Mounting UFS HDD in Linux Mint

I haven't used FreeNAS in a while so I thought I would try and re-use some of the hard drives (HDD) assigned to this setup.

The problem is, the hard drive partitions are formatted using the UFS standard which Linux Mint cannot use. My computer with Linux Mint uses the EXT4 standard.

Thankfully there is a BASH work around, Linux will READ but cannot write to these drives. So here I used a HDD docking station -

Bash command:-

To find out the label of an external hard drive, open up a terminal, and use the following command

lsblk

Result (depends on what you already have connected)

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 149.1G  0 disk
└─sda1   8:1    0 149.1G  0 part /
sdc      8:32   0  74.5G  0 disk
└─sdc1   8:33   0  74.5G  0 part
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

from this I can see sdc as external drive
(normally linux is installed on sda)

Now we to mount the drive using the following command

 sudo mount -t ufs -o ro,ufstype=ufs2 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/

Now I can read/copy the files to another location before reformatting the drive with ext4 (or FAT32 for windows). Note pay special attention to the error that comes up on the monitor, this tells you the actual mount name you have to use, in this case it is sdc2. Last time I tried another HDD, itcame up as sdc1, all depends on how many usb devices you have connected at the time.

Hindsight ... I really need to rebuild a new NAS setup .. pref with an i5 intel processor and 4x 4TB HDD's.

USO Whanau Ride

I really enjoyed this ride, not only getting to meet a few seasoned USO members with their families, but was surprised to connect with new riders from Lower Hutt and Wainuiomata. Wellington is famous for it's wind and rain we never got it on this day.

This Endomondo image includes our ride out from Hikoikoi Reserve, Petone and along the Wellington SH1 motorway.

Thoughts

Making video content has become an issue, due to the fact I wish to hold onto the originals, which take up a lot of hard drive space. For example, this 1080p50 video is only 896MB (pre-youtube upload 4min25sec), created from a folder containing all footage, GPS information totaling 37.5GB (1hr44mins).

Does one upload to youtube then delete all originals/edited versions knowing that one day youtube will cease, and moment in time will be gone forever.

3 possible solutions come to mind.:-

• buy hard drives to store only original content (creating edited version to upload to social media platforms  is easy to do). Using these hard drives in a docking station makes them a permanent storage solution, there is always that possibility they still can fail.
• Use an on-line cloud storage service, if I went this route it would probably be www.mega.nz , from 200GB at 4.99euro/month $8.50NZ/month to 8TB at 29.99euro/month $50.95NZ/month. This is not cheap.
• Only keep the edited version, delete all originals. This is the practical solution and easily affordable. From a creative point of view, as time goes by, my editing/creative skills will improve and it would be nice to revisit some old videos and give them a new make over. Actually I'm going to do this shortly, I have kept all the original raw files from an Ironmaori ride in 2015.

It would've been nice to have uploaded this on the day, but it took me this long to free up some space to allow editing. I'm already way behind, Oh well LoL

USO Fresh Ride (yesterday): Porirua to Johnsonville

Enjoyed this ride now that I'm getting used to this route. We added a little bit more to the ride going up Raiha Street before heading on back to the Cafe.

While out in Porirua we got to visit the new re-opening of the Torpedo7 Cycle store. Some really nice outfits in there and on sale (still expensive).

Cycle Ride

hmm is our coffee time longer than our riding time LoL

I'm really happy at the kms covered this morning

This morning we had 7 in the group, the warm up circuit to Norfolk Street went really well. A nice straight line with Eric leading the group, Terina at #2 dictating the speed, Iha 3rd and myself at the rear calling traffic information up the line. The group is starting to learn the signals needed to travel on suburban roads which helps to keep us all safe.

We split up into 3 groups for various reason and finished of with a bit of chat at the village cafe.

Thoughts

At the cafe we was approached by a local and wanted to know if he can ride with us. He spotted our warm up ride earlier and of course we all said yes. We are not a club and we welcome anyone who enjoys social or serious riding.

We have 2 NZ certified cycle riders in our group, Iha and myself and we realize chances are the group is going to increase in numbers and it would be ideal to put another person through the course.

Aotearoa Bike Challenge 2018 March

1st time monitoring this statistic (top male rider), I thought 123km for the month was pretty good, 260 riders disagree LoL.

Goal for April 200km

So far already done 20km yesterday, and considering cycling has been my main focus over the last week, this seems to be quite achievable.

TriAbility 2018

Eric assisting us on how to layout the cycle transition area

day before the event, crowd control fencing gets installed

Shamefully this is all the photo's I took of this wonderful event. Being a lead volunteer kept me busy both days and I really enjoyed my role.

On the day of the event, I got to organize the volunteers for the 2nd part of the cycle leg. Moores Valley Road to Whitcher Grove up Reservoir Road to the turn around point at the waterworks.

The volunteers I got made me so proud, the way they encouraged the cyclists at crucial points along the route. It was a good idea providing a mountain bike so that volunteers can share the role as a floater for me, traveling up and down our route reporting back to me any problems. Having a trained nurse at the top turn around point which was also set up as a drinking station made my job so much easier.

Being out here we got to miss the "exciting controlled chaos" at the main transition area, ie where they change from swimming to cycling to running, and where the kids did there events. That is where most of the supporters and families would be watching, after packing up and returning we all got to see the end ceremonies, prize giving and closing speeches.

The free BBQ sausages for the volunteers at the end finished of the day nicely.

Can't wait to do this again next year!

PS for more photo's check out https://www.sportwainuiomata.com/

2018-03-33 USO Fresh Ride

click here to watch the video

click here to watch the video

My second ride with the USO group. Turned out to be a great day for riding, a little bit of wind and cloud cover ensured a pleasant ride.going up the slight hill climb of Hay Street reminded me of my high school days pushing those milk carts at 5am in the mornings. So relieved I didn't get a tube puncture this time round. Also met more existing USO members so at the end of the ride I approached a leader and requested to apply for membership.

Going through Naenae brought back a lot of memories,this is where I grew up, went to primary, intermediate and college here.

Obtaining a Domain Name

There are many obvious reasons to have your own domain name when running a business, on-line presence with a good domain name will determine the success of your site. If you're not yet ready to take the plunge at least consider securing  a domain name before it's taken by someone else.

$21.50NZ +gst /year

Thats like a family pack of fish and chips for the night, peanuts really.

Would this suit an individual and is it worth it ? This can only be answered by the individual and here I will discuss my reasons for finally getting a domain name.

www.taramai.nz

Having my own domain name just looks good, and I'm so proud I went through the process from searching to purchasing. Choosing https://1stdomains.nz/ to manage the domain was an obvious choice for me, it had to be a kiwi outfit. Is it the cheapest ? maybe but keeping it in the country is important to me.

So now that I have a domain name, what could I do with it ? Well I've been using Googles Blogger for many years now, and that is where my new domain points to (for now, I have plans to run a wordpress site hosted from https://1stdomains.nz/).

On top of this I added 1 mailbox to the account, another $21.00NZ +gst per year. Not only having a cool website name, but having a email address attached to it is even better. philip@taramai.nz gets a few raised eyebrows, loving it.

Thoughts

There was mention of securing more extensions like .com .org etc I could understand why businesses would do this, company brands have to be protected. For me, I don't really care if someone else takes taramai.co.nz or taramai.com etc.

Chord Namer

I know this is kind of random but one of my favorite pastimes is playing the guitar. On many occasions I'm asked to name that chord, and I'm pretty confident at recognizing the major/minor chords.

This website jguitar.com is perfect for filling in those chords I cannot name. So that's what that chord is .. Dsus2

Just got to remember when using the site, the top line represents the bottom string. Clicking on those sound icons at the right strum/progressive strum is a really nice touch and you can hear exactly how it is supposed to sound.

13.5km Fitness Walk: A small Blog Experiment

Click here to watch video

The aim here is to break away ties with YouTube, using BitChute as the source to store my video's. As mentioned in the previous post, the disadvantage is the viewer has no playback quality selection.

Original video recorded and uploaded in 1920 x 1080res 50fps, 797.7MB
Post upload BitChute video  15.6MB 768 x 432res 24fps, 15.6MB

The downside of this method, I have create an image, use the images caption as the link to the videos URL, which then opens a new browsers page at the videos URL location.

Thoughts
I wonder if it is possible to easily imbed the video onto this page ...

BitChute vs YouTube for VLogging

Bitchute, is this my new YouTube alternative. I really do miss VidMe, that platform was perfect for small content creators.

If you have a YouTube channel, BitChute gives you an option to copy your newly uploaded from that platform to this one. This may seems like a great idea but I want to move away from YouTube completely.

Here's where I have concerns:-

• when you upload to YouTube, they process your video to improve viewing speeds, which also reduces the viewing quality. Everyone has accepted this because the content is more important than viewing quality.
• BitChute then copies this lower quality here, and then further processes this video to suit it's own streaming quality.
• I did an experiment, using my latest video 1920 x 1080 50 fps 9.4GB, uploaded directly to Bitchute, waited for their processing to finish, then downloaded the video. VLC reports the following file information for this video 786 x 432 24fps 739.3MB.

The quality of the direct upload to BitChute is immensely better than sending the video via YouTube.

YouTube: viewer chooses viewing quality 480p 720p 1080p 4k
BitChute: 480p? only; if you directly upload it is better than YouTubes 480p

VLC Capture 786x432

VLC Capture 1920x1080

 Am I happy with this lower quality, because as the content creator I need to be comfortable with this, and does this still get my message across ?

I feel I need to get some feedback, and what a great way to add a POLL to my Blog. I'll set this up for my next BitChute Exclusive video. :-)