• My new NAS

    SynologyI’m a huge fan of NAS drives. For those not so geeky people, a NAS is a networked attached storage device. It’s basically a hard drive attached to your network that any computer can access. Some are just basic drives, and others add a lot of other features.

    I use to have two NAS drives on my network. I had an old one that I bought probably eight years ago. It was a cheapy that was basically just a drive that I used to back all my computers up. It has since died. My other NAS was a FreeNAS server I built from an old P3 computer. FreeNAS is great open source NAS software, that adds a lot more features than my cheap one had. It supports almost any protocol a person would want. I backed up my Mom’s computer, and was able to access a lot of my files over FTP. I shared music on my network with the iTunes server, and dabbled around with other features. It was great.

    Once my cheapy NAS died I needed to upgrade the storage in my FreeNAS, and since it was an old computer with no SATA ports, instead of messing with a SATA card, I thought it was time to upgrade to a different NAS, so I bought a Synology NAS.

    I bought the DS211 which supports two drives, and am loving it so far. It it loaded with features that I am just starting to explore. I love that it has iOS apps. I can now stream my music, view my photos, or any of my files right from my phone or iPad. I know the Drobo is a popular backup device, but for the price and features, I think Synology has them beat.

  • I finally got an iPhone in my hands

    I FINALLY got an iPhone. It’s been a long four years, but I finally got one. I have probably complained far too much online about not being able to get one. With the lack of At&t service it just wasn’t available. I was all set to get an Android based phone, which are also pretty good, until Verizon got iPhones last month. Thankfully our contract was up this month, so I only had to wait a month.

    It almost wasn’t going to happen yesterday. During our checkout at the Verizon store their system went down. We did some more shopping in the mall, ate dinner, came back and it was still down. We sadly went home iPhoneless. When we got home, I basically sat on Twitter until I heard when their system came back up. Thankfully it came up around 8:15, so we had 45 minutes to get back to the store before they closed. So last night was spent syncing and getting it all set up.

    I’m a little bummed that I’m not going to get any experience playing around with Android, but I know the iPhone is the phone for me. I have an investment in apps, and pretty much live in iTunes. iTunes on OS X works great and isn’t the piece of crap that the windows version is.

    I love that I finally have a phone with no carrier branding, or apps on it. Unlike Android phone, I will get the newest iOS updates when they come out. I will always be able to be on the latest OS until my phone is not powerful enough to run it, and then it will be time for a new phone anyway. Since it’s probably the most popular phone, I also have a huge selection of accessories along with the biggest app store. The down side is the app store isn’t as open, but I can always jailbreak, and probably will eventually.

  • Unimpressed with the iPad 2

    iPad 2So if you weren’t in a cave yesterday you heard about the iPad 2 announcement. Will I be upgrading? No. My iPad does everything I need it to do. Nothing in the update really excited me. I’m not one to upgrade to keep up with the Joneses. I love gadgets, but I don’t actually buy them unless I know I am going to use them a lot, and I don’t upgrade until I absolutely need to.

    The iPad 2 is the iPad they should have released last year. I think they purposely left out the cameras last year just so they would have something to add this year. Apple’s yearly product updates kind of bug me. They are always trying to make last year’s products seem old so you upgrade. I don’t know why any current iPad owners would upgrade. Sure it’s a little faster, a little lighter, and has cameras, but I have never complained that mine was too slow, or wish it weighed 0.2 lbs less, or even had a camera.

    To me the big news is you can now get a refurbished iPad for $349. That’s a great deal. I always buy my iPods refurbished, and may buy my next laptop refurbished. I am still rocking the 1st gen MacBook, and it’s working just fine despite a little yellowing, but the time for a new laptop is getting closer.

  • My geek cave

    Currently in my geek cave I have two desks. The one I mostly sit at usually has three computers on it, sometimes four if I am playing around on my netbook . I have a Windows 7 machine, two Macs, and my netbook runs Ubuntu Linux.

    Old Desk 1

    Across the room is my Wife’s old desk. Once she got a laptop she didn’t have a use for it anymore. I have two more computers over there hooked up to a KVM switch to share the keyboard, monitor, and mouse. One is my main Linux system running Ubuntu, and the other is an old junker that’s running console video game emulators. If I ever have the urge to play Super Mario Brothers, or Pitfall, that’s where I do it. I can play any Atari 2600, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Nintendo, or Super Nintendo game I want. All the video game systems of my youth.

    Old Desk 2

    In the near future I am going to upgrade my desk. I’m getting rid of the two I have and getting one big one that should house all five of these computers. I have looked around town, and haven’t found crap for computer desks, but I have found some pretty sweet ones online. I am going to switch from a corner desk to a L shaped desk with two keyboard drawers. It should give me plenty of room after I upgrade that big ass 19” CRT monitor.

    I am so eager to make the upgrade, but I kind of have to wait until I make room on the garage for my old desks. The garage is a pretty sloppy mess now being winter, and having the snowblower and other crap in there.

    I hope I will be able to sell my desks quickly on Craigslist. They are both high quality and in pretty good shape. I love them both, but it’s time for an upgrade. Once my new desk is in place, then I will have a whole half of room to figure out what I want to do with.

  • iPhone vs. Android

    iphone 4 vs droidThe iPhone announcement was over a week ago, and I haven’t blogged about it yet. How many other countries got the iPhone before North Dakota? It’s nice that it’s finally an option. I would probably be more excited if it had happened a few years ago. Now there are some very good Android phones that would be good choices too.

    My contract is up in March, and I have been debating over Android vs. iPhone for the past week. I have pretty much settled on the iPhone now though. I live in the Apple universe. I already have tons of apps, and don’t hate iTunes. I don’t understand all the iTunes haters, but maybe the Windows version is different.

    Many people hate the iPhone for not having a physical keyboard, but my Blackberry has one and I hate it. I can type much faster on my iPod Touch. So that is another thing. I know I would like the iPhone keyboard, not as sure about the Android. Some people want removable storage on there phone so they can add more storage and have their entire much library with them. I don’t really care much about having music on my phone. That’s what my iPod Classic is for. It’s 120 GBs is actually enough to hold it all. Maybe my mind will change when I get a decent phone, but for now 16 GB is probably plenty and I would have no need for removable memory.

    Now the problem is do I just get an iPhone 4 in March, or wait until the iPhone 5 comes out later this summer — assuming Verizon is going to get the iPhone 5 this summer.  I’m not really a fan of waiting because you could wait forever. No matter what, there is always something bigger and better right around the corner. Honestly I don’t really see any big changes coming to the iPhone 5. What else could they really add? The only thing I can think of is 4G, but that’s not coming to Fargo anytime soon — Verizon says by 2013. I am sure something will come out, but all the iOS updates should all work on the iPhone 4 too.

    I’m sure waiting is probably the right thing to do. I’ve waited four years for this phone, what’s a couple more months. I probably wont wait though. I suffered with a Blackberry the last two years, I’m sure I won’t be suffering as much with an iPhone 4. We will just have to wait and see what the iPhone 5 rumors are during the next two months.

  • iPad version 4.2.1

    imagesI bought an iPad two days after they became available.  I usually don’t buy version 1 products, but the iPad looked so good I couldn’t wait.  So I have been using it now for seven months and totally love it.  It’s the perfect couch computer.  It’s so handy to have on the couch to either look something up on IMDB, check sports scores, or check up on Twitter.  I also think it’s a great ebook reader.  I have read many books on it, and prefer it over paper books.  I have never read a book on a Kindle though.  The smaller size, and non-backlit screen may be your thing, but I love the color screen and multiple uses the iPad has.  It has pretty much replaced my laptop on short trips.  Longer vacations I need my laptop, but if I just want to keep up with my RSS feeds, my iPad does the job.

    Yesterday the long awaiting iOS 4.2 came out.  I was looking forward to it coming out since the day I bought my iPad.  It finally brings the much needed folders, and multitasking.  My iPad now seems even more useful.  The update does one stupid thing though.  It changes the screen orientation switch into another mute switch.  It boggles my mind why they did this.  I use to use that switch all the time.  Now it takes four button pushes to lock the screen orientation.  Holding the volume button down for a second or two has always muted it.  Why do we need another mute switch?  There are only four buttons on the damn thing, why do two of them have to be mute?

    We will see if I miss the old screen orientation lock.  If I miss it too much, I will might just have to jailbreak it again.

  • New printer

    So a couple of weeks ago I bought a new printer.  The ink for my old printer was getting harder and harder to find.  Target was the only place that had it, and last time I bought some it was covered in a layer of dust.  Yeah, it wasn’t a very popular ink cartridge.  I figured the days of easily finding ink for that printer are numbered.  I was low on both black and color ink, so —for almost the price of the ink— I just bought a new printer.

    If I remember correctly this the fifth printer I a have bought, and every time I am always amazed at the new one, and kind of shocked how crappy my old one was.

    The first printer I bought was back in the early 90s.  It only printed in black.  I was amazed at how crisp and clean the black was and, gasp, it could print different fonts.  It was much better than those dot matrix printers we had in school.

    A few years later I bought my first color printer.  It could print color, but really couldn’t handle pictures.  Just some basic color in documents.  It was my first and only HP printer.  After that I started buying Epson printers, and that is all I have bought since.

    My third printer was my first Epson and I was amazed how good of photos it could print.  Looking back at those photos now, they are pretty crappy.

    My fourth printer is the Epson printer that I am getting rid of now.  It prints pretty good photos.  I can’t really tell the difference between my printed photos, and printed photos from stores.  Nowadays though, it’s easier and probably cheaper to just get photos printed at stores, so I seldom print photos at home.

    My new printer is an Epson WorkForce 633.  I’m sure the print quality is better than my old printer, but honestly I can really see a difference.  Printers have gotten so good now that print quality really doesn’t matter much anymore.  It’s other features that I love about my new printer.

    It’s an all in one printer, like most of them are nowadays.  It’s nice to have a scanner again, since mine went to hell a few years ago.  I don’t really scan much, but it’s nice to be able to.  It has a nice document feeder too, so I can copy or scan multiple of pages easily.  The thing I really like about it is it’s paper try.  I can put a half of ream of paper in it, and not have to worry about paper levels for a long time.  Plus it holds the paper flat, so it doesn’t get all curled up. 

    It’s WiFi, but I don’t really see a benefit to that.  It still has to be plugged into my computer to scan, so it didn’t eliminate and wires.  The only advantage I can see of it is that other computers on the network can print when my main computer is shut off, but my computer is never shut off, so who cares.  It’s probably more of a feature for noobs that don’t know how to share a printer on the network.

    My favorite features are probably the speed —It prints super fast— and that it can print double sided.  It’s pretty cool how it prints one side, sucks it back in, and then prints the other side.

    Have I really typed this much about something as unsexy as a new printer?  Holy crap.  Well, I don’t by printers too often, so I guess I really notice the changes when I do.