HI SYN!

HDHomeRun + Antenna == awesome

So I'm finally pulling the trigger on getting a Over-The-Air TV setup to go with a planned Boxee TV setup for at least my main TV.  I decided on the DB4 antenna and the HDHomeRun tuner (dual digital tuners w/ HD support) and it's been about 2 hours since I've set it up and installed the software on my XP64 workstation and I cannot be any happier. I live in Arlington, VA now and with the antenna leaning against the wall I get 31 stations.  Fox, ABC, NBC, PBS, WETA and CW are all in HD. The only channel I lack is CBS, which could be an issue come Football season! This could become a very addicting, a very cheap thing that I'm getting myself into.  The computer configuration I'm gong with for Boxee I'll have to blog about later... as that's gonna be quite cool!

It's been how long?!

Gesh, time just flew by since I last updated this blog!  Short version is: I got married to a wonderful woman, went on a great cruise and am now on a beast of a computer running Ubuntu. More to come after I sort a few things out now that I've moved it...  again.

Partial plan for reducing "powah"

I've come up with a plan to reduce my footprint but it's going to cost me a few bucks to get it done to really cut down on my power usage. If I create a small EPIA computer to take over Wireless Access Point and Firewall/VPN duties and keep the power consumption under 12W that will reduce the footprint for those two items from 50W to <12W.  (Power Saved: 38W) Next up is the computer situation. My laptop isn't going anywhere. However the systems I use can be tweaked.  I can't remove the gaming system, but I can stop using it and shift watching anime, listening to music and some basic gaming stuff to the Ubuntu box. As for the Ubuntu Box, I want to lower it's footprint complete.  If I get a LCD monitor that will lower the footprint some.  Then if I build a new'ish mini-ITX system I should be able to do everything I am now and then some with a much lower power consumption.  How much? I don't know just yet, time to research parts + prices :) (Power Saved: 180w+?) As for my file server, I think I'm going to leave it shut off most of the time and use it to back up files to. I'll keep all my mp3s on my Ubuntu box and install a bit torrent client on the Ubuntu box so I can download to it in the background.  (Power Saved: 50W) Crazy plan? (268w+ power saved!) Yeah possibly, but the power savings could be huge if I have a 50W server off all the time, a 180W gaming rig off most of the time and reduce my Ubuntu box's powah footprint. I see this as the first necessary step to reducing what I use for when I have a house and I can have a solar + wind power solution in place. I should really see a difference in how much power I use through my monthly bill.

Computer Powah?

The more I think about this power reducing idea, I should really consider reducing my computer footprint as well.  It will actually help my electric bill/consumption indirectly!  Most of my equipment does give off a good amount of heat.  Heck, my bedroom closet is typically warm in the morning because of the door is closed over night and the fileserver warms the temp up to ~80F.

Going low-powah

So, for the past few weeks now I've been trying to figure out how lower my power footprint in the world. To do so, I've been writing down the power consumption of nearly every device in my apartment. I also have switched my web hosting from a dedicated server to a VPS host (which hisyn.com resides on now) since my usage of the server had dropped considerably. I've come to the conclusion that while I can do something to lower my "powah print", I'm not able to touch the big 4 because I live in an apartment. "The Big 4" 1.> HVAC 2.> Washer/Drier combo 3.> Refridgerator 4.> Water Heater While I can't touch those right now in the apartment, I can make a dent by targeting the following areas + devices. Home Theater Area - (Total: 49W "off"/280W "on") - Onkyo Receiver - Comcast DVR - Panasonic Plasma TV - Sony DVD Player - Subwoofer Computers - RCA Cable Modem [24/7] (~10W) - Netgear Gigabit Switch (GS-108) [24/7] (~10W) - Netgear Wireless AP [24/7] (~10W) - m0n0wall Firewall/VPN [24/7] (40W) - Gaming Rig + 19" Monitor (~180W) - FileServer [24/7] (40-50W) - Ubuntu Workstation + 17" Monitor (~120W) - IBM T41 Thinkpad (30-40W) Lighting - Bedroom - Nightstand (40W) - Dresser Light (60W) - Closet Light (60W) - Hallway Light - Bathroom - Ceiling Light (1 x 60W) - Bath Tub Light (1 x 60W) - Mirror Lights (4 x 75W) - Living Room - Standup Light (60W) - TV backlight (75W?) - Porch Light (40W?) - Kitchen - ceiling - Recessed Lights While I haven't cataloged everything on this list, I know I can both lower their power consumption and I know they're part of the problem. In fact, it amazes me to think that my home theater when the power is *OFF*consumes 49W for nothing. I need to rearrange my setup so the power strip is easily turned off. It's the summer, so nothing new is really on except Dr Who on Friday's so I can easily have my DVR off 90% of the time. :) As it stands now, when I turn off all the lights and have my typical 'work' machine on, the laptop, I am consuming 199W. When I boot up my gaming rig, which I do often to watch Anime or work on some of my gaming related tasks for work, I just raised the profile to 380W. Then, if I have my TV on to watch something (or listen) while I work, now I'm up to 660W! Next post... my plan and after that last paragraph I have a plan :]

Report Solider

It's live!  www.armygamingchampionships.com The first site on a nice little web hosting cluster I've been working on for work.   I'll have to report hardware configuration when I have the time.

"Alternate" OSes

I played around with DesktopBSD and PC-BSD for a while and found that I hated PC-BSD. I truely do not like it's custom package system as it destroys the beauty that is *BSD, ports+packages. DesktopBSD impressed me more, even if it's a bit behind in the times I found the OS completely usable and updatable from the GUI interface. In fact, I decided to run a test with it and installed it on a File server, Tera, I was putting together. I was going to go with my trusty FreeBSD install or possibly a Fedora Core 6 install (since I work with FC a lot for work) but decided to try something different. My thinking here was "could this OS be useful in the SOHO/small business environment" and so far after 2 months of running it this way I'd have to say yes. I've tried to use the GUI to do most software updating or installing, rather then the usual command line and haven't run into any major road blocks. I need to do more SAMBA configuring via the GUI though to see if this could really be used in SOHO environment for non-uber geeks But lately something has been nagging me, especially after I tried installing Fedora Core with desktop apps then a Ubuntu Desktop install... are Linux distros so far ahead in the race for the SOHO/Small Biz market that DesktopBSD could never break in? I'm considering taking out my DesktopBSD OS drive and installing a Ubuntu Server (with GUI) on the server to find out. That is assuming I can be 100% sure that my software RAID 5 drives (4x500GB) will not be touched. This is definitely something on my to do list...