The Blog of Harald

Things are jumping around here!

In the last couple of months, we have joined the 21st century and acquired:

* a DVD player (for the TV)
* a CD burner
* a DVD burner (with DVD-RAM support, to replace the dead DAT drive for backups)

This is quite a technology jump, considering that our newest desktop PC is a P200-MMX, is about 5 years old, and was acquired second-hand from Secure Computing’s office closing sale! We’ve got another one of those and a 486 (gasp!) for the kids to play on; a P-133 firewall/server, a Mac Quadra 840AV, and two aging laptops (a PIII-450 and a PII-650).

Next on the list is a new, more powerful desktop to replace our P200; that machine will then replace the 486, so the kids will both have computers good enough to play all of their games. After that, I’ll acquire a new “server” (probably one of those disgustingly cheap celeron machines like persephone.cfrq.net), and split off the server from the existing firewall. I’ll keep the P-133 as a dedicated firewall/router. I’ve thought about getting one of the Linksys firewalls, but I like to run IPv6 and bizarre UDP-based VPNs, both of which are easier with my own Linux firewall.

We’ve also rearranged all of the furniture in our office to make more space for computers, and to add a bunch of storage for books, media, parts, etc.; Gareth calls it our computer lab now :-)

We currently own a scanner, but also on the toys list are:

* a colour printer
* a digital camera
* a USB hub for connecting it all together
* a network upgrade (10Mb/s to 100Mb/s)
* a kitchen machine (an old laptop, maybe)

I smell progress :-)

[ This entry scribbled while waiting for the DVD writer to simulate then inscribe our first DVD >:]