Christopher Mims argues that 3D printing is the next Virtual Reality. I think he misses the point. I see 3D printing as having a bright future, but not because I see it as necessarily the future of mass production. I see 3D printing taking over the fringes, because it makes small-scale manufacturing practical.
CISSP melted my brain
Five and a half hours ago, I turned in my test and departed the CISSP test site. It took me four hours to answer the nastiest 250 test questions I’ve ever seen in my life.
I felt better about it than the other guys milling around the lobby, but….
Micro Center’s 18-minute pickup works spectacularly
It was like ordering Chinese takeout.
I wrote yesterday about how I needed a motherboard to try to solve my ongoing webserver issue. I don’t live or work anywhere near Micro Center. The computer store near my house closed, and I don’t like the one near my workplace anymore since they jerked my friend around. Frequently I order computer equipment online, but Micro Center’s pricing is really good right now, so I asked my wife if she would mind trying a pickup order.
It worked. Splendidly.
I went to the web site, created an account, then added the items I wanted to my cart. I’ve known for a couple of days that I wanted an Asus P5G41T-M LX motherboard, a Pentium E5700 CPU (two cores of 3 GHz goodness for 65 watts and 50 bux0rZ), and 8 GB of Kingston DDR3. I also added a 32 GB SDHC memory card for my wife’s new camera, to make the trip worth her while. I added my wife as an authorized pickup person and created a PIN for her.
Seven minutes later, I received an e-mail message saying my order was ready.
She went to the store, walked right up to a sign at the front of the store that read Internet Pickup, handed them her driver’s license, told them her PIN, and they grabbed a pile of stuff with my name on it, put it in a bag, and handed it to her.
And I know now that you can place your order and pick it up any time within three calendar days.
I already have a 40 GB SSD and a Corsair power supply I’ve been saving for the project. Now I just need to find an ATX case to gut, put my pieces together, install Linux, and I’ll have a new web server.
My Socket 775 adventures, Chapter 1
So I bought an Intel Socket 775 board to support a crash webserver rebuild project. I present the story in hopes that it might be useful, or entertaining, or both. I don’t know the ultimate outcome of it yet, but all of the decisions made sense at the time.
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Know someone who needs computer skills? Send ’em to the library
One of my coworkers asked me a good question this week. He said one of his neighbors just bought a new computer from a big-box consumer electronics store whose name doesn’t really matter all that much (but it’s one I pick on frequently) and didn’t really know a lot about computers.
He asked what someone in that situation can do to avoid being taken advantage of, and what they can do once they get the computer home, to learn how to actually use the thing. For now, they’re asking him, but long-term, that’s not the right answer. At least I don’t think it is.
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I got my new webserver motherboard
I got my new webserver motherboard. There’s a story there. I’m saving it for later in the week.
The board doesn’t work. I power it on, and it shuts itself off after 2-3 seconds. The power supply works with a different board. So for the first time in my life, I’m contacting Asus technical support, because I can’t figure out if it’s something I did, or just a DOA board. So there’s going to be a story with that, too. Let’s hope for a happy ending.
How to replace cash envelopes, and when not to
This morning as I was trying to dodge commercials and morning-show call-in games, I heard a couple of DJs talking about personal finance, and how their finances are a mess, and they heard that in the old days, people budgeted by putting money in cash envelopes, paid expenses out of those envelopes.
They asked if anyone has a high-tech way of doing the same thing.
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Why do European trains look so much better than U.S. trains?
I guess there’s something floating around Facebook right now comparing sleek, elegant European trains against clunker, junky trains that roam the rails in the United States. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve already had some questions about it.
There was a time when U.S. trains were pretty bleak to look at, but that time isn’t now.
I knew I should have bought that motherboard…
My webserver seems to be having a hard time keeping up with demand. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I could have had my preferred low-end motherboard for about $33, but I was able to come up with about 10 reasons not to buy it at that time and tackle the project. I can get an Asus Socket 775 board and a 2-core Intel CPU to put on it locally for around $90-$100 total, which will give me a four-fold increase in available CPU power and RAM, not to mention a newer and better-known chipset to work with. But I had several things come up this weekend that kept me from making that trip. Studying, of course, but also a family matter.
My server managed a not-exactly-heroic uptime of 3 days on this last reboot. If I can swap the board for something better this week, I’ll try. And if it dies again before I’m able to do that, I’ll have to see if I can remember to put some more memory in it. I just found a half-gig PC3200 DIMM that will fit, assuming I have a slot available.
Review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-S3
My wife wanted a point-and-shoot camera. My go-to brand for that sort of thing usually is Olympus, based on the recommendation of someone who’s forgotten more about cameras than I’ll ever know, but there are some serious concerns that Olympus may not be around much longer.
So I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-S3, a point-and-shoot I got on sale for under $100. Unlike most cameras I could find in that price range, the reviews on it were overwhelmingly positive.