This is my second attempt at this post, and delayed by several days from the first attempt. I keep trying to write a post and having my session time out on me, so that I go to save and it says “You can’t post here, stranger!”. Very very not-good.
This time for sure.
Firstly, I have fallen deeply in love with a hardware gadget, and am consequently probably going to build Trouble 2.0 around it: The VIA VT-310DP. VIA very quietly manufacture a series of computers around a CPU called the EPIA. These computers are ultra-low-power, and conform to a very small size-standard called mini-ITX. This one in particular is fanless, incorporates two 1GHz CPUs, SATA, DDR-400 support, dual gigabit ethernet ports, and in-CPU hardware-accelerated crypto… which is supported natively in the Linux Kernel and in tools like Apache and OpenSSH! Wheee!
In lay terms, this means that this little beastie will speedily and comfortably do all the things that the new trouble needs to do, without making any noise, using about as much power as a fluorescent light-globe.

In other largely unrelated news…

• I am going to Donovans tongith with E and K & Y. This is courtesy of my lovely voucher, thanks to the intensely boring people at Dimension Data. Sorry Joanna and others at DD, if you’re reading this: I am still deeply thankful for the voucher, but the talk was a sales schpiel, and it really didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. More respect for your techie customers, folks!
• The Laptops have finally been settled, and should be arriving on Monday, all things being equal.
• Ubuntu Linux 5.10 (the oddly-named Breezy Badger) is out! It doth appear to rock real damn hard. More comments on this when I’ve given it a decent try.