Tonight, a shiny new 250GB hard drive arrived from OWC, which I had ordered to upgrade to webserver (Mac Mini). I’d been holding some memory from my MacBook upgrade, with the intent of installing that in the MacMini when I upgraded the hard drive. Tonight was the night!

As with any hard drive upgrade, the first line of defense is ensuring that there’s a backout plan. For me, that meant copying the current 120GB drive to the new 250GB. I’d purchased an OWC external drive enclosure a while back, just for this project. At around $25, this is a bargain, and will be the eventual destination for the 120GB drive, likely to be used for Time Machine. When I installed the 250GB drive in it, I found a nice 2GB disk image of freeware, courtesy of the folks from OWC. Cool! After a two-hour copy using Carbon Copy Cloner, I was ready to dissect the Mini.

I’ve been in the Mini before, and it’s not a lot of fun to take apart or work inside. It’s built to be a compact, powerful system — which it is — but there’s a lot of voodoo beneath the covers to keep it all together and cool enough to function. I found two sites that speak to the disassembly of the little guy, one here and another here. Both recommend a putty knife to help pry the bottom from the top. In my case, Darla had a nice cake frosting knife that worked just dandy. Carefully going through the steps on the DIY sites, I finally got the thing apart, split the innards in half, and replaced the memory and installed the new drive. After one miscue involving a power cable — always test before closing the covers! — the Little Server That Could was back to serving webpages in no time at all.

Next stop…. Leopard!

I’ve been accused of being a bad influence on folks in my cloud for a long time. OS/2, Apple, Canon…. there’s a long list and a lot of history of my being the dude with the pipe, leading the rats down the trail.

I got word this weekend that I may have greatly enhanced my standing in the bad influence category.

I’ve been working on a grilling friend of ours about his need for Jeep. In fairness, he wasn’t a target until he mentioned wanting a Jeep to bang around in after I got mine. That made him a legal combatant, and a fair target for Darla and I to poke with Jeep-related suggestions. So far, there’s been hints of progress, but nothing tangible. However, I really thought he’d be the next line for a new Wrangler.

So, from out of left field, I got a call over the weekend from a co-worker I play tennis with. He’d seen my Jeep shortly after I bought it, and had mentioned in passing how he thought that might be a good fit for him. Little did I know that the seed was planted. This weekend he bought a brand new Jeep Unlimited Sahara!

And when Darla recognized what the call was about, she uttered something unrepeatable, knowing that my tennis partner and I would likely begin egging each other on with upgrades and modifications. And she’s probably right…

After a week of thoroughly enjoying the Big Green Jeep in a topless/doorless “nekkid” configuration, rains this weekend have forced me to re-clothe my rig. *Sigh*

I’ve learned a lot through this week though. I now know how to remove/install the doors, and Beck (or Sio) and I can get the top up in just a few minutes. Today’s installation of the windows didn’t take long either. In fact, at a lallygag pace, Beck and I had the soft top up, windows and doors on in less than 30 minutes. If we’d needed to hurry, we probably could’ve done it in 15-20 minutes. Not too shabby for rank amateurs at this Jeep thing!

It seems like every time I re-configured the Jeep, I find something new I need to pickup. The biggest thing would seem to be a lockable trunk in the cargo area. Right now, I’m just not comfortable shopping in a nekkid configuration and not having someplace to hide/lock up my purchases. Even with just the soft top on, I have a little nervousness about leaving purchases unsecured.

And then there’s the little stuff. “Oh crap” handles for the passengers, a storage system for the zip out windows (which I ordered last night from All Things Jeep), better console/switch lighting…. the list goes on. And then there’s stereo upgrades so I can hear my music over the road noise. That’s a story for another day though!

While I haven’t spoken in this forum about the Back to My Mac functionality that was released with Leopard, I’ve been kinda bummed ’cause I couldn’t get it to work with my home network. I’d thought that this would be pretty cool stuff, especially on the Great American Roadtrip.

I’d tried before we left to get my Belkin N1 Vision to do the right UPnP stuff in order for Back to My Mac to work, but all to no avail. I never quite figured it out, and vacation tasks loomed tall over geekly tasks, so that project fell to the side.

Now, a few weeks after vacation, I’ve found some time to work on this little problem again. First, I made sure that it was still broke. Yup, still broke.

I found that Belkin had released new firmware for the N1 Vision, so I blasted that onto the router, and enabled the UPnP bit on the control panel. Still no joy.

I took a gander at my good friend Google to see if anyone had reported success with this router and Back to My Mac. Sure ’nuff, someone had reported the same problem I had, and had the brilliant idea to power cycle the router.

Guess what? It worked. The Systems Prefs panel for MobileMe now indicated that it could configure the router, and all things magic took off. Cool beans.

Now, to start doing a little playing with the new functionality!

The Midwest Jeepthing had their picnic today in Crestwood. And, despite the possiblity of rain, Sio and I took the doors off the Jeep, and lowered the top all the way — both for the first time. Being topless and doorless, you could say the Jeep was naked, but I’d tell you it was “nekkid”. Naked just means you have no clothes; nekkid means you’re naked, and having fun.

I also conjured up a big batch of baked beans, based on Mom’s recipe — another first on the day.

We got to the park right at 2pm, and met some of the MWJT folks for the first time. Friendly bunch of folks, and real knowledgeable. And, most importantly, I didn’t get any guff about my Unlimited being a “soccer mom” Jeep! In all, there were just over a dozen Jeeps there, with grilled burgers and all kinds of sides. Good food, good folks, and great weather…. until the wind shifted.

I was talking with someone, and suddenly, you could feel the wind shift eerily, and with the shift came a push of much cooler air, and significant dark clouds. Sio and I decided to high tail it out of there and try to get home before the rains started. We got just a few blocks from the park when we decided to put the top back up. As it ends up that was a good move. The doors were in the garage at home, as were the zip-off windows for the soft top, so that was as much as we could do on the road.

Once we hit the interstate, the rains came down, adding to the street wetness that was already there from a previous squall line. Impressively, most of the rain stayed out of the Jeep, with only the spray kicked up by passing vehicles really getting into the cabin. We made it home, with a side stop at Silky’s for some custard, and neither Sio nor I were too wet. Even the Jeep was relatively dry. But man, did we get some amused looks as we drove through the rain.

So how was the ride, you might ask? Well, glorious is the word that comes to mind. Having no doors or roof on the Jeep really gives a sense of freedom that I’ve never experienced with any other vehicle. In fact, you can hear so very much more — other folks’ tires, your own engine, wildlife — that it’s almost disruptive at first. Every normal sound that goes on around you can be heard easily, not just the loudest ones. And being engulfed by the air as you drive is exhilarating. This work week is supposed to be sunny and warm, so I think I’ll keep my Jeep configured nekkid this week.

My only complaint was the lack of a passenger side mirror. I didn’t realize how much I relied on that one, so only having a driver side just isn’t quite enough to keep me feeling happy and safe. I’ll need to figure that one out over the next week, but I’m thinking that the Mopar mirror I installed last week isn’t gonna be the right answer. No big deal.

This was a way fun experience on all kinds of levels. I sure wish I’d gotten one of these a long time ago!

Our Fourth of July was spent pretty quietly — a shrimp boil at Cousin Mark’s, and neighbor Joe and I combining fireworks for a nice little show. Quiet and laid-back…. just like it should be.

Hope your fourth was great!