project: DIY Airport (for that old iBook)
This was something I had planned for a loooong time… to get some internal wireless card into my iBook… I’ve been using a Belkin-stick all along, but last week I managed to get my hands on some Lucent WaveLAN-cards and it were exactly those cards I’ve been looking for all along. Still I think anyone else should be able to find at least one of them… Any way, this is what I did to it!
DIY Airport (for that old iBook)
click to go to the projectpage
DIY trackback
MAKE:blog
(MAKE: must be the quickest posting blog out there! it’s just insane! *^_^*)
...a typical sundayafternoon
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fixed my bike in the park… where I left it last night when I was heading for the city, but my rear tyre ran flat…
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...and while I was in the neighbourhood of Nijne, I came over and fixed a borking key on her Nokia… (with no tools whatsoever :-)) Oh, the diagnosis was that one of the keys stopped working and I decided to pull the plastic from the PCB. The little round on the white plastic is a little piece of metal, which is actually the button. But… it got corroded or such (probably because it’s been moist or such), a little cleaning of that little round and putting back the plastic did the trick…
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...and finally, after a slacking sunday-afternoon, I got a package from my neighbours, which was left there by the postman last friday… time to unbox these WaveLAN-cards… I’ve been looking quite long to get my hands on a couple of these (and these are brand new!)... If I’m correct, these are the ones which’ll work in my iBook as well as in my eMate… (the original Airport-card is way too expensive… 2nd-hand people ask north of a hundred euros for one of those cards and I paid less for four of these, including an access-point and shipping…). euhm… you do need to do some soldering on these before you can put it in an iBook, but more on that later :-)
probably a new addiction: Outrun 2006
(oh my.. I’m updating this site like there’s no tomorrow! enjoy it while it lasts! ^_^)
It’s very very very seldom I come across a game that I want to play more than, like, twenty minutes or so… In the last couple of years, the only games I played for hours instead of minutes were:
Grand Theft Auto 3
Grand Theft Auto 3 Vice City
Need for Speed Underground
Need for Speed Underground 2
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
The Godfather (but there was a reason for that...)
that’s a nice non-gamer approach to linking to game-titles ey? using wikipedia-links instead of those godawful flash-game-publisher-sites… :D
That’s not much of a list, now is it? Well, I’m not much of a gamer I guess… I do like to follow game-culture though and most of the time have something like a previous gen game-setup (I play this on my Media Center, Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe with an Athlon XP2800+, 1GB Ram and a Hercules ATi 9700 pro(those were the days!)). I’m not planning to invest in next-gen gaming hardware, simply because I play way too little games for that… Trying to keep it a little bit current is more than enough for me :-)
Any way, I think I found just another game that can go onto that list also…
Outrun 2006 Coast to Coast
and yes! again that’s a wikipedia-link! the official site can be found here
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now wait till I can race this car… it’s a car from my dreamcar-list...
(...euhm…yes I have a list like that…)
I like the fact you hardly have to adapt to the game (or get submerged into it)... it’s simply firing up the game, get your controller (I still have a PS2-dualshock2-controller connected to my Media Center) and play! Just like that!
It’s arcade-gaming at it’s finest imho :-) I like it!
And yes, I’m such an old guy that I did play the original Outrun-cabinet in an Arcade-hall when it was new and current! (but then I was way too young to even be there…(we’re talking 1986 or such… I was 11 years old back then) so it brings back some fiiiiine memories…
Well… at the moment of writing I did play this game for only twenty minutes or so… soooooo… here are some screenshots (it’s quite hard to put a camera on a timer and slide that Ferrari exactly ten seconds later :D ) and I’m off, playing some more!
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weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! *^_^*
I hear you! *^_^*
Right! the message is clear!
“Hey, Mark! We want more news/posts! More regular!”
“Yeah, the site doesn’t get updated as much as it used to be…Come one, forget about summer and the sun shining outside…write something! Entertain us!”
“Love the site, but do wish it was updated more often.
I am still waiting for some awesome project with your 3d-glasses and from your large pile of suns”
You guys want more updates!
this is already quite an old picture… click on it to go the corresponding pic on Flickr
But…
I’m quite busy lately (I guess you’d guess that), next to that I’m not that charmed anymore by the idea of blogging on this site as happens on a lot of the other (...let’s see...) 46.7 million blogs out there. I don’t know why I feel that way all of a sudden, but that’s since a while now. Of course, I blog on bright.nl (although in Dutch) and somehow I don’t feel like using those items here (imho that would be just lame) and somehow I just split it up quite clean. Blogging I do over there and my personal stuff (and believe me, that’s the good stuff when it comes to geeking! *^_^*) I do overhere…
(Although, the stuff I do for Brights Nerd Alert (like this video)(which is also an article in the magazine, I do post overhere, that’s a *ahem* 100% match I guess ^_^ )
Well, that’s about as much of an explanation I can give on why this site is updated less than it used to be, main reason being that I want to stick mainly to home-grown content, the whole intention is to keep the quality up. I’m busier than ever, also for this site, believe it or not… Hope you guys can understand that.
Soooooooo… expect quite some new projects this summer (if I’m not BBQ-ing with some nice lad^D^D^Dpeople... *^_^*)
But really, I appreciate the fact you guys want more updates, I’ll do my best and believe me, there’s some good stuff on it’s way ^_^
So please, stick around! ;-)
Pecha Kucha Night Groningen Volume II
Next to all the geeking on this page, there’s more stuff I do and/or I’m involved in (O RLY?!?!)
For instance, I’ve been busy in getting this activity called Pecha Kucha to my hometown Groningen. Regular/long time readers of this page must’ve seen a post or two (or three or…) about that in the past on this page (and probably thought ‘what does that do on a page like this?!?!)
Well, any way, last thursday we (that’s Nieuwe Garde, (hard to explain what that is, but if you look at it as a network for creative individuals you’re not off by far)) had our Pecha Kucha Night Groningen Volume II
...the store where it all took place:
click to go to the corresponding picture on Flickr
...and our main man Simon up on the stage:
click to go to the corresponding picture on Flickr
...Pecha Kucha in full effect!
click to go to the corresponding picture on Flickr
picture credit: Lykle
Some of the presenters (although they were all excellent, really they were!):
Thomas Müller, who explained probably more about kidney stones and how they are removed than we would ever have thought we’d know (and to be honest, want(ed) to know)... ;-)
click to go to the corresponding picture on Flickr
Kie Ellens, who took us on a journey to New Mexico (where he bought a piece of desert for $10) to explain about his project, Nooit & Genoeg.
click to go to the corresponding picture on Flickr
Henning Basler who gave us an excellent small concert (even though the sound was crappy, the performance was great! ;-) )
click to go to the corresponding picture on Flickr
Thanks go out to all the performers, you were all great! You can find all the pics I took with my phone and we’re shot by my camera (not by me but by Vincent from De Bijenkorf, thanks for that!) overhere
But you can probably get a better impression by watching this short video made by Rutger, a friend of mine (and initiator of Nieuwe Garde)(and also blogging-colleague at Bright)(all right, that’s enough).
click the pic to watch the video over on YouTube
Soooooooo… what’s next? With a first edition in a church and a second edition in a department store, a third edition during the Noorderzon festival seems like a good idea to me… but we’ll have to see about that… we’ll just see… ;-)
UPDATE I made a special page with all the info about the Groningen-edition of Pecha Kucha
earlier on this page
article up on PingMag
Pecha Kucha night Groningen has been a blast!
Pecha Kucha in Groningen
earlier on the ever-excellent PingMag
PechaKucha takes over Holland
Top 5 Tips for PechaKucha Presenters!
PechaKucha Night is back!
The PechaKucha Trilogy – Part 3
The PechaKucha Trilogy – Part 1 & 2
...and the official global Pecha Kucha site can be found here
a 'new' fileserver...
Not long ago, I bought these opterons but in the end, I decided the whole setup to get these running would be way beyond my reach, budgetwise…
So… the other day I ran into a colleague at work and he was talking about some dual Opteron-board he could get his hands on, now if only he could get some Opterons cheap… He was talking to the right man, and you should’ve seen the look on his face when I told him, I got a pair on spare at home he could use…
Anyways, I gave him my Opterons and in the end, to keep things simple, he gave me his old setup, which is this Asus SK8N-board with an Opteron 146 and 512MB Reg ECC-memory… This way I wouldn’t have to spend another dime on my setup and I got a new fileserver, just like that! And he’s happy with his uberleet dual Opteron fileserver at his place…
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I’m hungry for some CPU-grunt in my fileserver, also from an experimenting point of view, to see if I can enhance my (rather famous) encrypted fileserver, which made it to slashdot the other day…
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Anyways, the slashdot-setup has been working like a dream… (take a quick look at that uptime, 242 days)
Some console-output before I shut it down…
markie@scramjet’s password:
Last login: Fri Jun 23 21:11:17 2006
OpenBSD 3.6 (GENERIC) #59: Fri Sep 17 12:32:57 MDT 2004
Welcome to OpenBSD: The proactively secure Unix-like operating system.
Please use the sendbug(1) utility to report bugs in the system.
Before reporting a bug, please try to reproduce it with the latest
version of the code. With bug reports, please try to ensure that
enough information to reproduce the problem is enclosed, and if a
known fix for it exists, include that as well.
-bash-3.00$ su – Password:
Terminal type? [xterm]
-bash-3.00# uname -a
OpenBSD scramjet.macstuff.local 3.6 GENERIC#59 i386
-bash-3.00# uptime
9:17PM up 242 days, 2:51, 2 users, load averages: 0.33, 0.16, 0.10
-bash-3.00# df
Filesystem 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/sd0a 15517420 11405220 3336332 77% /
/dev/wd0a 384551416 384551364 -19227516 105% /datacrypt/disk1
/dev/wd1a 384551416 384551364 -19227516 105% /datacrypt/disk2
/dev/svnd0c 378258672 301799752 57545988 84% /data/disk1
/dev/svnd1c 378258672 344841936 14503804 96% /data/disk2
-bash-3.00#
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...and now this one will work like a dream, for sure
Some console-output on the ‘new’ machine…
-bash-3.00$ su – Password:
Terminal type? [xterm]
-bash-3.00# cryptfs1
-bash-3.00# cryptfs1 -m
Encryption key:
-bash-3.00# cryptfs2 -m
Encryption key:
-bash-3.00# df
Filesystem 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/sd0a 15517420 11405172 3336380 77% /
/dev/wd0a 384551416 384551364 -19227516 105% /datacrypt/disk1
/dev/wd1a 384551416 384551364 -19227516 105% /datacrypt/disk2
/dev/svnd0c 378258672 301799752 57545988 84% /data/disk1
/dev/svnd1c 378258672 344841936 14503804 96% /data/disk2
-bash-3.00# dmesg
OpenBSD 3.6 (GENERIC) #59: Fri Sep 17 12:32:57 MDT 2004
deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: AMD Opteron™ Processor 146 (“AuthenticAMD” 686-class) 2 GHz
cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2
real mem = 536190976 (523624K)
Don’t you just love generic kernels… Only thing I did was tell the ‘new’ system to boot from the SCSI-controller… Mount the encrypted partitions and tada, off we go!
Only thing is, this 2GHz AMD64 beauty now is actually slower in en/decrypting than my old MP1800+ as it seems in first tests, but I’m gonna wait till I got the money for 4 SATA-disks and then I’m gonna install the whole shebang from scratch again… on OpenBSD/AMD64 instead of OpenBSD/i386. So, yes, at this moment it’s slower… I’m not sure this is the only reason, I would’ve said up front this CPU/setup would be quicker in 32-bit also, but I’m not sure if that’s the only thing going on right now (but to be honest, I don’t care that much about it at this moment either).
It works and that was the goal for now…
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watching the FIFA World Cup in low-def
I’m not sure how that is in other countries but overhere a lot of people, but also bars and such invested in HDTVs for the current FIFA World Cup. Now there has been trouble to get all the decoders out there on time so chances are very well a whole lot of them isn’t watching this Cup in High Definition after all…
Now, I didn’t invest a thing, I’m not a big fan of soccer. Sure, now this World Cup is going on, I am watching the matches the Dutch team is playing, but to me it’s a little bizarre to invest a huge sum of money (which I don’t have either) for seven games of soccer (wishful thinking…).
(They even air commercials over here for lending you the money so you can buy such a big ass TV for these couple of footballgames… which is even more bizarre … imho …)
Anyways, I’m still happy with my ancient and very obsolete Sony Video Projectionsystem on which I just saw The Netherlands vs. Côte d’Ivoire (which got won by The Netherlands thank you very much).
Of course, the age is showing on my setup, but this cost me 50 euros and that’s almost two years ago already. I bought it just after the European Soccer Championships, so who knows what kind of killerdeal on something else pops up after these games? :-)
We’ll see…
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one last time... ze cuff links...
first of all, some figures (thanks to Google Analytics...)
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...and I guess these were the most famous RJ45 connectors until now…
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...in the meantime, on the lid of my iBook...
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...have a nice weekend all!
RSS-feed
Wow! After my little success with the cuff links, my RSS-feed-subcriptions went through the roof!
Now, that came down just as fast today so I guess the guys over at feedburner got a little lost in counting my subscribers or I’m not sure why it jumped like it did.
Anyways, for everyone who did subscribe to the feed,
Welcome! *^_^*
What is it you can expect here?
This is my personal page, I try to post whenever I can, but this is not a business (...yet ;-)) so expect some inconsistency in blogging.
Next to that, since a few months I changed from blogging like everyone else does on the 44 million blogs out there to post more or less personal posts using almost only own genuine home-brew content. I choose that above daily updates.
And further, in my normal RSS-feed you’ll also find my pictures I post to my flickr-album and links I bookmark in my del.icio.us. If you somehow don’t like that, try my RSS minimal feed, that one only has updates on this page.
Anyways, without you, my dear readers, this wouldn’t be the site it is now. I would probably be a geek-hermit instead of a geek-rockstar (that is a joke) so thank you all! *^_^*
and if you have anything (and I mean anything) to say, please do so (in the comments for instance).
enjoy!
project: geek chique: how to make cuff links
click to go to the projectpage
The other day, I had this a weddingparty I was invited to…
But, when I got dressed for the party I couldn’t find my cuff links... I searched all over the place but to no avail. Sooooo, in the end I decided to make some of my own. After quickly inspecting how I could make these items (which I only use at most once a year) I decided to make some quick with materials every geek should have laying around… I guess…
sooooo, this is what I made and how I did it (continues on my projectpage)
geek chique: how to make cuff links
DIY trackback
boingboing.net
digg.com (and of this moment, on the frontpage!)
MAKE:blog
del.icio.us (it’s on del.icio.us/popular right now!)
gizmodo.com
oh dear… ;-)
BTW, digg.com is acting strange… on the one moment, I’m on the frontpage, the last referrer from the frontpage is twenty minutes ago and then, all of a sudden, gone… no matter how far I go back, the link is unfindable from the frontpage... You would almost say that there’s some human intervention in what get’s on the frontpage and also what get’s off the frontpage… I was in the search-index when you searched for cuff links, and now I’m not, I mean, uh?
Not that I care much, I mean, I got a ton of traffic from digg… but this is hard to explain or not?
Ah, found it… it seems it’s a buried story now. Can someone explain what a buried story is? Or better, why someone would bury a story?
...and to add to this story… it actually got dugg by Kevin Rose himself… hmmmmmzzzzz… ;-)
ah! I got mail from Digg support…
digg support to markFrom: digg support <support@digg.com>To: mark@geektechnique.orgDate: Jun 13, 2006 9:53 PMSubject: Re: how-to make cuff links, buried story?http://digg.com/hardware/How_To_Make_Cufflinks_Out_Of_Ethernet_ConnectorsThat story was reported as lame and subsequently removedby the digg community.--digg supportLOL! with 549 diggs in 14 hours time they (the digg-community) say it’s lame… it’s a little hard to believe they had more than 549 of their own members reporting it as lame, or not? Well, whatever… a little strange user-driven democracy if you ask me…
What a pair of cuff links can do with some people… geez… *^_^*
