Solid Blog of Ise I think my toes are jealous of my fingers because they get to point at things

I need to find a screwdriver that fits this, and if anyone out there in Internet-land knows what kind of screw this is it would be very helpful.

The screw in question (or screws, since there’s four of them) is located on an IBM drive-tray for my servers. I would very much like being able to replace the drives myself, and thus need to know what kind of screw it is. I’m leaning towards this being some weird IBM proprietary screw, but I also feel it should be pretty easy to locate a driver for it.

Basically it looks a lot like some torx-variant, but it has a pin in the middle. I hope you can make it out from my crappy macro-photography.

För ett tag sen pratade jag med min älskade mor om mitt projekt att drifta en “riktig” server som ersättare för dels min egen hemmaserver, men även åt diverse släkt och vänner för att slippa bökiga webhotell.

Under samtalets gång säger hon att hon är lite nyfiken, och frågar: “Hur stor är en server egentligen?”

Jag hummar en stund och försöker sen förklara att servrar som regel är rackmonterade, och därför är de platta och avlånga. Jag förklarar det här med hur man delar upp rack i units, dvs enheter, och hur de minsta servrarna tar upp 1U, dvs en enhet i racket. Hur det finns tjockare maskiner som tar upp kanske 2U eller mer. Jag förklarade att servrar är specialbyggda för att klämma in så mycket maskin som möjligt på så lite fysisk yta som möjligt, samt att det är fantastiskt bullriga maskiner då de är byggda för funktion, inte för form.

Nåväl. Ord via en telefon är alltid bra, men en fysisk demonstration är alltid bättre. I brist på fysisk demonstration får nedanstående exempel duga.

Tidigare idag var jag och Jocke och hämtade inte en, inte två, utan tre stycken fullt godkända servrar av fabrikat IBM. De väger uppskattningsvis ca 35 kilo styck. Det här är en av dem.

Först lite bilder:

Servern från ovan. Framsidan av maskinen är den svarta sidan närmast kameran.

En bättre vy över framsidan. De vita märkena är rester från dymo-märkningen av diskarna och maskinen i sig. Jag har plockat bort dessa märken då de inte längre fyller nån funktion, och lite senare ska jag sätta mig med nagellacksborttagningen och ta bort klisterresterna. Det är inte den vackraste framsidan jag sett på en dator, men den är funktionell. Maskinen har plats för totalt 6 stycken hot-swappable SCSI-hårddiskar, och fem stycken sitter i. Hot-swappable på vanlig svenska betyder att man kan rycka ut och byta hårddiskar under drift, dvs utan att behöva stänga av datorn.

Baksidan. Inte så jättespännande egentligen. Grundläggande portar för skärm och tangentbord. Fyra stycken nätverksportar – de flesta normala desktop-datorer har en. Längst till höger två stycken nätaggregat för att förse datorn med ström. Dessa är också hot-swappable, och redundanta, dvs om en av dem går sönder tar den andra automatiskt över.

Ett foto med locket av. Bokstavligt locket av, då man lyfter av överdelen av maskinen medelst en mycket smidig liten snäppgrej. Det här är kylningen för hela maskinen. Åtta stycken stora, fantastiskt bullriga fläktar.

Vilket för oss till den riktigt praktiska demonstrationen. En liten film jag spelade in med min digitalkamera där jag dels kopplar in strömmen, och sedan slår igång maskinen. Det ger en uppfattning om precis hur mycket oväsen den här saken för. Kom ihåg att det är mycket värre i verkligheten. Tänk en armé av hårtorkar som slår igång.

Jag vet inte om det hörs heller, men när man kopplar in strömmen i nätaggregatet slår fläkten igång, på lågt varvtal. Så länge strömmen är inkopplad snurrar den lågt och skapar ett tyst litet hummande. Sen trycker man på strömmen för datorn, och de där åtta stora fläktarna drar igång och skapar en mindre tornado. Ställer man sig på baksidan av datorn är det som en relativt stark fläkt som blåser.

När man lyfter av locket ökar bullernivån dramatiskt. Det här är med andra ord ingenting man vill ha hemma, igång dygnet runt. Såvida man inte vill bli tokig. Eller som jag, redan är det.

Almost ten years ago I bought my first wireless mouse and keyboard. I loved it, it was great not having any cables to worry about. Of course, the downside of it was having to every now and then change batteries in them – but it was a small price to pay to be freed from the prison of the cables.

Over time these accessories developed further. I replaced the mouse after a while with another cordless mouse, but this one had an optical sensor instead of the ball-wheel type mouse previously. It also showed how much technology develops, because earlier me and all my friends had written off an optical cordless mouse as completely impossible. We felt that it would gobble batteries like a meth-addict going on a bender.

Well, we were proven wrong and indeed there started existing cordless optical mousen. I still kept my original keyboard, but a while down the road I replaced the mouse with yet another cordless optical mouse. This one had the improvement of faster response and precision, something the previous mouse suffered from. Now the cordless mousen was on par with their corded brethren, and I was quite happy with this mouse. It also had the benefit of being able to recharge its own batteries when placed in the cradle provided with it.

I used that mouse for a while, until I replaced it with yet another upgrade a year or two later. This new addition was cordless, and instead of an infrared optical mouse it used a LASER to sense movement. It also had the same features as its predecessor, with some added niceties such as a indicator of battery-charge for easy assessment, and a built-in battery providing much better power and longer usage.

This seemed to be the ultimate in mousing, and I was very happy with it. So happy in fact that I kept using it for more than five years.

During this period, however, I replaced the keyboard with a new corded thing. The old cordless keyboard had been badly abused through the years, and after about eight years it needed replacing. Since I felt that cordlessness wasn’t a high priority on a keyboard (you don’t tend to move them around a lot) I accepted a corded keyboard and felt perfectly fine with it.

But alas, my trusty mouse started to give up on me after more than five years of loyal service. I felt very reluctant to replace it, since none of the proposed replacements seemed to suit my needs. They were either button-infested monsters with a million features I wasn’t interested in, or they were aimed squarely at gamers and could be adjusted with weights, had gaudy colorschemes and other trinkets that didn’t appeal to me – or, lastly, they were cheap crap that no self-respecting computer user should use.

So, I bit the bullet, re-assessed my needs and bought a corded mouse. Which I’m quite happy with, except for the occasionall annoyance of having the cable catch in something on my desk.

But it’s interesting how I’ve now come full circle after almost a decade. Going from hating cables to a cordless fascist and then back again to the feeling that, who cares about cables really?

… for when you’re serious about being connected!

But seriously, I don’t see the purpose of this except for some cases where the machine could function as a internet sharing gateway as well. As far as I’ve gathered the purpose for dual LAN-connectors is for people “seeking complete network redundancy” but in my opinion this is just hogwash. Network redundancy would require two different uplinks as well, not just two cables plugged into the same NAT-gateway, because I seriously doubt most people have two completely different connections to the ‘net to use when distributing this load.

I never cease to be amused at the vaguely worded but impressive sounding crap computer companies put out today.

And yes, this is the rear of my computer, and yes – I do actually have two cables plugged in. It happened about two minutes before writing this, and as soon as I’ve published this I’ll probably yank one of them out.

A while back I had a neat idea. It was one of those brainfarts that I occasionally get, and while the majority of them are quite stupid this one actually seemed kind of neat.

See, I own a cheap no-name generic bluetooth dongle. It works quite well and I like being able to connect my phone to my computer using it. Transfer files, sync phonebooks and all that jazz.

Anyhoo, this particular dongle has a tiny green LED indicating activity. When it’s idle it blinks at a rate of about 1 blink per second. When connected to a device it lights up stronger and also flashes intensely if there’s data-transfer. Demonstrated in the video below.

It was the 1 blink per second that got me thinking.

Why not put simulated aircraft lights on a casemod? I’ve always liked the blinks of airplanes and helictopters, and if you’re building an aircraft-themed case why not add a few aircraft LED’s to the mix. Much more stylish than the old-ass windows and cold-cathode tubes everyone has. Additionally it adds some neat bling to it, and also makes the case seem more hardcore. It would even work on a spaceship-themed mod as for example the good old NCC-1701 has aircraft lights on it.

I think that would be kind of neat, some nice pseudo-aircraft lights on a sweet hightech/military type looking case.

However, if you decide to go this route, you shouldn’t use particularly bright LEDs, rather you should go for the subtle approach. In this case (har har) I would say that less is definitely more.

I’ve built countless computers in my days. I’ve built them for myself, for friends and professionally. There is very little I don’t know about building computers, and while I don’t really have the time to keep up with every single new invention I adjust quickly when it’s crunchtime. I started building my own custom computers long before it was common to own a computer, much less assemble it yourself.

While hardware has come and gone there is one axiom that still remains when it comes to building your own computer, and that is the undeniable fact that any included cooler will always suck ass. This is still true, despite the years rolling on and despite technology getting better. Any CPU-cooler that’s included with a retail purchase of a CPU will pretty much blow chunks.

Sure, I admit that it’s money that’s the primary reason. CPU manufacturers simply throw together the cheapest thing that will do the job and ship it, and that’s why the damn things are loud, awfully engineered and keep the CPU at a temperature that is adequate but not in the least impressive.

I recently built a new computer. At first glance the included box-cooler looked pretty decent. It had heatpipes. It had lots and lots of thin aluminium-fins. It had a copper-core.

And when I started the computer it still sounded like a helicopter with severe case of swineflu. In addition, I think that had I put a slice of cold grapefruit on the CPU instead it would’ve been better at cooling the processor.

Why is this?

I think Intel and AMD need to realize they suck at doing this, and tell whatever chinese sweatshop that are assembling these turds to drop dead. Wouldn’t it simply be easier to ask for example Arctic Cooling to build coolers for them to include with a new CPU? Arctic Cooling manages to make coolers that are not only quite efficient, but aren’t ludicrously priced and also fairly quiet.

My moms computer was dying, so she had me find a new one for her. After some comparison and weighing in the wishes she had (fairly portable, not costing a bloody fortune) I settled on recommending her buying an Asus eeePC 1101.

I helped her set it up this weekend, and it’s quite a neat little machine. Here’s some random impressions I got of it.

* Her unit was delivered with Windows 7 Home Premium and had twice the memory (2 gig instead of 1) and a bigger harddrive (250 gig versus 160) compared to what Asus lists on the website. I don’t see this listed on Asus website, but it appeared to be factoryinstalled.

* I found it rather ironic that Asus puts a really great, vibrant colorful HD-resolution capable display on a computer that simply doesn’t have enough oomph to play HD-content. The display is LED-lit and has a 1366×768 screen that would happily play 720p content. However, like I said – the machine just isn’t beefy enough to do that. Maybe I missed some setting, but I doubt it. Asus also makes a big deal out of this HD-capable display, but like I said – HD video on this thing, I don’t really see it happening. However, it’s absolutely gorgeous on a large-ish netbook. Bright, vibrant colors.

* The graphics adapter is a built-in Intel. This is probably the bottleneck for HD-video, and when Asus starts shipping the Nvidia Ion-equipped eeePC’s this problem with HD-video is probably a thing of the past. However, I found that the Intel-chipset barely has enough oomph to make Windows 7 with Aero run not too annoyingly slow. Things like Google Earth jerked around worse than Kathryn Hepburn on bad acid, albeit somewhat usable. If you buy one of these things expecting AMAZING 3D-performance you’re going to be badly disappointed.

* What the hell is wrong with Microsoft? While I think Windows 7 is an upgrade over Vista I still think it’s a laughably tired operating-system, and I question the wisdom of Asus putting it on a frickin’ netbook. Plug a USB thumbdrive in the computer and then wait 10-15 minutes while Windows 7 find and installs the driver? What the hell? Ubuntu does the same thing in less than five seconds.

* Also, despite Microsofts happy propaganda claiming Windows 7 is excellent for netbooks, my experience with this is quite the opposite. Windows 7 is probably a decent desktop-OS (if you can stand it being Windows) but on this netbook it feels slightly overwhelming – and this is a fairly beefy netbook!

* In fact, most of my complaints with this computer boil down to Windows. I didn’t feel like installing something lighter since it already came with W7, and the problem with a lack of native driver for the Intel-graphics on this particular model makes a decent alternative such as Ubuntu a no-go. This sucks, since Ubuntu would’ve been perfekt for this machine, but Intel refuses to release and kind of driver for this particular chipset and as such I figured, just leave W7 on it.

* The keyboard while somewhat cramped is actually quite nice. Good response, good feel, decent-sized keys for a somewhat large netbook.

* The touchpad has multitouch, which is kind of sweet. I always liked the two-finger scroll on Macs and you can do the same thing on this touchpad. Asus also mentions in the manual various tricky moves you can perform to zoom, but this is made impossible by two things. First, the small size of the touchpad prevents any finger-acrobatics unless you have fingers the size of toothpicks. Secondly, W7 has no nice zoom-function, so at least when I tried to do it nothing happened. It would’ve been sweet with Compiz, but alas, no such thing.

* Battery-time is listed at 9+ hours with the included 6-cell battery. I have absolutely no doubts that this is possible, if you turn the screen brightness way way way down and strangle anything that uses power. Essentially just sit there, stare at the desktop and occasionally move the mouse cursor to prevent the computer from going to sleep. In more real-world environments, with the brightness at a low-ish but tolerable level doing normal things the battery reported about 7 hours of useful capacity.

* The amount of crapware included with this machine was painful. Admittedly, it wasn’t a complete clusterf**k but it was quite annoying having to uninstall all the trial-versions of Microsoft Office (if memory serves me three different versions were available), frickin Microsoft SQL Something-or-other, two trial-antiviruses and 2-3 other minor annoying applications. At least they didn’t include useless crapola such as dvd-recording software on a machine with no optical drive.

* My dear mother went for the blue color, depicted below. I’ve gotta say, it’s one of the prettier computers out there. First off, for a laptop it’s tiny which shoots the cute-factor way up high, but then it has this gorgeous blue paintjob on it. It’s quite dark, if the room is murky then it looks almost black but in lighter conditions it’s almost a lovely candy-blue.