Taking the first step to a new home!

Tonight Debs and I sat down with a realtor to start the process of buying our first home. We have been looking at houses online for a few months now…but nothing to serious. We made a ‘joint resolution’ this new years to get into a new home before the end of the year (or at least a good ways down that path).

Her bosses fiance happens to work for Coldwell Banker, and met with us tonight to get a get a general idea of our price range, our interests, and our time frame. This also gave Deborah and I and idea of what we were ACTUALLY looking for – together. For a while I really thought we had already figured this out…but im starting to see we still have a ways to go.

Ill be making posts over this time to give people updates on our progress as well as topics and notes that I think would help other people looking to buy their first home, espc. in Richmond, VA.

Listening To: the local nightly news….

Journal File System gone bad….

They are damn cool, but if your journal gets corrupted, your fsck’d (haha…*nix geek joke…haha).

The Mac OS uses journals for HFS+, which really can come in handy. But recently, I had do some work on a machine that kernal panic’d every time it tried to boot. Putting the machine in FWTDM and connecting it to my machine didnt work either. My machine would see the device, and even the partitions and layout, but not mount the drive. When looking at my ‘/var/log/system.log’, I found the following…

Jan 30 16:00:50 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: disk1s9: I/O error.
Jan 30 16:00:50 mymacbookpro diskarbitrationd[43]: unable to mount /dev/disk1s9 (status code 0x00000001).
Jan 30 16:00:50 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: jnl: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x5
Jan 30 16:00:50 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: jnl: open: could not read 512 bytes for the journal header.
Jan 30 16:00:50 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: hfs: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0).
Jan 30 16:00:50 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: disk1s9: I/O error.
Jan 30 16:01:08 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: jnl: open: journal magic is bad (0x0 != 0x4a4e4c78)
Jan 30 16:01:08 mymacbookpro diskarbitrationd[43]: unable to mount /dev/disk1s9 (status code 0x00000001).
Jan 30 16:01:08 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: hfs: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0).
Jan 30 16:01:08 mymacbookpro diskarbitrationd[43]: disk1s9 hfs XXXXXXYYY-1111-12134-A585-123456789034 BootDrive [not mounted]
Jan 30 16:01:08 mymacbookpro kernel[0]: hfs(3): Journal replay fail. Writing lastMountVersion as FSK!

Uh Oh.

Running Disk Utility.app said it would repair the disk, but this never worked. I would try to mount it afterwards and still get the error that my journal was bad. Well, why dont we just tell the OS not to use the journal? Well, that wont work either…you have to be able to MOUNT the drive to get it to work.

Dont waste any more time. Get Disk Warrior. Run it on the volume. It just works. Done.

Listening To: ‘Echoes’ by Pink Floyd

Rock Out!

I was doing my rounds on some of my favorite band’s websites, mainly NIN and The Smashing Pumpkins. Boy was I happy…

I had not checked recently, but if you go to smashingpumpkins.com, they mention that the new album is pretty far along and will be released sometime this year, and even have a few pictures (you only ever see Jimmy though). There is still no details on WHO else is in the band other than Jimmy and Billy. The one cool thing I liked? If you click around enough (going to the Myspace page, the livejournal page, etc), Jimmy talks about one track that has ‘eight guitars in glorious harmony’. One can only imagine…

Nine Inch Nails is also in final mixing of a new album that will be coming out this spring. Im a huge fan of ‘With Teeth’ and really feel that each album is better than the last. I also love the pictures that they post from the studio, the road, etc. But Trent with a beard? (By the way…that photographer they use is AMAZING). Unf. from posts made to the site earlier by Trent, they may not be doing an american tour with the new album :(.

BUT, they will be releasing a DVD/HD-DVD/BlueRay version of the tour that Debs and I got to go see…which is beautiful. I will be buying this the day it comes out. Check out halo22.nin.com to see all the details!

On a complete different subject – this weather is crazy. Twice today it has been snowing randomly (and pretty hard) while the sun is fully out. Before the last time, you actually could not see outside it was snowing so hard. Very freaky – almost like a scene from Volcano.

Well, its time to get back to installing a pretty cool mail server here at work…of course while rocking out thanks to my iPod 🙂

Listening to: ‘Suck (live)’ by Nine Inch Nails

Verizon FiOS Internet and IPTV

Verizon rolled out their FiOS service here in Richmond a little while ago. IPTV was just released a little over a month or two ago, and we finally decided to make the move. My install date is the morning of Feb. 1st. I plan on documenting the install as well as talking about the service once I get it. When looking for documentation and reviews online, there are still not that many, and I have not even seen one yet that describes all the ‘Home Media DVR’ features.

The best part of the whole deal? We are leaving comcast AGAIN, and also saving a lot of money by moving. And even better…we get more features, channels, and a better internet connection!

Listening To: ‘Lost In Hollywood’ by System of a Down

Bunch of randomness on eBay!

I have listed a bunch of different items on ebay to make a few extra bucks, and to clean up around the house. I plan on listing a LOT more over the next few weeks, and ill put up some info here when I do!

Listening To: ‘Dead Souls’ by Joy Division

Windows has poor people-skills

As mentioned in my previous post, I rebuilt my desktop on Saturday morning. The machine had started slowing down, things locking up, and other random quirky issues. I decided (espc. with my current PC use), that a rebuild would be the best thing to do, and then I would limit the ammount of ‘crap’ I put on my machine, and espc. test it before I do.

I got to thinking though (since im really more of a Mac user now than anything)…why does Windows do this to user accounts? For the average Mac user, its very easy to see ‘what you have running’. For the PC, its actually a lot harder, since there are SO many background services that people will run without even thinking. And over time, this can make your machine crawl.

The rebuild went very smoothly, and my PC feels much ‘cleaner’ again. Luckily documenting my plans, processes, and  ideas really helped. I just wish I didnt have to do this almost twice a year 🙂

Listening To: Keyboard clatter on the laptop and sirens. Not those sirens….these!

On the move

Ive been running around like usual the last few days, but im finally getting things done, which really makes me feel good. Its been a big week as well… today is my good friend (and co-worker) Nate’s last day here. Its going to weird not working with him anymore, but of course wish him the best at whatever job he ends up doing.

With work, Ive been trying to be a lot more efficient with my time and tools to just get things done. Work can really be rewarding when things ‘just work’, and I would like to see that more often. Ill be taking my first trip of the year this weekend, going back to Charlotte, NC. While this trip is involved (we are basically swapping around actual Xserves and the systems that run on them, not the services that run on those systems)…it should be pretty easy with the right planning. We will see how that works….

I also have yet again decided to rebuild my desktop, but this time, again with a ‘getting things done’ goal. Right now, I have loaded a bunch of random things on there that I really dont use. Over time, the machine has slowed down WAY to much, and is just a pain to use at times. By installing a limited, but really useful application set, I can get more things done, and spend less time doing them. Using tools like ‘ta-da lists‘, I have made online ‘checklists’ documenting my progress through the entire process.

Listening To: ‘Taxi Ride’ by Tori Amos

My Macworld 2007 Review

If you have not seen yet, Apple announced the iPhone and the Apple TV at the Macworld Expo today. Oh, and they changed their name from Apple Computers Inc. to Apple Inc.

Just like any other geek, espc. being an Apple geek, today is somewhat of a big day. Here at work, they even bought us pizza and we sat around the TV watching the feeds from MacRumors.com and Engadget. One thing I thought was odd – they talked about the iPhone for 1.5 hours, the Apple TV for only 30 minutes.

They think the iPhone is a big deal. And it is…really. But personally? Im not interested. Theres no reason for me to get one…and MORESO at that price point. Apple has been doing a real good job recently on GREAT price points for what you get, but to me, the iPhone isnt there. I dont want to drop $500-$600 for a phone, espc. on a first revision. Yah, its an iPod, but only an 8GB one. I do think this thing looks awesome, and can not WAIT to see it in action, and even personalized. But, if anything, I really think this shows us where apple is going.

For example, look at the interface for the iPod (1-5.5G). All the same. One of my biggest pet-peves with the iPod is that the interface can not be customized, and just doesnt look that cool anymore. After playing with a Zune for 10 minutes, while the Human-device interaction sucked, the GUI was amazing. Apple needs to stay ahead of the game, and if ANYTHING, just change the damn colors! Or better yet, lets simplify/unify the new Front Row interface. For example, make the menus match (as much as possible), make the top level menu match (icons rather than another menu), and lets make it all in black :). This would also help many ‘switchers’ see the connections between both the iPod and FrontRow…and personally I think using the two together would really help. Also, now that Apple has popped the lid on a widescreen, touch-sensitive device, why not throw that in as well.

What did excite me about Macworld ’07 was the Apple TV. For a while I have been testing different web-based media centers to work with my Wii and my media, espc. my music. Well, with the Apple TV, it just works. I would also be more willing to add my movies to my iTunes library, so I can share those as well. After talking to Deborah this afternoon, we are REALLY looking at the Apple TV to do all of this. And at the $299 price point, its just right. For a while we were thinking about buying a mini to hook up to the TV and then also take upstairs for a desktop, but that really is overkill (espc. now that they are starting at $599). Therefore, the Apple TV just makes sense.

I am supprised on how they managed this keynote. Yes, the phone is the coolest thing ever, but only two products, both which are still not available? What about new displays? iLife and iWork ’07? What about a new wide-screen iPod? Oh well….theres always the ‘One More Thing…’ thing they could pull 🙂

Listening To: ‘Let It All Bleed Out’ by Rob Zombie

New Years 2007!

New Years Eve/New Years was quite a bit of fun this year. We went to a party that we actually were able to walk to from out place. Good beer, good food, and great friends. I also managed to take some good shots that I liked throughout the night.

All the images are in the “New Years 2006-2007” set on flickr (which you can go directly to by clicking here). Or you can see all of my sets by clicking the Flickr icon on the right!

Like usual, all the images are uploaded in a much lower resolution. Yes, I know I have Flickr Pro now and dont have to worry about size, but I still like to keep the ones I posted small. If you would like any larger resolution versions, please leave a comment or send me an email, and I will respond!

Listening To: ‘Township Rebellion’ by Rage Against The Machine