A Promotion for The Server!

This is a diagram of the AC-130 "Gunship" adaptation of the venerable Lockheed C-130 transport. When the American armed services had a need for a close support platform that was a little more "heavy duty" than helicopter based solutions, Lockheed created this. OK, it was of course preceded by the "Puff The Magic Dragon" of the Vietnam Era that was based on the C-47, but that was basically a "one-off". Anyway, mini-military history lesson aside; what this has to do with me is I've decide my Windows Home Server 2011, network name "Hercules", needed an upgrade. Really, not as much an "upgrade" per se, but a revamp that will change it radically!

I'm an avid reader of the website Silent PC Review. http://www.silentpcreview.com/ This guy does a really good job and I've become a strong believer in the concept of quiet computers. To cut to the chase; my server is annoyingly loud! I hate it. It sits in the credenza just to the left of my knee and when it's running, it wears me out. There are all manner of culprits when your trying to deal with a computer's noise issues. The current hardware has an MSI G41 Motherboard with a pretty low level (E4300) C2D processor, but never the less, that's a processor fan, and in this case, the stock Intel fan....which most people know is a noise disaster. Then there are case fans and the power supply. In this case, I'm not motivated get a "silent" power supply of enough capacity for a file server, so I'm probably going to stick with the mid-level Cooler Master 550w that's in there. Plus I really don't think that it's the issue. I have a 600w version of the same PSU in my main workstation and it's almost silent. I can get a quiet case fan for around $20 most anywhere, so that leaves the CPU situation. 

My solution? Why a new motherboard of course? In this case it's the ZACATE! OK, for regular people is the AMD implimenation of an integrated processor concept with both a CPU and GPU on the same die, making what they call an APU (Advanced Processor Unit). You can read the reviews yourself and I'd recommend the Anandtech ones. In the big picture, it kind of slots nicely between the Atom chipped boards and the newer i3s. 

 

For me, the draw of this particular design is as follows: It not only has integrated video (which lots of platforms have), but it runs very cool (note the lack of fan on the heatsink), AND unlike the Atom platform which are almost exclusively Mini-ITX, Asus makes a Micro-ATX board that gives me more than just the one PCI-e slot that the Mini-ITX boards do. Also, since the "CPU/GPU" are already onboard; I don't have to buy that. This gives me 2 PCI-e slots, plus 2 old fashioned PCI slots allowing me to move my Intel Gigabit board and tuner card over, plus a place for a caching RAID card to go. 

 Yup, you read that right.....I'm going "Big Time"! A few months ago, I ran across and article talking about a HighPoint Caching RAID controller that's designed to use "off-the-shelf" SSDs for that function! Although this type of things have been around for a while, there were almost universally specific to some particular manufacturer's SSD. This was of course a very expensive way to go, but these HighPoint controller put pretty much any SSD in play! Although, they tend to go for something like $150 or so. Of course, I was like a kid at Christmas.....with "sugar-plums dancing in my head". 

 ....Which brings us to the last item of this concept....the SSD. A couple of days ago, I ran across an ad on Craig's List advertising 32Gb, Patriot PS-100 SSDs for sale at $20 a piece. Normally, I'd completely be disinterested in very small used SSDs, but here was exactly what I need to attach to a caching controller. Yes; I'm aware that the PS-100 is is terribly slow, and that these used drives could have their "writes" all used up. But in this situation, since it's being used simply as cache, I'd just replace it if it goes bad, plus even a slow SSD is going to be far faster than simply using a hard drive! I picked up the MB for $75 (after shipping), the two SSDs for $40, the HighPoint controller will run about $150. I'll also need to pick up some PC3 memory, but that'll only be about $25, thus making this whole rebuild come in at right around $290 total.

So there you have it; the combination of a silent motherboard/processor combination, a caching RAID controller with the ability to use a comparatively huge (and cheap) SSDs. This is essentially, my file server on steriods.....thus earning a new name.....the Spectre.

Over the Horizon

Over the edge of the horizon, there's always something new! As I sat in "the chair" last night and looked around the office that's was looking suspiciously free of clutter, I started to project. Project what project(s) were or might be over the horizon. 

I do know that the old ThinkPad network for my wife isn't done yet. Of course there's the two A31s that I'm waiting on, and choosing a printer to service it as well. However, there are other issues to be dealt with though. Such as; should I use an access point and create an actual small private network, or should I just have the machines set up a Peer-to-Peer one instead? Should I made a file server, have one of the machines fulfill that function, or just have the same files on every computer? 

Then, there's the cassette tape conversions looming over my head. Since, I've now proven that I am fully capable of taking analog cassette tapes and converting them to digital files, my wife has pulled her old high school choir performance tapes for me to archive! Can you say: "Oh my achin' back".....oh, I mean this will be hours of fun!

Then, there's the MAME box. For those who haven't played with this software, MAME stands for multiple arcade machine emulator which basically is just a piece of software that will run the ROMs from old arcade games. Apparently, people who have ROM readers have been able to pull down the code from the old arcade games of our youth and put them in a small software package. Most anything halfway modern ranging from Pentiums to Smartphones are able to run these things. If this sounds interesting, by all means; Google it! What I'm interested in doing is to build some sort of a box holding the guts from an old IBM P4 which I have on-hand. I'm not at all sure that I want to build it "all-in-one" like the one pictured, but I think the kids will love it! 

It's actually part of my evil plan to replace our "old" TV, It's an older Sony (about 8 years) 40" LCD projection TV. Yes, you read that right: I did in fact say, "40 inch LCD Projection TV"! It was a nice set at the time and all that we cold afford at around $1000, but technology has moved on and not only are actual LCD TVs of this size cheaper, but they have a higher resolution (mine isn't full HD), but to top it off, Sony has managed to put 42" in the same sized (width) cabinet as the old 40" ones like ours! Plus they are half the price that we paid for the current one in 2005 dollars! Which of course means that the 40 incher will need to move to the bedroom to replace the 37" LCD of much lower resolution which can become part of the whole MAME box extravaganza!
 

"The Chair" Meets "Big Iron"

“Big Iron”, that’s what we called it in the old days, when the world was made of wood and steel. It was commonly used as a descriptive of anything that was solid, heavy and made to last a very long time. It was sometimes used in relation to a need for something heavy duty. If you can close your eyes and imagine any one of the big yellow Caterpillar Tractor products you’re on the right track! 

This is what made America as we know it, bulldozers, locomotives, cranes and battleships. Nothing subtle about it. What does it have to do with me? Unbeknownst to most of you, I’ve been fighting a war……and losing. 

Some might remember a post of mine from last summer talking about an Aeron chair that I picked up on eBay for “a song”. It needed a gas cylinder and to be transported from Amarillo to Dallas. Those parts were pretty easy. My wife’s uncle was coming this way so the chair came with him. I got on line and ordered the proper gas cylinder for about $35, so when the chair arrived, I proceeded to take it apart, just like it showed on any number of YouTube videos. I don’t know whether the former owner was 500lbs or what, but that cylinder (or what was left of it wasn’t coming out). I went down to Lowe’s and bought what I thought was big iron in the form of a rather large pipe-wrench, but that got nowhere, even with the participation of two friends to hold the chair still. In the meantime, I managed to break part of the height adjustment mechanism as well.

 

And so it sat…..in parts…..in my garage…..for the next 5 months! Last month, I came up with the idea of having someone put a torch to it and see if that’d loosen it. Abject failure, combined with burned off paint as a reminder. 

About 1 week ago, I got another idea. I do quite of bit of computer work for a “mom & pop” business in an neighboring suburb called Mesquite (quaint for those of you who aren't from Texas). Since it's kind of a shoe-string operation, they can’t afford an actual IT guy or even to keep a firm on retainer. I was referred to them through a daughter-in-law who I had done work for, and so I’ve come to know them quite well. Their business is custom and small volume gasket manufacturing, mostly for industrial pumps, etc. It occurred to me that these guys work with actual “big iron” on a fairly regular basis, and they might know or have something that might help in my struggles with “the chair”. 

So yesterday, while we were “off” due to Martin Luther King Day, I loaded up “the chair” and went down to Dallas Gasket & Packing. We tried the pipe-wrench again with no success, we even tried it with the magic elixir (WD-40). Then while we were all standing around scratching our heads, one of the guys suggested trying the opposite tactic by clamping the stubborn cylinder in a vise and turning the chair. At first, that got us nowhere either. Then he brought out the “big iron” it was about a 10 foot steel tube with walls that were about 3/8” thick. We stuck it through the base of the chair and like magic (actually leverage), it began to turn. There was more, but to make a long story, shorter, we turned it back and forth while lifting to finally break the chair free of the cylinder post!

 

So, I returned home victorious, with “the chair”, now free of the offending appendage. I did have some of my own “big iron” work to do involving a 12lb sledge hammer so I could knock the last of the old cylinder from the chair base, but it’s pretty much ready now. As soon as that height adjustment part comes in, I’ll finally be in a chair that doesn’t have bolts poking me in the butt. Just goes to show you that: there’s always a price to be paid and sometimes, brute force IS the answer, so you turn to “big iron”.

Soon, I'll be able to sit in my "Captain's Chair", master of all the I survey, ready to go where no Frugal Propellerhead has gone before. 

Building Desktops the Frugal Way: Part 1

Last week, my friend Eric and I got into a little bit of a discussion on buying/building a desktop computer. When all was said and done, I had written quite a bit on the topic and he asked me if it was from a blog post that hadn't been published yet. The answer was no, but as I think about it more, I guess it's a topic that bears some further examination if for no other reason than to explain to my readers why some of my decisions seem a little odd.

Although this wasn't the very first computer that I owned (that would be a TI99/4A), it was the first that I used to actually do real computer work on. The year was 1986 or so and I was back in school to get my teaching certification after deciding that I had no interest in working in the cotton business for the foreseeable future. I needed a computer and my brother had recently taken a job in Silicon Valley with Mitsubishi Electronics, so of course I turned to him to see what I could get an honest to gosh working PC for that I could get papers and what-not done on. The answer that came back was $600, which as ridiculously low at the time, since this was still the era of the $2000+ PC. So, I sent him money and after a bit, a couple of big boxes arrived from California. One held an Amdek monochrome (amber) monitor that he didn't have any use for, and the other had a generic 386SX-16 PC from one of the many faceless "mom-and-pop" stores all over Silicon Valley of that time. The only reason it was that cheap was that he had put in the a hard drive AND the RAM for me for free! 

Within a couple of years, it was evident that the 386 needed to be replaced, which of course meant a 486. This time, I was going to be out in California (on my way to Oregon) and my brother took me to the Mecca of computing; the original Fry's store. Yes, the one that was converted from the Fry's family grocery business to sell electronics which today is a juggernaught. This time, we walked around an found a motherboard that I could afford, and he did the rest while I was up in Oregon looking at grad schools and spectacular scenery. When I got back, he pulled out the MB with one of his old processors installed (486DX33), about 40Mb of RAM (which as kind of a ridiculously high amount at that time), and a 120Mb hard drive already loaded with Windows 3.11 on it. Then he said that all I needed to do was go home and buy a case and put the whole thing together! I spent the whole flight home wondering just how exactly I was going to do this since I'd never done anything like that before and neither had anyone that I knew at the time! So in the next few weeks after I got home, I spent days pouring over the tome size "Computer Shopper" (remember those?) trying to find just the right case and drives. This is the beginning of one of my abiding computer obsessions; that of the black case. At that time, black cases were few and far between. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, there were only two companies selling them in Computer Shopper at that time. So, after scrounging around, I came up with enough money to order, a case, the monitor and the floppy and CD-ROM drive from one of those companies. When that case finally arrived, I set myself on the path that I'm still on today.....with a slight detour.

I'd like to be able to say that; from that time on, I never bought another pre-built computer, but unfortunately, I had to learn a few lessons. The first occurred when I became that which I abhor....a Best Buy customer! I bought a Toshiba Infinia which came with a really cool monitor that had a lot of controls on it for all the multi-media functions. I remember at the time, it came down to either the IBM Aptiva S9c "Stealth" or the Toshiba. I decided on the "sensible" option since it was cheaper. First lesson....buy what you really want or you'll end up replicating that later and waste time and money. About two years later, I bought a later version of the Aptiva, but at least this time, I bought it used, saved a LOT of money and was able to upgrade (with great effort) it enough to use for several years.

All was not wasted during this period. I learned a lot about computers in general as well as machines made by large manufacturers specifically. 

• Large manufacturers don't tend to go by a standard. So, they are hard to upgrade. 
• Relating to the first item. If you don't get all the parts; they tend to be hard to find, meaning expensive if you can find them. I never did find the correct stand for my Aptiva monitor!
• In many cases, secondary components (like power supplies) are often skimped on. Dell and HP are notorious for this. Nobody's as bad as Acer or Packard Bell....remember them?
• If the manufacturer decides to abandon the series or concept (in my case, both IBM and Toshiba dropped out of the consumer market), you are left high-and-dry!

Don't get me wrong. I loved my IBM Aptiva "Stealth", but when it was obsolete for my purposes, I had to let it go completely. Thus I was about to enter the second period of my desktop PC life....so stay tuned.......to the same Blog-time, same Blog-channel, when I put the Frugal, in the propellerhead!

ThinkPad Honey-Net

Everybody has “honey-dos”. Mostly we do take care of them as fast as we can and move on to something more interesting. So, why am I writing about it then? It’s a weird topic, I know, but just bear with me on this.

My wife is an elementary school teacher, a very good one who goes above and beyond slaving away at an often thankless, but societally important task. However, unlike the vast majority of these folks toiling away with our young ones, my wife hasn’t always worked in elementary education and is very comfortable with technology. She’s more than willing to try anything that might be effective with her charges. 

For her first eight years of teaching, she (and I) have worked in a school district which is pretty advanced in relation to the availability of technology. Although, we don’t issue notebook computers to students until the 5^th grade, a C.O.W. is often available for teachers to use in grades K-4. That’s “Computer On Wheels”, which is a specially adapted cart that holds a set of notebook computers and their power adapters as well as a printer. However, this last fall, she began working at a neighboring district that not only doesn’t have notebook computers for students , but doesn't have C.O.W.s available either. Each classroom has 2 desktop computers for student use and that’s it. With many resources being electronic and more every day, that’s simply not enough. As a matter of fact, one of my projects over the Christmas break was to take some old cassette tapes of stories and converting them to digital. There'll be more of this type of things to come....trust me.

I had recently upgraded her laptop computer from a ThinkPad Z61m to a T61. So, she asked me what I thought about her taking the old machine up to school I told her that I thought it'd be fine, but that she needed more than one machine; more like 4 or 5 (that's how many groups of desks she has). And furthermore, that the age and speed of the machine really didn't matter as much as long as they could all be made similar (or identical) so that the kids could operate them easily. 

Around that time, I had dealt with a rash of dead, dying, or returned due to replacement computers which ironically were largely the same or similar models. It became fairly obvious that they fell in two groups; T4x P-M computers, and older A3x P4-M computers. Although I would have loved to have done the T40/41/42s, there was only one of the 3 that wasn't dead! The only working one was an older personal T42p that had been passed on to my father-in-law. It's screen was the "last gasp" before dying red, but I had another screen in the garage. However, both of the A31s were running fine! So, I settled on one configuration, and made them identical through cloning the hard drives. Then I began checking with various acquaintances I've made through the ThinkPad Forum and I lucked out! One guy I know out in California had 2 more A31s that he was trying to get rid of and said I could have them for the cost of shipping!

To say that I'm ecstatic would be an understatement! Although, the T4x machines are newer, faster and just generally more advanced, IMHO, there's been no ThinkPad since the A31 went out of production that has replicated it's flexibilty and toughness. It's not an accident that they were chosen for Space Shuttle and International Space Station use. They really are tough: I don't know if they are 3rd-grader tough, but they are pretty robust. Plus they have big easy to see 15" screens and weigh enough so that the kids aren't tempted to try and move them around too much. 

This will give me 4 identical machines that uses the same cloned image and will be easy to support. In fact, although those machines haven't arrived yet, I have 3 drives already cloned ready to go! Two for the machines and one as a spare in case one of them fails at some point. Of course one of the things about the A31 series that I personally love is their modularity. You can pretty much configure the machine any way you like. It's one of the last laptop computers made that, aside from the hard drive, not only had a had two other drives, but they bays are modular. Over it's production run, pretty much anything that any one could conceive of was made for it. These devices ranged from the prosaic floppy disk drive, to a secondary battery or various optical drives, but they didn't stop there: IBM not only created some unusual devices which included hard drive adapters, but to cap it all off, a special adapter-frame that the user could fit either a number keypad or a Palm Pilot! 

What's not to love? It's almost like the James Bond's Little Nellie that arrived in two suitcases and "Q"!

What To Do When There's Nothing to Do!

My efforts in cleaning and consolidating have been really effective! So effective, that I'm starting to actually run out of things to do. I do have a couple on the "back burner", but both are on hold waiting for outside intervention. My office space is so clean, it's a little weird? So, what to do?

Well, let's start by briefly recapping what's been done. All of our computers are now on one operating system; with the exception of a few specialty machines, and the server of course. All the laptops use the same power adapter, and when you're home to 5 of them, that's no small thing! Everyone is fully equipped with a main computer for normal use (a laptop or in my case also a desktop) and a tablet for misc. purposes. Both of our main television viewing systems have a surround system and a HTPC that's connected to the internet and our home server. 

 So, of course, when you least expect it, something weird happens! Last night, I noticed that my tablet was refusing to sync it's email, then I realized that it wasn't just that, but Google Play which uses that address as the account was claiming "no connection". Oddly Hotmail wasn't connecting either; all at the same time that other computers AND the tablet itself was able to get onto the internet via the browser!?! While researching the problem, I got all manner of answers (of course), one of which suggested that the router might have filter that MAC address. Ah Ha.....I thought, that piece of junk router I had to put in to get the voice-over-IP NetTalk phone to work must be the culprit! And since the service had expired as well as our reason for needing it, I decided to put my "super-duper" fast, D-Link DGL-4100 gaming router back in place, thus eliminating one box, AND putting my entire network on Gigabit! What had happened was that only specific routers worked with that service and the Trendnet that I got for it didn't have a Gigabit switch built in. This made me use my 8-Port Gigabit Switch in conjunction with the Trendnet to make my "backbone" Gigabit, but then I only had a 10/100 8-Porter in the office that the server and workstation was plugged into......it's all a "house of cards". In went the Gigabit switch equipped router, out cane the Trendnet. The displaced stand-alone Gigabit switch, then swapped out for the office 10/100 switched and we are now Gigabit across the board on all Ethernet connections! 

No, the tablet issue wasn't solved, but hey, the network SCREAMS!

Screens Galore

OK, I'll own up to it.....I love screens, the more the better! You remember Hugh Jackman's hacker character in Swordfish, sitting in front of that outlandish rig that he had John Travolta's character put together for him? Something like 7, LCD flatpanels, which was crazy at the time (2001). It'd be even more so, if people know that most of them were the ultra-expensive SGI 1600SW, that sold for $2500 apiece, and that was without the special converter boxes necessary for them to run with normal graphics cards. Otherwise, you'd have to connect them with special graphics cards of which there were only a very few and expensive as well. Other than being a geek/nerd/propellerhead, I noticed them because I happened to have one of these beasties sitting on my desk at home. At that time very few people had LCDs of any kind at home, much less one of these oddities. 

Of course, since that time, LCD monitors have become common and even the use of multiple monitors is not that unusual. However, I'll have to say that I am unusual (a little bit anyway). For me, 1 or even 2 has never been enough. During the time of the SGI, I had that one in the middle and two large 19-20" CRTs on each side. It took three graphics cards to run them, but I did it. A few years back, I had read somewhere that as far back as Windows 98, Microsoft had built in the capability to resolve up to 10 displays! They should have never told me that; I've been on a monitor binge ever since.....especially now that LCDs are the norm and take up way less space.

 

Last year some time, I became aware of the "portable" monitors that were appearing on the market. They began hitting the market in the form of the various 7" Mimo models at first, then Toshiba, along with Lenovo and others. There are more, probably about 5 brands total which are really only coming out of about 2 factories. They are all pretty similar, ranging from 7" to 10", some with touch, some without, but all are USB "bus" powered, taking signal and current from the USB port of the host machine. For obvious reasons, I became enamored of them right away, imagining myself setting up with a laptop and plugging up one of these things along-side like some sort of mini-me version of the big workstation rig at home! 

Then, right around the time that I was busy trying to figure out a way to squeeze the $100-150 out of thin air, lightning struck...or more accurately; Android struck! I started getting the craving for a tablet, and you guys know where that led me. So what? End of the tiny portable monitor dream? Well.....yes, and no. I knew that if I got one of those little monitors, it'd sit in a drawer like one of my many, "love it" toys like the Bluetooth GPS receiver (to name one). The fact is that, it's a "one trick pony", so there are only so many situations in which it can be used. However; a tablet......now that's something that can have a variety of uses. 

Last night, I came up with use number 45 (or whatever it is now)......an extension monitor.....TA DA!!! I've known for some time that you can get apps that allow a tablet to connect to a computer and use it as an external monitor, but last night, I finally did it. I not only did it, but I did it in the most excessive manner possible (for me anyway)! I set it up on my desk next to the keyboard/mouse area. That's the computer that I currently have a 22" (1960 x 1200) screen, a 20" (1600 x 1200) screen, AND 19" (1440 x 900) TV/Monitor on a swivel arm mount for those times when I need a third screen. That one is on a selector box which allows me to switch between the WHS server and the workstation, as well as having the facility to connect to a DVD/VCR or TV. So anyway, I was up late playing around on the internet, when the thought struck me that maybe I should give one of those apps a try. I started out looking at the Redfly Screenslider, but didn't like that you paid the $.99, but then had to pay more to get the rest of the features on the "Pro" version. So I just ponied up the $4.99 for the one that been in this game the longest: iDisplay. After a little bit of fiddling around with the settings, it worked just fine.

So, what does one DO with a small (1260 x 800) 4th monitor? It turns out that I found the perfect use for it. Drag the music player over there and that way, I can manipulate the controls by touch! This leaves the other 3 free for editing picture, placing Adobe palettes, and monitoring file transfers. OK, really, I'll probably use it with my laptop as my extended desktop screen when I'm on the go, but need to get work done. I feel like James Bond and "Q" all rolled in one.

 

ThinkPad Therapy

See, it's like this........ When I'm frustrated with something, and I can't resolve the problem to my satisfaction, what I do is to fix something. That generally means a computer, or two..... As you guys know, I've been going round and round with Dell over the charge connector on my son's tablet. So far, the results haven't been very good. So over the course of the last few days, I've resorted to self-medicating! No, not like that!

My form of self-medicating started out with a lavender colored IBM ThinkPad X30. About a year and half ago when my then-four-year-old daughter needed a computer. Unlike my son who wasn't really delivered, but "booted-up", she wasn't as electronics oriented as the boy. So I endeavored to make her first computer more "friendly", when experimenting with a rather large and black ThinkPad A21p didn't go very well. So I found her a small "X Series" machine that had enough power to get her on the internet to play some games, and yet be small and unintimidating. Thus was born the "Princess Edition", X30 that I spent the better part of a week painting to get ready for her birthday that year. Well, time has come and gone, as have Patches and Service Packs, which didn't do the old girl any good. So, a few weeks ago, I breathed some life (screen, SSD, RAM) into a derelict X61 and baby girl got an upgrade. This of course left a $3000+, in year-2002-dollars laptop which runs on a PIII-M! If I was in any way normal, it would have found it's way to the garage to sit in a box till eventually it would be disposed of. 

But No.....that's NOT what frustrated, Frugal Propellerheads do! I already had an X31 base (P-M/1.6) sitting in a cabinet, so why not slap together a knock around laptop. However, it was lavender! Can't be seen running around with a lavender laptops, now can we? So, an hour of sanding time later, it was no longer black. I had for some time watched YouTube videos showing guys (some, more successful than other) painting most anything to look like carbon fiber. Here was the perfect excuse to "give it a go" as our British friends would say. The lid already had been none-too-gently sanded; so what you see here are the results.

I sprayed the entire thing silver, taped on the liner, then sprayed on flat black through the rubber mesh. This is what it looked like after the liner was taken off. As you can see, I made a mistake in not stretching the material flat to eliminate the creases.

In this second picture, I had "fogged" the lid with the flat black and the creases aren't nearly as obvious.

After a second fogging, it's much more uniform, and is now awaiting a "satin" clearcoat.

After the clearcoat, it actually looks pretty good, for a really quick-slapped-together job. Over all, I'm pretty happy with it. Particularly since it was for therapy anyway. So people paint, others do wood-working: I work on computers!