Home Fileserver

I installed a file server at home this past week. There was a spare PC lying around. I think its either an old Celeron or an AMD Sempron on an ECS motherboard. It used to be the POS at our store. But after Ondoy, we replaced several of our equipment.

Anyway, I installed Turnkey Linux's File Server Appliance on it. I love the stuffs from Turnkey Linux. This is the third type of pre-configured appliance I've downloaded from them. There's the Wordpress Virtual Machine appliance that I'm using for Dragonpay. I'm also running three (3) barebone core Linux virtual machines. Now, its the File Server appliance.

The File Server image is available in both ISO and VM format. Since I wanted to test first how it behaves, I initially played around with the VM version by running it under the free VMWare Player. It worked without any configuration necessary. My Windows XP could immediately see the SAMBA share from the VM.

For the home file server, I burnt the ISO image onto a CD-ROM disc. It took me some time to get the old PC to boot from it mainly because my CD-ROM drives are all unusable already. I had to throw away three old CD-ROM drives before finding an old Asus one that still worked. Installation from there was a breeze. The installer CD prompts you for basic things and reformats/repartitions your drive. Enter an IP address and you're off. A quick check from our home Windows XP shows the share is already available.

What's Going On?

There's a school along Annapolis Greenhills called Fountain International School. Its right across Atlanta Center (which is more popularly known as the building where Nida Blanca was killed). I've passed this school a few times in the past couple of weeks and there is a banner outside that has been bothering me.

The huge sign across their wall says: "ENROLLMENT IS ON GOING". Is it just me or does it look grammatically incorrect? As far as I know, "ongoing" is one word and not two.

Normally, I would not make a big fuss out of a wrong grammar in a signage as that is very common in the Philippines. But this is a school for crying out old! This is a place where children are supposed to learn good English. If the school administrators and principals who enter that school every day do not even find their own signage strange, there is something very wrong with the English standard of that school. Parents beware!

The Birds and The Bees

I'm babysitting the kids this weekend as Cols is in GenSan. Over dinner the other night, Caitlin started asking me about the birds and the bees -- you know, where do babies come from? She's only 7 years old. Isn't she a bit too young to be asking this? Anyway, I quickly parried the question by explaining to her that it is still too difficult for her to understand the concept and that her biology teacher in high school will be able to explain it better. She did not insist after that. Phew!

We went to watch Jack Black's Gulliver's Travel at Greenhills Theater this afternoon. I used the Citibank credit card movie promo. For every single credit card receipt of at least P1,500, you get P100 off from the movie ticket. One of my receipts was more than P5k (it was for a car battery). That one entitled me to a completely free movie pass. Greenhills Theater now charges P180 for an ordinary movie (ie. not 3D). So I still had to pay P80 per person.

The movie is so-so. It was interesting how they used different camera perspective to make Jack Black look larger than the other characters. But you can still tell that they are just super-imposing the different shots on top of each other. I guess if you do not have a budget like that of James Cameron, you just have to make do with what you have.

Hello World from Up In The Air

I'm currently flying on board Delta Airlines from New York City to Salt Lake City. The plane is offering free Wi-Fi service until Jan 3 (tomorrow). So even though I'm really sleepy for having to wake up at 4am today, I just had to try the experience.

The speed is pretty fantastic and rivals wireline DSL service. Each session lasts for 45 minutes only. But you can just close your browser and re-login. Lots of people are using their laptops and iPads on board. When it goes commercial, the airline will charge about USD12 for the service (not sure if that is only still for 45 mins). Would be great to have this service in PAL or CEB in the future. Yeah, maybe 10 years from now.

Day 11: Driving to NYC

We were supposed to leave Niagara Sheraton on the Falls by 10am, but for one reason or another, we left almost 11am. When we crossed the Rainbow Bridge to the US border, we got detained for a couple of hours in immigration along with other nationals. I swear, immigration people are the most unfriendly people there are.

We left the center around 1pm and had lunch at a Denny's nearby. Ethan threw up at the restaurant while Nikki decided to bring Allison to a nearby hospital ER to treat her ear infection that has been bothering her for a few days.

We drove on ahead with dad, Cols and the kids in our Hertz Nissan Altima. I just followed the GPS from Buffalo all the way to NYC passing through the I-90, I-86 route. It was a long boring ride because there was nothing scenic at all. Just miles and miles of freeway.

We had a stopover break at Cortland to buy supplies. We arrived at Embassy Suites NYC 11pm. I tried to return the car to the nearest Hertz drop-off point, but it was already closed. So I had to pay an extra night of parking across the hotel

Day 10: Niagara Falls

We started the day with brunch at IHOP. Then dad joined us at Niagara Horseshoe Falls visitor center. We went through the "behind the falls" tour. After that, Les went to pickup the car to drive Dad home. Cols, Caitlin, Ethan and I had a long, slow walk back to the hotel.

From Niagara Falls

We watched a 4D Spongebob movie feature and had dinner at Planet Hollywood to cap the day.

Day 9: Niagara Falls

I got a very disturbing txt from Judith about an NBI raid in the middle of the night that bothered me, so I did not get much sleep I called up Elvie long distance to clarify it and put my mind at ease. I got to sleep a couple of hours then woke up around 6am to get ready for our 8:30am flight to Toronto.

The weather this morning is terribly freezing. Les' relatives drove us to the domestic airport. When I stepped out of car to get a pushcart, the wind hitting exposed skin hurt like hell. This is pretty intense compared to New England winter.

When we got to the Air Canada check-in counter, the plane was already boarding. The airline officer assisted us and rushed through security. We were able to cut several lines, but had to go through the security checks that could not be avoided. Since we were a big group, it really took time to inspect each person. So I ran ahead to the terminal gate to stall the door from closing while the rest of the party caught up. Phew! Luckily, the plane waited for us.

I slept through most of the 4 to 5 hour flight. We arrived Toronto around noon. Toronto Pearson Airport is huge. For an airport this large, its odd that push carts are not free, but you have to pay for it. Even good ol' NAIA has stopped this practice already. Its very tourist-unfriendly.

Toronto is not really part of our itinerary. Its just the closest airport to Niagara. From the airport, first stop was to look for a Chinese restaurant (groan). We used the cars' GPS and ended up at China Palace outside the airport. From there, I got to talk to my former neighbor, Alfred, who is now based in Toronto.

Les and I bought some supplies at a nearby Walmart. Then we drove through Toronto to catch a glimpse of CN Tower, then drove onwards to Niagara. We arrived at our hotel, Sheraton by the Falls, very tired and sleepy.

From Niagara Falls