The Time Sink

I was going to do a really long write up of how things went when I lucked into a few extra bucks and decided to put together a Linux workstation using a Shuttle bare bones box. ...but a funny thing happened on the way to the train wreck: everything went a little too easily. Yeah...

The short version is that I picked up a socket A-based bare bones box, the very, very bottom of their line, the SK41G, tossed a midrange Athlon proc in, some DDR memory, a spare burner and a spare Radeon 7000 card and then threw RedHat 9 against it and just stood back... Umm... It worked. It's fast. I'm pleased. End of story...

Okay, maybe not the end of the story, but the Celeron 500 that's been my main Linux workstation is going to server status pretty darned quickly. ...and from what I've seen with this thing so far, I'm way open to using these as workstations here and at work. I'll write things up a bit more if anyone has any questions I can answer...

Blatant GoogleJuicing:

Just passing along a few things I've learned here and there to a fine student, and we want those search engines to stop by our places and pick up on the meta tags. Feel free to help out if you have some spare link space for a day or two...

I forgot to mention in the Shuttle piece yesterday that you do need a spare HDD to stick in the box, but with the current batch of weekly sales going on, that is mostly a matter of how big and how fast... Oh, and the video card really isn't needed since a decent S3-based system is already on the mobo, as is the audio and lan. ...but I tossed that card in because I was planning on watching the occasional DVD. ...that is until I remembered I'd be violating Federal law if I did. Now, I'll just settle for enjoying the nice Gnome panels...

I'm missing some time this week, some of it due to being up with a sick kid. I'll have to play catchup over the next few days...

Detox... Yep, that's the Rx for the weekend. ...and I hereby declare tomorrow to be the start of the weekend. ...and further decree it continue into Monday! Okay, the Federal government is helping out with the Monday part of it <g>...

Yep, it's time to take a breather from things and work on projects around the house and around the web. Christmas vacation really doesn't exist for me and the mental pressure to work on a few things is starting to come on strong. ...but I realized I've only taken maybe one day off work since early August, so I'll tack tomorrow on to the three-day weekend and see what happens.

Some one asked at work today what I was planning on doing Friday. I replied to the effect I'd either get up at noon and have a beer or get up at 0600 and blade. Reality is probably a lot closer to getting up and going out to breakfast with Shelley. That may be the only quiet time we have the entire weekend...

Well, I split the difference: I got up at 0800 and went blading. ...and after I changed out some lamps in the kitchen fixture and showered, we went out for breakfast and then out and about for a bit.

...and then I came home, I puttered a bit and fell asleep on the couch until it was time to for the boys to come home from school. Not bad for a day off...

I'd like to say I got a bunch of things done in the evening, but most of my time was spent reading or dinking around on the Linux workstation trying out the latest tidbits for reading RSS feeds. Yep, a thrill a minute day <g>...

Hmm... I thought the answer was "42"! ...but one of the local talk show jocks was saying it's really "46", bein' as that's the temperature at daybreak, the afternoon high and the overnight low.

Yeah, the fog does that to us sometimes: rather than settle in as a dense tule fog, it lifts up a bit (maybe 200 feet) and just sits there. Below, you have this constant grey effect that leaches the color out of everything; between 200 and 1500 feet you have the fog bank trapped under an inversion layer; and above 1500 feet you have bright California sunshine...

It's been pretty much a kick back day here. Shelley and I didn't get a lot of sleep last night due to a sick kidlet, so today had to be run at a much slower pace than Saturday. ...and with the games on, that wasn't too difficult for me <g>; although I did take a nap during the second one.

...but much got done Friday and Saturday, so I'm hoping Monday will put things back on track here. I'm off work and the boys are out of school. Maybe Shelley will catch a break and be able to update too.

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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