Archived News starting from 04-18-2005 and earlier
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Tonight I installed
Service Pack 1 on this server and so far no conflicts/blowups. It is basically the Windows 2003 version of WinXP SP2, with a few extra server-specific enhancements. One of these enhancements is the
Security Configuration Wizard which gives you a step-by-step tutorial on how to create (and apply) a security policy. Of course I blindly ran it and locked down everything I don't use, and after 15 minutes of poking around I can't find anything that doesn't work. Now the magic of SP1 is on this server, and you can once again rest peacefully until the next major upgrade. Consequently, if you find something broken,
yell at me.
Keith and I went for our second mountain biking excursion of the year today and decided to hit
Potawatomi bike trail which is normally reserved for mid to end of the year. Thirty minutes into the trail we remembered why we save it for later in the year. There are at least 3 hills that are impossible to climb unless you are Lance Armstrong, and most of the other hills are almost as difficult. The 50 degree grade alone is tough, but you also get roots and rocks to manuver around while you struggle to get up them. The plus side is the downhills, which have 1-4 foot dropoffs at regular intervals making for some good jumps. It took almost 3 hours to get through it, but only 1.5 hours of that was actual biking. The other half of the time we were laying on the ground recovering. Next time I'll have a video camera on my helmet so I can sell the bloopers on ebay.
My
Media Center PC Experiment ended in a flop. The highest bid was $400 which was $150 less than what I paid to build it. If you've always wanted one, but were afraid to ask, I can part with it for the at-cost price of $550. If not, expect to see it up on e-bay again with more pizzaz and less initial bidding price. I'm confident there's untapped potential here.
Link to Details
The "Current Server Status" window on the right tracks various parameters on this server. One of them is free disk space and it has shrunk below the 8% warning level a few times in the past month. Each time I was able to delete a few things and bring it back. This time I have a big chunk I plan to get rid of, but I think these are signs it's time for a bigger drive. I've been watching for a sub-$50 100GB+ IDE HDD's but haven't seen any without using 5 rebates. If you have one laying around you can part with (yes, I'm sure everyone does) shoot me an email.
Lomar and Angela came over for a round of
Star Wars Monopoly lastnight. Don't let the box or photos fool you, it's completely different than normal Monopoly. Different enough that was I confused and disoriented allowing
Lomar to win the game. Had it been classic Monopoly I would have emerged as the clear dominator. On a side note, make sure you listen to the
latest plasmateam song, it's metarelaxiawesome.
Almost a month ago,
Duane wrote an
article that moved me in the appreciation of a good friend who I've taken for granted way. When I first started working with Duane we quickly realized we shared the same twisted sense of humor and appreciation for computers and motor sports. At the time I was just getting into my car and had a
pretty sad web site. His
Impreza had just been run off the road by an SUV and he was driving his
89 Firebird with side pipes. Both of these cars fascinated me because they were so different than what I had ever been exposed to. At the time, Subaru was a rare brand and most 89 firebirds had long ago lost their side pipes. I found this attraction to oddball vehicles refreshing and thoroughly enjoyed the animated "moving car" icon on the dash of his Subaru to indicate he was indeed driving.
Duane had been working on web sites longer than anyone else I had met and consequently launched me out of the stone age in terms of web design. Some of his initial work involved the
Amiga community which was at the time a thriving computer platform for multimedia. He quickly became a
well-known and respected name in the late 90's for the platform, and to this day gets correspondences from people needing help with this now unfortunately neglected platform. This passion for his work motivated me, and when he discovered table-less designs using strict XHTML and CSS I jumped on board without hesitation. He made easy examples to follow and helped get me up and running. It fueled the separation of logic and presentation that first attracted me to
ASP.net, a product of the evil empire that is designed from the ground up to completely separate the two.
His passion is contagious, especially with the Macintosh platform. He single handedly supports the growing Macintosh community at work, and has convinced those around him it is the platform of choice for front-end web development. Judging by the results I'm forced to agree it is the best system for the job (I had traumatic experiences supporting early MacOS machines). Plus they have great places to hide slim jims while they dry to a brittle stick.
Our preference in cars and computers are in heavy contrast, but we clearly share the same passion. With someone of such strong convictions, disagreements are inevitable, but in a world where many people are content to live their lives in the status quo Duane trusts his instincts and experiences to make his own path. This self-confidence is something I envy, as I sometimes attach myself to the popular method rather than the right method. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a sprinkler to jump through.
An Englishman, an Indian, and 6 Caucasians united in the common goal of entertainment lastnight. The goal was achieved through finishing the remaining
LAN party beer and enjoying the cinema classic of
Eurotrip. One caucasian managed to finish 15 of said beers in less than 3 hours, and was still coherent afterwards. Unfortunately movie night was a long time coming, and wound up occuring in spring rather than the dead of winter as originally planned, thus the next event will center on outside BBQ and possibly projector screenings.
I built a
Media Center PC and am
selling it on eBay. If it sells, I'm moving to the virgin islands and starting my own PC company. If not, I guess you'll get another news update from me.
For 15 days and not one more, I had dreams but none before. The visions I thought could not be became my feared reality.
What I thought was true till then was obscured till the moment when I woke up from this dreadful dream
my eyes still blurred from what I'd seen.
I have no words from which to tell I can't recall how long I fell.
It's like I had a second life sent to gunpoint with a knife.
it was impossible to know which hidden bomb was next to blow and every step that I had done could always be my final one
My previous laptop having expired, it was time to search for a good deal on a new one. Low and behold,
TigerDirect has a
refurbished eMachines M2350 for $650. At 2.2Ghz with 512MB RAM it's light years ahead of my old one and "reasonably" priced. Onboard LAN, Wireless and modem with 4 USB 2.0 ports and one IEEE 1394 (firewire) make it fully connected (as compared to the single USB port and no onboard anything on my old laptop). After searching in vain for a better deal, I concluded nothing comes close for the feature/price ratio. I bought it yesterday and through the magic of TigerDirect ground shipping it arrived today. I promptly raped the pre-installed crap off the drive and now have a fresh clean laptop ready to join me on whatever adventure may come my way.
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