Family Portrait Part 3: ..... Impersonal Computing?

OK, the title was a bit of a joke, although, I'm not all that certain what to call this category of all our various computers that are not routinely used by a particular person. Last time we talked about the fact that in many modern American homes, people have one, and in many case, more than one digital device that they use on a regular basis. Regardless of form, be it notebook, tablet, or phone, these are personal computers, by definition. So, then what are the other various machines that are scattered about our houses that don't belong to anyone? For us, they are generally something that's connected a large display so that they can access media content either distributed through the internet or our own network. 

For our system, I'll start at the core; the server. Ours has grown from a bunch of scrounged together parts running the first version of Windows Home Server which was housed in a cheap case, to what it is now through a series of steps. The first big step was the addition of a caching RAID controller that allowed for a degree of redundancy. That was back in the mostly backing-up stage of it's existence when I was just experimenting with serving media. However, as things went along and I went from just a bunch a ripped CDs to movies, the server has taken on a greater role. In the last year, I've ripped more and more of my movies from their original optical format to something that can be accessed throughout the house as well as be easily portable. This has taken the amount of necessary space to a whole different magnitude. I just thought I had a lot of storage when I had 2, 2Tb drives in the old server. The new server will have 5! It will be built in a Fractal Designs, Define XL R2, partially because it has 8 drive spaces, but mostly because it's one of the few on the market able to take the EATX sized SuperMicro server motherboard that will run it. I haven't decided whether it will become a 24/7 server or continue as a Friday to Sunday machine as in the past, but suffice to say that it's grown beyond what it was!

 

The next type of machines are actually the fastest growing category in our house, the HTPC (home theater PC). They've gone from 1, to the soon-to-be 3 in fairly short order. Granted I've had one for quite some time. It came about back in the days when there wasn't an "HTPC" term and the purpose built cases didn't exist. I had to use a Antec "desktop" case for it. But it remained at 1 for a very long time. A few years ago, I got the Ahanix D-Vine5 case you see above from my friend Pat and it has remained the home for the HTPC in my primary A/V system for quite awhile, suffering through 3 motherboard changes in that time. A couple of years ago, I picked up an Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini-ITX chassis to create a second unit when my brother sent me one of his technology cast-offs; a first-gen "Core" i3 processor on a Zotac motherboard. Later on, I picked up a low powered Gigabyte board with a Celeron CPU and it went into a much nicer Silverstone SG-08Lite case as befitting the master bedroom. It's current purpose is for us to catch up on TV show episodes that we've missed or occasionaly bouts of YouTube watching.

The third, will go into service as soon as I locate another HDMI cable so it can attach to the downstairs TV. It came to me this summer when I was visiting family in Taiwan and my brother gave me his "spare mini-server". He has a couple of interesting behaviors that has benefited me over the years. He works in technology and has the wherewithal to dabble in whatever he's interested in.... which includes low-power computing. ......And he tends to buy things in multiples whether he needs it or not! So, this last trip, he gave me an Intel Mini-ITX MB with an on-board Atom processor. Not terribly powerful, but enough to run a small HTPC. It's in an ugly plastic case, but I'll eventually find it something appropriate like the Habey cases that are clearly Apple Mini knock-offs! We have 3 stand-alone televisions, and there is a PC connected to each of them. Is that all?

No, not yet! This kind of ugly "beast" of a ThinkPad came to me recently when a friend dropped it off for me to retrieve files for him. Like many ThinkPads, it started life as his work machine, then went on to be his personal PC when his company retired it. After a long and fruitful life it's fan had given up the ghost and he bought a new computer. Like so many others, he hadn't backed up his files and needed me to get them off; after which, he left the old girl with me. Unbeknownst to the beasty, it's about to become the "garage computer"! There'll be a post on the "garage computer", so I'll leave it at that for now.

I know that this is actually under a different category and post, but let me pay a quick homage (the French say it so much nicer) to the little guy that made all this happen: Powerline Networking technology. The original owner whole built our house and spent quite a lot of money installing speakers and running wire everywhere should have done that with networking..... but didn't. So I have a 2 story house with no networking to the second floor! My options were to spend hundred (thousands!?!) for an electrician to run it, but I was able to call on this little known technology that uses the electric wiring in the house to move data as well. In the past, it had been a little glitchy, but the current version is pretty darned reliable and fast to boot! My ability to have all the various computers everywhere is very much thanks to the Trendnet 1200 AV2 kits that came in the mail a couple of weeks ago! Nothing like "wired" networking!