Archive for the ‘networks’ Category

Andysworld! Advent Calendar – Dec 13 – x10 Computer Controlled Outside Christmas Tree Lights using VMware ESXi 5.0, a Windows 2008 Virtual Server and Web Services

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

We’ve now also, added the Christmas Tree lights outside, in the Magnolia Tree.

I also got a little bored, and decided rather than using a traditional plug-in 240v 24 hour timer, I would add them to the X10 Computer Controlled System, so I can turn them off via a VMware Virtual Server, running Windows 2008 Web Services!

Lindsey asked “Why?“ – I replied, because I can do stuff like that!

So in thoery I could grant access to this Website, on the Internet to turn them off remotely, or let other people turn them on or off!

x10website

The website is basic, but it functions, just need some graphics and CSS!

Update: I’d already written this blog, and submitted for publishing, before catching an Episode of “The Big Bang Theory” – The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarisation (s1e9) – at this very start of the episode, Howard Wolowitz also demonstrates a light and stereo being power-on via x10, and enabling public access to do the same thing, which Penny also states “Why?” – you can get a really cheap wireless remote from Radio Shack!

Okay, so I’m a nerd! But we all knew that!

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Cat fur in my network switch!

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Maybe this is the reason why I’ve discovered cat fur in my HP 1810-24 Gigabit network switch ports.

Angus sits on top of HP 1810G-24 network switch

Angus sits on top of HP 1810G-24 network switch, in between Snap Server 2200 and VIA ARTiGO 2000 2TB NAS

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Windows XP Failure!

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

I’ve now struggled for a man week, in repairing my production workstation, so have decided to backup it up using Symantec Ghost 8.0. I know this is not the latest product from Symantec but it works for me. I have a dedicated VLAN in the office for multicasting ghost images around the network, so it doesn’t impact on the main internal network.

After I have a full backup of the operating system, I can then tinker with the service packs and repair procedures.

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