Zagadka's Site

I managed to sort out the issues with the dell server. It involved re-organising the RAID array so that the 25GB RAID 5 array was the first logical drive and the 8.5GB RAID 1 logical drive was the second. I then re-installed Fedora Core 4. Fedora Core 5's MegaRAID driver no-longer covers the PERC2/SC SCSI Controller and Backplane.

Monolith 2 is up and running with two P3 550s! I made a special lead to power the CPU fans from a standard power connector as the mainboard uses custom 3 pin connectors to attach fans, so the standard PC style 3 pin fan connector won't cut it...

CPUs and RAM

Curse you GRUB bootloader! CURSE YOU!!!!!

Fedora went onto the Poweredge beautifully but doesn't boot I've been tweaking this damn grub.conf file for a bit over 4 hours! Gone from not booting, locking on stage two to now continuously looping Stage 1.5

Whoa! A blog!

I've been fighting with these damn servers, well one in particular... The one with CPUs. Funny that. The main boggle I have is linux installers not being able to find the PERC2/SC SCSI backplane in the system!

I've Tried:

• Debian 3
• Debian 3.1 R0A (Sarge)
• Ubuntu 5.04 (Breezy Badger)
• Ubuntu 5.10 (Hoary Hedgehog)
• Ubuntu 5.10 Server (Hoary Hedgehog)
• Fedora Core 4
• Fedora Core 5 Test 3 - 4.92

The only one to pick up the backplain and install is FC4. FC3 would probably too. FC5 I am a little dissapointed in. There was an invalid EIP value error, it did detect the backplane though. Failed to boot the kernel though.

Current Specs:

• Dual P3 667
• 256MB PC133 ECC SDRAM
• 8.5GB RAID 1 (2 x Atlas 10K Vs), 25.5GB  RAID 5 (4 x Atlas 10K IVs)
• SCSI CDROM
• 1.44MB FDD
• PERC2/SC SCSI RAID Backplane
• Intel Pro Ethernet 10/100 card, Generic 10/100/1000 card
• Adaptec AIC-7890 U160 SCSI controller.

G0t server?

Looks like the website server is going duallie!

Dell Poweredge 2400

A definite lack of blog. I haven't really done anything exciting lately.

Last weekend consisted of sleeping, watching DVDs and organising Bubby's Bedroom. I took apart the bed in there, now it's in pieces... Yay. Now there's just the stuff that was under the bed. A collection of cardboard tubes containing posters from various things, some containing heat shrink. Then there is the collection of red and coloured boxes containing Christmas lights. I bought a whole heap while they were on the way out at Tandy, multiples of each for spares. I have needed some of the spare globes and one of the transformers so far. There's also the treadmill on its end leaning on the wall. I will have to disassemble and stow that somewhere. Then there is that Buzz Aldrin walking machine thingy of Kel's, for "no impact" exercise, the one that you can lean forward and back and stuff. That’s already in bits.

In other "news", I picked up Neverwinter Nights again out of boredom, I just happened to locate the dungeon that was holding me up. I dropped the game about 6 months ago because I was wandering and wandering and wandering and wandering around with nothing to fight and no quests to do! I killed it all and finished all the quests I could! I had missed a dungeon (the one I found) which was a turning point in the story leading to other quests and new areas. So, now I am back in business. My Rogue, Zagadka, is tricked out with all manner of magical equipment! He even has a Keen Dagger that has a stun effect, it works well on heavy damaging mobs and shuts them down for a while, so you take less damage and give more damage to them un-hindered. It’s pretty funny to see a rogue open up on a giant with a 40 and then a 60 with the sword of swiftness and the dagger when dual wielding, this does nasty things, 100 points of damage in the opening round. Usually it splatters them.

I haven't blogged for ages! Lots of crap happening at work.

Not much happening. Just the usuall work, sleep, get up, work, sleep, get up...

Josh dropped into work the other day, which was awesome because I needed cheering up after the shitfight I was left with by the weekend crew.

Check this out: 

Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18925405.700.html

Wow, that's just amazing and scary at the same time. I hope none of the scientists implode their brains messing with that type of thing =) Incredible! 

Day Off.

Bubby Checkup. 

Yaaaaaaaaay!

Work.

I'm currently working on a PIC programmer. I have it 90% assembled. I bought a clear topped box to mount it in. I am drawing it now in Inventor to decide how I am going to mount the ZIF socket in the lid of the box. Currently I am drawing the ZIF socket it's self. It's a 3 layer device, the centre layer slides between the top and bottom layers along it's length, actuated by a small lever with a cam on it. This action opens and closes small V shaped contacts that when closed make contact with the legs of the device mounted in it. It's proving a tricky task to draw it with only a rule to measure it with. I can't wait to get my verniers. I think where I have placed the top screws to hold the top on are incorrectly measured. Maybe it’s just an optical illusion. I know for a fact though, the bottom layer is wrong with respect to the raised area on the other side of the cam end. I will have to check it! Pictures later when I can do screen exports more than 800x600

'Tis the dawn of Stockake.

Well I'm in for a fun packed, counting stuffed, number filled, keyboard entering Day! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy!!!~~~!1111

Did you detect the sarcasm?? because it was there, lots of it. Also note the time.

Stocktake preparation. Joy. It warms to think about the possiblilities surrounding the loss of a set top box from in the back storeroom. Not. I'm just going to dissapear the person that took it when I catch them, no red tape, no bullshitting around. I'm getting tired of getting slapped for losing shit from my storeroom.

Probably, since it is a storeroom, something with that theme. Maybe just stuff them in a cardboard box and tape it shut for a while. That'd scare them.

FOUL MOOD. 

Australia Day. Burning the flag should be a SHOOT ON SITE offence, 'nuff said.

I am getting impatient waiting for my PIC programmer kit, so I started digging around on the net and found an easy to build PIC programmer. It's sitting there ready to go now, just waiting for the PIC-C Compiler to download. I found some software called PonyProg2000 for programming them that seems to be compatible. I have read the chip now (empty) without error, so we will see what happens.

I made the hardware part of it on a breadboard. I also cut up an old serial cable and made a "break out" cable to some header pins to plug straight into the bread board.

Hi-Tech PIC-C and HI-TIDE are taking ages to install... It was a 40 meg download to start with, that's OK.

8:53 PM: 

I've been mucking around for most of the day with the PICs I bought. I got impatient and made the programmer as above. So at the moment I code in PIC C using HiTIDE, Dump the C-File into Microchip's MPLAB which gives me my Assembler code (.ASM) and a compiled HEX file. Then, Using PonyProg2000 I load the HEX file onto the chip. Voila. Of course, if I had *paid* for a propper version all the steps would occur in the one suite of software. But, as I wanted it NOW and well, not like I'm going to buy $300 worth of software to "Experiment With"... I used 3 product trials...

CRW_1652	Programmer
LED Chaser	Serial "Breakout"

I did some work on the drive train and steering rack.

Arm1	ujoint
topdrive	InnerBearingFrontShaft

frontdrive

Mmmmmmmmmmm Bacon and Eggs. Cooked bacon, eggs and toast all on the BBQ thismorning. Yummy.

You have raised at cooking (124) *shakes head* too much WoW now I am thinking in WoW terms all the time =) I need to buy another stack of eggs, two stacks of bacon. Um... punnet of eggs and 500g of bacon. Bugger. Did it again.

Well, off to buy more bubby stuff and shopping today.

On friday I bought some of these from David Reid (Altronics Reseller) for a sweet price. I can't wait to try them out. I also bought a few RGB (Red, Green and Blue) LEDs - it's an LED with 4 legs that contains Red, Green and Blue LED elements inside. I also can't wait to try them, however, I think I left them at work.

6:30 PM:

I started experimenting with my 433MHz RX and TX modules. I will have to rig something to do it at range soon! I have set up an experiment to test the units sending a ~1 kHz 2v square wave through it. It works! It will work at up to 2800 baud. See photos:

RX	TX
Setup	Traces

More Photos 

As you can see, it works. The bottom trace is the 1kHz 2v DC square wave for calibration. I haven't built a function generator yet. It's been running stable now for about half an hour at 4.0vDC. As shown in my image of the big power supply, the analogue meter is out on it. The CRO also says that it's out indicating 4.0V (4 vertical boxes from the centre line at 1V/div) =) 

Edit: Measured the CRO output it was 1.012kHz, ummm, close enough

Ah, the weekend at last!

Playing World of Warcraft at the moment. Jumped out for 10 min just then and now there's a queue of 400 odd. 20 min to get back in. Khaz'Goroth is the server I play on. I have a level 15 Rogue who is a cook, skinner, fisherman and herbalist. Mainly a harvester than a manufacturer type character, I collect herbs and stuff for my Guild and they give me stuff to use or assistance with quests in return. Sweet deal really. I just learned a whole heap of recipies and got my cooking up to 120 since I had nearly 100 of a reagent that was needed for this one recipe because I had been grinding fishing up past 100 too, lots of fish to cook! I cooked all of them and some other harder ones and now my skill is nearly 120. Sweet. I can now cook all sorts of weird dishes. I think the coolest (not by stats) is Westfall stew which contains Stringy Vulture Meat, A Murloc Eye, A Gore Tusk Snout and some Okra (herb). The next two that I want to do is "Gooey Spider Cake" and "Blood Sausages" =)

The last few times I've been on I haven't leveled far or made much XP, I have been concentrating on trade skills. That way I can make some cash! Buy some descent daggers!.

Hrm, still 15 mins and 220 people in the queue. Goody. What else can I write about?

When I *finally* do get on, I am off to Westfall to see a fisherman about a recipe =P He sells a recipe for cooking slimey mackerel, I don't know how to cook them yet...

More baby stuff to buy tomorrow. Prams and cots, other goodies and their various accessories - Bubby has to be fassionable and modern now doesn't it! This Bub has more sets of clothes than Kel and I do combined! We have got clothes from everyone! It's terrific.

I bought some Carlton Black yesterday to try it, it tastes great, almost as good as OLD but not as bitey or bubbly (unfortunately... bite == good, bubbly == not so hot). Ah well, they tried, they really can't compare to OLD, but they were close! I'll deal with the extra bubbliness! I'm going to finish off this six pack over the week, it's a nice drop! 

Damn, I haven't blogged for quite a while.

Not much has changed. Major IT crisis averted. It seems that the Power Supply was at fault, well not at fault yet more like under way too much load... Then, you'd expect that with a P4 2.4 with Three optical drives and four hard drives on a cheap 400W PSU. It chews some power. I also wouldn't expect the PSU to be throwing out a full 400W anyway being a cheapie. The primary master and primary slave drives (Western Digital 80GBJBs) started to give false (I hope) "death 'tinks". Where the head bangs into it's park position. This only started happening when I connected the fourth drive (Seagate ST3200822AS 200GB SATA) which told me the PSU wasn't hacking it. So, with this replacement things seem to be running more smoothly. I really DO NOT want to deal with 560GB of lost data because the PSU was under-powering the drives and causing head crashes.

Ah, work. What a fulfilling enterprise.

I built a second Ubuntu Linux box yesterday. Had trouble initially, installed Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger" left it over night. Changed my mind and reinstalled with a GUI in the morning, it's burbling away now re-configuring it's packages. It  did the bulk of the install while I was in the shower, I set it running when I got up. So, hopefully, it will be at a stage where I can SSH into it from work before I can leave to finish off the installation. 

W00t, Red Dwarf series VIII (8) will be coming out March 5 in .AU!!!!

There is also a new StrongBad Email out.

Mmmmmmm. Work. Stocktake preparation must be the second most tedious task there is. The most tedious is doing stocktake. It seems Stocktake and it's various tasks are ALL surrounded with a thick dark aura of multiple-hour-long tedium...