June 18, 2006
by dhoytt
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Garage Gym Reorganization

Once again I’m reorganizing the gym setup in my garage after getting new furniture and having to place furniture out of my house into the garage temporarily and also getting a few new pieces of work out equipment. I’m still making changes since I still have quite a few things to move out of the house and of course the garage will be the temporary storage until the time I have to sell or otherwise dispose of it. This time though the purge of equipment will not once again interrupt my garage gym setup to the point I will not be able to work out.

June 5, 2006
by dhoytt
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Personal Portable Electronics Complete…I Think

Ok I love gadgets & technology so is it a big deal that I finally got me a PDA/phone? Well let me answer that for you the answer is yes to me it’s a big deal because for me to get some of this technology it has to have a practical application almost right away. The other criteria is it must be affordable
So what was my latest portable pickup? Actually in the last two weeks there have been two additions. About a week and a half back I took advantage of a sale and bought a “Creative Labs” “Nomad Zen Xtra” “40gb” mp3 player. Last week I purchased online an HP Ipaq HW6515 pocket PC which arrived today. Along with my HP R717 Digital camera and my CompaqNW800 laptop I appear to have all of my various portable electronic and computing needs covered.
For the NW8000 laptop I have my hard core computing or multi-media I may need taken care of and with the various peripherals I have for the NW8000 I can do quite a bit. Actually thinking about it I probably should include the laptop as items that make my portable electronics a complete package. I have the “Hercules DJ Console” which allows me to treat mp3’s as vinyl records. I also have an HP external DVD640 Lightscribe DVDRW and an 80 GB Western Digital USB drive. I can put together some serious music without lugging around a bunch of CD’s or records and still have the same affects and more!
Now it may seem like a duplication to have all of these devices but it really depends on what needs to be done and how long you may be on the road and for what purpose.
The digital camera just gives me the ability to have good resolution on picture I really care about and helps me since I’m not a very good photographer.
The laptop and all of those peripherals I have mainly for the musical purposes but also for those long trips when I may to do some PowerPoint or heavy computing at a hotel or resort.
The Zen mp3 player I couldn’t pass up since the price was so good at less than ½ price. With the mp3 player I can plug into my car stereo and not worry about switching from music to phone to handle a phone call. Plus at a small get together or in a resort I can easily setup a nice little mood and not have it interrupted by calls.
The HP IPAQ is first of all a phone and organizer always at hand but can also perform some very general low horse power computing chores. This will be very nice when I’m out looking at auctions liquidations etc where a laptop will be a hindrance. I can also use this as the one device I will not leave behind if I can only take one it can do everything in a limited way. Also the price was less than 1/3 of the normal cost with warranty still.
Anyway all these electronic items I have purchased help me expand the things I like to do already and enhance the experiences. I have been actually looking at these various devices over the past years as they developed and waited for my needs and cost to come together before purchasing them.
Now I have to look at a few accessories!! Well come on I have to have 1gb of flash RAM in my IPAQ if that’s what’s in my camera sine they are interchangeable! Plus I need a car kit and an underwater case for the camera.

April 21, 2006
by dhoytt
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UPS Proving Their Worth

This evening I’m getting some strange power issues and
having UPS on my systems have limited any issues.  Normally with these
types of power fluctuations I would need to reboot and re-sync my systems but
not today.

I went to take a shower on my way out to get a bite to eat
and all of the sudden I was in darkness. Well my UPS have kept all of my
systems up and running during these sporadic power fluctuations this evening
without an issue.

I have had several issues with the wiring of this house
which prompted me to go out to a local surplus store and purchase some heavy
duty UPS. I was also able to come up on some UPS at some government
auctions where they were bidding off surplus equipment.

The UPS I have you normally don’t see in a home
environment even one that has all of the equipment that I have!

I have 2 “APC Smart UPS 2200” and a rack mountable
“Compaq R3000 XR”. I have the “APC 2200’s” on “PC skates”
out on the floor and the “Compaq R3000 XR” in one of my racks with my
Web, Music, Windows and Linux servers and my routers and switches. I use the
“APC 2200’s”
for my floor main systems and one switch.

I also have an “HP Powerwise 1000” and an “APC
800 RT”
that I’m not using at this point. I intend to use the UPS I’m not
using on my entertainment equipment and will probably move on of my “APC
Smart UPS 2200”
into another room to use with some of my audio or video
equipment as well.

For the very small price I paid since they were surplus and
auction pickups for less than 5% – 15% of normal cost they do excellent work.
Even when UPS are not keeping equipment up from a power outage they also filter
the power and knock down surges and spikes so they are well worth the investment
to protect your valuable computer systems presently and in the future when you
are going to purchase new equipment.

April 10, 2006
by dhoytt
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Weight Room/Garage Cleared…Again

Once again I had to clear items out of my garage to be able to access my weights and perform an acceptable work out. The issue was that I had run into some very nice auctions with unbelievable deals for furniture stores going out of business. I made some unbelievable purchases before I was able to move items out of the house.
I’m not talking about those fake going out of business sales where you get 20 % – 40% or even 70% off of list price which means that normally you are getting 40% at the most @ 70 % if you even get that.
These were no reserve auctions for stores actually going out of business since the owners were retiring etc…
Anyway I have figured out what pieces I want to keep and took pictures of the others to place in ads in various places on the web and possibly my shopping cart web site once its ready (almost there). I had to place some of the pieces in storage for a minute since it has kept raining so often preventing decent day of staging things outside.
The furniture is nice Ashley, Schnadig etc… but I had no room to move in the house. I had a garage sale after upgrading some furniture like this in October so I will do something similar when I know we will not have rain for the weekend or just do the newspaper or internet sale thing
Now time to hit that iron!! Weight Lifting

April 7, 2006
by dhoytt
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Comments Section fixed In Blogs

I was testing some items on my blogs and found that I was unable to leave comments. I looked through my settings and had comments enabled properly. I looked at the plugins and none of them affected the ability to leave comments.
I then went to Sixapart and found the following in their knowledge base article: http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/kb/comments/comment_and_tra.html
That article set me straight and after setting my “Preferred Archive Type” to “Individual” my blog will now accept comments again.
I had to make this change individually on each blog

April 6, 2006
by dhoytt
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Memory Fails In Web Sever

This past Sunday 4/02/2006 one of my memory modules failed today on my “Web Server”. I came in from working on my front lawn and then seeding & fertilizing the lawn. I then decided to take a moment to update my “Main Blog” and then of course couldn’t make any connection to my “Web Server”.
My “Music Server” was still streaming music and I could see a number of people listening to this Music on Winamp. I checked my other systems as well and they were all up so I knew there was not a power hit or anything that affected all the systems
I checked my KVM switch and hooked my web server directly to a monitor and received no response. I then tried to ping my “Web Server” from my “Music Server” and that didn’t work so I logged into my backup Linux server and couldn’t ping it from there either.
I then slid my “Web Server” out a bit on the rack and began isolating the issue. Once I determined it was the one stick of 512mb RAM I located my receipt called the store I bought it from and found that since I had purchased it as a package I had to return it as a package.
Anyway now I have my 1gb of RAM back and my web Server intact.
I now need to get my backup “Web Server” up to speed again. With all of the changes I have made to my main “Web Server” I have ported none over to my backup system! I should have been ready for this scenario!

March 29, 2006
by dhoytt
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Memory Tests

I have been having issues of the Windows registry becoming corrupt with a friends system. I had isolated it down to all of the various components and then decided it’s either the motherboard or memory.
Well with the help of the “Memtest86” I isolated it down to memory errors that showed themselves right away.
I had already turned down the memory voltage from 3.4v to 3.3v suspecting that but still kept corrupting the registry.
Now I did not have another set of pc133 memory to test if it was the memory stick or the memory settings. I actually had to go and purchase another stick of pc133 memory to test if the memory module or the settings were the issue.
Well I ran the same “Memtest86” test with the new memory stick and presto memory issues show right away!
Well this is now obviously memory settings. I built this system a few years ago and it was hard jumpered. I’m thinking that maybe someone else poked their heads in there and replaced the memory or adjusted something.
Well I took the jumpered settings off and set the motherboard (ASUS a7v133-c) up for jumperless settings and set the memory and CPU in the bios. I then ran the “Memtest86 for several passes and it found no errors. I then reloaded the OS and some other software on the system without issue.
I then set the “Memtest86” to run and test the memory overnight. This morning I looked and after several hours of running test there are no more memory errors
I am now running a memory test I downloaded from Microsoft’s site to see if it finds any errors and so far after 8 passes no issues!
Both memory tests run off of bootable CDROM or floppy without taking you into the OS of course.
Here are the URL’s to the memory tests:
http://www.memtest.org/
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

March 17, 2006
by dhoytt
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Rechargeable Batteries

Rechargeable Batteries
I’m going to take this necessary plunge into getting rechargeable batteries for all of these wireless devices I have that require batteries.
I have nine wireless keyboards and mice that I use all of the time to cut down on all of the wires I need in my computer room. You may say hey why not use a KVM but a KVM still requires wires from the system to the KVM.
I actually do use a KVM but strictly for the monitor out puts, plus if people want to come over and play multiplayer games using my systems or do something else that would require me to unhook them from the KVM if I wanted to access another system on the KVM switch without using remote desktop network access of some type.
Back to the rechargeable batteries I also will slowly work them into the mix for my remote control devices as well.
Supposedly with these NiMH (Nickel-Metal Hydride) batteries have 50% more power than NiCad batteries and do not suffer from memory effects. Also, Unlike NiCad batteries, NiMH batteries do not use heavy metals that may have toxic effects. (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/NiMH_battery_pack.html)
More information on rechargeable batteries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride

March 14, 2006
by dhoytt
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Second Colonoscopy (Sigmoidoscopy with Biopsy) & Ethics Rant

I had my second colonoscopy of my life yesterday 3/13/2006. My first colonoscopy was in the last week of August 2005. Actually this was what I call a super colonoscopy and they called a Sigmoidoscopy with Biopsy. They sedated me for this one since they wanted to inspect the lower (large) and the upper (small) intestines as well. Good thing I was sedated since I remembered the same uncomfortable feeling in the beginning and once again couldn’t relax and then I was waking up as I was being wheeled down the hall and the procedure finished!
The initial diagnosis from the doctor today was nothing found but they took cultures anyway. This was very good news since they found some polyps the first time.
I initially went to the doctor back in August 2005 since I was unable to shake this stomach issue and get into my workouts into full swing. Normally I can let something work its way through my body partially and then sweat it out or at least break it up, or help speed its way through my system by upping my metabolism in some fashion through workouts and diet. I have done this recently as a couple of weeks ago to break up congestion on my head and chest I had from allergies.
My thoughts on this were that on top of my initial symptoms I had issues with the medicine that was first prescribed and that caused the polyps! I looked at the symptoms the medicine caused, I had those symptoms, and that’s exactly what worsened my condition back in August and caused the polyps in my opinion.
I had no appetite and couldn’t force myself to eat! At one point I even went about 1.5 weeks without eating anything! I barely drank enough to keep hydrated. This is the time I started bleeding internally. I stopped taking the medicine on my own and started feeling better and then they took the first colonoscopy. That of course showed issues and polyps after what I had just gone through.
They then gave me some additional medicine to heal my internal sores and that just helped me break out into severe cold sweats at night where I would become drenched with sweat whether I put on long johns, thick socks and a beanie or wore nearly nothing to bed! As soon as I stopped taking that medicine I started feeling better and was able to resume my work outs slowly after about a month and a half
I know my body fairly well and have pushed it to the limits quite a bit from working out, playing sports, working extreme and long hours on the road for months, partying and clubbing (not with drugs, people seem to have different meanings of partying), and eating food of all cultures.
I kind of strung out this appointment to be a bit far out from the others when I could feel my body was in good shape internally so there could be no misdiagnosis. This particular doctor seemed more open minded and not pre-disposed to lean on the heavy prescribed medicine crutch like most doctors these days or to please someone else’s hurried diagnosis.
My attitude is that when I go to a specialist I don’t go to turn my body and livelihood over to them. I will consult them in their field of expertise as a contractor. I place my well being in my hands they are there as sounding boards of reason for areas I don’t have the time to deal in. To some people this may seem strange but to me that’s how I live my life. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable about people asking clarification questions, that’s fine I will not deal with you unless necessary. I know my body better than most know theirs and pay attention to what it’s telling me and sometimes I need help with the interpretation and this is where the doctor’s role comes in.
I think I need to switch my primary care physician and get someone that understands an active person’s needs. This was a specialist doing this procedure not my primary, I don’t event think my primary was consulted on this.
We will see what the culture samples they took say but they didn’t find anything so I think all is cool I am not against stamping my foot down and demanding proper procedures.
One thing that unfortunately I have been proven correct about the last few years is that there are a lot of people who really don’t know what it is to really be objective and do a good job. Unfortunately some of these people are in places that affect other people’s lives in a very serious way. Lawyers, politicians, doctors, judges, prosecutors, police officers etc I respect that they went to school and achieved this but there has to be the same effort after that degree is earned to learn as when they first entered school if they even had the effort then. I really don’t think the screening is thorough enough.
Besides it’s just not those professions I see this behavior in all parts of society and every profession or work place.
I don’t make these observations on just how a person or organization treats me but also how they treat others. I watch how people act when they believe they have power over others and how they act when they are under orders or strict watch and everywhere in between. Even if a person treats me well and is positive towards me if I see deep inside they are something else I will deal accordingly. Things don’t have to work out how I hope for me to believe someone is giving me a nice honest effort.
I occasionally see the true sign of professionalism and care. I think I witnessed it with my previous visits with this doctor and today. Hopefully I will be correct on this issue.

March 13, 2006
by dhoytt
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Site Now SSL Secure

My site is now secured with SSL certificates which I purchased from GoDaddy.com. I did this of course in anticipation of bringing my E-commerce store online.
I think that having SSL on the site is a mandatory security feature when having a shopping cart application on a web site. The other benefit is that now whenever I login from any other spot other than my home I am can use the same certificate for other updates to my site. cool.gif
Now I can update my blogs and Gallery photos from other places I may be and invoke the SSL security via the certificate I purchased.
I could have generated and used a privately signed certificate I generated, like I did for practice before purchasing one, but for the online store a Certificate with an outside vendor is essential.