deandra.homeip.net

At work I have a 20" LCD which I attach to my laptop, for more screen real-estate. My laptop has an NVidia video chipset, complete with TwinView and dual-head support, but normally I just run the outputs cloned together, and just use the large display when I'm at my desk.

Just wanted to let all my avid readers know that I've got some new nature and animal photos, and posted the results of some RAW photo manipulation in my Experiments album.

I've also updated the RSS feed settings for my Gallery, so that it is a little more useful. Check it out.

...that GNOME plays nice with LUKS-encrypted portable devices? I sure didn't, until this morning.

(Of course, if you already knew this, then I'm probably not going to tell you anything new, so you can safely skip this article. But hey, you never know, so you might want to read on anyway.)

So, I've been playing with VBox on my laptop, and wanting to access files on a connected USB thumbdrive.

But try as I might, I cannot get the virtual machines to see attached USB devices. Turns out, it's due to a problem of permissions in Debian Lenny. Basically, /proc/bus/usb is mounted in such a way that VirtualBox cannot correctly enumerate the devices.

Today a coworker pointed out to me Sun's VirtualBox, which is an Open-source virtualization platform (much like VMWare Workstation.) Thus far, I've only installed it on my laptop and installed Windows XP into a VM, but I like it already.

Well, I got my money's worth out of the recent Quesnel Home and Leisure Show. Some interesting information about titanium-coated cookware, posts you screw into the ground, and pimped-out hot tubs.

In an effort to be greener, I have been rearranging my home network. You may have noticed this by the recent service outages and broken configuration on my website.

Previously, I had two machines running full-time at home: Daphne, which was my file/print/web/mail/DHCP/DNS server/firewall, and Pooh, which was my jukebox/MythTV machine. This was so for a number of reasons:

The CHDK firmware add-on is now available for the Canon SX10 IS. This firmware is a non-destructive (runs off the SD card, doesn't overwrite your camera's own firmware) addition that enables many advanced and cool features that aren't available in the camera from the factory.

I really need to learn more about water softeners.

The softener in my house provides me with many benefits. My faucets don't clog up with calcium crystals. Soap lathers properly. My dishwasher and washing machine don't smell like iron. My glassware doesn't have calcium spots on it. My clothes don't turn yellow. Not to mention how easy it is to clean bathrooms when you don't have to worry about iron stains or soap scum or hard water scale on everything.

Photos from my recent trip to Vancouver are available here. If you're looking for pics from the 2009 Vancouver Auto Show, which was the reason I went to Vancouver, you can find them here.