Handy Little Helping Hands Mutation

I use those helping hands tool for messing with electronics and other small projects.

I love Lidl sometimes. This was another gold find. A few months ago, I saw on their web site that they had them, so I got two of them.

Full of handiness.

This is what they look like.

These are the boxed fellas.

I often found that there were not enough clips to assist me with my very important work.

I thought, I should buy another.

I saw the advert for Lidl, and got two at a great price.

After swapping some of the bits around I was able to build some mutated tools, which gave me more then I needed.































And again......

Major Computer Failure

I woke up on Wednesday to find that the boiler had not turned on.

I have an iPaq that I use from the scratcher to control things around the house. I cranked it up and nothing. I then arose and checked out the house server called 'Multipass'. The name is based on a scene from 'The Fifth Element'.

It was dead. Switched it on and a few minutes later it powered down again. I powered it on a few times and the same result. Dead.

I had always suspected that it would fail. The PSU was not really up to the job. It was 300W and there were a few disks and a fairly beefy motherboard installed. Not a big server but a well used one.

Anyway it died.

I toddled off to work, as you do.

On the way home, I called into PC World and had a look.

For fecks sake. PSUs about 50 to 150 euros. There was no one around to help me with my problem.

I thought... Maybe get a new case with PSU included. None of their cases has PSU included. Cases from 50 to more then 200. Feck again, I said.

Exit stage left...........

I was almost home, when I remembered that there was a computer shop on the Johnstown Road, called A1 Computers.

I did a quick U-turn and headed there. They had a case with PSU for 50 euros. Had a quick look and bought it. Shiny black. Cool

I spent most of the rest of the evening moving the old stuff to the new case. The new case was about 5cm smaller front to back then the original case.

This proved to be a bit of a challenge but I got everything fitted in. The main issue I had, was that the screw holes for the drives did not line up. I fitted the drives using gravity as the securing system. Not great but the server is out if the way and will never move while it is on.

I cranked it up and after a few issues, everything started fine.

It is amazing how much one begins to rely on a hose server.

My one has the following config:

Linux - Fedora
Apache
Mysql
Php

1-Wire - Controlling temperature measurement inside and out (shankillweather.com). It is also used for the heating boiler controller.

CurrentCost - electricity monitoring and reporting.

HomeEasy - electrical device power on/off as part of a home automation project including an Ardino ethernet controller.

X-10 - again home automation of devices

File server - for general 'My Documents' centralization, music, videos, pictures, pdfs etc.

Web Server - several specific web pages for wiring, IP address db, weather and temperature pages and a general house page with sites of interest, including TV, media and public transport links.

Virtual Machine running Windows XP.

Digiguide central repository.

Things you take for granted are not there when the system failed.

Anyway, all back and available. Cool.

Sheeva PlugComputer

It seems I have bought a Sheeva PlugComputer. Not really sure what I will use it for.

Probably some Home Automation solution or monitoring activity.

Options are 1-Wire, CurrentCost or HomeEasy applications.

Linux = anything

Home Made Chorizo

I have been messing about for the past few months with various sausage recipes. Some have been fairly successful while others turned out awful.

Last Saturday I decided to have another go. I went to the Spicy Sausage (not a person) and came across a recipe for Chorizo. http://thespicysausage.com/recipes/chorizo1.htm

I had a couple of gigot pork chops, purchased for this very purpose. What is a gigot chop anyway? I always thought it was lamb. That's what it said on the label anyway.

I cut them into bits and blitzed them in a food processor. Not too fine. Mixed in the spices, herbs, salt and the other ingredients including plenty of garlic.

Made a small patty and fried it. The result was fantastic. I was so surprised by the texture. It was exactly like a Chorizo.

I only had a fraction of the meat outlined in the recipe, so had to make adjustments to the quantities. I think I put too much salt in to though.

It was very nice indeed. I tried it with a few things. Eggs did not really work, even though you would thing they would.

I tried them with potatoes and I would have to say they are best friends.

I will definitely make it again. The next time, check it for seasoning as I go, rather then just plonking in the salt and cayenne.

I don't think I will go down the road of actually making sausages in the casings and all that. Well, not at present anyway.

The Spirit Movie

I just saw the Spirit. In general, it didn't think it was great.

I was a great fan of the comics, and thought that they did not do justice to Will Eisner.

Still the effects were great and even some of the visual jokes resulted in a chuckle.

I don't think I would bother watching it again.

Jerd

Sourdough Bread

I made a batch of sourdough starter about 2 months ago. Everything went fine.

I took a while for me to get the hang of using the sourdough starter as a replacement for my normal rising agent which is dried yeast.

I found that it took about 20 to 22 hours for the dough to fully proove before baking. This is not a problem. All it means is that the baking requires more planning.

I made both white and brown loaves. The white was a fantastic product. It seemed like a cross between normal white bread (whatever that is) and Italian ciabatta. It was crusty and chewy with lots of big holes. Hmmmm....

The brown bread product was a different matter. I tried it with both strong brown flour and wholemeal flour. It was quite nice. It was light but not as light as the white. The extra density in the flour, produced a product that was much more crumbly but not crumbly in a good way. The texture of saw dust springs to mind, which I claim that I have never eaten.

The reception of these by the various patrons has been mixed. My brother and the Mater say it is Brillo Pads (Very Nice) where as the Lovely Noodles (My Wife), Pina Pina and Nead (My Daughters) would rather drink from a pox bottle (Not a good thing). I dont actually know what a pox bottle is but I feel that it would not be a very nice thing. My friend Whoolio also thinks it is Brillo and so do I.

I am not sure how long I will continue to go down the sourdough road. It is a bit of a hassle. The sourdough starter need to be looked after at least every 2 days.

I feel compelled (wrongly of course) to only bake sourdough bread. I can probably get therapy for that. I should probably mix the baking styles more, i.e. soda bread, normal yeast and sourdough. That should keep everyone happy, even me.

Feeding the starter makes the starter grow in volume quite a bit. I would say that I have about 2000 mils of the stuff. I am such a cheapskate I hate throwing good stuff out.

Anyway, it died and got washed down to the big sink.

Always good for the biomass of the drains.

Now back to soda bread and dried yeast (mostly) bread.

DNS Problems Not Resolved

Finally, I can access this blog from home. I had an issue with my DNS that I have been able to overcome. Simple really, as it often is.

Freedom at Last

Hello Dolly