I just ordered the parts from tigerdirect. I opted out of the shuttle because, while it was a way cool box, it was sort of expensive for what I needed. Instead I got a kit with a mobo, 2GB RAM, and an AMD 5000+ proc for $170, as well as a geforce 8400gs that will hopefully blow the pants off the x300.
What to name the new system, though.... Hrmmm...
Friday, August 29, 2008
Sold!
Yay.
Last night the Athlon's processor sold for $200. Some guy in Oregon decided to skip all the bidding shenanigans and did the buy-it-now. For some odd reason my ebay toolbar in firefox got logged out, so I wasn't alerted of it the second it happened. When I did catch it Ian, Tyler, and I were in a Skype conference and I had a bit of a random outburst. Though, for the first time ever I listed an auction as as-is instead of providing a warranty, so that I could buy my new stuffs right away! Except! No. Paypal/eBay decided to implement another "protect the buyer" feature that that causes paypal to hold all funds transferred if the item sells for over $100 by a seller that has less than 100 feedbacks until either A) paypal gets delivery conf. on the buyer's end, B) the buyer provides positive feedback, or the questionable "three weeks have passed." I'm not really sure about the last one, like as in how it protects the buyer or whatever. They make it sound almost like "no matter what, after 3 weeks the seller will get their money."
It doesn't matter at all though, because I'm not a scammer, the processor works fine (as does the HSF,) and dad shipped it right after he dropped me off here (comm co) via priority, so it should get to Oregon around tuesday or wednesday. As for my other eBay items, one set of RAM currently has a $20 bid, and the other does not. I'm getting ready to write up a post for the motherboard but I just realized I can't actually post anything from here on account of the fact that I only moved part of the athlon backup to the thinkpad.
So!
Now that the processor is sold and gone, the Athlon is pretty useless. Realizing this, I went ahead and stripped it down and set all the parts aside. While I was doing this, something occurred to me- I don't really need the massive space that a tower provides. I mean, it's not like I'm about to run out of places to put a tower in my room; but when I can get a new smaller case for cheaper, why not check it out? And check it out again. On TigerDirect I found a really, really, really nice barebones shuttle system. Basically a 12" deep by 8" tall and 8" wide box with an AM2 motherboard providing PCI and PCI-e, as well as two RAM slots, three sata, two esata, lots of usb, 7.1 audio, firewire, etc bundled with an AMD AM2 5000+ processor, which is epic. Plus it was only $220! Unfortunately the sale ends in two days so I'm not going to be able to get this specific one but there will always be more, but at least I have my sights set.
Though that kit would need another $30 at least, for RAM and shipping. This is where the RAM on ebay and the work I'm (hopefully) doing this saturday kicks in. I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to be doing on saturday, but I know it involves my NET225 teacher, who's an awesome guy, and a lady moving into a doctors office and needs computer stuff set up, and she things she has a bunch of networking equipment set up or something. I don't really know, but I should be finding out this afternoon, as today is another all-dayer.
All in all I'm predicting that within the next two or three weeks I'll be setting up some sort of new system or another. If I /do/ go with getting a shuttle, then I'll have no use for the athlon's case or PSU, both of which are very nice. So I have to decide- sell them, or keep them for a potential later computer! I don't know! If the funds from selling crap and working level it out I'll probably just keep them around. Here's to waiting.
Last night the Athlon's processor sold for $200. Some guy in Oregon decided to skip all the bidding shenanigans and did the buy-it-now. For some odd reason my ebay toolbar in firefox got logged out, so I wasn't alerted of it the second it happened. When I did catch it Ian, Tyler, and I were in a Skype conference and I had a bit of a random outburst. Though, for the first time ever I listed an auction as as-is instead of providing a warranty, so that I could buy my new stuffs right away! Except! No. Paypal/eBay decided to implement another "protect the buyer" feature that that causes paypal to hold all funds transferred if the item sells for over $100 by a seller that has less than 100 feedbacks until either A) paypal gets delivery conf. on the buyer's end, B) the buyer provides positive feedback, or the questionable "three weeks have passed." I'm not really sure about the last one, like as in how it protects the buyer or whatever. They make it sound almost like "no matter what, after 3 weeks the seller will get their money."
It doesn't matter at all though, because I'm not a scammer, the processor works fine (as does the HSF,) and dad shipped it right after he dropped me off here (comm co) via priority, so it should get to Oregon around tuesday or wednesday. As for my other eBay items, one set of RAM currently has a $20 bid, and the other does not. I'm getting ready to write up a post for the motherboard but I just realized I can't actually post anything from here on account of the fact that I only moved part of the athlon backup to the thinkpad.
So!
Now that the processor is sold and gone, the Athlon is pretty useless. Realizing this, I went ahead and stripped it down and set all the parts aside. While I was doing this, something occurred to me- I don't really need the massive space that a tower provides. I mean, it's not like I'm about to run out of places to put a tower in my room; but when I can get a new smaller case for cheaper, why not check it out? And check it out again. On TigerDirect I found a really, really, really nice barebones shuttle system. Basically a 12" deep by 8" tall and 8" wide box with an AM2 motherboard providing PCI and PCI-e, as well as two RAM slots, three sata, two esata, lots of usb, 7.1 audio, firewire, etc bundled with an AMD AM2 5000+ processor, which is epic. Plus it was only $220! Unfortunately the sale ends in two days so I'm not going to be able to get this specific one but there will always be more, but at least I have my sights set.
Though that kit would need another $30 at least, for RAM and shipping. This is where the RAM on ebay and the work I'm (hopefully) doing this saturday kicks in. I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to be doing on saturday, but I know it involves my NET225 teacher, who's an awesome guy, and a lady moving into a doctors office and needs computer stuff set up, and she things she has a bunch of networking equipment set up or something. I don't really know, but I should be finding out this afternoon, as today is another all-dayer.
All in all I'm predicting that within the next two or three weeks I'll be setting up some sort of new system or another. If I /do/ go with getting a shuttle, then I'll have no use for the athlon's case or PSU, both of which are very nice. So I have to decide- sell them, or keep them for a potential later computer! I don't know! If the funds from selling crap and working level it out I'll probably just keep them around. Here's to waiting.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
eBay fun!
I've put the Athlon's processor and ram up on ebay, and am preparing to post the motherboard as well. If all goes as planned I'm going to replace them with new intel core2 stuff and ddr2 ram. Normally I wouldn't do this because the athlons current spec is more than suitable, but there are crazy people paying slot of money for those so I figured I may as well sell while it has some value. The ram and mobo are worrth a bit less but I suppose selling it all is a good idea. Eventually I'll get a new video card as well but that's much less important than having a good prod to me. Especially If the processor has those fancy virtuliZation features.
iPod post! Sorry for typos and no tags...
iPod post! Sorry for typos and no tags...
Sunday, August 24, 2008
new watch band!
Mom and I are at the greenville bojangles now, just back from target where we picked up a nice new watch band for $5. It's much better than the one that came with my watch originally, it's all black nylon instead of bulky and plasticy like the other one. We're off to b&n now, then at 5:15 were going to go see step brothers.
Yay for free wifi!
Yay for free wifi!
Friday, August 22, 2008
Stranded at the Library
I'm officially stranded at the library. It's 12:48 now, and I've been here since roughly 8:10. I was going to try and get a ride with someone after they got out of their class (which would be right about now) but unfortunately I wasn't able to ask them before they left for class and I have no idea where said class is so I can't exactly get up and go ask. That just means that I'll be here until somewhere between 3-5. And for some reason, who knows why, when I was packing my bag this morning I figured "Eh, I'm not going to need the thinkpad" unfortunately I don't know /why/ I didn't think I'd need the thinkpad, but here I am, thinkpadless, in the library on a really nice Dell Optiplex 755. I was using the touch for a while, browsing the webbernets, but it occurred to me that not only is that sort of uncomfortable, it kills the battery in case I want to listen to music some time later on.
Several things I'm noticing about these setups are- the LCDs are really nice (of course) dell 1907s. At least three people are on stations that have the LCD tilted (they're made to be able to tilt 90deg for portrait work) by about 4-5 degrees. I don't know if they're aware of that fact, but it looks like it would be incredibly uncomfortable. Or at least really hard to use. Also, I absolutely adore these keyboards. They're compact, very tactile, fancily stiled, and very sturdy feeling. I could easily get one of these (* Prepares to open ebay...) to work alongside the Model M, or I could get two and replace the keyboard on the optiplex and athlon. The mouse on the other hand is absolutely horrible. It's a weird hourglass shape, way way way too narrow, and the scrollwheel is too small. Now that I think about it I've actually never really been a fan of dell mice. The PS/2 trackball one I have has the widest steps imaginable. Think if you were writing something, and wanted to move the mouse to a specific area in the text to highlight a section for re-placement or deletion or whatever. When you panned over the text instead of nicely sliding along, the steps are literally an entire letter wide!
All of my classes are going along really nicely, my English 112 class with Dr Davis is really nice, it's pretty much the same as ENG111 except it's much more thorough, and I like that. Right now we're writing a paper that's pretty basic, it's just a simple analysis of ourselves for him so he can examine our current writing capacity. The topic is of course argument, and arguing weather or not the writer (me/other students) agree that "grades you get in hichschool are an accurate reflection of your strengths and weaknesses in college." An easy enough topic. The hard thing for me is that I was never technically in "real highschool," I left Terra Ceia after 8th grade for homeschooling, and in homeschooling I was never technically graded. I suppose I could conjure up (in a much less connivery sense of the word) what my grades more or less would have been, had I been graded. The problem with that is that other students in my ENG112 class that have been through real highschool know that part of the reason your HS grades don't reflect your college strengths/weaknesses is that often (so students have claimed) HS teachers make mistakes when inputting grades, and the environments of many highschools can effect the performance of a student. None of that would be relevant for me because I was homeschooled. However for 8th grade, which was spent at a real school, I would agree that yes (or no?) my "HS" grades don't reflect my strengths and weaknesses as a college student. Though if I was to write entirely on the subject of my highschool grades then I would say that yes the "grades" from that do reflect my strengths/weaknesses as a student in college because I'm working almost completely the same here at the comm co as I was/am in homeschooling type situations.
Above I mentioned getting one of these fantabulous dell keyboards for my optiplex, and that got me thinking about my other optiplex, as I have two. Last night Tyler and I got to the conversation of routers, and how modern "home use" routers are nothing more then Systems-on-a-Chip with five ethernet ports and a wireless network adapter slapped on there. Because of this, when subjected to higher loads, such as when businesses with 20-30 computers run all their network activity through one, they fail. What Tyler was telling me was that what he does, and suggests for his clients, is to use an operating system called Smoothwall, running on a computer with two or more NICs. It sounds fairly amazing, supporting very controlable proxying and QoS, and neat things like scanning the first few packets of, say, a file sent over AIM to check for anything ominous. Similar to Tomato it supports in depth bandwidth monitoring and control, which is really cool. I popped it in virtualbox and played around with it for a bit, but since I didn't really read the manual or anything beforehand I was mostly stranded, but the principal sounded pretty great.
How I plan to [eventually] use it is pretty simple. Take my spare GX1, with the PII 400Mhz processor, put 256MB of RAM in it, and a 10GB HDD. Plus another 10/100 NIC to work alongside the onboard 3com. My cable modem would go to one of those, and then either my cisco 10/100 switch or another switch would be connected to the other. I'd set the current router to work in WAP mode only (don't you just love router firmwares that are versatile!) and connect it to the switch, and taadaa you have a fancy router! The main thing I'm wondering about though is alternative switches for direct connection, because I'd only need one with five ports, so the 12 port cisco switch would be overkill. I'ld probably put a test version of it into effect one of these days when dad is in Raleigh for a while, because it will cause a few hours of downtime at the least.
I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up for now, I might start another post in here later on today, but I have a few other things on my mind that I'd like to peruse.
Several things I'm noticing about these setups are- the LCDs are really nice (of course) dell 1907s. At least three people are on stations that have the LCD tilted (they're made to be able to tilt 90deg for portrait work) by about 4-5 degrees. I don't know if they're aware of that fact, but it looks like it would be incredibly uncomfortable. Or at least really hard to use. Also, I absolutely adore these keyboards. They're compact, very tactile, fancily stiled, and very sturdy feeling. I could easily get one of these (* Prepares to open ebay...) to work alongside the Model M, or I could get two and replace the keyboard on the optiplex and athlon. The mouse on the other hand is absolutely horrible. It's a weird hourglass shape, way way way too narrow, and the scrollwheel is too small. Now that I think about it I've actually never really been a fan of dell mice. The PS/2 trackball one I have has the widest steps imaginable. Think if you were writing something, and wanted to move the mouse to a specific area in the text to highlight a section for re-placement or deletion or whatever. When you panned over the text instead of nicely sliding along, the steps are literally an entire letter wide!
All of my classes are going along really nicely, my English 112 class with Dr Davis is really nice, it's pretty much the same as ENG111 except it's much more thorough, and I like that. Right now we're writing a paper that's pretty basic, it's just a simple analysis of ourselves for him so he can examine our current writing capacity. The topic is of course argument, and arguing weather or not the writer (me/other students) agree that "grades you get in hichschool are an accurate reflection of your strengths and weaknesses in college." An easy enough topic. The hard thing for me is that I was never technically in "real highschool," I left Terra Ceia after 8th grade for homeschooling, and in homeschooling I was never technically graded. I suppose I could conjure up (in a much less connivery sense of the word) what my grades more or less would have been, had I been graded. The problem with that is that other students in my ENG112 class that have been through real highschool know that part of the reason your HS grades don't reflect your college strengths/weaknesses is that often (so students have claimed) HS teachers make mistakes when inputting grades, and the environments of many highschools can effect the performance of a student. None of that would be relevant for me because I was homeschooled. However for 8th grade, which was spent at a real school, I would agree that yes (or no?) my "HS" grades don't reflect my strengths and weaknesses as a college student. Though if I was to write entirely on the subject of my highschool grades then I would say that yes the "grades" from that do reflect my strengths/weaknesses as a student in college because I'm working almost completely the same here at the comm co as I was/am in homeschooling type situations.
Above I mentioned getting one of these fantabulous dell keyboards for my optiplex, and that got me thinking about my other optiplex, as I have two. Last night Tyler and I got to the conversation of routers, and how modern "home use" routers are nothing more then Systems-on-a-Chip with five ethernet ports and a wireless network adapter slapped on there. Because of this, when subjected to higher loads, such as when businesses with 20-30 computers run all their network activity through one, they fail. What Tyler was telling me was that what he does, and suggests for his clients, is to use an operating system called Smoothwall, running on a computer with two or more NICs. It sounds fairly amazing, supporting very controlable proxying and QoS, and neat things like scanning the first few packets of, say, a file sent over AIM to check for anything ominous. Similar to Tomato it supports in depth bandwidth monitoring and control, which is really cool. I popped it in virtualbox and played around with it for a bit, but since I didn't really read the manual or anything beforehand I was mostly stranded, but the principal sounded pretty great.
How I plan to [eventually] use it is pretty simple. Take my spare GX1, with the PII 400Mhz processor, put 256MB of RAM in it, and a 10GB HDD. Plus another 10/100 NIC to work alongside the onboard 3com. My cable modem would go to one of those, and then either my cisco 10/100 switch or another switch would be connected to the other. I'd set the current router to work in WAP mode only (don't you just love router firmwares that are versatile!) and connect it to the switch, and taadaa you have a fancy router! The main thing I'm wondering about though is alternative switches for direct connection, because I'd only need one with five ports, so the 12 port cisco switch would be overkill. I'ld probably put a test version of it into effect one of these days when dad is in Raleigh for a while, because it will cause a few hours of downtime at the least.
I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up for now, I might start another post in here later on today, but I have a few other things on my mind that I'd like to peruse.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
things!
Haven't blogged in a few days, I guess that sorta ruins my "Whee, let's blog every day!" idea. Regardless of what I haven't said on here, several things have happened that are worth mentioning. I helped Landon move into ECU a couple days ago, and he gave me his Optiplex GX1 and a nice Logitech 6.1 system. The Optiplex is rather nice, decked out with an incredibly fast SCSI card and a 15k 36GB eServer drive, as well as a 7.2k (if I remember right) 9GB IBM drive. The 6.1 system is also very nice. Right now I have it set up as a 2.1 system because I don't have good placement for the rear speakers.
I also got my Cisco books for this semester, which starts today at 6:30pm with my NET225-50 class. The books we had to get are a little weird, so I'm not sure what's going to happen with that, but I'm not really concerned.
My room is finally 90% clean too, including the closet. I now have an empty closet which I may organize things into, what fun! While cleaning it out I came across my old electric typewriter. I got it a few years ago but when trying to clean it I was unable to get the top hood back onto it, so I just closeted it. This time around however I just decided to yank out the hood and use it with an open top. Working with it like this is a lot of fun, you get to see all the action. Plus setting pages is much easier. I'm getting closer to moving the server downstairs, as I don't really need full gig-e on it and it's starting to take too much space.
I also got my Cisco books for this semester, which starts today at 6:30pm with my NET225-50 class. The books we had to get are a little weird, so I'm not sure what's going to happen with that, but I'm not really concerned.
My room is finally 90% clean too, including the closet. I now have an empty closet which I may organize things into, what fun! While cleaning it out I came across my old electric typewriter. I got it a few years ago but when trying to clean it I was unable to get the top hood back onto it, so I just closeted it. This time around however I just decided to yank out the hood and use it with an open top. Working with it like this is a lot of fun, you get to see all the action. Plus setting pages is much easier. I'm getting closer to moving the server downstairs, as I don't really need full gig-e on it and it's starting to take too much space.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Another stack of computers in the same place.
[Random need to blag more pictures]
The only change is that the SE was replaced with the topless ultra5, which I'm not installing Solaris 10 on.
The only change is that the SE was replaced with the topless ultra5, which I'm not installing Solaris 10 on.
NetBSD & Server!
So thanks to Tyler, I'm like all into NetBSD now. I've got 4.0 on my GX1 and SparcStation 5, and right now they're both compiling software at the speed of fun.
That's my SparcStation 4, Centris 650, and Mac SE. The GX1 is off to the side and I didn't feel like taking a picture.
Also! I've decided to turn my dell poweredge SC420 into a full on server. Samba, NFS, SFTP, apache2, php, mysql, all that crap. The base page right now is aeroraptor.homeip.net:88. But there are alot of other weirdo pages hidden all over, mostly IRC stats pages.
Having to use a nonstandard port really bugs me though. Oh well, can't have everything.
That's my SparcStation 4, Centris 650, and Mac SE. The GX1 is off to the side and I didn't feel like taking a picture.
Also! I've decided to turn my dell poweredge SC420 into a full on server. Samba, NFS, SFTP, apache2, php, mysql, all that crap. The base page right now is aeroraptor.homeip.net:88. But there are alot of other weirdo pages hidden all over, mostly IRC stats pages.
Having to use a nonstandard port really bugs me though. Oh well, can't have everything.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
An SE, cat, thinkpad, and dell server walk into a bar...
Oh, and a scanner.
This blogpost serves no real purpose, I just wanted to take a picture.
This blogpost serves no real purpose, I just wanted to take a picture.
Books!
So yay, both my books came today, happily early. That's the thing about media mail; sometimes it's crazy fast, sometimes it takes three weeks, there's no telling. The two books I got are the textbooks for my world civ 1 class, and for my argument based research class. The former was $80 and the latter was $60, bookstore prices. From ABE.com I got them for $40 and $12 respectively. That is saving $90. God how I love online used bookstores.
The best thing is that they're in epic condition. The english book is freaking brand new and the world civ is lightly used, but neither have any writing or whatever on them. They're also fairly small books, so having them, and possibly my cisco book, plus a laptop and notebooks in my backpack will not kill me. That makes me a happy person.
The best thing is that they're in epic condition. The english book is freaking brand new and the world civ is lightly used, but neither have any writing or whatever on them. They're also fairly small books, so having them, and possibly my cisco book, plus a laptop and notebooks in my backpack will not kill me. That makes me a happy person.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
DVDs!
I've pretty much totally messed up the server's install of debian, so I'm burning all 200GB+ of data on it to DVDs, then I'm going to wipe it and install Ubuntu 8.04 server. In any case, I have about 16 DVDs down, not so many left to do, then I have to clean through some etc files to make sure I have all my configs backed up.
Time for bed. Moving a last 60GB over USB2 to my external 300. Funtimes.
Time for bed. Moving a last 60GB over USB2 to my external 300. Funtimes.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
At the Library!
Here I am, at Brown Library in Washington. It was a rather nice ten minute bike ride down eight blocks or so I was a bit hot but not terrible, and the traffic was heavier than I would have thought but I didn't have any incidents or near runovers. Other than to pay my fine, which I've yet to do by the way, I'm not sure why I came to the library. One book I'd actually like to look for is "IceMan" which they probably don't have, but you never know.
Also, I somehow killed perl on the server, so my irssi client is screwed. No idea what the heck I'm going to do there. This is one more reason I hate linux. Too many dependencies makes it so damn confusing. What I might just do when I get home is start moving all the data I can on to DVDs, which I need to do anyways, and then just nuke it and toss ubuntu server on there. Too much to think about right now, but I'll probably end up doing it anyways because from what I've heard ubuntu server is more manageable than debian with server stuff installed. Not to mention great support. That's all for now, prolly will be several more libraryblagposts before I leave.
Also, I somehow killed perl on the server, so my irssi client is screwed. No idea what the heck I'm going to do there. This is one more reason I hate linux. Too many dependencies makes it so damn confusing. What I might just do when I get home is start moving all the data I can on to DVDs, which I need to do anyways, and then just nuke it and toss ubuntu server on there. Too much to think about right now, but I'll probably end up doing it anyways because from what I've heard ubuntu server is more manageable than debian with server stuff installed. Not to mention great support. That's all for now, prolly will be several more libraryblagposts before I leave.
Book Worry
A few days ago I ordered my English and World Civilizations books off ABE.com, and it has occurred to me that they might not actually come before the semester starts. Not sure what I'm going to do if that happens, that's sort of a terrible situation. In my experience though, books from abe usually come within a week, or a few days over. Which is all the time I have to spare.
Swt, Mthmtc on a Cntrs 650!
A while ago I busted out my Centris 650 and set it up on the desk where the Indigo20 was. I've mostly just been poking through the files I had on it, mostly lots of Text Adventure development stuff, but some others. One interesting thing I found was Mathematica 2.0. Now, if I remember right, I first found this a looooong time ago, on one of my many 40MB Syquest cartridges. It's an incredibly powerful program, even on a computer from the early 90s. Luckily I also have a nice big book, about fifteen hundred pages thick and twelve pounds or so full of Mathematica examples and whatnot. Unfortunately the book was written for Mathematica 5, not 2, so a lot of the fancier examples involving animations or audio manipulation don't really work. That said, there are a bunch of basic 3D and 2D graphing examples that do work, my favorite is:
Plot3D[Exp[-Sqrt[x^2 + y^2]],
{x, -2, 2}, {y, -2, 2}, Lighting -> False,
PlotPoints -> 50]
It creates a fairly high resolution graph of what I can only describe as a mountain. In any case, here's a somewhat low quality video of it graphing that object.
Plot3D[Exp[-Sqrt[x^2 + y^2]],
{x, -2, 2}, {y, -2, 2}, Lighting -> False,
PlotPoints -> 50]
It creates a fairly high resolution graph of what I can only describe as a mountain. In any case, here's a somewhat low quality video of it graphing that object.
iPod Touch Rickrolled me!
For the past few days I've been playing a lot with cydia on my iPod touch, especially downloading themes and playing with them. One of such themes, named "Surprise" had a description which claimed that it was going to show off winterboard's (the ipod touch's themeing application) magical powers or something, but just ended up rickrolling me.
The first time it happened it actually played the video, and I assume audio. The second time it was a still frame.
wow.
The first time it happened it actually played the video, and I assume audio. The second time it was a still frame.
wow.
More computers on that desk!
It would appear as though the theme for this week is "How many computers can we have set up and running, then swap out for more computers on that desk" or something like that. Previously I had the GX1, then the Sun Ultra5, then the SGI Indigo2, and now my Centris 650. Later I predict the Quadra 700 and maybe a sparcstation or two.
Would be the Centris 650 hanging out, with my Multiscan 15 attached. This thing is considerably better set up than I had thought; nice big 2GB seagate hard drive, decked out with 7.6.1 and a ton of apps, 112MB RAM, and a balzing 25MHz full 040. I also have a NuBus 10BaseT & AUI card in it, made by Asante if I remember correctly.
Unfortunately though, my Multiscan 15 seems to be dying again, it's doing the thing where it applies a strong pink tint over everything. This happened a while back, but went away, hopefully that happens again. Interestingly enough, this is the very same monitor we got with our Power Mac 6115CD back in 1994. I still have the manuals, install floppy, and box; though the box is filled with Christmas lights!
Would be the Centris 650 hanging out, with my Multiscan 15 attached. This thing is considerably better set up than I had thought; nice big 2GB seagate hard drive, decked out with 7.6.1 and a ton of apps, 112MB RAM, and a balzing 25MHz full 040. I also have a NuBus 10BaseT & AUI card in it, made by Asante if I remember correctly.
Unfortunately though, my Multiscan 15 seems to be dying again, it's doing the thing where it applies a strong pink tint over everything. This happened a while back, but went away, hopefully that happens again. Interestingly enough, this is the very same monitor we got with our Power Mac 6115CD back in 1994. I still have the manuals, install floppy, and box; though the box is filled with Christmas lights!
xbox finally on the net
A while back I got a modded xbox from a friend of mine, which is awesome. One of the apps from the mod, xbox media center, has loads of nice little abilities like playing music or videos off samba servers, or copying games over via FTP and so on. However, my xbox is nowhere near an ethernet cable when it's downstairs, and I have no TV or RCA input devices up in my room (yet!) So, what we've had to do is take either mine or dad's laptop into the living room, run a long enet cable, and do net sharing, which sort of sucks and is a pain to get working properly, esp. if you want other devices on the LAN to see it, or for it to see the internet.
But today, that all changed...
While cleaning, I came across my Linksys WGA11B. This thing is more or less an over glorified wifi-b to 10baseT ethernet bridge. I got it many years ago (read: wifi-b era) from a friend of mine who thought it was broken, but in reality had just lost the power supply. In attempt to "fix" it, he removed the case, which left me with a board and antenna, which was just enough. However, I never had a powersupply for it. Today however when cleaning when I found it, I had the thought to try it because I actually had a machine for it, the xbox. After a bit of digging I found a generic 12v AC adapter, and hooked it up. The lights lit right up and I had no idea what to do.
A short trip to the linksys support website later, I was downloading the setup application and reading manual PDFs. Basically, you plug this thing directly to you computer via ethernet, you run the application, you enter in your settings, and hit save. As long as you don't press the reset button, you're fine. The main disadvantage to this is that I had to move the wifi-net to WEP from WPA2, so that's been a little bumpy. Other than that it works great and I can now access the xbox whenever, without having to do weird computer crap.
But today, that all changed...
While cleaning, I came across my Linksys WGA11B. This thing is more or less an over glorified wifi-b to 10baseT ethernet bridge. I got it many years ago (read: wifi-b era) from a friend of mine who thought it was broken, but in reality had just lost the power supply. In attempt to "fix" it, he removed the case, which left me with a board and antenna, which was just enough. However, I never had a powersupply for it. Today however when cleaning when I found it, I had the thought to try it because I actually had a machine for it, the xbox. After a bit of digging I found a generic 12v AC adapter, and hooked it up. The lights lit right up and I had no idea what to do.
A short trip to the linksys support website later, I was downloading the setup application and reading manual PDFs. Basically, you plug this thing directly to you computer via ethernet, you run the application, you enter in your settings, and hit save. As long as you don't press the reset button, you're fine. The main disadvantage to this is that I had to move the wifi-net to WEP from WPA2, so that's been a little bumpy. Other than that it works great and I can now access the xbox whenever, without having to do weird computer crap.
Monday, August 11, 2008
SGI
So I dug out my good old Indigo2 just now, as well as the massive monitor. I think I got this from landon a few months ago, It's an R4400 250MHz, IMPACT MG10 graphics, 192MB RAM, 4ish GB HDD, and a CD drive. Has Irix 6.5 now, which I may reinstall.
Pretty simple setup, works nicely though.
Pretty simple setup, works nicely though.
Oh mah god, it lives!
So apparently before declaring it dead and being all bummed out, I should have checked the right speaker's connection to the actually machine. I moved the cable to the front headphone jack and I get good stereo now, but I do wonder if that bad jack is bad or something. I'll have to do more poking around.
R. I. P. Left Speaker
I just now noticed that when playing music on my speakers, the audio seemed to be primarily coming from the right speaker, which is the control, meaning it has the amp and inputs and that stuff, as well as the jack for the left speaker to connect to. Now, this has happened a few times before, but usually the cable just fell out of the jack or something. This was not the case, it was well seated in there. I tried wiggling the cable, I tried checking the audio driver software, I tried playing tons of different songs as well as tones that warble from speaker to speaker.
Guess this means I'll be shopping for a new set of speakers now.
Hrmmm.
Guess this means I'll be shopping for a new set of speakers now.
Hrmmm.
Redoing XP on the Athlon
So basically after I got xubuntu all installed on the athlon, I decided to boot back to XP and do something, but unfortunately the install of XP got canned. I don't feel like going into the details because it's so depressing but basically I had to end up doing a COMPLETE reinstall, loosing datas. Most of them were mirrored on the thinkpad so it was ok.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Rain!
Suiting. The second I publish that post, the GX1's updates finish. Tsk tsk tsk.
In other news, it has started to RAIN! Which means the fan in my front window is pulling in deliciously cool air. Mmmmm it's nice. Also, starting to install on the athlon.
In other news, it has started to RAIN! Which means the fan in my front window is pulling in deliciously cool air. Mmmmm it's nice. Also, starting to install on the athlon.
Woot! (and rambles)
I just came back upstairs, and the xubuntu install is finished!
[presses enter to reboot]
[waits]
You know, the main disadvantage to having 320MB RAM in an old system like this is waiting so long for it to be tested, I think last time I timed it it took about 40 seconds, and that was with 256MB.
[waits more]
Woot, GRUB :D
Woot again, Xubuntu booting/loading bar! I'm just now noticing this, but the HDD activity LED on the front of the GX1 doesn't appear the be blinking. Odd...
Yay, at the login prompt now! It's funny when your OS starts faster than your RAM tests. I remember when I ran BeOS on this (still do, actually) it took about a minute to boot to the usable desktop, and only the last eight seconds or so was actual BeOS.
[logs in to xubuntu]
Xubuntu 8.04 looks really nice, now that I'm on my home LAN and I have crap deleted off the athlon (I had like 30GB of dupes, lol) I might go for dual boot.
Ok, logged in w/ loaded desktop. Grrr. I can't get more than 800x600@32 on this. I know this video chip & vram can do 1024x768@32. Alas, XFCE4 at 800x600 looks pretty nice honestly. Time to check for updates! ... Woo, updates installing!
Okay while those install I'm going to ramble for a moment. First off I've decided that I need to start tagging my blog posts. Not to make them easier to find or categorize, but because all the cool kids are doing it these days. Weather or not I'm going to go back to all my previous posts and tag them is unclear, but certainly all my future posts will be tagged.
That was enough rambles for one paragraph, and my updates just finished downloading, so while they actually install I'm going to move the my music library off the thinkpad onto the Athlon, because I like having synced libraries. Augh, crap. The thinkpad did the thing again where when I RDP into it from the athlon, it turns off it's internal screen and won't turn it back on unless I force reboot it... *Grumble*
I am, however, becoming incredibly intrigued by the idea of putting Xubuntu on the athlon now though. The last time I tried was when I was in Richmond, and if I remember right the main reason I was turned off by it was because there is only mediocre support for my wifi card in linux. But here at home I'm connected to the straight up gig-e switch, so things are different. I still won't have amazingtastic video drivers or whatever, but all my games are in windows anyways so who cares.
Blarg these updates are taking forever. I think what I'm just going to do is finish this post now, and then slap xubuntu on the athlon. Yeah.
Later Gators.
[presses enter to reboot]
[waits]
You know, the main disadvantage to having 320MB RAM in an old system like this is waiting so long for it to be tested, I think last time I timed it it took about 40 seconds, and that was with 256MB.
[waits more]
Woot, GRUB :D
Woot again, Xubuntu booting/loading bar! I'm just now noticing this, but the HDD activity LED on the front of the GX1 doesn't appear the be blinking. Odd...
Yay, at the login prompt now! It's funny when your OS starts faster than your RAM tests. I remember when I ran BeOS on this (still do, actually) it took about a minute to boot to the usable desktop, and only the last eight seconds or so was actual BeOS.
[logs in to xubuntu]
Xubuntu 8.04 looks really nice, now that I'm on my home LAN and I have crap deleted off the athlon (I had like 30GB of dupes, lol) I might go for dual boot.
Ok, logged in w/ loaded desktop. Grrr. I can't get more than 800x600@32 on this. I know this video chip & vram can do 1024x768@32. Alas, XFCE4 at 800x600 looks pretty nice honestly. Time to check for updates! ... Woo, updates installing!
Okay while those install I'm going to ramble for a moment. First off I've decided that I need to start tagging my blog posts. Not to make them easier to find or categorize, but because all the cool kids are doing it these days. Weather or not I'm going to go back to all my previous posts and tag them is unclear, but certainly all my future posts will be tagged.
That was enough rambles for one paragraph, and my updates just finished downloading, so while they actually install I'm going to move the my music library off the thinkpad onto the Athlon, because I like having synced libraries. Augh, crap. The thinkpad did the thing again where when I RDP into it from the athlon, it turns off it's internal screen and won't turn it back on unless I force reboot it... *Grumble*
I am, however, becoming incredibly intrigued by the idea of putting Xubuntu on the athlon now though. The last time I tried was when I was in Richmond, and if I remember right the main reason I was turned off by it was because there is only mediocre support for my wifi card in linux. But here at home I'm connected to the straight up gig-e switch, so things are different. I still won't have amazingtastic video drivers or whatever, but all my games are in windows anyways so who cares.
Blarg these updates are taking forever. I think what I'm just going to do is finish this post now, and then slap xubuntu on the athlon. Yeah.
Later Gators.
still going...
So it's been about 45 minutes, and Xubuntu is /still/ installing. I gave up on FreeDOS in QEMU (for now?) but would like to see this work. It's probably going so slow because of the HDD I put in it, a random 6.5GB IBM something-or-other.
Will write more as things happens...
Will write more as things happens...
So, blah.
Apparently today is Sunday and yesterday was Saturday, meaning that today is still Sunday and the library isn't open on Sunday so I can't do what I was planning on doing today, which was go to the library and pay my thee cent fine, and then either read, or bask in the air conditioning and play with my iPod Touch, or Thinkpad, depending if I brought the thinkpad. But again as I said, neither of my local libraries are open Sundays, the one that's like, twenty miles away might be, but I don't want to ride my rikety old bike on hw264.
So, instead of that I'm sitting here at home, blagging on the athlon, installing FreeDOS in QEMU and Xubuntu 8.04 on the Optiplex. After I do that maybe I'll get some lunch/breakfest, or find something else to do. I'd ride my bike around but it's way too hot to go on a just for fun bikeride. Mom and I will probably take a walk down by the waterfront later though, that's always nice.
So, instead of that I'm sitting here at home, blagging on the athlon, installing FreeDOS in QEMU and Xubuntu 8.04 on the Optiplex. After I do that maybe I'll get some lunch/breakfest, or find something else to do. I'd ride my bike around but it's way too hot to go on a just for fun bikeride. Mom and I will probably take a walk down by the waterfront later though, that's always nice.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
No luck.
Well unfortunately I can't get any of the floppy based drivers to work with either the pcmcia CD drive or ethernet card, so I'm going to go back to playing with the optiplex. Interestingly enough the the 3rd RAM slot in that thing seems to be working, or at least partly, so I'm going to play around with getting three 128s going in it.
Plus when lando moves into ECU in a weekish or so, he's giving me his old GX1, it's basically the same as mine except it has a fancy adaptec SCSI card and two ueberfast SCSI drives, and I think it's a newer mobo revision.
That's all for now, but expect at least three or more blog posts today. I'm really enjoying doing this multiple times a day.
Plus when lando moves into ECU in a weekish or so, he's giving me his old GX1, it's basically the same as mine except it has a fancy adaptec SCSI card and two ueberfast SCSI drives, and I think it's a newer mobo revision.
That's all for now, but expect at least three or more blog posts today. I'm really enjoying doing this multiple times a day.
More debian and toshiba
Well my little pcmcia nic didn't seem to be recognized, so I busted out my trusty and never really used IBM pcmcia CD drive. I tested it with an audio CD first and it works fine. Now to see if debian will like it. Only time will tell!
Debian & Toshiba
So after cleaning my room, I've had all this extra space to do stuff, which has been great. Most recently I've been playing with my GX1, but I think that's on the brink of death, and there's only so much amazing stuff you can do with BeOS. So, I dug out my fancypants 486 toshiba laptop. It's one of the sweet gray ones, with 16MB RAM and a 500MB HDD. This one is a little bit beat up, but I decided to try and get debian on it. Obviously it doesn't have a CD drive, so I dug out three high density floppies, my pcmcia 10baseT card, and fired it up. As I type this I've just finished loading the drivers floppy, so we now to get to see if it likes my ethernet card or not.
Here's proof it works:
I'll update more as I work with it.
Here's proof it works:
I'll update more as I work with it.
Cleaning & School
I've always found that I'm most productive in a clean and relatively tidy environent, so I decided that before the school semester started, I'd give my room a throuogh cleaning over. I got rid of a ton of old broken hardware as well as three trash bags worth of old papers and smaller junk. I also moved a lot of my older and less used equipment into my sister's old room, things like monitors and a spare desk. I also used the opprotunity of a clean and open floor to rearrange some furniture. The most noticeable thing I did was move one of my desks to be at a 90deg angle directly next to my main desk, so now when I'm I'm my fancy new swivle chair I can easily move from one to the next, so I can work ok two computers more easily or whatever. Right now I have my dell gx1 set up there running BeOS, very cool. All I have left to clean now is the closet, and it's not that bad.
Also my futon is still out of service due to crappy frame construction, which is lame. Alternatively however, it allows me to experience something very new- sleeping with the futon directly on the floor! It's very hard to get used to at first, but it is a lot nicer than that frame. Most notably because it's more stable, obviously. One lame thing is that it's a little too low for my fan to be pointed at directly, but that's not a huge problem because I recentlybgot a new box fan pulling air in from my front window so it's a lot cooler in here. I also just bought my world civ and English books off abe, got some great deals- saved about $90 combined! Hopefully they get here before the semester starts, whee.
And wow, this whole post was tapped out on my iPod Touch, incredibly intense!
Also my futon is still out of service due to crappy frame construction, which is lame. Alternatively however, it allows me to experience something very new- sleeping with the futon directly on the floor! It's very hard to get used to at first, but it is a lot nicer than that frame. Most notably because it's more stable, obviously. One lame thing is that it's a little too low for my fan to be pointed at directly, but that's not a huge problem because I recentlybgot a new box fan pulling air in from my front window so it's a lot cooler in here. I also just bought my world civ and English books off abe, got some great deals- saved about $90 combined! Hopefully they get here before the semester starts, whee.
And wow, this whole post was tapped out on my iPod Touch, incredibly intense!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
happenings
So since my last blahg post, a lot has happened. To start, Landon gave me his athlon tower, which is now my main machine with an AMD 4600+ (2x 2.4ghz), 2gb ram, a pcie radeon x300, and a few big hdds. I also turned 17, and bought a new laptop bookbag and iPod touch. I'm also staying at my grandparent's house for a while, going home soon. Unfortunately though, right before I left home a major beam in my futon snapped, so my room is more or less totally ripped apart. I also registered for classes at the comm co, taking intro to world civ, argument based research (with the best teacher ever), and ccna3. I'm also gonna get back into blogging, so now I just need a good way to promote it.
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