1
Computing / Just touching base.
« on: June 18, 2014, 12:30:21 pm »
Just thought I'd kick around and remember some of the stuff we did. Been a while. Here's hoping everybody is in a good place.
David
David
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2
Computing / Re: Garage Sale Network
« on: August 07, 2010, 04:01:11 pm »
System Board
two Intel Xeon 3.00GHz CPU
9 GB RAM
two Intel Xeon 3.00GHz CPU
9 GB RAM
3
Computing / Garage Sale Network
« on: August 07, 2010, 03:32:52 pm »
I've been busy. I thought I'd post up what I am referring to as my "Garage Sale Network". This haul was a good one.
one Fortinet - Fortigate 200A
two Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrators
one Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch
one Nortel BayStack 450-24T Switch
one Cisco SRW224 Switch
one MPC 1u server with Intel SE 7520 JR2 Server Board
I love picking/collecting geek crap up.
David
one Fortinet - Fortigate 200A
two Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrators
one Cisco Catalyst 2950 Switch
one Nortel BayStack 450-24T Switch
one Cisco SRW224 Switch
one MPC 1u server with Intel SE 7520 JR2 Server Board
I love picking/collecting geek crap up.
David
4
Music / Re: Vinyl Conversion
« on: May 07, 2010, 09:49:07 pm »
Oh yeah. No shuffle, just straight through the side. There was always art in the order.
Double or triple album sets were set up for the multi-platter drop mechanism. First LP had side 1 and 4, second LP had sides 2 and 3. That way you could load the set, play 1, drop 2. Flip play 3, drop 4. I never used a drop turntable but they set up the LP sets that way. I avoided cueing in the middle since that was a great to introduce a nicked track.
David
Double or triple album sets were set up for the multi-platter drop mechanism. First LP had side 1 and 4, second LP had sides 2 and 3. That way you could load the set, play 1, drop 2. Flip play 3, drop 4. I never used a drop turntable but they set up the LP sets that way. I avoided cueing in the middle since that was a great to introduce a nicked track.
David
5
Music / Vinyl Conversion
« on: May 05, 2010, 04:40:33 pm »
Awhile back I posted that Bev had gifted me a USB turntable for xmas. I have played with it off and on, grabbing must haves first and flipping through the pile of LP's. Lately I have been on a tear.
Idle observation .... Colombia Records produced by far some of the best vinyl in it's time. Best in the fact that a lot of the stuff I am converting is over 30 years old with various amounts of play time under the stylus. The Columbia vinyl has converted with the least amount of hiss/pop or general mayhem.
One thing I was thinking about is that the older player technology (record player, carseette, 8-track) was of a physical nature. There were belts, rollers, motors, etc. involved. I remember the strobe discs you could use on a turntable to calibrate the turntable speed. Now all that is taken care of using the CPU clock. There was also a physical layer involved whether it was the stylus or the recorder heads. Weird how things have evolved. I can't help but think our grandkids are going to be amazed that we use hard drives with mechanical spinning parts. Weird how things have/are evolved/evolving.
Listening to Canned Heat "Living the Blues' at the moment. Ripped off of vinyl. This record was release in 1968 as a double album and in fact was the first double LP produced that placed well on album charts. I can see the store I walked into to buy this sucker. Remember record stores? LOL
David
Idle observation .... Colombia Records produced by far some of the best vinyl in it's time. Best in the fact that a lot of the stuff I am converting is over 30 years old with various amounts of play time under the stylus. The Columbia vinyl has converted with the least amount of hiss/pop or general mayhem.
One thing I was thinking about is that the older player technology (record player, carseette, 8-track) was of a physical nature. There were belts, rollers, motors, etc. involved. I remember the strobe discs you could use on a turntable to calibrate the turntable speed. Now all that is taken care of using the CPU clock. There was also a physical layer involved whether it was the stylus or the recorder heads. Weird how things have evolved. I can't help but think our grandkids are going to be amazed that we use hard drives with mechanical spinning parts. Weird how things have/are evolved/evolving.
Listening to Canned Heat "Living the Blues' at the moment. Ripped off of vinyl. This record was release in 1968 as a double album and in fact was the first double LP produced that placed well on album charts. I can see the store I walked into to buy this sucker. Remember record stores? LOL
David
6
Computing / On-line Scanners
« on: March 13, 2010, 05:14:33 pm »
I signed into the ARRL website and started diving into the members only sections. Found an interesting series of articles on internet radio stuff. There was a link to this site ...
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/
Pick your state and county and there is a good chance they are live streaming the police/fire bands. They have mine which I thought was cool. I started looking around then for a portable app that might do the same thing. I found 5-0 Radio Pro at the app store.
http://smartestapple.com/
You can check the feeds available but it pretty much streams radioreference,com (see above) and also does some music (haven't tried yet) and a few repeaters. Interesting little app.
David
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/
Pick your state and county and there is a good chance they are live streaming the police/fire bands. They have mine which I thought was cool. I started looking around then for a portable app that might do the same thing. I found 5-0 Radio Pro at the app store.
http://smartestapple.com/
You can check the feeds available but it pretty much streams radioreference,com (see above) and also does some music (haven't tried yet) and a few repeaters. Interesting little app.
David
7
Computing / Re: Windows 7 Starter Thoughts
« on: March 13, 2010, 05:00:15 pm »
If I remember your post when you got the PC it was an Asus Eee PC. I'm not sure how your's compares to what these guys did but check out:
http://pauldotcom.com/2009/06/backtrack-4-pre-release-with-p.html
I listen to their podcast religiously. As a matter of fact when Bev and I take a run into the next town over for the "big" food store we do our fix of infosec on the way. I thought the write up was interesting and picked up an SD card to give it a whirl but alas it is a project in waiting at the moment.
Sorry to hear about the smoking thing man. Been there, doing that. You were off for an extended time if I remember. I did 3 years once and fell. I try to hold back and restrict the environments I allow it ie. no indoor/inside my or anyone else's house etc.
I am looking for my boss to spring for the 7 license at work soon. I've heard great things.
David
http://pauldotcom.com/2009/06/backtrack-4-pre-release-with-p.html
I listen to their podcast religiously. As a matter of fact when Bev and I take a run into the next town over for the "big" food store we do our fix of infosec on the way. I thought the write up was interesting and picked up an SD card to give it a whirl but alas it is a project in waiting at the moment.
Sorry to hear about the smoking thing man. Been there, doing that. You were off for an extended time if I remember. I did 3 years once and fell. I try to hold back and restrict the environments I allow it ie. no indoor/inside my or anyone else's house etc.
I am looking for my boss to spring for the 7 license at work soon. I've heard great things.
David
8
Computing / Re: Upgrading the iBook
« on: March 12, 2010, 11:12:40 pm »
Fetch is very good! I've used it since the beginning of time (Color Cla$$ic) when you could still get it as shareware.
From Wikipedia:
David
From Wikipedia:
Quote
Fetch was created in the summer of 1989 by Jim Matthews, an employee of Dartmouth College. At the time, it was intended primarily for internal college use. Fetch was maintained and updated as a Dartmouth software project and was eventually released as shareware, becoming very popular in the Macintosh community.
The first version of Fetch was a desk accessory.
In late 2000, Jim Matthews was a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and used the winnings to purchase the Fetch name and source code. Jim Matthews then created Fetch Softworks.
David
9
Computing / Re: Pa$$ed my Ham Technician License Exam
« on: March 05, 2010, 10:30:27 pm »
Tim, that must have been so freaking cool. Vintage stuff is allright in my book. I looked up AN-GRC 106 AM SSB. That was some serious hunk of electronics. Now everything can fit in your lunch box. One of the things I never realized is that RF can burn. My friend the next town over will jack the power on the transmission and when he keys up the mic all the motion lights on the outside of the house turn on. I was just reading about MARS at Wikipedia. Never knew about that service. Very cool. If you ever run across any good internet references to the RATT Rigs parse them on please.
Sal, one of these days I will hop on the repeater down there and give a CQ, see what comes back. Like you said you never know.
David
Sal, one of these days I will hop on the repeater down there and give a CQ, see what comes back. Like you said you never know.
David
10
Computing / Pa$$ed my Ham Technician License Exam
« on: March 01, 2010, 09:34:04 pm »
So I took the Ham Technician level exam the other week and parseed. Got my paper from the FCC last Friday and hooked into Echolink since I have no rig at the moment. Having lots of fun with it and attempting to 'connect' to some friends the next town over via Echolink repeaters (Echolink to RF). Unfortunately we are on the hunt since repeaters in this neck of the woods are plentiful but not with Echolink capability. I'm not sure if anyone here has a license but if you do give a shout out sometime for KB1TTG. Sal, I was looking through the Echolink repeater directory and see one in Harlingen, TX. That's down where you are isn't it?
I pulled the trigger on the licensing because I have always thought it would be cool to explore radio and the hospital got a rig via Homeland Security (our tax dollars at work) and the hospital was looking for people to test out for emergency usage. I figured now was a good time to go the whole way and take the test. Radios are not cheap so for now I delve into the Echolink capabilities and see how far I can stretch it.
David
I pulled the trigger on the licensing because I have always thought it would be cool to explore radio and the hospital got a rig via Homeland Security (our tax dollars at work) and the hospital was looking for people to test out for emergency usage. I figured now was a good time to go the whole way and take the test. Radios are not cheap so for now I delve into the Echolink capabilities and see how far I can stretch it.
David
11
Computing / Re: Windows Media Server
« on: January 10, 2010, 02:57:15 pm »
It works on any Windows Server install, I used Windows Server 2003. You just arseign a new server role - media server. This installs the Windows Media Services control panel. The Windows Media Encoder is a free download. It works pretty much out of the box. You drop your content into C:\WMPub\WMRoot. I had to arseign some security stuff but not a lot of configuring. Windows even provides some sample content.
David
PS: LOL I got a personal visit from the CEO and a handshake out of this one. I was considering never washing my hand again but then regained my senses.
David
PS: LOL I got a personal visit from the CEO and a handshake out of this one. I was considering never washing my hand again but then regained my senses.
12
Computing / Windows Media Server
« on: January 09, 2010, 12:49:37 pm »
I was given the task of rippping Management Training DVD's down to a format that we could stream on our internal intranet. I set up a Windows Media Server and using Windows Media Encoder got a streaming server installed that feeds the ripped videos as streaming content. Slammed about 10 boxes simultaneously into the content and it never even burped.
Now management staff can view the content and learn to manage from anywhere they can connect to our network. Hope it helps. This was a fun side project for me and not all that hard. Just set the server role and away you go.
David
Now management staff can view the content and learn to manage from anywhere they can connect to our network. Hope it helps. This was a fun side project for me and not all that hard. Just set the server role and away you go.
David
13
Music / Re: Pandora
« on: January 09, 2010, 12:41:30 pm »
I'm a late comer for this app. I have been using FlyCast as it streams one of my favorite stations, WFMT from my time in Chicago (more specifically the show "The Midnight Special" on Sat. nights). It has a good mix of jazz and such but I mostly listen to WFMT.
I loaded up Pandora this morning as I do my daily RTFM sessions. I loaded up a stream for Jazz Fusion and WOW! This thing is great so far. I look forward to exploring it more and more. Kick a$$ Paco De Lucia "Rio Anchio" at the moment. I am digging the "Now Playing" feature on this app as the FlyCast feature kinda doesn't work for all the stations.
I should mention that my wonderful wife Christmas/Birthday gifted me a Bose SoundDock Portable digital sound system. This unit is worth every penny it costs. I have tried so many different portable sound systems and this one is IT. Lithium battery so it goes mobile with no issues. Crank the system to full volume and you fill your ears and the house with no distortion at full throttle. Remote control to pause the tunes in case I can actually hear the phone ring;-)
RTFM at the moment is Dragon NaturallySpeaking Dragon Medical 10 User Guide.
David
I loaded up Pandora this morning as I do my daily RTFM sessions. I loaded up a stream for Jazz Fusion and WOW! This thing is great so far. I look forward to exploring it more and more. Kick a$$ Paco De Lucia "Rio Anchio" at the moment. I am digging the "Now Playing" feature on this app as the FlyCast feature kinda doesn't work for all the stations.
I should mention that my wonderful wife Christmas/Birthday gifted me a Bose SoundDock Portable digital sound system. This unit is worth every penny it costs. I have tried so many different portable sound systems and this one is IT. Lithium battery so it goes mobile with no issues. Crank the system to full volume and you fill your ears and the house with no distortion at full throttle. Remote control to pause the tunes in case I can actually hear the phone ring;-)
RTFM at the moment is Dragon NaturallySpeaking Dragon Medical 10 User Guide.
David
14
Computing / Re: Greetings from Windows XP via VMware ESX Server 3i
« on: January 01, 2010, 10:09:42 pm »
Loaded up Ubuntu "Jaunty Jackalope". I love how they name the distros.
Spent the day between the Ubuntu install and getting the Color Clarseic to come back to life. I had a minor power supply issue but she's running again. Played Lemmings for a bit.
Hope everyone had a great New Year Day!
David
Spent the day between the Ubuntu install and getting the Color Clarseic to come back to life. I had a minor power supply issue but she's running again. Played Lemmings for a bit.
Hope everyone had a great New Year Day!
David
15
Computing / Greetings from Windows XP via VMware ESX Server 3i
« on: December 20, 2009, 07:20:42 pm »
I inherited a Dell PowerEdge 6450 (four P3 Xeon processors 4GB RAM - RAID 5) from an equipment retirement at work. It was headed to the dump so it came home with me. I set up the box and got VMware installed. Loaded up Windows XP and here I am. Next install is a Linux distro.
I am looking to get as many installs on the VMware box as possible and start the hack lab.
David
I am looking to get as many installs on the VMware box as possible and start the hack lab.
David