Well, today I figured out what messed up my networking on OS X last week. I installed TinkerTool again today to set some options that I like and as soon as I installed it my NFS locked up my system. After fighting with it for hours I found out that my wireless was working, but my ethernet was not. Right now I'm up on wireless. I talked with the guy that created TinkerTool and he does not think it has anything to do with the program. This is the second time I have had it happen. He said that there are 15000 others that don't have any problems at all. Maybe my Ethernet card is bad...

Anyway, now I'm up but my NFS just does not work at all. I guess its time for a new solution. NFS never has worked right on OS X. I can't seem to get SMB to work also. I should try WebDav. I have CVS, but thats really hard to work with when you have to publish to the server and check things out. Its just too bad that NFS does not work on Mac OS. (or my Mac OS).

Well, it rained today. Rain in July. Wow. It has cleared up now, but it was really pouring today. Crazy. The wind blew really good too.

Jane says that they are fixing the half pipe. I hope its not too bad. I'm ready to do some skateboarding!

The Wireless stuff is coming along fine. I'll have my access point soon for the remote locatation. That will get the people over at Johnny's up. I need to build another antenna. I just need to find the stuff. Its really hard to find K&S Brass tubing. Nobody has it around here.

Well, thats enough for today.

Today was kinda crazy. First we lost two baby chickens. I guess a crow swooped it. Then later after Jane went to work we went into Fernley to get some dinner. On our way back we seen that the wind blew over a row of power polls. That wasn't the crazy part though. I know that the wind had to be blowing very hard to blow over the polls, but later down the road at the race track where the half-pipe is was the crazy part. The wind folded half the half-pipe over onto the flat bottom. Destroyed it. I'm totally bummed. I really wanted to skate that ramp. I dont know what they are going to do now. Its really wrecked.

Living in the desert. Its a trip.

Well, right after I wrote in my journal on Sunday my internet connection died. All night I ran around trying to figure it out. The next day I had my ISP on the line and also the phone company. Everyone was telling me that their stuff was fine. I ran another line from my wall jack to the outside box. I double checked my settings and still no internet. The next day I got another ISDN router to try out. It did the same thing. I was pulling my hair out. I finally called the phone co again and scheduled a service call. They told me that if its not on their end they will bill me for the time. I got to thinking after making the service call... I need to make sure that it is not at my end. I grabed another cable and ran it out my window to the box. The router dialed out and connected just fine. It was the cables. Two bad ones. Gesh. I was down for three days.

Well, I'm back up now, running on a temp cable. I'll have to run some better cable tomorrow.

Other things that happened:

* Pump went out on the water cooler.

* UPS took 4 days to deliver a package 15 miles.

Jane has been having some good luck. A guy called her about one of her paintings. They want to put it in a magazine and on a web site. That is cool. She also go new tires on her car.

Well, its nice to have the net back up. Now I have to get back to work.

It has been a long week. We had a really great 4th of July. We spent three days in Twain Harte, CA. It was very nice and relaxing. This weekend we rebuilt the water cooler. Now its a cool 84 (from 98).

The wireless is going slow but going. I received my omni-directional the other day. We tried it out and we are not getting the distance I needed. We are getting about a 15% packet loss right now. I'm building a better one, and it should be done by next weekend. I just need to find the brass/copper tubing.

I guess I did need more that 12dBi for the antenna at this end.

I am fully rested and ready for work.

Today was the last straw with Mac OS X. I totally reinstalled my system yesterday and it still would lock up every time I wanted to use the NFS mounted drives. I need to use them for work. I had installed OpenBSD, but I could not get it to boot. Today I downloaded Debian Linux, poped the CD in and it booted right up and installed with ease. I'm now up and running on Debian (dual boot OSX). So far, Linux is about twice as fast as Mac OSX. Thats with the same stuff running. It does not look as nice, but it sure does run.

I also finished the new chicken coop today. I put up a bigger fence with lots of room for them to run around in. Now I dont have to worry about them going next door and getting killed by the dogs.

It has been 95 degrees in the house with the air on. I am going to go out and get that big water cooler this weekend. Today I roasted at 99 degrees. It has been very hot here. Right now a storm is coming in, so it should get a bit cooler tonight. Last night it was 95 degrees at 10pm. Right now its 93.

I didn't get much work done because my system being all messed up for the last few days. I hope to get some stuff done tonight though.

We have wireless!

Today we received our LMR-400 cable with the correct ends on them. We tested it out and got the link up from our house to Johnny's house. It's only about 3 miles not 5. I check it out today.

Almost 5Mbit/sec data link. The only disconnect problems were do to high wind blowing our antenna's down.

Now we know it can be done with cheap equipment and good cable. We had to buy two 25' LMR-400 cables with ends. That came out to $40 each. The other thing was to get the correct connector for our cards. We have the Linksys WMP11 PCI cards with the removable rubber duck antenna. It has a reverse gender SMA male connector.

My next project is to build two nice antenna's. Yagi style and maybe one omni-directional to see if that will work for the 3 mile link.

I'll tell you more when I have more done.

I'm so happy!

Well, I did a Apple update yesterday and it busted my networking. I did a networking update the other day, but things were still working fine. Then yesterday I updated AppleScript. Right after that I started having system problems. I can download anything I want, but I can not upload more than a few bytes at a time. I am ssh'd into my other system just type type this in my journal.

Thanks Apple. So far this OS is just all looks and not performance. Maybe its time to install FreeBSD or Linux on my Cube....

We tried a better wireless setup today. It reached out about a half mile. Notbad. I ordered some new cable and connectors today to fit on our WPM11 PCI boards. This should work a whole lot better. I can't wait to get it and set it up.

I have a lead on some 1U servers for $800 each. They have dual 800MHz processors, dual ethernet, 1Gb ram, and around a 10GB HDD. They would make great web servers. I want to get about three for my web farm. There are 100s of them rightnow, if anyone wants any let me know.

Lazy days are turning into Hot days. It has been getting warm here in the lastfew days. I have the air going full blast all day long. I just need to last one more year and I can get my Big cooler.

The Cube is running well. I've pushed its processor to the max a few times. Good thing I can get a 1GHz processor for it. I'll have to save up for a while, but Its on my list of things to get.

Too many wants and not enough money. heh.

Well, today we tried to get our wireless network online. It didn't work. Our equipment sucks. We were trying the Prime Star tin can with RG58 cable. Too much signal loss. We had it working on a 50 foot link, sorta. We are going to drive over to Reno on Monday and get some better stuff.

Yesterday I drove to the Bay Area. That was a fun drive. Just as I made it through Reno some kid comes speeding up to my car. As he is riding on my back bumper he starts flashing his lights. I just ignore him. Then he swirves out and around me, then swirves real close to my car as he comes back into my lane. I've seen this a thousand times. He starts braking trying to piss me off because I did not get out of his way. I give him the bird. That really pisses him off. He brakes more and then shows me that he has a pistol. I laugh and show him that I have a cell phone. He gets a bit scared and takes the next exit off the freeway. Gesh. I thought that I left all that behind when I moved out of California.

I got my LMC T1 PCI cards. I'm setting up a gateway server for when I get my T1 line. I am going to install load balancing software on it so it can route more that one system for our web servers. I need to setup a really good database server also. I think I'll setup my dual Xeon for the DB server and some other system as the web servers. That should be much faster that what we have now.

Well, thats about all for now.

Yesterday Jane and I talked with the owner of the race tracks in Fernley. The TechGames were there and left him a half pipe. It is the best half pipe I have ever seen (mini-ramp). Its about 8' tall with 9' extensions. Its about 30' or 40' wide. Anyway, he is getting ready to setup a whole skatepark. He needs to have interest in it. If enough people are interested in using the facilities, then he can move forward with the plan and I can skate the ramp!

Lets all give him the support he needs to get this moving!

Its off Highway 95 between Fernley and Silver Springs. I'll get the phone number soon and let you know.