Well the spam comments on the photography blog were becoming so annoying that I decided to get an Akismet subscription for it. It’s been a boon for comment management I have to say, and well worth the $5 / month subscription price. Haven’t had a problem since. Clearly wordpress is a target for these spammers that they feel worth hammering at hard. Anyway, given that the blog is connected to my photography business now I felt they were justified in having a paid subscription from me for it. And I’m not sorry.
Archive for December, 2014
Clouds, but not in the Sky…
2014 -
12.30
I’ve been persuaded by the experience of a friend to upgrade my NAS for a third time! Yes I know, I’ve tried three “domestic” NAS’ before and been unhappy with the performance of all of them from a transfer perspective. I have indicated in the past that I’d not bother with anything less than $1000 for my next one. However the feedback on this one is that it’s what I’d expect for the price ($400)! Previous NAS have left a bad taste in my mouth with fairly pathetic network transfer speeds, no better than USB 2, and sometimes not even that good. Given that they’ve been touted as having gigabit network connectivity, you’d expect better. But in real life they’ve all been disappointing. So this time I’ve higher hopes. I’ve lashed out for the fourth drive and slapped 4 x 2tb WD Red into a WD My Cloud EX4.
Given that I’ve dumped all Movie and TV video files now, since my decision to basically not engage with the industry much anymore, I’ve got no need to bother with streaming to the TV etc, so that service is turned off. I’ve not been really sold on the iTunes library idea on NAS yet either, so that too is turned off for the meantime.
I’ll be mainly using this NAS for storage without the “frills”. Photos will need to be stored in another place so that I’ve got backups on it too. I’ve got Time Machine backups running on another NAS, which I’m keeping, for the moment. I want to do some more research on the Time Machine backups on NAS over RAID 5 to see if they’re any issues. If not, then I may move those backups over, or start second backup for the iMac.
Certainly early experience is already much better since’s it’s not going to take a day to format the RAID array like the last. It seems to have managed that in a bit less than 15 mins for the RAID 5 array. It did make some weird and wonderful noises at the finalisation of the RAID array, presumably configuring for the parity. Anyway, initial tests with one drive as a single no RAID partition were encouraging with transfer speeds equivalent to USB 3 or THUNDERBOLT. I’ll be content with that for the price. It’s also got NIC aggregation, which may or may not help, but given that it’s rarely going to be under heavy NETWORK load, I’m curious but not desperate to check that out. Interestingly this is aimed at small business or SOHO as it’s got redundant power and NIC. Since it’s on a UPS, I’m going to take my time with another PSU, a spare drive is probably more important just now.
As it stands, its copying it’s first 200gig onboard at approx 55MB/s which is blinding compared to the previous 20MB/s or less of before.
A Resolution of Sorts…
2014 -
12.27
Well into the last gasp of 2014 now, and within a few days it will be 2015! I’m looking forward to this year in a lot of ways. This will be the year I am positioning myself to break out of my Depressive Cycle. I have a plan to deal with the occupational aspects contributing to my Depression, and I’m well on the way to making more significant strides in the aspects outside of work.
In many ways they’ve proved easier to make the ground in, due to my capacity to make a huge difference from my side. Work is more complicated than that, and my input has far less impact. However, as I said there’s a plan in motion, with a 6 to 12 month timeframe there. I’m looking forward to that starting to take substance!
Flurry of Hands…
2014 -
12.21
Well no photography yesterday, but spent most of the day whipping Darriwell into shape. Whole block mown or whipper snipped; shrubbery trimmed, some tiling done in the bathroom, paths all swept, steps cleaned and some fresh weather stripping on the doors. Feeling much better now. Tough to find the motivation by myself, but I seconded Father to assist and managed to get done what would have taken me all weekend in about 8 hours. Not sure how the Furbags feel about it, but I’m sure they’ll find something beneficial out of it all. I have to say I feel much better about having it done now. Depression isn’t conducive to such work being achieved in a hurry.
Change of the Tide…
2014 -
12.19
Finally! I may be on track again. Depression seems to be lifting, which is strange for me with the Silly Season just around the corner. At least I’m feeling much better than I’ve felt in weeks. Work’s going to happen today. Mind you, I will be leaving about 13:30 today, ‘cos I’m desperate enough to get there to get in an hour early, but not desperate enough to go putting in extra hours just yet.
300 (days)…
2014 -
12.18
It’s 300 days today since I last used the Windows PC at home. Yes I have to use one for work at work, but I no longer have to use the Windows PC at home.
300 days ago my iMac took the place of full time computer. It’s quite capable of doing everything I wish to do with a computer, integrates much better with all my other technology than the Windows PC, and never gives me grief. If I must use windows for some reason, I can do it with a virtual windows 7 running on the iMac. I can do all my gaming on OS X, no longer buy Windows based games. All my productivity tasks can be achieved with the iMac too. The Andulain domain can now run completely over Linux & OS X since I’ve resolved the issue with DNS on the Linux Name Server.
I hope to shutdown the last of the windows servers within the fortnight. The Windows PC will now go to the cupboard, just in case, at least for a while. It may go to a new home down the track.
Not My Favourite Discipline…
2014 -
12.17
Well at least I have a game plan for the future, which doesn’t seem impossible. It will hopefully take me out of IT, and into another career (yet again). In fact it seems quite achievable with the appropriate time and discipline on my part. Now I know I’ve been fond of a bit of discipline in the past, but this isn’t necessarily the pleasurable kind. This will be more the do it for your own good sort of discipline. However, I think I’m now desperate enough to be willing to take it! I need an out.
Tough Choices Ahead…
2014 -
12.11
I began to wonder today if this most recent bout of Depression isn’t really trying to make me realise that I’m just really in the wrong space at this point. No matter which Personality Test I have taken over the years, they consistently indicate that my Personality Type really isn’t supposed to be doing, or expected to be doing what I do for a living now. My Personality Type is generally expected to be best suited for Helping Professions, Teaching Professions, or Artistic endeavours. I think it’s really time I bit the bullet and made some tough choices. After all, I am really quite over working in IT!
Morning Fun…
2014 -
12.08
Why do Tiggakats always decided to bring you gifts before you’re going to work?
A New Hope…
2014 -
12.06
Well the last few weeks have been hard! Depression has been eating away at me again. At least this time I’ve managed to use my recovery process for it to spur me on to do some things I’ve been wanting to do! I’ve put in quite a bit of effort at trying to generate an income from my photography, updating Shards of Arcadia, creating an Etsy shop ShardsOfArcadia, setting some wheels in motion for other aspects of the business that may allow me to work part-time or even provide income enough to see me retire. I’ve even registered the domains ShardsOfArcadia.com & .net. I’m not yet ready to load up there, but it’s mine if I’m going to use it later.
Anyway it’s provided motivation where there’s been none, and hopefully some future hope!