My Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror lens arrived today, and after futzing about with it, I noticed it was a clear night outside. Even better, the moon hadn’t quite set yet. I got off a few pictures before it was lost to the trees. This is the best one:

I do have a couple of notes for people looking at mirror lenses:

First off, they aren’t nearly as sharp as the auto-focusing magic zoom lenses you have in your bag. Mostly because you don’t have auto-focus, and manipulating the focus ring at 600mm is an act of incredible patience. Even worse, tripod shake is always an issue for night work at 600mm, so you have to set the shutter delay or use a remote. Live view is a miracle at 600mm.

Second, it takes some work getting the exposures figured out. The lenses don’t have any electronics in them, as best I can tell, so all metering and focus information is manual. You’ve got to figure out what you’re looking at, how bright it is, and work it all out yourself. Sadly, for metering, live view is useless, at best. (It also ruins your night vision and drains your battery. Fun!)

Third, if you’re an idiot like me, you won’t realize at first that there’s a 4X Neutral Density filter in the filter holder. It makes it nearly impossible to take pictures handheld, even in daylight at ISO 6400. When you get the lens, check the filter holder, which usually slots into the back of the lens.

It’s always a bad idea to leave valuable things around when you have a puppy in the house. Always. Greta, our two year old lab, is usually good about not getting too mouthy with our stuff. When it’s left in the backyard, however, she sees it as fair game. For Christmas, Qais got a bunch of Plan Toys stuff – natural wood, non-toxic paint, the whole nine yards. Good company, good toys. A little on the expensive side, but hey. He’s our boy.

He took a bunch of the smaller items outside. The little man that came with the Parking Garage, a steamroller, an excavator, and… something. This is what’s left of them.

Now I’ve gone and done it.

I’ve ordered a Sigma 600mm f/8.0 mirror lens. Gets me past all the silly adapters and non-CPU lens silliness – and it gives me a real focus barrel to use. This should be a lot easier to use for astrophotography.

There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can’t stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you can put them on an SMB share, but it’s not recommended. I’ve run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is iSCSI. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it’s been a long road – when I’ve had the time in the past, I’ve not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I’ve had the need in the past, I’ve had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions’s product page for globalSAN, their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via svcs:

``There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can’t stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you can put them on an SMB share, but it’s not recommended. I’ve run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is iSCSI. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it’s been a long road – when I’ve had the time in the past, I’ve not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I’ve had the need in the past, I’ve had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions’s product page for globalSAN, their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via svcs:

``

Next, install and enable the iSCSI Comstar packages, as they are missing from a default install of Solaris 11 Express:

```There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can’t stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you can put them on an SMB share, but it’s not recommended. I’ve run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is iSCSI. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it’s been a long road – when I’ve had the time in the past, I’ve not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I’ve had the need in the past, I’ve had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions’s product page for globalSAN, their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via svcs:

``There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can’t stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you can put them on an SMB share, but it’s not recommended. I’ve run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is iSCSI. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it’s been a long road – when I’ve had the time in the past, I’ve not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I’ve had the need in the past, I’ve had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions’s product page for globalSAN, their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via svcs:

``

Next, install and enable the iSCSI Comstar packages, as they are missing from a default install of Solaris 11 Express:

Finally, create your sparsely provisioned ZVOL that you intend to offer as a iSCSI target to your Mac, and then set the ZVOL up as a COMSTAR target:
  
````There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can't stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you _can_ put them on an SMB share, but it's not recommended. I've run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is [iSCSI][1]. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it's been a long road – when I've had the time in the past, I've not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I've had the need in the past, I've had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions's [product page for globalSAN][2], their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via `svcs`:

``There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can't stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you _can_ put them on an SMB share, but it's not recommended. I've run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is [iSCSI][1]. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it's been a long road – when I've had the time in the past, I've not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I've had the need in the past, I've had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions's [product page for globalSAN][2], their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via `svcs`:

`` 

Next, install and enable the iSCSI Comstar packages, as they are missing from a default install of Solaris 11 Express:
  
```There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can't stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you _can_ put them on an SMB share, but it's not recommended. I've run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is [iSCSI][1]. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it's been a long road – when I've had the time in the past, I've not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I've had the need in the past, I've had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions's [product page for globalSAN][2], their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via `svcs`:

``There are times that you really need to have a network volume mounted on your workstation, but mounted as a local drive. If you are mucking about with Aperture libraries, for example, you can't stick them on a network share. If you are using Time Machine… well, you _can_ put them on an SMB share, but it's not recommended. I've run into a bunch of situations in the past where I needed to do this, and the solution (as best I can tell) is [iSCSI][1]. IP encapsulated SCSI commands. “Local” drives over the network.

Sadly, it's been a long road – when I've had the time in the past, I've not had the pressing need, and I was daunted by the apparent complexity from the message boards about getting CHAP authentication working in OpenSolaris. When I've had the need in the past, I've had no time at all to work on figuring out the pieces, and my attention instead went to other fires.

The irony of it all is it takes about 20 minutes to setup, even with a moderately slow internet connection. First, go to Studio Network Solutions's [product page for globalSAN][2], their iSCSI initiator for Mac OS X, give them your email address, and they will mail you a download link. Install the package, and reboot your Mac.

Then, ssh into your Solaris 11 Express box, and enable the SCSI Target Mode Framework services via `svcs`:

`` 

Next, install and enable the iSCSI Comstar packages, as they are missing from a default install of Solaris 11 Express:
  

Finally, create your sparsely provisioned ZVOL that you intend to offer as a iSCSI target to your Mac, and then set the ZVOL up as a COMSTAR target:

````

Now, all you have to do is go into the globalSAN iSCSI System Preference pane in OSX, authenticate, and add a new portal address. Once it’s added, connect to it, and you’ll get a warning message telling you the disk you just inserted cannot be read by OSX, and will ask if you want to format it.

And that’s it. Damn.

I thought open would always triumph, because closed was dumb. At least, that’s what Google told me.

Now, it seems, there’s a different story.

This morning I went on the first bike ride of the year with the boy. We only did a mile and a half, and I’m amazed at how far out of shape I am. Half an hour later I was still out of breath. I’ve got to be better about this.

On the good news side of things, Qais loved the ride.

I’m almost done moving the stream of email pointing at dezendorf.com accounts over from the Network Solutions servers over to a Google Apps for my domain account. This gives us a useable webmail interface as well as divorcing our email hosting from our web presence.

Considering that I’m in the process of evaluating a new web hosting companies, this makes excellent sense. I think all the Google Domain accounts work, and now that I’m not at work I can flip the MX records.

Here we go!