A month or so ago, I got the keen idea that I wanted to replace a 19" boat anchor of a monitor with something flat panel to gain some desk space.  This altruistic goal was accomplished after a 20" Samsung wide screen display showed up on my doorstep for less than $200.  I was happy since I reclaimed a nice big corner of my desk.  Even though I accomplished my original goal, the printer sitting on the end of the desk irked me too.  Unlike the monitor, I'm not able to replace my printer with a smaller model.  At least not one that would be significantly smaller.  The best I could do was find a better location where it wasn't taking up a square foot of desktop space.  My decision was to put it in the desk where two linux boxes resided.  One of the linux boxes runs this site, a personal wiki, and cvs repository.  The other sits mostly idle as a large backup file server.  In order to maintain my current setup, I would need a new smaller computer to do these lightweight tasks.  Mac Mini to the rescue!  I picked up a refurbished Mac Mini from Apple for less than $500.  It's a duo core 1.5ghz which is probably 8 times faster than the linux box it replaced.  The good news is that it is also 10 times smaller and looks fantastic sitting out in the open.  In addition to relocating the printer in the tower compartment, I also moved the spare paper, DSL modem,  and various other office items.  My desk looks fantastic now.  Don't quit reading yet, there is a point to this entry and it has nothing to do with the neatness of my desk. 

Instead of installing CVS on the new Mac Mini, I decided that I would migrate to subversion.  This was not as easy of a task as I thought it would be.  As I sought to find a decent tutorial online, I came up short time and time again.  I never did end up finding anything that I could follow step by step and get to where I had a subversion repository front ended by Apache, using Apache authentication running on OS X.  Instead I used bits and pieces of  content from a half dozen sites to get everything to work.  For those of you that are in search of something similar or have run into this same brick wall, the following tutorial is for you.  I did my best to document every step along the way.  If you run into something that is ambiguous or needs updating, please let me know.  I intend to keep this up to date. 

HOWTO: Installing Subversion(1.4.3) and Apache(2.0.59) on OS X(10.4.9)

Back in January, I made a comment on my blog about Mark/Space releasing Missing Sync for Blackberry.  A week or two back, they came through and I have to say it was worth the wait.  Anyone still using PocketMac should stop what they are doing, uninstall that poor excuse for an application,  and download Mark/Space's far superior product.  It does everything pocketmac claims to do, it does more, and it does everything well.  If you are looking for a list of features, they can be found here.  While I'm a huge fan of Blackberry, this application makes a good thing even better.

Also, I'd like to thank Eric Ullman, Director of Marketing at Mark/Space, for sending me a free copy of Missing Sync for Blackberry for my participation in the beta cycle.  I was happy to help.  I'd also like to say thanks to the technical staff.  Their product exceeded my expectations.