gorethrasher

Just over a year ago on the 22th of September 2008, I installed openSUSE 10.3 and setup my fileserver. I was hoping to have 100+ days of uptime on it’s aniversary (I was 3 days off). I shorted the powersupply of an old dell server and tripped the sheds safety switch, doh!

I had built this box to replace my old P133 webserver which ran openBSD and had no GUI. It just ran a simple apache webserver, no PHP or MySQL. It lasted for about 2 months till I decided to downscale the size of the case resutling in me killing the motherboard. I later aquired a p3 800 Mhz computer from a friend that ran Debian till I got this server up and running.

This server has a hefty 2.8GHz of processing power, which is just adequate enough for my use.  It’s main purpose is to host home drives and a fileshare to my home network as well host my website. It now also streams my collection of movies and tv shows directly to my PS3 through mediatomb and runs an SVN server for my programming projects.

At the moment it has 1.8Tb of storage with the data spread across 6 differnet sized hard drives. The disks are configured using LVM, which allows gigabytes of data to be stored in one dynamic file structure.LVM also makes upgrading storage easy, just command LVM to move the data off one disk, and it will spread the data out across other drives, letting you take the disk out and upgrade it.

The OS and website data is stored on a simple ext3 partition and the rest is encrypted. The decryption key needs to be entered each boot, meaning that my personal files and media collection would be unreadable if the server was shutdown or moved, LVM also adds another layer in that all disks must be present for the filesystem to work. This may lead to major problems if a disk fails, so there is room for improvement there. I have been paranoid about HDD temps so I keep them running cool with plenty of fans for max life.

I have plans for another server when it’s time to upgrade my desktop. With an Intel quadcore I should be able to run a couple of severs under virtualisation. I plan to run openSUSE 11.2 on the metal and virtualise Server2008 to run my domain, and a development VM with all the compilers and tools I need which will be remotely accessable. The extra computational power will aslo allow me to run a HD tuner or two to record TV shows, minus the ads!

I also plan on having much more then the 1.8TB I currently have. I have room for 8 SATA drives on the motherboard I intend to use, using 6x 1.5TB drives will give me a good 9TB of storage to play with, 4.5 if used in a RAID1 confuguration. The remaining two drives will be RAID0 which will give me good OS performance…

But for the meantime, this server has lasted a whole year without a glitch and is still running as well as when I installed it. Hats off to the openSUSE team and I look forward to the latest version 11.2 coming out in the next couple of days.

The exact date of the install was Mon Sep 22 01:21:23 2008

August mix of some of the hottest new tracks mixed with trance classics.


Featuring music from Arnej, W&W, Sander Van Doorn, Jahawi and Evol Waves.

I would provide a tracklist but I couldn’t be bothered…

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The mp3 can be found here

I can’t believe I have never come across beatport till now.

Featuring a good range of Trance, Progressive, Electronica, Tech House and other electronic genres from some of the worlds best labels.

Music shopping has never been easier, just browse through the genres, hot tracks, new releases and beatport exclusive releases. Playing the track will add it to the playlist, and one click puts it in your crate.

It combines a vibrant, smooth and easy to use interface coupled with a web based track player which plays seamlessly while you browse.

Traktor DJ Studio also interfaces with Beatport, bringing your tracks straight to your mixer.

Pricing wise it is quite competitive, most tracks are in the $1.50 - $2.00 range, and you can pick an album up for about 15-25 dollars. They also accept several types of payment making it easy to give a try.

I stumbled across a very talented artist from Jakarta today. Take a look at his profile. Amazing illustrations.

I just uploaded a new album from today’s 4×4 through the hills near Mundaring.

The trail was very busy with a large assortment of vehicles ranging from Rodeos, Jeeps, Land Cruisers, Hilux and Pajeros.
Our first incident was a broken tail shaft and bent trailing arms about 20 mins in, which put a car out of action for the rest of the day. Trent had his new Coopers come off the bead about 4 times during the trek and Markus broke off more of his fenders and got a puncture in the side wall of his front tire.

These were only minor inconveniences and we still had good fun scaling the rocky hills and slippery slopes.

Enjoy the photos and don’t forget to leave a comment!

Windows 7 has been out as a Beta since January 7, 2009. I have been using Win7 on my devbox since then and I gotta say, I love it. I wouldn’t even compare it to Vista, which was a massive pile of horse crap I wouldn’t go near, even with a bio hazard suit.

Win7 also holds up very well against XP, it has felt as fast as XP if not faster, with improvements on memory and process management. It also feels as responsive as Linux, which is pretty impressive.

Drivers were a bit of an issue, which is to be expected from a beta, so no foul there.

Windows explorer got a good upgrade and allows for easy file access and manipulation. The file structure is much improved and Libraries make finding your files easier.

Software support is also very good with the new compatibility options.

Stability was not much of an issue and only one or two bugs presented themselves, which I thought was quite impressive.

I was so impressed that I installed the RC 7100 version on my desktop about a month ago, and am now using it as my main OS.

Some features that I would have liked to be included are multiple desktops, which I sorely miss from Linux, and a 3D desktop. The gadgets are quite lacking, but I am sure that will change when the OS is released and developers start to have fun with the SDK.

I commend microsoft for finally releasing a decent product which actually performs better then a leaky wooden boat driven by a crazy old cat-lady. One of my friends even said he was so impressed he will actually pay for the software!

So please, tell us what you think on gorethrasher’s first poll.

In an historic final interview, filmmaker and music promoter Aaron Russo goes in depth on the insider-knowledge given to him by a member of the Rockefeller family. Russo was told– prior to 9/11– of plans to stage terror attacks, invade foreign nations, and kickstart a high-tech police state control grid that would track the populations’ every move with implantable RFID microchips.

This information-packed presentation is filled with never-before seen footage. Throughout the film, Alex Jones breaks down the latest activities of the New World Order and how it ties into what Russo predicted.
Aaron explains how the elite created the women’s liberation movement to break up the family and tax working women. Russo breaks down the deception of democracy– which is nothing more than mob rule guaranteed to produce tyranny.

Russo also exposes the IRS & Federal Reserve. He blasts the unconstitutional and predatory institutions that have crippled the American Republic and crushed the people with bogus taxes, inflation and loss of privacy. Russo explains that he himself was persecuted in the late 80s by a criminal ‘retroactive’ tax scheme that attempted to levy new taxes on years already passed.

As night falls on the Republic, Aaron Russo delivers a powerful call for the forces of liberty to rise and crush tyranny. Only then can the Republic be restored.

If you haven’t heard of the NWO, Alex Jones or Bilderburg this is going to sound a bit far fetched. Sometimes I don’t even want to believe it, but the evidence is there.

I have been very busy with the Yamaject project, I implemented a bunch of new features and did a lot of code cleanup and re factoring.

Newly implemented features include: cranking enrichment, cold start enrichment, after start enrichment, lambda sensor input, dual map option and acceleration enrichment.

I still have a few things on the list for the firmware. The tuning software is in worse shape and also needs a good cleanup. It’s very much hackish code at the moment so I’m thinking of starting from scratch and just porting the code over, making something more robust and scalable.

Hardware wise I am at about 90%, I need to mount the fuel pump properly, and install the new regulator when it arrives. Then mount the ECU securely and get it ready for a test tune.

Here is a screenshot of the tuning software.

I just got back from a short holiday in Bali. It was freaking fantastic. Staying in the heart of Kuta, I was a short walk from the clubs and pubs and had an awesome time.