Satelite and DVR
[23-Jul-2008] The IR Blaster came in and I spent most the night configuring it to work. Basically when a channel is change don the mythtv box it sends a signal out the blaster via infrared to the satellite receiver to change its channel also. Had some initial problems getting it to talk to the ir blaster. This site was very helpful.

The other grapes

[13-Jul-2008] Are ripe already. Im talking about the unidentified purple ones. Since I have the day off Tuesday i may try and go to the Famu vinyards over on Mahan and see if they can identify them. Oh i have Tuesday off to put in the new French doors and replace the cable with satellite. DSL is already in place, and working. Its not the 5mb promised so i have to call about that. One problem is i will have to find some way to externally change the satellite receiver with the dvr somehow.

Server Update
[28-Apr-2008] When i installed the server last week there were screws missing on the rails. Bought them yesterday and installed the server in the rails properly. Checked and the backup seems to be running fine copying to lorien at home so maybe i dont need a tape drive. I may order one anyway.

Fuck Comcast

[18-Apr-2008] Im supposed to be going home, my great grandmother is dying. So today about lunch comcast decided to block port 25 incoming and outgoing on my internet connection. Which means I cant send or receive mail. So instead of going home right after work I had to move the server to work where it wont get blocked. Its up now, and mail is arriving. Monday I find a new ISP for home use and cancel comcast internet and TV.

Shutting down the web server breifly
[11-Nov-2007] The battery on the ups for my webserver has failed so I have to shut it down and replace it. Its been up for a while. 17:34:31 up 379 days, 23:23, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

IP Change
[06-Nov-2007] For no apparent reason comcast changed my ip last night about 2:30am. Its been the same since at least June 2006 the last time I changed my DNS records. I guess I know my script to check it regularly and notify me actually works now.

Computer Upgrades
[31-Oct-2006] When Manwe died and I had to shuffle machines I ordered a new mobo/proc/mem for it, as well as Namo. That is all in place now. Had some problems that they sent me an empty box rather than a video card but got a replacement finally. Specs have been added to the hardware page

Wirless Fix

[10-Oct-2006] I finally fixed the wireless card in Ulmo. Took some manual scripting the the rc.local file but it survies rebooting. Now I can remove the last cable strung across the house. I think there may be something wrong with the wireless in Namo. It seems to cut in and out. None of the others do this. It needs to be replaced soon anyway. Its getting to slow to play games on. Got a new copy of XP home to install on it just dont want to do it on the slow box.

Netowrk improvement

[09-Oct-2006] I replaced a splitter in my bedroom this weekend with a connector (the cable comes in from outside, goes to the bedroom where a splitter sent it out the wall then on to the living room). It seems to have helped my network connectivity problems with comcast. Which hasnt been up consistantly a full day in months. 2 days without going down now. Also fixed the bb script so that the DFSORT option in bbsys was correct on iluvatar. Replaced the 4 with a k4.

Ulmo Upgrade
[15-Jun-2006] Ulmo has been upgraded from the really old LRP to one of the newer LEAF Bearing uClibc versions. That doesnt make sense to anyone does it? Well its better now. Changed the box to a smaller desktop box that will fit on the shelves by the tv. Still working on wireless support for it so a cable is strung across my living room right now.

Server Swapping

[19-May-2006] I got paranoid after one of the drives on iluvatar failed so coupled with an upgrade to FC5 Im moving the data on manwe to two RAID 1 drives. Currently they are in the old Iluvatar box (a PIII 450). Once Im sure its all working, sometime tomarrow Ill move the drives to the manwe box and then rebuild iluvatar on that single drive. Things may be slow tonight because of the reduced processor but I think everything works.

Computer Changes

[21-Apr-2006] One of the drives in Iluvatar failed last week so I took the opportunity to buld a DVR. Its using mythtv and went togeather pretty easily. The Haupauge wintv-250 barley fits in the case. Took some squeezing and strange contorted angles to get it in but I had more problems getting the cables to connect it to the TV than any of the software installation (needed 1 headphone to 2 rca jack wire, and 1 rca to rca wire, the cable modem will not work when the signal is reduced in a 3 way splitter (-7db) only through the 2 way splitter (-4db). Total cost was about $700. Specs for Lorien Case/Motherboard: Barebones Asus Pundit P1-PH1 Video: ATI Radeon Xpress 300 Audio:Realtek ALC655 Nic: Something I didnt even test Processor: Intel P4 2.6Ghz Memory: 1GB Drive: 250GB SATA CD: 16x DVD +/-RW TV Card: Haupauge Wintv-PVR 250 OS: Fedora Core 4 (5 just came out and I didnt want to experiment with whether mythtv worked on it or not). Nic: Cisco 340 wireless (from iluvatar) Its working well, does have some problems cutting all the commercials but its not cutting show, just leaving commercials in so its not to bad. Im still fiddling with some of the options, like xmame (a video game emulator). Last night I did some more work. I removed the stupid Linsys WMP11v2.7 card from namo which has never started up correctly unless the cd was in the drive and move it to the old iluvatar. I had installed Fedora Core 5 on an old drive I had on it. I used ndiswrappers and some compaq drivers and the linksys card works with Linux now! Took the Dlink-520+ and after failing to get it to work with the ndiswrappers put it in namo. It works just fine there so I can actually reboot the box remotly now and have it come back on on its own. So now the only machine without a wireless nic is manwe. I gave an old 1.7Ghz celeron and monitor I had picked up when someone threw it out to Chris and Heather. Im going to try and update the computer pages today.

Cable and Gravel

[03-Aug-2005] Last Friday the county came and cleaned out the ditch that I called them about. They didnt do that part in front of my house hoever which was the part that needed done. And they didnt do it Monday. Tuesday they did. And promptly decided to cut the cable line and remove 15 feet of it destroying my servers internet access. Comcast, for my convience according to their voice message, only takes calls between 8 and 5. So I had to wait till this morning to call them. Went home for the gravel deliver and they still had done nothing. So the web site was down for over 24 hours and there was nothing I could do about it but wait. Between then and when I came home after work, they managed to string a cable across the driveway in a haphazard manner. At least it works. I'll give them a few days before I call and ask when they are going to bury it, or at least run it somewhere other than the driveway. Got 20 ft of the ditch filled in before dark. Moving gravel is a lot easier than digging and moving wet clay. Oh and Leslie, I still have not talked to Riley. You were supposed to tell him to call me.

Laptop problems
[15-Jun-2005] The hardrive on my laptop was starting to die. Windows ran ok but linux didnt. Got a new drive and reinstalled it. Now that that is fixed I have a lot of posts to catch up on.

Comcast broke my mail again
[30-Mar-2005] Comcast broke some of my outgoing mail again by requiring authentication without notification. So I fixed it and wrote A document on what needs to be done to get a linux system to send mail via comcast mail relay with authentication.

Fixed
[28-Jan-2005] The new motherboard for the server arrived yesterday. I installed it and switched the server back back to the correct box. So all the computers work properly again; the server, the laptop (it came back last week) and the games machine.

Test
[09-Jan-2005] This is a test to see of the transfer of the server from the box that crashes works or not. Hopefully it will fix the server going down once a week.

Computer woes

[29-Nov-2004] I deleted all the visits with an id of 280 to 389 cause I'm a dork. This includes most of Roberto's wedding, the summer trip, and a number of recent caches. Found out my backups arn't working correctly because of a typo. So after doing all the work on the 2004 roadtrip I'm going to have to do it again tonight. Meanwhile my server keeps locking up and has to be physically power cycled. It started about the time I installed X on it. I though it was the screen saver but it locked up yesterday at noon and no screen saver was running. I'm not sure what is causing it right now. Does anyone have an old AT powersupply I can borrow? I need to test my moms backup machine and see if the power supply is dead or its something else and I really don't want to order another if thats not the problem.

Change of appearances

[05-Nov-2004] The look of my site is changing. Having delt with the multiple amber games and CSS I decided to convert the whole site to using it so I can more easily change the look of certain sections. So far most the Photos are done. Also finding some other todos like add comments to the new book logger, and make new books show up on the main page as I read them preferable with the aforesaid comments. I also did some research and found that I've had a web site since at least April 1995. My email signature from then includes a link to a home page.