The Setup Artist: July 2014

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Hate to have to come to terms with it...

but I am finding the need to have to rely on magnifying lenses to work on the really small stuff in my shop... I'm sure reading glasses will be in my near future as well.

At least I follow my Fathers path in the fact that I can see far away with no need for glasses... I don't need them on my face all the time like the rest of my family.

Sailin' with the cap'n

Found a wonderful new mixer for the cap'n... This may sound a bit strange... but Lipton PEACH ICED TEA! drink a small bit of the tea out of a 500ml bottle, enough to fit a double shot back in, and then put in a double shot of the Spiced Rum... tastes just like an A&W Cream Soda.

In with the new...

The new tank ready to be lowered into the cellar.

Somehow I don't figure this one will ever last the 60 - 70 years the old one did. ??? I'm fairly sure I will never have to deal with it again though.

Out with the old...

The old (best guess is about 70 years) heating-oil tank in position to be lifted out of the cellar with the tractor.

From this angle not looking all that bad... but the other end and side that was facing the old stone wall for the last 70'ish years proved my concern about needing to replace it was well placed.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

A Great Deal

10GB Online Storage FREE!

BOX it is. box.com

Clients for Mac and Windows are available on the site... with no actual Linux support which in my opinion is unnecessary anyway as your account can be mounted through Nautilus with the addition of davfs. To install this dependancy simply open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) then enter the following code:

sudo apt-get install davfs

enter your password when prompted, then open files and from the file menu drop-down select connect to server

Enter the following address for server location

Next a popup will ask for username and password, enter your credentials you used when you created the box account and click connect. Your remote 10GB storage device is now accessible to your Ubuntu computer with no need to utilize the web browser as an interface and no extra software to slow things down. Simple and effective.

This entire procedure can be repeated on multiple computers so that your remote drive is available on any one of the computers you may be using at any particular time.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

So Peaceful Now

Back In January

I posted on the T-Lock call-blocker

Now after working with it for some time I have gotten it programmed to my liking. I must say that blocking area codes works the best as you don't have to blacklist individual numbers... to block all 800 numbers simply block 18 ... which will block all numbers beginning with 18 as in 1800, 1888, etc... WONDERFUL!
Lots of junk calls coming out of long island as well... don't know anyone from there so I blocked the entire area 1516 & 1631... no one there I want to talk to any way. It now just seems so nice to know that when the phone does ring there is better than a 95% chance that is someone you DO want to talk to. As I said in that post back in January... It's the best $60 I have spent in a long time.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Customer Service

Intermittent Loss of DSL Service

1. Call ISP and ask them to trouble shoot the problem, they immediately slam my equipment as being the issue. Hangup!

2. Call ISP again and inform them that all their regular trouble shooting has not established where the issue is. Again they insist the problem is with my equipment. Hangup!

3. Use SmokePing for 24 hours to record the drops and line quality. Tests clearly find fault with an unknown network hub somewhere in the mid-west that was dropping 95 to 100% of its packets.

4. Take screen shots of all the test results and e-mail them to the ISP's Service department stating that I DO know what I am talking about when I tell them they have a problem on their end and that I have done the trouble shooting for them and I wanted to get paid for my services... A few short hours later no more lost connection... who's fault was it?

Keep in mind that this was an ongoing issue for more than 4 or 5 weeks.
Wonder if there will be any credit on my next bill?... not.

Friday, July 4, 2014

Day Trip

Chateaugay High Falls Park

About 12 Miles North of Malone, NY on US 11.

The camp ground is really nice and has a spectacular 120 ft waterfall on the Chateaugay River. The trail to get down into the gorge is very steep and there are lots of stairs.

But when you reach the bottom it is all worth it.

The water is not deep, maybe two or three feet at the most, and really is not that fast moving, you can actually get right up to the falls themselves.

It is a great place for a picnic lunch.

The climb back up was the only part that we didn't like too well... but it was still worth it.

Just Finished My Spring Cleaning

Yeah, I know, its all ready well into summer now but I am finally diving into getting my desktop customizations finished... and with the installation of Conky last evening and getting the tweaks finished I now have a clean desktop to work from.