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First Track Meet
Chicago!
Dyeing Easter Eggs
Easter Egg Hunts
Indianapolis Children’s Museum
The Last of the Ear Piercings

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Category: Technology

Home Networking

Sunday, 19 July 2009 20:58 Written by Matt 2 Comments

Did some minor remodeling this weekend, and was surprised it went as well as it did. I’m not what you would call a “handy man” so this was a bit of an adventure. The job itself was fairly minor, I bought some Cat6 from Your Cable Hookup (dumb name, really cheap prices & fast shipping) to run in one section of the basement. I wanted to get my XBox hooked up to the internet and prep for a media server or new TV, whatever.

I decided to go with pass-through keystone jacks, since I don’t have the tools to do the push-down stuff properly (and test it) and they cost more than everything else combined. The one downside to the pass-throughs is they add at least an inch of addtl depth to the faceplate so you have to sort of cram the faceplate in to get it flush with the wall. I also had to buy pre-booted cables; needed about 30 ft, but it was 25 or 35 so ended up with an extra 5ft of cable to stuff behind the wall.

I ran 3 cables, 2 would have been easier but I think I’ll happier in the long run with 3. To run the cables, I stripped off the baseboards, then run about a half-inch of drywall off at the floor. The 3rd cable presented a challenge in some spots, getting it tucked under but think I accomplished that. I’ll know more once we do the new baseboards in early August.

Closet jack

TV/XBox jack

New Toy!

Sunday, 22 June 2008 23:09 Written by Matt 0 Comments
iPod Classic

I finally decided to get an iPod, going with the classic 80GB model. I had been waffling for about 6 months, wondering if I’d really use it enough and hoping that the Touch would come down in price. WWDC came and went in June and no iPod changes so I figured now was as good a time as any. I really wanted a Touch, but they’re too expensive given their small storage capacity. And there’s no way I’m paying $100/mnth for an iPhone plan (when you include adding Julie’s phone), plus they don’t hold enough either.

So, an iPod it is and so far I’m really liking it. Jamming to tunes too much at work, that’s for sure. I finally got some movies converted to it, haven’t watched a whole one yet but the viewing is better than I expected.

Red Ring of Death…

Friday, 16 May 2008 21:11 Written by Matt 0 Comments
ringofdeath

I bought GTA4 today, got home and popped it into the Xbox and absolutely nothing happened! Then I see 3 flashing red lights, so I look it up online and turns out this is a notorious issue with the XBox 360 console. The so-called “Red Ring of Death.”

It’s been a few months since I played any games, so it’s frustrating that it seems to have died randomly. However, logging into the MS site and pulling up my warranty information was a breeze. This is the first time I’ve tried, but I just popped in the serial # and away it went. It turns out I’m out of warranty, except for this specific issue. seems they extended the warranty for everyone with this issue. That’s good, ’cause I’m not spending another $300 on a new console!

So I entered a repair request, they auto-generated a ticket and will mail me a box with a pre-printed shipping label. Then I get to take it to a UPS store and off it goes, should be back in a week. I’m cautiously optimistic…

Update: box came, I shipped it and got it back within a few days and it works like brand-new! So while it was very annoying that it broke, it’s incredible that it was so easy and relatively painless (and free) to get it repaired. I’m really impressed with Microsoft! This just reinforces my belief that a product/service defect presents an excellent opportunity for a company to build customer loyalty. It doesn’t always work of course, but if a company can take a problem and do a stellar job of resolving it, I firmly believe that they can actually come out ahead with that customer. But you only get one or maybe two of those chances; if you build a shitty product no amount of resolution is going to save you!

World’s Largest Supercomputer

Tuesday, 04 March 2008 20:36 Written by Matt 0 Comments

I don’t usually get excited these days about computers, but I popped onto Jonathan Schwartz’s blog and was simply astounded at the specs of that supercomputer!

The thing has 500M cpu-hours annually! 4,000 Opteron blades! 120 TB of RAM!!

All running on CentOs; Linux of course…

Best of all, you can apply to get time on it! I wonder if running fantasy football stat simulations is a valid use of this beast? I missed the playoffs last year, maybe this thing could help my draft strategy?!

We’ll probably all need one of these for the next release of Windows, in 2020.

Matt Harp

Albums

Chicago, 2011
Godfrey Wedding in Austin, 2011
Daddy Campout, 2011
Put in Bay Vacation, 2011
Harp Family Bowling

Latest Thoughts...

  • New @AmercanStandard toilet installed in only 2 hrs, claims can flush a bucket of golf balls. The way the kids use TP, we're counting on it! 2012-04-13
  • Sweet, I got a Kindle for my birthday so now I can get some free eBooks from @Amazon! 2012-04-03
  • Pretty sad when free iPad mail app can find a week-old email faster than Outlook, and even sadder that I'm not at all surprised by that. 2012-04-02
  • 1st track meet is complete, Ava got a 2nd and 3rd, kind of have a Gaylord Focker situation developing with Lily; lots of 6th place finishes. 2012-03-31
  • Excited for Lily & Ava's first track meet tomorrow, not excited for the 8:30a start time. 2012-03-30
  • Ugh, looks like its time to mow the grass... 2012-03-16
  • More updates...

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