JustPlainOrchids Blog

If you don't know what SOPA is, you might want to google it before 6 AM tomorrow.  Google is NOT blacking out their site, but does plan some sort of support.  Wikipedia along with a plethora of other sites will be blacking out their sites.

Today is Paco's birthday! He is five years old.

That is so hard to believe. In some ways it seems like it was just last year that a friend of mine at work gave him to me. Thanks Richard! I guess that means a run to the store to get some special treat for him. I generally don't buy him dog toys because he loses interest in them very quickly (even the ones you hide food & treats inside them ). Now Buddy can play with dog toys for hours (after Paco loses interest in them).

Yesterday I went to see Immortals. Violent as all get out, but an entertaining movie.   This one is a go for getting it on Blu-ray in 3D.

Last weekend I drained, vac'd and refilled the pond.  Over the past couple of days I've seen a real improvement in water clarity.  I don't think it's been this clear since I filled it up.  It's looking really good.  With fall and the leaves turning, it means I'm constantly netting leaves to get them out of the pond before they sink.  The koi are officially on spring/fall koi food since the water is staying below 60 deg. F.  I'm cutting back on feeding too.  That part is difficult as I've been feeding them 2 or 3 times a day out of habit.

The plants in the greenhouse are still not looking great.  I saw a major change in how the roots looked in August and September when I was keeping the relative humidity way too high.  I need to keep it a bit warmer and less humid in there in an effort to keep the plants happier & healthier.

I mentioned getting hit by a car on my bike about a month ago.  I had to get a new rear wheel and the bike shop said they couldn't get a replacement wheel that matched the old one (Bontrager Select) that was on my Trek 7700 FX Hybrid.   I did some looking around online and found them, but they were running around $200+ for a rear wheel.   I was on eBay and found the exact wheel I needed.  I hesitated and missed the auction, but it got relisted at a lower price.  UPS should get it here on Monday (tomorrow).   I'm hoping it will be an easy addition of a SRAM PG-980 9 speed cassette (11-32) to the Bontrager Select wheel.  Here's a photo of a Trek 7700 FX (2003) like I have.   No one wants a nice bike like this where the front wheel and back wheel don't match.  Notice the spoke pattern on the wheels.  It's unique and pretty darn cool.

I also plan on replacing the old tires.  LOL, they are so old I'm embarrassed to tell how old the tires are!  At any rate the new tires are Continental Gatorskins.  I may or may not put in some slime tires.  I'm thinking why not go ahead and try for just a little more protection from flats.  Even in good weather I am not fast at fixing a flat, but  when it's cold and wet I get even slower.  So I like the idea of a little anti-flat tire insurance.

I finally got the replacement  3 TB hard drive for my NAS.  I added the drive and expanded the RAID so it is now 13+ TB (one drive can fail without data loss).   Expanding the RAID onto the 6th drive took about 24 hours.   I've seen no change in speed since adding the 6^th drive.   To be honest I wasn't expecting any change in performance.

This AM I started the fun task of cleaning out the pond.  I've got my 1000 gallon pool about half filled.  I figured it would more than suffice for the fish I have and I can move them over on Sunday morning.  That's when I will do the majority of the cleaning and refilling the pond over the rest of the day.  I am going out this afternoon (going with a friend to see Puss In Boots in a couple of hours) and I don't want to put the koi in the pool and let them spend the night (our low tonight is supposed to be around 36 degrees).  I'm hoping everything goes as planned with minimal problems.  More later.

Oct. 30, 2011 - I added this photo this AM.  This is how it ended up yesterday afternoon when I decided to let the fish stay in the pond before I start the big clean up and sorting of large koi from unwanted babies.  Hopefully I've got some takers who may want them.

Last Friday I got the final components needed to complete my NAS (Network Attached Server) to replace my old one that died 2 weeks or so ago.   I went with (a bit pricey) Qnap TS-659 Pro II NAS. It came with 6 (empty) drive bays, 1 GB RAM, USB 2.0 (x4) and 3.0 (x2) connections, gigabit LAN connections (x2) and eSATA connections (x2). There's even a port labeled as VGA, but the manual says it is "reserved" (whatever that means).   I haven't tried to connect a VGA monitor.

So that's the basic, now let's pimp this thing to the max.

The first thing I did was pop an old 1 TB drive in (if it was needed) so I could update the firmware to support 3 TB drives.   Next I put in my 3 TB drives.  I have five 3 TB Seagate ST33000651AS drives (should have been 6, but one drive has problems) and have it set up as RAID 5 for now (so almost 12 TB available on the NAS).   

NOTE: The sixth drive was not seen as a ST33000651AS 3TB drive. It was seen as a ST_M13FQBL 380+ GB drive.  Some earlier 2 TB drives from Seagate reported the same drive ID and drive size.   The fix was a firmware update.  Unfortunately, Seagate doesn't have one available on line yet for this drive.  The good news is TigerDirect will exchange it for a new one, but due to some mediocre customer service, the replacement will not be shipped until they receive the defective one.  So I wait another week or more for the sixth 3 TB drive.

The next thing I did was add 2 GB of RAM. If you get RAM from QNAP, it runs something like $159. I got mine from Buy.com as they had the cheapest on the day I ordered (around $14 per SODIMM). The RAM I got was Kingston KVR1333D3S8S9/2g (2GB PC3 - 10500 CL9 204 - Pin SODIMM. Qnap says the max RAM is 3 GB, but I took a chance and ordered 2 of the 2 GB SODIMMs. Without the additional RAM, it shows up as having the correct amount of RAM (1 GB as shipped). I added the first SODIMM to the secondary memory slot and turned on the NAS. For 20 minutes it flashed that the system was booting. My first thought was that the RAM was not compatible. I took the SODIMM out and on a hunch reinstalled it (being very careful about chip placement). I fired it up and it worked.   The new amount of RAM was 3 GB. So now I know the RAM works so I decided to change out the original 1 GB SODIMM for the second 2 GB SODIMM. Several online forum posts had said 3 GB was the max, yet others swore that 4 GB worked. I figured what the hell...give it a shot since it was only $14.  So I put the second 2 GB SODIMM in and fired it up. SUCCESS!!! I checked the system and it's showing that I have 4 GB of RAM now.  I am a happy camper.

It is seen on my network by both Windows and Linux PCs.  So As for features, this baby is loaded.  I can move files around without any problem.  Also included are various server options such as FTP server, web server, printer server, personal cloud, web file manager, USB web cam support, online file manager, built in antivirus software, media server for both iPod/iPad and Android devices, etc.   To be honest, there are a lot of features that I won't use right now, but I might in the future.   The personal cloud is pretty neat as well.  I may hook up my color laser to it just to see how it fares as a printer server.  If I don't like it, I just put it back like it was.  I also will be exploring the different plug ins that can be downloaded for this unit.  There's even a plug in to turn the thing into an e-commerce server (definitely NOT on my list of things to do).

It has nothing to do with the NAS, but Buddy is feeling so much better that he's already back to eating his regular food.  He got caught stealing food from Paco's bowl this AM.  There have been no adverse "events" on the carpet so I'll give him more of the oatmeal and soft boiled eggs and after that he can have a little regular food.