I am now the proud owner of a middling-quality Jaeger LeCoultre Atmos clock. I purchased it on eBay a few weeks ago, and it is the first thing I have actually received from my adventures there. You might reasonably ask “what the heck is an ‘Atmos’, and what’s the big deal?” In this post I’ll try to answer that question
Recently I’ve started to feel the limitations of my long-term cellphone, a Motorola Razr. I’ve had it now for five years, which means it is “ancient” by cell phone standards. Yet it has served me very well for most purposes. However, a couple of years ago I started configuring various server monitors at work to send me email messages when they ran into trouble. These messages are generally too long for the SMS service provided with my Razr, and my latest round of updates has resulted in these messages becoming largely unreadable: the emails are too long and complex.
And so I begin to consider an upgrade…
I had never placed a bid on eBay (or listed anything for that matter) up until a couple of weeks ago. My first bid was on a mantle clock made in the 19th century. I like old-style mechanical clocks, particularly ones that are somewhat ornate, and this one appealed to me. But why did I go to eBay in the first place after years of basically ignoring the service?
The reconstruction of my home office is essentially complete. I still have a computer or two to move in, some wiring to re-organize, and a few other bits and pieces. But the flooring is done and all the new furniture is in place. Here is how it looks now:
The news has been full lately with hyperbole regarding the Conficker series of worms. If you believed some pundits, the Internet should have ground to a halt today as millions of infected computers picked up their new instructions for the coming armageddon. What really happened was… not much of anything. But that doesn’t mean the risk is gone…
Progress on my office renovation is starting to shape up. Despite the minor disaster last night, I managed to finish cleanup of the room and it is now ready for the flooring to be done. Here is what it looked like before we started (2008 picture)
As I mentioned previously, I’m working on improvements to my office space at home. The painting is all done, and I’ve booked installation of a hardwood floor for Monday. This means I have to (fairly quickly) remove everything from the floor of the room. That meant disassembling several computers, reorganizing wiring, and figuring out a way to keep my network switches/routers connected without anything actually resting on the floor. I thought I had it all worked out until disaster struck…
This isn't the usual thing I write about, but when I read about it on Gizmodo and then saw it confirmed on NBC news, I was... well, amazed. Apparently, a…
I’m starting on another “refresh” of my workspace at home: this is becoming a distressingly regular (annual?) activity that I’m hoping to put an end to soon. The objective this year is pretty much a total rebirth: minimizing/reducing, painting, and possibly re-flooring and new furniture. The first step was to excise a bunch of “stuff” from this rather small room, and to get ready for the painting which I intend to do myself.
I have been following the development of solid state drives (SSD) for what seems like decades. The advantages of no moving parts and virtually zero random access latency are compelling, but the prices and capacities have not been where I needed them to be for practical use. That is nearly no longer true and SSDs are entering the mass market level for some particular purposes (notably laptops). Naturally, since it is on the leading edge, I’m all over it: I just bought a 128 GB SSD on my own dime for my work laptop.