Sep
03
2010
Linux + Mac.
I might have a slight obsession with elegant networking. I have quite a few different chunks of hardware running a variety of systems, and they don’t entirely play nice. I decided to concentrate my “work” efforts onto one machine, a somewhat aging MacBook Pro, and I wouldn’t mind better behaving network shares and services. Some number of years ago, I toyed around with some very early, simple zeroconf/Bonjour services, but they were quite crude.
I love progress. I somehow missed all of the development done to Avahi, because it now does exactly what I want. One search for this handy forum post later, and I have each machine’s services clustered under one broadcast and displaying nicely in all of my mac apps.
+ eth0 IPv4 greybeard FTP File Transfer local+ eth0 IPv4 greybeard Microsoft Windows Network local+ eth0 IPv4 greybeard SSH Remote Terminal local+ eth0 IPv4 greybeard SFTP File Transfer local+ eth0 IPv4 greybeard Web Site local
<3
Not going to dick around with trying to do a networked Time Machine backup, since I’ve read that there’s still issues regarding what happens when the share fills up. Got my lil’ 500gb portable, so no need.
Is it all necessary? Not a bit. Neither is a Mac. Might as well make it pretty. 
Aug
31
2010
Thanks a lot, Time Machine.
Can’t say enough good things about Time Machine, though. I’m awful, just plain awful about backups. Ponied up for a small 500gb external drive, no additional power supply needed, so I could just plug it up once in awhile and have a good record. This might be the first time in a long, long while where I don’t lose a bunch of data between formats. Time to sally forth and whatnot.
I’m not sure if this can be considered cause or effect, but it’s definitely a personal policy of mine to never install new systems without a beer in hand. Cheers!
Aug
31
2010
Thanks a lot, iTunes.
I don’t think my music collection is normal. Most folks in my circle of friends have one, maybe two computers, and not a burgeoning network. I store all my tunes on a network share for me to lovingly enjoy from any machine in the house, and occasionally, from abroad (uplink sucks.) This works out perfectly for more than a few applications.
The only trouble comes up when I want to listen to some tunes on my Mac. I’ve read articles on some very duct-tape and southern-engineering methods of sharing an iTunes library, but that won’t do. Limitations include management from only one computer, playback from only one computer at a time, potential hosing of the library file… bleh. I don’t want music management, just a player.
To make things a little messier, I’d love to have it report back to Last.fm. If I can’t do that… and it seems like such a small thing… I probably won’t play music then. I like watching my listening habit.
I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but I certainly do not want to copy all the music over onto the notebook so that iTunes can be lord and master over its domain. I don’t have the space, and I hate having different sets of music available. If I want to listen to AC/DC’s Back in Black, know that I have it, and pull up the library to go “oh, but it’s on the other machine,” … well, that won’t do anymore. It’s how I’ve had things set up for a couple of years now, and my music collection looks like a classic American divorce.
It’s also slow. I know I’m running ‘older’ hardware here, but my music player shouldn’t bounce ten or fifteen times before launch. I’ve got some decade+ old hardware that can launch Foobar2000 in a handful of seconds (don’t ask it to run Firefox.) Otherwise, this machine’s pretty snappy still.
So it comes down to house cleaning. I don’t know what I’ll do on the mac end of things. I’ve seen a few Java UPNP players around, might give them a shot. Last I heard VLC-Mac was dead, but I haven’t checked in a little while. They’re all ugly as sin, and definitely don’t mesh well with the whole style over substance that is Apple, or Macintosh, or whatever the nom de la journée is. I’m open to suggestions.
Thanks a lot, iTunes.
Aug
30
2010
So long, old friend.
What’s in a name? It has been a long time since I’ve gone out of my way to pick up an ATI video card. The last time I did, it was an ATI Radeon 9600SE. It came bundled with a key for the then unreleased Half Life 2, which may or may not have figured into my purchasing decision. The last time I needed a graphics update, the Nvidia 8800 GTS was the best value. The last time I purchased a computer, it came with an integrated Radeon 5870.
Lacking loyalties aside, I was a little chagrined to see a release stating the demise of ol’ ATI as a brand. I knew it was coming when the AMD/ATI merger was announced (despite claims to the contrary,) but it’s been more than a few years and bound to happen.
It’s just a name, right? Names pick up associations, true or not. I had always associated AMD with cheap, hot chips, where as Intel was expensive, but quality. ATI made great chips and terrible drivers. If you wanted a game, you bought Nvidia. All of it seems pretty meaningless nowadays, where “brand loyalty” is better pushed aside for whichever is the better value of the moment.
The last time I may have rooted for discrete graphics as if it were a baseball team, I had the Matrox G200, 16mb of awesome.
SDRAM upgrade slot?
Reliable card, great driver support, relatively affordable. Played the heck out of some Half Life and Team Fortress Classic with it. I miss you.
ATI… not so much, but even so. So long.
Aug
30
2010
Meat.
Might as well make it a theme. I don’t have regular access to a grill, but when I get ahold of one… lawdy. Seems like twice a year. Steaks always make me nervous, too, since I don’t hit them often and I fear cooking them into shoe leather.
Sweet, sweet fire.
Answer? T-bone. Quality cuts. Didn’t do anything fancy to them, either. Salt, pepper, olive oil. Maybe a splash of Worcestershire. That’s the beauty of good meat, it already has flavor. A good cut already has texture. I’ve seen decent meat get completely brutalized with forks and soy sauce and seemingly whatever else is at hand. But this… this.
Sadly I did not have a camera with me, but appearances aren’t my focus here. Around ten minutes on the grill did yield those lovely dark cross-hatched grill marks and a light browning. The best of all: meat that I could only describe as red and buttery. No need for whipped garlic butter. No need for steak sauce. No need for restaurant gimmicks. There’s just a big plate of meat perfection.
Aug
29
2010
The Littlest Hog.
So little. So ronery. So ready to be eaten.
As a youngin’ in the kitchen, I was one to head to the spice cabinet and toss whatever I could find into the food. Bloody awful taste sensation, and a valuable lesson. Some of the very best food I’ve encountered in recent memory has been the most simple in nature.
I turn my nose up at “low ingredient cookbooks” in general, since one or more of the ingredients are invariably “can of condensed chicken beak soup” or “package of preservatives and hogs feet.” This kind of cooking screwed up my thinking for a couple of years at the start. I can’t stand needing prepared foods to prepare food. Convenience is great in a pinch, but… what happened to a meat, a veg, a grain?
The hogs (tiniest of the three little pigs pictured) got me thinking. Ingredients can be counted on one hand.
- Salt
- Pepper
- Oregano
- Apples
- Fire
A few hours later, there’s a roasted leg in my hand (on my face, on my shirt) and happiness truly exists. Also featured, corn roasted in their husks, and a bounty of sausages.
Simple pleasures -- and that is a saucepan of butter in the back.
Aug
29
2010
Second Coming.
All he knows is ball... and good... and... TEXAS.
Looks like someone’s got the itch to hit a Cowboys game or five. I’m going to go ahead and make this here public service announcement: come November, North Texas plumbing is screwed. Ron Diaz is a’coming home.
What would be really special is if the WinStar casino books some amazing talent during that time. I doubt they can top Alice Cooper, but I’d love to see them try.
Aug
29
2010
Paint it Brown.
“Love” is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own… Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.
Robert A. Heinlein
Someone’s momma always said that if you don’t have anything to say, don’t say anything. Since I generally have nothing to say, there you go. It seems I like nothing more than tinkering with the design and doodling with graphics, however. So… there you go. Happy August.
Oct
08
2009
Countdown.
Kicking it old school.
The balcony is furnished and ready. One day until the laziest party on the planet. Do not be alarmed, the noise you here is just a pack of wild reverends getting their preach on.
Oct
07
2009
VNC’d.
Hello, Pussycat.
VNC. Sounds like an old wartime enemy. Well, I’ve got orange pajamas, and I don’t want to get up to fuss with my media player in between episodes of Stargate. Sure, if I had a real media center setup, I could zap the remote and select stuff from the comfort of my armchair. In time, I’ll get a server to stream stuff to my xbox, and use the fancy remote for it.
Since I’m not there yet (and I’m looking at you, ubuntu, we’ll talk later) I’ve got a Windows 7 RC machine doing some video mirroring to my television. The controls for it are a mere few feet away, but I’ll be buggered if I’m going to get up every time I want to alter the playlist. This is America, and I have my rights.
I want to control it from my laptop running MacOS 10.5. Solution? VNC. Not perfect, but it’ll do. TightVNC server installed on the media lodge. Went with my old favorite, Chicken of the VNC for the laptop. Point of trouble: either I’m dense (likely) or I couldn’t get CotV to scale the picture. Not great performance anyhow.
RonDiaz points me to something he had forgotten about, but timely remembered:
Connect to Server (Apple-K) and load up vnc://hostname
Bask in glory and simplicity
MacOS has a VNC client built-in, and it’s pretty decent to boot. Also, screen scaled by default. Win. While I’m not exactly concerned with the speediest of screen updates, it’s not bad. I just want to hit the controls, since I can see what I’m doing on the telly.
I did get as far as downloading JollysFastVNC, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it yet. This’ll do.