justapeon

I use debian a lot and like it, but do not rule out centos (a rhel clone). If you do plan to use MS server, please consider using apache instead of IIS.

Penetration testing used to be called dating when I grew up.

Web server Honeypot thin clients (sort of) cnc controller machine My latest project is to turn a p3 into a robot. Interfacing all the sensors is the complicated part. An education to say the least. I am also doing home automation via the parallel port. xmas lights, antenna rotator, air cannon controller, weather station, and etc.

I usually go to http://nte01.nteinc.com/nte/NTExRefSemiProd.nsf/$$Search to see an equivalent. Usually other companies equivalent parts are listed also indirectly.When in doubt. I just do a simple web search will do it.

Openwrt has a version for x86. Even works in a virtual machine last I tested it.

I do have some old legacy brown dells. They still run. I use them for automation control and local servers. The hd's are beginning to go bad. Since ide drives are the exception now I will either have to gpxe to iscsi or something of the like. Dells are great as long as you have a warranty. I have seen many many black dells die within a day of the warranty expiring. When I was a tech we would send off for replacement parts just before the end of the warranty even if they still worked to avoid the planned obsolescence. If you have systems that you can not afford to be down, a one day turn around does not mean much. Dell is spending a lot of money in India. Guess where all their support people are. We call Dells, New Delhi's. A lot of good hard working Americans lost their jobs because of Dell moving their operations overseas. Dell does not need our money.

I love etherboot (boot from floppy) for old systems for almost diskless thin clients.

It is a shame that "What to do with an old computer" thread was closed. There is so much more that could be added especially in the area of home automation.

Still have my old Ipad.

I do not use mswindows any more, but was just curious in case someone asked me. We have been microsoft free for over 4 years it seems now. I still have all my old ms licenses including two for XP in case some patent mongering ding dongs want to extort money.

Dell locks you in with their internal footprint, unless things have changed. Wait till you see what the upgrade costs are, then you might have second thoughts. After the capacitor debacle, it would be hard for me to even think about getting Dell. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/1...tm_campaign=rss

Some of my tech buddies and I are getting together next week (the last week in November) to share ideas. We plan to call it Thinksgiving.

Did not mean to put a kink in the works. Most people think hpc is the only kind of cluster and that is not exactly right. Technically you have fail over with the hpc if one node fails, another node will take over. Now if the main node fails that is another issue depending on how it is set up..

Just wondered if anyone used text to speech utilities to convert pdf files so they can be put on media players. I can do it on linux, but I did not seem to find what would do it on older mswindows platforms for free. I have a laptop, so I did not see getting an ereader. Music player is easier to carry around and your eyes are free to look around. # pdf to text (ascii) pdftotext infile.pdf outfile.txt # text to wave text2wave < outfile.txt > voicefile.wav # test aplay voicefile.wav # cp to media player

High performance clusters are nice for number crunching, but high availability clusters are important if you want to keep a web store front open.

That code does not work at least on my system.

We like the trk (trinity rescue kit) does more than antivirus.

This one is kind of cool.

I dumped comcrap and saving a more than 100 bucks a month. After seeing over 40 channels with over the air tv (living neat a large city), did not need cable tv with a new isp. Cut cost even more. My brother said I could leach off his wifi, but I prefer not to do that. Even with downloading the old ubuntu repo and tons of cd's, did I ever even get close to 200meg per month.

I have used Ubuntu since version 6. one thing I have learned is that it is beta still till a few months later after being introduced. Most of the debian based distros are going back to debian and not using ubuntu as a base anymore. I have ubuntu to keep my finger in it, but I would not use it as a production machine. Ubuntu is becoming too microsoft like and that is being nice.

Until we finally dumped comcrap, we went through the same thing when problems happened. Ironically I used to be a tech so I have seen both sides. What happened in the industry was that a lot of tech people did not have people skills, so companies started hiring sales type people for the help desk, but those people did not have a clue about computers. Customer still loses out. The story even gets more interesting than that, but I will reserve comment for some future point.

We are collecting silicon diodes from old electronics to make solar cells, but not sure that is practical. http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Sol...l-using-Diodes/ We plan to take wire from old ac motors and and make stator coils. Hard drive magnets will drive create the electricity in the coils. We probably use a vertical axis wind turbine to rotate the magnets. Right now we are working on a mini prototype. I have wired the coils, but need to put it all together. As for the earth battery, we have tested different metals to see what gives the best voltage. It does make a difference. Wind generator > ac-dc converter > voltage regulator > battery > load to use the electricity (i.e. dc-dc ps > computer.) Led lighting can become very valuable here. No wind then Mirrors to concentrate sunlight > stiriling engines > etc etc. If it rains then A downward spout with waterwheel > etc etc.. last resort Bicycle > etc etc...

Thank god my old Commodore monitor still works. I now use it with mythtv. s/b a picture attached.

This would be interesting to look at.

Years ago I had my face disfigured from an black ex military person because I had the wrong color skin. This is was same day the police officers out in California were acquitted. Unfortunately I was not able to be Joe karate. Just glad he did not kill me. Marring people is not a very adult mentality. My disfigured face has cost me some promotions and potential jobs. God I hope I do not see that jerk again or I might lose my penchant for pacifism.