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NAS

I just bought a D-Link DNS-323 two-bay NAS enclosure and two 500GB Samsung SATA drives. I was very close (as in, waiting for my wife to wake up from her nap so I can go to Circuit City) to buying a Buffalo LinkStation Live 500GB single-bay (drive included) enclosure until I re-read the Amazon.com user reviews, some of which complained about customer service speed and device failures. I always take user complaints with a grain of salt, but I had a bad feeling here — the bad customer service reviews seemed, well, credible and representative.

I believe I made the right choice. I need

  1. Fast reads/writes (not especially large files)
  2. iTunes MP3 hosting
  3. Backup to external USB drive automatically (don’t know if the D-Link does this but it’s mostly offset by the fact that I can put TWO SATA drives in it vs. one drive in the Buffalo)
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Sesame Street

My daughter, by chance, is watching Sesame Street right now for the first time. Muted, since I’m working and I’d rather she wasn’t watching TV at all. But she turned it on herself, as usual, and it happened to be tuned to WEDU (public channel).

She is rapt. She occasionally turns to me with a big smile, points to the TV and says something happily.

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iPod short

My 4G 40GB white iPod has a short-circuit. If you touch the top with a moist finger, you’ll get a little buzz. Nice. Maybe that’s related to the problem whereby I have to toggle the Hold switch on-then-off before I can use the wheel.