Mid year update

I really need to get crackin on regular updates.

Anyways, It’s June and it’s been a hell of a year.  We’re still working on getting TechnoChubby.com up and running.   vBulletin finally released the 3.7 version of their software and we’ve installed it and now need to flesh it out before going live. (Kumeelyun [Zelig] has been waiting ever so patiently for me to get the back end done.)

On a personal note, Dana and I have split up after 7 years.  I have been dealing with this emotionally for the past couple of weeks.  The only depth I will go into is “It is what it is”

Back on a tech note, I have decided to try to twitter more often.  I have been regularly listening to MacBreak Weekly ( http://twit.tv/mbw )  The dialog from the show has me wanting to twitter more.

We’re moving forward with life in our household.  I am re-organizing yet again, seems like it never ends.

As Catherwood used to say: “Onwards and Upwards”

PS I love my Mac

Week Two in WoW

So, it’s now my second week in World of Warcraft. I have to say, and maybe out of desperation, that it’s not as bad as I expected it to be.

I played the game heavily during beta. I was not impressed with it then. I believe that was about 3 years ago. Since then, I think it has improved dramatically.

It’s definitely a social game, it’s not as fun playing solo than it is when grouped. Another major change for me is that we’re on a PvP server and that goes a lot better when you are running around with a group of friends.

The major thing I like about it is the ability to tweak the UI and add various helper mods that make the game play much easier than it already is. My list of MUST add World of Warcraft mods:

First off, I use WoWMatrix to install and manage my mods. ( www.wowmatrix.com )

Then install the following MUSTS:

1) QuestHelper – this shows you where your quest objectives are located.  Also, if you are in a group, and your fellow group members have it installed, it will show you their quests.

2) BeQL – An enhanced quest log.  This adds all kinds of things to your quest log that gives you info.  The main reason why it’s on my list, is that if you enable “Quest progression to party chat” it informs your party when you get quest items so your not always asking “How many more do you need?”

3) Cartographer – General map addon.  Adds some features to the map and keeps it from taking over your entire screen.

4)  Titan Panel – Adds an information bar on the top and bottom of your screen that gives you all sorts of useful info. Bag space, gold, XP, etc etc.

Those would be my key recommendations for starter add ons.

I am enjoying WoW so far and will report more as I go along.

- Zenshinzo, level 36 Night Elf Druid

My Switch from World of Warcraft to VMWare Fusion

I found out that VMWare is doing a contest to win a Macbook Air. You need to post a video to YouTube with the tag ‘switchtofusion‘. I decided to do an entry a while ago. However, I have been busy with a lot of different things and was unable to do the wonderful video ‘showing off’ what VMWare can do. I am a VMWare NUT, and I LOVE Fusion even more. (It was one of the deciding factors in my going Mac)

In it’s stead, I decided to throw together a quick video of why I switched from World of Warcraft to VMWare Fusion. (I know, I know.. it’s not the same type of app. I just thought it would be fun) Enjoy:

Anyways, I do want to say that I have been a virtualization user for quite some time. From the very early days of VMWare (geez, what years ago). I have tried Parallels, Virtual PC, and a host of others. I have not found anything to work quite as well as VMWare does. I use all of their products, Fusion, GSX/ESX, Server, and Workstation.

I was really happy when they came out with a Mac version, VMWare Fusion. It was very instrumental in my switching over to the Mac platform. I have to say, that I am quite pleased with how it runs. I really like the Unity interface. (See my MacVista post in this blog) I love the seamless integration. It just plain ROCKS!

OK OK, I’ll stop raving about it, I just wanted to share all of this with you.

GO BUY VMWare Fusion! If you don’t have a Mac, GO BUY A MAC, THEN BUY VMWare Fusion!

See more about switching to fusion: http://www.vmware.com/switchtofusion/

Ironman and other tidbits

Went to go see Ironman today.  I have always had an affinity towards Ironman.  He has always been the epitome of how a normal guy could become a super hero.  Plus his behavior  has always been akin to how I am.  Kinda wild, loves the girls, and a drinker. (well, I am not a drinker anymore but I still love to have fun)

It was a good movie.  One of the better comic-turned-movie realization so far.   Favreau did a great job directing and being the bodyguard.  The ending was classic. (not tellin, go see it!) Anyways, I recommend this flick to any and all.  Had great pacing, no real slow moments.  Good Stuff!

Also, lately I have been playing with the Camfrog software.  This is a video chat room software.  Thanks to my buddy Nightline for turning me on to this.  I have been hanging out in the _FaLleN_AnGeLs_ room.  Interesting stuff.  You’ll have to go check it out for yourself.

This video chat stuff has given me ideas on what to do with the HappyFornicator.com domain.  Looks like I’ll be setting up another social/video site soon.

Technochubby is coming along.  I am working on the servers and will get the site up in the next week or two at the latest.  Good Stuff!

The Home Office Router search

I have been searching for the ultimate home office router/firewall. I would like the following:

1. Gigabit
2. VPN Endpoint
3. QOS

Those are the main points I want in a router/firewall solution. I have been doing a lot of stuff on the road of late. I would like to access my net at home with a reliable commercial solution. (no offense open source)

I am now starting to do some research. I am looking at some possible sonicwall, watchguard, or juniper solution. However, I would like a less pricey solution. Preferably D-Link or Netgear. If anyone out there knows of anything, please reply.

Apparently, I am not the only one looking for these things. Greg Hughes seems to be searching for this as well. (I Have a dream the Perfect gigabit wireless router with vpn and QOS)

The Search is on!

Macbook Pro 500 Gig HD Install

I went and did it. I put the 500 Gig Hitachi drive I got today into my Macbook Pro. I shot video of the whole thing. I shot video of the 320 Gig install, but since I got the 500 so shortly after, I just decided to do the one.

Here it is:

For some odd reason, my camera imports are acting up. It took 4 or so imports to get most of what you see in the video. As you can see, certain sections of the video there is jitter, I did the best I could. I was planning on doing a time-lapse of the rebuild, but it was just unusable.  So, I added a text ending instead. I hope you like it!

One note on the drive. This drive is 12.5mm vs the 9.5mm most 2.5″ drives are. From my understanding, the Macbook Pro 17″ is the only Macbook that this drive will fit inside.

Anyways, this time I did a Time Machine restore to the drive once installed, and it went flawlessly.

It’s a nice drive, I did the video you see on the Macbook Pro with the new drive in it.

As usual, we plan on referencing our videos on the Techno Chubby Site when it gets up and running.

Good Stuff!

MacUpdate Promo

I know it’s being posted all over the net right now. But I just wanted to put in my two copper’s worth on this.

I have purchased the MacUpdate Promo Bundle, I think it’s worth it.

Shameless Link: Today’s MacUpdate Promo, 40% off

It’s a great bundle with a lot of great software. Here’s what they are selling in the bundle:

Hazel
Art Text
MenuCalendarClock
Leap
StoryMill
Typinator
DVDRemaster Pro
Sound Studio
BannerZest
Parallels Desktop

It’s $64.99 for all the software. I’ll be honest, I was leary at first, but there were a couple pieces of software in the list I was interested in registering anyways and I said, what the heck and gave it a go.

It’s the real deal. I got my reg keys all mailed to me and life’s good.

Anyways, if you want to get it and you click on this link Today’s MacUpdate Promo, 40% off I’ll get $3 bucks… Come on, you know you like me enough and want to give a little support to my musings.

Thanks all!

MacBook Pro 320GB Hard Drive Upgrade

I spent part of my afternoon today upgrading my Macbook Pro’s Hard Drive to 320 Gigabyte from the 200 that was in it originally. Boy, does Apple pack some stuff in the space.

Anyways, I took video of the whole deal. I’ll be working on it at some point this week and get it up on YouTube. It was fairly painless.

After the install, I just did a fresh install from the Leopard disks that came with the system. When it got to the point when it asks if I want to restore an account. I just inserted the old drive in my trusty Thermaltake BlacX and it found all my settings and went to town. It even transferred my VM’s with no issues.

Great stuff!

Master Media Server, Media Center plan revisited

Back in January, we started working on a Home Media Center/Home Server configuration. I started moving some of the equipment that was normally found in my home office to the living room.

We started to build this monster machine that I thought would handle everything. Theoretically, it would and could but when it came to practice, it just didn’t work out. Here’s the YouTube of where we started with this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqcJ45XRNDM

I decided to turn that computer to our media editing machine and it worked fine, but not great. From my perspective, Vista was just not ready to handle the larger demands we were placing on this machine. So, we decided to throw OS X on it. We were quite surprised at how well it worked. So much so that we have decided to move to the Mac platform throughout our household. (As some of you have been reading)

Moving forward, we decided to look into the feasibility of using the Mac platform as our main Media Center that is connected to the living room television. We’re gonna re-configure our big black quad core and set it up and test it. If this works out for us, we’re planning on getting a full Mac Pro and do the same.

Here is the configuration:

Motherboard: Asus Maximus Formula
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Memory: 8 Gigabytes of Corsair DDR2 (4 x 2GB sticks)
Boot Drive: 500 Gigabyte Seagate
Data Drive: 1 Terabyte Seagate
Video: xFx nVidia GeForce 8800GT w/ 512 MB DDR3
NAS: ReadyNAS NV+ w/ 4 x 750 Gigabyte Seagate drives

Operating System: Leopard OS X 10.5.2 via Leo4All (See NOTE)

“Server” Capabilities:

We will configure the DATA drive to do sharing via bonjour and smb to share our data throughout the house computers.

The ReadyNAS NV+ will be set up as our Time Machine backup drive over the network.

We are still looking into several DLNA/uPNP solutions.

This machine will have iTunes library sharing enabled as well.

Software to be installed and configuration:

VMWare Fusion

We will use VMWare Fusion to run various linux and windows VM’s for our needs. The main Windows VM will be running Vista Ultimate and will provide extender capabilities to our Xbox 360′s.

Toast 9 Titanium

We will use Toast with it’s Tivo functionality to pull and archive our favorite TV shows. We will also set up automatic conversion for use on our iphones.

That’s about it. We’re gonna try to do a full video of this when we do it and will add it to the technochubby stuff on YouTube.

Wish us Luck!

NOTE: Yes, we own a full copy of Leopard. We’d also like to point out that this machine is purely for testing. If this meets our wants/needs we will be purchasing a full Mac Pro. (Just like I just finished purchasing a MacBook Pro once I decided the platform was for me)

Also we do own licenses for all the commercial software that we install on our computers.

MacVista – Mac on top, Vista on the bottom

I have almost got my new MacBook Pro set up the way I like it. I have VMWare installed with Vista 32 in a VM. I run vista in Unity mode which allows the windows applications to seem directly integrated into the OS X desktop.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

I call it “MacVista – Mac on top, Vista on the bottom.” Plus, I am trying out Skitch, a new screen grabber that looks like it has promise.

Now all I need is some sort of Unity mode for Linux in a VM and I can call my machine MacVistux  lol.

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