Hard drive recovery Staticfarm style

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Wilstarz

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Having lost my iMac’s hard drive late last year, I was somewhat crippled technologically over the Christmas period. It had 500Gb of personal data, photos, movies and work projects on it, so when it died I was – to say the least – a bit upset. To its credit it did last me over four years and worked very hard in that time. Of course I did have an online backup system (to Amazon S3 storage) in place at the time, but it turned out to be far less useful than I had imagined when it came to recovering the big stuff: photos and movies etc. Here’s how I coped…

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Solargraphs

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Wilstarz

I recently came across some amazing images produced with a home made pinhole camera over a six month exposure period. I’ve become inspired to try some myself at various loations around Queensland and see what the results will be. Here’s a good link describing the constrution of a simple pinhole camera. http://bit.ly/wLuIe4 and here’s an example of the kind of images they can produce! Amazing! Enjoy! :-)

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Chilli T-shirt

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Wilstarz

Today’s T-Shirt is an ellipse chilli logo. I’ve been thinking about chilli a lot lately. I tried to avoid the ‘classic’ chilli shape (like a curvy carrot) just to be a little different. 8 Colour vector design in Illustrator.

Find it here: http://bit.ly/qXzOlG

 

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Safety First! Who’s YOUR registered zombie handler?

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Wilstarz

Ok, safety first, Do you know who YOUR team’s registered zombie handler is? Make sure they are known to your team and easily identifiable to new team members. Don’t get bitten like some noob!


Zombie Handler: Big shirtZombie Handler: Keychain keychainZombie Handler: Mini shirt

Safety First – Staticfarm T-shirts n’ stuff

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Rise of the Grasshopper

Posted on July 17, 2011 by Wilstarz

A (not so) long time ago, on a survey day far, FAR away…

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When writing leads to 3D modelling

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Wilstarz

I’ve been dabbling in some creative writing of the last few months. I’m six chapters into what will either be a short story or a modest novel. Needless to say it’s a Sci-Fi ;-)

However, when I got to the events of chapter 4 recently, I found that I was constantly flipping back chapter 1 to ensure I was getting the descriptions of the locale correct. Eg: doorways weren’t accidentally being on the wrong side of a hallway, and I hadn’t forgotten the existence of a door. It was starting already to become a problem.

What I really needed was an intimate knowledge of the environment that the story was taking place in. I made it up… so I should know all about it. Well.. I hadn’t gone into too much detail in my head, and it was starting to show.

The story takes place for the most part on a space vessel. It’s big and has a bunch of connecting corridors and ladders inside it (Don’t they all in Sci-Fi). I started off sketching a few layouts on paper. Got some basic ideas, but then needed to elaborate on them AND needed a side elevation in order to judge some internal dimensions. Too much detail? No not really… For simple statements like “he was really tired by the time he got to the 456th rung of the ladder” (which is just to illustrate my point and is not from my story btw.). 456 ladder rungs implies a freakin’ big ladder. Henceforth a really big area. So this character can’t at any point jump down from the top of the ladder because he’d probably end up dead at the bottom. The environment dictates the behavior of the story’s characters to some extent so I had to get fairly detailed.

To develop this I tried out Google SketchUp! Wow! Within an hour I was pulling together some amazing 3D models (well I though they were amazing anyway) and solving all my environmental detail quibbles! I would never have bought software for this task, but this freebie is amazing! It appears that SketchUp is designed to work hand in hand with Google Earth and related stuff. Cool! :-) Google you guys are unreal!

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Metals vs Boxwars – Drop Your Guard

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Wilstarz

I totally love this video. So much cardboard! So completely awesome! Where can I get one of those masks??

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Ashtray iPod dock conversion

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Wilstarz

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So you don’t smoke? Surely you don’t need an ashtray in your vehicle then. Here’s what I did to mod the ashtray in our 2002 Land Rover Discovery II. It’s now an iPod dock with both USB and analog support, so I can still use my iPod via Aux inputs or a more recent device via USB. I’m using an Alpine CDE-121E head unit which is the cheapest unit they had at the time that offered basic iPod/iPhone support.

Why bother? Well here were my goals in tackling this Canyonero mod.

  1. Remove all ugly cables from dash / console area. Not only do they look crap, but everything gets caught up in them and you end up dragging your iPod out of the car when it tangles with your keys/sunglasses etc.
  2. Secure my iPod/s. The Canyonero is a 4×4. Bad form to have these little devices flying around the cabin and getting damaged / causing accidents.
  3. Enable a quick swap between my USB connected iPod/iPhone and my old school iPod (3rd Gen?) which wasn’t supported directly by my Alpine head unit but could still play via Aux input. I didn’t want to change cables around however, so the dock approach made more sense
  4. To avoid FM transmitters / modulators as I’ve had 4 and they all have downsides I hated, either sonic or operational.
  5. To have a HUGE easily managed music library in the vehicle (I do a lot of driving).

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Don’t Trust A Rogue

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Wilstarz

Candi and I made this last year. Can’t believe it’s had so many hits! :-)

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An open letter to all the geckos I have met.

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Wilstarz

Dear Hemidactylus Frenatus and relatives of the genus. I have long been an open supporter of all things geckoey and an avid observer of your household antics. You are generally speaking cute little guys with amusing social habits and a delightfully voracious appetite for moths and mosquitos, even if some of you are a little more translucent in the skin department than I am normally comfortable with. Perhaps a little more sun? Even the small gecko with a bung tail that lives in our lounge room holds a special spot in my heart. “Cute” is an adjective I often draw upon when describing your kin.

However, you may find that I am one of a minority when it comes to my love of geckos and geckoisms. And so it is that I ask you this…

Don’t you think that it’s just taking it a bit far by crapping on my coffee machine? Some things are sacred you know! It’s just not right!

Warm feelings and reptillian felicitations,

Wil

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