Netflix Errors

You'd never guess what I found today in my DVD player, so I'll tell you: Night at the Museum. This comes as a surprise only because I sent an envelope back to Netflix last week that should have had this disc in it. I suppose if I haven't heard anything from them in three weeks, they can just keep whatever movie I sent them and we'll call it even.

I am posting this here because someone might Google that question and will perhaps find an answer here. I wonder what will happen with the DVD, but this experiment was not intentional. Here are some questions folks may type into the search engine:

• "What happens if I send the wrong movie back to Netflix?"
• "Will I get in trouble if I keep a movie from Netflix and return something else?"
• "What if I got a movie from Netflix, kept the original, and sent a copy back to them*?"
• "Will the FBI knock on my door if that happened?"
• "Should I hide my stash?"

Seriously, though, I'll try to report what happens if anything does happen.


* I doubt I did that.

Windows Home Server

I've written earlier about a Dell PowerEdge SC440 Server I have that I couldn't find anything to do with.

I would like to announce that my quest for a task is over. May I introduce Windows Home Server:

You can add one of these to your home network with ease, and it takes care of file duplication and backups automatically. In my opinion this is the best product for consumers that Microsoft has come up with in a very long time.

The architecture is based on Windows Server 2003 (the startup splashscreen tells us that), which is a proven operating system as it is in use very widely throughout the enterprise market. If you use multiple Windows systems and/or have an Xbox 360 that you want to access videos and pictures from, this is your answer. HP has them for about $599, but you'll need a second hard drive for the duplication capability. The two-hard disk model is $749, and that's two 500GB hard drives, plus room for two more. If that somehow is not enough, it accepts external drives as well.

If a disk fails, you'll get a message. Simply replace the drive and start the server again. It automatically rebuilds the disk and balances the storage.

You don't need a monitor or keyboard after it's set up. Just put it in a closet and plug it in to the network. Install the client software on each computer in the house, and go. Backups run at night, and everything (if you so choose) placed on the file server is duplicated (if so capable).

You can even access your Home Server from afar. With a little bit of configuration, you can access your files on the server and even upload new ones from anywhere you might find yourself. I have already found this useful.

Rehberg Technology can also provide, configure, and install the Home Server.

Quote

"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."
-John F. Kennedy

Andrew Olmsted

I learned yesterday from Scott about our mutual friend and former Army Company Commander, Andrew Olmsted, was killed in Iraq on January 3, 2008. It came as a bit of a shock, and then I found myself simply staring at the computer screen with a gaping mouth.

I read his final post and realized that he did quite a bit of thinking before he went to Iraq. This is probably much more than would have gone through my mind on the way over there. He always was a thinker, whether he had a doctorate or not (he didn’t, by the way, but no one could tell). Andy recited every crewmember on every Apollo mission one time in the middle of the desert. He was very well read and seemed to know something about anything that entered into conversation. I always admired that about him.

Andy was left-handed.

He had a pretty dry sense of humor, as he himself admitted. I remember one time, though, Andy, Scott, and I were in a van in the field and Scott (then Andy's driver) said something he probably shouldn't have (probably about the Red Sox). I suggested to CPT Olmsted that Scott do pushups with his feet on a very high table. He took my suggestion, and Scott probably remembers this too.

He was very biased toward Coca-Cola.

I served as Andy's driver for about the last year of his command of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1/68 Armor Battalion, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson. I hated most of my time in the Army, but what time I enjoyed was that I spent in the company of the more intellectual members. Andy was one, if not the most intellectual I ever encountered during that time.
He signed my leave so I could go get married, in spite of my failing the last PT test.

He had great integrity. In the middle of the National Training Center, when no one else was around, the two of us sat in full MOPP-4 for about an hour because it was part of the simulation. Take into account it was the warmer part of the year, in the Mojave desert, wearing up to three layers of clothing that covers the entire body including the face, and no one else was looking. We were even inside a vehicle and there we were, covered head-to-toe and sweating like we've never sweated before. He did it because it was the right thing to do; because it was necessary for training as a soldier. I did it because he told me to.



The last time I saw him, he was just out of Active Duty and working as a car salesman. This happened to be at the same place I worked right out of the Army, too (though I bet he lasted much longer than I did). We met for coffee that night, and I remember him explicitly mentioning that he’d started blogging. He seemed like it was a big thing, and I never imagined he’d enjoy it that much.

Thoughts come to me today as I read the stories about him and the comments from family members, friends, fellow soldiers, and readers worldwide, but I can't really describe them. I teared-up reading the last of his Final Post, when he spoke of Amanda. I remember him describing her as "drop-dead gorgeous."

Andy’s death weighs heavily on me, mostly because he is the first person I knew personally who has been killed in Iraq, but some of it is because he was out there trying to help. The more I read, the better I feel about what he was doing when he died, and what he thought of it. And if he was comfortable with it, so am I.

So long, Andy.

More about Andy can be read on this post at Obsidian Wings.