The Rant of a Thinker

Very rarely do I every promote an app, either for the iPhone, my Mac or my PC.  However, I think this app deserves a little shameless plug.

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A few weeks ago I installed the wiring for my concealed display for my Valentine 1 radar detector. I positioned it near the drivers side A pillar, not because I thought it was the best spot but because it was the best spot for it while still being able to easily reach the mute button. Due to my frequent city driving and the amount of automatic door openers around my area, it was a necessity to be able to mute it easily.  After a few weeks of this, I found it less then ideal but didn’t think I had another option.

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To follow up on the first video from “thewebsiteisdown.com” ( found here on the left) they have released a second video ( found here on the right).  While nothing can match the original video, this is still quite funny if you’ve ever had to support users in a corporate environment.
Check out the videos, but don’t let your users hear you….they might get upset.

I have 23 Dell Desktops, and about 8 laptops.  I needed a solution to wipe and reload the systems as quick as possible.  I did some testing and the best free cloning software I found was PING.  PING is modeled after Norton Ghost and will allow you to put the images onto a network file server or a local partition.

Once I had PING down, I moved onto the network system . Since PING is capable of booting the computers through PXE, I wouldn’t need to burn any CDs or DVDs.  It even allows you to script the image creation or restoration.  Since the image creation was a one shot deal for me I just did it manually.

So in the end,  I ended up having a linux server with TFTP and DHCP for the PXE and NFS for image storage.  It took the Dell D800 image 4 minutes to restore from boot to shutdown.  A heck of a lot better then the 1.5 hours it took me to put on XP and all the drivers.

I haven’t posted recently, but I now have a reason so read through and let me know what you think.
If you didn’t know, I  have recently started working with a liquidator in my work life.  They usually call me in to backup the data of the company they are liquidating.  This time however they asked that I take care of wiping the hard drives of the desktops and laptops.

Therefore, I recently came into posession of around 20 23 Dell desktops.  Two different models, pretty similar configs.  So now that I have these sitting around awaiting their sale on eBay I am stuck with the question of what to do with them.

I thought about setting up a beowolf cluster.  However, I have nothing to run on it so what fun would it be?  So I am now open for suggestions.

Also, I have some other IT equiptment so if you are looking to buy some stuff check what I have for sale on ebay

I’m sorry because I know this may upset some people.

After watching the convention last night I started wondering why the Republicans seem to take their downfalls and place them on the Democrats. They talk about bigger government if you elect Obama, but under their control the government has grown at an unprecidented rate. They talk about the liberal media bashing their VP pick when to me it seems like they are asking the questions about her past that need to be asked. Hey if they’re wrong just show the facts that prove it. This woman left the town of 9,000 with over 20 million in debt and was critized by McCain for taking earmarks 3 times and then says she crusaded against them.

Finally she thinks that sex education should not be taught in schools and they should promote abstinence. Well I think she now has to confess to one of two things. Either it doesn’t work or you didn’t practice it with your daughter making you a hypocrite.

I got an idea for the Republicans. Stay the fuck out of my personal choices and I’ll stay the fuck out of yours.

So those who have known me for a bit have known that about 2 years ago I worked out very frequently and lost a good amount of weight.  I stopped working out a while ago due to changes at work and in life.  Well I’ve put some back on, but more importantly I’ve just not had the energy I should.  So today I started back on my routine.  Granted, it is not as intense as some people, but its not light either.  I just know I’ll be sore tomorrow.

I’ll keep everyone updated on the progress.

So I thought I would put some updates as to what’s going on at work:

Project: Dad’s Server

The order has been placed for one hell of a server.  The specs are as follows:

1. Intel SR2500 Server Chasis
2. Intel SRCS28X RAID controller
3. Intel BX80574E5420P 2.5Ghz 45nm Quad Core Processor with 12M L2 Cache
4. 6 Segate 500gb ES.2 SATA Drives
5. 8 GB ECC RAM
6. Rackmount Kit

The plan is to put VMWare server on the bad boy with a CentOS minimum install for the host.  On top will be:

1. Microsoft SBS 2003 R2 to provide Email, SQL and Sharepoint.
2. FreeBSD and/or CentOS to provide generic web hosting
3. Openfiler to provide an iSCSI target so we can somewhat dynamically assign storage space (We got 2TB but we don’t want to be stupid now) it will also share out backup space through iSCSI or SMB for local backups
4. FreeBSD or CentOS to provide outside DNS

The only thing I’m wondering is if you can do Xen and VMWare together to get the best of both worlds when hosting the linux and windows DomU’s

Well, it looks like I’ll be staying with the Blackberry after all.  I looked over the enhancements that the new iPhone comes with and it just doesn’t make a compelling argument to move away from the Blackberries expecially when you throw in the the neew BB Bold coming out.

I was ready to move because I could drop my data costs from $40 per month for the BB to $20 for the iPhone.  However, AT&T decided to now have the data costs at $30.  Also, the lack of sending MMS is another WTF.  I was also hoping for the video conferencing, but that wasn’t in the cards. Finally, I was hesitent to get rid of the real keyboard.

I just don’t see why everyone thinks it’s the best phone since sliced bread when they can’t even include the basics like MMS sending and video recording.

Well, its been awhile since I’ve written here but my mind has been on other things.  Like work and the new toys it has bestowed upon me.

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