Tag Archives: Rants

A Week Of Lists: Friday – Things I’d like to accomplish within the next 12 months

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These are some of the things I’d like to have achieved by the end of 2010. Most of these are material items, but some are also potential social tools rather than silly status symbols.

This list has some in-order, and then misc “Whenever money is available” items.

  1. Get a job. Definitely, number one priority.
  2. Purchase a second car for us, very close second. This will allow us to be independent in terms of transport, at least after number 3 has been achieved.
  3. The Subaru needs to be inspected by a mechanic, probably by the Subaru dealer, and investigate several small faults and see if there are any major or minor problems that will need to be worked on, determining whether we need to have the car repaired or whether we replace it.
  4. Pay off some of our higher-interest loans and the outstanding credit card, and pay down some of the other larger loans. I plan on using the credit card as I would my normal debit card (and nothing more!), paying it off every month for around 12 months before canceling, in hopes of improving my credit score.
  5. Move out!
  • Buy an XBox 360 and a Nintendo Wii. I have no interest in a PS3..
  • Replace, repurpose and/or otherwise upgrade my computer systems. If possible I’d like to start work on my rack-mounted wishlist.
  • At least begin saving for NZ trip, ideally save enough for Christmas 2010, or early-mid 2011.
  • Repair/replace my camera. I’d like another 2 cameras – a little point-and-shoot and a DSLR, not expecting both this year.
  • Acquire some equipment towards a home studio (small mixer, firewire in, etc..)

A Week Of Lists: Thursday – Ideas I had to make money (that I probably won’t use)

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So this is probably the most useful of the lists I’ve made this week, these are ideas I came up with to make money (as a I-don’t-need-a-job-look-how-much-this-is-making job)

They either need capital I don’t have, skills or experience I don’t have, I projected they wouldn’t meet income-requirements soon enough, or some combination.

  • Webhost, providing Domains, Dedicated Servers, Virtual Dedicated Servers, Shell accounts, etc etc. Can’t be competitive and profitable until about the 7th full server..
  • T-shirts, coming up with various ideas and selling – initially through a 3rd party but eventually self-printing.
  • Providing IT services as a contractor to individuals and businesses. Again, not competitive and profitable until a few contracts are secured and other people are being employed to maintain them all.

A Week Of Lists: Wednesday – CDs and Games (and such) I want

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I feel selfish this week, but I don’t really care! (Oh, how selfish of me..)

This week is a lot about me voicing my personal planning ideas about financial decisions in the next 12 months (based on how these unimportant things fit in the overall budget along with equally unimportant things Kelly wants) if possible.

Today is focusing on a broader range, encompassing computer games and music.

I’m probably going to migrate more to digital download music than CDs, but there is something comforting in owning a solid piece of plastic and the box for it to live in.

Anyway, in no particular blah blah blah…

Games:

  • Battlefield 2142
  • Call of Duty
  • Halo
  • Battlefield 1943
  • Modern Warfare
  • Modern Warfare 2

Music:

  • Some Gatecrasher
  • Parachute Band (Old and new!)
  • Rapture Ruckus
  • Hillsong United
  • Planetshakers

A Week Of Lists: Tuesday – DVDs I’d like to acquire

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Most of the DVDs I’m wanting are TV series. Most of them I’ve seen before, I just want them on DVD because they’re awesome!

Again, in no particular order..

  • The Office (US), Season 1-Current
  • NCIS, Season 1-Current
  • House, Season 1-Current
  • Fringe, Season 2-Current
  • Hunt for Red October
  • Sum of All Fears
  • Top Gun
  • Hancock
  • Up
  • Monsters vs. Aliens

And many more that don’t come to mind…

A Week Of Lists: Monday – Books I’d Like To Acquire

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For someone that doesn’t read a lot, there are a number of books I have on a wishlist of sorts.

Some of these I read in school and have fond memories of, others I’ve never read but want to.

In no particular order:

  • The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, by Sue Townsend
  • I am not Esther, by Fleur Beale
  • Face, by Benjamin Zephaniah
  • Bacon Sandwiches and Salvation, by Adrian Plass
  • Cabbages for the King, by Adrian Plass
  • The Growing-up Pains of Adrian Plass, by Adrian Plass
  • The Horizontal Epistles of Andromeda Veal, by Adrian Plass
  • Plass At Christmas, by Adrian Plass
  • The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37 3/4, by Adrian Plass
  • The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, Christian Speaker Aged 45 3/4, by Adrian Plass
  • The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, on Tour: Aged Far Too Much to Be Put on the Front Cover of a Book, by Adrian Plass
  • Stress Family Robinson, by Adrian Plass
  • Stress Family Robinson 2, by Adrian Plass
  • The Theatrical Tapes of Leonard Thynn, by Adrian Plass
  • The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey
  • The DiscWorld Series (or at least the first one), by Terry Pratchett
  • Johnny and the Dead, by Terry Pratchett
  • Johnny and the Bomb, by Terry Pratchett

I think that is enough for now!

  • Why I follow Jesus, by Adrian Plass

A Week Of Lists

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This week I plan on making several lists, some more useful than others.

Today I made a list of employment agencies that I intend to visit tomorrow while Kelly is at work. I’ll take her up, drop her off, make my rounds and then see where I go from there.

This is also a list of lists I’ll make during the week:

  • Monday – Books I’d like to acquire
  • Tuesday – DVDs I’d like to acquire
  • Wednesday – CDs and Games (and such) I want
  • Thursday – Ideas I had to make money (that I probably won’t use)
  • Friday – Things I’d like to accomplish within the next 12 months

Yes, today is boring. I don’t care 😉

It Has Been a While!

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Wow, I keep realizing how long it has been since I wrote an entry here. Most things remain the same. I still don’t have a full time job, although I interviewed with a county school system earlier this week and also applied to a year-round resort, both IT positions. I also have another 3 jobs to apply for this afternoon (hopefully) that are also IT and not terribly far away.

I’ve done some work on my monitoring systems for my servers. Over the last few months I’ve developed several methods for providing close to real-time outage-notifications and misc. monitoring for the three servers I administrate. The system I currently have primarily does two things: Service unavailable notifications via Twitter, Email and Txt message (via email), and corresponding “It’s available again” messages, and system monitoring using an Eggdrop IRC bot for each server with basic commands.

I’d like to expand this system at some point in the future, by migrating the system monitoring system from Eggdrop to a Perl bot. This would allow it to be more portable, and hopefully have a smaller footprint on the server it runs on. It would be nice to have IRC-based announcements for server-up/server-down as well as more minor alerts, like high CPU usage, high RAM usage, high hard disk partition usage, etc. We’ll see how that goes at some point in the future.

In more interesting news, I believe we have pretty much finished our Christmas shopping. All of our box to New Zealand items have been bought, and we are waiting for 3 of them to ship or arrive by mail. All but one (I believe) of the remaining items have been wrapped, and they’re all sitting in a corner of our room waiting for everything else to be ready to go. We’re just waiting for 2 items to arrive (apparently they were mailed recently), and another to be mailed. I checked yesterday and it was still pending.

I recently provided a redesign for a fan-site, I’ll try and post screenshots later. I’m also working on upgrading/updating the Infinitley-aLive website, and moving away from WordPress. I’m undecided yet as to whether I’ll use SilverStripe (as on http://chris.i-al.net/) or if I’ll build my own fully customized CMS for it. Having been looking at CodeIgniter, it may be a fun first-project for a CodeIgniter site.

Lastly, if you find yourself in need of some web-design or web-programming, or a shell account for almost anything, or just basic webhosting, leave me a comment or something. I am happy to work with your budget so long as it fits mine, I’m happy to work for the testimonial and for a reference for my resume if I feel a need to use it, and you’re happy to provide the details I need. I accept paypal, and cash or check if you wish to meet locally. Also, if I can’t do something I’ll let you know quickly, and if I can I’ll point in the direction of people who are able to fulfill your requirements.

Be Careful With Mechanical Devices

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ATC DeviceThis is an ATC, or an Air Traffic Controller. It is a belay device, used to add large amounts of friction to a rope when working on high-ropes courses. A couple of months ago I was working on such a high-ropes course (I won’t name it, nor will I name the individuals involved). We were working with a middle-school group, and operating a team-belay system. In this system, there are anywhere from 4-5 people working on belaying another person who is taking on the element we are focusing on. The way team belay works is that the first person in the line is the anchor. Their responsibility involves wearing a harness to which a carabiner attaches with the rope and the ATC. Their job is to pull down on the rope coming to them, to make a tight connection between them and the person participating in the element. That is all they do, if the person falls, or it is time for them to come down, they should let go and stand firm. The next 2-3 people stand in a line beside the anchor, and their job is to pull the rope through the ATC so that there is no slack between the ATC and the participant. The last person in the line is responsible for coiling the rope, so that it is not left on the ground to be trampled on should the belay line need to move (IE, following the participant along an element such as a catwalk or mohawk-walk). Depending on the situation, and generally a good idea anyway, an additional person will hold the back of the anchor’s harness so that in the event the participant outweighs them, they aren’t lifted off the ground at any point.

Anyway, this is relevant because I was working a high element using team belay, and the anchor was a young girl with long hair. It got caught in the ATC when the participant was coming down from the element. Some quick thinking and movement from the team of facilitators meant that safety was never a risk for the participant, and after about 10 very intense minutes, we were able to free the hair and lower the participant to the ground.

I was wearing my harness, unusual in the circumstances, as I was facilitating and not participating in any of the technical work beyond instructing the young people on what they needed to do. I was also the one who anchored the anchor, as it were. She was a small girl, and the participant larger than she, so I put my hand in her harness to hold her down. As I was doing so, she tipped her head and said “it’s caught, my hair is caught” – in my stupor I checked I wasn’t pulling it with my hand slipping behind her harness, and removed it again. But still, she had her head to the side. It was at this moment I looked at what was happening and realized Bad Things(tm) were going on. I called over the other two facilitators on the ground (a third was up a tree, working on fixing an earlier problem whereby he had lost the pull-rope through a pulley for an element). They pulled down on the rope to relieve tension from the ATC, but it wasn’t enough, the hair had got itself well and truly stuck. I ran for the equipment shed, and about 30 seconds later was attaching a new ATC to the rope just up from where the stuck one was, before attaching to my harness (God works in mysterious ways!).

This allowed us to work freely on the problem ATC device. As I said, it took about 5-6 minutes from this point (from point of realization to getting the new ATC in place was about 2-3 minutes) to get the hair removed. Someone had the genius idea to pull half the rope through, and that then it may be removable with an extra 1/2″ of space to work with in the hole. Unfortunately, this end of the rope was the one with tape around it marking what it’s purpose was, and wouldn’t pull through. And so, off to the kitchen one of the facilitators went, intending to take the vehicle they’d brought. He returned a few seconds later with a pair of scissors, and we cut off about 3 inches of the rope end. It was a matter of seconds at this point before the rope was removed, the hair untangled. It has since been reinforced that all hair must be tied back and away from all places where such things may happen to entangle and trap individuals.

Chromium

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I did some reading up on Google’s Chromium, or ChromeOS over the weekend, and I have to admit I am intrigued. There are a number of things I’d like to see before I actually used it, and I have my suspicions that it may be the beginning of other things while still being “the one that didn’t make it,” but still, I’m interested in where this will go.

I’d like to use something like ChromeOS (though not necessarily ChromeOS) to run an internet cafe, for example. It could be ideal in the right corporate environment as a compromise between thin clients and fat clients, using web-apps either in-house or remote services such as Google Docs or Microsoft’s equivalent. If this were the case it would need to be able to authenticate using LDAP/Active Directory or other authentication protocols.

Also, the right users would have no problem using a basic PC using only Chrome (or something like it) to access web-applications if it were well-configured and well-presented. A flamer on Youtube suggested it wouldn’t last long if Apple produced iPhone OS-based tablets, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an upcoming Microsoft release followed a similar idea. And as is almost usual, it wouldn’t surprise me if a Linux OS or two use this as an opportunity to do similar things.

Anyway, for those who haven’t caught up with ChromeOS, or Chromium as it is now called, here are some links and videos, thanks to Google.

ChromeOS Concept:

ChromeOS Demo:

Forgotten

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A few times I’ve thought of things to write about and either not been at a computer or doing something else, and when it comes to actually writing said ideas out in this little window thing, I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to write about.

It wouldn’t even bother me if it only happened occasionally, but it’s been happening a lot recently, not just with blogging either. It’ll be when I get in the car and either forget where I was going or what song I was going to listen to, it’ll be when I get to the store and I forget what I was going to buy, it’ll be when I sit down at a computer or open a new tab on my browser and I forget what I was going to do, which website I was going to visit, what email I was going to send, etc.

It’s frustrating, it’s aggravating, I wish it didn’t happen. But alas, it does. Maybe I need a PDA (IE, a notepad) so I can write stuff down and look at it later. Maybe some more interesting posts will happen this week (if I don’t forget what I’m writing about..).