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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Last Hurrah for TealOS
The Palm WebOS emulation ‘skin’ that is called TealOS has been forced to stop starting on Monday.
So if you want it, go get it now. I did, and it works great. I did this to protest Palm’s move to block their own customers from enjoying the WebOS look and feel. Even in the face of Apple’s threat of legal action against WebOS, they struck first against a Palm Developer that has been supporting them for years.
Bad Play! Palm
PS: Don’t forget to download the more current Beta of TealOS 1.48 Beta here
The price of a Green PC server.
I keep calling this DYI project a server, which it is currently doing, Samba server, MySQL server, Apache server FTP server. But beyond this it’s also a desktop server with all the features of your average desktop PC. 2GB of Ram, 128MB Video, 250GB disk DVD-RW DVD+RW, Gig Ethernet and low power consumption of less than 50 watts. All this for 271 Euros delivered!
As you can see I purchased the parts from Elara but you should be able to pick up the parts anywhere you can find them. You may be able to buy a pre-made server/PC elsewhere but then you wouldn’t learn anything new 😉
Nature Hates a Vacuum
Yesterday I thought I’d screwed up my USB ports and that would require a motherboard replacement. But in IT a mystery is unacceptable! So when a bit of fiddling and a reboot made the the USB (and attached mouse) revive, I was disturbed. But like in anything, Nature hates a vacuum, so like the vacuum in my head, I filled it with an answer. The Open Solaris ‘filemanager’ has a bug, don’t press the ‘Eject’ icon if the disk is mounted on the USB ports, any of the ports as it will unmount the, in my case, mouse, and then refuse to remount anything else on the USB ports. I’ll send in a bug report. See the picture below for what to avoid. This may be only an isolated issue with this motherboard. And the eject seems to work Ok for the CD/DVD drive (different controller).
Missed A Bullet
I missed a bullet today, while unplugging a usb powered portable drive from my new server I hung the USB ports on OpenSolaris, I though I could have proceeded, the mouse was on a USB port so I was mouseless. Not a good thing with GUI, during my attempts to diagnose the issue I manage to power down and after who knows what, the system came back up and all was well.
And all is running fine with OpenSolaris. Mind you I could NEVER recommend this operating system to a novice. While I managed to make services screen bring up SMB, and Webmin I’ve yet to get the OS to print on an HP 4200 Series printer, while it recognizes it when it’s plugged in, it will not send a test print.
Another point, is OpenSolaris supplies Totem Media Player and SongBird nether will play an MP3 file, let alone anything else. Opensolaris even recognize a DVD, but then won’t play it. USELESS!! why include them. It took hours of Goggling to find plugins, and then you have to BUY THEM from Fluendo
Size doesn’t matter, in IT
In the previous post I mentioned that the Intel Atom 330 D945GCLF2 motherboard looks lost in the Minuet 350 case;
and even the case is not very large as seen here compaired to a Dell 3100 case
and there is still room for a half high PCI card in the case where the motherboard extends across the end of the case where there are slot openings.
The good news is that as expected, the server could be considered Green with
- 9 Watts – Power Off!
- 49 Watts – During Boot (Peak)
- 27 Watts – At idle screen
- 35 – 38 Watts nominal usage
Forgotten Rule of IT!
If you happen to read my Blog, you will know that I’ve started a project to build a home server that more or less mimics the sort of server I use at the office. And while I’ve have had the parts for a few days, in fact, assembled on the first day, following some basic photos, I have not really begun to operate it.
During the weekend, a fellow blogger Connor announced, rather twittered that they had their home media server assembled and running. At first I thought he had beaten me to the Idea, but his is more for home Media, MythTV, rather than IT practice and development. And then he was hit with the first rule of IT regarding new equipment. “Don’t count your systems until they have burned in“.
Which is what happened, his system failed due to a common phenomena in IT. Either the equipment starts and runs for 100 years, or it dies in the first couple of days. Infant Mortality is one of the most common effects of new IT equipment and usually means you can never commit time to the new system for several days, up to a week until you feel safe with the system. During that time you can test it, stress it, but don’t count on it. Then when you are happy, erase your testing environment, and load the real installation.
So hence, I’ve been a bit patient and deliberate in my new system. So far the BOXD945GCLF2 (also known as the INTEL D945GCLF2, or Little Falls 2) motherboard has been performing quite well and the OpenSolaris OS has found and configured all the hardware I attempted to use. The board is currently mounted and operating in a Antec Minuet 350 Case.
And I’ll write and photograph this more later, needless to say that while this is a small case tailored for the microATX D945GCLF2, the board itself is nearly lost inside as I’ll show you later.
Personal IT server Simulator
I am undertaking the task of building a personal server which more or less emulates the type of environment I use at work. In this stage I built a small system from the Intel 330 BOXD945GCLF2 motherboard. This is a dual core hyper-threaded Atom chipset that looks like a quad core server, only at 1/4 the wattage, and about 1/3 the CPU crunch power. But it’s still looks and feels snappy enough.
I’ve currently loaded OpenSolaris as Solaris is a mature OS common in the IT world which also is very well tailored to mutli-core CPU’s.
Bed Breakfast and Broadband
The wife and I came up with the perfect new tourist promotion, All B&B’s in ireland ought to begin advertising B&B&B, Bed, Breakfast AND Broadband.
What do you think?
Another mucker for Zanzibar
With all the violence of late, I am reminded of a novel Stand on Zanzibar. It should be required reading, and was a Hugo winner in 1969. But it introduces a concept of the Mucker, a person that is running ‘Amok’ out of control. The cause, in the book, is attributed to social pressure, population explosion and the general degradation of the personal, environmental, social and political world. I’m sure there will be many reasons given for each of these current events, none will be adequate and no one will be satisfied with the answers.
Voting with your feet
It may be a bit premature to talk about the recovery from the recession but it’s not too early to take steps to initiate a decision about the culture and nature of the recovery from the recession. In my time in Ireland I marveled at the concept of the local shop in an estate, and the small shops in general and the culture of such an environment. Now the the incursion of the giant Dunn’s, and the discount Aldi’s and Lidl’s a decision can be made about the nature of the recovery.
Do you save yourself a bit of change and buy cheap, or spend it at the local shop? Do you want to keep that cultural icon of local shops and merchants alive, or support the mass market monster. The application of your food budget to supporting your local may tax us all, but could well to the means of survival for the little shop keeper. The same could be applied to your favorite small cafe or restaurant, voting with your feet may be your only option if you want to continue to visit them.
I’m not saying that it’s the ‘Patriotic’ duty to shop in the Republic, there has been entirely too much disparity allowed to creep in there. But if you have the change, maybe it’s best spent in the local shop, rather than the big chain store,
Compaq Presario CQ2009F
Have you ever looked for the perfect thing, and find that no one in Europe carry it, and no one will ship it to you. I have! I have been considering a low power, very green, server platform to use as a MySQL / Sybase / HTTP server system. My perfect system would have been this, Compaq Presario CQ2009F however nether Amazon.com Nor the HP Home Store will ship to Ireland, and neither sell it in Europe.
In this Recession, would you think that anyone would give up a market opportunity, or give up revenue?
In the end, I’ll probably end up with this thing Asus Eee Box and pay more for less computer! Rip off Ireland indeed!
UPDATE: to add insult to injury, Misco won’t ship this Shuttle X27D Mini ITX into Ireland from the UK!!!
UPDATE 2: It looks like someone at HP heard me, and have now relaeased the Compaq CQ2000M to Europe. Now all I have to do wait until someone actually carries it. 🙁
The Tao of IT problem solving
At the Cork Open Coffee today there was discussion about how the University of Cork could be utilized to solve real world business problems, with a counterpoint that the University also was a resource for IP that was underutilized or not exploited at all. Answers without questions that had been explored and solved, but not yet marketed and deployed. And I thought of how that could happen.
I have always been boring, in most conversations I almost never initiate a subject, but I can always contribute (read; shoot my mouth off). This is true in my IT skills. I know many things, but I don’t create many new things, but I can solve most puzzles and resolve problems. And in reviewing them, I find it’s more to do with not having an agenda, or operating under a set of predefined solutions. I examine the issue, then produce an alternative resolution. I become creative in my solutions, I invent extraordinary resolutions. I remain empty, of any preconceived notion of a solution (not empty of ego mind you) but I exploit the Tao of the problem. Hence I don’t project a topic of conversation, or add a new project, or imagine anything extraordinary until I have a problem to solve.
This was my dilemma about the university folks, creating answers, where there were no questions (yet?). Applications, without anywhere to apply them. For me, IT problems ARE the mother of invention.
The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.
Give a man a fish…
Everyone has heard the old saw:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Lao Tzu
But no one seems to think that it applies in the Economic Crisis facing Ireland, with the loss of low end construction and manufacturing jobs, and the multi nationals leaving, the fish are gone. Ireland needs to concentrate on educating fishermen. Or maybe better yet, high tech Developers, Designers and Programmers, Engineers, and scientist which are sorely lacking here. A major investment in education is the only lifeline for Ireland. And even if it doesn’t rescue the Irish Government, it would rescue the Irish people.
Cork Cliques
One of the first things I had heard about Co. Cork is the Cliquish nature of Cork. Everyone is always saying Cork is a small place, but when you are out in Cork, you are out forever. There are no open doors here, and no friendship extended. If I and my wife were not already rather private and reclusive, Cork would surely make us very lonely, and she grew up here. We have many times the friends online than we have in the whole of the Cork. Still it bugs me, but efforts to extend our circle have been proving fruitless and a waste of time as exampled in my last post.