Its May 1st and Im taking some steps to create a new me. Today I give up soda, a drink thats lost its charm with me awhile ago. Ive also taken steps to control my food and blood sugar, to avoid the cliché of the overweight IT guy. Finally, Im committed to taking a new certification test by the end of the month. What better way to give myself a Happy Birthday gift?
Category Archives: Weblog
Building a CCNA Lab with GNS 3
I made the decision a couple of weeks ago to get more serious about completing my CCNA. I dug up a router simulator called GNS 3 on the recommendation of a couple of staff people at work. It’s a GUI to a couple of other tools that emulate the hardware of older Cisco routers. For certification lab purposes, this makes a lot of sense. You don’t have to spend hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of dollars to purchase actual gear. Instead you run the emulator and load your own Cisco IOS images.
Today I finished configuring the PC I’ve got at home to run the software and built a simple frame-relay lab from scratch, using Cisco 3640 routers with 16 port switching modules for the LAN side. Overall, it was a good experience and behaved as I would have expected. The best part is the realism is perfect since you’re running real IOS.
Tonight's Menu: Tandori Chicken
It’s a cheat, but we’re using some Penzy’s spices to make Tandori Chicken on the grill. Add some baked sweet potatoes and maybe a bag of frozen veggies and you’re set. The house has really kept us homing, driving us to enjoy what we’ve worked so hard to get. What are you having for dinner?
Weekend Update
It’s been a good weekend, even with the weather going wacko. Yesterday it was ice and today it’s in the 50s. Weird. I spent plenty of time drumming with Rock Band, splitting about half playing for fun and half learning new beats. It’s time to learn rudiments if I expect to get any better. Stick positioning and the order you hit each note can make a big difference when trying to make a fill.
Today is a chef day. Friends are coming over and we’re making a counter full of appetizers as a meal. I’ve got hummus and guacamole so far with some fruit to balance things out.
See you next week!
Rock Band Cymbals: Arrival
I ordered the triple cymbal expansion kit for my Rock Band drum kit on Friday (go Amazon!) and it’s a blast. My accuracy went up about 4% mainly because I could think music andnot colors. Highly recommended add-on if you’re a serious Rock Band drummer.
Bacon Explosion
Need I say more? I think that Matt Kerner and I will make this:
Happy Anniversary
Today is my 13th wedding anniversary! The weather is a little dreary, but we’ve got plans to get out in the snow and have dinner. Otherwise, it’s staying home and enjoying our house.
No schedule today
This is a great weekend since we have no schedule today or Sunday. I do have some catch up work to do on taxes and put some computer equipment away from previous work weekends. I think I’ll spend the day studying for CCNA and odd jobs. What do you think?
Crisis of Credit–Explained!
Mac OS X Leopard on an eMac from 2003
I’ve been working on our old eMac, a Mac that we bought in 2003 when Tammy was a student at Missouri State. It was our primary computer until last year when I replaced it with an iMac with an LCD screen, picked up used from the guys at daZZee where I worked. Yesterday, I installed Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) on the hard drive and it’s amazing how usable it is.
The eMac has only 768MB of RAM but an upgrade to 2GB would be easy. It uses a standard 3.5″ ATA hard drive and those are getting a bit scarce, but it’s 80GB and has plenty of usable space. I’ll replace temporary CD-ROM with a DVD burner later this week after a bit of research.
Overall, the machine has plenty of snap. It’s perfect for the day-to-day email, web surfing and iLife apps. Since it’s older, some newer software won’t run on the G4 chip, but that’s not much of an issue. It’s tempting to keep it and use it until it breaks down.
Steve Kirks 