I’m trying something new. I’ve added a section on the right side of the main page (on my real blog — if you’re reading this on MySpace, you won’t see it) labeled “shared items.” I’m going to try to use it to share my favorite posts from other blogs I read. It shows the last few entries I’ve shared in Google Reader, so this depends on me actually remembering to click “share” on posts I like. I’ll do my best, but let’s consider it experimental for now ;-)

Warning: geeky post ahead.

Lately I’ve been struggling a lot with how to manage the many, many, MANY gigabytes of digital photos I have stored. Some day I’ll write a post about my workflow and archiving system, but suffice it to say I have a ton of CDs and DVDs filed away. It’s becoming a major pain in the butt. So I have been considering other options, and a NAS (network attached storage) system is looking really attractive. For my needs, the Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ looks like a great solution. But today, I discovered a very annoying problem.

The ReadyNAS is available in a number of configurations, with various numbers and sizes of disks included. Historically, one of the configurations included no disks, so you could buy your own and add them in. That not only gives you more flexibility, but it tended to save a fair amount of money too. Unfortunately, NetGear acquired Infrant earlier this year, and they’re in the process of revamping the product line. As part of that, they’ve apparently eliminated the diskless version of the ReadyNAS from the product lineup. Last week when I started thinking about, there were diskless units in stock a few places. Now there are none. This makes the ReadyNAS a much more expensive proposition.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

4x250GB configuration

2x500GB configuration

There’s only one word for this: suckage. I hate it when a good company gets acquired and the product line gets screwed up.

I’m still considering going with the ReadyNAS, but I’m also seriously looking at other options. If you have something you really like, please speak up! Anything I’m going to consider needs at least 500GB of storage in a RAID configuration with the ability to add more, and great compatibility with Macs.

Update: I decided to go with the ReadyNAS anyway. It ended up costing me about $150 more than it would have before, but such is life…

Update 2: For those of you stumbling across this post from Google, there’s some discussion of the topic on Infrant’s forum that may interest you.

Ok, here it is. The video from this our Improv 400 showcase is up.

The first video is what we called the “Neapolitan.” The other three are simple two, three and four person scenes, respectively. I’m in the Neapolitan and the two person scene (warning: I accidentally let a curse word out in that one — bad me!).

A big thanks goes to Becky for shooting this video while I was busy on stage.

Enjoy!

Continue reading “Improv 400 Showcase Video”

The show last night… happened.

Overall, I think it went well. I’m very lucky to have a great group of classmates to work with, and they did a great job. I’m not thrilled with my performance. It wasn’t horrible, but it was far from my best. There was more randomness than usual, I think. It’s frustrating to have an off night at a performance when I perform so infrequently. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m always brilliant in class ;-)

I’ll try to get the video up in the next few days. Before I can start working on that, I need to clear off some space on my hard drive…

I’m performing with my Improv 400 class tonight in the Unexpected Productions BIG Class Showcase! The show is at 8pm at the Market Theater, 1428 Post Alley in Seattle. If you’re in Seattle and you don’t have plans tonight, come see us. It’ll either be really great or really terrible — I guarantee it’ll be “really” something. What more can you ask for? ;-)