William Goodall's Blog Occasional mutterings

July 21, 2010

Apple Is the New Microsoft, Part 2

Filed under: Apple,IT,Microsoft — William_T_Goodall @ 12:36

Apple surpassed Microsoft two months ago as the world’s most highly valued tech company, and is now challenging the Redmond giant on another key metric: In a blowout third quarter, AAPL posted record revenue of $15.7 billion, which should be close to or exceed what Microsoft reports Thursday. [From Apple Is the New Microsoft, Part 2]

That would be two out of three. How long until Apple overtakes Microsoft on profit too?

Later

Next quarter then 🙂

July 19, 2010

Misfits

Filed under: Television — William_T_Goodall @ 11:31

Enjoying Misfits season 1 on Saturday. Missed it the first time round because I never heard of it. The DVD for the 2nd season is due out in December which means it will be on TV soon. Not long to wait after catching up with the first season.

July 16, 2010

I write like David Foster Wallace

Filed under: Books,IT,Trivia — William_T_Goodall @ 13:47

Flattering if it were true 🙂

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

July 14, 2010

Predators

Filed under: Movies — William_T_Goodall @ 19:36

Went to see Predators today. I found it a bit tedious which was disappointing. The digital projection was nice and sharp although it did make me think it was just like watching on a very big HD TV with a surround sound system. Which I have at home. And I can pause that to go to the toilet. And there is nobody chattering or texting on a cellphone or kicking the back of my chair.

July 6, 2010

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Filed under: Books,Movies — William_T_Goodall @ 21:56

I see the UK release of the movie, the second in the trilogy, has moved two weeks earlier to 27 August from 10 September. So that’s nice 🙂 I guess the third part will now be released earlier too.

July 3, 2010

D-Link DNS-323

Filed under: DIY,Insides,IT,Unboxing — William_T_Goodall @ 13:57

The box containing the DNS-323 and the cheapest compatible drive I could find (which was a 500GB) arrives and is unpacked.

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NAS and HD in boxes.

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Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB.

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Eco-friendly cardboard packaging on the DNS-323.

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It is even smaller than I expected.

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Cables, power brick.

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It seems quite nicely made.

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Side by side with HD before installation.

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Another view.

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Rear view.

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Front cover just slides off to slide in drive(s)

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Assembled and hacked in short order. Got lighthttpd mySQL and PHP running. Just a bit of tweaking and hardening and then I’ll find a place to tuck it away out of sight and save some desk space 🙂

Later

Tucked away in the home theatre cabinet with other fan-bearing gadgets.

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June 29, 2010

Dead Server part ii

Filed under: DIY,IT,www — William_T_Goodall @ 22:10

I ordered a D-Link DNS-323 NAS on Amazon for under a £100 with the cheapest supported HD I could find without looking for too long which was a Western Digital Caviar 500GB for £36. Should arrive Thursday and once I’ve hacked it will have a web server, PHP, MySQL and such on it and will serve.

June 26, 2010

Dead Server

Filed under: Apple,IT,www — William_T_Goodall @ 14:55

The ancient G3/350 “Kihei” iMac from 2000 I was using as a server on my home network expired sometime in the last week. I don’t know when because my network monitoring software, which emails me when there are faults, was running on it 🙂 It also ran a cron job to send some automated email reminders to places, and hosted some bits and bobs of DAMP web pagery I had experimented with over the years. And a chatroom that seldom saw much use that I hosted for a moribund mailing list I’ve been on for many years.

I’d upgraded the HD and RAM on the iMac but I’m not going to try fixing a power supply or whatever it was let out the magic smoke.

I’m thinking about what to replace it with. A Sheevaplug or hacked NAS type solution for less than £100 would be good.

June 25, 2010

SKY HD reboot part 2

Filed under: DIY,IT,Television — William_T_Goodall @ 19:39

Previously.

The mechanical timer did the job but was a bit too noisy.

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So I replaced it with this.

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I shall find out tomorrow if I managed to program it correctly 🙂

Duct Tape

Filed under: DIY,Greyhounds — William_T_Goodall @ 19:34

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Pip managed to smash the dog gate but fortunately I had a roll of duct tape and some metal rods to splint it with.

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