Bill’s Log

Posted By Bill on January 2, 2009

So now I have some hardware to play with. It is time to tackle Windows. Now I would be happy with running Linux - except there are just too many things I need that are Windows-centric, Primarily, ZoomTex,t which is a screen magnifier I use.

A few things I had to check on 

Will Windows/XP run on  a dual eon system ? Yes - I have read the XP home , may or may not support this configuration. Windows/XP Pro does. That is what I had to work with , so I don’t really know about Home support. 

What about drivers ? The DL380 has  hardware that is not normally associated with workstations like the Raid controller, Hot plug PCI Slots, and ILO.  The thing to remember here is the Windows/2003 is very much like Windows/SP. Many times the Windows/2003 drivers will work on Windows/XP - and all off these unusual devices had Windows/2003 drivers.  So I was pretty sure it would work.

I had to first go into the Raid Controller BIOS and configure the disk array. I only had 3 34 gb drives, but I figured that was enough , so I set  up a single 3 disk Raid 5 array for testing. 

So I popped in the Windows/XP install CD and booted it. I  was pretty happy to see it fire right up and ask if I wanted to install Windows/Xp. I was figuring this was too easy. I did all the setup steps and set back to watch it install windows. Well it was a good idea. It got done inspecting my hardware and informed I had no disk disk drives. Perfect !

Round 1 to the  computer gnomes.

So on to the web for some research -  I knew what was wrong , which made it easier to do some searching. What I needed was a way to stick the  HP Smart rrtay driver into to start up mechanism. What I came upone was a program called nLite that allowed you to rebuild your install CD with additional drivers. This sounded perfect. 

I installed nLite - 

I downloaded the DL380 Smart Array drivers. Then I  extracted the drivers.  Put the install Cd into the drive - fired up nLite - told it to find additional drivers in the location I extracted the smart array drivers in.  nLite chugged away and created and ISO image on my local hard drive.  Cutting an image cd was the last step. 

Then start the install process again. This time it found the  drives and installed fine. It didn’t understand the Ethernet  adapters - the ILO ( Lights out management interface). So I burned a cd with additional drivers on them. Now when you go to the HP site - you won’t find drivers for  Wiin/XP , so get the drivers for Windows/2003 server. Then when you install them - you will have to extract them , then point the devices at them and do a driver upgrade and all will be well.  Install the Ethernet, hot plug adapter,  and Ilo drives. Also , install the Smart Array management program. This will install directly and will allow you to look at the drive status directly in windows. 

Then do the normal updates and you should have a nice fresh Win/Xp pro running 

Round 2  ro me !

Next we will install a sound card and get a dual monitor support working 

thx

Bill

Category: Hardware, Workstation - XP, windows | No Comments »
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Posted By Bill on December 16, 2008

I really get unhappy when my computer fails. It means screwing around and doing all sorts of things that may or may not work just to get back to where I was. After browsing on E0bay for parts , I noticed that there are now available Commercial Grade servers ( read - with redundancy )m at pretty reasonable prices. I am partial to HP Proliants , but that is just because I am familiar with them. So I looked at upgrading my old workhorse computers. I have a pai r of Gateway Pentium  4’s - that will absolutely fail in the near future. How’s that for optimism ?

My criteria are as follows:

1. Something faster then what I have
2. More memory
3. Redundant power supplies - hot plug
4. Redundant fans - hot plug
5. Raid 5 - hot plug disk
6. 4-6 gb memory
7. Have some spare slots for cards.
8. Must run Windows/XP Pro.

I also had to make sure it would run Zoom-Text which is a screen magnifier I use to make my life easier.

So -  what I found was an HP DL380 G3 - with Dual Hyperthreaded XEON processors at 2.8MHz. Dual power supplies. 1.5 Gb memory and 3 34Gb SCSI hot plug drives.

Price $59 - shipping $60

This was a great start - the  DL380 is a great machine and very reliable. A little light in memory and disk , but that would be addressed by a little judicious E-baying. But it was a start. I had plenty to do to convert it into a workstation , and I could upgrade the hardware as I figured out how to make this work.

So - I bought 2 of these machines. I was excited when they arrived. I fired them up to make sure they worked and I was happy to see both worked fine. I cranked up Knoppix Live cd to make sure they hardware was happy. It ran like a champ. It counted out the 4 processors just like it should have and could see the disks and  memory was fine.

Now the task that lay ahead were :

1. Install Windos/XP
2. Get some larger disk and set them up with raid
3. Increase memory 
4. add audio
5. add video to have 3md  monitor
6. CD/DVD burner

Next task - Install Windows/Xp Pro.

Category: Hardware | No Comments »
Tags: Hardware

Posted By Bill on November 19, 2008

Users may add Group/List of  users to their private address books. The lists reside in the private, Staff or student address books.

Here is a video of the process -

movie

The ye;;ow circle will track my cursor movement.
The red flashed are the mouse being clicked.

Bill

Category: Workstation - XP, windows | No Comments »
Tags: Kronolith howto

Posted By Bill on November 19, 2008

I buy stuff on E-Bay. I admit it I have been a registered user for over 10 years. It has changed a lot since the early days. They started out as a “Venue” to allow people to buy and sell things. Which was great and a little bit scary at times. Now, they are quite different, because the users of E-Bay are stupid. Or so E-Bay things. They have launched on this safe buying experience path. Everything they do in the name of safety is ok. It has gone to far. Now they are saying I can’t pay with money orders or cash !
I believe they are hiding under this safety umbrella to prohibit the payment of items by cash, bank transfer, and even US Postal Money Orders. Now they don’t really say you can’t take these payments. But you can’t let the buyers  know that you will accepts these forms of payment, except in certain catagories of items. My opinion , this stinks. I pay for things with US Postal Money orders. I have even been know to send a $10 bill in the mail - which of course hey say isn’t safe.
Let me read off a dollar bill.
“This note is legal tender for all debts public and private”.
Seems to me the federal government trumps E-Bay’s policies and I should be able to pay for something with my cash - if I care to and an willing to risk it. Also, what about paying for E-Bay items in person ? Guess we can’t bring cash to that transaction any more, either.
Here is my take on E-Bay’s real motives.
1. The government is squeezing them to provide money trails for various reasons, but let’s just say one of the initials are IRS.
2. The E-Bay market has reached maturity and growth is slowing. Now we are in an economic slow down , and they need a way to increase revenues. No better way then to mandate that purchases use online payment services. Could it be that the largest online payment service , PayPal, is owned by E-Bay. Well of course it is. So the business types at E-Bay head quarters in response to the share holders desire for revenue, have decided the sell this safe transaction garbage so they can cloak their,  give me more money on every transaction,  agenda.

Yah, I will still use E-Bay. I will still ask sellers if they will take money orders. But I miss the old days when E-Bay was a “venue” and not a corporate business.

Just My Opinion
Bil

Category: Ramblings | No Comments »
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Posted By Bill on October 17, 2008

This is the pdf test

Achievement Serias Manual (pdf)

This is the doc test

Peer Tutor Observation form (doc)

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Posted By Bill on September 30, 2008

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Posted By Bill on September 8, 2008

If you haven’t heard - we have another browser to add to the collection of IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, et, al. Google put out the “Chrome” browser for Beta testing. While we certainly don’t need another browser - I waited a whole 5 minutes after hearing about it , to download it and fire it up.

I have been using it a lot for the last week. I must say - I like it. It’s fast , has  soe nice  features and, doesn’t always work. But hold on - does an y software really work  - I think not.

I like it’s search form the address bar , I like the new tab rendering of recent pages so you can select visually, I like its clean look, and did I mention it was fast ?. Sure does run through the pages fast.  Not everything works , and security advisories have been flowing around Chrome.

I don’t realy like it’s download mode for things like PDF’s , though you can turn that off.  I have found some sites that don’t work with it or are broken , but for the most part it is surprisingly complete.

I think with the move to cloud computing  and/or  thin client and mobile browser based computing - Google’s  chrome is moving in the right direction.  It’s engine is the Apple Safari engine - and needs a little beefing up, but I call it a winner.

Category: Ramblings, windows | No Comments »
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Posted By Bill on August 3, 2008

Our job at the school is to communicate. Computers, the Internet, and webs are supposed to make that easier.  The traditional web site , while good for many things, is not that good  for communicating for educators. The traditional web is full of strange and arcane building blocks, that for most, just infringe on the ease of communicating.  At least, that is what I have observed after driving  the technology boat around here for a while.

This year  we are trying something a little different. We are going to use a blog mechanism to allow the teachers to put information out on the web, but without strangling them with lots of “technology do-dads”. This will allow the staff to produce documents, using a nice structured environment, that takes care of most of the nuts and bolts. Searching and archiving and composition is all taken care of.

I am hoping this will provide a beter avenue for  communication between the school and the students, parents and the public.

So , stay tuned

thx

Bill

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Posted By Bill on April 25, 2008

There are lot of things that need to be managed in the typical small and medium sized computer facilities. My list is as follows
1. System service availability and notification of outage
2. Performance and capacity analysis of servers
3. Performance and capacity of network
4. Hardware/software inventories of servers and workstations
5. software/patch distribution
6. Network traffic analysis
7. Anomaly/threat detection.

This is a lot of information and services that often times are not done either because of cost or complexity. I have found that FOSS applications can go a longway to providing these services at a price you can afford and without requiringng the services of a gaggle of programmers.

These are my must have picks:

(more…)

Category: Linux Tips, windows | No Comments »
Tags: Linux Tips, site management, windows tips

Posted By Bill on March 11, 2008

I have always been a fan a  Google. They have pushed the Internet into areas it never thought it would go. BUT, some of it’s success ( translate - money ), has started to make the Internet almost unusable.  There is no doubt that search engines are a necessity and in many respects the backbone of  Internet use. Without the search facilities - we would just be islands of users and information. They provide a great and necessary service to the Internet.

What is starting to  happen is the income paradigm that Google is using is advertising based. And they are willing to let anyone become a vehicle for their advertising. Advertising income is based on the number of people that view an ad and the number of interested people that view the ad. It’s  just like TV or  Radio - so there is nothing new there.  What is new is that everyone wants a little of  Googles money - and  Google is happy to oblige. So, people build websites with lists of subjects that they have found on Google so they can get there little ( or big ) Google advertising income. Now there are becoming an increasingly large number of middle-site websites that only aggregate or replicate  websites so you will  look there first and the site owner  maks e ad revenue from Google. The real rub is we find these site using Google. I have seen pages of Google search results - that are almost identical  and completely middle-sites. They are providing nothing to the net. They will say the aggregation is a great benefit, but that aggregation was one of the fundamental traits of Google and the early search engines.  Worse yet, the technology is easily built that would remove these duplicate and unnecessary middle-sites. Google has no reason to do this, though. The more sites you have to click on , the more ads you are subject to and the more revenue Google makes.

I am feeling the glut of middle-sites and they are making it very hard to user the Internet for research.

Google’s success may bog the Internet down with so much duplicate and unnecessary middle-sites, that is becomes painful and cumbersome to use, just the opposite of what it could be.

Just my opinion

thx

Bill

Category: Ramblings | 1 Comment »
Tags: Google, Internet