12 years ago when we moved into our house we finished off the basement into an entertainment center. A few years later I moved into the basement along with the 53" TV and couch etc. I share my room with the laundry room and hot water heater/furnace next door. Those areas have so far remained unfinished. We finally got around to installing a new furnace and central air. Now we are finishing off the rest of the basement by adding a bathroom where the unfinished laundry room currently is.
Two small closets were built in my room to enclose the gas and water meters from view. Those are currently being borded up with dry wall as they have also remained unfinished. With the help of a friend I was able to run cat 6 around my house to the various computers around my house. All of the wires are centrally run to one of these closets. As soon as the drywall is done I will be installing a few servers and all of my network hardware with a few UPS's. This should keep the noise to a minimum and save me some space as well. I will post some pictures later of the progress and the finished results.
Here is the list of devices to go in the "server closet" so far.
My previous PC, a P4 with 2.5GB ram running XP to serve as a Bittorrent auto downloader via RSS and accessiable via a web interface from anywhere.
An old Dell PC from back when they used RD-Ram. It is running as an Ubuntu LAMP server and will be used as a test bed for my web sites
A really old Dell PC that will be used as a testing box for freeBSD builds for firewalls/NAS servers
A ALIX2c3 embeded board (amd geode 500Mhz 256MB 1GB flash drive) running PFSense, a freeBSD baised firewall/router/VPN software
A D-Link green 8-port Gigibit router (which quickly ran out of ports and may need to be upgraded to 16 ports)
3 APC UPS's will help to keep the network up as well as some of the more important computer systems.
Still to be built/bought is a 2TB+ RAID5 NAS server. As soon as I figure out what hardware I am using and get the rest of the network/servers up this will go up.
Stick around for pictures of the build progress/updates.
Validation
I was in the middle of sending an email to a friend shortly after I got my iPhone when I noticed that when I typed "iphone" it offered a correction of "iPhone" OK that figures that the device would know how to spell it's own name. I later entered in "macbook pro" and received a suggestion of "MacBook Pro" I wondered to what extent this built in apple dictionary went so I opened up the notes program and typed in some iWords.... Here are the results...
I did it. I have sinned on many levels. I put Vista Business on my MacBook Pro. Not only is Windows OS dual booting (through boot camp) on my Mac but its Vista no less! I take comfort in knowing that it was a free copy given to me. I installed it primarily because lots of corporate stuff does not play nice with Mac. I need to use some software and VPN garbage that I can not do without windows. O yeah and also I wanted to play Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress Classic 2. Interestingly enough, my MBP rocks Vista without breaking a sweat. Something I have seen it hard for many of the low to mid range windows based PC's do. Using Vista only makes me want to quickly run back to OSX. The battery life drops to about half of that when using OSX. The screen brightness and wireless settings are the same etc. The keyboard shortcuts for them even work with the included Vista drivers.
Setting up Vista on my Mac was pretty simple. Run the Boot Camp installer which creates a partition for vista to chill and install away. Be careful, I had to install Vista twice because the first time I created too small of a partition for windows to live. Vista it would seem takes up 12GB by its self. My 15GB partition was no match for Vista + 5GB from Half-Life. I had to delete the partition and start over, this time with 25GB. Overall it is the best experience using Vista I have had to date. Vista is still pretty lousy and I have a hard time telling anyone to buy a new pc now because Dell and many others have stopped selling PC's with XP on them.
On a nicer note, my MBP with its 256mb Nvidia GeForce video card handled CS:S and TFC2 with no problem for a long gaming session at a LAN party. I set almost all of the settings to be maxed out (including screen rez and got about 60fps. After tweeking the settings a little I got great performance out of it, enough to make it not worth buying a desktop el-cheapo gaming rig or even bother using my perfectly capable 3 year old gaming rig. Portable gaming here I come. Now who wants to host the next LAN party?
Installing Vista!
Vista up and running.
Setting up Vista on my Mac was pretty simple. Run the Boot Camp installer which creates a partition for vista to chill and install away. Be careful, I had to install Vista twice because the first time I created too small of a partition for windows to live. Vista it would seem takes up 12GB by its self. My 15GB partition was no match for Vista + 5GB from Half-Life. I had to delete the partition and start over, this time with 25GB. Overall it is the best experience using Vista I have had to date. Vista is still pretty lousy and I have a hard time telling anyone to buy a new pc now because Dell and many others have stopped selling PC's with XP on them.
On a nicer note, my MBP with its 256mb Nvidia GeForce video card handled CS:S and TFC2 with no problem for a long gaming session at a LAN party. I set almost all of the settings to be maxed out (including screen rez and got about 60fps. After tweeking the settings a little I got great performance out of it, enough to make it not worth buying a desktop el-cheapo gaming rig or even bother using my perfectly capable 3 year old gaming rig. Portable gaming here I come. Now who wants to host the next LAN party?
Installing Vista!
Vista up and running.
I had a chance to finally install a pretty neat part in my car pc after it sat in my room for a few weeks. It is a special PCB board made to fit my exact car pc case/motherboard/psu combo that connects the power on the motherboard to the power coming from the PSU. This enables better air flow as there is not a huge mass of tangled wires now. Fairly simple, only $5 and should keep things cool.
Before
After
I also tried something out I read online to avoid buying new headlights. Mine were looking pretty dull (see picture below) and almost foggy. It looked as if they fogged up or were dirty on the inside. I discovered that they are like that from dirt and other small particles scratching it ever so finely over the past 8 years my car has been around for. The good news is that this dirt and scratches can easily be removed by the same techniques I have used in the past to create super glossy paint finishes. You simply sand the crap out of the headlights with a fine 2000 grit piece of sand paper (wet sand with a hose) and buff with some rubbing compound and presto crystal clear headlights just like new! The sand paper creates micro fine, but uniform, scratches as it removes the top layer of dirt and unevenness. The buffing/scratch removing compound polishes out the micro fine scratches left by the sand paper, because the sand paper leveled out the surface it can now smooth out to a nice glossy shine. *warning* elbow grease required.
Before
After
Before
After
I also tried something out I read online to avoid buying new headlights. Mine were looking pretty dull (see picture below) and almost foggy. It looked as if they fogged up or were dirty on the inside. I discovered that they are like that from dirt and other small particles scratching it ever so finely over the past 8 years my car has been around for. The good news is that this dirt and scratches can easily be removed by the same techniques I have used in the past to create super glossy paint finishes. You simply sand the crap out of the headlights with a fine 2000 grit piece of sand paper (wet sand with a hose) and buff with some rubbing compound and presto crystal clear headlights just like new! The sand paper creates micro fine, but uniform, scratches as it removes the top layer of dirt and unevenness. The buffing/scratch removing compound polishes out the micro fine scratches left by the sand paper, because the sand paper leveled out the surface it can now smooth out to a nice glossy shine. *warning* elbow grease required.
Before
After
Wow have I been busy this week. Between the 9-5, my business, new iPhone, and wonderful girlfriend (who just had a birthday :o) I have not been able to upload any new pictures of my iPhone even though I have had it since the 11th. Now it would appear that there are iPhone shortages that may have potential customers waiting till mid August. Some might say I was nuts for waiting in line 3-4 hours early to get an iPhone on the 11th. But if you look at it from the prospective of trying to buy one now, you will have to spend much more than 4 hours searching online, calling/visiting stores, and waiting for a shipment to come in. Alas, you are more than likely not even reading my babble, what with the pictures of my new iPhone 3G below! (ps pictures are a bit too wide. Going to fix later)
Ah yes, new iPhone 3G with PCMOFO pirate logo for the background
The back showing the 16GB and new black back. (Yes it smudges but it wipes off easy with included cloth. It slides easily into the pocket because it it so smooth, but also sticks in your hand because it is so smooth. Going to try a full body skin soon anyway)
Here it is next to my old Samsung i760, and by old I mean old for electronics ~6mo.
It is about the same dimmensions for height and width but the thickness is what really makes it hot. The iPhone slides in any pocket with ease and minimal bulk. Bonus* it also fits inside the small *change* pocket found inside many dress pants and does not shift while walking.
Here we can see the screen size comparison and the keyboard of the 760.
Well there you have it. iPhone 3G. This is by no means a full review, though one will be coming after I have used it for a week or two. I would like to say a few things I am impressed with are the screen, it is sunlight readable, minimal glare and you dont have to squint to read the screen, I know, many of you dont get out in the sun often, but it is good to know that if you ever happen to be outside you dont need to make a makeshift sun shield with your hands to see whos calling. Also the push functionality is really cool and I cant wait until more apps start implementing it. Like now the App store notifies my I have 2 apps that have updates etc. This will be useful for programs like AIM which can be off and not connected to the net (so no battery drainage) but leave you on aim as available. When someone sends you an IM you will receive a notification on the AIM icon that you have a message and can choose to launch it making it more like text messaging, which is great if you dont want to pay for txt. Stay tuned for more updates and reviews of Apps from the store. (PS go buy the $5 texas holdem app its totally worth it)
Ah yes, new iPhone 3G with PCMOFO pirate logo for the background
The back showing the 16GB and new black back. (Yes it smudges but it wipes off easy with included cloth. It slides easily into the pocket because it it so smooth, but also sticks in your hand because it is so smooth. Going to try a full body skin soon anyway)
Here it is next to my old Samsung i760, and by old I mean old for electronics ~6mo.
It is about the same dimmensions for height and width but the thickness is what really makes it hot. The iPhone slides in any pocket with ease and minimal bulk. Bonus* it also fits inside the small *change* pocket found inside many dress pants and does not shift while walking.
Here we can see the screen size comparison and the keyboard of the 760.
Well there you have it. iPhone 3G. This is by no means a full review, though one will be coming after I have used it for a week or two. I would like to say a few things I am impressed with are the screen, it is sunlight readable, minimal glare and you dont have to squint to read the screen, I know, many of you dont get out in the sun often, but it is good to know that if you ever happen to be outside you dont need to make a makeshift sun shield with your hands to see whos calling. Also the push functionality is really cool and I cant wait until more apps start implementing it. Like now the App store notifies my I have 2 apps that have updates etc. This will be useful for programs like AIM which can be off and not connected to the net (so no battery drainage) but leave you on aim as available. When someone sends you an IM you will receive a notification on the AIM icon that you have a message and can choose to launch it making it more like text messaging, which is great if you dont want to pay for txt. Stay tuned for more updates and reviews of Apps from the store. (PS go buy the $5 texas holdem app its totally worth it)
After waiting in line at my local AT&T store for 4 hours I have returned victorious! I am now the proud owner of a black 16gb iPhone 3G. As I am currently at work for the remainder of the day I will not get a chance to play with it much until later:o( Pictures will be posted when I get a chance to get them off of my old phone. (It's hard to use the iPhone to take a picture of its self.
