Beyond Syntax

Well, I'm currently running under the assumption that I have a math test tomorrow. Therefore I should be studying, correct? I assure you I'll get to the point of studying soon. First, however, I want to explain to you how I went from reading notes about birth-and-death processes to updating the ports collection on my FreeBSD box (it won't take long).

So, I begin reading my notes from the beginning of the semester. Nothing looks too bad and I get to the third page in short time, then I start reading about birth-and-death processes. Nothing special, but it does mean a significant change in topics so I decide to take a brief mental break to check my email. No new messages. Back to studying. Wait, I want to start some music---great idea! Let me just load up iTunes. Hmmm, I've already listened to most of this. I know I have some more music on my file server but how to get it to my laptop...?

Well, the easy way would be to copy over the files using something like scp but I don't want to use more disk space on my (already too full) laptop. Ok, I do have NFS set up so I can just mount the music directory and play it over the network. Nah, UDP traffic is for wimps besides it would leave ugly links in iTunes when I leave my network tomorrow. Thinking a few more seconds I realize I want to mount the music directory as if it were someone sharing their iTunes with me. How hard could that be for FreeBSD?

A quick Google brings up the Firefly Media Server that claims to have exactly what I'm looking for. I just need to cd /usr/ports/audio/mt-daapd && make install. D'oh! There is a vulnerability, I need to update the ports tree. So here I am, instead of studying I'm sitting here updating the FreeBSD ports tree. Then I get to build mt-daapd, configure it, and hope that iTunes recognizes it so I can study.