Monthly Archive for June, 2009

I need a NAS

Published on June 25, 2009 in Geekery. 2 Comments Tags: , .

An update to my previous post: my backup drive has started failing this week as well, capping off what’s been a stressful couple of weeks. It’s not completely dead – I have strong hopes of being able to copy it’s contents – but it’s clearly not happy.

Does anyone have strong personal suggestions for a home 1TB NAS that’s fairly easy to setup and has at least basic media streaming features? RSVP ASAP since I’ll be heading to MicroCenter and buying a new one tomorrow.

I is a geek, so I’m happy doing some hacker setup, but when it comes to backup and file storage, I mostly want it to just work. I’d also prefer something reasonably quiet and power efficient; print server will be a bonus for when I buy a printer that actually works; both easy Mac and Windows access required. Although it sounds silly, RAID would be nice, since I know once I get it setup it’ll be a while before I actually get around to backing it all up to organized DVDs.

Update: Thanks to the thousands of callers who’ve dialed in to comment and remind me that of course what I’m looking for is a NAS, not a NAT. Just one last speleling mistake to cap off the past weak. And yes, I’d prefer one of the linux ones; in this particular case I’d rather pull a little more hair out trying to get it to work rather than selling just a little bit more of my soul for proprietary software.

Disaster week is OVER!

Published on June 25, 2009 in Muse. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

This is offered – not as an excuse, but as an explanation – of why I’ve been so quiet lately. Some friends and perhaps fellow members have wondered why I haven’t spoken up or made known some positions recently.

In the past week or so, I’ve been dealing with a number of stressful situations including:

  • Extended family member in rehab recovering from a heart attack
  • Close family member with arm and wrist injuries
  • Various minor but urgent miscellaneous legal issues
  • Various questions from our home renovation contractor
  • A cat at the emergency vet at 2AM
  • Leaks in the roof
  • No attic or basement (due to shuffling boxes for contractor)
  • Flaky electricity in half our outlets
  • No home internet for a while
  • Reorg at work
  • Cats making a mess and being upset at the rest of the stress in life

I do recognize that I’m incredibly lucky even give the aforementioned disaster a day of the past two weeks. I live in a country with free speech, and free and fair elections. I have a great job, own (some of) my own home, and have a wife and daughter more wonderful than I ever imagined. I don’t have any serious illnesses, and all of our cats are now in at least stable condition.

But the human condition is a relative one: one person’s exciting challenge is another person’s incipient ulcer. And we’re used to a certain pace or style of life – while I can handle most disasters as well as anyone, too many at once just doesn’t feel fair. Hence, a number of things I’ve wanted to do have been postponed for a while lately.

So I declare it the end of disaster week, and look forward to a disaster-free and very fun weekend with some family coming to visit. I just hope we have enough floor space left from all our storage reshuffling to find the spare bed!

Board members of the ASF, 1999-2008

Published on June 9, 2009 in Apache. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I’ve compiled an interesting view of the board members of The Apache Software Foundation over the past decade of it’s incorporated existence.

ASF Board Members, 1999-2008

The source spreadsheet is also available.

Happy Birthday Apache! (A few days late) As the public incorporation record shows, the ASF was formally incorporated on June 1st, 1999.

Darth Jackson and the Stormtrooper Zombies

Published on June 1, 2009 in Geekery. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

There. Are. No. Words. The awesomeness of Darth Jackson and the Stormtrooper Zombies. RT @chrisjdavis.

- signed, a child of Star Wars and MTV.