Interface Cards & Controllers

Information Overload - I Think My Head Is About To Explode!

Facebook, Linked-In, and Google Analytics

 

I haven't figured out Facebook yet. I twitter, sort of, I blog, a lot, and spend countless hours entering metadata, reading blogs, trying to understand what the heck is going on in this crazy business, uploading images, consulting with my webmaster on our ongoing SEO efforts, and occasionally taking a look at linked-in.

 

I just learned how to view alt text with my Firefox browser, and to check my Google page ranking. I do keyword research; check my server log reports and Google analytics.

 

Final Cut Pro, File Maker Pro, and Fetch

 

I have learned some Final Cut Pro, am struggling with File Maker Pro, need to download numerous firmware updates, can't ever finish downloading any software updates and can't get my licensing straight with Fetch. One of my computers is slower than molasses and I can't for the life of me figure out why.

 

The battery on my UPS needs replacing and beeps at me every fifteen minutes, and costs about the same as replacing the whole unit. Not cheap.  Somehow I only have one card reader, which is always plugged into the wrong machine with a card in it that I don't remember if I have downloaded.

 

Monitor Calibration, Microsoft Office, and Bridge

 

I have two one terabyte RAIDs online, both filled to the brim…and about five one terabyte drives with stuff haphazardly copied onto them…and not much room left to do anything with. I haven't calibrated any of my six monitors in, well, years! I have three laptops and one works…though the battery lasts approximately twelve minutes.

 

I can only use Microsoft office on one machine at a time, and, naturally, it never seems to be working on the machine I need it on. On one machine bridge refuses to see all the images on one of the RAIDs, but works fine on everything else. I have no idea what "permissions" are.

 

 

Inaccurate Restrictions, Captions and a Human Answering the Phone

 

I realized the other day that Getty has inaccurate restrictions on at least some of my images, but do I really have time to check on all six thousand? I noticed yesterday that one of my captions at Blend Images refers to a man as a woman. Is that important? Well, at least if I call Blend a human will answer the phone!

 

Video, Metadata, and Model Releases

 

I have two videos waiting to be sent to Getty, but can't face doing the metadata. My first Canon 5D video is sitting on a couple of cards waiting for me to figure out the Final Cut Pro thing again. The stills from that shoot are on a couple of more cards…I know they are around here somewhere! For that matter, I bet the model release are too…I never through any of that stuff away! That reminds me, my printer is out of ink….

 

Battery Life, the Genius Bar, and Google Buzz

 

Should I worry about my battery life when I only pick up my camera once a month? Should I keep them on the charger…or is that for the ProFoto 7b batteries? Why can't I get my e-mail on my iPhone…I used to be able to!

 

For that matter, how come the guy at the Genius bar couldn't figure out what the problem was?  Some photographers are creating apps for their promo efforts.  What! Am I supposed to create phone apps now? And what is this I hear about Google Buzz?

 

I think my head is going to explode!

About the Author

Stock Photos: John Lund's Stock Photo and Funny Picture Portfolio Index

 

Stock Photography: Brand New Stock Photos - Latest Stock Photos and Funny Pictures

 

John Lund Stock Photos: Animal Antics Portfolio

The Horde Level Guide Is Still The Best Way To Level

Horde Level Guide Are Still The The Best Way To Level

World of Warcraft is a game which may change each and every update and each new expansion brings improvements, or at least changes to leveling a character. Initially leveling a horde character was mostly about finding the right level mobs and killing them, and then finding more and killing them. However with the Burning Crusade expansion, questing became much more efficient and that is when a horde level guide became an important addon. Now with Wrath of the Lich King random dungeons provide moderately fast leveling. However although you can level from 16 - 80 doing nothing but dungeons it is certainly not the best way to go about it, for some very specific reasons.

Dungeons can be wearing and frustrating especially when heals won't heal, tank won't hold agro, and dps is not going pew pew, some days are just like that. There is also a little catch that many don't find until they are near 80 and try and find their way into Sholazar Basin or discover the only flightpath they have in Borean Tundra is the start area. That's right, queue in the dungeon finder and you get taken to those exotic dungeons full of monsters out to kill you, but you may well have no clue what map that dungeon is on, much less how to get back there. Use a horde level guide instead and you will have every flight path and a whole lot of reputation as well.

Level guides have not stood still however and they will provide some things that instancing can't. For instance doing the quests in an area will leave a player with a significant amount of gold as well as all the flight paths and plenty of faction reputation. Level guides will give the players all the benefits listed as well as some nice drop blues. Using a horde guide in conjunction with instancing every few levels can help a player reach 80 fast and leave them with the gold to buy their epic mount as well as the gear to play that character well.

Some of the best horde leveling guide choices have a special ingame interface that shows up on the screen with no need to consult quest logs or to tab out to look at a web page. One in particular has a smart quest interface that will skip unnecessary quests if you level too far ahead. There is also a nifty little ingame talent guide for at least one that even makes your talent choices for you automatically.

The talent guide can be very useful for the individual who always puts at least one point in the wrong talent. A lot of gold has gone down the pipe on that little error from many people leveling a character. Smarter quest guides with ingame interfaces and smarter tom tom pointers make for faster leveling time as well.

Some level guides will also come with a free trial or try it before you buy it feature. These usually do not require a credit card and can give the player a realistic idea of what each level guide does. The early levels are much simpler and faster but still a preview of the leveling guide can help narrow down the choices drastically.

Go straight to the net's leading authority site about this topic and learn more today, click here now!: wow alchemy guide, paladin leveling guide and zygor horde leveling guide

Use for an old computer aka RAID vs. Apple Time Capsule?

So my two friends and I are moving in together and we're trying to figure out how to set up a large shared drive.

I am getting a Dell Power Edge 1300 (PII processor) server off of Freecycle. My plan was to throw in a RAID controller pci card, an ethernet pci card and two sata hard drives and run Windows 2000 on it.

The one Apple user suggested we look into Time Capsule which looks like an expensive external hard drive and wifi router. It's really only designed for best compatibility with Apple computers.

I think our apple user should install MacFUSE/NTFS-3G or something similar to allow writing to NTFS as well turning on windows file sharing which is built into OSX.

The Dell could be an FTP server so it wouldn't matter what the drive was formatted to but that means alienating our less tech savvy third roommate as well as not being able to use it in real time as a mapped network drive.

Pro/Cons of each option?

The third option sounds least appealing to me, as the drawbacks outweigh the benefit. As for picking between a Time Capsule and the Dell server, it occurs to me that the server would likely consume a good deal more power, which could be a problem if you guys will be taking care of the power bill (i.e. not living in a dorm), but may offer more compatibility with the Windows machines than a Time Capsule (I'm not sure what TC's limitations are in terms of usable file systems and Windows compatibility). Either way, missing file system support can be remedied on either side — on the Mac side by adding NTFS support as you mentioned, or on the Windows side with MacDrive (or similar products if there are any).

So uh...rambling aside, it looks like a Time Capsule is an unknown quantity, which warrants further research. If it can be easily mapped on Windows machines and not just Macs (and your Mac-using buddy doesn't hog all the space for his backups, haha), it may be preferable as its power consumption would most likely be well under that of a full-on server. If it won't play nice, then the server would probably be better. Best of luck!

How to: Create a RAID10 on a Mac Pro w/o spending 600€ on a RAID Card