Sytone's Ramblings

With a new PC at home I have re-purposed my old desktop as a home server. For the OS I have used windows Home Server. I have read about it and thought I was time to try it out.

Desktop Mod

First the Desktop, as I wanted to place it in a cupboard the case had to fit… It didn’t…

Time for Screwdrivers, Bits of plastic, ducktape and a Stanley knife. My wife is still concerned.

1. Pull everything out of old case

As you can see from the pictures the case would not fit so I ripped all the components out and now the case lives in the garage as a spare.

 

2. Sort out the motherboard mounting

I used some old plastic containers and taped them together, that way there would be airflow behind the motherboard. I used some old plastic wall plugs for spacers and just pushed them into the plastic through a cross cut with the knife.

Once that was done it was a simple job to screw the motherboard to the spacers.

3. Position everything.

I stuck the motherboard to the side of the cupboard so it was out of the way and placed the power supply at the back of the case, there is plenty of ventilation.

4. Create custom HD mounts.

To mount the hard drives I had the option of cutting out the metal on the case for the mount or using a old shoe box… I went the shoe box It was quite sturdy and worked well and leave me room for a few more drives, as you can see from the picture there is plenty of ventilation room.

5. Tape on the lights and boot

This is a blurry shoot of the cupboard with the door close, you can see the power and HD lights taped to the window so I can see what is happening with a glance. In all it is working well!

 

Windows Home Server

If you do not know what this is click on the picture below, I have installed it to automate the desktop backups and to allow me to share the family picture, movies and music in one place. So far so good! Once I get my XBox 360 on the network I can use media sharing.

If you are using the Amazing Grace theme for WordPress the following hack allows you to change the image in the header bar to a flickr feed. Note: I have only tested in IE, if you have firefox and it does not work drop a comment.

Modify header.php and place the following in the style tags near the top.

#portrait-bg {
  background:url(<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/bg-portraitB.jpg);
}

#flickr_badge_image1
{
  position:absolute;
  left:14px;
  top:28px;
}
#flickr_badge_image1 img {
  border: none;
  width:283px;
  height:174px;
}

Create a badge with flickr for the tagged photos you want in the header and in the final screen with the code to paste into your site look for the javascript call. Place this between the div with the id portrait-bg in header.php

Example.

<div id="portrait-bg">
<script type="text/javascript"
   src="http://www.flickr.com/badge_code_v2.gne?count=1&display=random&size=m&layout=x&source=user_tag&user=9245906%40N03&tag=blogheader">
</script></div>

Once this is done, place the following image in the Amazing Grace theme directory under images and name it bg-portraitB.jpg. (Right click and save it down)

Refresh and all should be done.

Well made it to Seattle, settlted into my apartment and missing my lugage

It will be coming some time tonight apprently, gave me a excuse to shop anyway. One thing you have to love about the food in America is the size of the portions, I asked for a small chicken ceaser and it came on a plate 30cm across and piled up. So much for a light lunch.

“I have a new camera (Yes im a lucky boy Jane ) It is a nice new Canon 350D one of there mid range Digital SLR cameras. Got it for a really good price at Dick Smiths after Christmas, which means I will really have to get my gallery organised, and a good back stratergy for all of my photos. Im using Photo Collector al lot more now for the copying as it is completly transperent.”

“I have finally got around to doing some upgrades, and I now have m y reading/to read list on the left. I got the reading/read bits from Absoblogginlutely and have added my own hack. Modify: wp-content/plugins/amm/amm_extras.php to make a nicer ratings. I have replaced the rating() funtion with the below data. Change the bold text to what ever you like. function rating() {   //HACK: For 6=Read, 7=Reading data   if ($this->currentItem['amm_rating'] == 6 ) {     return 'Going to read';   }   if ($this->currentItem['amm_rating'] == 7 ) {     return 'Reading';   }   return $this->currentItem['amm_rating']; }”

“With my new role come a lot of recording, now that I do not have a tablet PC (and the fact that tablet PC’s are not ‘there’ yet) I am using a paper diary. Now thoes of you who know me, no I have not gone mad! To be honest it feels good to be writing again, I have a nice A5 diary with plently of blank paper it it. A monthly calendar to mark anything down I need to and sections for tasks and projects. Since I try to use the Getting Things Done methadology I am using some print outs to support this. the Diary has the following sections: First Section – Lined paper for notes Second Section – Weekly Calendar (Was monthly but needed more granularity) I use post it tabs to mark the current week. Third Section – Next Action, this follows the GTD methodology and has Work, Home and errends. Fourth Section – Projects list, this is to review weekly – Project outlines, this is a more details breakdown for a project to allow action lists to be created out of. Also I keep any notes for a project behind these. Fifth Section – Agendas, what I have to speak to people about when I see them next. Sixth Section – General Reference and my contacts list. A dumping ground for important bits that I need every now and again. The hardest part about this whole process is getting into the habit of reviewing the lists weekly for updates and making sure I reference them during the day for outstanding. I have found my self thinking during the day that I have to do something, and later looking at my action lists and it is there for me to do. I need to ‘trust’ the system more. That is a big point in the GTD books. The forms and pages that I use come from http://www.diyplanner.com/ I have created my own weekly view which I need to refine, once done I will put it up for others to use.”

“So, I ave a ton of photos, file, email, etc… How do you organise them in the system. Well here is the method I am attempting to use. This is more of a reference for me but hey, if you want to try it go for it. Photos I store them in a folder which makes up the date of the photo. Since most modern cameras use JPG, if the dat is set correctly the date and time of the photo is imbedded into the photo is self in the EXIF data. So I have the folders sorted by the following pattern. YYYY-MM-DD, this is the year, month and day in english. This has the advantage of a ever increasing number so they are sorted correctly. No You are saying how do I find photos, well.

1. I know the dates of big events (Birthdays, etc)
2. I use Picasa

Picasa has the excellent ability of being able to tage the images and being able to sort them by tags and categories. This measn the files sty in there years, months and days and I can still group them together. This is a concept of having seperate views on one set of data. If you look at the photo collector link on the left, I use this to take the photos from the camera.”

“We are nearly settled, I have now started work with a large consulting company and I’m based out of Canberra. with many thanks to my parents, Janes parents and Megan and Micheal we have had places to stay for the last few weeks. We are now tring to get a home in Ainsle in Canberra so my commute will go from walk-train-bus-walk (1.5hrs) down to walk(15 miuntes), I consider this a decent improvment! Photos will be coming as soo as I get my camrea out of a bag, and find my external HD. If you want to contact us just email and we will get back to you eventually.”

We are safely in Australia now and at my parents place. The kids were great oin the trip and we have a raft of suggestions for thoes flying with children

“OK, its nearly time. The movers are now in the house. It is weird having them run and do all the packing. Im helping where i can but they seem to have it all in hand. Starting to get very stressed about this move. Not long until we are in sydney now. Also I have managed to break the gallery imbedded so it will break you out of the site for the moment. Thats what you get for upgrading Anyway, three dyas and counting! Also for the techies out there geoshell has to be the simplest and cleanes shell for windows i have used.”