Thanks for all the great comments on my post Convince me to get a Mac. I actually saw the Mac mini in real life last weekend at the Apple Store and they are every bit as lovely as they appear in photos … I may just be convinced … and I fear that the other machines in the office have got wind of this.

I decided to install Mandrake on my Linux desktop, I have run Debian for years, but was rather tempted by the more desktop designed distros. After downloading 5 CD’s (slowly) I discovered that the CD-ROM drive in the Linux desktop was, in fact, broken. So in went another CD drive. Mandrake installed, Drew and I ooohed at the point and click installer, KDE launched and promptly crashed. I managed to get it running, Konqueror crashed then KDE went down taking the box with it … I battled with this, along with a stinking cold, for days. I installed drivers, checked the memory, searched Google … and yet it still crashed.

In the middle of this the hard disk in my development server packed up, with the most terrible grinding noise – a good reminder to keep those backups up to date, I’ve never had one die before and when they do it can be totally without warning. So I now have another Linux box to reinstall.

Today I gave up on Mandrake, I reinstalled Debian. It works. As I was celebrating with a glass of wine and chatting online, the monitor packed up … I’m going to go drink the rest of the bottle.