State of my Tech

So what did I end up doing with all those drives?

My main desktop now has 5 HDDs! Two Terabyte HDDs, one 400GB drive, and two 250 GB drives. So, "Bender" has almost 3 Terabytes of Storage! The other cool thing is the way I've set it up. For my Mac/Unix buddies who dont' know, Windows drives are generally assigned a letter of the alphabet.

The C: drive - This is the main drive Windows and other applications are installed on. It's one of the TB SATA drives.

The D: drive - This drive is where I put my "My Documents" directory. It makes backing up easier and helps keep my data and my software segregated. This is the other TB SATA Drive. Also, I have my VM HDDs living there.

E is a DVD Writer, and F is a virtual drive that I can mount "iso" files to and my system will think they are CD-ROMS.

The G: Drive - this is the 400 Gig drive. Every day at 7pm, a batch file runs that copies the contents of my D: drive over. So, now I have a backup!

The H: Drive - this is one of the 250 GB drives. I generally don't use it at this time, but I keep it just in case.

The I: Drive - the other 250 GB drive. I actually put work files here to share between my systems.

Currently, all of my systems are set up such that D:, G:, H:, and I: are available as network shares. Furthermore, I mapped them so that the I: drive on my desktop is located at "I:" on all of my other systems, real and virtual.

Neat huh?

OH! One other thing...

This past weekend, I picked up an Airport Express - Apple Wireless Router. I hooked this up behind the TV in the living room. This is uber cool because it has iTunes integration with an audio output. It can accept iTunes streams wirelessly. So, I connected it to the surround sound stereo. Now I can listen to my MP3s and podcasts on the living room stereo!

Skipper Dan - "Weird Al" Yankovic

Sounds kinda "Jonathan Coulter"-ish. More poignant than funny...

Champions Online Bits

As you may recall, there are 3 MMO's I've been following closely and wanting to play.

Well, Champions Online has has some rather key updates.

1. Character Creation looks to be as cool as City of Heroes was. For my Macintosh buddies, remember if you have a newish Mac, you can Boot Camp into Windows to give it a go.

and

2. System Requirements have been announced - Looks like the basic requirements aren't too bad.

oh and

3. OPEN BETA BEGINS AUGUST 17th!!!!!

Looks like I have something I can play with on September 1. I'll have to see if I can get the trophy fiancee hooked.

Nikola Tesla - The Forgotten Wizard

Another non-game post, but I think he's cool!



Read more about Tesla

Happy Birthday to him.

Simpsons DVDs

Last Sunday, I packed up all my Simpsons DVDs and my episode guides and took them to Half-Price Books. I got $35 for it all.

I mention this because it gives a bit of incite into things in my life. The primary reason I'd bought all of those discs became moot last year. So, the question came to me, while it's cool to have a big stack of DVDs like that, is it worth keeping them around if you are never going to watch them? I'm a Netflix subscriber and a Hulu user, so is there really a reason I'd keep discs for a show that is likely going to be on a channel at any given time of day?

So rather than keep DVDs of a cool show around, I got rid of them and bought some 251's and a couple of PAK38's for my Germans.

Liver and iPhone

First of all, sorry Steve, I still worship Apple tech from afar....

But...


Me: Steve Jobs liver is replaceable...but the battery on the iphone isn't
Chris: it is replaceable just like the liver it requires a very technical procedure
Me: ahh, true
Chris: using specialty tools and
Chris: liberal use of medications
Me: the liver or the iphone?
Chris: yes

Craigslist

I know I promised a post about Firefox/Chrome/Safari, but I've not been able to get to it...

So here is Weird Al's new video!

Back up and running

Fry's accepted the return on the defective HDD, and I was able to replace it. For good measure, I picked up a second drive to use for storage so that I have a place to back up to. Everything is reinstalled that needs reinstalling (except Firefox, more on that Monday).

As you may recall previously, when I moved to the new digs, the C drive on Hermes went out, and I had to start relying on my main desktop for everything. Thanks to an Ubuntu LiveCD, I was able to pull all of my data off Hermes. It was here that I found a backup of Bender dated at the end of March, so I do have most of the data I was missing.

So, at this point, I have Bender up and going and a 2nd PC with a bunch of HDDs. Now, previously, I'd've rebuilt this and re-Christened this "Hermes". However, I'm not going to do that this time. I put in all my spare HDDs, my oldest video card, and my PCI WiFi card. My intent? I'm looking at FreeNAS and I'm going to try to set this up as TRUE network attached storage (until I can get a drobo) to throw backup images on.

FreeNAS has a JBOD solution which will make all those cheap discs seem like one large/huge disc. I'll be sure to post my results!

A disk read error occurred

Nothing like "The volume appears to contain one or more uncoverable problems" when trying to boot.

At least the HDD is within the 30 day return period. However, this means I'll be somewhat distracted for the next few days while I TOTALLY REBUILD MY SYSTEM FROM SCRATCH!

What's the really fun part? I didn't have a drive big enough to backup to....so, no backups right now.

Ah well, guess it was time for a good spring cleaning anyway.

Bacon!

The gauntlet was thrown.

As he says, " Inflation (2%) plus unemployment (9.4%) = 11.4 as of today."

I'll take the thick cut, Southy....

PISSED AT AT&T

WWDC today sang the new features of the new iPhone OS that will be released on the 17th.

Of course, two of the big features I want are being screwed up by AT&T: MMS and Tethering.

Yes, when I had the pay as you go t-mobile plan, I could send a picture via Text message. But I can't on my iPhone. Well, while the 3.0 version of the iPhone OS fixes this, AT&T has indicated that us backwards US citizens will have to wait until "Late Summer"...gee, thanks.

Oh and Tethering? "Its coming, No ETA for US AT&T users".

U-Verse is nice....this is bullshit.

Friday Poem

I don't know where this originally came from, but

I have a spelling checker,
it came with my PC.
It plainly marks four my revue,
mistakes I cannot sea.

I ran this checker threw it,
I'm sure your pleased to no.
It's letter perfect in every weigh,
my checker tolled me sew.

Deep Thoughts Thursday

I was working this morning and a bit of wisdom occurred to me...

"Every day is a gift...somedays that gift is a pair of socks"

Mandola Estate Winery and Trattoria Lisina

This past weekend, the Trophy Fiancee and I decided to head down to Driftwood, Texas to the Mandola Winery. If you live in central Texas, you know that this time of year is absolutely gorgeous so we had a beautiful drive down and back in the 'stang.

The winery itself is still relatively young, but it was a neat little trip. There is a 10 minute tour (yeah, TEN minutes) that shows you the basics of the winery and there is a tasting room. Five dollars lets you sample all of the wines they have. I didn't care for most of the wines they had, except the Canto Felice.

However, the reason to go there is Trattoria Lisina. This is the BEST italian restaurant I think I've ever been to. We each go a glass of the local wine (she got the Pinot Grigio, I got the Canto Felice) which was quite nice. The meal started off with a foccacia like bread brought to the table with some local olive oil that was out of this world.

We ordered Artichoke fritters as an appetizer. They were served with a tomato basil dip and another white dip that I don't recall the details of. These were so tender and mild as to almost taste like a high-quality fish dish.

The main course was Cannelloni which we split. We often split entrees so that we can get appetizers and dessert. The cream sause actually had a light and fluffy quality that few restaurants ever achieve.

Finally dessert was a Tiramisu that was absolutely wonderful.

With a glass of iced tea and a cappuccino, the entire meal was $55 even before tax.

For the quality of food you get here, it's well worth the price and the trip. If you are looking for a romantic date location, this is the place to go.

Now, tonight - Ruthie Foster at Blues on the Green!

BUSY MUSIC SUMMER!!!

Just saw this year's KGSR Blues on the Green Schedule. It looks like The Trophy Fiancee and I have plans every other Wednesday starting on the 3rd of June! See the lineup HERE!

On Wednesday, I'll try to post about this past weekend's events....

One other thing - HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!!!