Musings of an Uber Geek

Eureka!

I get excited abut geeky things -- especially when it involves big computers. I get especially excited when I can make 'super' computers out of the spare parts that I have lying around. Just look through my archives, and you will find many posts involving me trying the breathe new life into an old laptop that refuses to start up.

I have my iMac desktop, which is serving me well. Also at my disposal is a 13" MacBook, which still operates, though it has taken numerous trips to the local Apple-Authorized-Service-Center to get all kinds of repairs that I would otherwise not attempt while the computer is still under warranty. What I like about using the MacBook is that I can work on it anywhere: The couch, the dining room, the back yard, and yes, even the toilet. What I don't like about the MacBook is that all my personal files, my photos, my music, my bookmarks, and other necessities all reside on the iMac's drive. In order for me to use both machines requires synchronization, which gets messy. Furthermore, the number of files that exist on the iMac is so large, that it would overflow the poor MacBook, rendering it virtually useless. What would be perfect, is if I could access all my personal files that exist on the desktop computer from the laptop. All changes would be made and saved on the desktop computer.

In other words, enter the server. I need a central point in my house (perhaps even worldwide), that I can access my files quickly, and securely. This may mean that I will require a dedicated server sometime in the future, but at this point, I can make do with what I have.

Today, after some experimentation, I have begun a transitionary phase, where my desktop computer is becoming a server, at least within the confines of my residence. The first trivial step was to find a way for the laptop to access my iTunes files on my iMac.

This is simple is one sense. iTunes allows users to "share" their playlists with other connected users. I have been doing this since the MacBook arrived last May. This however, does not update your playlists, play counts, ratings, and other metadata. Today after some serious web sleuthing, I managed to get my experiment to work. It's not quite perfect, but it is a big step in the right direction.

Now I just need to do some further reading in order for the MacBook to automatically mount the Desktop machine upon login. This will require some more reading and searching on the web, but as I said, it's a step in the right direction.

Once I get this working a little more reliably, and automatically, then I can think about ensuring that my other documents can be accessed from the server. This would include my photographs, calendars, email, and documents.

Of a more serious nature, is you can probably tell, I take my digital information very seriously. I have, over the years -- at least since the "crash of 2000", tried to keep backups of my digital information. But manually backing up is only as good as your habits, and I have noticed that it takes time and effort to keep backups of my personal information.

So finally, after several years of deliberation, I will be acquiring the infrastructure necessary to ensure that my data will always be reliable.

Enter the RAID. For the uninitiated, RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Drives. The are collections of hard drives that can offer the user vast amounts of storage, and offer the user redundancy, which is the digital work means security. You see, it's never a question about if your hard drive should fail; it's more of a question of when.

What are so cool about RAIDs, is that even if a drive fails, your data remain intact. Remove the failed drive, plug in a fresh one, and the RAID array automatically backs up the data to the new drive.

So what exactly, did I order? It is an external drive with removable bays. This way, I can always store a copy of my data off-site in a secure location. This way, if there ever is a disaster of sorts, be it flood, fire, or theft, I won't be destroyed if ten years' worth of digital memories happened to disappear into a meaningless string of 1's and 0's.

Since the advent of the internet, the majority of computer users are under the false assumptions that our (essential and personal) data is safe and secure. For the most part, that is true. But our data is easily manipulated and destroyed, and therein lies a big problem. We need to ensure that in the wake of disaster, we can recover what is lost. In the computer world that means backing up often, redundancy on many levels, and storage of those redundant copies in a secure off-site location.

What are you doing to protect your essential digital memories from evaporating?

The Status of v3.0

Google has announced that the new Blogger is no longer in beta (and for you blogging junkies, you have known this for quite some time). It seems that the transition of my sites have been rather transparent. I suppose this is a good thing; I hope that the new version will allow me to get a little closer to the vision I had for this website.

mcfro.blogspot.com has been going through a very lengthy period of renovation, and I expect it will continue to be this way for most of 2007. But here and there, there will be little, almost unnoticeable changes, and only through the passage of time will the site complete its' metamorphosis. So what, you say, is taking me so long?

Well first of all, it's not just one site I manage. I manage two weblogs, the other being the work-in-indefinite-progress ZanZee tour journal, plus I am a major contributor to the Savoy Blues Band website. I tend to choose to write in the journal which best suits the subject I choose to write about. For example, if MA and I ever decide that Tung N' Groove ever needs a website (which it likely will), then I will have to maintain yet another website.

The second thing that is most crippling, is that my schedule is extremely busy, and I often don't have the level of alertness necessary to write in a blog, or edit code. With two bands on the go, a dozen students, an album to produce, and a full-time day job, I have little time for anything else, even my private family life has been suffering. And as of late, I have been trying to spend less time on the computer, and more time with family. Sadly, the blogs are being put a little further behind in priority, which is tied with sleep at the moment.

Here is a preliminary roadmap of a few things I expect to be implementing into this website in the coming days/weeks. This list has been written mainly for my reference:

1. Integration with Google Calendar. Much like the Savoys Website, implement a calendar on this webpage that reflects my upcoming performances. These can pertain to any act; Savoys, Tung N Groove, or any other gig I am asked to sit in on. This is to replace the archaic iCalX.com method of advertising my upcoming performances. No one has yet complained, but even I know that viewing the data on the iCalX website is cumbersome and annoying. The time has come to simplify the information and make it more accessible using Web 2.0 technology,
   
2. Metatags. The new Blogger has allowed the use of tags within new posts. Since my site has been converted in its entirety to the new format, tags should be inserted in all older posts, in order to make searching the site a little easier. This may take an awful long time, as it will be a tedious, and painfully repetitive process to edit some 300+ posts. Thank the maker I do not have a blog with thousands of posts. I could kill two birds with one stone, and edit the entries that have spelling or grammatical errors at the same time.
   
3. Badges of [dis]honor should be streamlined. Only use the ones that are necessary. That means to keep SiteMeter, The Creative Commons license, and the BlogsCanada tag. When the above changes have been completed, the site version will be upgraded to v3.1
4. Consider re-modification of the layout, which includes the sidebar, and the "little things" that add personality to the site, i.e. posting footers changed from "posted by MC" to something ridiculous or amusing, like was once used: "MC was committed at".
5. Consider retiring Animal as my profile photograph. Consider using another photo, real or fictitious.
6. Continue the search for a new Blogger Beta Template. This may require taking elements of 2 or 3 different templates to arrive at one that I am most pleased with. Perhaps I should consider making a temporary blog to judge the progress and accuracy of the coding process. Once the new template has been successfully hacked and customized, it may be implemented into the original mcfro.blogspot.com site, where the version number can be increased to v4.0.
   

The Ad Said I Could Gain Three Inches If I Purchased Their Product

...So I did.

Within 48 hours of purchase, a 20" intel iMac was delivered to my door direct from Cupertino, California. I upgraded to a 2.0 GHz intel dual-core processor from my 2.5 year-old 1.8 G5 Power PC processor.

The reasons for this purchase is multi-faceted, but I felt I could use a machine that could crunch all the audio processing I am using while recording DH's album -- and my 'archaic' G5 is barely keeping up with 24 tracks of audio.

The other reason for upgrading involved my folks. You see, their (current) computer is a Strawberry iMac they purchased in 1999. They have been long overdue for an upgrade, and they don't necessarily need "bleeding edge" technology. So I agreed to sell them my old iMac for a reduced price.

Speaking of "bleeding edge" technology, the iMac I purchased isn't brand new. It's been refurbished, and is approximately 1 year old. Nonetheless, it came with a 1-year warranty, and still packs double the processing power my old Mac could do. I had many reasons for choosing an older computer, versus a technology that is cutting-edge.

1. Technology such as computers depreciate in value at an alarming rate. If a person needs the latest and greatest gadget, the consumer is going to be taken (financially) to the cleaners. I saved a huge bundle of cash by buying a refurbished computer from Apple. Somewhere in the vicinity of $400-500, to be frank.
   
2. I didn't feel I could afford a brand-new machine. Two thousand bucks isn't petty cash. Spending 1400 bucks on an older machine lessened the sting.
3. I was specifically looking for a model with a larger screen. As much as I would have loved to buy a 24" iMac (the current Core 2 Duo model) just wasn't in the cards, and the price tag was well out of my range. The refurbished model won again in this category.
   
4. Buying an older model computer allows the manufacturers time to work out the bugs. My Macbook is the prime example of this. I have lost count how many times that laptop has been in the shop, and it still needs to go back for repairs.
   

I guess what they say about "bleeding edge" technology is right. It is a two-edged sword. Either you try to keep up with technology, spending many thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest, but what you pay for, doesn't always work the way you want it to.

The Intel transition is still occurring, and even though it has been a year since Apple released their first computer with an Intel chip, there are still many, many programs out there that do not run natively on the Intel architecture. This means that many of the programs I use (games fall victim to this problem more often than not) either work very slowly, or not at all.

Had my recording software not been Intel native, I would not have upgraded. Fortunately, GarageBand and Logic were two of the first programs ported to the new architecture. A lot of the third-party synths and effect plug-ins I use haven't released Universal binaries, so either I am forced to wait, for find other options.

With all that being said, I feel a lot more confident in myself, now that I have gained three inches.

Speed Bump

This morning, my trusty iMac got a healthy dose of power. My friend (who happens to be a computer technician) and I installed an additional 512 megabytes of RAM, bumping the total RAM available up to 768 megabytes. The operation was quick and painless. We had the cover off and back on in under 2 minutes. To quote my friend, "It doesn't get much faster than that."

Upon reboot, the change was immediately noticeable. Applications launch immediately, and games don't "skip" or "pop". As I write this, I am monitoring SETI@home, and it appears that I could shave an hour off my workunit time.

Checking the system profiler, it was determined that OSX was using 256 megabytes alone. This pretty much meant that prior to the RAM upgrade, the operating system was monopolizing the system resources; any additional running programs were running under virtual memory.

I now have a computer that I am completely satisfied with -- at least for today. In a few years, this machine will become a dinosaur and will require replacement. When that happens, I imagine I will be raving about the next model. Sadly, the depreciation of technology is inevitable.

Piles Of Rock

Last night a few of my friends and I attended the Müle Shöe CD-Release Party. Entitled Piles of Rock, their CD is a reflection of their influences and roots. Take 2 parts Led Zeppelin, throw in 2 parts of Van Halen, and equal parts of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and AC/DC, and you would have something that sounded like Müle Shöe. The theater was packed, though a strange crowd. Müle Shöe is generally known around the local bar scene, but at least half of the theater was comprised of the under-18 crowd. They seemed to enjoy it all the same.

Yes, it was louder than heck.

After the concert, my friends and I found a watering hole to sing a few Karaoke numbers -- pretty much our intent was to have a few beverages, and show off our vocal talents. The bar was packed, which meant that we weren't going to be able to sing more than one or two numbers. So I picked Cheap Trick's Surrender, and CCR's Proud Mary, two numbers I have only sang once before, but I knew I could pull them both off.

With Proud Mary, you know that the whole bar is going to sing along. I heard them all singing over the PA. Of course they loved it. I was just relieved that nobody decided to jump on the stage and "help me out".

I nailed Surrender. I was also paying close attention to the crowd, as last time I sang this number it was in an empty pub, and I couldn't gauge whether or not this would be a song that the patrons would appreciate. We had a winner. There were tons of people singing along -- even a few patrons "banging their heads" to my performance. In addition, there were numerous screams and applause after my performance.

Today, I feeling the after-effects of last night's outing. I think I should be taking it easy for the rest of the day.