May 4th 2008
I have finally merged my WordPress blog site and my old Cryptosmith content under a single Cryptosmith URL. I also installed SSL: it seemed appropriate for a security related site.
There is a link at the top right column of each page that goes to the ‘old’ web site home page. All the previous contents reside there, at least for now.
The whole process was complicated by several factors, all related to GoDaddy, my current ISP. Continue Reading »
March 24th 2008
I’ve been living with a computer-age annoyance: my Tivo crashes about once a day. This has been going on for a while now, which shows how little TV I’ve been watching since the writers’ strike and its resolution.
I’ve scanned the Internet for discussions of Tivo crashing and, surprisingly, it’s not a topic that gets discussed much. In fact, the only explanation I’ve seen people put forth is that it’s caused by hardware failures.
Now, I’ve had my Tivo for almost four years. To convert this to computer terms, I’ve been running a dedicated computer with its hard drive continuously for about four years and (surprise, surprise) it’s finally started to fail. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Continue Reading »
February 13th 2008
I live in Minnesota, so Best Buy just seems part of the landscape, like McDonald’s. So I take it seriously when they decide to toss HD-DVD. I bought into home video as soon as prices dropped from the stratosphere in the mid-80s, and was an ‘early adopter’ of DVDs.
I’ve sat out the high def format war. I was tempted by a dual format HD/Blu-Ray player, but it was still a bit pricey for me. But the weight seems to favor Blu-Ray now, so maybe it’s time to get off the fence. Continue Reading »
February 7th 2008
This is the rest of the story about RAID with Mac OS X. The first post explains what RAID is for and how I use it in general. This one talks more specifically about RAID support in OS X and how I use it to keep my system backed up.
RAID on the Mac is a mixed bag: kind of easy but kind of hard. These days, a practical backup system really needs to preserve your entire hard drive environment: home directories, system configuration, and installed applications. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t make this easy. It’s not bad once you get it set up and know a few tricks, but I was annoyed at the learning curve. Continue Reading »