roncli.com blog: May 2005

You gotta be kidding me.

I wanted to setup Kathy's old 10mbps hub so that I could put the new Linux box on the network without having to hijack an IP address from my last apartment. Problem is, I couldn't find the adapter for it. Went to Radio Shack, thinking why not just buy one, they're cheap!

Right. The cheapest was $12, and for the voltage I wanted, it was $15.

Screw that. I headed down to Micro Center and got a shiny new 5 port 10/100 switch for $20. Now my network is more stable and responsive, and I don't have to suffer from anything less than 100mbps.

Labels: Life, Micro Center, Radio Shack

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

New Linux box
Posted: 8:58:00 PM 0 comments

I finally got my 250GB hard drive running. As a result, I put together a machine based on one of my old motherboards to get a new FreeBSD box running. I'm starting to get comfortable in Linux, it's scary.

The process was a pain, though. First, I had to upgrade the firmware on the ATA card. Then I had to move the CD-ROM off the ATA card cause it wasn't bootable. Then I downloaded and burnt the latest FreeBSD. Then I had to figure out the geometry for the hard drive so it could install.

Once that was done, though, it was pretty smooth sailing. It even got me to playing around a bit on the ModPlug box without worrying about breaking anything.

Labels: FreeBSD, Hard Drives, Servers

Thursday, May 12, 2005

GTR is officially badass
Posted: 3:39:00 PM 0 comments

Now playing: Dr Stephen Baysted - GTR_Trance_2 (5:59)

Got to playing a lot more GTR lately, and took my first checkered flag. Granted, damage is off, a bunch of assists are on, and the AI is at 90%. I swear I'm doing something wrong tho.. I have to pit every 35 minutes or so, because I go through tires like a hot knife through butter. I pit about 3 times for every 2 times the AI pits.

In any case, I'm going to go through the championship at this point and try to get a feel for the tracks. I am pretty solid at Barcelona now, but I'm going to suck at the others for the first couple hours or so. I'm doing pretty good in the Chrystler Viper-GTS, as it's quite stable compared to the other cars. I'm tempted to try one of the Ferraris as well, as I see a lot of good times reported with it.

What I would love to see are the San Francisco Rush 2049 tracks ported to GTR... that would be heaven. If only I knew how to extract them from the CHD...

Labels: Gaming, GTR

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

GTR
Posted: 8:02:00 AM 0 comments

Tried my hand at GTR today. Eh, the graphics are nice but the gameplay rather blows. I find I do much better at other racing sims than this one. The sad part is the graphics are likely gonna have me coming back for more, not to mention the dozens of downloadable tracks. *shrug* Sometimes the best don't win...

Labels: Gaming, GTR

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

A Day at the Beach
Posted: 1:05:00 AM 1 comments

I spent a good portion of the day on Sunday at the beach going to a friend's graduation party. Was quite the blast, I got a nice sunburn and I'm sore from head to toe! Nothing like some good fun in the sun.

Labels: Life

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Foobar 2000
Posted: 9:23:00 AM 0 comments

Now playing: roncli, The Nightstalker - Everytime (5:24)

Found a nice little utility that's fixed my VBRs so they display the right time and scan correctly in Winamp. It's called Foobar 2000, nice free app with a good design, unlike all those other little MP3 utilities that put flashing graphics in their apps or look like it's their first app made in VB. If you're into MP3 tools, this is a must have.

Labels: Foobar 2000, Software

Music is Moving
Posted: 9:05:00 AM 0 comments

Now playing: roncli, The Nightstalker - Everytime (5:24)

My music is moving... I'm taking it off the main www.roncli.com page and sending it over to tns.roncli.com. I'm working on a database-driven site with the intention of using it as a base for my music-related activities. Right now it's only got the oldest and the newest listed, as that is all I have modernized.

Eventually, everything that was musical on roncli.com (with the exception of my music biography) will show up on this new site. I also want to record acoustical versions of works in progress and past pieces and upload them in a kind of "lounge" section. It'll be a while before everything is up and running, though.

Kathy's been nagging me to put all my old stuff online... Pfft, some of the old stuff doesn't deserve to be online anymore without some major work. I can't even compose much new stuff lately, let alone get the motivation to work on the old stuff. We'll see.

Labels: Coding, Music, roncli.com