Clouds from the plane

For as long as I can remember I've loved the view of clouds from a plane. This is a shot of the view from the plane on Wednesday's flight from DFW to SFO.

With each blink of an eye, the vision I see changes. The clouds look like:

• they are only 50 feet below the plane
  
• fluffy pillows -- a white version of a huge bed filled with pillows
  
• the flowing sands on a large, large beach
  
• the plane is hovering -- it seems as if we aren't really moving

It makes me just stare out of the window and brings a smile to my face (and my soul).

Team Future is in town: tunnel flying kids

I posted a week or so ago about the Pint-sized skydivers - Team Future. They are in town and will be flying at iFlySFBay on Thursday after 4pm and this weekend. I'm trying to get more info on the times.

RANT: Give me an outlet for my phone

Why o Why don't hotels give you an easily accessible electrical outlet next to the bed for your mobile phone? I (and others) use the mobile phone for an alarm clock -- after years of traveling I know you can't trust the hotel wake up calls and figuring out a new alarm clock in each hotel is just a pain.

I'm sick of moving nightstands, digging behind beds, and generally not finding an open outlet. Any Hotel Room designers out there? If so, LISTEN up -- put an outlet on or near the nightstand! A simple extension cord will work!

Backups of home laptops and Network Storage

For the last couple of years we've used a pretty basic backup process for our personal laptops at home. We have a 160 GB Buffalo Linkstation and a 160 GB USB external drive for a mirror. It's not a ton of space but it's been enough for us.

We have Handy Backup running on our laptops set up to run backups each night between 2 am and 6 am. Handy Backup used to backup data and critical files from our laptops and our hosted websites. Handy Backup keeps a copy of our website files by syncing each night via FTP and also backs up data files to the NAS drive. Most backup sets keep 3-7 days of backups and are compressed using zip files. The NAS drive is mirrored to the USB Drive each night as well. This protects from a disk crash of the NAS drive. Using this process our only critical point of failure is a complete disaster where we lose all of our laptops and the drives. I plan to close this gap soon.

A few weeks ago, the NAS drive was almost full. The increased file size from Ava's camera and the Good Eat's archive we've been building from TiVO recordings started eating up space on the drive. We'd finally outgrown our 160GB drive.

It was time to get more disk space at home. So the search for a new NAS box started. I wanted to get something that had at least 500GB of storage and had protection from a disk crash. This could be a RAID box or just a straight mirror (another drive of the same size for a copy). My search led me to Windows Home Server -- yep a MS product. I wanted to discount it right away feeling that going down the route of a WHS box would be sealing our fate to always be a Windows Household. Confession Time: I still keep thinking I'll purchase a Mac and join the cool crowd. The first OEM WHS box was the HP MediaServer and there still aren't many OEM WHS boxes out yet. I spent time reading various forums (WeGotServed was a good one) and it seems that many folks are pretty jazzed about the WHS features. The number of Add-Ins for WHS continues to grow as well. The real feature that kept pulling me back to the WHS solution was the ability to add disk space as you need it -- the HP MediaServer doesn't even require a screwdriver to add space. Open the front panel, slide out the drive tray, drop in a disk, and a few clicks on the Control Panel --- Bam, more space. WHS also deals with the duplication of data across discs to reduce the risk of a single disc crash. The complete backups of Windows machines also satisfies a big requirement.

The WHS solution gives us the ability to add space later (as space gets cheaper), automates backups of our Windows laptops (we have 3 personal laptops in the house). centralizes our media (photos, videos, music), and serves up the media. I'm also interested in many of the Add-Ins that are being released.

The order has been placed (using Ava's 10% HP discount). FedEx says it will arrive on Friday. I'll post more as I get it set up. If you have a Windows Home Server and have any tips, certainly let me know about them!

Around this time I also spent a fair amount of time researching online backup solutions. After researching some of the major services - Mozy, Carbonite, and Jungle Disk (which uses Amazon S3 storage). I decided that Jungle Disk was the one to dive into further (I'll probably write more about this decision in a future post). But after the WHS decision, Jungle Disk has a bonus for me - Jungle Disk offers a solution that ties into WHS.

Test Post for Multiply Cross Posting

Sorry about random posts but I'm still testing cross posting from Blogger to Multiply. And without setting up 'test' accts on both Blogger and Multiply I'm left with testing on the real accounts. I'll delete these posts later. Let's hope this works.

Now in the meantime -- I'll be waiting to see if the Y! board makes a decision today -- and if they do will we find out more details from the blogoshere or from a real communication.

And how about a pretty picture since I've wasted your time thus far? I love this shot from a few years ago. It's the beginning of a great hybrid dive (some flyers on their belly and some flying vertical - either headdown or sitting). Ava (wife) is one of the belly flyers. The guy in Yellow standing on their backs is Eli Thompson - host of Discovery Channel's Stunt Junkies.

Custom Malm Headboard - Ikea Hacking

We liked the Malm bed frame but wanted to use a mattress and base/boxspring which ended up covering up most of the headboard. We also wanted a taller, padded headboard, so we hacked our own. This didn't end up saving us money compared to purchasing a new bed frame and headboard, but it was a great project for some serious Ikea Hacking (check out Ikea Hacker for more Ikea Hacking). And in the end, we have a headboard and bed that we love.

The desires for our bed were:

• tall padded area to sit up in bed to read or work on the laptops
• night stands at mattress level for alarm clock, drinks, lamps, and other stuff
• limited clutter from cables and cords
• lighting that could be controlled from either side of the bed
• lighting that wasn't too hot (no halogen lights) and was energy efficient if we fell asleep with the lights on

Our bedframe was a King frame, so we hacked two Malm nightstands, Malm king frame, another Malm headboard, and a Pax wardrobe cabinet. The lights are also Ikea with compact-fluorescent bulbs. We opted to pull the bed off the wall to give it more dimension and to make it easier to access the power plugs behind the bed. And honestly, it made it easier to screw it all together.

Check out the Flickr set for more pics along with captions and Flickr Notes on the details - 2007 Ikeahack Malm Headboard

First hack - Nightstands
In order to make the nightstands taller. I switched the location of the drawer along with the little shelf - mount the drawer in the top holes and the shelf in the bottom holes. I only needed to drill two new holes to make the drawer unit install higher. I then cut off the little shelf so that it would install under the drawer - the little shelf is used to keep laptop power adapters off the floor. I also drilled a hole in the back for a cable grommet to route plugs/wires through the night stand. Since the drawer units were taller, I used the scrap from cutting the small shelf as a support to give the nightstand more stability.

The headboard - working with the Malm material
Before putting it together, I mounted the lights and did the wiring for the control switches. The lights are wired to a dual switch mounted in the middle of the headboard, so each of us can control both lights.

The next challenge was stacking a second headboard onto the existing one and making sure it was secure (we are in earthquake country).

This is where you need to work with the solid parts of the Malm material. There is about a 1" wide solid wood border on the headboard with about a 4-6" solid section in the middle of the headboard running vertically. I was able to use a stud finder in order to mark the edges of the solid material. I also drilled small holes to confirm the critical areas were solid.

I used a strip of 1" x 2" wood screwed to the back edge of each headboard with drywall screws. This secured the headboard and aligned it.

The top shelf was cut from the side wall of a Pax wardrobe unit. The finish matches, and it provided finished edges along with the strength to support the headboard. I once again used a 1" x 2" wood strip (cleat) screwed to the studs of the wall to support the top shelf. The top shelf was screwed from the top into the wall cleat and into the top of the headboard. There is also a hole with cable covers in the top shelf to allow for the routing of lamp cords.

In order to secure the padded squares, I screwed in a 1" x 2" wood strip on the back at the level where the padded squares would be mounted. This basically creates an exoskeleton that allows the strip to form the structure for the padded squares. In hindsight, this was overkill. I should have used super-strong Velcro strips to mount them.

The tops of the nightstands were also cut from the Pax material. I mounted the night stand tops with Pax hinges to create a hidden storage area. A hidden shelf was installed inside the top of the nightstands that could hold a power strip and other items. This helps keep a clutter free area. Once again this part took a ton of time to get right, and I'm not sure if it was worth it. It does make it easier to reach the plugs, power strip and cabling, but the hinges were a pain to install.

The last step is to decide if we want to cover the sides of the headboard to hide the structure that exists behind the headboard. For now, it doesn't bother us.

Unclutter my desk - Network Board

This was a weekend project I took on a couple months ago with the goal of cleaning up the surface of our desk. I had seen a few different versions of this project on Lifehacker which led me to Decluttered . I ended up building mine with materials I had in the garage.



The goals for this project were:

• keep the network devices off the desk
• minimize the cable clutter (this was a side benefit)
• keep the devices cool or at least prevent overheating (this meant no enclosures)
• allow the WiFi router to maintain good coverage -- keep the antennas clear
• allow for easy access to reboot the router (it's needed every 3-4 weeks)

So a section of peg board that I had in the garage, some paint to match the wall, two small L-brackets to secure the board to the underside of the desk, and a handful of zip ties to secure the devices to the board led to the finished product.

I also added an L-bracket to support the network drive since it weighs a bit more than the other devices.

A little time mapping out the location for each device -- allowing enough space for airflow and for the cabling to be tied to the board. I zipped tied everything in place before I mounted the board in place. Then mounted the brackets to the underside of the desk. Plugged in the power strip. The network was back up, and the desk was clean. At least until the mail and paperwork took over the free space.

Now if I could just find a hack that keeps the desk clear of paperwork I'd be happy.

See more pictures and notes at the Flickr set - 2007 Network Board

Intro Post -- Launch of aerialsoul blog

After a few false starts of setting up a blog on Aerialsoul many years ago, I'm now ready to launch blog.aerialsoul.com. This is just one part of my 2008 goal of keeping in touch with family and friends. I'm not sure how often I'll post. Maybe once a week -- maybe more, maybe less. The topics will range from details on personal projects, updates on our life, rants about random experiences, and raves about products and services.

The first few posts will be about a few events and projects from the past 6 months. So these posts may come a little quicker.

How can you track the posts? You have a few options (and I may even write up more details in a later post if you want them):

• Just check back on a regular basis -- there may be something waiting for you.
• Sign up for Multiply and add me as a contact (aerialsoul) - I plan on cross posting to my Multiply account and the Multiply email notifications work well.
• Use an RSS reader and subscribe to this blog (Yahoo Mail has a RSS reader built in, Google offers Google Reader, and there are others) and also subscribe to my Flickr feed too.
• Use a service that will email you the RSS feed (there are a few but I haven't used any)

So stay tuned and hope I can keep my 2008 goals!!