BruceHartman.net

Dave has been singing the praises of his ReadyNAS for a couple months now, so I took the leap Thursday and ordered an empty NV+ from Newegg as well as 4 Seagate 320 GB drives with which to fill it. The end result will be about 800GB of space.

In all honesty, my media server could probably satisfy the same role, but it’s been out of commission since I moved it into the office and even when I do get it back online, I’ll likely convert that to my regular desktop machine and move my current desktop into a supporting role of some sort.

The thing that appeals to me about the ReadyNAS is that it’s a purposed machine that appears to do it’s job very well. I’m looking forward to having RAID protected storage for my photographs, software, music, and video. Additionally, the fact that I’ll be able to access the machine from outside my network will allow me to provide some offsite backup support for a few of my consulting customers. I’m also planning to scan all of my important documentation and store that on the NAS as well.

My only worry is about the noise from the drives I ordered. Everything should be here by Tuesday, so I guess I’ll know then.

I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet, I’ve just been in a holding pattern as far as house projects go. With my upcoming Vegas trip in March, I’m trying not to spend too much money until I get back home and have an idea of what the damage is.

But just because I haven’t been doing doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about future projects.

I really think the next big project is going to be the balcony over the fireplace. That’ll be the last major project before I gut the kitchen in a couple years. Once the balcony is done, I can move on to getting my library set up, as well as some display shelving I want to install high up on the interior gable wall.

I also need to come up with the final design for the desktop that I planned for the nook in my office. I’m still using the table that’s served as my desk for the last eight years. It’s very functional, and incredibly sturdy, but it’s not very appealing, especially with all the changes that have taken place in the office. I saw this ultra-modern desk on the TechEBlog site the other day and it got me thinking about incorporating some of the details into my project. I really dig the compartments for storing things.

So, things will likely continue to be quiet over here until April. In the meantime, I’m posting a bit more regularly over at BHN. Stop by and say hi.

…And not in a good way. I’m really tired of working on this moonface for Jane. It’s painfully clear to me that any success I might eventually achieve will not be due to commissioned work.

It looks fine so far, really, and it’s nearly done, but it’s taken a lot of energy for me to sit down and actually work on it. I have these ideas for other pieces I want to do, but I keep telling myself I have to finish this one before I can start anything else. I think I could conceivably finish it one night, but it’ll probably take two nights thanks to how little I want to work on it.

The thing is, I have no idea why I feel this way, but the feeling is very real. Hopefully I’ll get through it by Wednesday so I can start on something else.

I’m really beginning to hate the merging of post categories and link categories into a single category pool. The fact is, post categories are different from link categories, and you’ll have a hard time convincing me otherwise.

When I refocused my energy on BHN, I made a decision to nest all of my categories. For instance, as far as posts go, “Journal” is the topmost category and all others are children. There are even children of the children, as in, Journal > Artwork > Paper Mache (Paper Mache being the child of Artwork, which is the child of Journal). My reasoning is that I wanted to be able to reference a single category and return every post in the database without having to tag every post with its “normal” category as well as the Journal category.

I do the same thing with respect to Links. Right now I have Blogroll as the uppermost category (as of this writing there are only three child categories… with no grandchildren). Same thing here, I want to be able to reference a single link category and pull the whole list without having to tag a link with multiple categories (which isn’t even possible).

The other added benefit here is that this technique segregates the different types of categories on the “Manage Categories” admin panel.

To my way of thinking there should be a flag or flags in the database table that turn on whether a category is available for posts, links, or both. And if the category is available for both types of items, you should also have the ability to enable a parent category for each type of item. For instance, I want an Artists category for posts I might write about artists I find online, as well as a category for Artists I might link in my blogroll. For that matter, it’s not unheard of to allow a category to have multiple parents. Even disregarding my initial reasoning for nesting all the way up to Journal and Blogroll, respectively, multiple parents (or at least two) would provide further organizational options that would extend Wordpress’ ability to be adapted for things people haven’t thought of yet.

What’s confusing to me is that the possibility (actually, likelihood) currently exists that a category can contain posts and links, as is evidenced by the “Manage Categories” admin panel showing an item count column for both posts and links. Wordpress recognizes that there is a difference between the two item types. Further evidence is that there are two category defaults.

It seems to me that the category merger was an interesting idea that wasn’t necessarily carried out as far as it should have been. Hopefully I can impress these ideas upon the development team and maybe they’ll incorporate them into future releases.

The Moonface continues.

On the way home from work I stopped by KMart to pick up some lead sinkers for the ballast. In the picture below you can see them attached to the upper rib (they’re in the wad of tape). 15 ounces of lead should act as sufficient counterweight to keep him from falling over backwards.

When I made Norman, I wasn’t ever really sure what I was making until I got to the end. I had papered the whole main structure before deciding to add the nose. And once the nose was added, I went back and added eyes. Once he had eyes, I added the mouth. In this case, I know what the end result is going to be so instead of papering, restructuring, and re-papering, I can do all the structural work up front and then do the paper all at once.

The detail work on the eyes will wait until the end, of course. I haven’t settled on an expression for this one yet anyway. I’m ooking forward to adding the craters. They should really make this piece pop.

I’ll work on the mouth tomorrow night and if I can get the structure done early enough I’ll start the first layer of paper before I go to bed. It’s conceivable this guy could be done Thursday night.

I’m already planning my next project: a large-ish bonsai tree using real tree branches as the structure. I’m going to weave some small white Christmas lights along the branches to act as leaves before I apply the paper. If it works out how I see it my mind I think it’ll look pretty sweet.