June 2, 2009: Learning About LogMeIn

Wow am I ever behind on SGL this week.  It is a rather busy week and I am just having a terrible time keeping up with everything.  It’s not a horrible week.  I am getting sleep for the most part.

It’s Tuesday and this week has been full of work.  Good work.  I’m very happy about all of the work that we have this week.  Work means stability so no complaints.

This afternoon Dominica took Liesl and they went out to hit the post office to do some mailings and then went dress shopping.  We have a lot of “dress up” type events coming up in the very near future so the both need some new outfits, I guess.

I’ve been on the phone for a significant portion of this week.  One cool thing that I got to do today was a half-hour demo of LogMeIn’s IT Reach product which is very cool.  I am quite impressed with their product and its features.  Looking to use that in a few places.  I am already using LogMeIn’s Free service quite a bit and have been learning more about what I can do with it and what all it can do.  Very cool company.

Short posts all week this week.  Sorry, just nothing that interesting to report and I am far too far behind to provide much else 🙁

June 1, 2009: New Pantry… Sort Of

I got a much better night’s sleep last night although I am pretty sure that I have a mild sinus infection.  Everything tastes funny for one thing.  I don’t feel sick so it cannot be very bad.

Today I learned about Google’s rather interesting new Wave technology that they are positing will potentially replace email, forums, microblogging and other communications tools.  Hype?  Maybe, watch the video and judge for yourself.  Definitely a simple yet powerful concept.  Can anyone say Chandler?  Or am I the only person who has seen this tried before?

Dominica and I spent the morning working on her degree planning for Empire State College.  It turns out, much to Dominica’s delight, that her Associates Degree is actually completed, more or less.  She was thinking that she had a lot of work left to do for it and in reality she has no additional classes that she needs to take and only needs to complete the very last bit of the class she is currently taking from the University of Illinois and then complete the CompTIA Security+ certificate and, if our calculations are correct, she will be done.

We worked out most of the details for her second bachelor’s degree as well and that is better than she had expected.  She has not made a long term decision about the bachelor’s program but at least she has most of a degree plan made for it now and can make decisions based on a solid concept of what the workload and time frame would be to complete it.

Our new, free-standing pantry arrived today.  The shipping box that the company used was not up to the task of protecting the pantry in shipment and almost all of the pieces of the unit were ruined by the time that they arrived at our house.  So Dominica had to get on the phone to get replacement pieces sent out because there were so many damaged pieces that the online RMA process couldn’t handle the workorder!

Now instead of having an awesome new pantry in which to store all of the mess that has spread all over the kitchen we have a bunch of parts to a pantry taking up even more of our valuable space in the dining room.  So while we thought that we would be improving on the mess we have made it worse.  And the replacement parts are not expected for one to two weeks.  So this is going to be an ongoing mess for a while.

This weekend we are going to be traveling.  We were not sure about our schedules before so we were unable to make any commitments.  Now we know that we are going to be going to Frankfort for Sam Bono III’s baptism on Sunday.  So our plan is that on Thursday after work we are going to drive to Scranton where we will pick up the last remaining equipment there, then drive to Binghamton and see John really quickly and drop off some stuff for him then drive on to dad’s house – where we might just make it in time to see him on his birthday.

I will be working from dad’s house on Friday and Saturday.  Then Saturday afternoon we will drive out to Frankfort and spend the night there.  I have to work Sunday so will work in the morning and then go to the baptism and return and work for a while.  Then when work is over we will drive back down to Peekskill.  It is a lot of driving this weekend but at least it is a “long” weekend of being out of town doing something different.

May 31, 2009: Making Homemade Ice Cream

I had a pretty rough night last night because my tailbone was bothering me so much.  I was unable to find a comfortable way to sleep.  I did sleep but it was rather restless.

I got up, showered and got right to work.  It is Sunday so I am working all day but it is the light day.  I really have found that working full days on Sundays has been a real stress reliever for me just because I know exactly what my schedule is going to be and do not have to be surprised when suddenly there is a lot of work for me on the weekend.

I’ve been making great progress on the DVD conversions now that I have the new desktop.  It has more than doubled the overall speed by which the process is taking place.  I am looking forward to getting my new Mac Mini in August with Snow Leopard because that will add about 40% more processing power and really speed things up again.  It is pretty cool converting all of the movies and shows manually because it is giving me a chance to go through and remember everything that we own which is a rather extensive collection of classic cinema.  Because I have to verify each transfer to make sure that everything worked correctly I get reminded of what each movie is.  This is actually a pretty good experience on its own.  I am looking forward to being able to view my own movie collection again soon.

While I worked this morning Joe, Brit and Dominica went to the grocery store for supplies and then made two batches of ice cream.  One batch of chocolate soft-serve and one batch of hard vanilla.  The chocolate was done first so we ate that with an early lunch.  The soft-server came out really soft but overall tasted pretty good.

Art called from the Congo this afternoon on his new cell phone!  We were not expecting to hear from them anytime soon so that was quite a surprise.  We probably spoke for twenty minutes.  They seem to be adjusting although it is obviously very tough.  You can read about their adventures arriving in the Congo on Laborers for the Harvest.

Joe and Brit stayed long enough that we were able to get a very late lunch or very early dinner from Forno’s.  We ate together then they drugged Dexter so that he would be able to travel and then they were on their way rather late in the afternoon.  After dinner we had the “hard” vanilla ice cream that they made this morning.  It was not really very hard, though, and was really almost as soft as the chocolate.

What we believe that we have discovered is that all good ice cream must have eggs in it (cream base or custard base) and just using milk and cream really results in ice milk and not really what most people think of as ice cream.  Lesson learned.  Next time that we try to make anything with the ice cream maker it is going to be fully cooked egg-based custard base.  The expensive thing about doing the “premium” ice cream is that vanilla beans are like $7-$8 a piece around here and you use one for every pint or so of ice cream!

After they took off for their drive back to Frankfort I went back down and worked for several more hours this evening.  I put in about two to three hours of cleaning up paperwork that has been piling up in my office too.  What a mess it has become.  Just piles of papers everywhere.  It is so hard to keep up with all of the paperwork that inevitably comes through my office.  Most of it is pointless paperwork too.  Stuff that should all be electronic but is not.  The basement was a mess since I was not able to get it all cleaned up tonight but I am going to call it good progress nonetheless.  Slowly I am going to get this basement cleaned up and presentable.

When the Ralstons came down to prepare for their trip to the Congo they brought with them our InFocus X1 projector that Andy got Dominica and I as our wedding present five and a half years ago.  Amazingly the original bulb is still working even after all of these years, tons of use and extensive travel.  This projector has really worked out well first in our theatre in the basement in Geneseo and then as the Ralstons traveling projector for when they gave presentations for the last two or three years about going to the Congo.  Now the projector has returned home and it is our plan to mount it to the basement ceiling so that we can use the basement as a theatre room again.  We already have all or almost all of the equipment needed to have a theatre in there except that we need to mount the projector, run some wires and paint the wall.  Just the “not so expensive” stuff.

So part of my project to get the basement into order is to make it so that we can really start using the projector and the room in general.  Having this room as a working theatre will mean that I can spend a lot more time with Dominica and Liesl while watching their shows but still be able to sit at my desk and work.  It will make me a lot more productive and it will mean that things like setting up the DVD compressions tasks at night will be something that I can do while we watch other shows before going to bed rather than being something that I have to head down to the basement to do after Dominica has already gone to bed.  I will hopefully get another twenty minutes or more of sleep each night!

Tonight we watched some of The Gilmore Girls and did some cleaning around the living room.  Our new kitchen pantry is due very soon.  That is going to make a massive difference upstairs.  We are desperate for that.  We have decided to wall mount our Keurig coffee display unit as well which will give us at least half of a square foot more counter space.  Slowly we will reclaim the kitchen.  The big move will be when we finally get an over-the-range microwave to replace the junk countertop microwave that the previous residents left for us.  We really need the counter space that it takes up and it does not work very well at all anyway.

Third Party Hard Drive for HP Proliant DL185 G5

This document applies directly to the Hewlett Packard Proliant DL185 G5 server.  I have tested this with the twelve front bay configuration and will test shortly with the rear-facing drive configuration as well.  [Edit – Tested with fourteen drive configuration and it checked out just fine.]

When buying a hot-swap SAS or SATA 3.5″ hard drive for use in your new HP Proliant DL185 G5 you can acquire them directly from HP with the drive carrier (or sled, caddy) already attached.  This is the easiest method.  If you are like me and prefer to select your own drives from third party makers (in my case, I want to use low power, high capacity Seagate Barracuda LP drives) then you must purchase your hot swap drive sleds separately.  Finding the correct part number from HP can be quite a hassle.  Even calling them for support can be tricky as almost no one buys this part directly.

If you wish to get your drive trays separately and not through HP you may be in tough shape.  HP does not stock this part and, in fact, is unable to even look up this part number for you.  I spent some time working with HP in the US on this issue and they were able to provide a visual confirmation on the part for me but could not verify the quality or the usability of the third party drives that I was able to find.  So I was stuck taking a risk to see if these drives would work.  For some machines HP can provide a part number and sometimes can even sell the caddy themselves, but not in the case of the 185 G5.  I have taken the time both with HP and with the third party vendors and with the server in-hand to verify these parts so you do not have to do so.

The part that you need to purchase is HP Part Number: 373211-001.  This part is generally priced around $35 USD.  You will need as many as fourteen of them to fully populate the DL185 G5 drive with the two optional large drive bays (twelve in front and two in back) but you can use them individually as well, or course.  I have had good luck and have gotten a good price getting these trays from Discount Technology: DL185 G5 Hot Swap Drive Tray.

Beware of shops attempting to sell you a much lower cost alternative to this part number.  Quite often the lower cost part is actually a drive blank.  A drive blank is simply a plastic air dam that corrects airflow through the server chassis when a drive is not present. Many of these drive blanks should ship with your DL185 G5 when it is new.  They are readily available and very inexpensive but, mostly, useless.

The big advantage of working with third party sleds and drives is that the DL185 G5 can be populated for thousands of dollars less and can house as much as 28TB of storage in a tiny 2U server.  This is possibly the second densest storage unit on the market when used with the Seagate Barracude LP 2TB drives – the densest is the Sun x4500 “Thumper” 4U storage server at many times the cost of the DL185.

Also, when ordering a DL185 G5 you should be aware that if you get the larger twelve hard drive front drive bay that you cannot also have a front loading optical drive and will need to get your optical drive rear facing.  If you get the optional dual hot swap rear facing drive option then you cannot have a rear facing optical drive.  If you choose both of these options you must use a USB-based optical drive in order to boot from optical media.  This is not always obvious when you are attempting to order one of these machines.

May 30, 2009: It’s BMW and Ice Cream Day

I got to sleep in for a bit this morning then it was right down to the basement so that I could get to work.  Dominica and Liesl were up before me today and were already down in the living room when I came downstairs.  Dexter had sneaked into our bedroom early this morning and disrupted Oreo early on.  Dexter is a sneaky dog.

Work went fairly well this morning.  I got started a little late but needed to sleep in some to be able to get any sleep as Liesl had a really rough night. Dominica barely got any sleep at all.

While I was working this morning everyone took a trip out to the grocery store to restock the pantry here as the cupboards are pretty much bare.

I was able to wrap up all of my work by around two this afternoon.  I called over to Orange County BMW and set up a test drive for Joe around three and we packed up Liesl and we all bundled into the X3 and drove across the river.  It takes about half an hour to get over to Harriman where the car dealer is located.

It’s great being an existing BMW customer (and not on our first BMW either) because they know that we know the cars and know what we are doing.  Joe’s dream car is the BMW 135i but he has been thinking that as those are pretty much not available in the used market yet that his only real option is to get the 335i which is larger but with the same engine.  He was set on not even trying a 128 or a 135 because he would not be able to afford one due to the limited availability but we talking him into getting into one and giving it a try.  It turned out to be a real blessing as he really does not fit into the 135 and would not be able to use it as a regular driving car comfortably.  So that really changed his outlook on car buying and the 335 is now, most likely the ideal car for him and not just the car that he has to settle on at this time until he can get a 135.

Then we test drove a 2007 graphite with black interior 335i.  Joe drove and I rode along as I know the area and where to drive and Brit rode in the back.  What a great ride.  The 335 has the more powerful 3 liter engine than did Dominica’s 2004 330Cic and now is twin-turbocharged as well.  It is the same engine that we have in the X3 but the X3 does not have the turbochargers.

The drive in the 335i was awesome.  What an amazing vehicle.  That little sedan just roars to life and springs into motion.  Joe and Brit were both seriously impressed.  That car was very hot and very fun to drive.  It turned out to be a lot more affordable than Joe had been thinking that it would be as well which was very positive.  He is not ready to buy yet but is definitely considering the 335i very stongly.

After the test drive we went over to the Woodbury Common Outlet Mall.  The purpose of the trip was to get new clothes for Liesl from the Carter’s outlet there.  Our first stop was the Victorinox store for Joe to look at watches.  Then we hit Williams-Sonoma where we discovered some very cool Cuisinart ice cream makers on sale.  So Dominica and I ended up getting both a hard ice cream maker and a soft ice cream maker.  These are real ice cream machines and not the kind the use mixes.  We are very excited.  Joe really wanted one so we bought him a hard ice cream maker as well as part of his graduation present – so he is not allowed to play with it until after his graduation party.

There was more shopping at a number of places including Carter’s where Dominica was only able to find a limited amount of stuff that would fit Liesl.  At six month’s old she is already unable to fit into much of anything that they had that we wanted.  They don’t even have footy pajamas for babies of her size!  How crazy is that?

After shopping we drove to Cosimo’s as has become our BMW shopping tradition.  We got the amazing Gorgonzola topped waffle fries with rosemary stems.  So good!  Then everyone got pizza except me who got whole wheat penne and vodka sauce.  Our plan was to skip dessert and go home and make homemade ice cream.

On the drive back to Peekskill Joe and Dominica were reading the ice cream recipes and instructions and discovered that it takes twelve to twenty-two hours to prep the ice cream bowls that have to be really, really frozen in order to make the ice cream correctly.  So no ice cream for us tonight.  So we made the snap decision to stop by Cold Stone Creamery on the way back to the house.  I finally got something other than the marshmallow ice cream.  Tonight I tried the butterscotch Jello pudding ice cream which was really amazing.

No major plans this evening.  Pretty much we just relaxed and spent time with Liesl and the dogs.  Liesl was a party girl and didn’t go to bed until after ten!  Hopefully that means that she will really sleep tonight.

My tailbone is really bothering me tonight.  It has been bad for several days but tonight it is dramatically worse than it has been.  I irritated it a bit by driving as much as I did and through several other activities that we had throughout the day like sitting on a park bench at the Woodbury Commons.  The worst was when I sat on the stairs to put on my shoes so that I could take Oreo out for a walk.  That was extremely painful and after that it was constantly burning and very uncomfortable.  That worries me that maybe more serious damage was done.

I called Francesca to talk about my tailbone since she has some experience with having her’s broken – thanks to Dominica.  Francesca thinks that my pain is definitely from my tailbone but that it is very unlikely to be broken and much more likely to just be badly bruised and inflamed.  So I need to be careful and really watch what I do.