(Before Geek was Cool)
Honestly, I’ve just started downloading the new OS, and I am hearing people love ‘Dark Mode’. Really!? People that are ‘color challenged’ or ‘color blind’ do NOT like it. Can’t see a thing, melts into the background. Useless!
Just saying. Not a very useful FEATURE..
For the last few days I’ve been converting old 8mm film to digital and I’ve made some observations. The first is the ‘video’s are short, like old YouTube Videos, only 2 or 3 minutes long. Second, people didn’t know how to focus which I am sure this was caused by the technology itself not really allowing much ‘reviewing while recording’. What you shot was what you got, in most cases it was garbage. And people paid lots of money for it, film, developing, etc. And sadly I haven’t found a cheap reliable way to convert film to digital. But haven’t given up hope.
There was no sound either. I had to edit the videos and remove the sounds made by the converting process.
In the end I was able to covert 22 8mm files and a Hi8 tape to MKV and MOV. Taking about 5 gb of space of a total of 16 gb thumb drive. I also provided copies of media players and instructions for use on the thumb drive.
Just thinking:
After watching the development of “The Cloud” as a marketing tool for software companies, I’ve decided it is a con, a way for the developer to control the user and milk them for more money.
There are a many ways to utilize “The Cloud” the two major ones are as a personal storage space like DropBox, OneDrive (and its many incarnations) and iCloud, and then there is the way Nest and many many Phone apps developers store your data on their servers for ‘security reasons’. Which is just a nice way of saying, oh yeah, we will charge you an unnecessary amount each month to use their app. After you have a few of these apps, the monthly charges really add up.
What happened to Individual Cloud storage, putting your own NAS on the internet and using that? (Hint: Most users don’t hold the skills to setup, no offense), or their ISP makes it almost impossible.. So everyone has to pay more for less.
[:en]After a long absences I’ve finally be able to return to my technology projects.
The first one I needed to get out of the way is the weather station. Had built one a few years back, but it was destroyed by an ice storm. Therefore I had to built a new one with a more permanent foundation.
Attempted to make the system completely wireless but somehow no matter what I tried it would be limited in one way or another. So I ended up using a Raspberry Pi that has a UPS board attached to network using a POE adapter. So the Pi gets its power from the network, although the Pi connects to the network wirelessly. And since we had to run one wire, we ended up pulling a 12 volt dc wire also, this allows the addition of more ‘features’ to the pole.
As you can see there are 4 solar panels, 2 – 6 volt and 2 – 12 volt. At this point they are only being used for a string WS 2801 RGB LEDs powered through solar chargers. Sort of controlled Christmas lights. I am attempting to make the LEDs controllable from web site.
The Weather Station consists of an Arduino with a Sparkfun Weather board and sensor array, with a lightning detector attached. A Raspberry Pi connects to the Arduino and a Relay modular. Currently everything is crammed into a plastic project box mounted on the pole. Will clean it up once new boxes come in.
My neighbors have a hill behind their house, the hill top is about 300 feet away and the hill is maybe 50 feet high. My plan is to add another weather pole on top of the hill, to see how that affects wind and temperature.
[:de]After a long absences I’ve finally be able to return to my technology projects.
The first one I needed to get out of the way was the weather station. Had one, but it was destroyed by an ice storm a couple of years ago. Therefore we rebuilt a new one with a more permanent foundation.
We attempted to make the system completely wireless but somehow no matter what we tried it would limit us one way or another. So we ended up using a Raspberry Pi that had a UPS board attached network using a POE adapter. And since we had to run one wire, we ended up pulling a 12 volt dc wire also, this allows us to add more ‘features’ to the pole.
As you can see there are 4 solar panels, 2 – 6 volt and 2 – 12 volt. At this point they are only being used for a string WS 2801 RGB LEDs powered through solar chargers. We are also attempting to make the LEDs controllable from web site.
The station consists of an Arduino with a Sparkfun Weather station and lightning detector attached. A Raspberry Pi connects to the Arduino and a Relay modular. Currently everything is crammed into a plastic project box mounted on the pole. Will clean it up once new boxes come in.
[:]
[:en]Our new world wide headquarters (ROFL), are almost complete. Basically a 14×14 foot office with storage room that doubles as a network room. We have power, AC, network, internet, TV and work areas. Everything a small development company needs. We have programs in development and electronic projects on the boards. Hopefully we’ll be posting more projects soon, though we might start with a few project updates:
Hope to be posting again soon.[:]
[:en]After 33 years working for the same company in MIami, my wife and I decided it was time for a change. Giving up the city life and moving full time to our vacation home in the hills of Tennessee.
Moving from a metro area where static ip numbers were easy and cheap to come by to an area where they are almost nonexistant. The ISP here has a odd configuration, making it difficult if not impossible to put a server online. For years I’ve used no-ip.org DSN to access remote cameras, odd thing was you couldn’t access them locally with using a totally different setup. It worked, but now that we are here full time, I am unwilling to jump through all the hoops. A solution must be found.
So far I can get all my network hardware, switches, RAIDS, servers, everything to work fine locally. But I need to find a way to access the network from the outside, using an ever changing IP number.
How do I set my domain/web site dns records? Tried using the domain name I use with no-ip, but GoDaddy requires a ip number.
The local isp will provide a ip number to business class customers for $99 a month. Supposedly with faster speeds!
Will continue to try new ideas, and keep the world informed of the results.
Well, it has been over two weeks. With almost nightly internet ‘outages’, where connection to internet is lost requiring a hard restart of the modem. Guess it could be modem, but still haven’t found a way to get servers on line. SO, as a last resort I’ve decided to get a Business line, same lame 6m down and 1m upload speed, but it comes with a static IP number and I can buy more in blocks of 5 at $20 a month. Not bad. HOWEVER.. After calling last night to confirm a morning visit between 9am and 12 noon. No one ever arrived. And at about 1pm, it start pouring. So, it is unlikely anyone will come to day to finish the upgrade to Business as scheduled. Perhaps tomorrow! – Modem died again last night.
Oh, and upgrading to Business Class is only $60 a month, not the $99 I originally reported. Lets see if it really works out to that amount when we receive the first/second bill..
Things are finally working as they should, but it wasn’t easy.
First the “normal” routers provided by my ISP did’t route network traffic correctly. All my computers could get to internet, but they couldn’t see my local web server, but people out of state COULD.
I attempted to setup a local DNS server, it didn’t help. I toyed with local and wan IP numbers. This would REVERSE the issue, I could see the server, but people outside couldn’t.
Finally, I got a support guy that understood his job. He provided me with a ‘non-standard’ modem. We were able to setup my account to log in and get correct settings, my 1 IP was really at least 3, each having its own purpose. I had to move my server to a computer with 2 nic ports, and assign one with an external and one with an internal IP. I figured this would cause a LOOP since they both plugged into the router, it did not. However I did move the internal NIC port to my managed switch, and left the external port directly plugged into router.
I am not 100% sure of my total MONTHLY cost yet. But both my upload and download speeds are faster. The servers and network devices can all be managed as expected now, and the modem doesn’t require nightly reboots. – Oh, this only took over 2 months!
After a few months with the new Business Class account we are happy with results overall. When we do have issues we call, we get service the next day. For almost two weeks we had daily slow downs to less than 2 mbs (ouch). We would contact support (though online chat) and get support on the spot. After two ‘calls’ we received a visit from a tech, who did something down the road that seemed to improve our service. No where near our ‘city speeds’ but good enough.
Now to enjoy country living![:de]After 33 years working for the same company in MIami, my wife and I decided it was time for a change. Giving up the city life and moving full time to our vacation home in the hills of Tennessee.
Moving from a metro area where static ip numbers were easy and cheap to come by to an area where they are almost nonexistant. The ISP here has a odd configuration, making it difficult if not impossible to put a server online. For years I’ve used no-ip.org DSN to access remote cameras, odd thing was you couldn’t access them locally with using a totally different setup. It worked, but now that we are here full time, I am unwilling to jump through all the hoops. A solution must be found.
So far I can get all my network hardware, switches, RAIDS, servers, everything to work fine locally. But I need to find a way to access the network from the outside, using an ever changing IP number.
How do I set my domain/web site dns records? Tried using the domain name I use with no-ip, but GoDaddy requires a ip number.
The local isp will provide a ip number to business class customers for $99 a month. Supposedly with faster speeds!
Will continue to try new ideas, and keep the world informed of the results.[:]
[:en]Have a need, fill a need.
After losing contact with one of our remote servers, we decided we needed a way to do a hard reboot. We call it ‘cycle the power’. Turn the power off, wait 30 seconds and then power the unit back on. We have had great luck with servers running months even years without issue. Unless they are overloaded or overheated.
Checking eBay for over the counter power controllers, we found the IP Power 9258. Got our first one for less than $70, but most cost between $80 to $120. After looking at programming options and being a MAC Shop we figured it was doable. In less the a week we completed IPPOWER.app. Very small, very simple controller for the IP Power.
First you’ll need the IP Power’s IP number. Using an old PC we first configured ours DHCP, using the included IPEdit. (Read their instructions, which aren’t very well translated to english). We then used LanScan to find the device by its Mac Address.
After you have the IP Power’s IP number, just startup IPPower app, it will ask for the IP Number, administration name and password. The defaults are admin, 12345678.
You can now control the IP Power using keys 1 – 4, clicking on button 1 – 4 or sending “/Applications/IPPower.app/Contents/MacOS/IPPower 4” (4 being the outlet to cycle the power on).
We have also setup iChat to support cycling the power. See the attached AppleScript. Configure iChat to execute the script on message received. The script will look for “outlet1” – “outlet4” as a message. And cycle the power with prompting.
For Apple Mac: ippowerminicontroller[:]
[:en]Nice perk of my current job is that we are allowed to spend time creating time saving programs. Within reason!
After getting an unusual number of reports of broken keyboards we decided we needed a quick easy way to test keyboards. Using mostly Apple iMacs, that is what we wrote the program for. BUT it works pretty good on windows as well (numerical keypad has issues though, but useable).
Spent less than a day creating the DIY Keyboard Tester using LiveCode.
Keyboard Tester Mac: diykeyboardtestermac
Keyboard Tester Windows: diykeyboardtesterwin-exe
[:]
[:en]After a small mishap, a user couldn’t read data off a thumb drive. Of course EMERGENCY!
Disassembled the thumb drive and under closer review I noticed a bend in the connector. Using a meter I toned out each of the four pins and found that none were connected to board. Noticed when the connector is bent, the internal wiring inside the jack break. Unsure if that is good or bad, but it could keep the board from shorting out when/if plugged into a computer.
Being careful to wire ground and 5+ volts correctly, I wired up an old usb cable from an old keyboard. (Test keyboards with [keyboard tester] and the ones that fail cut off their USB cables and go in parts bin.) Being very careful not to short any wires, solder cables as shown above. The solder pads for the USB connector could delaminate from the board, so follow the traces to a point you can solder to. Being very careful not to overheat anything!ds
When I plugged the thumb drive back into computer, the drive was mounted. JUST long enough to copy off its contents. (Pretty sure I had a cold solder join on the chip.)
— Before you plug repaired thumb drive in, make sure you are ready to copy data off, you may only have one chance. —[:]
[:en]After a friend that works with IBM suggested I try vpn, and a company called CloudAtCost, I figured I’d give it a try.
Ended up buying three packages with CloudAtCost. One cost less than $13, 1 node, 2 ip numbers, 1 cpu and 512 megs of ram. So figured for the cost I’d try a bigger option, but made a mistake when purchasing, and ended up with 2 developer packages, both at less than $28..
configured one node to be a vpn server. Using OpenVPN was able to create a vpn server and client, that worked pretty well. So tried to manage many web site clients though this system.
Soon i couldn’t access any of our clients sites from my home where I work remotely. Took two weeks to resolve the issue.
Our ISP blacklisted my home static IP.
After removing all VPN software, getting a new router and modem, sending at least 3 tickets to ISP over a weeks time. They finally replied, oh, you were blacklisted.. I wasn’t happy, but wasn’t too mad, since the problem was resolved.. And it wasn’t on our network (my job), so. New equipment that was getting old was replaced. Just wish ISP would have informed/resolve their issue faster.
UPDATE: After a couple months of using CloudAtCost, we ended up having a password issue. We requested help, many times, never received any answers! .. So basically the system is useless. Do not recommend this service!