Switching audio output device in Snow Leopard

Just discovered this nifty tip, to switch the current default audio input or output in Snow Leopard, hold down the Option key and click the sound icon in the menu bar and you get this menu.

In the past this functionality used to come from a piece of software called Sound Menu that itself used something alarmingly called Menu Cracker.

I enjoy the extra audio quality that comes with an external audio USB DAC and specialised amplifier and it's vital to be able to switch easily.

Some of the other little menu icons include extra items if clicked with the Option key down, Sync tells you what was sunk, bluetooth has some debugging tools, and the Apple menu changes a little.

Life on Mars - well a dust storm in Sydney

This is what we woke to this morning...

Vege garden needs a bit of work by the looks.

Phenylephrine review

After congratulating myself for surviving all winter without catching swine, or any other, cold or flu; I've been struck down with a dose of Man Flu.

Normally I just dose up on cold tablets and soldier on but this year the pharmacy sold me a poor replacement for the old medicine in the form of tablets which replace good old Pseudoephedrine with innefective Phenylephrine.

Poor me.

A fond farewell to physical media (and Quickflix)

We wanted to watch the movie "Milk" but didn't make it to the cinema. Around here we gave up on the local video store several years ago - the range is really poor and having to go to the store physically to pick up a collection of data seems down right archaic.

Quickflix has been great, they have a wide range of titles but they don't carry many of each from what I can tell. We really wanted to watch "Milk" but there was a wait so I took a look at the iTunes store and it was there, immediate gratification. So that was it.

We have an Apple TV and a decent internet connection so it was ready to play just seconds after purchasing. It's a little more expensive than I'd like to rent some bits, and the 48 hour window to watch once you start is punishing, but it's very convenient.

I've enjoyed Quickflix especially for some of the Blu-ray disks we've seen (The BBC Earth series for example), but many Blu-ray disks are disappointing and I hear if you have a good DVD player the quality is getting closer. Quickflix doesn't have enough Blu-ray range and I hate the way they constantly warn me that I'm hiring a Blu-ray disk - surely after I've hired a few without issue they could lay off the warnings?

Milk's a lovely film, with great performances all around. Harvey runs a camera store and there are scenes in the dark room that brought back memories (not quite the ones in the film). I morn the loss of the dark room, I morn the friendly local video store, I even morn for Quickflix (although I'm sure there's a few good years left in them yet).

But bits are bits.

SyPy - Sydney Python meeting

Attended a great presentation by Dylan Jay at the SyPy meeting tonight.

Dylan talked about and demonstrated various test driven development techniques and tools including an amazing thing called TestBrowser that simulates a browser at the command line for running unit tests.

I learned a lot and caught up with some old mates. Thanks to Google for providing the lovely venue and food.

Thanks Dylan for an informative talk.