gary's web sofa » Personal http://www.garypigott.net technology, internet oddities & other random stuff Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:37:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 The shame….. http://www.garypigott.net/the-shame/ http://www.garypigott.net/the-shame/#comments Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:09:52 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/?p=132 image I’ve tried to make sure the rugrats have a head-start when it comes to computers. #1 son has been playing with my PCs since he was 4 and has had his own PC since he was 8. Herself is inheriting a PC this year also. Pierce likes websites like howstuffworks.com and wikipedia.org but games are his thing, obviously. This isn’t such a bad thing because I’ve been known to indulge in virtual mindless violence from time to time myself.

One of our favourites is Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. It’s a strategy game set in the distant future. You build and control an army and battle another army controlled by the computer or another player somewhere on the internet. It was fun until last Monday, when his Necron army so totally humiliated my Space Marine one that I gave up and ran away before he could wipe my army out.  :-(

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/the-shame/feed/ 0 Aaaaggghhhh! http://www.garypigott.net/customer-service/ http://www.garypigott.net/customer-service/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:30:36 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/?p=122 image A friend of mine has a successful small company. He’s realised that he needs “backup” because he knows he’ll go out of business if he loses his data. He claims that he doesn’t have the budget for online backup, and his staff aren’t computer literate enough to be trusted to swap a backup tape and store it off site.

I decided to use him as a guinea pig for Restore, and open source client-server disk backup platform. He has a reasonably powerful server in the office (I bought it for him) and a web hosting account with 10GB of space (also thanks to me). I wanted to set it up so it would backup the desktops to disk on the server, which I’d then rsync off-site. I’ve used VMware Server a lot, so the plan was to take Restore’s “VMware Appliance”, drop it on the server as a totally self contained virtual server, spend a 1/2 hour configuring it and I could go back to the day job.

It didn’t work out that way. The VM was created using VMware Workstation 6, whose VMs are incompatible with VMware Server 1.X. All they needed to do was click “VM” > “Upgrade or Change Hardware” before publishing the VM and everything would be fine. Now my 30 minute favour for a friend will balloon into a 3 hour job because I need to install it the old fashioned way. Grrrr!

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/customer-service/feed/ 0 IvanAnywhere is soooo cool! http://www.garypigott.net/ivananywhere-is-soooo-cool/ http://www.garypigott.net/ivananywhere-is-soooo-cool/#comments Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:55:36 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/index.php/2007/09/05/ivananywhere-is-soooo-cool/ Imagine you’re a telecommuter in a company where everyone else works out of the office. Your only interaction is via conference calls, email and IM. You miss out on all the work and non-work related chatter that happens in the corridors, other people’s cubicles and in the lunch room. Ivan Bowman in a Sybase subsidiary in Canada was one of those people, but he wanted to change that.

Phase one was to install a webcam in the office, so he could see and hear what was going on, but he couldn’t answer back, and it wasn’t what you would call mobile. They ended up building a remote controllable platform with a webcam, speakers and a touch screen on a pole, so he can roam the corridors, attend meetings and drop into coworkers cubicles just like he was there. He controls it all remotely using a joystick, and the touch screen displays a live feed of his face from his webcam. Some would discard the idea as a toy or gimmick, but I see this as a very workable solution to the disconnect often felt by those who work away from the office.

The Record via Slashdot

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/ivananywhere-is-soooo-cool/feed/ 0 Hands up who knows what a Theremin is? http://www.garypigott.net/hands-up-who-knows-what-a-theremin-is/ http://www.garypigott.net/hands-up-who-knows-what-a-theremin-is/#comments Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:14:17 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/index.php/2007/06/24/hands-up-who-knows-what-a-theremin-is/ The Doctor Who theme music is the only exposure most people have ever had to the sound of a Theremin, and most don’t even realise it. There’s a bunch of guys called The Ether and Aether Experiment who’ve covered Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy and it sounds strangely cool:

via the Laughing Squid

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/hands-up-who-knows-what-a-theremin-is/feed/ 0 New car http://www.garypigott.net/new-car/ http://www.garypigott.net/new-car/#comments Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:07:34 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/index.php/2007/02/19/new-car/

My old Ford Focus, that has carried my fat ass up and down to Dublin for the last 3 years is being put out to pasture. It’ll be spending the rest of it’s days doing school runs and trips to the shops with the missus. I need something with a bit of comfort, so I’ve found a Volvo S80 for myself. It’s bigger (a lot bigger!) and more comfortable, and it doesn’t start to wheeze going up steep hills.

It looks like a bit of an old man’s car, but it’s 2 litre turbo’ed engine will leave a lot of the boy racers in their Honda Civics behind. The top end stereo and heated leather seats mean I’ll be comfortable doing it.

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/new-car/feed/ 0 My jaw still hurts! http://www.garypigott.net/my-jaw-still-hurts/ http://www.garypigott.net/my-jaw-still-hurts/#comments Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:17:59 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/?p=36 The doctor in casualty (after my jaw dislocation incident) said that I should be seen by a specialist within a week. My appointment finally came in the post. I’ll have another month to wait. Aaaaggghhhh!

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/my-jaw-still-hurts/feed/ 0 My Jaw hurts… http://www.garypigott.net/my-jaw-hurts/ http://www.garypigott.net/my-jaw-hurts/#comments Mon, 02 Oct 2006 17:21:04 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/?p=34 I went to the dentist this morning to get some old fillings redone and somehow the dentist managed to dislocate my jaw, sticking it wide open. He must have pushed my jaw in an odd direction while my mouth was open. I had to go to the local A&E to get it manipulated back into place. the funniest bit though was when I walked into the hospital. The triage nurse asked me what was wrong…..

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/my-jaw-hurts/feed/ 0 I wish I was my kids age http://www.garypigott.net/i-wish-i-was-my-kids-age/ http://www.garypigott.net/i-wish-i-was-my-kids-age/#comments Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:51:10 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/?p=33 Lets face it, kids toys from the 70′s and 80′s were pretty crap, but here’s a toy I want myself. Tickle Me Elmo has been re-released as Tickle Me Elmo TMX. My daughter’s original Elmo just shook and laughed when you tickled it. This new one rolls around the floor, waves it’s arms and then gets up. I have to get one! It’s guarenteed to be the toy to get this Christmas!


Link

]]> http://www.garypigott.net/i-wish-i-was-my-kids-age/feed/ 0 Why it was great to be a kid in the 70′s http://www.garypigott.net/why-it-was-great-to-be-a-kid-in-the-70s/ http://www.garypigott.net/why-it-was-great-to-be-a-kid-in-the-70s/#comments Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:33:45 +0000 gary http://www.garypigott.net/?p=17 You had to wear really sucky clothes, but you got to see stuff like this on kids TV:

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