Category Archives: Technology

Stuff that sucks

House, Technology, Thoughts, ,

Mosquitos suck

So yesterday really sucked.  This post is a vent as much as anything else…so, mostly, you should probably ignore me…

I design and write computer software for a living.  I am around computers all day.  You’d think I would be somewhat immune from viruses as I mostly understand how they work and how one gets them.  Still, somehow I got a really really nasty virus on my main development machine (i.e. my bread and butter) yesterday.  I spent all day and half the night chasing down and fixing the mess that it made.  Of course, I really need to be working on the demo of the new project on which I am working.  It is due Monday.  This is not the time to be jerking around with a virus.  I don’t hate much, but I hate computer viruses and the people who create them.

I love sauerkraut.  I had some last night for supper along with some Polish sausage.  I am starting my training for the New Year’s day kraut feast.  Anyhow, about 15 minutes after eating it last night, my throat started to swell and blister.  I guess I had some sort of an allergic reaction to the kraut.  I also drank a Mt Dew with supper but I doubt my reaction was to it.  Mt Dew makes up 22% of my blood so I don’t think I suffered an autoimmune reaction.  Anyhow, an hour or so later, my throat was fine.  I still love kraut and I hate the thought of being allergic.  I will certainly try it again and soon, but I will be cautious too!  I can’t really figure it out, but I’d rather not get a trip in the ambulance over eating kraut.  I read that the Dutch eat donuts for good luck on New Years’s day so I may have to call upon my Dutch ancestry (or make some up) and cash in my kraut for donuts.  That’s a tradition I can get behind!

We also got word that our house is indeed racing down the hill to the river.  A structural engineer recommended 6 helical piers be inserted under our house.  It may take 3-4 more depending on what they find.  “Gosh, that sounds expensive”, you might say.  “You are correct!”

Look at my new hardware!

Fun, Technology,

My new server, fresh from Fedex!

Just yesterday I was commenting on how machines do not define me…but I have to admit, I do sort of dig technology too.  Just to be clear, I plan to use a lot of buzz-words and mumbo jumbo to astound you with my computer savvy…isn’t that what computer people do?  Anyhow, I think there may be some interesting bits for computer neophytes as well.

I had been running this blog on an old 1.4 ghz desktop machine with 512 mb of ram and a 20 gb harddrive.  This machine was pieced together from parts we had laying around the office and was never supposed to be exposed to the public.  But, as with most computer projects, the prototype became the product and sure enough, this blog was turned on with the power and support of “ole Bessie”.

My new server!

By trade, I am a software engineer…I write computer software for a living.  I don’t know a lot about computer hardware.  I just assume the hardware works.  Asking me to choose computer hardware is like asking your autobody guy to rebuild your engine…it might be successful, but it is probably not ideal.  So, a few weeks ago, Dell had a sale on Poweredge SC440 small business servers.  A hardware friend/coworker of mine mentioned that it was a good deal and might serve as a good replacement for “Bessie”.  The sale price of the machine was $199.  I upped the memory a little and got the whole thing delivered for $252.!  It has 2 gb of ram, a dual core 2 ghz pentium processor and an 80 gb harddrive.  Ahh, much better!  So I migrated the blog from “Bessie” to “Vader” (more about that later).

Now, let me tell you, 8 servers in a 10×10 room put off a powerful lot of heat.  Yup, I have 8 servers in my office.  My current project needs 4 servers to function.  I have a couple of extras for testing, etc.  Adding this new server raised my heat by one machine.  I am somewhat worried about going through a Bruce Banner change.  I don’t think these machines put off gamma rays, but I’d also rather not turn into the incredible hulk either.

Inside my new server!

Anyhow, migrating a wordpress blog from one machine to another is really pretty simple also.  I spent about 4 days making it complicated but it need not be.  Basically, I installed WAMP which is the webserver and database programs that run the website.  I just installed it with all of the default settings.  I did not install wordpress on the new machine.  Instead, I copied the entire WAMP directory (c:\wamp\…it includes the web server, database and wordpress files) from my original machine to the same directory on my new machine.  Restart the webserver and we’re in business.  I read all sorts of opinions on how to do backups and migration plans and how to properly sacrifice a chicken over the old and/or new servers.  I tried some of those things (well, not the chicken part) and none of those options really worked.  WordPress and WAMP will run on windows but are not really Windows-based so I figured that they probably didn’t have the invasive installation mess that most Windows programs have (i.e. I figured I would just copy stuff over and hope it works).  Sure enough, I was right!  So, after fooling around for 4 days with no success, I punted and in 8 minutes, my blog was migrated!  I don’t know if you can tell the increase in speed, but please humor me and say you can!  Wahoo!

Solar furnace installation

Green, House, Technology, Tinkering, , ,

Solar furnace thermostat

I last posted a week or so ago about my solar furnace.  I mentioned that I needed to install the system in my window and get the fan/thermostat working.  Well, my friends, wait no longer!  This weekend I finished the installation of the solar furnace and even powered it with a small solar panel…but I am getting ahead of myself.

Solar furnace entry to house

My downstairs family room has 5 windows, 3 of which face southward.  A south facing panel is optimum because it gets sun almost all day as the sun progresses across the sky.  I read that 20 degrees from due south results in a 5% decrease in performance.  Luckily I have south windows but if I didn’t have due south, I would still try the furnace.  A 5% decrease would still make things interesting.   In addition to the direction, you have to consider the angle from horizontal of the panel so that it gets optimum sunlight in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky.  I have read various thoughts on the optimum angle but the easy one for me to remember is “latitude + 10”.  Here in Charleston, our latitude is 38 degrees.

Solar furnace entry to house

According to this calculation then, the optimum angle from horizontal is 48 degrees.  Using my trusty eyeball, I leaned the solar panel along the south wall of my house and tilted it at precisely 48 degrees.  To be more exact, you should consider doing a site survey to make sure you really have things right. I will probably just mess with it until it gets the best sun. In a more permanent installation, you would want this to be much more precise. Mine is easily movable.

Anyhow, I built a box (which I insulated) to run a warm pipe and a cool pipe through my window.  The thermostat and fan are inside the warm pipe inlet so the warm air should automatically rise and slowly flow across the thermostat.  The rise in temperature should kick on the thermostat/fan and move the air a little better through the system.  As the warm air evacuates, it will cool the thermostat and turn off the fan.

Solar furnace entry to house

I mentioned in the last post on this topic that I could not drive the fan with a super cheap solar cell.  I was rummaging through the junk bin at the office when I found a pair of fans (actually, quite a few fans) that were lower amperage than my original one.  Anyhow, my new fan is rated at 12 volts and  0.16 amps.  I know it will run at 9 volts so I figured I needed a solar panel that would produce 1.44 watts (i.e. 9 * 0.16).  Harbor Freight sells a solar panel used for trickle charging auto batteries for $19.99.  Actually, the website has it for $14.99 but in the store it is more.  If I would have taken the printout to the store, they would have reduced the price.  Apparently the store and website are somewhat independent.  I didn’t have a printout and it wasn’t worth driving back for it so I paid $19.99.  Ok, back to the story – it will produce 1.5 watts which will run my new fan.  I don’t know if it always just produces 12 volts and the amps vary (because it produces differently depending on the strength of the sun) or if it produces 0-12 volts and constant amps, etc.  All that is to say, I don’t know exactly what wattage is driving my fan but it turns it.  Solar furnace entry to house

It occurs to me as I write this that I should measure the output with my mulitmeter…but really, for now, I don’t care.  The fan turns fine in sun and that is my main goal.  Unfortunately, the fan will not blow the dryer vent louver open. I had planned to use a dryer vent to close the inflow when not in use.  I will have to resort to the “plastic over the hole” method I mentioned in the earlier post, to prevent back-siphoning.  And let me tell you, back-siphoning is real and a problem if you don’t deal with it…I quickly learned a lesson on that topic!

Ok, lots of words to describe all this.  The only problem is, I have not had a sunny day since I got this thing installed.  I wanted to post about this progress but I don’t have any real results yet.  I will have to post again with results.  I know it will make a difference, but I don’t know the extent.  Stay tuned!

ARGGGGHHHHH!

Technology

The power went out at the office sometime last night apparently which killed our internet gateway.  The blog has been down until an hour ago when I went to check things out.  The battery backup that is supposed to maintain the system on power failure had croaked and was not letting any of the servers come back up…ARGGGGHHHHH!  Anyhow, I got it all turned back on and we should be back in business.  The power company is installing an expansion on the substation nearby and I am blaming the recent power goofiness on their endeavours though I may be completely wrong.  Anyhow, sorry for the downtime…I know you were dying to read the blog.  I can hardly tear myself away from it also!

Flu tracker

Technology, Thoughts,

I like to divide people into groups with the best of them – There are blue staters and red staters.  There are people who like the toilet paper over the top as God intended it and there are people who like the toilet paper underneath.  There are also people who like to get flu shots and people who do not.  I do not want to have a debate about the merits or pitfalls of flu shots, but I think it is interesting to hear people discuss their reasoning either way.  Apparently Google has partenered with the CDC to track and predict the flu’s progression across the United States (Get right to the tracking map here).  They are able to track past years’ data as well as frequently updated information from the CDC’s flu tracking.  Apparently it used to take weeks to crunch the data from the CDC.  Anyhow, Google found that they could correlate web search terms with the data from the CDC.  I have read reports suggesting that Google can predict flu trends 1-2 weeks in advance based on their models/web search analysis.  Now, truth-be-told, if you know the flu is 1-2 weeks out, it’s too late for a flu shot to do any good.  However, I think this could be pretty useful to know when you should stay at home for a few weeks catching up on old episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard.

Trials of hosting our own site

Technology

FAIL!Once again, the blog was down.  Each time it has gone down since I started (3 times total so far) has been for a different reason, but each time has sucked about the same.  My registrar is namecheap.com which has been pretty good for the most part.  Today, their dns servers died so when you typed in my blog address, your internet company didn’t know how to connect to my machine.  I was able to finally login to namecheap so I could repoint the dns (basically, I am using a different system to map my blog address to the machine in my office).  So, now we are back up, though things are still slow it seems.  I think that must be a different issue…we’ll see.  When you hit the blog, does it seem terribly slow?  Anyhow, I’d like to say something like this won’t happen again, but I am certain it will.  Until then, thanks for reading and for your patience!

RSS Readers and a rainbow

Technology

I was talking to a friend the other day and he mentioned he looked at our blog and a few others from time to time but always forgot to check back or didn’t know when an update was posted.  He didn’t know about the magic of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.  Basically, most blogs and some websites have special programming that enables them to publish the fact that changes to the site have been made.  RSS readers can use that information to consolidate the updates into a single simple reader.  To know that a site publishes an RSS feed, look for this button somewhere on the site or on the menu bar of your browser (it will be smaller of course):

Rss Logo

Any site that displays that logo publishes a feed.  So, now you need to find a reader to consolidate your feeds.  I use http://www.bloglines.com/login to read my feeds but Yahoo!, Google and many other places have readers as well.  Once you create an account, find your blogs that you want to read and click on the orange RSS logo.  You’ll be taken to a new page.  Copy the URL (web address) that you are taken to and enter it where your reader asks for new feeds to monitor.  In bloglines, I click the “feeds” tab, then I click “add”.  I simply enter the web addresses I want to watch and save.  The reader will periodically monitor your subscribed site for changes and alert you to those changes when you log in.

Now, since you have endured my technology post, I will leave you with a picture of a pretty rainbow…

Awesome rainbow

This picture was actually taken a few years ago but Abigail spotted another beautiful rainbow this morning.  I didn’t have my camera but it was awesome to see.  Isaac wanted to hop a jet to get to the end and pick up his pot of gold.  Unfortunately for him, he had to go to school.

Stellarium

Nature, Technology,

Stellarium

Did you see the full moon a few nights back?  I really enjoy the simple things I guess, but the sky was clear and it was full and bright.  I took my telescope outside and focused it on the moon for a quick gaze.  Through a telescope, the full moon is almost blinding.  Well, maybe not that bright but it’s bright.  Stare at it for awhile and then look away into darkness and you’ll see spots.  Anyhow, if you have some sort of magnifying device, the full moon is well worth the look.  It is especially good if you have a tripod or some sort of stand, but even binoculars are cool.  It’s amazing to see the crators and meteor strikes that still look fresh.  Along the edges of the moon are incredibly detailed mountain ranges and all shades of gray.  Besides just looking at the moon, there are lots of other awesome things that can be found in the night sky, if you know where to look.  You can memorize star charts (which isn’t a bad idea, but…) or you can find a program to illustrate the night sky.  I like Starry Night which came free with my telescope.  There is an alternative that requires no purchase and is pretty great.  Stellarium is both popular and powerful.  Besides that, Stellarium is free and easy to use.  It’s also easy to use.  Did I mention, it’s free too?  In a nutshell, it shows the objects in the sky for your location and will plot future locations as well.  You can choose to see illustrations of the consellations or the orbits of the planets, nearby nebulae, etc.  It’s incredible and should make finding objects in the sky much easier.  That was always a huge frustration for me when I started star gazing…where to look.  The other thing is that I never felt like I had enough “fire power” when I pointed a scope at the sky.  I was surely wrong.  On a whim a few years ago, I pointed my spotting scope at the sky…you know, the kind you take to the shooting range or when you go groundhog hunting.  I was able to see the rings of Saturn.  Mind you, Saturn was tiny, but I could clearly see the rings.  It’s also very easy to find and quite amazing to see.  A triod is required but if you have any sort of scope, download Stallarium and find Saturn.  I think you’ll be hooked!

Down she goes!

Technology

The blog was down starting yesterday afternoon sometime until now (if you didn’t notice, never mind…all is well). I host the blog on a machine in my office and someone here at the shop changed a router or something and kicked me offline. I have sufficiently beat them and all is well again. Sorry for the screw up!