teh TODDtastic webLog-a-majig

So… last month when I got a reminder to renew my domain name (toddtastic.com), I decided to go ahead and also get the hugely unique domain of toddmarimon.com. So… I’m not sure what to do with it. Right now… it actually tells you go to away. What I’m currently envisioning (pending the time to do it) is to make that my website and making toddtastic.com be fully dedicated to my blog (even though it mostly is already). It would be an opportunity for me to actually make a website for myself (not just a blog like what we have here). It would also show a more professional side of me, complete with resume (hire me!) and work samples.

My other thought is … I don’t know. I need more ideas. I’m open to a complete restructuring outline for my two domain names.

Leave comments with your ideas!

This article says what I’m saying about Apple better than I can say it… especially the following quote:

They give out tiny amounts of information, and by being so stingy they make everyone beg and salivate for little scraps But in the end, Apple is just a company like every other company. They screw up, they release things before they’re ready and they botch crisis control.

Thank you Adam Frucci.

You know that feeling when your hard drives are almost all filled up? Your NAS of 500GB is almost full and you have crap on your computers that needs to be transferred to the NAS for their permanent homes. But you’re out of space! What do you do??

Buy a second NAS just like the one you have and run two? That thought crossed my mind… but that wasn’t going to be good enough because there is no redundancy and the LaCie NAS I was using doesn’t have the greatest performance.

So I wanted a real solution… Well, I run a server for a lot of general purposes… Why not just add some hard drives to that? Well… that’s essentially what I did.

I bought a HotSwap Enclosure and three (3) 750GB Hard Drives. I ended up needing a SATA controller card as well because the nVidia chipsets seem to always have problems with the onboard controllers. (There were issues that were making it impossible to successfully build the RAID.

Oh yeah… I put these 3 drives into a software RAID-5 setup. Yes, I realize the card I got does RAID-5 in hardware (apparently), but I wanted more flexibility because if the card dies… it would force me to have to buy that card again (and who knows if it will still exist). This way, I can buy any SATA controllers card(s) and have no problems.

It took all night to build the array, but that is certainly worth it for 1.5TB (1.39TB real) of solid storage. I then spent the next day throwing all my data onto the storage. And now I am all redundant. At some point I will probably purchase a cheap external TB drive to periodically copy the most important data to.

And for those curious… benchmarks indicate approximately 43MB/s write, 110MB/s read. The writing isn’t too impressive, but it is definitely not bad… definitely enough to keep up. I can almost saturate my gigabit network with the read speeds (as long as the receiving computer(s) can handle that).

Reminder: You can always check out my server’s information here.

While many people may not realize it… I don’t like Apple as a company. Everyone else has orgasms every time Steve shows off something shinny. It’s ok… I went through that phase, too.

“But Todd… you own a MacBook Pro”

Yes… Yes I do. It is a very nice machine. The only reason I got it was because I did want to see what exactly Mac OS X was all about and being that it was an Intel chip… I knew that it could do all my Windows and Linux duties as well. It’s like having at least 3 computers in one… and it’s the perfect size and it does perform very well. Also… since laptops in general are not very upgradable (the reason desktop machines are my thing)… I figured it definitely couldn’t hurt to have a well known, good quality laptop. No… it is not perfect… but yes… it is pretty much perfect for my above average needs.

Would I buy another Apple computer? Only if it’s a laptop because their desktops are not nearly as flexible as a PC system can be. But no… I’m not a brand whore for Apple Laptops. I’ve considered many times picking up a smaller, cheap laptop just to have another throw around laptop (an upgrade from my current throw around laptop from 1995).

While there was a time I was seriously considering the iPhone… after much thinking and the disappointments in the 3G update… I’ve concluded it simply is not a logical phone to have.

But what I really can’t stand about Apple is the fact that Steve Jobs could litterally get up on stage… present the iPooponastick… and people will still clap and chear and everyone will critically claim it’s the best thing to happen since poop (without the stick). So much hype surrounds everything Apple does and I’ve not yet seen why:

• Their last OS (Leopard) was glitchy as hell when it first came out (it’s better now, though)
• Their iPods are overpriced, sub-par music players. Oh yeah… Apple didn’t invent the mp3 player… I had an mp3 player years before apple made one.
• Their computers are over priced (although they are of very good quality).
• Their AppleCare service is less than impressive (twice it came back all dirty). And they hugely over charge if your system is out of warranty (right Kristin Y?).

To me… Apple is just another company with annoying hype all the time. And I get annoyed by it because people assume so much just because it’s Apple and it must be great

My brother even gets pissed and wonders why he spent so much on a shitty laptop every time it is a little slow… all spawning because he assumes that Apple is perfect. He was once ready to smash it… of course cursing at Apple the whole time (if that makes sense). It’s just like buying a car from Ford… running over a nail… then cursing at Ford because you should’t have to deal with a flat tire. (Of course… my brother only bought the exact same laptop as me because I got it.)

So people… please see through the hype bubble surrounding Apple. Realize things like how apps on the iPhone are not a new concept to the cell phone market.