J.D. Hodges | Every man has a story, this is my story.

48V DC to 120V AC inverter for Polaris Ranger EV

Monday, 2011.04.25 J.D. H. 20 comments

Our family has a Polaris Ranger EV which we seem to use all the time. “Evy” as we sometimes call her is an extremely capable off road vehicle and the performance, torque and ride are all outstanding. I prefer it over any gas powered UTV (utility vehicle) or ATV (all-terrain-vehicle) that I’ve driven, that includes: John Deere Gators, Kawasaki Mules, Yamahas, Hondas… the list goes on! It is absolutely splendid to be able to drive around the farm and on

WordPress Multisite Stats Plugin [SOLUTION]

Sunday, 2011.04.24 J.D. H. One comment

The WPMU (WordPress Multi User) project has always interested me. It’s a simpler version of what we do on Weblogs.us The general concept for WPMU is to have one master WordPress install that contains any number of blogs. WPMU recently merged into regular WordPress and the new “Multisite” option. So, WPMU is now no more, long live WordPress Multisite. 🙂 Since I’m testing out WordPress multi-site I’m also looking for a good web statistics solution for it. I’d prefer to

HOW TO do a (relatively) clean install using Windows 7 Upgrade DVD

Saturday, 2011.04.23 J.D. H. Leave a comment

In the past it seemed like you could do a straight-up clean Windows 7 install using an upgrade DVD on a new PC. Last night we tried a clean install on my buddy’s new PC, using just such a Win7 x64 “Family Pack” upgrade DVD, and everything installed just fine (selecting “custom install” instead of upgrade install). BUT, after booting the Windows product key wasn’t accepted… So, the solution was #1 to go ahead into Windows (by not entering the

Daily Update: Creek Running and Sandy Bridge

Friday, 2011.04.22 J.D. H. Leave a comment

One of my favorite things about modern life is the ability to daily experience the ancient and the cutting edge. Case in point: Our creek started running again this morning. I helped my buddy build a Sandy Bridge 2600K system this evening Elaboration: This lovely little creek often runs year round, but when Missouri is dry the creep sometimes dries up. Then one day the rains and water tables will cooperate to start the creek running again and clear out

Installing VMWware ESX Server 3i (ESXi) on an Intel Atom & USB stick

Wednesday, 2011.04.20 J.D. H. Leave a comment

I have a couple Supermicro X7SPA-HF-O Atom boards that I’m planning on putting IPCop on. #1 is an Atom motherboard as the primary firewall (for Weblogs.us) #2 is another identical Atom board as a secondary backup firewall. Here’s the motherboard in question: X7SPA-HF-O Supermicro X7SPA-HF-O Atom Dual-Core D510/ Intel 945GC/ RAID/ V&2GbE/ Mini-ITX Motherboard, Retail – Motherboards SuperBiiz.comhttp://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-X7SPAHF&title=Supermicro-X7SPA-HF-O-Atom-Dual-Core-D510-Intel-945GC-RAID-V-2GbE-Mini-ITX-Motherboard-RetailSpecifications Mfr Part Number: X7SPA-HF-O CPU: Intel Dual-Core Atom D510 processor (1.66GHz, 1MB L2 Cache) Chipset: Intel 945GC & Intel ICH9R Memory: 2x

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Momma Molly’s delicious Sugar-Free Banana Bread or Muffins (mirror)

Monday, 2011.04.18 J.D. H. One comment

NOTE: this recipe is from Momma-Molly and is only posted here because her site appears to be permanently down. 🙁 Sugar-free Banana Bread (or muffins!) 4 medium over ripe bananas – mashed 2 eggs 1/3 cup vegetable oil 1/3 cup honey 1/2 cup milk 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour 1 cup all purpose flour 1 tsp. baking soda 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. cinnamon Mix eggs, oil, honey, milk and bananas in a large bowl. Add the rest of

Nikon DSLR camera recommendations for early 2011

Monday, 2011.04.18 J.D. H. Leave a comment

When friends and family ask me for camera recommendations I post the info to my blog in the hopes that it will help others too… Here’s a recommendation for Nikon DSLRs: Summary of recommendation: #1 – A very capable companion: Nikon D7000 Pros: good image quality, excellent ISO quality, fast focusing, +1080p video, smaller size and lighter weight (than D300s) Cons: may be pricier than the D90 without drastic improvement Deciding factor: if you find a good price and you

51 New Palm Tree Textures at NetRender.com

Sunday, 2011.04.17 J.D. H. 2 comments

We have some brand new palm tree textures over at NetRender: 51 Palm Tree Textures – NetRender.comhttp://www.netrender.com/texture-maps/trees/tropicals-vol-2-palm-tree-textures/51 unique palm trees from around the world. These high quality palm tree images com from the USA (California, Hawaii), Mexico and other tropical locales. The images are… At 51 images, it’s one of the largest collection of high-res (transparency mapped) palm tree images anywhere. John and I worked on it for what seems like forever! The images are from around the world, but