Scott McLaughlin

First off if you decide to switch to Smugmug be sure to use my reference code and save yourself $5, this also gives me a kickback on my next renewal.  Use this code:  nc7PVcsHwfwtc

Just thought I’d post this due to my good experience. As many of you know we switched all our photos over to SmugMug.com and if you haven’t already heard me talk constantly about it, all i can say is its worth the money and I really enjoy their support, responsiveness and in general the useability of the application.

However this post isn’t about all that. Some of you have already switched and I wanted to let you know I tried out their DVD archival/backup process. On their web site I placed an order to archive my entire photo library to DVD. I have about 16 GB of photos out there (I store everything out there, some of it is just hidden from view). The system figures out how much space you need based on you telling it what to archive. You can archive ALL, specific albums or even specific sets of photos. If you have enough to fit on CDROM they will give you that option as well.

I selected everything and it said I would need two DVD’s to pull this off. You pay per gig over a base amount (I think 6gb or something) Its easily affordable especially if you only did it annually or bi-annually.

Anyway it took about a week and in the mail yesterday I got a nice little envelope with two DVD’s in jewel boxes in it. They had the titles printed on them that I had specified at time of order. I popped them into my Mac and was happy to see that all my photos were organized on the DVD by the Category and Sub-Category, just like they are in the gallery itself.

This is very cool since now I have a hard media backup of all my photos from 2003-2008 that is already organized/sorted. I will be delivering these DVD’s to my safe deposit box this week for safe keeping.

Anyway, another reason smugmug rules. If you have smugmug already I recommend having them snapshot everything once you get it all uploaded and then doing that annually. In case they A) go away or B) you lose your home drive with all your photos.

I’ve been converted to Amsoil for a number of years now, and especially if you do your own oil changes, I think people are just not smart if they aren’t already switched over. You reduce your oil changes to once a year (filter twice) and reduce your cost and headaches. There’s several other great reasons but those are best found at the ALube site my good friend Steve Schoeneman runs. He’s my dealer, not crack, just lubes…wait not those kind of lubes…car lubes, er ya you get it.

Anyway, i wanted to plug Steve’s new blog because its actually got some really cool interesting stuff on it, that I enjoy reading. Its updated semi-regularly with interesting tidbits and facts. Drop it in your RSS and be sure to do some commenting…cause bloggers like that.

http://www.alube.us

Enjoy…

Finally found a descent online Bluray/DVD collection tracker. I was using DVDSpot which was awesome, but they just disappeared off the web, nobody knows why.

Anyway I update the link to the right with the new link to my Blu-ray collection. I’m now storing it at Chasing The Frog which is a nice simple web based tracker. So nice I didn’t have to write my own, which I was about to do.

http://www.chasingthefrog.com/catalog/my_movies.php?username=Lodoc

*sigh* both of my wifi units died yesterday. My original linksys WR54G just refuses to power up. Tried two different power supplies. I also have a Linksys WRT610N router that I picked up a few months back but never got around to installing. So i grabbed it and fired it up. It worked for about 1/2 a day and now refuses to pass traffic. I can ping it but can no longer connect to its web interface. The laptops see it and connect okay, they just can’t pass traffic through it. POS. I need a commercial Cisco system in my house! So here I sit in the living room on my mac with a 25′ LAN cable strong across the floor to the switch thats stuffed in my home theater. Just like the old days.

Tape and texture are done in the new office. Last night I busted out 3DC Investments bad as Titan commercial spray painter and hosed the whole room down in my favorite Miller Gray/Blue Satin 8475D. Two coats with the sprayer took about 20 minutes total time plus cleanup to paint the entire room. So sweet when you can use that thing (IE unfinished rooms). So now I can finish up the electrical, lighting, and low voltage terminations. Then its on to ceiling and floors. Spent the evenings this last weekend terminating all the data and phone lines onto patch bays in the rack cabinet and organizing the power…looking pretty damn sweet.

So I have set a new weight goal, starting Monday I’m ramping back up to try to get down to 170 (maybe into 160′s we’ll see). I’ve been successfully holding my weight at between 177/178 for over a month now without much effort. Even loosened up the eating habits a bit and still maintained. Starting monday I’m going clamp back down the sweets/treats (not that I was eating many) and hit the gym 4x a week. See if I can ramp myself back up and try to hit my new goal (or less). Wish me luck.

After some HD football today we are hauling the kids up to the Grotto to meet my Brother and his family so I can take the annual kids Christmas photo for our christmas cards. Should be some nice settings up there for a good picture. Although I’d rather stay and work on my office, LOL…at least i have a nice big holiday this next weekend to get TONS done. I took Wednesday off and we are closed Thursday and Friday. Mmmm 5 days of awesomeness.