» 2007 » May

Article posted on May 16

Here, have a glossy 8x10 head shot!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 16, 2007, 10:22 pm

Ignoring any politics regarding Monica Goodling, there's one thing you can't deny: she definitely doesn't have a PR manager.

Whenever she's mentioned in the news, the only picture I've seen of her has been this:

which is from a picnic photos page on Regent University's web site. Jeans and a t-shirt. Granted, that's my preferred dress code (and you're not likely to find a better photo of me online), but it made me think: what if that were me?

I should go rent a suit, get my hair styled, and visit a photographer. You know, just in case I become a central figure in a future political scandal.

• Leave Comment
• Posted in Uncategorized
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on May 8

I can walk in my office again!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 8, 2007, 7:37 pm

This is just about as close to clean as my home office can get for me. Be thankful I didn't take "before" pictures. Here's a poor-man's panoramic stitching:

Read the rest of this entry »

• 3 Comments
• Posted in Uncategorized
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on May 8

Lucky 7s

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 8, 2007, 7:34 pm

Lucky 7s, originally uploaded by fo0bar.

77777 miles on the Prius

• Leave Comment
• Posted in Uncategorized
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on May 8

Status status update: full of statuses

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 8, 2007, 11:53 am

Big honkin' TV was signed for at the manufacturer last Monday. They said 1-2 weeks from when they receive it. I'll wait until Friday to start calling.

At the end of March, I bought a new gaming machine. 3 of the components came with mail-in rebates: $40 for an Antec PSU, $10 for a Cooler Master case, and $40 for Corsair memory. Total rebates: $90, about 10% of the system cost.

All 3 mentioned web sites to check the status of the request. Today I checked the statuses, and amazingly all 3 have been received by the processors (maybe 1 out of 5 of the rebates I've ever mailed were "never received"). 2 of them didn't give dates when the checks would be sent (but the fine print in the form itself said within 12 weeks), while the Antec site said they've received it and will absolutely definitely send it out in 2 months.

Now, the #1 reason for manufacturers offering mail-in rebates is the hope that 90% of the buyers never send in the form. However, I wonder if they actually make good money from the interest by sitting on the submission for 3 months, or if they just do it because they hate you.

• 1 Comment
• Posted in Uncategorized
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on May 3

Sometimes the best solution is the easiest

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 3, 2007, 3:08 pm

First, a little background. I get cable internet (10mbit, woo!), but unfortunately the only cable outlet is in the living room. Most of my stuff is in my home office. The cable modem is at the wall, connects to a router, router to switch (which splits off to wireless and the media center), then goes via cat5 cable down the hall to the office where it is split out via a switch to the rest of the machines. The router is actually an old laptop with no display (the motherboard kept frying the video daughterboard), which cuts down on the noise. I'm a stickler for computer noise in the living room. (The media center is nearly silent, in case you're wondering.)

Anyhoo, the laptop has been making some strange noises lately, and I fear it's on its last leg, so I began thinking of alternatives:

* Why not use a WRT54GL with OpenWRT on it? It's technically possible, but my router is actually not just simple NAT/DHCP/DNS. It also runs the apartment's PBX system. While OpenWRT does have Asterisk packages, the CPU on the WRT54GL is severely limited, and cannot support more than one or two concurrent GSM streams.

* I have several machines lying around that are more than capable of doing router+voip, but they are all annoyingly loud.

* I could run another cat5 from the living room to the office to the router. I don't even like the one cable running down the hall, let alone adding a second.

* I could build a new PC with an emphasis on quietness. Expensive, though.

So I hopped on Newegg and looked at my options. There I found a Sempron 64 3000+ AM2 for $30. That CPU would run extremely cool, maybe even to the point of not needing a fan if I underclocked it (I would still leave the fan on and let the BIOS take care of thermal management). Add a $39 motherboard, $31 512MB stick, $50 case (large, but it's all 120mm fans), $30 PSU (again, 120mm fan), $43 HD, and $15 quiet 120mm fan, and I've got a near-complete quiet system for $268.55 shipped. That ain't too bad. The bonus amusement is that the CPU itself is the cheapest component in the computer.

So... while pricing this all out, a thought occurred to me. This all stems from the fact that there is not a cable outlet in my office (the master bedroom, actually). Why not call the landlord and ask if I can get an outlet installed in there? So I did. And he approved. That's a $50 cable installer visit, versus $268 to buy a new computer that'll just sit there. Then, I can use one of the half-dozen capable machines already collecting dust in my office.

And life was good.

• Leave Comment
• Posted in Uncategorized
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on May 3

Seagate rocks! No wait, they suck!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 3, 2007, 10:05 am

We've been buying Seagate SATA drives at work for a few years now (maybe about 200-300 total since I've started here). Good price, great failure rate (knock on wood), maybe 3 total so far. And they have 5-year warranties. Their warranty is *5* years.

Anyway, a coworker was mentioning that Seagate doesn't offer cross-ship RMA replacement, and I said "bull". Then again, it had been about a year since I've had to RMA a drive with them. Their RMA site used to be this horrible "web app" that only worked in IE that was primarily designed for OEMs that needed to replace 50 drives out of their batch of 10,000, but a regular consumer could use it too. Now the site itself is much more accessible, but they've eliminated the ability to to cross-ship.

Jerks.

• Leave Comment
• Posted in Uncategorized
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.

Article posted on May 1

IKEA Did 4/29

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 1, 2007, 12:19 am

"The “tanker crash” Sunday morning in Oakland that took down a massive section of highway 580 is a cover-up of a sinister plot. What is not yet apparent to the people is the mastermind of this conspiracy: the world’s largest discount furniture retailer. Yes my friends, I am talking about IKEA."

read more | digg story

• Leave Comment
• Posted in Uncategorized
• This post was imported from LiveJournal.