Hacker for Hire

This is probably going to be a long post being as I’m just going to mash a whole bunch of thoughts together at once. Being as I’m going to talk and yell about several things (Motorcycle, other motorcycle, FreeBSD, SMACs, Macs, HTG, the blog, etc.), it’s going in the General category.

First things first, the paper work and the check for HTG has officially been cut and mailed. It’s taken a bunch of hem-hawing back and forth to kind of figure out what we want to do; however, I think that we are on the right track now. Joe and I sat down and roughed out some pricing stuff for Will and Tim to approve so we could actually start telling some of our potentials what we are going to charge and what kind of service we will be offering them. Joe, don’t let me for get about FB as a potential client. I’ll put it here so I don’t forget as well. Anyways, we’ve got a long way to go with it and a lot of talent on our side to make it happen so you’ll see more on HTG as it comes.

Along with HTG comes the need for a server. Joe’s told us the best software is H-Sphere for hosting so I’ll take his word for it; however, this poses the problem that I need a system that runs FreeBSD and fits in a rack. You guessed it, Rack Mac to the rescue … NOT! FreeBSD is one of those things I thought always looked pretty in the package, but that I never really wanted to touch … so much for that idea. “Well, being as I’m not too shabby of a Linux nut, it shouldn’t be that hard…” were my exact words as I put in the install CD and watched it fail time and time again by telling me the god-like administrator “root” didn’t have permission to install. Turns out that FreeBSD is really odd like make or GCC in the fact that you have to have it installed in order to install it on PPC (i.e. the Rack Mac). So after chasing the chicken around with the egg beaters for awhile, I finally figured out how to get it started installing (no luck on booting without a CD yet, but I’ll get there). This all boils down to the Rack Mac can’t understand how to read BSD file systems and the utility to manage the file systems on the FreeBSD install disk doesn’t work right on PPC. I know why they came out with LSD at the same time now.

In other news, my uncle bought my old motorcycle from me. This was great because it freed up some cash so I could fix my Ninja that I bought from Mike a year ago. The Ninja had a busted head (which is a $1500 part) and I got luck and found one off of eBay for $50 shipped (included cams, rods, and everything!!!). I just sent the check off to the guy fixing it last night so hopefully I should get a fully operational motorcycle in a month or so. I can’t wait, I’m so pumped .

It’s going to be nice to be able to ride out in the nice weather again; however, it’s just as much fun to fly. My SMAC finally got to the point it wasn’t worth fixing anymore. This is still disagreed upon with the “It’ll still fly with some tape” argument; however, I figured it was at the point that it would perform much better if it another plane . I bought a new kit and had my first flight last Sunday. It was great!!! The new plane fly 10x better than the old one plus I like the color scheme more (even though the one that Mike made was cool, I’m just not a big fan of yellow). Hopefully he’s going to start production of the Firefly model soon so I can have one that looks cool as hell to fly at night. Check them out at Nightcombat.com.

Speaking of websites, my blog has been completely updated after my WordPress 2.0.2 upgrade nearly a month ago. What was missing you ask? Well, all the stupid cool stuff that I put in it that no one else uses or even cares that I have. For example, I fixed the Quote Page RSS feed on the side so that it now refreshes properly. On a side note, working at the new place has given the chance to actually add new quotes to the page so keep your eyes peeled here and there for all sorts of new hi-jinks. I also fixed the Live Preview and most popular post sections (which I’m fairly certain no one uses or cares about, but I like them). Some of the stuff on the back end that you don’t get to see, like the backup and statistics tools were also repaired. This brings me to a bit of a rant. I started look at how many reads I get on this blog and how many RSS feeds poll it in a day … and it’s a lot more than I thought actually did. This mean two things: this pitiful excuse for a blog is doing better than I thought (maybe) and you people are too damned quiet! According to the statistics, there are roughly and 23 views per entry and 1.3 comments per post. Being as I generally post comments on many of my posts and come here to link to my friends blogs, the statistics are slightly skewed.

This really got me thinking about why people even come to read my blog. I’ve been trying to think of what topics I can talk about that will provide people with entertainment or valuable information; however, I think that there needs to be something more than that. I think I need to concentrate on trying to tailor my entries to promote some sort of though process in the people who read. Not just so they will comment on my posts, but so I can hopefully learn what other people think on the same topic. I’m not really looking for everyone to just accept my opinion as valid, but possibly to consider it and offer other avenues similar/different thought. Lord knows if I could make everything think the way I wanted, the world would be a much more structured place (that and people would use their turn signals all the time). More than likely, God would have to come down and tell me to stop messing around with how people thought, stop destroying the whole “free will” concept, and if I didn’t stop it he would smite me on the spot. Some say I would round house kick him at this point, but I doubt that’s true being as my legs can’t kick the clouds . So after that rambling, I encourage you to respond more when you have a thought, even if it’s a small one. This place is as much yours as it is mine … after all, what good would a blog be if no one read it?

As always, thanks for reading. Hopefully there weren’t too many grammatical errors. 42.