Lowe’s (imagine that!) was running a special this past weekend for a 10′ x 10′ shed. We had been talking for a while and decided that with a baby coming and with the poker room renovations nearing completion it was time to figure out where to store my tools.
For those of you expecting to just waltz into your local Lowe’s and walk out with a shed kit, your time is better spent at home on your computer. Lowe’s stores no longer sell the nice sheds on display in their parking lot. You have to place your order through their website, or the 800 number listed on the shed.
After returning home, I hopped online and placed my order and selected for in store pick-up because I thought the $80 home delivery was a bit steep. About 5 minutes later I received an e-mail from Lowe’s telling me that my order was ready for pickup! EH?!
Sure enough, upon my return to the store, they had my order in their system and they pulled the pallet and loaded it into my truck.
Confused? So am I! Oh well, construction will begin tonight.
Published on Jul 5, 2011 - In: Personal
Phase 3 of my house remodel for the baby was to replace our old rickety wooden attic ladder.
Needless to say, the original ladder (circa 1957) had seen better days. The HVAC crew made it a point to put just about all the weight they possible could on that thing. 3 of the steps were splitting out, the springs were way out of alignment and the plywood door was no longer sitting flush when in the closed position.
Our main air return sits in the hallway next to the ladder and I could just feel the heat from the attic being sucked into the hallway from the 2in gaps around the misaligned plywood.
I found myself returning to Lowe’s to pick up a Werner Attic Ladder. There is nothing terribly special about this ladder, it is just lightweight, has gas struts instead of the loud clanky springs, and has a maximum weight of 300lbs.
Now with the new ladder installed and trimmed out, the hallway does feel cooler.
If you decide to tackle this project, make sure you have a step ladder and an extra set of hands. The lag bolts have to be installed from the attic side before you can open the door. Don’t forget to pick up some expanding foam to seal up whatever gaps you have around the frame.
Published on Jun 11, 2011 - In: Personal
Phase 2 of house prep for baby was getting rid of our old single pane rotting wooden windows!
There were a couple of windows that had some cracked glass and there were a ton of them that were painted shut. So, with window measurements in hand, I went to Lowe’s and purchased all new windows. Luckily they were running a special for 20% off all custom ordered windows. It took about 2 weeks for them to reach my local Lowe’s.
For those of you thinking about doing this, make sure to do your research! I don’t think it is a complicated process, but there can be an overwhelming feeling when it comes time to actually remove your old window and knowing that there is no turning back!
All the windows are installed and we have noticed a huge difference on average temperature in the house. I was able to dial back our HVAC schedule to 76 degrees when we are home and we still remain very comfortable.
Next step is to finish up the calking around all the frames and do some painting.
Published on May 5, 2011 - In: Personal
Well, if you hadn’t found out by now. We are expecting our first child in December. I have been busy “getting the house ready”.
Step 1 was a new HVAC unit. I spent countless hours researching the best fit for our needs. The main focus was air quality, so we went with a Trane CleanEffects Clean Air System. It is an electrified filter that cleans all air being forced through the house. It boasts the ability to remove 99.98% of airborne allergens.
We have noticed a huge difference in our air quality since installation.
With a baby on the way, 2 dogs, and a house built in 1957 – air quality is a huge concern!
Published on Feb 8, 2011 - In: Tech
I have finally been forcing myself to learn how to develop applications for submission to the apple app store. I am going to work on 1 project at a time. Currently I am working on a project that my brother dropped in my lap for film makers.
More info to come later.
For those that want to get into developing apps for iOS devices, you might want to consider a couple of easier approaches to learning Objective-C. The first method is called PhoneGap. PhoneGap will allow you to use basic HTML, Javascript, and CSS to create apps. The great thing about PhoneGap is that it will allow you to apply your code for use on Android, Palm, and Blackberry devices. The second is called Nimblekit. Nimblekit is much like PhoneGap, however their documentation is not as friendly and development is only for iOS devices.
I must warn you, both of these products have their limitations! Also, you will still be required to pay for $99 Developer fee at Apple in order to submit your app.
-Jake
Published on Jan 11, 2011 - In: Tech
I had a friend with a problematic laptop. It said she had less than 10GB of storage space on her computer but after doing her own math she found to only be using about 30GB of the 320 available. She thought it might be a virus so called the computer manufacturer who told her to dig out the old system restore discs and wipe her computer clean.
She would have spent hours trying to save all of her theoretical data!
Well, it turns out that her system restore points had filled up a huge part of her hard drive. We ran the disk cleanup tool and got rid of all the old restore points that weren’t needed.
Problem solved!
Just something to consider when scratching your head wondering where all your free space went.
-Jake
Published on Jan 11, 2011 - In: Server Build
I am now up and running with 2008 server 64-bit. I finally got a good set of port multipliers and was able to finally get the OS to stabilize.
Some preliminary speed tests are showing in the 250mb/s range to RAID 10 arrays. Knowing that software RAIDs aren’t as robust has hardware ones, i wanted to be sure to protect my data as much as possible.
-Jake
Published on Jan 11, 2011 - In: Tech
Thinking about jumping on the Verizon iPhone bandwagon? Well you should know a couple of things!
First, Verizon will be releasing their “4G” network later this year. Their new iPhone won’t work at those new speeds. Plan on talking on the phone while surfing the web or looking up directions? Won’t work! Going on a cruise and plan on calling home while abroad? Won’t work!
You will however be able to make calls and choose when to end them!
If you are in the market, just wait!
-Jake
Published on Dec 20, 2010 - In: Server Build
I have been having some issues with the port multipliers. I have received 2 replacements for 2 that were bad but have found an additional 3 that are not working correctly. I have decided to move forward with the OS in hoping that once i can get those drives online i will just create a raid-5 archive style volume. More to come.
-Jake
So,
My wife got me an iPad for Christmas. Yes, she gave it to me early! Overall, i have been impressed with it. I haven’t really done any reading of books on it. I did however download a manual to a digital router as a PDF and read it in iBooks and it worked rather well. Typing has been super easy and almost second nature to me.
Downsides:
The screen really does smudge easily. I am considering a film to cut down on the glare as well as help with the smudging.
I figured that most developers had updated their apps by now to support the iPads increased resolution. Boy was I wrong! Not that the apps are unusable, there is just a major quality difference.
Upsides:
The iPad is super fast! I love that i can actually type on the keyboard like it were a real keyboard (no more thumb action). The screen is perfect for surfing the web and it’s compact form factor is a huge plus for grab and go. My first impressions were just that the iPad was a huge iPod touch, but its uses go far beyond.