How would you like to be a webmaster!?! I know it’s a dream that everyone has. Well here’s your opportunity. I’m selling, as a complete package, my Nascar website. BenchRacers Nascar Talk & Topsites list has been around for 2 1/2 years and has some decent activity. My decision to sell is because I can no longer devote the time necessary to maintain and improve on it. If your interested, please visit http://forsale.benchracers.net for complete details.
Mowing the yard for the last time!
What good feeling knowing that this is the last time this season I will mow the yard. I have nothing against mowing the yard, as I like to keep it well manicured, but it’s nice to get a break from the never-ending yard work.
Now after getting the mower prepped for its winter hibernation, it’s a good time to get the snow blower running and verify it’s working properly before that first blizzard sneaks up on us.
Rolling my own XP cd
Following the detailed instructions provided by an article I came across at TACKTech this afternoon I successfully created a new bootable Windows XP cd that is completely updated with service pack 1. The instructions were very easy to follow and they provide a set of instructions for users of Nero and Easy CD Creator.
After I burned the new cd, I just had to give it a whirl. I was actually surprised by the fact it was bootable. After the install completed I ran Windows update and there was no critical updates and only 4 recommended updates. Then I checked system properties, and sure enough it showed ‘XP Service Pack 1’. What an excellent find, props to the folks over at TACKTech!
Back at it!
Two major accomplishments took place yesterday.
First, I started coding again on a project I started along time ago. It’s a project I refuse to let die, because it is such a great idea. When the time comes I’ll be looking for some help in the HTML and graphics design of the site, as those are not my strong points.
Secondly, I started on the basement project again last night. It wasn’t much, but it felt good to see something happening. I hung an interior door on what will be a closet. That was the first time I ever hung a door, and again I see where my framing skills need more work. But all in all I think it turned out allright.
This weekend I’m going to actually start to tackle the taping and mudding og the drywall in the closet. I’ll have to watch my Hometime videos again for a refresher course. Keep an eye on the webcam this weekend(Mostly in the evening), as I should be there a lot.
Finally, some updates!
Well, I’m finally putting in some time to make the site a little better looking, improving the layout and adding some new information. The work is still in heavy progress and like the housework it’ll be slow moving. Speaking of housework, the basement hasn’t had anything done to it in about 6 months. I better really get cracking as we have another child expected to make its appearance sometime in February and I’ll need to move my office out of the current spare bedroom before then.
Our Town Is Being Invaded by Gremlins
As we hit the 100 year anniversary for Nash/Rambler/AMC’s, our town is the meeting place for the biggest event for those car owners.
The majority of the event is happening on our lakefront. So me and Brandon went for a walk down there yesterday afternoon as alot of the cars were getting ready to kick off their parade. I saw license plates from all over the country. And what an array of automobiles.
I not sure how familiar you all are with AMC’s, but they sure made a lot of interesting looking cars. I wish I would have brought my camera. Their actual big show is on Satuday and I think me Brandon will go back for some pictures.
View the photo album:Here
Slackware Linux is my current favorite.
I know what your thinking, what does this have to do with basement remodeling. Abosuletly nothing! But the basement remodel usually slows down to about nothing in the summer anyways as I spend most of my time on outdoors projects now.
But playing aroung with the Linux operating system has been another hobby of mine for a long time now and I’m always looking for the perfect(at least most perfect) distribution.
Now, I’ve been messing around with different flavors of Linux for almost 5 years now, but am not even close to an expert. However I can fly around the command line fairly well. I even find myself using Linux commands when I’m in a windows dos prompt, but never the other way around.
The one I use the most and is running on this server is Redhat. Mainly for ease of administration and numerous amounts of resources available online and in print. Which, in my book makes it a good choice for a server that needs to be up all the time. It’s also a great one for beginers for all the same reasons mentioned above.
Now, back to the topic. I’m always looking for a Linux distro that can replace my Windows OS, and Slackware 8.1 might be it. I’ve spent many weekends trying to get Debian working on my machine, but when it comes to getting X (the windows like enviroment) working is where that distro falls short. Other than that Debian rocks, and if they ever get it so X will work on the first try, I’ll switch in a second. But for now Slackware is fitting the bill. I tried Slackware a few years ago when I was starting out with Linux and let me tell you, was that a frightening experience. It was like you needed an engineering degree just to go through the install procedure.
Now I admit, there is still one tricky portion of the install and that is partitioning the drive. Fortunately, from playing with Debian alot, I became pretty good with using ‘cfdisk’, which is one of the partitioning program options during the inititial setup. So once you partition the drive the rest of the install is a snap. I’d even say it’s one of the easiest installs available, because of it’s simplicity.
On my first install I choose to install every package it had on the CD. During the install it asks what X windows program I want to run by default when I type ‘startx’ and I chose ‘KDE’. During the install one of the things that surprised me was there were never any prompts about video card or monitors. So after I logged in for the first time I immediately typed ‘startx’, never thinking it was going to work. But low and behold it fired right into KDE! I about fell over. That was definately worth some bonus points right there. Way to go Slackware!
Slack also comes with a lot of great programs to get you going. And for those married to Outlook it has Evolution 1.0.7 which in my opinion actually has some nice features missing from Microsofts offering. But I have yet to get it to launch while in KDE, only seems to work it gnome.
Now, everything was not perfect, in fact there are still some issues I haven’t resolved yet, but I’m willing to work them out and give Slack a fair shot. I’ll be keeping a list of those problems here, and also posting the solutions as I come across them. So maybe I can help someone else out who wants to run this fine distribution also.
If you have any thoughts, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to post them in the lounge.
Webcam fixed.
I can’t believe it took me so long to get the webcam working again. I was thinking that there was either someting was wrong with the computer it is attached to, or something wrong with the firewall. But it was actually the code for this page. For some reason, instead of using the FQDN for the image link I hard coded the IP address in the source. DUH!!! A while back I had an IP address change and I updated all my DNS records but the link was coded with the old IP address.
Well, got my new laptop.
I’ve been wanting a laptop for quite awhile, and after a long wait I finally got one. It’s not the one I originally wanted(IBM stinkpad), but it’s still fairly decent. I ended up getting a Toshiba Satellite Pro 6000. The main feature I wanted that this laptop doesn’t have was intergrated Wi-Fi. It’s a 1 Ghz P3 with a 14.1″ screen and 30gig drive. I’ve already added an additional 512mb RAM for a whopping total of 784mb!!! I’ve also already redone the operating system. I hate all the crap that comes preinstalled on computers.
I tried to do a dual boot system following some instructions that I came accross on the net so I could run XP and RedHat. But after I finished installing RedHat, Grub didn’t recognize the XP partition like the instructions said it would. So I just did a complete XP install. I might pick up a second hard drive and just boot to that when I want to work in Linux.
Speaking of Linux, I just got done installing beta 2 of the latest Redhat beta, and I must say it looks pretty good. The install was perfect. KDE 3 looks pretty nice also. And I love the Konquerer browser. Other than that I haven’t really dug too deep into yet.
The logs show some interesting stuff.
Wow! I was going through the ‘ol log files today and noticed that most people are finding this site through search engines. I thought most people were finding their way here through our Lockergnome webcam link. Plus, if you type in ‘basement remodel’ at google, we’re the number one choice. How the heck did that happen?