NZ Tekonverse

  • New bits for “old” computers [9]

    Unfortunately I have not attended to any of the tasks in my last post yet because some aerial photos I was working on last week for mapping have to be redone. This time I have just closed off all web browsers and other applications in mainpc and used that one for Gimp so its full…

  • New bits for “old” computers [8]

    After a week or two with the new keyboard layout it has bedded in well and is now pretty much the default as I have been using serverpc to do a lot of time consuming and resource intensive Gimp stuff and are freed from a lot of thumb twiddling as I wait for it to…

  • Multiple keyboards [2]

    This is what the arrangement of keyboards now looks like with my computers. Basically on the left you have the double keyboard slide with two keyboards on slides under the desk, and then a third keyboard above. Over to the right you can see a fourth keyboard on top, and then below it two KVM…

  • Photography notes 03/2018

    I used to write on this blog a lot about my digital cameras and photography. Back then I took a lot more photos and even had many thousands of them published online. However in recent years my focus for photography as a hobby has waned and I took down virtually all of my online photos,…

  • Multiple keyboards etc

    My last post mentioned keyboard layout arrangements at my desk. I have now completed building a double keyboard slide (two sliding shelves directly on top of each other) the purpose of which is easy access to two different keyboards/mice for working with two computers simultaneously. This job took all day on Wednesday to complete and…

  • ReinstallMyPC: Symlinking /home/patrick/Maps to /mnt/share/mainpc/maps

    This week I started using serverpc to store some Qgis maps resources for NZ Rail Maps. Because everything has to work across network and local access (directly from mainpc) it means mainpc has to have a symlink created as mentioned in the title. Using the command to do this: ln -s /home/patrick/Maps /mnt/share/mainpc/maps whereby maps…

  • New bits for “old” computers [7]

    The serverpc is now being used to store additional mapping resources, specifically aerial photos as the amount of space these take up is significant and at times has filled up a lot of disk space on mainpc. I am working on a new layout of my keyboards so that I can use both computers at…

  • New bits for “old” computers [6]

    The HDD bracket for serverpc arrived today so that is the opportunity to finish off this computer and bolt it to its shelf, all now complete. It was annoying that the expensive heavy brackets I bought from Mitre10 turn out not to be bent at a right angle, with the shelf drooping down more than…

  • New bits for “old” computers [5]

    So serverpc is now complete with RAM and excluding the HDD bracket which should come on Monday. It proves to be quite capable of running 12 GB VMs for different versions of Qgis so that part of it looks OK. I have it installed with Debian 9.3 and not much more than Virtualbox at the…

  • New bits for “old” computers [4]

    So I finished putting together the server last night, and then installed it. The motherboard SATA ports caused me enough concern to stop the assembly, and spend a little bit of time putting hot melt glue around them to reinforce them. Obviously this sort of activity will void your warranty, but since the board is…