Technology

Not everything is completely working as yet, but first a note as to why...

After my database outage turned out to be a hacking incident. I've plugged the security holes.
I've also redone the way my backups work (a word to the wise here) - my new backup scripts now shut down MySQL during the backup just to be sure the dump is as consistent as possible. This gives me about 60 seconds of downtime per evening... well worth the effort as my DB backup was not usable and I had to roll back further than I wanted to.

The galleries are back, but the blog entries need some repair to show the images correctly.

Also, in the course of this restoration effort, I decided I've hit the limit of what can reasonably be backed up by tar. I've switched to dar. It has much better single-file recovery capability. It also compresses files on a per-file basis inside the archive. It is a bit clunky about how it handles "out of space" errors, so you have to plan ahead. It's incremental backup facility works much better than with tar, including file removal recording.

I also decided that swapping 500gb drives in an out via USB is too much manual work - and manual work tends to mean that backups don't get done. So, I'm building a new server with a huge RAID 5 array just for running backups. I also plan to run a WinXP virtualized client so I can keep using Retrospect for windows backups.

In the course of THAT project I sadly figured out that the dual core 2140 cpu I ordered (because it was very cheap and a great value) does not support hardware virtualization.

The Conroe 4500 seems like the value-ticket for running a virtualized WinXP system.

Although I love Newegg, I've started recently ordering from ClubIT. They have ood service, good pricing, and for CPUs they sell by stepping - which is critical if you are working on an overclocking project. I've seen various favorable posts from them on various tech forums as well.

Stay tuned for more on the gallery reorg.

-Bob

I've been running my D930 at 4.1 ghz... finally time for the upgrade to a Conroe.
I chose the 6600 as it is the cheapest currently available with the 4MB cache.
Otherwise the right choice would probably be the E4300 - the cheapest Conroe.

I blogged my Zalman Reserator V2 setup here. Only thing of note is I've got a small very quiet housefan blowing on it now which helped it by 5C or more. It used to be quite warm - now it stays much closer to room temp. The fan really helped.

FSB: 390
VCore: 1.5
Idle temp: 31C
Torture test CPU core temps: 56C
Northbridge temp during torture test: 41C



On water, motherboard temps are higher at idle and lower at load - I assume because
it is getting somewhat warmed water as it is second in the series after the CPU.

Use CoreTemp - The Asus MB utility under-reports CPU temps by 4C on my system at idle, and 6C at load. Coretemp is known to be more accurate, as it reports temps reported by the package. I believe the Asus utility is reporting a sensor on the motherboard somewhere.

I also use Prime95 for my torture testing. I use two instances of it, one bound to each core to make sure I get both cores to 100%.

I've had a bit of trouble with the Asus P5WDH Deluxe northbridge temps.
It has a complicated (but nifty) heatpipe cooler for the northbridge. It comes
with decorative covers on the heatsinks (Come on Asus - that's silly). After removing
those and fiddling with the seating, my northbridge temps got to something more reasonable
(hovering around 40C instead of 50C).

Still, with the new processor in hand I decided to do the job right this time and water cool not just the CPU but also the northbridge. I also decided to get the cover off the southbridge, clean it, and get a properly applied heatsink compound applied. Photos below...

Southbridge before (with silly cover):



Southbridge after cover removal:



Northbridge before (silly cover already removed):



Northbridge with heatpipe/heatsink removed and ready to go:



Final setup (those big air gaps will disappear once I hook it up to the pump again):

I noticed Google patent search, and gave it a try on what I figured wouldn't work... a patent a few of us did on unified messaging back when we worked at MCI (pre-Worldcom/Bernie days).

Sure enough... there it was in only a few clicks!

-Bob

Yes, well, so I'm piling on....

I've been intrigued by the notion of a wifi-enabled music player, and figured the innovation
(why hasn't Apple done this yet?) would be cool. Sadly, from my recent reading...

Wifi is unusable for anything other than talking to other Zunes, This includes syncing to your PC, or even buying music. Hotspots? Forget it...

It doesn’t work with Windows Media Player – it has its own separate app! You’ve got to be kidding. This is where the “skunkworks team” approach really broke down for them.

They’ve crippled it so you can’t use it as a portable drive. That eliminates it for me as a photographer.

DRM is applied to everything indiscriminately, thus ruining it for p2p distribution of say, independent music, or your own stuff.

Apparently also has none of the standard ipod stuff: No games, alarm, volume limiter, volume limiter, etc – not that this is a deal breaker for most folks, but might tip the balance for some.

Now for something really silly... you have to buy points in increments of $5 to buy music. A typical music track costs 79 points. 79 points costs 99 cents. They are really trying hard to make sure it fails.

Not that they won’t try to power through with this over a long period of time – too bad they didn’t get some of the basics right.

Wifi – the way they’ve implemented it - is only interesting if there are a LOT of other Zune users
out there, which means they way they are rolling this out makes one of the primary technical differentiators not very interesting to begin with.

Unless they make the wifi work more generally, it won’t have an edge as a podcasting device, either. Sigh.

CNN commentary:


BuyTV Review:


-bw

I've run across a couple of these services now... unlimited storage for $4.95 - very cool concept.
I wonder how the business models work out for these services in the long run.
I also think I need to figure out a good way to encrypt my data prior to these guys getting their hands
on it.

http://carbonite.com
http://mozy.com

Here's a nice Eweek article on Mozy.

-Bob