I can’t actually decide how useful this is. 2 monitors is phenomenal for work because you can have what you’re working on on the main screen and then something that you’re referencing on the secondary one. My old setup was 1×24″ and 1×17″. I noticed after the computer workshop that a couple of the monitors that I had found lying around matched the other 17″ I had, so I grabbed them temporarily to try out a 4 monitor setup. It’s pretty sweet, but my neck is a little sore by the end of the day!

The project is back on track. My schedule (and the cameraman’s too) has been extraordinarily busy and we’ve been on something of a Tech Tips hiatus lately. This Popcorn Hour episode marks the beginning of our comeback. It was actually shot 2 months ago and finally edited when we uploaded it. We’ve shot two new episodes in the last week or so and you can expect far more regular updates from us once again. I hope you enjoy the Popcorn Hour episode!!

Now the first thing you’re probably thinking is “SSD in a storage server? Is this guy out of his mind?”

The answer is “Probably.”

I’ve lost 3 boot drives in my Windows Home Server since I started using it, and while it’s quite painless to replace a dead drive in WHS if it’s NOT the boot drive, the procedure when it’s your OS drive is LONG and ANNOYING. Since SSDs are supposed to be so “reliable” and Corsair claims their S128 SSD has a MTBF of 100 years or something, I thought “Why not give it a shot”.

I also added a much better HDD mounting caddy to my WHS because the one in this rubbish case vibrates like crazy. It also couldn’t have been helping that I had no fan blowing over the drives. It should be an overall large improvement to my WHS assuming the SSD doesn’t cack out.

Well, I’ve been a die-hard wireless user for a lot of years now. It’s been a bit of a love-hate relationship. When I was going to UBC wireless was an essential part of my day and fairly reliable. They have an excellent network there and with a decent wireless card you can walk around campus with a laptop in front you and browse the net.

Not that I ever did that.

As many of the people who game with me on a regular basis know, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with wireless in my home. I’ve tried 3 different routers and about 1/2 a dozen different wireless adapters (USB, PCI, PCIe) over the last year or so and I just can’t find something that works consistently. Either my connection always sorta sucks, or it’s really good, then just totally craps out for 2-3 minutes at a time. It can be very disruptive if the tank shows up while I’m sitting there teleporting around because my ping is 900ms.

So I bought one of these (by the way there’s a smoking deal coming on these in the next sale or two).

The instructions are basically “plug them into the wall, then plug an ethernet cable into them, but make sure you don’t plug into a power bar or it might cause interference”. I was like “Okay. That’s pretty simple”. I unplugged the power bar for the family computer, threw the powerline unit into position on that side, ran over, plugged it into my switch and the wall on my side and…. nothing. No network connection. Turns out the power bar I unplugged on the family PC end also had the router plugged into it. I’ll be needing that. So after I corrected that mistake I could see all the computers on the other side of the powerline network, but still no internet access. A quick reboot resolved that and now I’m golden.

For a little over $50, it’s nothing short of a miracle.  Transfer speeds are absolutely dismal, but since I don’t need gigabit to that side of the network anyway, I don’t really care. The gigabit switch on my side (pictured below) connects me to my girlfriend’s computer and the Windows Home Server. On the other side is just the media PC and the family PC to which 2-3MB/s is fine.

Well I think it’s safe to call the event a success. Everyone had a really good time, and despite the fact that it made me tired, we managed to get the PCs built, got Windows installed, and we even found time to eat the pizza. Here are some pics from the event. We’ve got another tentatively planned for August 8th (and moving forward we’ll have a schedule of the second Saturday of each month).

Not sure if anyone hasn’t heard about this already, but Hardware Canucks is holding a “post your dream $2000 shopping spree” contest that is sponsored by NCIX. Check it out here:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/dreamit_winit/

From what I hear there aren’t too many people in the contest yet, so your odds of winning that $2000 worth of stuff are pretty good…

It’s been a heck of a day. Got up early and picked up the Cameraman, then I headed to our Vancouver store to get some last minute hardware that he didn’t have in stock at our warehouse for one of the customers, set everything up (10 build stations), then people started arriving, we built some PCs, ate some pizza, then we packed up and left.

I make it sound really simple… It wasn’t. A couple people weren’t able to make it on time so we had to rush those ones a little bit and I felt bad about that, but what can you do? We had two random guys show up and take pizza and SWAG then leave after I gave them some T-shirts… That was pretty annoying. Next time security will have to be tighter. We encountered a couple of random issues like not having a USB keyboard for the guy with no legacy ports on his board and we had a guy who’s pins were bent on this motherboard, but I used my mad ninja skills to fix it and his computer was ready to go before the end!

Overall it was the longest, most stressful work day ever (and I said the same thing yesterday after preparing for this thing), I’m exhausted, but it was totally worth it because it seemed like everyone had a good time.

It turns out trying to fit such a large van in a normal sized garage is harder than you’d think. I had to fold back both mirrors and push up against the box containing a clothesdryer, then apply to e-brake to avoid lurching backwards too far and causing the garage door to open. Even then I had to hold down the shiny insulation while the door was closing to keep it from getting snagged on the rear bumper.

I actually had to remove hardware from the garage door opener because I needed that extra 2″ of clearance. Here’s some pics, haha.

I think we can all agree that as far as good quality fan manufacturers go, Noctua is in a league of their own in terms of ugliness. I made a discovery when I was trying to equip a PC with some Noctua fans that I’ve accumulated over the last couple of years though… There are at least 3 different colour schemes for them! All hideous, mind you, but all different.

The crazy thing about this is that I only OWN three Noctua fans. They were purchased at least a few months apart each, but you can clearly see that one has a white frame while the others have beige frames, and one has maroon blades while the other two have brown blades.