Archive for the 'Projects' Category

How to Give Your Cellular Provider the Gift You’ve Always Wanted!

Published
by
Charlie
on December 24, 2009
in 930posts, Projects and Tips and Tutorials
. 0 Comments

Howdy loyal 930 readers! Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings to all! Charlie here, the undercover redneck, about to tell you how to give your cellular provider the gift you’ve always wanted: free unlimited SMS text messaging! I’m talking 100% free (as in beer).

“That’s impossible!” you’re must be saying. “Not in this country!”

Folks, behold the power of Google! Some may argue that Google is becoming the new Microsoft, or worse, an even more powerful entity with access to unfathomable terabytes of the world’s personal information. But who cares, with a corporate motto like “don’t be evil,” how can you not trust them? Especially when they offer free text messaging!

Enough banter already — here’s what you need to get free unlimited SMS text messaging:

  • A Google Voice account: http://www.google.com/voice/
  • A Google Voice phone number (generally included with a Google Voice account)
  • A smartphone, preferably one capable of running the Google Voice app (currently BlackBerry and Android only)
    • Note: Any smartphone that has a decent mobile web browser will work via the Google Voice web interface
    • Another note: A BlackBerry with a push email account is best suited for this setup. I’ll explain why later.

As you can see, the requirements are pretty basic. (It is assumed that if you’re nerdy enough to be reading this website, you’re going to have a smartphone and more than likely every type of Google account known to exist).

Now, if you’ve got a BlackBerry, this is how you can set it all up with minimal compromise:

  1. Log into your Google Voice account. Set up a new forwarding phone with your cell phone’s number. (Settings > Phones)
  2. Enable SMS to E-Mail forwarding. (Settings > Voicemail & SMS > “Forward messages to my email”)

    3. At this point, SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number will now be automatically forwarded to your email. If you have a BlackBerry with an email account that supports push email, you even receive text messages instantly — just like a real text message. The problem is that your BlackBerry will not differentiate between SMS messages you get via email forwarding and all the other emails you get on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but I don’t instantly check my BlackBerry every time I get a routine email. This obviously creates a problem when you’re attempting to use a mode of communication where messages are expected to be delivered and read almost instantly. Step 3 addresses this issue.

  3. Log into BlackBerry’s email configuration (older BlackBerries do this via the BIS web interface, newer BlackBerries have an app that works right from the phone) and set up a new email filter in whichever email account Google Voice is forwarding your SMS messages to.
  4. When Google forwards an SMS message to your email, the subject line contains “[SMS]” followed by the sender’s name (if their name and number is entered into your contacts). Edit your new filter to catch any message with “[SMS]” in the subject. Then select “Forward messages to the device” and “Level 1 notification.” The key here is to set up a rule that grabs all email messages coming from Google Voice and forwards them to your BlackBerry as a “Level 1″ message. This allows you to differentiate your text messages and voicemail notifications coming from Google Voice from all the other emails that flood your inbox throughout the day.
  5. Edit your BlackBerry profile settings to choose a distinct sound/alert/ringtone for Level 1 messages. Select something that you want to hear every time you get a new text message or voicemail notification.
  6. Distribute your new Google Voice number to all your friends and family. Explain that they can keep calling you on your old number, or they can call you on your new Google Voice number (assuming you set up your cell as a forwarding phone), but if they want to text you, they’ll have to use your new Google number. This may confuse some non-technical types, so just tell them you got a new cell number and give them your Google Voice number if they’re confused.
  7. Start receiving text messages free of charge! Reply in kind by simply replying to the SMS forwarding email, or launching your Google Voice app or the Google Voice web interface and replying.
  8. Call up your cellular provider and tell them to shove their text messages where the sun don’t shine. If you don’t specifically tell them to block all incoming text messages, they’ll just cancel whatever texting plan you currently have (if you have one) and charge you per individual incoming/outgoing message.

I’ve been doing this for several months now, and it works without a hitch! Text messaging at the rates charged by commercial carriers is outrageously expensive. 160-character messages use almost no bandwidth — costing cellular providers next to nothing to route them — yet if you do the math, you are paying upwards of $1,300 per megabyte for the privilege of communicating in such a way that actually frees up carrier capacity by keeping you off the phone. After all, a few bytes of data uses a lot less bandwidth and a lot less spectrum than a voice channel used during a cellular telephone call would.

So, give yourself the gift you’ve always wanted — and help show the cellular providers in this country that we are no longer willing to spend $1,300 per megabyte for the privilege of sending text messages.

Getting the Most Out of Apple TV: A Handy 930 How-To! (Part One of Three)

Published
by
Joseph
on December 22, 2009
in Fun Stuff, Projects and Tips and Tutorials
. 1 Comment

With all of the various options for starting/maintaining a home media server, the lowly Apple TV is widely disregarded by “power-nerds” as a viable (or particularly useful) home media solution.  I may not have the technical expertise, prowess, or, frankly, patience to create an amazing home-grown media server, like Edwin, but I am quite the Apple geek, I enjoy pre-fabricated gadgetry, and I have employee discounts to use.*

And no, you can’t have any.

What you can have, however, is a practical guide to getting the most out of Apple TV, which you can get for free, right here, on the Sector!  What a deal!

I’m splitting this guide up into three parts, because I want to advise you on some of the prep work involved before receiving your Apple TV.  If you want to order one, it isn’t actually too late, the Apple Online Store is offering free next-day shipping through Wednesday.  In other words, buy some stock in FedEx for a quick kill.**

Chapter 1: “Should I Actually Order an Apple TV?”

Apple TV is great for:

  • People who use Macs, and dump countless dollars into iTunes.
  • People who use Windows, and dump countless dollars into iTunes.
  • People who have HDTVs.
  • People who are not interested in buying Blu-Ray discs.
  • People who lose their current DVDs all over the goddamn house and GOD DAMMIT WHERE IS MY COPY OF “THE SECRET OF THE OOZE?”
  • People who like all of their movies, music, and photos to be accessible from a central location.
  • People who like straightforward, easy-to-use, sleek interfaces.

It so happens that my mom (bless her heart) bought me a 32” HDTV for Christmas.  Sweet.  It also so happens that I am sort of an iTunes slave, and I have a Mac, and, well, that’s just kind of what happens when you work for Apple.  Whaddya know?

I’ll leave the extensive format war discussions to Sam and Andy Rush, but my short take on it is thus: I don’t like Blu-Ray.  I don’t think I really have a good reason to dislike Blu-Ray, I just don’t really like it.  Kind of like “that guy” at the college party who gets all the women to talk to him, effortlessly.  I don’t really know him, but I know he’s probably a douchebag.  Also, I don’t want to start a flame war about costs and Apple products, and formats, but I’m also having a hard time finding high quality Blu-Ray players for less than $200, and Blu-Ray discs are still hella expensive, while HD Movies on iTunes, for the most part, cost $15-19.99.  Just sayin’

I also don’t like “stuff,” I try to keep as little of it as possible; the less I have, the less I can lose or misplace or make a mess with.  I’m done with discs.  That’s just a personal thing, though.

Apple TV costs $229 from the Apple Store, but for some strange, bizarre reason, Apple does not include any component or HDMI cables.  In my opinion, that’s kind of like ordering a hamburger without a bun, but I guess people do that.  Do not buy HDMI or component cables from the Apple Store, or even Best Buy, for that matter.  Go to Target, RadioShack or Wal-Mart to save a few coins.

If you do not have an HDTV, do not order an Apple TV.

If you do not have broadband Internet, do not order an Apple TV.

If you do not feel like backing up your purchases to an external unit, do not order an Apple TV.  Losing a digital purchase, for whatever reason, is no different than losing a DVD.  If you lose it, you will have to buy a new one.

If you do not feel comfortable truly “owning” your content, do not order an Apple TV.

What’s that?  You got one anyway?  Cool.  It is actually quite a nifty gadget, and, like most Apple products, does more than people give it credit for.

Chapter 2: Prepping for Apple TV

Overview

Apple TV gets its data over wired or wireless Ethernet, via several methods.  It is possible to stream iTunes music, watch YouTube, view photos, listen to Internet radio, and, of course, “sync” your Apple TV with an iTunes library, much like an iPod.

This confused me at first, as I thought you could only stream iTunes content to Apple TV, which is not the case, as it is possible for Apple TV to store iTunes Library content locally.  This is also a misconception among my customers.  It is possible to transfer movies from your computer to Apple TV, and vice versa.  That is, if your content is purchased on the device itself, it can be copied to an iTunes library on your computer.  The device has a 160 GB HDD for content.

Step 1: Rip Your DVDs.

Apple TV does not play DVDs, which is where HandBrake comes in.  HandBrake is a free, very reliable, open-source piece of software for pulling DVD content from DVDs.

Now, the legality of ripping DVDs continues to be questionable; I’m not going to be held responsible for you if you distribute your ripped content in a way which violates copyright law.  I’m in the “if you own the DVD, it’s your DVD” camp, and have no moral objections to DVD ripping in this context.

If you need help using HandBrake, check the documentation on their website, this is not a HandBrake tutorial.  I do recommend you use “Apple Universal” (mp4) for the end format, however, and I personally shoot for a 1GB file size target for most movies, with 2-pass encoding.  Longer movies will warrant larger file sizes, though, so keep that in mind when you’re pulling the extended edition of Return of the King.

Ripping takes a long time, even on a fast Core 2 Duo.  Get a sandwich, something with bacon.  Rinse and repeat.

Step 2: Clean Up and Prep iTunes.

Apple TV absolutely requires you to use iTunes, but you probably knew that.  Once you’ve finished ripping your DVDs, it’s time to copy them into iTunes.  The easiest way to do this is to select “Movies” from the iTunes sidebar, and simply drag-and-drop movies into the pane.  You can also click “File,” and scroll to “Add to Library.”  From there, navigate to your movie file, and add it to your library.

IF YOU HAVE CONFIGURED iTUNES TO COPY ALL CONTENT TO YOUR LIBRARY FOLDER, WHICH I RECOMMEND, IT WILL LEAVE THE ORIGINAL FILE INTACT, LEAVING YOU WITH TWO COPIES OF YOUR MOVIE ON YOUR HDD.

ERASE THE FIRST COPY.

Once you’ve done this, you need to add the movie’s poster; it looks better in both iTunes and on Apple TV.

In order to add a poster to a movie, right click (or control+click) on the movie in iTunes.  Select “Get Info,” and then click on the “Artwork” tab.  The next step is to find a copy of the poster, which is best done by typing the title of the movie into Google Image Search.  For movie artwork in iTunes, use images that are around 700 pixels tall by 500 pixels wide.  For reasons that I do not understand, dragging and dropping film artwork into the artwork pane does not work, so I created a folder on my desktop called “movie posters,” saved the JPEGs into it, and applied them in iTunes via the “add” button in the artwork pane.


Screen shot 2009-12-22 at 9.10.50 PM

I’m still working on ripping my movies, but this is what my library looks like so far.


Screen shot 2009-12-22 at 9.14.36 PM

Next week, we’ll go over syncing, unboxing, and configuring Apple TV.


*The views expressed in this post are my own and do not represent those of Apple, Inc., FileMaker, or any of its subsidiaries.  For questions regarding Apple consumer policy, please visit http://apple.com/legal.

**I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR.  DO NOT TAKE MY FINANCIAL ADVICE IN ANY SERIOUS CAPACITY; I GOT A C+ IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT IN COLLEGE.  IF YOU SEND ME HATE MAIL AFTER YOU LOSE YOUR LIFE SAVINGS, I WILL LAUGH AT YOU WITHOUT REMORSE.

What’s for Lunch? Why, it’s the McGangbang 2.0!

Published
by
Joseph
on October 5, 2009
in 930posts, Fun Stuff, Projects and Tips and Tutorials
. 6 Comments

Why does the stomach growl?

I’m not asking you technically, I mean metaphorically.

I know it’s some kind of wack-ass chemical reaction.  Something about juice and acid and gas (lol) and science.  It’s just “nature’s way” of saying “hey, hey buddy, there is nothing in here, so you better fix it, you nutjob.”  Reactions are for chemists.  I have another theory.

It’s a reminder of what we really are: animals.  Mammals with powerful, powerful instincts, and at 11:45 AM, those instincts are screaming only one thing at the top of their lungs:

MEAT.

Take me, for example.  This is what I look like around lunchtime.  Clean-cut.  Well-kept.  Good-looking, and with an uncompromisingly American attitude.

I'm single, for the love of God I'm single.

I'm single, for the love of God I'm single.

Inside, though.  Inside…there is only this.

I'm still single.

I'm still single.

Sometimes you don’t even realize that you’re hungry, because your stomach doesn’t growl.  That’s when you’re really hosed, because then you realize that you have been chewing on the backend of an ST connector for half an hour, and you’re “pretty sure it ain’t gonna be working anymore” and you have to explain to your boss why you have a $25 fiber replacement on your expense report.  But I digress.

As it turns out, I didn’t know what to have for lunch today, even though I was in that kind of mood.  Part of me was saying “cheeseburger,” and the other part of me was saying “chicken nuggets.”  Generally incompatible, yes, but if you can install Windows on an Intel Mac, what can’t you do?  Legend tells of a sandwich outside the mortal realm, a sandwich which – literally – strikes fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned nerds.  Truly a diabetic debacle.  A gastrointestinal ghoul.  A nutritional non sequitur. Gentlemen!  (And Shannon and Lenore) THE MCGANGBANG.

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

Now, if it is not obvious enough, a McGangbang is a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger with a McDonald’s McChicken in the middle of it, a total cost of $2.19, plus tax.  I imagine it is called “The McGangbang” because that is what it feels like it’s doing to your digestive system as you are eating it.  If you use the $1 “McDouble” – McDonald’s way of being a bunch of cheap-ass bastards by yanking the second piece of cheese from the double cheeseburger so they could keep the cost at a buck – it’s not a McGangbang.  You really, really do need both pieces of cheese for this to work.

Now, being a nerd, something of an innovator, and someone who enjoys tinkering in general, especially with cuisine, I decided to approach the assembly of this atomic abomination with a few hacks.  Why?  Two reasons.

1: I don’t like mayonnaise.  At all.  I realize this is really a personal issue; I mean, I also like having Dock Magnification turned on, so it’s a wash.  What I do like, however, is Big Mac sauce.  Therefore, I ordered the McChicken with big mac sauce instead of mayonnaise.  I thought it would be free, but McDonald’s charged me 0.15 for it.  Fair enough, I’d bitch if it were more than a quarter.

2: There is really no need for four buns.  A third bun gives the sandwich balance.  A fourth is extra calories at the cost of the taste of the delicious meat.  Basically, having 4 buns on one sandwich is kind of like running Windows Vista in any capacity; there’s so much fluff, you have a hard time getting to the meat.

That’s what she said.

This in mind, I decided to christen my creation “The McGangbang 2.0″ because “The McMcMahon” is obnoxiously redundant.

Caloric Breakdown:

Double Cheeseburger: 440 kcal
McChicken with Big Mac Sauce and No Bun: approx 290 kcal
Small Fry: 230kcal
Diet Coke: 0kcal

Total: 960kcal.  Obviously not something you’d want to eat every day, but you could definitely do worse.  A double quarter pounder with cheese and a medium french fry will set you back 1120kcal, and probably be a lot less awesome.  Altogether was $5.21 with lousy 10% local restaurant tax.

I set out my ingredients before beginning assembly.  The fries were not involved with sandwich construction, but they were part of my lunch, so whatever.

Pre-assemblyI then proceeded to begin the construction of the McGangbang 2.0.  The most annoying part of it was separating the two cheeseburger patties, which had somehow managed to permanently fuse themselves together in a disgustingly glorious singular mass of cheese and death over the course of my five-minute drive back to my office.

It was unpleasant.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT.  BEHOLD:

IMG_0889

How does it taste?  Well, the big mac sauce was on kind of thick, so your mileage may vary, but otherwise, it was really, really awesome.  I would definitely eat this again.  The lettuce gave it some oomph, and the McChicken patty is a peppery and heavily-breaded but otherwise pretty good piece of poultry.  Removing the fourth bun was definitely a good idea.  I like all the other ingredients (ketchup, mustard, pickles, lettuce, McDonald’s ghetto onions), so those stayed, which was also a good move.  It really did have a lot of flavor.

It's only truly horrifying if you stare at it for too long, like eating an oyster.

It's only truly horrifying if you stare at it for too long, like eating an oyster.

And how do I feel now?  Surprisingly okay.  My regret-o-meter is only rolling about a 3 out of 5, which is about what I was expecting.  Feeling pretty full/heavy right now, to be sure, but it’s pretty chilly outside anyway.  I’ll get a salad for dinner.  Or not.

So there you have it, folks, the McGangbang 2.0.  I recommend it.  Who knows, maybe it’ll catch on and we’ll get some more readers and be Internet celebrities or get some coupons.  So, until we get a shot at the KFC Double Down, adios.

3rd Party Router Firmware: A Brief Guide

Published
by
Edwin
on June 17, 2009
in 930posts, Projects and Tips and Tutorials
. 1 Comment
There is a point in many a nerds’ life where he or she finds themselves constrained by their home router. For the confused, it probably looks like this:
Look familiar?

Look familiar?

This little devices sits between your cable modem and your computer. It basically is your “network.” Most people just plug them in, and configure only as much as it takes for it to work. These devices are, at a basic level, computers themselves, and as such have an “operating system” that provides a interfaces for you to tell the hardware what to do (like all operating systems.) Usually, you are stuck with the OS that shipped with the device.

Cut to June, 2003, when some neckbeards on the Linux Kernel Mailing List discovered that Linksys had included components of the Linux operating system in the firmware of their router. Due to the way those borrowed components were licensed, Linksys was legally obligated to release the entire source code for that OS. By studying this code, developers were able to create new operating systems that ran on the same hardware. Several projects aiming to replace the often-buggy stock operating system firmware sprang into existence, all adding new features. The dust has settled since then, and there are many mature firmware flavors to choose from.  I will focus on three, because I’ve used two, and Sam is currently using the third.

DD-WRT: I had pretty good luck with this one, and  have used it on my primary router. I was able to play Diablo 2 with some VPN’ed in while talking to them on Skype with no problems, although I wasn’t able to do anything else while bittorrent was running (this was probably due to limitations of the hardware i.e. it ran at 200 mhz) The DD-WRT project itself has weird issues with trying to make money, and their last stable release was almost a year ago. That being said, it runs on a lot of different consumer-grade routers, and it runs pretty well.

OpenWRT: “Linux is free if your time is worth nothing.” That saying sums up my experience with OpenWRT pretty well. Getting this installed and running was a pain in the ass. That’s not saying it isn’t a good product, but the project itself was in the process of un-forking when I looked at it, and I found the whole thing generally confusing. I was new to the Linux scene when I tried it, and was barely able to get it working. I have not looked at it in a couple years, so maybe it has improved. The OpenWRT also supports a side project called X-Wrt which aims to improve the usability of OpenWRT.

Tomato: I had moved beyond consumer devices by the time I discovered Tomato. But from what I read and heard from Sam, this would probably be my first choice in upgrading my router to new firmware. The most recent update was less than a month ago. As I have never used it, I asked Sam for his thoughts:

Sam here. I’ve been using Tomato for quite a while now, on a WRT54GL (which Edwin gave to me, no less). It has served me well. I don’t think I’ve ever had to power cycle the router. The programmers did a great job, especially with the web interface (think AJAX gizmos).

Some of my favorite features are the usual port forwarding, static DNS, spiffy real-time bandwidth graphs, and tables of daily/weekly/monthly bandwidth usages. You also get SSH and telnet access. You can even write custom scripts that execute when you press the Cisco button on the front of the router.

There’s a lot of other stuff that I have no clue about. My only complaint is that the firmware is updated pretty frequently, yet there is no auto notification of any updates.

There’s definitely enough features here to satisfy even the most hardcore network nerds. But it also works for someone like me, who just wants more than the commercial firmware.

There are a couple other distributions of home router software that deserve mention. The aforementioned firmwares run on hardware people already are using as routers. But if you need something with a little more horsepower, you could recycle an old PC and run m0n0wall (or it’s derivative, pfSense) on it.

m0n0wall: A modified barebones version of FreeBSD with a slick web interface. It provides an amazing amount of features, including VPN and QoS. And as it’s FreeBSD, it can run on probably any older computer you have just lying around, or a specially designed system such as the PCengines ALIX. The m0n0wall platform has also been used as a base for other projects, such as FreeNAS, AskoziaPBX, and….

pfSense: A modified version of m0n0wall, and my current favorite. Not intended as a competitor to m0n0wall, it boast more features, as well as a much larger footprint. I would suggest that you start with m0n0wall and upgrade to pfSense if you feel the need.

NOTE: The first three flavors mentioned are intended to run on your standard home router, and include immediate support of the wireless functionality you expect out of your home router. m0n0wall and pfSense are intended to run on actual computers, so other arrangements will have to be made to add wireless, such as adding a separate wireless access point behind the router.

I’m not going to give instructions here on upgrading your home router. Each project mentioned has extensive documentation on their website, along with a hardware compatibility list and installation instructions.

Some warnings: Installing new firmware on a home router can be a marginally harrowing process, involving TFTP, blinking lights, and properly timed hard resets. Also, there is potential to completely brick the device (render the device as useful to you as a brick.) So if you are curious about any of these, spend some time on their wikis and forums. Make sure your home router is supported, or, better yet, get a new home router based on the project community’s recommendations. This way, if you mess up, you will still have internet access with your old router.

My Setup: “The K’nexus”

This took me 25 minutes in Gimp.

This took me 25 minutes in Gimp.

On a completely unrelated note, if anyone with computer graphics skillz would like to join our team, please do so. There is no application process. You are now a member. Get to work.

Welcome to the new sector930.com

Published
by
Sam
on April 4, 2009
in 930posts and Projects
. 2 Comments

Well, we decided to make the move. Edwin’s host checking thingy was telling us that our hold hosting service, Bluehost, kept going down during the day. My RootBSD server, on the other hand, had excellent uptime. So after the email equivalent of a huddle, we agreed: adios Bluehost.

I had written a good post in anticipation of our easy transition and great success. Alas, that was not to be. I jumped the gun with changing the DNS, and Joe couldn’t export the old blog. So we all learned some lessons from the experience.

  1. Backup your shit before you do ANYTHING.
  2. Tell everyone involved what you’re doing BEFORE you do it.

These are lessons that we should have learned at our jobs, but you know how nerds are. We think we’re invincible. (PLUS people at my job haven’t learned this lesson, so they keep making the same mistakes over, and over, and over.)

But after all that, I’m ready to officially declare the new sector930.com a success.

So congratulations, all 2 of our readers. We broke our blog just for you, and probably made it harder for us in the meantime. But rest assured, we are working around the clock to deliver top notch information, insight, and advice on whatever it is we write about on this blog.

On a more technical note: redirects are fun and easy with Apache. Here is an example.

<IfModule alias_module>
    Redirect permanent /index.html http://www.sector930.com/blog
</IfModule>

So if you ever wanted to know, there it is.

Have a great day.

XOXO

“Fun” With Breakups and Web 2.0

Published
by
Joseph
on December 4, 2008
in 930posts and Projects
. 2 Comments

Most of you who know me know, correctly, that I take this stuff pretty hard.  My girlfriend split up with me last night.  In retrospect, it wasn’t a bad breakup.

I’ve decided to use Web2.0 as an outlet for my grief.  I don’t know if this should make me more or less depressed.

I listen to The Streets.  One of his songs is called “Dry Your Eyes, Mate.”  It’s a wrencher.

Dry Your Eyes Mate

It’s a pretty good summary of about how I’m feeling right now.  The next step was to pull a blog post about Wordle from Jerry.  Wordle is a tag cloud generator.  I didn’t really know how to explain a tag cloud, so I went to Wikipedia for an answer.  If a tag cloud for a web page describes its content, the tag cloud for a person describes how they feel.

Dry Your Eyes, Mate

Dry Your Eyes, Mate

Wikipedia, tag clouds, blogs, youtube, and a notification of a new post via twitter.

(None of which she checks, I’m not an asshole.)

It’s both heartbreaking and encouraging to know that relationships don’t work like this: small pieces loosely joined.

FreeNAS Update

Published
by
Edwin
on September 15, 2008
in 930posts and Projects
. 0 Comments

So you know what’s awesome? Refreshing the page while writing a post, so you have to do it all over again. Thanks, NoScript.

Anyway, AS I WAS SAYING BEFORE IT GOT DELETED, it pays to do all your research before taking on a project. I forged ahead with my FreeNAS server with a few assumptions based on other things I had read about the technology.

The first assumption: you can add disks to a RAID after it’s been built. I knew you could replace disks, but adding one changes the total RAID size, which breaks the RAID. I’m pretty sure you can do this with other tools, but I guess the one FreeNAS uses is not able to do this.

My second assumption: you can create Samba shares that only some users can access. This seemed pretty obvious to me, but I guess it’s all-or-nothing, as far as what users can see. Who would have thought?

The good news is that both of these issues will be fixed in the next major update, 0.7, which will include full support for ZFS. From what I have gathered, ZFS creates an layer of abstraction between the devices and the file system that allows the file system to grow. Also, this information would not have changed my decisions in what hardware to purchase, although it might have delayed it. This way I just have a couple weeks/months to play around with it before I can upgrade and create a real server instance.

All of this information was found on LearnFreeNAS.org, which is run by Gary Sims, a long time friend of the blog. I would like to invite our thousands of wealthy readers to head over to his website and purchase many copies of his new book, which I hear is life-altering.

I will continue to update here, even though everyone’s too busy reading Sam’s SQL tutorials.

Home-Nas: A Revisit

Published
by
Edwin
on August 26, 2008
in Projects
. 0 Comments

Whenever I think about building a system, there comes a point where I doubt whether I need it or not, or if there are better things I could be doing with those funds. I hit that point last week as I was spec’ing it out in more detail on Newegg. First of all, there are other things I could do with the money than buy another computer. Like, save for retirement, or …buy food. I was able to quell such thought with the following rationalization: It will help me in my job. In building this system, I will undoubtedly learn something that will come in handy, maybe in a job interview! Also, this specific system would be used in making backups, which could potentially save money and frustration in the long term.

But now I’m torn between building this one and building a Linux workstation. To make this decision harder, FreeNAS is on the verge of a fairly large update, which will include many new features, including full ZFS support. Ideally, I would like to wait for this update, rather than using what is current now, and having to upgrade, potentially having to start over. I have read up on ZFS, but its benefits over what I was going to use did not jump out me. So I call upon our faithful readers to help me out here. What are the biggest benefits to waiting for ZFS? Performance? Redundancy? Nerd cred?

Note: From what I could gather, ZFS is included by not fully supported, correct? This system is going to be in a “production” environment, and I would rather wait for the big update than take my chances now.

I still need to do a post about NASes, RAID schemes, and other associated technologies. Maybe you guys can give a blurb about ZFS?

One more thing to consider. I found out today that our house is in a “High-Risk Flood Zone.” Two years ago, my entire street flooded, and most of the houses in the neighborhood were damaged. While I would rather not get flooded, my data is far more valuable to me than my hardware, especially when I have insurance. So this thing takes a slightly highter priority than the linux workstation. And it’s going upstairs.

My co-workers re joking me about my basement flooding. I am already thinking about how to design the network in order to survive a flood. Sounds like a good post!

Home-NAS: Specifications?

Published
by
Edwin
on August 13, 2008
in Projects
. 7 Comments

Just to clarify, the goal here is to build a fairly cheap, but still powerful and flexible computer whose sole purpose is to store data in a redundant manner. I am shooting for at LEAST one terabyte, with one drive redundancy and a hot-swappable drive. This would require four drives total, three in a RAID5 and one standing by in case another one fails. I’ll probably do a separate post on RAID, as I find it fascinating.

The title is a question because I’m still not sure what specifications I’m going for. I just started pricing stuff out, so the specifications will change depending on what I can afford. So here’s what I know so far:

  • Standard ATX motherboard. Probably LGA775 socket. Nothing fancy, just something with like 8 SATA ports, and a chipset that is highly compatible with……everything. I usually try to build these things to be flexible, in case I want to use it for something else. Although I’m planning on using a software-based RAID, I’ll probably still try to find one that has a fairly good RAID chipset. Also, a compatible integrated video card. This thing is going to be “headless” so it doesn’t really matter anyway.
  • Processor: A cheap dual-core. I don’t think this machine is going to be needing a lot of horsepower, and as long as I get a fairly decent motherboard, I should be able to replace this with something else, like a quad-core or the like if I want to re-purpose the machine.
  • RAM: Probably 2 gigs. Maybe one, depending on price. Anything more would probably be overkill. I’ll have to look at the FreeNAS specs to see if it’s worth going any higher.
  • Power Supply: yes (800 watts? something like that.)
  • Hard drives: I already have three 500 GB hard drives, so for now I’ll probably get one more. Ideally, they should be from different manufactures and production runs. More on this later.
  • Hard drive trays. These would be cool, but not necessary. It would let me add and remove drives without opening the case. They also require an external 5.25″ bay, whereas normally hard drive just use an internal 3.5″ bay.
  • Case: I just looked at cases on Newegg. I will need one with, preferably, 6 to 8 external 5.25″ external drive bays. This would let me have an optical drive and a bunch of hard drives. Although I’m just starting with four drives, I would like to expand it to more later on if I so desire. So a server case would be cool, but most of them are either too expensive or ugly as Sin. I might have to settle for a 5 bay one, in which case it would probably be fairly cheap.

I think that’s pretty much it. I’ll probably do one post on the theory behind NAS devices and RAID technologies, and then another one with pictures once I decide on parts. Then another one for assembly and setup.