Me too (but without the drivestation), and you can install the full debian arm distro on it without having to take it apart. It's quiet, low powered and so far has been very reliable.
I think the benefits of this are slightly blurry - on the one hand it is socially invaluable to do this and I take my hat off to the guy for doing it, on the other it is an old inefficient PC that uses an awful lot of energy to do not that much.
I was investigating a scheme to get computers to the residents of a village in Kenya and my immediate reaction was to use recycled PCs, then I realised that using something like a low end mini-itx would work far better for them because it would be easier to get out there, could run for a long time on batteries (crucial for intermittent power problems) and is relatively robust (potentially solid state).
Horses for courses I guess, but I still have an extremely strong urge to get as much out of old hardware as I can.
Re:Works great with older setups & configs
on
Amanda 2.5 Released
·
· Score: 1
in terms of "yet another rsync backup utility" I find rsnapshot to work extremely well.
thanks. That looks like quite a useful link. We are in the market for a custom (ish) mini-itx case.
Looks like this could be one of those great threads where lots of people thank eachother for telling them about some cool yet unknown manufacturing company.
Re:Ajax will be better in MSIE 7
on
AJAX and IE7?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This is true. The only cross browser testing that should need doing is whether the browser is IE 6 or 5.5 (or 5?) in which case use the active X control. IE7 has the same XMLHTTPRequest object as all the other proper browsers
I'm a member of lovefilm.com, the company that are actually doing this, and they've been testing the water for a while now. I was initially quite excited, but then I found out that they require the latest version of Windows Media Player, which in turn requires Windows, so this is completely out for me on my mac.
It's a real shame because apart from this they are very good and have a huge range.
I wonder if the 4096 bytes are before or after error correction. If it's after, it might make sense because (and I'm sure someone will correct me) isn't 4K a relatively common miimum size in today's filesystems. I know that the default for HFS+ on a mac is.
agreed, I'm getting increasingly nervous about just how much of your data google could index if you let them. I'd be curious about how many people using google desktop are aware of the privacy implacations. Most end users just see it as a cool way of finding stuff on your computer, completely unaware that data is being sent to google.
Thanks, I've been waiting for these to hit for ages. Can't wait to try it out. I guess I was kind of resigned to the fact that they would never be released. Cheers, BJPirt
It's probably more efficient than the current state of storing history / bookmarks. At least this was designed to rapidly query data. With the amount of bookmarks I have now compared to 5 years ago, this will be great.
Will it support adding metadata to the bookmarks a la spotlight so that I can finally rid myself of the limiting hierarchical organisation I have now?
I would second this - it works fantastically for my DVDs
Although, I'm unsure how well it would work with generating locations for the books - would you have to decide where to put things on your shelves or would it classify it according to the dewey decimal system and then you'd know where to put it on your shelves.
Works ok for my DVDs because we can just store them alphabetically.
sad perhaps, but I'd never heard of MechCommander. I found some more info here.
But is it any good?
Dynamic Demand
on
Smart Power
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
A friend of mine is working on a similar system here in the UK. Have a look at his website for more information.
It is a really elegant solution to the problem of grid instability. I love the idea that by measuring the frequency of the grid you can tell whether there is a surplus or deficit of power and then decide to either cool the fridge further or wait until there is a surplus (or until the temperature drops to it's lowest limit). This way you could treat all of the fridges in the country as a massive battery, using the surplus power so they don't need it when there is a deficit.
One of the big benefits is to make it easier for energy sources with an unpredictable output to be integrated into the grid, such as renewables. It also avoids having to turn on extra turbines when there is a grid emergency, saving lots of CO2.
I have been looking for similar reasons at this kind of thing. I think I am going to go for a Linkstation by Buffalo. It is a network attached storage device which has quite a lively hardware hacking community, mainly because it runs linux and is easily reflashable.
I also want to run the slimserver and there are details on how to run it on this hardware here (depending on whether you have the MIPS version or the PPC version). You can upgrade the hard drive (though not officially) or if you want you can also use external USB2 hard drives as it has a couple of USB ports.
If you want the officially hackable version of this box, they sell a thing called the Kuro Box and they actively encourage hacking it.
Slashdot Mirror
Oops - meant to link to the information about hacking the device. Here you go
Me too (but without the drivestation), and you can install the full debian arm distro on it without having to take it apart. It's quiet, low powered and so far has been very reliable.
Highly recommended.
But are they using station wagons?
I think the benefits of this are slightly blurry - on the one hand it is socially invaluable to do this and I take my hat off to the guy for doing it, on the other it is an old inefficient PC that uses an awful lot of energy to do not that much.
I was investigating a scheme to get computers to the residents of a village in Kenya and my immediate reaction was to use recycled PCs, then I realised that using something like a low end mini-itx would work far better for them because it would be easier to get out there, could run for a long time on batteries (crucial for intermittent power problems) and is relatively robust (potentially solid state).
Horses for courses I guess, but I still have an extremely strong urge to get as much out of old hardware as I can.
in terms of "yet another rsync backup utility" I find rsnapshot to work extremely well.
Thanks for that, I was wondering.
That's a good list - I'll have to spend a bit of time going through that. Thanks.
These guys are working on something like this now. It's a first step, but it is a step nonetheless.
thanks. That looks like quite a useful link. We are in the market for a custom (ish) mini-itx case.
Looks like this could be one of those great threads where lots of people thank eachother for telling them about some cool yet unknown manufacturing company.
This is true. The only cross browser testing that should need doing is whether the browser is IE 6 or 5.5 (or 5?) in which case use the active X control. IE7 has the same XMLHTTPRequest object as all the other proper browsers
yeah, 3D with glasses always seems a bit lame to me really.
but we do.
and then instead of waiting until there is you post now so you can't
ah well
good point. Just how unbiased are google (or Yahoo! for that matter) when reporting stories related to their own stocks?
Is there any regulation?
hopefully
I'm a member of lovefilm.com, the company that are actually doing this, and they've been testing the water for a while now. I was initially quite excited, but then I found out that they require the latest version of Windows Media Player, which in turn requires Windows, so this is completely out for me on my mac.
It's a real shame because apart from this they are very good and have a huge range.
I wonder if the 4096 bytes are before or after error correction. If it's after, it might make sense because (and I'm sure someone will correct me) isn't 4K a relatively common miimum size in today's filesystems. I know that the default for HFS+ on a mac is.
that's gotta hurt
agreed, I'm getting increasingly nervous about just how much of your data google could index if you let them. I'd be curious about how many people using google desktop are aware of the privacy implacations. Most end users just see it as a cool way of finding stuff on your computer, completely unaware that data is being sent to google.
I know, I know - do no evil
(for now)
Thanks,
I've been waiting for these to hit for ages. Can't wait to try it out. I guess I was kind of resigned to the fact that they would never be released.
Cheers,
BJPirt
It's probably more efficient than the current state of storing history / bookmarks. At least this was designed to rapidly query data. With the amount of bookmarks I have now compared to 5 years ago, this will be great.
Will it support adding metadata to the bookmarks a la spotlight so that I can finally rid myself of the limiting hierarchical organisation I have now?
I would second this - it works fantastically for my DVDs
Although, I'm unsure how well it would work with generating locations for the books - would you have to decide where to put things on your shelves or would it classify it according to the dewey decimal system and then you'd know where to put it on your shelves.
Works ok for my DVDs because we can just store them alphabetically.
( opening up Delicious library to have a look...)
sad perhaps, but I'd never heard of MechCommander. I found some more info here.
But is it any good?
A friend of mine is working on a similar system here in the UK. Have a look at his website for more information.
It is a really elegant solution to the problem of grid instability. I love the idea that by measuring the frequency of the grid you can tell whether there is a surplus or deficit of power and then decide to either cool the fridge further or wait until there is a surplus (or until the temperature drops to it's lowest limit). This way you could treat all of the fridges in the country as a massive battery, using the surplus power so they don't need it when there is a deficit.
One of the big benefits is to make it easier for energy sources with an unpredictable output to be integrated into the grid, such as renewables. It also avoids having to turn on extra turbines when there is a grid emergency, saving lots of CO2.
I have been looking for similar reasons at this kind of thing. I think I am going to go for a Linkstation by Buffalo. It is a network attached storage device which has quite a lively hardware hacking community, mainly because it runs linux and is easily reflashable.
I also want to run the slimserver and there are details on how to run it on this hardware here (depending on whether you have the MIPS version or the PPC version). You can upgrade the hard drive (though not officially) or if you want you can also use external USB2 hard drives as it has a couple of USB ports.
If you want the officially hackable version of this box, they sell a thing called the Kuro Box and they actively encourage hacking it.
HTH
BJPirt