Intel iMac -vs- dual G5 performance continued.

I recently cleaned up an old video project that has been awaiting attention for almost a year. It was pretty simple footage and required only a few snips, clips and fades in iMovie to be considered “done.” While waiting for my shiny new iMac Core Duo to render the fades, a memory surfaced.

When using the dual G5 systems to edit video, the system would render fades and transitions in only a second or two. In fact, on long segments where lots of fades and transitions were necessary, think of a Ken Burns movie full of photos, the dual G5 could render them as fast as I could drop them into the pasteboard. It was difficult to “stack” a few renders to keep the dual G5 busy.

Fast forward to yesterday as I waited Continue reading “Intel iMac -vs- dual G5 performance continued.”

For Sale: G5 PowerMac Dual 1.8, SD, 160GB+900GB RAID, 1GB

It’s likely heading for eBay soon, but not before I offer it to friends and family. The system bone stock is worth about $1,200 on eBay. Compare to a new dual 2.0 which is currently $2,000. With all the extra drive space and RAM, it should fetch about $1,600. If you don’t need 900GB of storage, I can pull the disks and cut the price. Photos are available here. The eBay ad follows.

If you are looking to buy a dual G5, I assume that you already know all about them so I won’t repeat the obvious.

This system includes EVERYTHING that shipped with it from the factory. Box, keyboard, mouse, USB extender, vga adapter, airport antennae, unopened manuals, software recovery DVD, power cord, and modem cable.

What is different about my G5 from other dual 1.8s:

1. Single owner – purchased new, a copy of the sales receipt is included.
2. Perfect eBay feedback – Bid with confidence!
3. Applecare – purchased with CPU, good through 12/9/06.
4. 1GB of RAM.
5. Stock 160GB drive + 900GB!
5.1. (3) top of the line 300GB DiamondMax 10 drives in a CCD RAID.
6. Fast-Ethernet PCI card (adds second ethernet port)
7. SeriTek 4 port SATA PCI-X card
8. Lots of valuable extras!

That’s right, $600 worth of hard drives, a 4 port SATA card ( $125), and the G5 Drive Bracket (http://www.g5drivebracket.com/) are used to pack a few more disks in there and make a killer file server. If 900+160GB is not enough for you, install a few larger drives and have even more space! Voila, one big box that works great as a workstation with gobs o’disk or use it for network attached storage (NAS).

Other Installed Software:
Continue reading “For Sale: G5 PowerMac Dual 1.8, SD, 160GB+900GB RAID, 1GB”

Mother’s Day

Today we celebrate the most wonderful of humans. Mothers often make great sacrifices in personal comfort and many other personal ambitions for the sake of doing their very best to provide for another human. There are few mothers I have met that would not give everything they had and often more for the precious little charges in their custody.

I am thankful for my lovely wife and the love and affection she has for our children. After all the hours spent reading books and articles on caring for babies, the many hours spent hugging the porcelain throne, midnight and early morning awakenings to feed her, and all them diapers; after all that, she still loves the little thing. It is amazing, and it just makes her that much more lovable.

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To all you mothers, I salute you. To Jennifer: I salute and adore you. You were wonderful when I met you, and you are even more so now.

Schools Out!

Hooray! I have taken my last final and DTS has let out for the summer. I have been pounding the keyboard for the last couple days, catching up on projects that have languished in my inbox for far too long. I talked to Melissa Dewey yesterday and she commented that things must have been busy during the semester because I didn’t post much on my blog.

Not having a television, it is hard to imagine where all our time has gone. However, throughout the day, this breathtaking little beauty comes crawling or cruising into the room insisting on attention. She is quite pleased to absorb every spare second we will give her. She is still a perfect little angel. Quite honestly, it is hard to be the least bit objective about her. After all, she is so much more cute and loveable than anything else.

When Jen and I are not working, Kayla enjoys keeping our keyboards from experiencing any loneliness.
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We also have a few games she enjoys playing. A favorite is peek-a-boo, which sounds a bit like pah-poo. We now have a number of words, including da-dee, ma-ma, uh-oh, and mmm. The later is just what you’d guess, “Yo, big people, how about sharing that food down here, eh?” Speaking of size, she has gone from 19″ (birth) to 25″ (6 mos) to 28″ as 11 months. It is good to see that all the food she eats is going somewhere other than into the Diaper Genie.

About a month ago she became highly mobile (crawling and cruising) so now she gets into everything. We like the toilet paper to stay on the rolls so the bathroom doors stay closed. We let her play in all the cupboards that don’t have glass or toxic cleaners in them. The cupboard doors used to have little pads on them to keep them from slamming. While unattented, she enjoys removing them, so now we don’t have a door left with them. They got in the way of, slam, slam, slam, which is far more fun than, dull thud, dull thud, dull thud.

When we are not otherwise occupied with Kayla, our work, or my homework, we learn how not to destroy Kayla’s chance of ever having a “normal” life. We have graduated from What To Expect When You’re Expecting to What To Expect: Your First Year. Now that Kayla is in her 11th month and the shelf of baby books is full, its time to step up a notch. I have started with with Making Children MIND without Losing YOURS by Kevin Leman. He’s the same guy that wrote Sex Begins in the Kitchen which is another book I enjoyed reading.

Kayla got a present in the mail today from Mike & Deb Surls. It was a small box which alone provided a good 25 minutes of entertainment.
Kayla's Present

The contents were a little more mysterious. Enclosed was a very cool Aerobie Superdisc (frisbee) which I suspect was for Jen and I. However, also enclosed is a package of blue washcloths and a blue receiving blanket. Our theory is that the blue items are the first gifts for Junior 2.0, and the Surls are rooting for a boy. I would like to have a boy and if we get one this time around I won’t have to twist Jen’s arm for number three. But if its a boy, then daddy gets the big snip snip. I am of two minds.

There is more news to post, but there’s also 173 emails and two inches worth of papers to finish dealing with.

Brain upgrade

Are you looking for a way to learn without moving off to Universityville?
Do you thirst for knowledge but haven’t the coin to pay college?
Do you want to learn but do not care about the sheepskin?
Do you need more structured learning than reading a book (ie, Audible.com)?

The solution has arrived. Turn off your TV, get all the brain pacifying music off that iPod and load it up with college courses for FREE! That’s right, college courses and complete lectures are now available, free of charge to anybody and everybody.

If you want to be educated, head on over to UC Berkeley
If you want theololy, head over over to Biblical Training.org

There are other free resources on the internet but most are worth what you pay for them. The two sites I just cited are both real colleges courses taught by honest accredited college professors. UC Berkeley’s content is obvious. Biblical Training is an excellent resource put together by Bill Mounce, the fellow who wrote the Greek textbook we learn from at DTS. He has collected courses from seminaries who voluntarily make their courses available.

This is a welcome trend and I preduct we will be seeing more of this in the future. Of course, learning from these courses will not earn you a degree but they will certainly enrich your mind.

To refurb, or not to refurb?

Today I have been asked again about the purchase of reburbished computers. Since I have answered this question in emails before, I have summarized those emails and published it here for the edification of others.

I have had mixed results with refurb gear. I had one arrive DOA and other with intermittent hardware failures that required sending it back. My “get a good one the first time” success rate is around 50%. I feel that whether or not a person should buy a refurb boils down to several key factors.

1. In exchange for saving some cash, you are taking the risk that your system is not going to arrive in “new” condition. This could include the inconvenience of sending it back and getting another one, costing you a week or two extra where you do not have use of the new computer. Further, it is possible that your computer has an intermittent hardware fault that passes Q.A. testing but still causes sporadic problems for you.

2. Technical savvy. If you are not familiar with how the computer should be working, then it could be faulty without you knowing it. For this reason, I do not advise new or less technically savvy computer users to get a refurbished computer.

3. If this will be another computer and you will not “need” it immediately, then you can risk getting a less than perfect computer the first time. The annoyance of sending it back and getting another one sent to you may not be as significant as $200.

I’m technologically savvy enough to know if there is something wrong with the hardware. I also have plenty of “extra” computing hardware so if a new computer arrives DOA, it is a slight inconvenience. However, I still almost always buy new. By exercising patience, I can usually score a system for enough of a discount that a reburb is no longer attractively priced.

How the Irish saved civilization

As a student, I have been forced to read many more books in the past year than I would have otherwise chosen. On occasion, a book is just so good that I can’t help but think that everyone should read it.

How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History)How the Irish Saved Civilization is just such a book. It is masterfully written and is a complete joy to read. The author, Thomas Cahill provides a very insightful background of Europe, the forces that lead up to the fall of the Roman Empire, and how the Celts of Ireland preserved much of the scholastic works and literacy that were decimated by the hordes of barbarians that swept across Europe in the fifth century.

It is the most enjoyable book I have read since reading How to Read a Book.

Not April Foolin’

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I can certainly understand why some of you were reluctant to believe a post I’d make on April 1st. That fact was part of the reason to make the announcment on April 1. “Is he serious?” would certainly be a valid question. In February the “all day” nausea settled in and there was strong suspicion. It didn’t take long to confirm.

Junior 2.0 is for real.

Kayla’s little sibling is on his way. The 10 week ultrasound was on March 24 so Junior is due in late October. The gag order has been lifted so I can shout it from the rooftops. We do not know the sex. As with last time, I’d prefer not to know, but I got my surprise. It is Jen’s turn and she hasn’t decided yet if we will find out.

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It also seems a post with a Kayla photo is past due. She has passed the 10 month mark and is now inch-worming across the floor, which she uses out of necessity. She is just starting to crawl but doesn’t care for it at all. Instead, she scoots over to something, nearly anything, and uses it to pick herself up. Once standing, she’ll follow any wall to anywhere in the house.

She is well past the, “she’s right where I left her” stage. She eats just about anything, particularly so if she watches daddy eating it.