Home Server Projects
The best servers are those that don't appear to be servers at all.
Saturday 13 September 2008, 8:50 AM
Back to The Thirties
Saturday 2:28 AM
Xwindowsjunkie Power & Light is running. Standard AC power went down at about 2AM. Reliant Energy wasn't so we've dropped back to the 1930's. That's when a lot of farms in the US were running generators if they were wealthy or candles and oil lamps if not.
We've gotten a lot of wind, little rain, the eye of the storm has just slipped most of the leading arc over the island of Galveston and is now working its way towards Houston.
The computer seems to not mind its power coming from a gasoline powered generator.
Saturday 7:00 AM
NOAA weather radar shows the eye well north of Houston so we're now on the bottom side of the storm. I and the family slept through the eye-transit.
It looks like I'll be running on the generator for some time. Its been running for nearly 5 hours. The TV news reporters just reported that Reliant Energy, the primary power distributor, reports that they've lost 99% of their customers through outages. Entergy another major supplier in the area is likewise "powerless". This was not from the satellite receiver. I've been "watching" TV by staying connected to the streaming video. That 99% number means that they have been talking to themselves for the most part!
Winds are up to 75 mph and gusting to over 100 mph. I've been hearing lots of bangs and booms as branches bang on the roof. Wind howling for the most part has been buried in the loud droning noise from the generator. That was an unexpected generator benefit! Its out on the back patio about 15 feet away with the power connections snaked through the dog door and under the cover. Its currently being water-cooled.
Xwindowsjunkie Power & Light is running. Standard AC power went down at about 2AM. Reliant Energy wasn't so we've dropped back to the 1930's. That's when a lot of farms in the US were running generators if they were wealthy or candles and oil lamps if not.
We've gotten a lot of wind, little rain, the eye of the storm has just slipped most of the leading arc over the island of Galveston and is now working its way towards Houston.
The computer seems to not mind its power coming from a gasoline powered generator.
Saturday 7:00 AM
NOAA weather radar shows the eye well north of Houston so we're now on the bottom side of the storm. I and the family slept through the eye-transit.
It looks like I'll be running on the generator for some time. Its been running for nearly 5 hours. The TV news reporters just reported that Reliant Energy, the primary power distributor, reports that they've lost 99% of their customers through outages. Entergy another major supplier in the area is likewise "powerless". This was not from the satellite receiver. I've been "watching" TV by staying connected to the streaming video. That 99% number means that they have been talking to themselves for the most part!
Winds are up to 75 mph and gusting to over 100 mph. I've been hearing lots of bangs and booms as branches bang on the roof. Wind howling for the most part has been buried in the loud droning noise from the generator. That was an unexpected generator benefit! Its out on the back patio about 15 feet away with the power connections snaked through the dog door and under the cover. Its currently being water-cooled.
Thursday 11 September 2008, 10:24 PM
I Don't Like IKE.
Well looks like the hurricane box gets opened this weekend. Its going to be definitely more like Ike Turner than Tina Turner.
(The title refers to the Republican presidential campaign slogan, 1952.)
Friday Night 7:20PM CDT
Earlier my concern about keeping power running in the house were justified. Winds are gusting up to 45 mph. The storm is still mostly offshore yet we've gotten 15 to 20 momentary breaks in the last 3 hours. These power breaks are probably service events related to changes necessary to "disconnect" areas of the southeast Houston-Galveston areas that are already under water.
So far the UPS for the computer systems seems to be running ok. My DSL connection is working more reliably than the satellite system simply because the DSL is on the UPS and the satellite receiver is not.
The storm is still rated as only a Category 2 storm but the surge looks like it will be huge. Large areas of the city of Galveston are already under some water on the bay side.
My use of the NOAA website for hurricane information has probably helped keep my blood pressure and my wife's anxiety down!
One item on the local television stations though was somewhat ironic. One of the news teams was setup in Galveston and showing the seawall in their "live" shots. One of the traffic lights on the seawall street was lit up red and remained stuck there with about 10 feet of water swirling around the base of the traffic light! Every time you see the light its stuck on red and the water is higher than before.
Earlier today my son and I "rescued" my sister's car from my Mom's house in Clear Lake. My sister and my mom are approximately up in Arkansas by now having left yesterday to avoid the potential flooding at my mom's house. We've got 25 feet more in elevation compared to her house. There might be some local flooding here but not nearly as much as there in Clear Lake.
Friday Night 9:50PM CDT
There have been a number of reports of fires in the city of Galveston that have destroyed homes and businesses. One fire was at a dry storage facility for power boats across the street from the University of Texas Medical Branch hospital. Because the storage facility was surrounded by 10 feet of water, the firemen couldn't get to the location close enough to do anything but watch it burn. That was in daylight late this afternoon.
Later this evening there have been a number of reports of houses on fire. In one case a block of 12 houses that caught fire and again burned without firemen being able to do anything about it. In all of the situations, the combination of high water and high winds make fighting the fire impossible.
Makes me glad I turned off the gas and electricity at my mom's house. When you think about a hurricane damaging your home, you don't normally think of fire as a reason to lose your house.
I've been using the computer almost exclusively for information about the storm. A very nice combination of technology. I've been getting streaming video and audio from one of the local television stations. Additionally, I've been continuously connected to the radar loop from the NOAA, the IR loop from the weather satellite and obviously connected to this blog and other websites.
Locally winds are up to 55 to 60 mph, lots of wind but very little rain. As hurricanes go, so far this one is stirred not shaken, very dry.
(The title refers to the Republican presidential campaign slogan, 1952.)
Friday Night 7:20PM CDT
Earlier my concern about keeping power running in the house were justified. Winds are gusting up to 45 mph. The storm is still mostly offshore yet we've gotten 15 to 20 momentary breaks in the last 3 hours. These power breaks are probably service events related to changes necessary to "disconnect" areas of the southeast Houston-Galveston areas that are already under water.
So far the UPS for the computer systems seems to be running ok. My DSL connection is working more reliably than the satellite system simply because the DSL is on the UPS and the satellite receiver is not.
The storm is still rated as only a Category 2 storm but the surge looks like it will be huge. Large areas of the city of Galveston are already under some water on the bay side.
My use of the NOAA website for hurricane information has probably helped keep my blood pressure and my wife's anxiety down!
One item on the local television stations though was somewhat ironic. One of the news teams was setup in Galveston and showing the seawall in their "live" shots. One of the traffic lights on the seawall street was lit up red and remained stuck there with about 10 feet of water swirling around the base of the traffic light! Every time you see the light its stuck on red and the water is higher than before.
Earlier today my son and I "rescued" my sister's car from my Mom's house in Clear Lake. My sister and my mom are approximately up in Arkansas by now having left yesterday to avoid the potential flooding at my mom's house. We've got 25 feet more in elevation compared to her house. There might be some local flooding here but not nearly as much as there in Clear Lake.
Friday Night 9:50PM CDT
There have been a number of reports of fires in the city of Galveston that have destroyed homes and businesses. One fire was at a dry storage facility for power boats across the street from the University of Texas Medical Branch hospital. Because the storage facility was surrounded by 10 feet of water, the firemen couldn't get to the location close enough to do anything but watch it burn. That was in daylight late this afternoon.
Later this evening there have been a number of reports of houses on fire. In one case a block of 12 houses that caught fire and again burned without firemen being able to do anything about it. In all of the situations, the combination of high water and high winds make fighting the fire impossible.
Makes me glad I turned off the gas and electricity at my mom's house. When you think about a hurricane damaging your home, you don't normally think of fire as a reason to lose your house.
I've been using the computer almost exclusively for information about the storm. A very nice combination of technology. I've been getting streaming video and audio from one of the local television stations. Additionally, I've been continuously connected to the radar loop from the NOAA, the IR loop from the weather satellite and obviously connected to this blog and other websites.
Locally winds are up to 55 to 60 mph, lots of wind but very little rain. As hurricanes go, so far this one is stirred not shaken, very dry.
Tuesday 9 September 2008, 6:51 PM
When is a computer company not a computer company?
When its DELL?
DELL announced that its going to sell all of its factories. Not some, all.
I guess there's a lot of unhappy Texans going to be looking for work, maybe. Or maybe its going to be a case of moving the jobs yet again overseas.
What does that mean for companies like the one I work for that use DELL computers for everything? No idea.
DELL announced that its going to sell all of its factories. Not some, all.
I guess there's a lot of unhappy Texans going to be looking for work, maybe. Or maybe its going to be a case of moving the jobs yet again overseas.
What does that mean for companies like the one I work for that use DELL computers for everything? No idea.
Saturday 6 September 2008, 4:04 PM
Billy & Jerry
Just watched the Seinfeld moment with Gates courtesy of The Register and YouTube. Personally I wouldn't have paid to watch Bill buy shoes or hitch up his butt, but we all know that Microsoft knows what they are doing right? I guess they think they are getting their money's worth.
The advertising people love this kind of a campaign. Its a cash cow. It takes forever, nearly, to show measurable results. And they always can say they've hired two retired has-beens in a sort of affirmative-action program! Ha!
The only funny thing in the ad was that the picture used on the "platinum" card was the booking picture of Gates when he got arrested for DUI in Arizona. Don't you love the Internet?
Oh by the way, did they actually mention software or computers?
The advertising people love this kind of a campaign. Its a cash cow. It takes forever, nearly, to show measurable results. And they always can say they've hired two retired has-beens in a sort of affirmative-action program! Ha!
The only funny thing in the ad was that the picture used on the "platinum" card was the booking picture of Gates when he got arrested for DUI in Arizona. Don't you love the Internet?
Oh by the way, did they actually mention software or computers?
Wednesday 3 September 2008, 1:24 PM
Weather Station Net-book
Here's an engineering project for somebody and a reason for me to buy a netbook. A netbook would work because it is small and low-powered. An OLPC or an ASUS eee PC would be perfect because of the low power consumption. You'd still want to plug it into an external power source though for vehicular and continuous use.
Take an input from a GPS or a fix pulled from Google Earth or maps and then do a pull of weather information from a selection of sources. If you don't have a GPS receiver, you can get latitude and longitude and elevation off the display of your location from Google Earth. A selection of locations can be pre-stored in the system based on where you know you will be. Type it into a text box or push a button on the Google Earth application. That becomes the prime focus of what comes next.
Using the geographical fix you've just made, the software and hardware begins to collect weather data pertinent to that location(s). In the case of the US, the NOAA and the NHC (National Hurricane Center) would be primary data sources. Usual products available from the NOAA on their websites include satellite pix and loops, 3 and 5 day forecasts, rainfall, wind, tornado and flood warnings. They have regional radar displays for all over the country, most of them at least partially overlapping. It might be possible to add color doppler radar maps from the television stations in the area and handled on sub-channels depending on digital broadcast coverage. Add the audio warning announcements for the weather radio stations (presumably handled or available as an audio stream, I don't know for sure). All of this data could be streamed from multiple channels on a digital television transponder on direct broadcast satellites.
The hardware uses a satellite receiver connected to a netbook. The receiver is tuned to a transponder on the direct broadcast television satellites. Because the datastream is digitally encoded for redundancy and error-correction, the receiver won't require a large antenna like those used for video reception. The datastream coming down from the satellites is continuously broadcasting weather products for all regional areas. There will be multiple data sub-streams, one of which is selected based on your location fix. The netbook will be storing what is relevant to the current given location.
An attached GPS receiver would be especially useful for use in mobile vehicles, trucks etc. Another receiver for the sub-channels for the local digital television stations would be a bonus or accessory item. Use a web browser for a display application.
Upgrades to the software could include a way to generate a local micro-forecast. It would be especially helpful to predict possible flash-flooding in the immediate vicinity based on elevation and local terrain. It might even suggest a better location to move to so as to avoid floods. Every year a few teenagers and adults get killed by flash floods at summer camps located in rural locations. Winter and out-of-season snow storms strand travelers for days every year.
There was a precedent service. At one time the weather bureau here in the US had a continuous “broadcast” service that ran on telephone line connected teletype. Broadcast radio and television stations (and others) paid for the teletype connection to the local regional weather office and got all of the weather information for free. Of course a certain amount of it did not directly relate to the specific area the broadcaster covered but that was one job the weather announcer or staff was expected to handle. A service based on newer digital and Internet technologies similar to RSS could provide finely focused weather information for practically any endeavor.
Anybody see this as a practical FOSS project?
Obviously the big issue is the access to a transponder on a satellite. It might be something that can be tested with the cooperation of one of the satellite corporations. An alternative test would be a demo transmitter setup to simulate a satellite feed. Local sub-channel feeds could be setup in the same manner on unused local channel assignments with FCC approval.
The idea would be a public weather service using essentially the resources already in play on Internet web sites but setup as streaming feeds of data that are siphoned off onto a local "hard drive", probably a flash memory card. The use of the netbook is for low power reasons and the likelihood that the system will become a dedicated system.
Take an input from a GPS or a fix pulled from Google Earth or maps and then do a pull of weather information from a selection of sources. If you don't have a GPS receiver, you can get latitude and longitude and elevation off the display of your location from Google Earth. A selection of locations can be pre-stored in the system based on where you know you will be. Type it into a text box or push a button on the Google Earth application. That becomes the prime focus of what comes next.
Using the geographical fix you've just made, the software and hardware begins to collect weather data pertinent to that location(s). In the case of the US, the NOAA and the NHC (National Hurricane Center) would be primary data sources. Usual products available from the NOAA on their websites include satellite pix and loops, 3 and 5 day forecasts, rainfall, wind, tornado and flood warnings. They have regional radar displays for all over the country, most of them at least partially overlapping. It might be possible to add color doppler radar maps from the television stations in the area and handled on sub-channels depending on digital broadcast coverage. Add the audio warning announcements for the weather radio stations (presumably handled or available as an audio stream, I don't know for sure). All of this data could be streamed from multiple channels on a digital television transponder on direct broadcast satellites.
The hardware uses a satellite receiver connected to a netbook. The receiver is tuned to a transponder on the direct broadcast television satellites. Because the datastream is digitally encoded for redundancy and error-correction, the receiver won't require a large antenna like those used for video reception. The datastream coming down from the satellites is continuously broadcasting weather products for all regional areas. There will be multiple data sub-streams, one of which is selected based on your location fix. The netbook will be storing what is relevant to the current given location.
An attached GPS receiver would be especially useful for use in mobile vehicles, trucks etc. Another receiver for the sub-channels for the local digital television stations would be a bonus or accessory item. Use a web browser for a display application.
Upgrades to the software could include a way to generate a local micro-forecast. It would be especially helpful to predict possible flash-flooding in the immediate vicinity based on elevation and local terrain. It might even suggest a better location to move to so as to avoid floods. Every year a few teenagers and adults get killed by flash floods at summer camps located in rural locations. Winter and out-of-season snow storms strand travelers for days every year.
There was a precedent service. At one time the weather bureau here in the US had a continuous “broadcast” service that ran on telephone line connected teletype. Broadcast radio and television stations (and others) paid for the teletype connection to the local regional weather office and got all of the weather information for free. Of course a certain amount of it did not directly relate to the specific area the broadcaster covered but that was one job the weather announcer or staff was expected to handle. A service based on newer digital and Internet technologies similar to RSS could provide finely focused weather information for practically any endeavor.
Anybody see this as a practical FOSS project?
Obviously the big issue is the access to a transponder on a satellite. It might be something that can be tested with the cooperation of one of the satellite corporations. An alternative test would be a demo transmitter setup to simulate a satellite feed. Local sub-channel feeds could be setup in the same manner on unused local channel assignments with FCC approval.
The idea would be a public weather service using essentially the resources already in play on Internet web sites but setup as streaming feeds of data that are siphoned off onto a local "hard drive", probably a flash memory card. The use of the netbook is for low power reasons and the likelihood that the system will become a dedicated system.
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