This will probably come in a little higher cost than you'd like, but consider getting a Synology NAS box (http://www.synology.com/us/index.php), and a pair of notebook drives. I've had a home server of one sort or another for years. Back in the day I had top of the line multiprocessor Compaq server with a full RAID array. These days I live completely off-grid. The power draw of that beast would crush me.
Seeking a better solution I picked up a 207+, and then modified the brackets to take a pair of notebook drives. I measured it at 12 watts. It doesn't have much processing power, but I run fetchmail, dovecot, slimserver, and of course file sharing services on it. It would easily run a web server, though I host my website externally. I have mine configured with cron to shut down in the at night. Newer versions have automatic support for starting up and shutting down based on the time. If you're not hosting a web site, you can save more energy and money.
For me, running a server without RAID or mirroring isn't an option. That's one of the reasons I chose this solution. I use a USB harddisk for occassional backups. I've never hooked a USB CD-ROM to it, though I don't see any reason you couldn't. It's running Linux under the covers, and it's relatively easy to cross-compile software for it, or simply use optware (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Optware/Packages?from=Unslung.Packages) to get what you need.
FCC restricts it to Law Enforcement
on
Throwable WiFi Camera
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Oddly enough I read the FCC filing on this gadget for work earlier this week. It uses the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but sends an analog signal -- not digital, which is what 2.4 is reserved for. Because it conflicts with the usage plan for 2.4 Ghz the only way the FCC would let them sell it was to specifically restrict it to law enforcement -- not merely government agencies. Personally, I wonder what will happen when these things are obsolete and sold at government surplus auctions, but at least for the next few years the only way you'll get one is if you have a badge.
Among other things, it'll stomp on your 2.4 Ghz WiFi lan. However, because it is designed for use in life and death situations, the FCC figures the police will have cleared the area, and you won't be hanging out surfing Slashdot.
The cashier noticed smearing of the ink - which apparently was actually there. The $2 bills may have been the first thing that got her notice but the smeared ink on them is what she claims made her suspicious enough to call her manager.
Interestingly enough, real US currency often looks "smudgy." It's the counterfit that is extra crisp. I realize this is counter-intuitive.
My sister was a secret service for a decade or so. (The secret service's primary role is to protect the treasury. Click here for government propoganda.) Field agents often have a kit with both real and counterfit currency so that they can train folks on how to distinguish between them. I've seen counterfit bills whose quality is "too good."
While it may sound reasonable at some level that the bills were suspicious because they were smeared, this is just further ignorance on the part of cashier. While the feds provide a number of things to check, smeared ink is not one of them.
It's not currently set up for multiple soundcards, but GJukeBox is wonderful for a web based control of a PC based home audio system. I've converted most of my audio to high bit rate OGG and happily control music from anywhere on my home network. Converting it to support multiple sound cards should be fairly straightforward. One crude option would be to install multiple copies and then hack the play scripts to specify different audio devices to the underlying play programs. It also support streaming, if you want private audio streams going to local PCs.
Ogg playback seems to be fairly trivial in terms of CPU utilization on a modern PC. I would assume a stock P3 or P4 would happily handle six concurrent streams.
Argh! I'm late to the rant party. I suspect this will never get read by anybody, but here's a thought for you:
Let's say IBM chooses to fight this (this seems to be the plan), and let's say some idiot US judge actually sides with SCO, and let's say SCO looses on appeal. Won't this really end up meaning that all Linux development will happen outside of the states? (a whole slew of it does already.) Think about Alan Cox's "I can't describe this security patch because it's a violation of the DMCA." Think about how open source cryptology was developed when encryption was considered a munition. Remember poor Phil Zimmerman?
I figure if they do win, they'll only be screwing over those of us who live (and program) in the states. Will China care? Especially two years from now when Red Flag Linux has gotten that much better. Will Europe care? (It's not like there is a whole lot of love between the US and Europe these days.) I suspect the rest of the world will shrug their shoulders at the silly Americans and their inane legal system and that will be the end of it.
A buddy of mine turned me on to http://www.squeakland.org. Squeak provides an object oriented environment that's drag and drop, and fun to play with. Think of it like Oracle Forms, Power Builder, or VB for kids. There are published squeak projects that are fun to play with. At the same time, kids can make their own. I'm just getting my feet wet, but I expect to get my daugher (7) using it soon. And it's supported under Linux, Unix, Mac, and other, less useful, operating systems.
Many years ago on my Amiga (call me a fanatic, but I still love that machine) there was a very cool file management program. For the life of me I can't remember the name. Anyway, if you tried to do certain things, like delete a floppy disk, or format a directory, it would pop up a message "User Stupidity Error." Finally, some code that tells it like it is. I wish I could put "User Stupidity Errors" in my programs at work . . .
Does anybody remember what the name of the program was?
This feature is under active development right now. There are several GNUCash developers using it in the 1.7 (development) release. Look for it in GNUCash 1.8.
There was a legal dispute between Atanasof and Mauchly over who held claim to "the first fully electronic computer." My father was a junior lawyer on the case. Atanasof won, though my dad is firmly convinced he shouldn't have. The crux of the issue was over which machine was "fully electronic." The Atanasof machine used spinning cylinders with pins for memory. As I understand it, the physical position of the pin determined its state. The Mauchly machine used vaccuum tubes for memory. I suppose it amounts to so much legal hairsplitting, given that modern disk drives have spinning disks in which we "reposition" magnetic particles, but in this case were talking about storage, not memory. My dad still has his file on the case, unfortunately it's 300 miles away so I can't scan in anything and post it.
Stepping back a second, what is the point of copyright?
At its most fundamental level, I would argue copyright is there to guarantee that producers of abstract, copyable products can get paid for their work. Copyright ensures that if I write a book, I can sue someone who tries to present it as their own.
How does this apply here? The Aibo isn't an abstract work. The software isn't sold separately. You can't do anything with it without shelling out over $1000 for an Aibo.
Yes, I would feel differently about this if these were add-on packages you bought separately. Though in this case I would argue you should still be able to write programs which will do binary updates on the packages and freely post them, without legal malignment.
The only way I can see justifying a copyright argument here is if you see copyrights as equivalent to patents, which provide control over what people can do with an idea.
As to concerns about cheap knock-offs, first of all we're talking about binary images here. Yeah, you can learn alot from the binaries, but it's still going to be awfuly hard to produce a cheap knock-off without the source, unless you use identical hardware. It's using cheaper parts that's going to allow you to sell a cheaper product while still keeping high margins. Second, if somebody puts together a competing product using Sony's code, that's the time to sue them. Finally, as I note in my letter, Sony could go ahead and post the files on a Sony controlled web-site, allowing users to still enjoy hacking their Aibo, without distribution to non-Aibo owners. Of course, this could be subject to censorship, so I'm not sure it's the best solution but still, it's better than just shutting things down.
As to Sony controlling the world, think about something like the SSSCA. You start with controls that keep you from running software with unknown copyrights on your PC, or watching them on your TV, or listening them on you CD. After all, why do your consumer electronics need to facilitate the use of questionable? What's to prevent another step to products which only play works with "certified copyrights"? And what's to prevent the industry from making "certified copyrights" very difficult to obtain? The amalgamation of consumer electronics and entertainment companies can easily lead to this sort of abuse. Think about region codes on DVDs. Why should Sony be able to dictate where in the world I can play a DVD I purchased? We are already seeing our rights impinged by the corporate world. I think you might be surprised a megacorp would do if given the opportunity.
My concern here is control: I should be able to do what I want with the things that I own. I do not believe that corporations should dictate the terms on which I use products I rightfully own.
Note the "rightfully own" part. Aibo hacks are (generally) only useful to Aibo owners. People who paid Sony money. We're not talking about hacks that allow people to steal from Sony by making illegal copies. We're talking about hacks that allow people to do something different with property they own. There are ways Sony can work this out gracefully. If Sony chooses not to, I will choose avoid buying their products.
This is the letter that will be going out on Monday morning:
To: Victor Matsuda
Vice President
SONY
Sony Electronics Inc.
Entertainment Robot America
6701 Center Drive West, Suite 640, Los Angeles, California 90045
From:
Re: Sony's response to www.aibopet.com
Greetings!
I am deeply saddened by Sony's predatory and short-sighted response to www.aibopet.com. As a professional programmer, I appreciate Sony's concern about its intellectual property. I am not an advocate of piracy or the theft of intellectual property. Your efforts to shutdown www.aibopet.com misunderstand the desires and interests of consumers. Aibo, as a robot dog, is something that, realistically, will only appeal to a small segment of the population -- a segment with both the means to purchase an Aibo, and an interest in gadgets. Here is (was) a site dedicated to enabling intrepid Aibo owners to try new out things, to play with their gadget. The software provided on the Aibo site was only useful for Aibo owners.
Sony's actions seem to be rooted in the notion that corporations should have the right to control how their products are used. As a consumer, I resent that notion. I have been very pleased with the Sony products I have bought, but actions like this make me wonder when Sony will be trying to control what I watch on my Sony WEGA television, which disks I play on my Sony 200 CD changer, or what programs I run on my Sony Vaio notebook. (I have at least $2000 of Sony equipment in my house.) I love gadgets. Before I buy a new gadget, I go online to how hackable it is. Hacking with the gadget is more than half the fun. Sony's response to www.aibopet.com guarantees that I - one of the rich geeks most likely to spring for your products - will not buy an Aibo. Sony's response will also make me consider very carefully whether to buy other Sony products in the future, including Sony's entertainment offerings.
Please reconsider your response to www.aibopet.com. Perhaps Sony could host the files, and thereby guarantee that only registered Aibo owners can download them. There are ways of working this out that do not necessitate restricting what the rightful owners of Sony products can do. Of course, this assumes that Sony wants to work things out. Perhaps Sony is only interested in shutting www.aibopet.com down, in which case, I will no longer be interest in buying Sony products.
Thank you for your time; I look forward to your response.
I would hardly say my anger is misplaced. I have never used my system for SPAM, nor will I. I have been using the same IP address for almost two years. My address has not been used for SPAM. I tried to send an email to a friend serviced by another ISP, and was summarily rejected because it was sent from a dynamically assigned domain name, instead of a fixed one. I would make the case that blacklisting my system, simply because of the way it's connected is "libelous." My system been branded unwelcome by a self-righteous, imperious tyrant without any just cause or evidence. No, I would not get far in court, and I'm not planning on suing, but I consider this as much of a libelous afront as if someone published a smear article in my local newspaper, or send a letter spuriously condemning me to my employer.
This sort of behaviour takes the net away from ordinary people and places it squarely in the hands of businesses which can afford thousands of dollars in yearly access fees. Yes, I could get a fixed IP address, if I wanted to pay at least another $600 a year for business account. But not only would it cost me an additional $600+, I would get only 1/3 of my current bandwidth. Do we really want a net in which small users are squozen out? Do we really want only "blessed" sites (read -- only sites with lots of cash) on the net?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of SPAM, but given that MAPS and services like it, automatically blackhole email from dynamically served DNS entries, I am quite happy to see them sued, sued into oblivion even. MAPS decreases freedom on the net. I have a DSL connection through a local carrier who shall remain nameless. I run a web server on my connection, largely for family and friends. If I get a business connection where I can get a properly registered DNS entry, I have to pay twice as much for half the bandwidth. So I use dynamic DNS services. Thanks to MAPS its about impossible for me to send email directly from my server. Instead I am forced to use the email account of my service provider. (Ironically, I can send email from SPAM ridden web mail services any time I want.) I resent MAPS's heavy handed self righteous policing of the net, even more than I resent the bandwidth wasting spammers. I would rather delete some extra #$%^ and have freedom, than have somebody tell me what I can and can't do.
Doesn't this end up meaning that we are back in the land of only certain "blessed" resolutions being well supported? An earlier posting was hoping that these new CRTs would makeup for one of the short coming of LCDs -- that they don't handle other resolutions well. If these flat CRTs are using a matrix of guns I suspect that we'll be limited to the resolution provided, or crude approximations when using non-standard ones. Of course, I wouldn't mind being "limited" to 3200x2400 on a nice flat 3' screen.
Indeed. I used to run five machines in my office. I did two things: (1) I moved my terribly noisy server downstairs. (2) I ripped out all the fans in the remaining four machines. I run them open with really big heat sinks. The only remaining noise is the whine of the drives which is nothing compared to the rattle of the power supply and CPU fans.
Slashdot Mirror
This will probably come in a little higher cost than you'd like, but consider getting a Synology NAS box (http://www.synology.com/us/index.php), and a pair of notebook drives. I've had a home server of one sort or another for years. Back in the day I had top of the line multiprocessor Compaq server with a full RAID array. These days I live completely off-grid. The power draw of that beast would crush me.
Seeking a better solution I picked up a 207+, and then modified the brackets to take a pair of notebook drives. I measured it at 12 watts. It doesn't have much processing power, but I run fetchmail, dovecot, slimserver, and of course file sharing services on it. It would easily run a web server, though I host my website externally. I have mine configured with cron to shut down in the at night. Newer versions have automatic support for starting up and shutting down based on the time. If you're not hosting a web site, you can save more energy and money.
For me, running a server without RAID or mirroring isn't an option. That's one of the reasons I chose this solution. I use a USB harddisk for occassional backups. I've never hooked a USB CD-ROM to it, though I don't see any reason you couldn't. It's running Linux under the covers, and it's relatively easy to cross-compile software for it, or simply use optware (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Optware/Packages?from=Unslung.Packages) to get what you need.
Oddly enough I read the FCC filing on this gadget for work earlier this week. It uses the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, but sends an analog signal -- not digital, which is what 2.4 is reserved for. Because it conflicts with the usage plan for 2.4 Ghz the only way the FCC would let them sell it was to specifically restrict it to law enforcement -- not merely government agencies. Personally, I wonder what will happen when these things are obsolete and sold at government surplus auctions, but at least for the next few years the only way you'll get one is if you have a badge.
Among other things, it'll stomp on your 2.4 Ghz WiFi lan. However, because it is designed for use in life and death situations, the FCC figures the police will have cleared the area, and you won't be hanging out surfing Slashdot.
The cashier noticed smearing of the ink - which apparently was actually there. The $2 bills may have been the first thing that got her notice but the smeared ink on them is what she claims made her suspicious enough to call her manager.
Interestingly enough, real US currency often looks "smudgy." It's the counterfit that is extra crisp. I realize this is counter-intuitive.
My sister was a secret service for a decade or so. (The secret service's primary role is to protect the treasury. Click here for government propoganda.) Field agents often have a kit with both real and counterfit currency so that they can train folks on how to distinguish between them. I've seen counterfit bills whose quality is "too good."
While it may sound reasonable at some level that the bills were suspicious because they were smeared, this is just further ignorance on the part of cashier. While the feds provide a number of things to check, smeared ink is not one of them.
It's not currently set up for multiple soundcards, but GJukeBox is wonderful for a web based control of a PC based home audio system. I've converted most of my audio to high bit rate OGG and happily control music from anywhere on my home network. Converting it to support multiple sound cards should be fairly straightforward. One crude option would be to install multiple copies and then hack the play scripts to specify different audio devices to the underlying play programs. It also support streaming, if you want private audio streams going to local PCs.
Ogg playback seems to be fairly trivial in terms of CPU utilization on a modern PC. I would assume a stock P3 or P4 would happily handle six concurrent streams.
Argh! I'm late to the rant party. I suspect this will never get read by anybody, but here's a thought for you:
Let's say IBM chooses to fight this (this seems to be the plan), and let's say some idiot US judge actually sides with SCO, and let's say SCO looses on appeal. Won't this really end up meaning that all Linux development will happen outside of the states? (a whole slew of it does already.) Think about Alan Cox's "I can't describe this security patch because it's a violation of the DMCA." Think about how open source cryptology was developed when encryption was considered a munition. Remember poor Phil Zimmerman?
I figure if they do win, they'll only be screwing over those of us who live (and program) in the states. Will China care? Especially two years from now when Red Flag Linux has gotten that much better. Will Europe care? (It's not like there is a whole lot of love between the US and Europe these days.) I suspect the rest of the world will shrug their shoulders at the silly Americans and their inane legal system and that will be the end of it.
A buddy of mine turned me on to http://www.squeakland.org. Squeak provides an object oriented environment that's drag and drop, and fun to play with. Think of it like Oracle Forms, Power Builder, or VB for kids. There are published squeak projects that are fun to play with. At the same time, kids can make their own. I'm just getting my feet wet, but I expect to get my daugher (7) using it soon. And it's supported under Linux, Unix, Mac, and other, less useful, operating systems.
Many years ago on my Amiga (call me a fanatic, but I still love that machine) there was a very cool file management program. For the life of me I can't remember the name. Anyway, if you tried to do certain things, like delete a floppy disk, or format a directory, it would pop up a message "User Stupidity Error." Finally, some code that tells it like it is. I wish I could put "User Stupidity Errors" in my programs at work . . .
Does anybody remember what the name of the program was?
This feature is under active development right now. There are several GNUCash developers using it in the 1.7 (development) release. Look for it in GNUCash 1.8.
There was a legal dispute between Atanasof and Mauchly over who held claim to "the first fully electronic computer." My father was a junior lawyer on the case. Atanasof won, though my dad is firmly convinced he shouldn't have. The crux of the issue was over which machine was "fully electronic." The Atanasof machine used spinning cylinders with pins for memory. As I understand it, the physical position of the pin determined its state. The Mauchly machine used vaccuum tubes for memory. I suppose it amounts to so much legal hairsplitting, given that modern disk drives have spinning disks in which we "reposition" magnetic particles, but in this case were talking about storage, not memory. My dad still has his file on the case, unfortunately it's 300 miles away so I can't scan in anything and post it.
Thanks! That's what happens when you write letters in the middle of the night. Yeesh! I even had my wife, an english professor, proof read it.
Stepping back a second, what is the point of copyright?
At its most fundamental level, I would argue copyright is there to guarantee that producers of abstract, copyable products can get paid for their work. Copyright ensures that if I write a book, I can sue someone who tries to present it as their own.
How does this apply here? The Aibo isn't an abstract work. The software isn't sold separately. You can't do anything with it without shelling out over $1000 for an Aibo.
Yes, I would feel differently about this if these were add-on packages you bought separately. Though in this case I would argue you should still be able to write programs which will do binary updates on the packages and freely post them, without legal malignment.
The only way I can see justifying a copyright argument here is if you see copyrights as equivalent to patents, which provide control over what people can do with an idea.
As to concerns about cheap knock-offs, first of all we're talking about binary images here. Yeah, you can learn alot from the binaries, but it's still going to be awfuly hard to produce a cheap knock-off without the source, unless you use identical hardware. It's using cheaper parts that's going to allow you to sell a cheaper product while still keeping high margins. Second, if somebody puts together a competing product using Sony's code, that's the time to sue them. Finally, as I note in my letter, Sony could go ahead and post the files on a Sony controlled web-site, allowing users to still enjoy hacking their Aibo, without distribution to non-Aibo owners. Of course, this could be subject to censorship, so I'm not sure it's the best solution but still, it's better than just shutting things down.
As to Sony controlling the world, think about something like the SSSCA. You start with controls that keep you from running software with unknown copyrights on your PC, or watching them on your TV, or listening them on you CD. After all, why do your consumer electronics need to facilitate the use of questionable? What's to prevent another step to products which only play works with "certified copyrights"? And what's to prevent the industry from making "certified copyrights" very difficult to obtain? The amalgamation of consumer electronics and entertainment companies can easily lead to this sort of abuse. Think about region codes on DVDs. Why should Sony be able to dictate where in the world I can play a DVD I purchased? We are already seeing our rights impinged by the corporate world. I think you might be surprised a megacorp would do if given the opportunity.
My concern here is control: I should be able to do what I want with the things that I own. I do not believe that corporations should dictate the terms on which I use products I rightfully own.
Note the "rightfully own" part. Aibo hacks are (generally) only useful to Aibo owners. People who paid Sony money. We're not talking about hacks that allow people to steal from Sony by making illegal copies. We're talking about hacks that allow people to do something different with property they own. There are ways Sony can work this out gracefully. If Sony chooses not to, I will choose avoid buying their products.
This is the letter that will be going out on Monday morning:
To: Victor Matsuda
Vice President
SONY
Sony Electronics Inc.
Entertainment Robot America
6701 Center Drive West, Suite 640, Los Angeles, California 90045
From:
Re: Sony's response to www.aibopet.com
Greetings!
I am deeply saddened by Sony's predatory and short-sighted response to www.aibopet.com. As a professional programmer, I appreciate Sony's concern about its intellectual property. I am not an advocate of piracy or the theft of intellectual property. Your efforts to shutdown www.aibopet.com misunderstand the desires and interests of consumers. Aibo, as a robot dog, is something that, realistically, will only appeal to a small segment of the population -- a segment with both the means to purchase an Aibo, and an interest in gadgets. Here is (was) a site dedicated to enabling intrepid Aibo owners to try new out things, to play with their gadget. The software provided on the Aibo site was only useful for Aibo owners.
Sony's actions seem to be rooted in the notion that corporations should have the right to control how their products are used. As a consumer, I resent that notion. I have been very pleased with the Sony products I have bought, but actions like this make me wonder when Sony will be trying to control what I watch on my Sony WEGA television, which disks I play on my Sony 200 CD changer, or what programs I run on my Sony Vaio notebook. (I have at least $2000 of Sony equipment in my house.) I love gadgets. Before I buy a new gadget, I go online to how hackable it is. Hacking with the gadget is more than half the fun. Sony's response to www.aibopet.com guarantees that I - one of the rich geeks most likely to spring for your products - will not buy an Aibo. Sony's response will also make me consider very carefully whether to buy other Sony products in the future, including Sony's entertainment offerings.
Please reconsider your response to www.aibopet.com. Perhaps Sony could host the files, and thereby guarantee that only registered Aibo owners can download them. There are ways of working this out that do not necessitate restricting what the rightful owners of Sony products can do. Of course, this assumes that Sony wants to work things out. Perhaps Sony is only interested in shutting www.aibopet.com down, in which case, I will no longer be interest in buying Sony products.
Thank you for your time; I look forward to your response.
I would hardly say my anger is misplaced. I have never used my system for SPAM, nor will I. I have been using the same IP address for almost two years. My address has not been used for SPAM. I tried to send an email to a friend serviced by another ISP, and was summarily rejected because it was sent from a dynamically assigned domain name, instead of a fixed one. I would make the case that blacklisting my system, simply because of the way it's connected is "libelous." My system been branded unwelcome by a self-righteous, imperious tyrant without any just cause or evidence. No, I would not get far in court, and I'm not planning on suing, but I consider this as much of a libelous afront as if someone published a smear article in my local newspaper, or send a letter spuriously condemning me to my employer.
This sort of behaviour takes the net away from ordinary people and places it squarely in the hands of businesses which can afford thousands of dollars in yearly access fees. Yes, I could get a fixed IP address, if I wanted to pay at least another $600 a year for business account. But not only would it cost me an additional $600+, I would get only 1/3 of my current bandwidth. Do we really want a net in which small users are squozen out? Do we really want only "blessed" sites (read -- only sites with lots of cash) on the net?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of SPAM, but given that MAPS and services like it, automatically blackhole email from dynamically served DNS entries, I am quite happy to see them sued, sued into oblivion even. MAPS decreases freedom on the net. I have a DSL connection through a local carrier who shall remain nameless. I run a web server on my connection, largely for family and friends. If I get a business connection where I can get a properly registered DNS entry, I have to pay twice as much for half the bandwidth. So I use dynamic DNS services. Thanks to MAPS its about impossible for me to send email directly from my server. Instead I am forced to use the email account of my service provider. (Ironically, I can send email from SPAM ridden web mail services any time I want.) I resent MAPS's heavy handed self righteous policing of the net, even more than I resent the bandwidth wasting spammers. I would rather delete some extra #$%^ and have freedom, than have somebody tell me what I can and can't do.
It's amazing to me how well this is being received, while slashdotter's lambasted the announcement of Amiga OS 4.0.
Doesn't this end up meaning that we are back in the land of only certain "blessed" resolutions being well supported? An earlier posting was hoping that these new CRTs would makeup for one of the short coming of LCDs -- that they don't handle other resolutions well. If these flat CRTs are using a matrix of guns I suspect that we'll be limited to the resolution provided, or crude approximations when using non-standard ones. Of course, I wouldn't mind being "limited" to 3200x2400 on a nice flat 3' screen.
Indeed. I used to run five machines in my office. I did two things: (1) I moved my terribly noisy server downstairs. (2) I ripped out all the fans in the remaining four machines. I run them open with really big heat sinks. The only remaining noise is the whine of the drives which is nothing compared to the rattle of the power supply and CPU fans.