Badmotivator

New Blu-ray Drive

Skip this post if you don’t care about Mac Pro hardware upgrades.

I just successfully installed a LITE-ON 4x Blu-ray Disc SATA Internal Optical Drive iHOS104, priced $65 on Amazon, and installed it in my early-2008 Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro has connectors for PATA in the optical drive bay. I tried a SATA to PATA/IDE Hard Drive Interface Adapter, and then used the existing connectors in the optical drive bay, but the Mac Pro did not see the drive. Next I tried connecting the drive to a vacant SATA port on the motherboard, which required a significant amount of dis- and re-assembly of the inside of the computer, using the included red SATA cable. A longer, right-angle SATA cable would have facilitated this operation. I used a SATA Power Cable 4-pin Molex to 15-pin SerialATA adapter, price $1.31 plus shipping through Amazon, to power the drive from the existing unused power source in the optical drive bay. This part was easy.

On boot the computer sees the drive and reads the data from the included Blu-ray disc.

I have not yet ripped any movies.

If you are the owner of a 2008 Mac Pro and would like more information about how to do this, email me at ben at this domain.

We are moving!

As of Saturday, June 19, our address will be 850 W 38th Ave, Eugene, 97405

Pictures of the House We Are Buying

Rainbow Over 1207 W 5th Ave

Make it big and pan around.

Under Contract To Buy A House

Cheryl and I have signed the papers, and now expect to close on our new house on June 15. Holy shit.

Owen at 1 year

Badmotivator’s new home

I finally got badmotivator away from Yahoo web hosting and into the hands of a host who could offer IMAP mail. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to move the blog, but I got it. I think all of the linked images work, even!

The new host, Bluehost, has been helpful and their online administration tools are adequate. It’s even cheaper than Yahoo.

Elliot, Owen, and Cheryl at Heceta Lighthouse Beach

Double Sink Bath

On The Top Of Mt. Hoodoo