I recently bought the NAS200 from Linksys as a backup device for my workstation in the office. It came as a very highly rated NAS so I chose this one.

The packaging is what you come to expect from Linksys and a neatly packaged software CD for which I only used the driver. The device itself is incredibly easy to setup, unpack the device open the drive bays and literally just slide in the drives one by one, plus in the power and LAN and its ready to go.

One detected and the drivers where installed I realized that you HAVE to format the drives using the Linksys format (Linux based) before the drives are accessible. I found this a little disheartening at first but after doing some research I decided its not that big a deal to me.

The device once installed was easy to map a network drive and setup my backup tools to backup to the drive. I personally use syncBack instead of the one button as I have somewhat complex backups from multiple drives and folders. The one major drawback I found is that I only get a max transfer rate of 2MB/Second so the initial backup took a few days (over 300GB) of information. Once that was completed though backups are quick and the system is very quiet. In the admin settings of the NAS you can set the auto spool down interval of the drives and it works so well. As soon as the device detects an access via LAN the drives spool up and you have access in a second or two.

Overall I would recommend the NAS200 from linksys to anyone looking for a multiple drive NAS backup system that is small enough to sit on the desk and quiet enough to not make you turn up your speakers to try and drown in out.

Posted in Computers, Reviews | No Comments »

Well after a 3month hiatus from playing this spectacular game that I enjoy so much I returned to the course today. Expecting high scores and lost balls I went into the round with a clear mind and no scoring expectations.

I step up to the first tee and take a few practice swings. Everything feels great, just like riding a bike. I teed up the ball and made my first swing. It was clean and solid just a little right but a safe play.

My game continued like this for most of the round with only the odd bad shot. I was a quite happy with my self until about the 8th hole when things were falling apart. During a wait at number 11 I was thinking about my swing and realized that I had started to speed up my back swing and was loosing control of the club face coming through the ball.

I slowed my back swing down again and I was flying true and straight, even getting a little draw with the irons. I guess the lesson here is after being away from the game for so long you tend to be a little more cautious when you step out again . That caution is what allows your body to swing correctly without having your ego and your brain get in the way.

Now if only I could keep myself from trying to kill the ball I would be able to break 80. As my confidence increases so does my swing speed and exponentially my accuracy goes down. On a side note a smooth clean swing will always produce a longer and straighter shot than a wild full out swing. Well at least at my playing level it will.

Golf Lesson: No matter how well you are playing or how much you want that extra 10 yards, always keep you swing smooth and easy. 10-20Yards shorter but in the fairway is better than even 30 yards extra and unplayable. Don’t let you confidence and your mind get in the way of a natural smooth swing.

Posted in Golf, HowTo/Tips, Personal | No Comments »

A Greek and Italian were arguing over who had the superior culture.

The Greek says, "We have the Parthenon."

Arching his eyebrows, the Italian replies, "We have the Coliseum."

The Greek retorts, "We Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics"

The Italian, nodding agreement, says, "But we built the Roman Empire."

And so on and so on until the Greek comes up with what he thinks will end the discussion. With a flourish of finality he says, "We invented sex!"

The Italian replies, "That is true, but it was the Italians who introduced it to women."

Posted in Humour/Jokes | No Comments »

As a rule, I don’t publish my family life or very personal information on the internet, but tonight my daughter amazed me in a way that I have never been before. In fact I learned more about my own thought process and how to foster the strength in the minds of our children tonight than I ever thought possible.

My daughter asked me tonight about the “cycle of life” then proceeded to explain to me how she sees the world and the “cycle of human life” Her words. She explained a combined description of mainstream religion and theories of evolution. Then she asked me if she was right, I was in such amazement and asked her where she learned about this. Her answer was that she figured it out and she thinks that this is how the world works.

I then answered her question by explaining how I believe the cycles of life work. I explained to her that energy is life and life is energy and explained to her the big bang theory and how we evolved from pure energy into the human beings we are today. I included theories of my own regarding the extinction of life prior to the ice age and how “life” reformed on the planet. My daughter listened intently obviously understanding much of what I was explaining. When it came to dying I saw no sadness in her eyes, she just looked at me waiting for my explanation.

I explained that when things die they return to their natural state of pure energy and that energy cannot “die” or cease to exist. What it does is joins with other energy to form a new entity retaining some of the memory of what it was before. This memory is what causes evolution and this is why even after the ice age and the “death of cavemen” we still evolved into the human beings that we are now. In essence I explained to my daughter that everything is made up of different forms of energy that merge together to create something/anything and everything.

When it came to explaining the big bang I explained that there was a tiny piece of energy that split into two pieces of energy which in turn split into…so on and so on. Then different pieces of the energy merged together to form amoeba that evolved into small fish like creatures that evolved into larger ones and then developed legs and so on until the ice age. I explained the there are many life cycles that work around each other some take longer to complete than others, some are quick and some are takes years. Some take billions of years.

That was the end of our discussion, I didn’t want to confuse her so at this point I asked her if she understood what I was explaining to her. She answered “yes dad I understand it, it’s kind of like this” she takes the pencil out of my hand that I was using and draws a big circle. In that circle she draws four other circles and draws arrows from each circle to the next.

1. In the first circle she draws another circle with a dot in it. “that is a baby in a stomach”
2. In the second circle she draws a toddler crawling.
3. In the third she draws an adult walking.
4. In the fourth she draws an upside down person, explaining that this person is dead.

I asked her what happens when the a person dies. She tells me that you turn into energy and energy can’t die and life is energy it just reforms again and thats why the arrow after death leads to the baby in the stomach. I was BLOWN away by how my daughter looks at the world.

The moral of this story is that children hold the keys to our future and they see the world and everything in it as it is. They aren’t poisoned by the beliefs of others. On this night I vowed to my wife that I will never force my children to believe in what they see and not tell them that they are wrong when they see something for what it is. So when you child is explaining to you how he/she sees something in the world shut up and listen chances are their view is far more pure than ours. Remember you me and the majority of us have suffered years of persecution because of our beliefs while the rest of the world try to force their opinions on us. From our children we will learn to see things more pure if we just get out of their way and let them learn and absorb, if we guide them they will undo the damage we have done and rebuild our world.

Did I forget to mention that she is 7.

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