Tech
Windows 7
May 8th
For the last couple of days, I’ve been playing with the RC of Windows 7 x64, and I thought I’d post some thoughts. More >
Dragon
Apr 13th
So, I broke down and bought a new computer, even though I was planning on waiting for the 32nm refresh of Core i7. What originally started as a CPU upgrade went a little overboard, and I wound up with the following: More >
Well, SOMEONE thought it was a good idea
Dec 10th
A while ago, I wondered about the possibility of a small, commercially marketed server for home use, and it looks like VIA is going to do that. They haven’t made a desktop application for administering it like I had suggested, and it seems to be more intended for internal use, such as file storage.
I'm going to try to refrain from buying computers for a while
Nov 23rd
Core i7 is out, so needless to say I’ve been lurking on Newegg even more than usual lately. As much as I’d love to build the new uber-machine, on some level I realize that I don’t really need it. With the exception of the CPU, everything in my current rig is pretty nice (the CPU will probably be replaced with a Q6600 once the prices drop a little bit more), and I’ve yet to really tax this machine.
Should be interesting to see how long I can hold out on sinking more money into a newer machine, but I’m hoping I can hold out at least past the release of Nehalem’s 32nm successor.
G1 or wait?
Oct 9th
With the G1 coming out in less than two weeks, I’m tempted to jump carriers to T-Mobile in order to pick one up. However, Sprint will apparently be releasing their Android phone “early next year.” With my phone on it’s last legs, I really need to get a new one soon, and I don’t know if I can hold out long enough for Sprint’s Android. T-Mobile’s network is also kind of spotty (and no 3G coverage in Louisville at all) while I’ve never had an issue with Sprint’s network.
Gah.
Android Development
Oct 8th
I recently got the Android SDK set up and I’ve begun working on my inital Android project. I’m not going to go into any details until I have something to show, but I’m hoping to have a good chunk of it written by the time the G1 releases in a couple weeks.
The Android SDK is really nice, and the documentation is excellent. The only thing that took me a little while to figure out was how to add an addition GUI file. For the record, if you add an xml file to the res/layout, Android will build it automatically.
I’ve also gotten Eclipse set up nicely, with Android and SVN integration. I just wish Ubuntu would get newer versions of Eclipse in the repositories so I don’t have to keep installing it manually.
Small, personal web servers
Sep 27th
Tiny Mini-ITX web server
I recently helped my roommate shop for a small, personal web server. We wound up basing it on Intel’s Atom platform, and I was amazed at how cheap it was. The server (pictured above) came up to almost exactly $200, including shipping, and has a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 512MB of Memory, and an 80GB hard drive. It runs Ubuntu 8.04 Server Edition.
The motherboard is a Mini-ITX form factor board, so the whole server is pretty small. It has a low power consumption, with the Atom CPU using only 4W of electricity. For anyone looking to host their own web page, the Atom is a great way to do it. So far, the box has handled everything we’ve thrown at it quite nicely. It’s running a LAMP server to host a few personal sites.
If you’re willing to spend a bit more (close to $300 for the same specs) you can get the server down even smaller by using a slimmer case and laptop components.
With the cost of hardware dropping, I wonder if we’ll see devices like this mass marketed to the general public. It’s mainly a matter of making a nice interface for it to easily allow setting up a photo or blog site. Imagine a desktop application that would allow a user to type up a blog post, upload photos, etc., then automatically upload that content to the server.
If anyone’s curious, the hardware we bought is here. The motherboard is currently out of stock, however, as Intel has released a dual core version. I’ll update the wishlist when Newegg gets the new board in.
Automatic offsite Wordpress backups
Sep 24th
Yesterday, I decided to set up a an automated backup solution for my site here. Basically, it does an sqldump then sends the dump to another server over SCP.
First, I had to enable SSH login without a password in order for SCP to work in a cronjob. I followed this howto and it worked perfectly.
Then, I created a backup script to be called by cron:
#!/bin/sh
cd /home/backups/collegegeek
FNAME=collegegeek-`date +%F`.sql
mysqldump –add-drop-table -uroot -pPASSWORDHERE collegegeek > $FNAME
bzip2 $FNAME
rm $FNAME
scp $FNAME.bz2 zach@192.168.1.82:backups/
echo “Nightly Backup Successful: $(date)” >> /home/backups/blogbackup.log
This will also leave a copy on the local server on the /home partition. Note that /home is on a different physical drive than /var, so if the drive with the SQL database goes down, I should have a local copy as well.
Just a random update
Sep 6th
I feel like typing something…
My hard drive came in, and is now hooked up and formatted on Komodo, giving me over a terabyte of storage to work with.
I’ve been playing with Chrome, and in fact I’m using it right now. My overall reaction is very positive, and I’m looking forward to a Linux version. Chrome makes sense both in the way the code is done and the way the user interface is designed.
I’m also currently in the middle of a project for school, which is to create a commandline shell for Minix. Currently, my shell can output environment variables… woot.
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