AtomicInternet Archived News

Archived News starting from 04-01-2020 and earlier

I decided it was time to rejoin the distributed computing world since my last adventure ended long before SETI@Home shut down. Since Folding@Home is focusing on coronavirus, I decided it was a noble cause even if it does nothing to help the current situation. More importantly, I get to compete with my same nemesis from the last adventure, and his equipment is probably just as superior this time around. Even with the client maxing out my resources, my computer is still usable and relatively cool. Work units are in high demand so there are lots of timeouts, but most of the time I'm chugging along making the most of my average specd system.

While my MSPaint skills shone strongly in my previous network map, I decided to upgrade to a more specific software package for the latest version. I also included my wireless devices, because when you've got topology tools as slick as this then why not.

With my neighbor consistently having tall vehicles filling his entire driveway, it was time to change my view from obscured to empowered. After a quick trip up the ladder and some re-routing of wires, my south facing camera rises above the noise.

After what I assume was an electrical storm shorted my blower motor in my HVAC, I decided it was time to add some surge protection for the most expensive electronic device in my house. The Intermatic AG3000 fit the bill for $50, and is a much cheaper option compared to replacing a blower motor. After my virtual electrician blessed my modifications, I flipped the breaker and basked in the confident surge protected glow of the AG3000. I'm hoping the AC compressor is more resilient to power spikes due to it's much simpler (and logic board-less) design and can survive without one, but only the next storm will truly tell.

Bing Birdseye has finally caught up with my solar panel installation, eliminating my need to borrow Steve's drone for some updated photos. I can now gaze on their 3.14 kWh capacity glory whenever I feel like it without the need for ladders or drones.

With my trusty Samsung SDR-B74301N starting to show it's age with *only* 1080p video, I decided to jump on a deal for the Annke DT81DP. While not quite 4K, it uses the same analog video cables I already ran and has a significant resolution bump. It also uses the new H.265 HEVC video format that significantly reduces video size. The trade-off being the yuvj pixel format it uses is not yet widely supported, so I have to convert to yuv with ffmpeg before I can do anything with it. The 8 kHz, 64 kb/s audio is also apparently too low quality for Windows to recognize, so if anyone else has trouble playing downloaded the video I'm including the command to convert it below: ffmpeg -i %1 -c:v copy -c:a aac -ar 48000 -b:a 176k -ac 2 -pix_fmt yuv420p -f mp4 %2 Today was also the coldest day of the year so far, and the handy HDD temp monitor reported 28°C. I'm curious to see what it will read in July

My last wireless Xbox has itched at me long enough to warrant a 6th network switch. With my exterior walls insulated and not easily accommodating a network wire, I was forced to use a plastic wire hiding tray which looks at least presentable and finally delivers reliable gigabit Ethernet. Having run out of devices that accept wired Ethernet, my latest topology map should last me for some time.

While my Linksys WRT32XB is amazing at network routing, it's lack of a media sharing server has been a sore spot. Today I discovered that will no longer be the case, as a whole new world of SSH configuration was made known to me. After following this article, I discovered I only needed three lines total to enable a DLNA server on my router:

ssh root@192.168.0.1
root@ATOMIC: opkg update
root@ATOMIC: opkg install minidlna

you'll need to configure where it should look for media with the following command:

root@ATOMIC: vim /tmp/minidlna.conf

A note that may hopefully help any fellow WRT32XB DLNA server hopefuls is to force a rescan after it's installed. You can do this by running "ps" and finding the process id that minidlna is running under, then type "kill ###" where ### is the process id. After that you can force the rescan with this:

root@ATOMIC: kill 12924
root@ATOMIC: /usr/bin/minidlna -R -f /tmp/minidlna.conf

It's important you include the -f so it knows the config file to use when it rescans. You can see from my minidlna log where it initially found 0 files, and when it actually found them on the forced rescan. If you see "finished (0 files)!" try the rescan line above.

After spotting Xbox 360 Launch Team Xboxes on eBay for over $1k, then spotting Xbox One Launch Team Xboxes on eBay for under $300, I decided I could fool myself into believing I was making an investment and bought two. While one has a stained controller, and the other has some rough plastic wear, I'm encouraged by my neighbor who says he can polish the plastic smooth and hopefully bring it back to pristine. In reality it's purely fanboy motivated, but I also pretend I'm making a long term investment.

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