Turns out the old computer was, in fact, not dead. I am relieved.
Good news!
Reply
RIP Original Zycarus Computer
It is with heavy heart that I’m putting to rest my first computer I built myself (without Jon Hatch’s help). I built it back in 2013, it was top of the line components (except for the GPU, which was only a 770).
It was awesome, and did great until I swapped out for new mobo/processor/hard drive/PSU a year and a half ago.
It was still holding a bunch of my FroydTech data, and it had 24gb of RAM. It’s the RAM I’ll miss the most, I think.
Luckily I’ve got an old MOBO that is newer than this one with a celeron processor that should do the trick for the NAS. Only 8gb of RAM, which is sad.
But I’ll part out the old computer and sell off the components, and maybe make enough to buy some more RAP for the NAS. ANnd maybe a used processor? Who knows!
GOOGLE *shakes fist* (Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love a NAS)
So we updated one of our phones to a Pixel 9a (one of our Pixel 4a phones was the earlier one, that GOogle deployed a “fix” that completely tanked the battery). We then noticed that the Google Drive account with that was dangerously pushing the 15gb limit…and we could update to Google One for a low monthly cost.
It was then my wife made the astute observation of “No wonder they were giving such a large trade-in value on the pixel 4a…now they don’t offer unlimited photo storage.”
That, plus a lot of other things, has made us seriously reconsider the pixel 9a. But, being the annoying tech person I am, I decided to say screw it and find a photos solution myself. The 9a is probably the best midrange phone out there considering the camera and the like. It was less expensive with the trade in and the store credit that they gave for screwing up the Pixel 4a, and so it comes to figure out how to remove us from the Google ecosystem (at least when it comes to photos).
So today begins my setup of TrueNAS Scale and Immich. Following a solid setup instructional from XDA, I’m turning in one of the computers I’ve got around the house (that was slated for recycling) into a NAS and backup for our photos.
Because there are few things worse to my mind than being forced to pay a subscription cost when I can do it myself for much cheaper and much easier.
Might throw jellyfin on the NAS too, dependent on how things go.
Meal planning
I’ve been making breakfast burritos for a while now. It’s very basic, just eggs, chopped veggies, some cheese, and some light mayo, and a few splashes of chipotle tabasco sauce.
The tortillas I use are some carb watching kind from Aldi. I, however, only count carbs when working on engines, which is very very rarely.
I like these tortillas because each one has 14 grams of fiber. I made a decision about a year ago (before starting to exercise a lot) to up my fiber intake. These help a bunch.
I can move in VR!
I can’t tell you how excited I am. It’s not much, just a square and a sphere, but I can walk to them with the Virtuix Omni from 2016. This fills me with joy, as I can start programming actual games/activities now.
One of the major reasons why I am trying to get this running is that I’d like an activity that I can do for exercise that tracks steps. The TRAVR Training Ops game that came with the system (really the only one I ever play besides Skyrim VR) has been a 4-5 times a week routine. I can run through the courses in about 25 minutes, and it gets my cardio and heartrate up.
THe PROBLEM is that it no longer works with the Omni Connect step tracker is running. It has to do with it trying to access Connect and then the server to track high scores. It is just crashing, and has been for a couple years. The response I got from Virtuix, and I can’t blame them at all, is that the game hasn’t been updated since 2017 and it’s not supported any longer.
I get it…but now I get to create my own course, and track steps. I’d like to hit 1,000,000 steps by the 10 year anniversary of getting the omni. That was in February 2016. I’m at roughly 283k right now. I’ve got my work cut out for me.
Pleased with progress on the Omni test
So, the reason I’m so pumped about the Omni test is that the SDK for my particular version of the omni hasn’t really been updated since maybe pre-covid times. I’ve been worried about getting it caught up to the most recent Unity Hub, and I’ve done this before with some Zenva VR training courses I got through humble bundle a long while ago.
That’s why I was worried, trying to tackle the errors that hop up is sometimes a challenge, but going through and getting some help through google searches seems to work well.
Catching up on software updates
Uff, I’m REALLY behind on getting things caught up. Maybe it’s been since 2017/208? Lots of updates to wordpress and the sites I’ve got throughout the page. Not a lot of people on the ol’ sidebar still blogging.
On the plus side, the Unity program that I’ve made for testing out the Virtuix treadmill is working in dev mode. The prefab of the treadmill is moving with key strokes. Next step is to strap in and try move around in testing mode, maybe try run into a ball and start it rolling. For the time being though, it’s updating WordPress like in the olden days: uploading files via ftp.
Is this thing still on?
I’m embarking on a new project, and want to start writing more…and I want to get away from the social media empires enriching people and companies that I personally do not agree with. .
The last few months I’ve been hitting the exercise hard. I’ve done the entire run of the TRAVR Training Ops game on the Original Virtuix Omni Treadmill (not the Omni One) several days a week, and have also been using a rowing machine.
About a month ago, my wife and I got a home gym machine with the cables and everything, so I’ve been doing that as well.
All this to lead up to my new project: I’m going to be programming a game for the Omni. I spent this evening getting unity installed on my desktop machine and on my handy dandy Chuwi Minibook X. I’ll post more about that later, but it’s basically a 2-in-1 with a form factor of a notebook. I love it.
My goal is to have 1,000,000 steps by the 10 year anniversary of getting the beta version of the Omni. Wish me luck.
