Yeah, I know I've been pretty bad lately about updating. It's been pretty busy around here... The new noisybox server is up and running! I'm stoked. I'm mostly doing some fine-tuning now and just getting things set up like I want them. Web and email are in full production. I was struggling with copying some things around between hard rives (some serious speed problems) until I stumbled upon a VERY valuable resource at O'Reilly which talks about hdparm and how to tweak IDE parameters. Wow...that's much better now. If you're having problems with IDE speed in Linux, read that article and look into hdparm. You won't regret it. Anyway...that's all the boring stuff I have for now. Maybe things will get more interesting SOON....

Welcome to noisybox.net two point oh. Web traffic now pointed at the new server. You probably won't/don't notice any difference. The pictures directories are all out of order...so I'll have to work on that sometime soon...but for now, enjoy!

I don't think I had a single migraine in the 6 months I've been living in the Portland area. I go to Lubbock and start working on my second migraine in a span of 4 days...this sucks. Reason #37,412 to hate Lubbock. And yeah, I'm sure it's not psychological.

Well, I built a little plexiglas panel for the new server tonight. It's actually pretty decent -- both functionaly and asthetically. It "snaps" (ok, well kinda) in place in front of the drive bays. I don't really like having a clear face plate, so I will probably paint over the inside. All of it is going to have to wait a week or so. On a side note, I also made some small changes/improvements to PicMeme today. I'm hoping to have a beta/rc1 out within a month or so. Wow. This server migration is taking longer than I had hoped...but once I get things working as desired, I think it will really be nice!

Goddammit. Yeah, I guess it's not new...but I just saw it for the first time. One of the scariest things I have seen in a long, long, long time. That's right people, that chach is one of the most powerful, influential leaders of the US. The guy who allegedly thinks calico cats are a sign of the devil. The outspoken christian zealout. The same guy who had Lady Liberty's breast covered up. The DMCA nazi. I wonder if he had that friggin song copyrighted.

So I stumble across one of the silliest things in a while while working. Apparently, there really is a city named Boogertown in North Carolina. Heh. Leave it to the southern yokels to name a blace after nose nasties (even if that isn't the original derivation). Seriously, it's real. I laughed out loud when my SELECT statement returned "Boogertown, NC".

So I've managed to stay pretty busy the last few days with the noisybox server rebuild. Just to recap: Buy server. Get server. Open case and boot from floppy. "Wow, it works". Remove loud dual cooling fan unit. Download BIOS upgrades and install. Install cdrom drive (after purchasing one and then realizing that I already had a spare, go figure). Build ugly but functional 1-to-5 IDE power supply harness (I just knew those old salvaged cooling fan connectors would come in handy one day!). Connect 3gig drive to on-board IDE. Boot from Debian network install CD. Answer a handful of simple questions, select no packages, start install and sleep. Wake with nice bare Debian system, complete with functional networking setup. Install vim. Download and build OpenSSL and OpenSSH. Tweak and install other necessary/minimal packages. Power down. Install Promise Ultra100 IDE controller. Connect bare 60gig drive. Download latest stable kernel source. Build kernel etc. Install new kernel and set up lilo. Marvel at the speed at which the new setup boots! Move Promise card to other PCI slot after fdisk hangs system. Phew! Get partition created on bare drive, create ext2 filesystem. Mount. Rad! Convert both hard drives to ext3. Tweak bash and other settings. Anyway, that's pretty much where I am now. :) Ok, sure, so it's a pretty slow process. But I think it's going to be nice when finished. Now if only I could figure out how to nicely mount IDE drives in the SCSI bays...I'm so horrible at mechanical things...

Wow...it's a new year and everything...and I didn't even post a big HAPPY NEWYEAR or anything. My page went neglected. New Years was really low key, with Stacy and I just staying home and toasting some champagne (er, I guess technically it's called sparkling wine). We were going to try and hook up with some friends, but it just didn't seem worth it to play dodge-the-really-drunk-drivers. Sure, GTA3 is fun, but not when it's real life. :) My new server box still hasn't gotten here. I wait for it daily. I've been doing lots of work and generally staying pretty friggin occupied. The "prev" link on my weblog never worked right...so I just now fixed it. It's quite hard for me to believe, but the ilab/noisybox [we]blog turns TWO YEARS OLD in like 3 days. That's right! Wow. So do the math, my posts-per-day-ratio is really quite shitty. I suppose I should resolve to do more documenting. I hate resolutions. I have been giving PicMeme some attention lately. Mainly by trying to debug one or two really sketchy bugs that seem to only crop up when I'm not looking. If I can eradicate those, then some features will be added. Check back for updates...

Well, it looks like the noisybox server will be getting a full rebuild in the next few weeks. I've been complaining about my setup for quite some time...and I guess I finally decided to do something about it. :) I'm excited about it. Sure, there's gonna be some work to do...but I think the end result should be quite satisfying. Bring on Courier, MySQL (or possibly PostgreSQL), and a bucket of other goodies. I may even get the balls to do Linux from scratch. We'll see.

Ok people...it's been a little quiet over here at the noisybox...most likely because of the holidays. Fear not, dear heathens! I've got just the thing to cure your depressed holiday woes! If this doesn't put you in the christmas spirit, then nothing will! Have a good one!