Aug 23, 2007

A day picking up daisies

I passed my CompTIA Security+ exam today.
It was so easy that I got scared and actually thought I would not pass! I wasn't really feeling like being challenged or anything. It took me 1hr to answer all 100 questions and do a brief review.

I am in a very happy mood and the success at the exam is a major contribution. After postponing it once, I was determined to take the exam today and not delay it any more. Every scheduled/obligatory element I have on my agenda is such a weigh on my mind. Gradually relieving myself from those weights puts me in a *very very* positive mood. It's like dropping a giant boulder from my back.

Speaking of boulders, I just reminded I need to find Boulder Dash for my PocketPC! It was THE coolest game on C64! (yes, it's my geek side talking)

Being in such a happy mood, I took a stroll on the internet and collected some nice daisies.



Dan's building a home server, so I recommended him to make a NAS out of it and proposed FreeNAS;

  • According to the description, this 36MB large package does just what one needs and its FreeBSD distro can surely be completed with some more features;
  • SMB, NFS, Live boot, RAID, web admin console => major coolness!
  • bundle (if possible) mt-daapd to it and you got your music library streaming to iTunes;
  • there are other free media streaming software solutions (GNU, linux), a couple of searches and you're there.

UPDATE: This guy built a NAS based on Ubuntu and a series of other server-related apps, nifty stuff!



Hak.5 is a mediatic (australian?) hacker/modder group that regularly make some nifty videos (podcasts) covering themes like :

  • hacking iPods to install linux on it;
  • setup a computer with FreeNAS;

sidenote: They like a little bit too much to whack MS Windows, but that's almost expected from a group of linux loving hackers/modders (more on that in another post).



There are a couple of very good radios out there and I've not been able to play their online streams on XBMC. Today I found out what I was doing wrong and I will try the solution as soon as I am at home:)

  • Radar Lisboa - Probably the best alternative radio in lisbon (stream)
  • FM4 - the best alternative radio around here, it's broadcast from austria (stream)
  • Triple j - I was told it's the best (publicly funded) australian radio (stream)
  • m94.5 - the alternative station in and from Munich (stream)



The same goes for online streaming videos. There's a script that (seemingly) allows XBMC to browse the very complete http://www.tv-links.co.uk/. There are other similar sites of joyful time wasting, although I do not know if there are XBMC scripts for them. Anyway, any web browser should be able to make anyone enjoy them:

UPDATE: tv-links.co.uk on my XBox (XBMC) kicks MAJOR ass! From Japanorama to The Simpsons, passing by Afro Samurai, it's just plain fu**in' amazing to watch stuff on my TV without any computer or tv or satellite connection. (requirements: XBMC/XBox and a fast internet connection)

Today, I'll be welcoming a couple of australian CSers and will try to go out and have a nice steak or sausage chomp! Let's see where we land.

My geek side will definitely want to setup the different online streams this evening:)


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