Linksys wireless game adapter…

Posted on January 7, 2005 by kenvandine

Don’t buy one! I picked one up early this year, figured it would be handy to have on hand for when I needed to get a box without functioning wireless on my wireless network. Sounds simple, it is a bridge from wired ethernet to wireless. Driver independant, system independant, and is supposed to just work. Well, I have never gotten it to work consistently. Until last night, I never really spent much time on it because I really didn’t have a big need to have it… it was more of a “for when I need it” item.

So, last night I tried to setup the G4 I picked up off eBay and figured this was a good thing to use the game adapter for. Of course it didn’t work… so, my first step was to upgrade the firmware on the game adapter and the Dlink wireless router. The firmware upgrade went sore on the router… and brought my home network down 🙁

Lots of headaches… tried to reset the router which did seem to get it back up and running again. Then I couldn’t login to it, I had forgotten the default password and the manuals were long since tossed (or in a box, not sure). And, of course I didn’t have a number for Dlink. Couldn’t get online to look it up… etc… Called 800 directory assistance and they said they didn’t a listing… Crap! So, I dug thru a box of old CDs to find the original CD that came with it. Whew… got things back up and running pretty quickly then.

Long story short, the Linksys game adapter is crap… and I wouldn’t recommend buying one. Now I guess I need to buy an airport extreme for the G4. The big question, is there a linux driver for it… I need to do some research today.

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So much todo…

Posted on January 5, 2005 by kenvandine

I am finally settled into the new house and it is time to get back to my projects. Here is a list of what I am working on:

I have promised Laurie I would get all of our videos of Ashlyn edited and on DVD, so that has to be high on the list 🙂

I really want to build the specifix distro on PPC, which is due in tomorrow (I can’t wait). It will be a dual boot box, so when I am not editing the videos I can compile Linux applications.

GNOME LiveCD, this has slipped a bit. The goal is to create a conary based LiveCD to be used by the GNOME Marketing folks for demos, propaganda, sending out for reviews, etc… Once I get a few things worked out, this shouldn’t be that big of a project. My first list of packages are here.

MythTV distro, conary based distro that is skinnied down to just include necessary tools for a full functioning MythTV box. I have some of the recipes and had them in a repository, but it is fried and I need to start from scratch.

Anyone know how to clone a human?

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Conary meet PowerPC

Posted on January 2, 2005 by kenvandine

Just picked up an old Mac on eBay, Dual processor G4 450Mhz. Good machine, I hope to get it in a week or so. First order of business is to cook up a Conary based distro for PPC 🙂

The primary purpose for this box is video editing. I have a ton of digital video that needs to get edited and burned to DVD. Kino is nice, but it isn’t quite ready for prime time (yet). So, for now I will dual boot this box with OSX and Specifix Linux. I have committed to getting the video to DVD by mothers day. After that, it may become just Linux, we’ll see.

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Still getting settled in…

Posted on December 16, 2004 by kenvandine

We have sooooooo much unpacking todo. Ugh….

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Moving sucks…

Posted on December 5, 2004 by kenvandine

Well, we spent most of the week and the whole weekend moving into the new house… moving sucks. I am beat and we have lots of unpacking to do. Also still need to do the big clean up at the old place next weekend. No time for any fun stuff now 🙁

The new house is cool, we should be quite comfy here for a while.

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We’re having a BOY!

Posted on December 2, 2004 by kenvandine

Had an ultrasound today, at 19 weeks into the pregnancy. It’s a BOY! And, of course more importantly, everything seemed normal and healthy 🙂

Time for a cigar…

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Picture of the new house

Posted on December 1, 2004 by kenvandine

Well, it isn’t really a picture of the house…. This picture was taken in 2002, before it was built. I drew a picture where the house is now 🙂 Didn’t know I was an artist, did you?

Auburn House

Note, the drawing isn’t to scale 😛

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holiday travel

Posted on December 1, 2004 by kenvandine

I, as many, made a little road trip over the Thanksgiving holiday. We had a little road trip to Memphis, to visit family. The trip there was great, only hit traffic in Knoxville. Completed the trip in just 13 hours, and here is the best part. My toddler, Ashlyn, was a perfect angel. We thought she would be a nightmare!

Had a great turkey day with family, good food, and lots of kids.

The road trip home was a different story. Took us 2 days! Ashlyn had enough of the car and wasn’t too happy :-(. And, I-40 East had colapsed right at the TN-NC state line. Traffic was aweful, after getting tied for hours we had to turn around and go around it.

All and all it was a good holiday, but it will surely take a while to recover from the trip! Now the fun stuff, we started moving this week. Doing a big move on Saturday, but trying to get the little stuff over before then.

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First week at the new gig…

Posted on November 21, 2004 by kenvandine

Well, I have completed my first week in the new job and so far so good 🙂 It is pretty different environment from what I have worked in the past, but I have enjoyed it so far.

My first project was to get a Blade Center up and running as a Linux Cluster. I love this hardware, it is so great. I had these things at Lilly too, and have always enjoyed working with them. So, the cluster is up and humming away, now I need to work with some folks to get apps running on it.

I have also spent all of my time out of the office packing… I HATE packing. We are moving on December 1st to a slightly bigger house around the corner. It is a nice house and will be much more functional for us. Looking forward to getting the move behind us, but not the moving part 🙂

Also getting ready to head to Memphis for turkey day, should be a nice vacation. I just hope Ashlyn behaves for at least most of the trip. I am downloading as many videos I can from our MythTV box to our laptop right now. Need to entertain her 🙂 I am sure we will be sick of The Wiggles by this time next week 🙂

Well, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

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Time for a new adventure…

Posted on November 8, 2004 by kenvandine

Tomorrow will be my last day @ Lilly, it has been a great job and I have met some cool people. That chapter is over now, and I will be starting a new job this Thursday. I have accepted a position as Director of Computing Infrastructure with Silverback Assets in Chapel Hill. Sounds like a great opportunity and I am really excited about getting my hands on their IBM Blade Center. I have been doing some cool stuff with them for about a year now and love them. Here is the my job description:

Director of Computing Infrastructure
– Procure, install & maintain computing resources
– Author shell scripts and utilities for maintain resources
– Aid in database maintenance and operations
– Work with Quantitative staff to develop tools & utilities
– Promote and maintain code from R&D thru production
– Manage vendors and implementation projects as needed
– Participate on technology committee
– Backup user-support personnel

They are currently working with SUSE, Perl and Postgres.

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