Another Word for Nerd

TechTarget has published my latest article.

THE HISTORY OF UNIX ON THE PC: EXPLORING LESSER-KNOWN VARIANTS
Bill Bradford, Contributor

A list of my other writings for them can be found here.

Willa (my current ladyfriend) has been using an old decrepit laptop with a bad keyboard hooked up to her TV at home to watch NetFlix instant-streaming movies. I took pity on her as the “geeky boyfriend” and bought her a Roku HD Player (e.g., “NetFlix Box”) a few days ago.

We just finished doing the initial setup and account connections via my TV and Internet connections here, and she’ll take it home with her to try out tomorrow.

I’ve updated the Trackman Marble FX post to reflect that the three I have are now up for sale.

A few weeks ago, I built an XBMC-based media player to use with the 32″ TV in the living room:

I decided to make another system using an original XBox for the bedroom, since I don’t need to play HD content on the 19″ TV in there. I bought a refurbished XBox from Gamestop for $54 shipped, and picked up the rest of the pieces I needed (XBox-to-USB cables, an 8M memory card) off eBay and from a local shop. I used a 10″ LCD TV while setting it up, so I didn’t have to run back and forth to the bedroom.

Here’s the XBox after doing a “softmod” to install Linux and the UnleashX dashboard:

Here it is with XBMC installed, running the default “PM3″ theme:

And here’s the final setup. Hooked up to the 19″ TV, running the same Confluence theme as the system in the living room, with the XBox DVD Playback kit plugged in so I can use a remote instead of a wired controller.

Am really happy with both systems; the living room unit cost me around $200 total while the bedroom XBox setup cost me $90.

I’ve joked with friends that I’m the “Free Hardware Fairy” a lot lately, as I get rid of stuff and fix their computers up.

Well, it came time to setup http://www.freehardwarefairy.com/.

I finally had a Google Wave invitation come through this morning, so if you’re on it and bored, “wave” at mrbill@googlewave.com.

I don’t yet have any invites to send out, sorry.

From “fourteen years ago today”. An old friend and ex-coworker sent me this, found while digging through mail archives.

From: Bill Bradford 
Subject: Re: Gimme, gimme, gimme 
To: Jeff Bewley 
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 15:32:15 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To: <199510122020.PAA08909@ion1.ionet.net>
from "Jeff Bewley" at Oct 12, 95 03:20:30 pm

> Well, folks, sorry to whine again,

Oh, no problem, wabbit@tulsa-victim.ionet.net.   We're used
to it by now. 

> Seriously, I have one #2 Win disk left, and I haven't ever
> got any Win95 disks...I know you guys hate running the
> Disk-o-matic 2000, but I hate having people stop by
> and get in my face for not having the software.  

I'll tell Jay when he gets here to fire it up.

> Thanks! I'll buy ya'll a beer next time I'm in OKC (heh..
> have fun splitting that can of Natural Light between
> the three of ya!)

Honestly, I just might be OLD ENOUGH by the time you get
down here to actually DRINK it!  I turn 21 on 11/5.
NOW if I can just get Mom to buy me that Netra5 for
my birthday.....  

> Seriously, I'd really appreciate any help you could give me on
> this! Thanks!

Will do.

bill

Jeff's comment, "No matter how bad things get, they'll never be as bad as duplicating install disks for Win95 at ioNET."

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Neuros OSD media player off eBay. The auction showed a “Developer Beta” unit. It showed up about a week ago, but I didn’t have time to play with it till tonight.

After much pulling out of hair, I finally realized that what I had been sent was a “Developer Sample” OSD unit; it has a green printed circuit board versus the tan PCB for the Beta units (that was shown in the pictures accompanying the auction).

The end result is that I have a unit that cannot be upgraded past the original 3.00 firmware, and for my purposes is basically an expensive doorstop. This is highly annoying, as I sold my AppleTV in order to buy this piece of hardware.

Neuros Technology had a trade-in program in 2006, where owners of “Dev Sample” OSDs could swap them out for “Beta” units at no cost, but I highly doubt they’ll still do that. I’ve emailed support but I don’t have my hopes up.

Update: The nice folks at Neuros Technology are going to send me a coupon code that lets me buy the current model with a good discount. That is, if they ever get around to it.

If not, I’m going to just buy an eGreat M34A “Networked Media Tank”.

I recently replaced my Linksys WRT54GL routers (running DD-WRT of course) with an ALIX 2c3 running pfSense. Not only is it faster, better-built, and has more features, it looks cool. Unfortunately, the cost for a refurbished 2c3, enclosure, and power supply was around $150.

For those of you wanting to build your own tiny pfSense system, I’ve found an alternative. It’s not as small, or as completely quiet, but can provide just about equivalent functionality.

First, buy a used MaxTerm MaxSpeed 8300 thin client off ebay. That seller has them for $45 shipped, buy-it-now. These were sold as XP Embedded thin clients, but are actually complete PC systems with 512M memory, a VIA C3 “Ezra” 800Mhz CPU, and a 512M Compact Flash card and reader standing in for the main hard drive.

Take off the stand and top cover, and they look like this:

In these pictures, I’ve already installed an Intel Pro/100 Server-S PCI 10/100 network card in the PCI slot. The CompactFlash card reader is below the PCI slot; you’ll have to remove the small cover concealing it.

As received, these systems (I bought two) have Windows XP Embedded installed on them.

You’ll want to take the 512M CF card installed in the system, and use your USB card reader and another system (you DO have another system and a CF card reader, right?) to write the pfSense image to the card.

If you boot the system without a CF card installed, the screen will look similar to this:

Once the pfSense install image is written to the card, put it back in the system and boot.

At this point all console I/O switches to the serial port. You’ll need to connect another system (or a dumb terminal, etc) to the serial port on the back of the system and continue initial configuration there. The cable should be a null modem, the speed 9600 N81.

Once initial configuration (network port and IP assignments) is done via the serial port, you can continue final configuration and setup via the web interface, and do all further management through SSH or the web.

I’ve been running a pfSense box for about two weeks now, and am really happy with it. With these thin clients, I can now build a firewall for a friend, and have a spare in case of problems with my ALIX board.

A still-sealed copy of Digital Research CP/M 2.2 from 1982.

You can find the rest of the set of pictures here.

I miss the days when you felt like you actually got something in return for your multiple hundreds of dollars – professionally-produced manuals, source code, complete details on internals, and a nice 3-ring binder.