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Advent cleaning
Dec. 9th, 2008 05:07 pmThe last couple hours have become a spring cleaning, just as the holidays approach.
I took the air conditioner out of my bedroom window soon after I returned from France, but it was sitting on my bedroom floor until a couple hours ago. It became a shelf for books, as everything does in my room. It also became a convenient dressing table for not-dirty-enough shirts and trousers. It's not a heavy A/C unit nor is it big: it was just harder to figure out where to put it. It also meant I couldn't get into my closet, so I couldn't play my guitar or do any audio production -- let alone hang up clean clothes.
I had finally accepted the need to haul the A/C to the basement this afternoon. Suddenly I started thinking about the cubby hole on the floor of the hall closet. I pulled two car scrapers out of the cubby hole, tossed the laundry on my bed and lifted the A/C easily. Not only did the unit fit in the cubby hole without any effort, it left enough room to put the other A/C on top of it.
Say... why am I saying "cubby hole"? That's what my fifth grade teacher said and I used to hate that term. Come to think of it, there isn't anything as succinct to describe a storage space bigger than a bread box but smaller than a full-size locker, built into a wall and open on the front.
Suddenly I had most of the rug available behind my desk, except for a random desktop computer without its side panels. I had pulled it from the trash during the summer, cleaned it off and out, and never even powered it up. I was still in the mood to free up space, so I plugged it in and tossed in a Linux CD.
Oh hey! It's an AMD Duron running at 1.0 GHz, half a gig of PC133 RAM and a 16 MB AGP card. It didn't even have a built-in NIC and it had at least one very loud heat sink fan.
I don't need it. No one needs it... well, maybe someone so far away that it would cost too much to ship it.
I've been using VMware Server (the free version) for a while. If I want to build a test server as proof of an idea, I no longer need a spare physical machine. I just copy an existing image, give it a new name, tweak it and then it's a new server. I can copy an entire computer to a thumb drive. I can have another computer on the same desktop, on the same screen as my regular life.
I put the covers back on the Duron 1000 box and put it in the sun room near the front door. It'll go out with a couple other machines. Maybe I'll put 'em on Craig's List as a "Grab For Free" offer.
I'm testing another machine right now. Anyone want a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz which is pretty quiet? It's on the old 100 MHz FSB but it's a 130nm fab. It's even got two CD-ROM drives (one of which is a burner) and a proper Windows XP Pro license sticker on the top. I won't be leaving the RAM in there, but lemme know if you want it.
If I free up three boxes before dinner time, I'll consider this a victory.
I took the air conditioner out of my bedroom window soon after I returned from France, but it was sitting on my bedroom floor until a couple hours ago. It became a shelf for books, as everything does in my room. It also became a convenient dressing table for not-dirty-enough shirts and trousers. It's not a heavy A/C unit nor is it big: it was just harder to figure out where to put it. It also meant I couldn't get into my closet, so I couldn't play my guitar or do any audio production -- let alone hang up clean clothes.
I had finally accepted the need to haul the A/C to the basement this afternoon. Suddenly I started thinking about the cubby hole on the floor of the hall closet. I pulled two car scrapers out of the cubby hole, tossed the laundry on my bed and lifted the A/C easily. Not only did the unit fit in the cubby hole without any effort, it left enough room to put the other A/C on top of it.
Say... why am I saying "cubby hole"? That's what my fifth grade teacher said and I used to hate that term. Come to think of it, there isn't anything as succinct to describe a storage space bigger than a bread box but smaller than a full-size locker, built into a wall and open on the front.
Suddenly I had most of the rug available behind my desk, except for a random desktop computer without its side panels. I had pulled it from the trash during the summer, cleaned it off and out, and never even powered it up. I was still in the mood to free up space, so I plugged it in and tossed in a Linux CD.
Oh hey! It's an AMD Duron running at 1.0 GHz, half a gig of PC133 RAM and a 16 MB AGP card. It didn't even have a built-in NIC and it had at least one very loud heat sink fan.
I don't need it. No one needs it... well, maybe someone so far away that it would cost too much to ship it.
I've been using VMware Server (the free version) for a while. If I want to build a test server as proof of an idea, I no longer need a spare physical machine. I just copy an existing image, give it a new name, tweak it and then it's a new server. I can copy an entire computer to a thumb drive. I can have another computer on the same desktop, on the same screen as my regular life.
I put the covers back on the Duron 1000 box and put it in the sun room near the front door. It'll go out with a couple other machines. Maybe I'll put 'em on Craig's List as a "Grab For Free" offer.
I'm testing another machine right now. Anyone want a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz which is pretty quiet? It's on the old 100 MHz FSB but it's a 130nm fab. It's even got two CD-ROM drives (one of which is a burner) and a proper Windows XP Pro license sticker on the top. I won't be leaving the RAM in there, but lemme know if you want it.
If I free up three boxes before dinner time, I'll consider this a victory.
