Thursday 13 November 2014

Friday 1 August 2014

New Firewall for my SOHO (Small Office Home Office)

Last firewall died on Tuesday, probably due to the warm Spanish weather (around 40ºC in the afternoons). Almost all capacitors exploded and this left me having to install the backup firewall (a very old one based in a P233Mhz that cannot handle speeds above 40Mbps without QoS and 20Mbps with QoS).
The 1GB Microdrive also died with the system.

So I had to build a new firewall in a hurry to be able to use my shiny new 100Mbps/U 10Mbps/D cable internet connection.

And this was the outcome:


Same stand and Power supply as before (http://www.technovagabond.net/2013/02/stand-up-firewall-mark-ii.html) but the rest is "new" (thanks to the parallel system that donated most of the parts :-) R.I.P. now)

Components:
CPU: Athlon 2000+Mhz (Probably will be downclocked to lower even more the already good fan sound levels.
Mobo: ASUS A7N8X-X, ASUS mobos have been allways my preferred ones.
FAN: A big and blue one :-) And quite silent.
RAM: 256 MB (1 DIMM), more thant enough for M0n0wall.
HD: A new 4GB CF, mechanical but good enough for the work.
6 Ethernet cards, one integrated and 5 3COM Fast Ethernet adapters. Should be replaced in the near future (after summer) with some 1Gbps PCI cards to speed up things even more :-)

I have tested the FW with "speed test" and it never crosses the boundary of 50% CPU use, even with QoS activated so it should be able to cope with almost all my current (and near future ) needs quite well.


Sunday 9 February 2014

This is what happens when a Mac Mini turns into the dark side


In this case we are not ditching OSX but just converting it into an XBMC machine. 
Of course it has gone through "chapa & pintura" (some deep changes) with its original Core Duo cpu (32 bits) changed for a speedier Core 2 Duo (64 bits), the HD also was exchanged for one with more real state for the data and the original personality of the 1,1 Mac Mini was converted to 2,1 Mac Mini (I will just let the reader think about it ;-)
The exterior was coat protected, then painted with dark gray and then varnished with a thin mate film.
Also the upper side was painted with a (later learned cheap) black paint and also varnished twice.

Anyway, if Darth Vader ever had a Mac Mini I guess it would have been like this :-D

Monday 3 February 2014

IBM State Of The Art Technology






My latest videos about IBM flagship Power Pure Flex technology.
(The voice over, editing, recording and production are mine :-D )

Holidays are for the summer