Can you barf on demand?jawaproTue 04/09/2007 09:32 PM
Upgrade the speed of your internet connection so you can spend more time away from your computer with your family and friends.
Umm - right!
I´ve never seen that work. Generally the faster the interent, the more time you spend using it.
But that´s what a letter from Telstra I got recently claimed. If I upgraded my internet, I´d spend more time with my family.
Well - I doubt it´ll have that effect, but I just ordered my internet speed to be increased. From 512 to 1.5 (that´s 1500 for the noobs).
Of course, I´m not using Telstra. I´m an Internode customer. I finally convinced my Dad to swap too. He now pays about the same for 1.5 as he was paying for 256 at Telstra! He´s addicted to youtube, and watching youtube videos on 256k just isnt fun!
And after using his 1.5 on the weekend and finding out it only costs $10 extra a month, I´ve decided to switch myself.
In other news, I bought myself a laptop. I havent gotten it yet - otherwise there´d be photos. I bought it on ebay. I could have got it cheaper - but this seller looked safer. So hopefully I´m right.
And today is the first day since I started work that I´ve had to take some time off for being sick. I went to work this morning, but started to get a headache. That was bad enough, but I was stupid enough to be hungry as well and decide to eat some noodles that had been in the drawer since before I arrived and had a "best before" date for may 2006. I´m not sure if they were bad, or if it was just the headache, but I ended up haveing to go home cause I couldnt cope. So a few hours spent writhing in pain on the couch.
I get headaches occasionally like that. Eventually I get to the stage where I throw up, and then everything´s fine. So eventually I barfed out the window into a bucket, then slept for an hour, and then went back to work in time to take over from the other guy who had to go to the doctors. But he had postponed the doctor trip anyway, so I needent have bothered. Sometimes it´d be very useful to be able to throw up on cue - would save those few hours of pain in the mean time.
Apart from that, there´s not a whole lot to report.
Last weekend I went to a LAN at Trojen´s, which was great, but I forgot to take any photos. I was going to go to the movies to see the latest Bourne movie tonight, but seeing as I´d been sick, I decided not to.
And that´s about it for now. Just thought it was time to post about something other than my case mod. Which hasnt really progressed far since last time, other than a little painting and the purchase of a laptop.
Catch you next time!
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Server Case Mod ProgressjawaproSun 26/08/2007 08:54 PM
Just a normal server case?
Not quite! - Open Presto!
Well - look at that! I’ve now got a Laptop hatch in the top of my server case. I might not have a laptop yet - but that’s besides the point. I’ve got a dead one from work (thanks!) and that’s the thing sitting there in the photo.
Anyway - I just thought I’d give you an update, seeing as there was so much discussion about it after my last post.
My Dad didn’t really understand why I was so keen on the whole laptop hatch idea in the first place, but he put a heap of work on Saturday (thanks!) and we managed to get a working Laptop Hatch going.
Check out the spanner - you always need a big spanner!
The Laptop Cradle section is now in place
Here you can see the cradle section without a laptop in it (just a pair of pliers)
And here it is, complete with a dead laptop!
Still needs some painting and tidying up - but apart from that and buying the actual laptop - that part of the case Mod is pretty much finished.
Need to try and work out how to make the locks work too.
But all in all - it was an extremely productive day.
I seemed to blow a UPS up though - but it was old and being thrown out anyway. It worked, but wasn’t able to hold charge - but now it wont turn on at all. I’m good at blowing things up lately.
And once again, thanks for all your help Dad. (and yes, he does read my blog occasionally)
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Server PlansjawaproTue 21/08/2007 09:22 PM
Ok, well strange as it may seem, there are still a few people out there that I haven’t told what exactly I’m planning to do with this server. So for their benefit, here is a short list of my plans regarding building myself a server.
Well, when I was at the last Axon LAN, I played some games and did some leeching (File Sharing) as per normal. But I got annoyed that I couldn’t do both at once. If you’re leeching (or more to the point, being leeched from), your system is normally getting hammered and can’t handle anything else.
So the solution is to have two systems. One to play games on, and the other to be your file server. The guy sitting two seats up from me at the LAN had the biggest file server there, with about 1.5 Terabytes or something huge.
So I decided to rebuild myself a server. I used to have one (called Mara) but it died of a sudden motherboard failure about 6 months ago.
So I want to build myself a new Mara. Well, I could easily find another PC, call it Mara – and be done with it.
But, being a geek, I decided to do more than that.
So I wanted a server that would look like a server. And this case fits that description. Only a geek would think that carting around such a huge computer would be cool, but that’s me.
Anyway – I could throw a motherboard, cpu, etc, and a heap of harddrives in here and call it finished. But I’m a little more adventurous than that this time. I’ve never done much in the way of case mods before – but this time I’ve decided to aim high.
Now there’s a problem with having a server at a LAN. You either need to lug around an extra screen and keyboard and things, or you need to swap between you game pc and server whenever you want to see what the servers doing. Not good.
You can also use Remote Desktop or something similar – but that’s not the best solution. Mainly because the network link will be being hammered, so the remote desktop probably won’t work terribly well. And besides, you want to be able to glance at the server while you’re still playing games – not going back to Windows and loading up a remote desktop session.
So my dream is to make this server self-contained. It’ll contain it’s own screen, keyboard, etc. All it will need is a power cable, and a network connection.
Now, the easiest and cheapest way to do that, is to use a laptop. So that’s my plan. Find a slightly decent laptop cheap, and mount it INTO the case. With a hatch at the top so you can access it.
Now, it will still have to access the server using Remote Desktop, but it’ll use a separate network card, so it gets full speed from that card.
So that means there’s a lot of cutting, and mounting work to be done to get the laptop in there and working.
And just to make things trickier, I’m also considering adding a UPS (battery) so it’ll survive those annoying power outages when someone accidentally unplugs the power for half the room.
And I’m also considering adding a small Gigabyte switch, so it can support a small LAN all on it’s own.
Those two depend largely on space, heat, and cost. But that’s my dream.
Plus I plan to paint it and add some nice touches to the exterior to make it look cooler (which it does pretty well on its own anyway).
And what’s with the dinosaurs on the top of the case in the photo? Well, they are the official mascots of this server project. They just arrived from ebay, which might explain why they look a little jet-lagged.
So my first step is to find myself a laptop, so I can work out how to mount it and how much space I’ll have left for everything else.
Might have to wait a few weeks until my ban account recovers from the big Camera spend-up though…..
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My new server case!jawaproSun 19/08/2007 09:49 PM
Well, after trying hard to talk Turkeybrain into selling me his old server case, he finally caved. And I've finally received the case itself.
It's fantastically huge, and over the next few days I plan to strip it of all the componants (which belong to Mr Turkeybrain) and decide my plan of attack for converting it to my new file server.
Oh yeah, and Mr Turkey wasnt able to use the case because it was locked and he couldnt get into it. Well, 2 minutes with my Dad and a screwdriver, that problem was solved. LOL!
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My new CamerajawaproThu 16/08/2007 07:19 PM
Well - Dad will be pleased. I can finally leave the good old Sony Digital camera at home with him. Ever since I've moved out, the camera has spent almost all it's time in Devonport with me. And it's been annoying my parents, as they havent had the camera (which they own).
So I've gone out and bought myself one. It's a Fujifilm S6500 - and has manual zoom and focus and things, which is exactly what I wanted. It does have auto focus and things too of course, but when I want to do fiddley stuff, I can use the manual mode.
Cost me a bit mind you - but that's ok. I use a camera very regularly (mainly for this site) so it'll be a decent investment (I hope).
And some other great news.
Firstly, Klutz is back working on the gallery script. So my new website should have a gallery.
And even better - I finally managed to talk to the guy in charge of www.illusionfxnet.com (my old web host) and he has allowed me to transfer my last 2 domains (Overlordofharmony and apostlesofm) so I'm happy. I plan to move them to godaddy shortly, so they'll all be in the same place.
Anyway - I'm off to build this Netvista for Turkey. Hopefully it wont explode.
Talk to you soon.
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