Tilt Shift video of New York ... very cool

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

New ADSL router again, AG241 died.

So after many months of slow internet and trying everything possible and loging calls with the ISP it finally turned out that my relatively new Linksys AG241 ADSL router was buggy, TO the point that it finally gave up to ghost and lost all connectivity to the ethernet ports. It wold sometimes connect then other times it wouldn't. Once I had this happen it was time to go get another ADSL router. I didnt even do a great deal of research this time. I just wanted a basic ADSL router that worked.

I ended up getting a AM300, which is a good match to the WRT54GL router that I now have doing the donkey work on the home network.

The AM300 is a fairly basic ADSL router, but as soon as i plugged it in I was getting 6.5Mbps again. So now I can actually use YouTube again.

First Monster truck back flip in competition

Very cool Real flame job

FreeNas - 132days and counting

So a few months ago I setup a FreeNAS server out of an old Compaq PC, using a SD card as the primary OS hard drive. Since then its just sat there doing its thing. I checked out the status, its been running for 132 days with no complaints.  Admittedly it does very little work, its just a data-store. But I have been impressed so far.

Awesome... that all I can say (With appropriate Kiwi accent)

Apple TV and full 1080p - Broadcom Card install.

So after about 15days wait, the Broadcom Crystal HD Mini E-PCI card showed up.

So after re-reading these two great posts I started to the "upgrade" of my Apple TV.

http://www.blogythefox.co.uk/2010/01/09/apple-tv-broadcom-hd-card-hardware-and-software-installation/
http://forum.atvflash.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2469

So got the card out ...

 

next it was time to take apart the Apple TV, Carefully pulling back the rubber base at each corner and using a torx headed screw driver undo the 4 screws in each corner.

 

 

This then allows you to break apart the apple TV, be careful of the harddrive cable, detach it and you then have much eaiser access to swap out the card.

 

 

Next take off the wires that go to the wireless card, I then taped the metal ends and secured them out of the was (shown below)

 

Using a Torx screwdriver remove the screw holding the card in place and make sure you swap over the little plastic foot.

Place the plastic foot on the new Broadcom HD card, Fit the new card and re-screw in place.

 

Already to go back together.

Next, Since I forked out for a ATVFlash patching setup I didn't have to do any scripting as it has been added to the extras menu.

So after installing the software, and doing a full power cycle I was able to chose the Broadcom HD as the decoder in the video setting of XBMC.... I was then able to watch a full 1080p mkv 6.5Gb moive streamed of a 100mb lan.  Got to love XBMC :)

 

Muscle Car Madness

On Saturday I went out to Muscle Car Madness. Once I finally got to the right place (Rolleston is not Rangoria) There were alot of really great cars. Here is a shot from the grandstand looking down on the showgrounds where most of the cars were on display.



For photos of some of the cars follow the link

http://picasaweb.google.com/BluefishNZ/MuscleCarMadness

New Year Resolution

I'm now getting close to end of the thirty's and its been along time since I have done any real exercise, I felt it was time to start taking better care of myself. So after some though I have dusted off the old mountain bike and taken it out of its 14 year retirement. I gave it a quick service, oil and lube, New tubes, handle bar grips, lights, brake pads, I also got new gloves and helmet.

I did a couple of laps around the block to make sure everything was ok, Nearly killed myself, a push bike and a motorbike are quite different. I forgot how fast a mountain bike reacts compared to a heavy old motorbike. But its a start. I will now just need to build up to been able to bike to work as after my wee trip I was knacker. Arrrhh the joys of been fat and old and having to get back into shape.

Two fav cars a Tbucket and a Volksrod