nuxx.net

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January 24, 2004

Yay! FreeBSD is up and running, without any sort of RAID controller. After buying a 3Ware from eBay and having it need *identical* disks, I thought I was sunk. So, I ran out to Micro3000 (thanks, Erik!) and picked up a Promise FastTrak100 TX2. Turns out that this controller only does on-line swaps and rebuilds when using a special Windows driver. Gah! Oh, and manual, off-line rebuilds take forever. It took about an hour and a half to re-sync the mirror after I intentionally broke it. Ah well.

Anyway, to make a long story short, thanks to the wonderful help I received from , I’ve got a working mirrored system, and the know-how to do it again. Now, to get everything configured, test what happens if a disk does die, etc.

Oh, and yes, Erik, I think I will need to return that controller. It just doesn’t work quite how it says on the box. :\ Ah well. Things are good, for now.

:(

January 24, 2004

Not. Happy.

This 3Ware Esclade 5000-series controller will only create a mirror from identical disks. Not identical *size* disks, but identical disks. Subversion number and all. So, now I’ve got two Western Digital WD800JB disks that I can’t create a mirror with, because they were made at different times of the year. Quick fix is to buy a new 80GB, but what do I do with the old one then?

Blah.

In good news, the colocation place looks really nice. I think my server will end up there. They pass all the tests: run by a geek who’s been around, been in business for a while, fair number of servers, nice guy, not-RBL’d, well connected, etc.

So, off to fight with the disk controller.

UPDATE: Now FreeBSD 5.2 dumped core when trying to boot in order to install. This might be because I don’t have any arrays defined. I wonder if I have a set of any old disks I can try this with. Hrm.

computers moved from livejournal

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January 16, 2004

Well, that’s it. My home file/web server has been shut down. Everything that was on the 80GB disk and the contents of the websites are being copied off. Fairly soon the server will be mostly disassembled, I’ll attempt to do the weird vinum install, then decide if I need the hot-swap RAID stuff.

computers moved from livejournal nuxx.net

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January 16, 2004

All, this isn’t all that important, but it looks like I’m going to be moving dingleberrypie.com out of it’s current place and into a full-out colocated server. As part of this, I need to get the server built, configured, secured, etc. So, for a while, dingleberrypie.com will be down. That means no recipes, photo galleries, etc. I’ve also got a bunch of server-moving work ahead of me tonight.

Let’s see… The file/web server will get parted out to become the new colocated server and the file server. The firewall will be moving back to it’s old Gateway 2000 pizza box. Either a second pizza box or the file server will become the new file server, depending on if I can get an external SCSI enclosure or not.

These decisions will come tonight. :D I also need to play with using Depenguinator to set up a vinum-mirrored disk set, per ‘s recommendation. I’ve got it mostly working here under VMware, but Depenguinator doesn’t come with the vinum lkm, so I’ll have to get things working.

This should be a really, really interesting trip. But, with any luck, I’ll finally be running my own, legal, publically accessable web/mail server.

computers moved from livejournal nuxx.net

?

January 12, 2004

Has anyone here used Shutterfly or some other similar online photo printing service? I’ve got a number of Library of Congress Prints and Photos shots that I’d like printed, and I’m thinking it’ll be cheaper and easier to have them printed by a service than do them myself.

I’m curious how the photos looked… It seems that I’m able to only upload JPEGs to Shutterfly, but they were able to accept a 4000 x 5000 7MB high quality JPEG, which should look fine printed.

These will eventually be framed and hung up in various parts of my house, bathroom, etc.

What’s really neat is that the LoC has some nuclear reactor blueprints on their site, and printed at 20 x 30 these could look *really* nice in my living room, surrounded with 1940s – 1960s era electronics.

So, anyone tried Shutterfly or any other printing services?

UPDATE: I think I might order a set of four or five test prints from each Apple/Kodak (via iPhoto), Snapfish, and Shutterfly.

acquired things around the house moved from livejournal

Protected: :)

January 8, 2004

electronics making things moved from livejournal

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December 31, 2003

Well, it seems that I should be able to use the digital out from my motherboard fairly easily. That means I only need one piece of coax for audio run from the computer to the receiver, and it should be relatively noiseless, as it’ll be a digital signal. Video seems like it’ll be a bit more interesting, though. See, iTunes visualizations only run in 640×480 when full screen, so I think that composite *should* do all right. I just need to find a way to extract a composite signal from the board. There’s a five-pin connector that hookes to a $15 Asus TV-out adapter, but I don’t want to pay that. I figure there’s a common ground, one pin for composite, and the other three pins for s-video. If I can only find out which two pins are for the composite, and if the chipset properly detects a TV when this is connected, I’ll be in good shape. :) I think the appropriate thing to do would be to order some Belden 1807A, two s-video connectors, and the Asus adapter, but I’d rather not spend any more on this project.

If this idea had only popped into my head about four days ago. :\

computers electronics moved from livejournal

Cables?

December 29, 2003

One update on the last post… If anyone needs some decent-quality RCA interconnects, I’ll make them and charge only parts. Other people going in on cable will let me afford the slightly larger spool. (500′ is only 3x the cost of 100′) Let me know ASAP.

electronics making things moved from livejournal

:)

December 29, 2003

Well, it seems that the audio interconnects that I made need to be replaced. Turns out I was using standard, good-for-RF RG6. This has a copper-plated steel core with a 60% aluminum shield. Not bad, but it explains the extremely hard time I was having with soldering to the braid. Whoops.

Anyway, I think tomorrow I’m going to get a hold of Graybar and see if I can get 100′ of Belden 9259. It’s an all-copper coax, with a stranded core. Should be quite a bit easier to work with… I’ll just have to get some more connectors and resolder things. Shouldn’t be a big deal. :) The subwoofer does function right now, but I’m concerned about using a cold solder to hold the ground together. It just doesn’t seem like the best idea, to me.

So, hopefully this will work out for the best. I’m wondering if I should get more than 50′, in case I want to make more custom interconnects in the future… I’m just not really sure right now. I’m thinking that it might be nice to make a run from my test 2003 machine to my home theater stuff, that way I could listen to streaming audio in the basement…

Hmm…

Would anyone be interested in some coax for making custom, high quality audio interconnects / subwoofer cables / whatever? For about $0.30/ft + connectors and with a soldering iron you can make your own high-quality interconnects!

electronics making things moved from livejournal

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December 27, 2003

For anyone who’s interested, I’ve posted a new recipe: Pumpkin Cheese Coffee Cake.

Also, after receiving some handy advice from , I made up some cables for my subwoofer, ran them, and now my living room has a subwoofer in with the iPod, NAD705, and flat panel speakers. I may snag a spectrum analyzer off of eBay for purposes of adding some motion to the stereo area, but beyond tweaking, I think it’s done. Yay!

food making things moved from livejournal