A Frustrating Journey
October comes to a close here in the States (and a few other countries) things have been moving along on the quest. There was a new OS, but after installing Ubuntu 10.10 to VirtualBox I haven’t used it very much. Instead I’ve spent most of my time working on my system builds. This past month was mostly about Vail and a new Windows Home Server system build. At the end of the month I started work on my PC upgrade. Read the rest »
I have most of the parts in house for my WHS System build and I started putting things together and testing Windows Home Server V2 (Vail). I talked about the the case I picked and plans to try out the EasySATA docks. The good news is I ordered the docks from Amazon so it was easy to return them. The bad news is it was downhill from there. Read the rest »
started out by using a couple online power calculators in order to get an idea about the size power supply I needed. My requirements are pretty basic, the biggest power user would be the 12 drive capacity I wanted. Beyond that it was a single CPU with 4 sticks of memory on a regular desktop motherboard. I figured a simple memory card and an additional SATA controller. The Thermaltake Power Supply Calculator is where I started and it estimated I needed 477 watts. The Newegg Power Supply Calculator is more conservative (but simpler to use) and even though it could only go to 8 drives it suggested 496 watts. So I needed a minimum of a 500 watt power supply. Read more to find out what I picked. Read the rest »
Western Digital announced a 3TB external drive awhile back, this week they announce a internal 3TB Caviar Green Drive. While I have no need for the drive at this time I have to admit I’m curios. As the reviews I link to at the end mention, there’s a 2.9TB barrier with most systems these days. Western Digital provides a controller board with the disk in order to get around the issue. The bottom line is, review the pitfalls before spending your money. Or better yet, wait for others to clarify [...] Read the rest »
I wrote about the Cooler Master RAF32 case that I ordered for my next system build earlier this week. Now I’ll go into the motherboard I plan to use and why. I already have the motherboard in hand, purchased earlier so I could take advantage of a discount. I just placed the order for the CPU and memory. Read on for information and why I picked this motherboard, cpu and RAM combination. Read the rest »
After starting my evaluation of Windows Home Server Vail on my test server I became more eager to get going on my next system build, a new home server that will run Vail (Windows Home Server v2) once it’s released. I’ve been researching the parts I think I’ll want for the server and decided it was time to start buying them. I made a decision on the case and placed the order this weekend. Read on to see why I picked the Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP. Read the rest »
Windows Home Server “Code Name Vail” (WHS Version 2) has been in public beta for awhile, in fact it was refreshed over a month ago. I finally got around to installing it last weekend and I really, really like. Of course, I haven’t really dug into it so there may be some ugliness under the covers. It’s beta software so bugs are to be expected. I ran into a couple minor or annoying things that already had a bug report opened for them. But for the most part I like what I see and I'm even more eager for the final release. Read the rest »
I’ve been thinking about the PC builds and upgrades I’ll want to be doing in the near future. Now’s as good as time as any to get some ideas and start looking for sales and buying opportunities. I'm looking at a new Windows Home Server for Vail, a new or upgraded windows desktop, and a home theater PC. Read the rest »
A lazy Sunday afternoon is a perfect time to install a new OS and today happened to be when Canonical officially Released Ubuntu 10.10. I started downloading all 4 ISOs (32 and 64bit each for Desktop & Server). The 64-bit desktop happened to be the first ISO download that finished to I decided to make that my first VirtualBox installation. I’m running VirtualBox 3.2.8 r64453 (the most current version) on Windows 7 Professional with all the latest security patches to date. I’ll be installing Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit. Ubuntu is calling this version “The Perfect 10” for obvious, if man-made reasons. For those really into numerology I’m doing this on 10/10/10 and in binary 101010 is 42, the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life. But enough of that numerical nonsense. I’ll be doing a walkthrough of the operating system and then a walkthrough of the VirtualBox Guest Additions. Read the rest »
There's a hack for getting rid of that Ping button on iTunes tracks. Read the rest »