Monthly Archives: August 2009

Television Issue Resolved

I managed to resolve my television issue. After a little search last Sunday my wife and I both preferred the look of plasma. I was a little concerned about burn-in but apparently technology has progressed to the point of this being a non-issue, or at least it’s about the same as old style televisions (see here and here). We decided on the Samsung PN50B550 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV. Very nice.

Storage Problems Part 2: Proposed Solution

I’ve adopted a solution to my storage problems. Basically, I’ve decided on the Drobo solution. If you recall from last time, I was leaning heavily toward an OpenSolaris solution using ZFS. I still think ZFS is ultimately the way to go because it’s cool software design, but I’m not convinced of running an entire system for that purpose. I really wish Apple would get their act together and implement ZFS to go along with the rest of their even cooler software design. I’m also not quite sure why there are no cheap external eSATA enclosures. I’m thinking $150 for a chunk of metal with a fan, a power supply, and enough circuitry to support 8 drives as JBOD. Is that unreasonable? Maybe not enough market.

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Salt, Vinegar, and Vending Machine Wounds

I’m a cheap bastard. I’ve been a cheap bastard for a long time. I just want to feel as though I get something for my money that is worth while. Maybe cheap bastard is the wrong term. I’ll spend more to feel like I got the best value. I could after all buy a cheap notebook instead of a MacBook Pro, but the pounding in the ass I’d take in usability every time I want to do something offsets the monetary expense of the transaction. So, maybe I’m a “best bang for the buck” bastard. No matter this post is about how I finally fell for the allure of the promise of salt and vinegar chips.

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Toshiba LCD TV POS!

It’s really very simple. My wife and I don’t care much for going out to see movies. We like movies. It’s just that to go out means finding a sitter, finding a movie, getting tickets, standing in line to pick up tickets, standing in line to buy overpriced popcorn and a soda, and finally sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a large room with at least one very rude asshole who doesn’t realize where he or she is. There is always the talking on the phone or more recently the texting with backlights ruining the view of the movie. It’s an overly complicated algorithm for a software designer that just wants things to work. So instead we bought a TV.

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Storage Problems Part 1: Background

I mentioned my storage problems in previous posts. Really I’ve had the same issues ever since I started in with these dam computers. Each upgrade has really just temporally delayed the inevitable. I’ve done a few things right. I’ve always used high quality power supplies and UPS. The result is I’ve not had a major drive failure in 18 years. Not bad. But it’s only a matter of time.

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Adobe CS 4 Design Premium, Part 2

I’m about half way through the second install disk on my G5. Figured now would be a good time to post. Pretty excited to start learning this stuff. I’ve been browsing through several design books on Safari. Looks like magic to me. I’m hoping it won’t be too hard learning what I need to know to hack together the more complicated illustrations I plan in my dissertation using Illustrator. The simple stuff is all done using OmniGraffle, which is great but limited.

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Adobe CS 4 Design Premium, Part 1

I finally bit the bullet. I bought a student version of Adobe CS 4 Design Premium. I’ve been thinking I need to get Illustrator for the diagrams I create for my research. OmniGraffle works great for flowcharts and block diagrams but sometimes I wish I had just a little more control. The other thing is editing photos. Obviously, Photoshop is the big raging beast for that. So, now I’m committed. We’ll see what happens. I can already say this may push my notebook over the brink. The 160 GB drive is bursting at the seams and all I can do is eyeball the SSD stuff that doesn’t come close to enough capacity in anything I could reasonably justify spending money on. I’m thinking this stuff will be reserved for desktop use, but then those drives are bursting at the seams too.

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