A Meeting Of East And West In Tampines.

[RimBlock 0]

We have now got our ID to confirm last touch ups this Fri/Sat so that will hopefully finish off most of the work.

He is meant to be coming around after work early this week to confirm what needs to be done.

We have a slight leak on a pipe in the downstairs toilet. No smells just a slight marking. ID suggested some putty to patch but to be honest, I would prefer to get the pipe replaced and do the job properly. Still waiting for a quote for it.

Having a few regrets about the stairs wall coving light. Just doesn't look as finished and nice as some others and really hater the recess on one side. Thinking the coving light should not have been done and the money would have been better spent on boxing up the recess to make a flat wall all the way up the stairwell. The hanging light in the stairwell provides more than enough light for that area so the two lights seem like a bit of a waste.

Parents are arriving in just over two weeks and hopefully my father will be able to help put up the wooden frame around the glass walled study area and some wooden edging top and bottom of the stair wall coving light to give is a bit of a better finish.

RB

[footprint 0]

its time for DIY!

bb Jonathan is cute de lor ...

[RimBlock 0]

Yeah, I guess so.

Just have to find a good supplier of materials in the East. There is one in the Changi Distripark net to where my wife works that may have wood but I am not so sure as I have not been to that part of the building (there also sell tiles and furniture).

The woodwork is not so difficult, just have to make sure the drilling in the wall to fix the frame doesn't shatter the glass . It will look a lot nicer though.

I also would like to turn our free standing wardrobe in to a fitted wardrobe in the master bedroom as the beam is pushing it 3-4 inches from the wall. My wife has other views though and wants to keep it free standing even though we loose that space.

Ahh, deep breath.

The older one comes back from New Zealand tonight so no doubt he will be enthralling us with how it was 'all right' and how he did 'nothing much' and how her 'wouldn't mind" going again..... .

RB

[footprint 0]

got this address from Bryan Wong blog.

Can go there take a look. For all his home-decor DIY, he gets his wood here de.

Wellwin Tropical produce blk 1057 #01-85 Eunos Ave 3

[RimBlock 0]

got this address from Bryan Wong blog.

Can go there take a look. For all his home-decor DIY, he gets his wood here de.

Wellwin Tropical produce blk 1057 #01-85 Eunos Ave 3

Cool, thanks, will take a look.

RB

[RimBlock 0]

Ok, so we are sorting out the attendance for baby's first month so if you would like to come (all are welcome with partners, kids and assorted animals if desired) then please let me know in the thread for the gathering here.

RB

[RimBlock 0]

This is a techie post .

Oh, wow is me......

Little did I know the pain this weekend would bring, the frustration, the mental anguish... yes, my Nas is not working the way I would like so I cannot watch my TV shows or movies from it at the moment.

It all started when... {slowly fade out}

[4 days earlier].

Thursday night...

So I decided to get a new video card for my PC as I am using quite an old although perfectly adequate one. Popped to the shop and bought it, got home and put it in, installed the software and ...... faulty.....had to take it back to the shop.

Tried WhatsApp, SMS and calling my ID to confirm workmen would be coming tomorrow as I had booked a days leave to oversea the final work.

Friday

Woke up, sat around watching 'The Walking Dead" TV show (very good if you like zombie apocalypse type movies / shows) waiting for the shop to open after 11am.

Went to the shop and they have no other cards of the same type or higher in stock. Only thing I could do was buy a new motherboard and processor for my Nas which I needed to upgrade so I could use all 20 hard drive bays if I wanted too.

Bought an Asus LGA1155 motherboard and an i3 2100 processor with a little top up.

Got the parts home and fitted them to my Nas case. Decided to take one for the SSD hard drives (60GB Vertex II) from my main PC and use it in the Nas for power savings and speed. This means I also need to rebuild my main PC to windows 7 again.

Problem 1 - Went to connect everything in the Nas to the PSU (power supply unit) only to find the PSU in the case has only one 4pin 12v connector and the motherboard needs 2. Took the PSU out of my main PC which has 2x4pin 12v connectors. Put it in the Nas case and connected to motherboard then realised it only had 3 Molex connectors (older style power connectors for hard drives and the like). I need 7 for the drive bays and fans. Took the PSU out and went back to the shop and bought a new PSU.

Put the PSU in and connected everything up. Since the Linux version I was using (Fedora 14) has just released an updated version I though I would try it out. I downloaded the Fedora 15 install DVD which took a while and burnt it to a DVD disc. I changed my hard drive layout in the drive bays. I have 5 rows of 4 bays plus 3 internal bays. I am using the internal bays for the OS drive, Download area and DVD Rom drive. The 5 rows are for media array (rows 1&2 - 8 drives max), backup (row 3&4 - 8 drives max), odds and ends (row 5). Only half of the drive bays are full at the moment.

So I put in the Fedora 15 dvd and booted up. The Asus board has the lovely new EFI BIOS so you can use a mouse and it looks much nicer than the very old style BIOS. Configured the hardware and booted from the DVD.

Problem 2 - The SSD drive from the main PC had been used in an array (two drives together acting as 1) and the install saw this and decided it would not allow me to use this hard drive. I had to download another DVD which would allow me to start the system from the DVD (Known as a live DVD in Linux) and use the tools to wipe the SSD card so I could install the operating system to it). SSD hard drives are usually much faster then normal hard drives so you would usually use it for the operating system which would make the system run faster usually. That all done, I rebooted with the install DVD again.

The install went thought the local and keyboard settings, network setup and then crashed with an unspecified error.

Problem 3 - So the install keeps erroring but doesn't tell me why. After 3 attempts I try my old Fedora 14 install DVD giving up on the newer version. This install DVD also crashes out but it highlights the reason saying there is an issue with one of my 2TB backup drives. After trying to fix the issue with no success I end up having to wipe the hard drive but even this doesn't fix the issue. As a last attempt I move the hard drive to another bay and it works fine. Seems there may be an issue with that bay in the case.

Saturday...

The install runs and completes. One of the changes is that it is now using a newer version of the windows manager which gives the system its look and feel. Fedora 15 uses Gnome 3 rather than the older Gnome 2. This has a different look and feel and takes a bit of getting used too. The biggest criticism a lot of people have raised is that it takes longer to do things due to where they have been put. I would have to agree and some of the utilities I use are now missing. I recopy the backup data lost from the 2TB drive and then add a new rive to my media array and copy all the data back on to it. I move onwards and set-up Samba (the software that allows windows machines to see files on the NAS).

The install and configuration of Samba is fine. Now I need to rebuild my main PC. As I only have one SSD 60GB hard drive now for Windows 7 I decide to move the program files and users folders on to a much bigger Seagate hard drive. I follow the guides around the internet and most of it works apart from a few small issues. New software is not being properly installed to the second (D:) hard drive. After doing a bit of digging I find a registry entry that needs fixing that was not in the online guides. Unfortunately it is now too late with updates and software installed between the two drives the system is not very happy. I decide to reinstall and to manually install software to the second drive when I can.

Finally the Windows 7 main PC is rebuilt and I connect to the shares on the NAS and try playing a file... oh dear, it is going very slowly. So slowly it cannot maintain a video without keeping stopping. I test transfer a couple of files and can only get just over 2MB/s (I say 90MB/s before upgrading).

Sunday

Problem 5 - I check the network cards and switch but they are all showing 1Gb/s speed settings. I try the motherboard NIC but that is not even recognised. I try putting the NIC in a new slot and that give improvement for 15 minutes then back to the same as before. I tried via my media player and the same slow speeds so it is the Nas and not the widows machine. I noticed some old log files on the Nas that should have been removed on install so I am guessing the install tried to upgrade and got confused. I set about trying to install the older version that was working fine previously.

Problem 6 - The older install DVD now will not install as there are conflicts with the software it is trying to install. I go to the Fedora website and they no longer offer version 14 as version 15 is out so I have to 'guess' a link to download the older version and set it of downloading last night. When I get home I will burn another DVD and clean the SSD in the Nas before starting again with Fedora 14.

And I thought it would just be a simple upgrade...

RB

[joyousonline 0]

Congrats on your new born baby boy!!

What a coincidence! I am also born on 24 May. So does my brother of 2 years apart!!

[RimBlock 0]

Congrats on your new born baby boy!!

What a coincidence! I am also born on 24 May. So does my brother of 2 years apart!!

Thanks Joyous.

Both my parents birthdays are about 5 days apart (different years though).

My birthday is the same day and month as my uncle (by marriage). Obviously different years though .

Lots of strange coincidences around. Keeps the world interesting, jsut don't look too hard or you may see the cracks.

RB

[Ely1 0]

This is a techie post .

Oh, wow is me......

Little did I know the pain this weekend would bring, the frustration, the mental anguish... yes, my Nas is not working the way I would like so I cannot watch my TV shows or movies from it at the moment.

It all started when... {slowly fade out}

[4 days earlier].

Thursday night...

So I decided to get a new video card for my PC as I am using quite an old although perfectly adequate one. Popped to the shop and bought it, got home and put it in, installed the software and ...... faulty.....had to take it back to the shop.

Tried WhatsApp, SMS and calling my ID to confirm workmen would be coming tomorrow as I had booked a days leave to oversea the final work.

Friday

Woke up, sat around watching 'The Walking Dead" TV show (very good if you like zombie apocalypse type movies / shows) waiting for the shop to open after 11am.

Went to the shop and they have no other cards of the same type or higher in stock. Only thing I could do was buy a new motherboard and processor for my Nas which I needed to upgrade so I could use all 20 hard drive bays if I wanted too.

Bought an Asus LGA1155 motherboard and an i3 2100 processor with a little top up.

Got the parts home and fitted them to my Nas case. Decided to take one for the SSD hard drives (60GB Vertex II) from my main PC and use it in the Nas for power savings and speed. This means I also need to rebuild my main PC to windows 7 again.

Problem 1 - Went to connect everything in the Nas to the PSU (power supply unit) only to find the PSU in the case has only one 4pin 12v connector and the motherboard needs 2. Took the PSU out of my main PC which has 2x4pin 12v connectors. Put it in the Nas case and connected to motherboard then realised it only had 3 Molex connectors (older style power connectors for hard drives and the like). I need 7 for the drive bays and fans. Took the PSU out and went back to the shop and bought a new PSU.

Put the PSU in and connected everything up. Since the Linux version I was using (Fedora 14) has just released an updated version I though I would try it out. I downloaded the Fedora 15 install DVD which took a while and burnt it to a DVD disc. I changed my hard drive layout in the drive bays. I have 5 rows of 4 bays plus 3 internal bays. I am using the internal bays for the OS drive, Download area and DVD Rom drive. The 5 rows are for media array (rows 1&2 - 8 drives max), backup (row 3&4 - 8 drives max), odds and ends (row 5). Only half of the drive bays are full at the moment.

So I put in the Fedora 15 dvd and booted up. The Asus board has the lovely new EFI BIOS so you can use a mouse and it looks much nicer than the very old style BIOS. Configured the hardware and booted from the DVD.

Problem 2 - The SSD drive from the main PC had been used in an array (two drives together acting as 1) and the install saw this and decided it would not allow me to use this hard drive. I had to download another DVD which would allow me to start the system from the DVD (Known as a live DVD in Linux) and use the tools to wipe the SSD card so I could install the operating system to it). SSD hard drives are usually much faster then normal hard drives so you would usually use it for the operating system which would make the system run faster usually. That all done, I rebooted with the install DVD again.

The install went thought the local and keyboard settings, network setup and then crashed with an unspecified error.

Problem 3 - So the install keeps erroring but doesn't tell me why. After 3 attempts I try my old Fedora 14 install DVD giving up on the newer version. This install DVD also crashes out but it highlights the reason saying there is an issue with one of my 2TB backup drives. After trying to fix the issue with no success I end up having to wipe the hard drive but even this doesn't fix the issue. As a last attempt I move the hard drive to another bay and it works fine. Seems there may be an issue with that bay in the case.

Saturday...

The install runs and completes. One of the changes is that it is now using a newer version of the windows manager which gives the system its look and feel. Fedora 15 uses Gnome 3 rather than the older Gnome 2. This has a different look and feel and takes a bit of getting used too. The biggest criticism a lot of people have raised is that it takes longer to do things due to where they have been put. I would have to agree and some of the utilities I use are now missing. I recopy the backup data lost from the 2TB drive and then add a new rive to my media array and copy all the data back on to it. I move onwards and set-up Samba (the software that allows windows machines to see files on the NAS).

The install and configuration of Samba is fine. Now I need to rebuild my main PC. As I only have one SSD 60GB hard drive now for Windows 7 I decide to move the program files and users folders on to a much bigger Seagate hard drive. I follow the guides around the internet and most of it works apart from a few small issues. New software is not being properly installed to the second (D:) hard drive. After doing a bit of digging I find a registry entry that needs fixing that was not in the online guides. Unfortunately it is now too late with updates and software installed between the two drives the system is not very happy. I decide to reinstall and to manually install software to the second drive when I can.

Finally the Windows 7 main PC is rebuilt and I connect to the shares on the NAS and try playing a file... oh dear, it is going very slowly. So slowly it cannot maintain a video without keeping stopping. I test transfer a couple of files and can only get just over 2MB/s (I say 90MB/s before upgrading).

Sunday

Problem 5 - I check the network cards and switch but they are all showing 1Gb/s speed settings. I try the motherboard NIC but that is not even recognised. I try putting the NIC in a new slot and that give improvement for 15 minutes then back to the same as before. I tried via my media player and the same slow speeds so it is the Nas and not the widows machine. I noticed some old log files on the Nas that should have been removed on install so I am guessing the install tried to upgrade and got confused. I set about trying to install the older version that was working fine previously.

Problem 6 - The older install DVD now will not install as there are conflicts with the software it is trying to install. I go to the Fedora website and they no longer offer version 14 as version 15 is out so I have to 'guess' a link to download the older version and set it of downloading last night. When I get home I will burn another DVD and clean the SSD in the Nas before starting again with Fedora 14.

And I thought it would just be a simple upgrade...

RB

Oh gawd, tech woes - the worst kind of frustration. I feel for you, I really do.

Even reading your post made my head hurt. Maybe I'll set up the wireless capability of the AC Ryan tomorrow, or something.

I'll stick to the old and tested cleaning in between stupid bathroom tiles with a toothbrush, for suddenly, that seems like a more enjoyable task

- Ely

Edited June 13, 2011 by Ely1

[RimBlock 0]

Oh gawd, tech woes - the worst kind of frustration. I feel for you, I really do.

Even reading your post made my head hurt. Maybe I'll set up the wireless capability of the AC Ryan tomorrow, or something.

I'll stick to the old and tested cleaning in between stupid bathroom tiles with a toothbrush, for suddenly, that seems like a more enjoyable task

- Ely

Oh well on a lighter note, I cleaned the sofa cushions last weekend.

I will put an account of the experience up after I grab some lunch. It should bring a smile to your face.....

RB

[ngunadi 2]

After seeing your post, I think I should just go for Synology ...

Feel have quite enough of geekiness in work to do another round of it at home.

[RimBlock 0]

After seeing your post, I think I should just go for Synology ...

Feel have quite enough of geekiness in work to do another round of it at home.

Yeah I know what you mean but I wanted 10+ drives for both media and full backup and for around 1k + drive price. Not sure where can get for ready made like Synology.

It is getting all the drive bays connected that is the problem. Standing on the cutting edge of technology then your gonna bleed a little . Once I get the network speed sorted out I will have 20 bays for my array of media (so upto 20TB based on current drives) plus backup plus extras.

RB

[joyousonline 0]

Thanks Joyous.

Both my parents birthdays are about 5 days apart (different years though).

My birthday is the same day and month as my uncle (by marriage). Obviously different years though .

Lots of strange coincidences around. Keeps the world interesting, jsut don't look too hard or you may see the cracks.

RB

oh yeah..which means from 3 yrs old birthday onwards, my brother and i always share the same birthday cake! so much savings for our parents! heee

[adidaem 6]

Hi RB,

Oh my, it does sound like a really painful experience even tho I don't understand most of what you are describing... hope everything is fixed and working fine. 20TB is a LOT of storage huh?