Category: Musings

Random thoughts and posts

Becoming a dad and what it means to me

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The day before I found out I was to become a father, there was a chance I could lose my wife.
She said she was having extremely bad pains in her lower abdomen.
It took some time to set in as to what was happening, because there was a lot of speculation, but nothing confirmed one way or the other.
The night before she took a pregnancy test that would determine if this was just a series of really bad pains, but nothing serious; if this could mean the end of her life, or if she was fast enough, just the end of a failed pregnancy.
I couldn’t really react, what do you say to someone who may not live through the week? Who may lose the one chance they had at having children? Read More

Just because you don’t know, doesn’t make you an idiot

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A wise friend of mine told me a while back he does not like the word “idiot”, and I can understand why.
It’s used so frequently sometimes it’s almost immediately disregarded, but at the same time can be used in such a harsh manner it cuts us deep.

In my field I encounter many people that other techs would consider to be “idiots”.
I prefer to reserve that name as shorthand for “willfully ignorant”, not the uninformed.

People feel ashamed when they get compromised by a well crafted phishing scam, or get a virus while behaving online.
They feel like idiots.

Very few actually are though. Read More

So long, and thanks for all the Flash

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I remember going to Newgrounds.com back in the late 90s and watching those amazing videos and playing games that were made with Adobe Flash.

I’ll always have those great memories, and that’s what Flash is slowly turning into, a memory.

Browsers are starting to downplay and I imagine soon outright disabling Flash plugins.

It’s become a burden to system resources and security alike.

So if you’re using a service that requires Flash, I would inquire what their short term goals are to phase it out. If they don’t a plan, I would look elsewhere for services.

If you have a website that uses, or heaven forbid, is designed exclusively in Flash, talk to your designer(s) immediately. Did you know that iOS and modern versions of Android don’t even have native Flash capabilities? That’s a large chunk of views you’re missing out on.

*Cough*

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Whoah, the dust.

Anyway, got myself a nice subscription to Office 365 business, so I’m going to see how it can be used in a VERY simple home environment.

Why should a small business virtualize?

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I’ve seen it a hundred times. A customer invests in a server only to have it experience some kind of failure.
Be it storage, memory, some other component, or even time.

But what if there was a way to help safeguard your backbone and allow your business to become more flexible?

It’s simple, virtualize! Read More

Linux on Wyse status

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Progress!

I have successfully wiped out the WyseOS on the terminal device, and got Thinstation to boot.
My only problem now is that when it tries to load X, it stops displaying anything on the screen.
I noticed that X also craps out on SystemRescueCD when booted on the terminal.

It uses a Via Chrome 9 graphics chipset according to lspci, so we’ll see if there are any known issues or workarounds.

Too late for me though, we’ll see what tomorrow brings!

Next project, Linux on Wyse!

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So I’ve had this Wyse terminal for a while now from the company I work for.

While the installed OS is nice, it’s lacking a few features I’d like.
So with their blessings I was able to take one some to see what I can do with it!

It’s got a 1GHz VIA CPU, 512MB of RAM, and a 128MB IDE SSD.

I initially tried to get Windows 7 Embedded on it after adding more RAM, but the performance from running Windows from a flash drive leaves a lot to be desired. Read More

And another piece of history dies

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As Kotaku has reported, Maxis has been shut down.

I’ve loved the SimCity franchise since I first saw it, with SimCity 2000 as the first I owned.

Thank you Maxis for everything!

So many Pi’s, so little time

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So I got a Raspberry Pi B+ and I really like it.

I tried to set it up as a Minecraft server but it wasn’t able to handle the stress.
A lot of articles say it works great but they are older articles pointing to an older version of MC server.

But now that they released a NEW Pi 2 model with MUCH better specs and at the same price, I’m converting the B+ to a LAMP server and going to make the Pi 2 my MC server, and possibly Windows 10 test machine on the side, so amazing!

Xen on hold

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So yet again my planned Xen hyper-visor is on hold.

After converting my Server 2012 R2 from a generation 1 guest to a generation 2 successfully it has jumped up greatly in performance. Short version: Converted boot drive from MBR to GPT and added EFI boot, see here. FYI, you can do this from a Windows 8 install disc, but it must be a 32-bit disc, as gptgen is not 64-bit.
Also the fact I was able to get Ubuntu Server to install as a Gen 2 and get great performance.

Considering how nicely Windows took to not only being converted from physical to virtual into Hyper-V, it also took to moving from MBR/BIOS to GPT/UEFI, I don’t think Xen will get me any better performance, especially with the lack of specific official drivers for devices.

I’d like to use Xen in the future for Linux boxes since they love it, but I’m holding off until I can get another server for that.