• 19-in-1 Media Card reader
• USB Keyboard

I will pop a link to eBay when I list it should you wish to bid.

At the moment my son seems rather obsessed with musical instruments.  It is the Xylophone at Granddad’s and the keyboard at Granddad Al’s.

In this instance it was the Xylophone.  He was well into it, copying is granddad good and proper.  Maybe he is going to be a future musician?  Who knows!

Everyone says that we you get kids your house just becomes a bomb site.  My wife and I decided that this definitely was not going to be the case in our house.  How wrong we were.  After all the Christmas and Birthday gifts my son received from our wonderful and generous friends and family, storage has become an issue.  Today we decided to take control and have a tidy.

This was kick started with the gift on a bookcase from friends around the corner, who were, coincidentally also having a clear out. The great thing was that bookcase matched the furniture in Harry’s room perfectly.  We certainly needed some storage in order to store all the toys that Harry accumulated over the holiday period.  The bookcase certainly goes along way to doing that.  I just need to take the time to fasten it to the wall now to stop if from toppling over, but will probably do that when I have the drill out in a few weeks when boarding the loft.

At the same time we also made some changes in the arrangements downstairs, moving things around so that while keeping some toys out and ready for Harry to play with we got our house back!

We have had snow cover now ever since Tuesday morning (5 days ago) here in the north west of England.  With the freezing temperatures remaining over the last week the snow has now turned to compacted ice and there seems no sign of it thawing in the near future.

The rabbits don’t seem to bothered by the snow.  We have put some extra hay in their hutch, but they just seem to eat it rather than using it for insulation.  As you can see the snow in their pen is getting a little dirty and yellow.  The trouble is, is that it is impossible to clean up really.  It is very dangerous to try as you end up on your backside, and sweeping it up in the shovel doesn’t work.  They will be OK for a few more days, but like I said they don’t seem right bothered.

In one of the recent Mac Format magazines that I have received through my new subscription I came across a review of this Hard Disc Drive Enclosure that looked just like a Mac Pro.

Now I grant you that at close to £50 it is rather expensive for what it does.  It can take any SATA hard drive and it a USB 2 interface and mains powered.  However I thought it looked so nice, a miniture version of a Mac Pro that I just had to have one.  I happened to be on the look out for an external enclosure to turn my spare 500Gb drive into a USB drive that I could store all my videos on.

I have been encoding my DVD collection into iPhone movies that I am now storing on the external drive that this enclosure mounts. Works really well plugged into my Time Capsule so that it acts as a wireless drive and also looks really cool on the desk!

Arriving to work this morning I was amazed at the amount of snow that had been moved by the JCB snow ploughs.

That looks like fun in the JCB though!