Archive for September, 2009
File Server
Posted by bumscientist in Computing on September 30, 2009
I think it’s about time I invest in a file server for photos, music and videos.
Photos -> can be around 1 GB/shoot
50 CDs -> 35 GB
50 DVDs -> 400 GB
I believe 2 TB should be enough for the near term (~3 years). So that’s like 4×750 GB in a RAID5.
I probably want to run a samba share and use the machine as a uPnP server, but no web services.
For audio CDs I will probably rip the iso and compress it with xz. There are smarter ways to do it, by encoding it with FLAC and saving a cue sheet, but I usually listen to audio CDs in the car or listen to it compressed in apple’s format in iTunes.
Chinese Apples and Brazilian Oranges
Posted by bumscientist in Food on September 28, 2009
My apple juice has Chinese apples. My orange juice has Brazilian oranges. Since when did it become cheaper to ship fruit halfway around the world instead of locally growing them?
Goals
Posted by bumscientist in Ramblings on September 24, 2009
It’s time I revisit my goals for this coming academic year.
Training – I’ve had pretty good progress the first two months, but this 3rd month hasn’t been progressing as much. I can’t really lose much more weight. Putting on muscle should be a top priority along with learning how to swim well.
Hobbies – I’ve moved my MIDI keyboard to my apartment, but I haven’t put the time in to learn how to play. My hands are kind of small, so it is hard to hit the chords with my pinky. The guitar will have to wait till after the keyboard.
Academic – It’s been a while since I’ve actually read anything or taken a class. It’s one thing to take a class and pass and another to actually learn something useful. I want to be done with learning, but it never stops.
Stock Correlations
Posted by bumscientist in Finance on September 24, 2009
I think it’s time I start looking at my portfolio again. One thing I would like is to have a statistically diversified portfolio. The problem is that when the market moves up and down, everything else moves up and down. We need to take out correlations to the market. I’ll be looking into this in the future.
The Dock
Posted by bumscientist in Computing on September 23, 2009
I removed adium from my dock and it worked, because I no longer login to my instant messaging programs. Out of sight = out of mind.
Redlining
Posted by bumscientist in Ramblings on September 21, 2009
Recently I redlined my car for the first time and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. It sounds good from 3,000 to 5,000 rpm, but once you get near 7,000 rpm it starts sounding horrible like the engine is about to explode. Now I know why there’s a reason for having the redline there. It just isn’t good for the engine to be functioning around there. This also got me thinking about the power curve for the car. You want an engine and transmission that will keep you in the sweet spot for as long as possible, so this is a high revving car with lots of close packed gears.
Secret to Fitness
Posted by bumscientist in Health on September 20, 2009
I think I’ve found the secret to fitness. The secret is consistency.
Canon Lens List
Posted by bumscientist in Fun on September 19, 2009
So I have a Canon Rebel XSi, which has served me well so far, but I think I’m beginning to outgrow the kit lens. I’ve identified 3 lenses to get.
- Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens
- Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Telephoto Lens
- Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM Lens
I’m probably going to purchase them in this order also. Macro lens are fun, so I’m going to get that first. I’ve read that it can also double as a portrait lens, so that’s cool even though I don’t take portraits. The 200mm lens is good if I want to try taking pictures at graduations or at a distance. Since my XSi has a 1.6x factor because of the sensor, so it’s more like a 320 mm, which is pretty hefty. It’s not as fast as I would like it, but it’s faster than a zoom lens that’s 200mm. If I’m going to take a picture at a distance, I’m not going to need zoom functionality. The fixed lens should be fine. The 50mm should be great for taking pictures in low light situations, because it’s unbelievably fast. 50mm is a good for all around shooting.
Media Server and Slackware 13.0, An Update
Posted by bumscientist in Computers on September 19, 2009
So far, I have MythTV working and recording videos, but I couldn’t get MythTV plugins to work. Instead of MythTV plugins I’m using FUPPES to serve up media through uPnP, but I haven’t gotten transcoding on the fly to work yet. This is all good though. Everything I need works. There’s no point in using MythTV to record TV, because my reception sucks. There’s no point to serve up media since the wireless is too slow for me to serve up videos, but audio works. All my audio is encoded in multiple formats and in multiple places. I don’t have enough CDs to warrant a centralized server.
uPnP Media Server
Posted by bumscientist in Computers on September 18, 2009
So I finally got a media server working and serving up data to my PS3. I tired many programs, but had difficulty getting MythTV Plugins, gmediaserver, ushare and mediatomb to work. Fuppes complied easy and worked great. The only problem was that it took me a while to figure out which ports to poke a hole in my firewall.
I added this to my firewall.
iptables -A INPUT -m udp -p udp --dport 1900 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -m tcp -p tcp --dport 5000 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -m udp -p udp --dport 49200 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -m tcp -p tcp --dport 49200 -j ACCEPT
Things work great now. I can watch mp4, mp3 and wma files on my PS3.