...Politics...

So I spent the majority of my weekend attending a political leadership training program. No I did not want to attend this. But my government professor gave all of us the option that if we attended the seminar/training then we would not have to attend his class for a little over two weeks and we would get an automaic 'A' on our next test...so naturally I opted for this because his class is at 7:40am. It was ran by some organization out of washinginto called the Leadership Institute. All in all it wasn't terrible. Got me thinking a little more about politics which usually I try to avoid.Anyway just wanted to share two random facts one of which I was already aware of...

First during the summer of 2009 Nancy Pelosi apparently spent $3000 of tax payer money on cut flowers for her office. Of course this was during hard economic times. (article on it)

Second. I will present as a question...
"Do the words "separation of church and state" appear in the constitution?



The answer...no...we get the phrase from a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to Baptists, and its meaning is to keep the government or state from running the church. (link)


Well i just thought I'd share that, also its two reasons why I don't like politics.

ROFL

Ran across this picture the other day for the first time, about died when I found it....just had to share it. :D

Cold ?

The recent cold front that has come through the east coast has given me the idea to share something I discovered a few years ago on staying warm.

I am a college student and do not live on campus, which means I have to walk a good distance every day from where I can park at school to where my classes are. During the winter with the wind it can be very cold and two things that I have discovered that really help me stay warm when it is cold outside are:

1. Wear a wife-beater – it might not seem like it will help that much but when it is windy, the air getting under your shirts and hoodies can be freezing and having a skin tight shirt under it all can really go a long way.
2. Wear pajama pants under your jeans – for girls this may not be possible as the majority of you fenamonons wear skin tight jeans. But for the rest of you, a simple pair of pajama pants under your jeans can really help keep you warm on a cold day as its another layer of insulation and it really helps with the wind. It may take a little longer to put your pants on in the mourning, but if your like me I'd rather sweat than shiver.

Just thought I'd share these two tips.

Got an extra PC ?

Most of us have an old desktop laying around that we have yet been able to find a good use for. Sure we may have thought about a few ideas such as harvesting it for parts or even just simple file sharing. But we then contemplate where we would set it up, having to find some extra peripherals, or think that you would be limited by the low specs of the system.

One such use you can re-purpose that old computer for is a private server. Which you can use either just for media and file share over your own network...or if your up to it setting it up so that you can stream all your media via a web browser or some other program from anywhere with Internet access.

If you decide you want to stream your media from anywhere with Internet access you will have to decide in which way you would like to do that. I have used both windows server 2008 and wowza found here, for this purpose with relative success. Before you do so you may want to take a look at this before choosing how you will stream your media.

The initial set-up is very simple. You simply need to pick an OS you would like to use. If your a student you can acquire a free copy of windows server 2008 at dreamspark.com its a website that provides students with free copies of Microsoft software.

As far as the initial set up you will need to have peripherals while you install the operating system you choose to use, whether it be a server OS or not. However after installing the OS you can set up the PC/server so that you can access it remotely. This way you could put the server any where you like with no peripherals. The computer does of course need to be connected to the Internet.

If your using windows the tool you will be using to access your desktop remotely will be found either at the top of start>programs list or found in start>programs>accessories and is called remote desktop connection. Once you find the program all you have to do is enter the external IP address for your PC/server and the password to it and your set. 

 

You will need to have port 3389 open for remote desktop connection to work , a tool that can help you a lot in this process (and further down the road) is pfp port checker found here.

If your worried about performance don't...these tasks wont require too much processing power and as far as ram if you don't have any extra laying around you can pick up some more for fairly cheap. I would recommend 2 gigs ram but one would most likely be fine as well.

Here are two tutorials on re-using old pc's...the dvr project may cost a bit of money as you will need a capture card and software such as sage.

pc as a server

pc as dvr

Hello All!

Welcome to my blog...the content of this blog will vary widely but common topics will be...gaming, computers, fishing (bass and catfish), news, electronics, DIY projects, engineering etc...I hope you find what I have to share both entertaining and interesting!