Thursday September 30, 2004

Sun1, Sun2, Sun3, Sun4, Sunray !

In my working life a proportion of it has been involved in using Sun machines, as a customer and now an employee of the company.

I am sure the world wide web can produce a better historical description of the products Sun has sold over the years but my first machine was a two megabyte 68010 processor based Sun2 workstation. I had Sun Unix 2.0 then 3.0 remember when YP ( oops sorry NIS ) came in and NFS. Diskless clients that used NFS instead of 'ND'. The Sun 3/50 was my next workstation. I never had a Sun4 workstation I went straight to a Sparcstation 10 when I joined Sun. I have always wanted a machine on my desktop called 'betelgeuse'. The reason is simple. The first place I used Sun machines, a CAD/CAM software company in Cambridge called CIS gave me my break into computing as an operator. My manager Ian Barratt had a thing about stars. So everything was called after star . His machine was called aldebaran. Server names of kooshe, asterix and deneb among others.

So what am I rambling about ? Well it is all about desktop 'envy'. Everyone looks at your desktop and makes an assumption about how powerful and wonderful it is. It is a status symbol like swimming pool in the garden or a porsche on the drive. My desktop is still 'betelgeuse'. But it is a piece of metal the size of a cdrom drive set on its side. It has eight USIV processors. I share them with other folks but I wager any amount that the performance I get is as good as it gets. One of these days I am going to paint a smiley on that sunray box. I think we should sell them with the smiley on them !

So my story is I started with a workstation the size of a pedestal you have under your desk and now it is the size of a cdrom drive. The web site Thin Clients will tell you all about Sunray appliances and why they are good, save money and make people more productive. With Solaris10 betelgeuse comes back to life as a Solaris container that I have root access on and can customise as I wish.

The back of the house

On the back of the house is a home made pergola. I built it myself over a long weekend. It runs along the width of the house. It sits on top of a terrace of tired old paving slabs that needs replacing. Growing on it are:

A Clematis. Can't remember the variety. Big white flowers.

Two white grape vines. Which do produce grapes just about edible if we get a decent summer. Either way I give them away or make my own white wine. Never turns out vintage else I would drink it, but it is fine for risotto's or other cooking that calls for a glass or two of wine. Cooks say if you would not drink it you should not cook with it. I disagree. The wine has a lovely golden honey colour.

In the middle of the pergola grows an alledged seedless purple variety. It is not so old as the other two so does not produce so many grapes. They are NOT seedless. I think it may be removed this year.

Also on the pergola are two Wysteria's. Wonderful blooms in the spring. A purple and a white one. Both need careful pruning to keep them in control.

At the side of the house are two lean to greenhouses. I use these to propagate plants and protect frost sensitive plants in the winter. Behind them is my garden shed. This area is used to good effect in an area that would not be used otherwise. I also have four water butts I use as composting containers. I put anything 'green' from the garden or the house in these to compost down. Variety is the key to success here. So don't put all your leaves in one go else you will end up with a sodden mush.

Also down the side of the garden by the pergola is the best blackberry known to man. First it is thornless. Second it produces a bumper crop of LARGE berries which are juicy beyond belief. Evey year the vine gets stronger and produces longer trails which are adorned by wonderful flowers in the spring. As with this type of blackberry this years crop is produced on last years vine. In the autumn you cut back those vines that produced fruit to ground level.

Also on the slabs is a hexagonal wooden herb wheel. I have given up trying to grow basil/coriander in it. So I concentrate on thyme, oregano, chives etc. I also have two pots one with a rosemary bush in it the other a bayleaf tree. I cover the wheel over winter with a temporary plastic greenhouse and put the bayleaf and rosemary in the greenhouse.

At the front of the pergola I have built along its length window boxes. In the spring bulbs come up, all minuture daffodills. In the summer I plant annuals eg petunias etc.

Under the window boxes I have loads of terracota pots. These have geraniums, fuscias etc in them plus other annuals. The geraniums and fuscias are overwintered in the greenhouse - you must not overwater either. Both need repotting in smaller pots and also pruned hard back before their overnight rest. We also have three hanging baskets on the pergola but might not next year as they made the house very dark.

Next installment the main back garden ! ( Sep 30 2004, 01:00:00 PM PDT ) Permalink