Category Archives: Technology

Learning from Broken Equipment and Minor Mistakes

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A few days ago, I noticed that websites were loading very slowly, particularly in the early stages.  It appeared as if there were problems with the DNS service being provided by my internal storage server.  I tried to SSH into the machine to do some investigation and access the Webmin web interface; neither option worked.  However, I was able to receive replys to pings sent to the server.  I knew something was up, but I would have to dig in to figure out exactly what.

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A Weekend Project

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This weekend, I finished the bulk of the work of a long-standing project I had been pondering. I had all sorts of data lying around on my desktop machine that I didn’t want to lose. Photos, videos, school assignments, and the like. I wanted to be able to back up multiple machines and be able to synchronize my documents, especially while I was using my laptop. Knowing what I wanted to do, and being the IT control freak I am, I chose to build out a home storage appliance. I thought I would share my build process.

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It Takes Diff’rent Strokes

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Over the last few weeks, I have been enjoying the insightful, funny, and inspiring moments from the Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference (TED), an exclusive event for just 1,000 people every year. The presenters are given very specific time constraints, something like 18 minutes.

Two of the most enjoyable talks I have seen so far have been from two very different scientists with two very different interests.

Jill Taylor, a neuroanatomist from Boston, talks about what it is like to have a stroke, from personal experience.

Cliff Stoll is most famous for catching some international espionage agents through computer forensics and network security, but he really enjoys physics, astronomy, and education.