Hardware
Backup! Backup! Backup!
I managed to carry my gear for the entire last month without any damage, but Sunday night at the train station my camera back fell off my other baggage down on the ground. I hurried and checked my camera gear… everything O.K. *phew*.
Today I wanted to copy my images from the mobile HDD that I had to carry with me (because I didn’t have a Laptop with me, Thanks Dell!!!) to dump my images from the cards to it whenever possible. But… Click – Clack – Clack – Clack. DAMNIT! Headcrash!!!
Well, you can imagine that I was about to throw the HDD out of the window, but then decided to make a copy of it using ‘dd’ first. ‘dd’ went through the first 50GiB without any problems… but then the HDD started clicking again. I was able to recover some photos from the unfinished dump and there is still 4GiB of photos on one of my SD-Cards, so cross your fingers! Hope it’s just the video clips on another partition that I lost!!!
What does this tell us? Always have a backup!!!
On my past trips I always had one copy on my Laptop and then dumped the photos to an external HDD which I carried in another bag. But without a Laptop this wasn’t possible this time.
Here’s what worked best for me in the past:
- Import and copy your images to Lightroom as usual
- Close Lightroom, go to Finder/Explorer and copy your Picture & Library folder to an external HDD
- Store the external HDD somewhere safe
- Now you may format your memory cards
This way you always have two copies of your photos. I also usually formatted the external HDD every night before I copied my backup over. If you’re running Mac OS X you could also use TimeMachine to automate it.
Mobile Office 2.0
I am back home! Well, at least until June 
After 6 weeks without a Laptop I am finally mobile again. The new MacBook Pro has been delivered last Saturday and I am totally happy with it. I sold my Dell XPS M1530 because of it’s unreliability and the ignorance of Dell, and switched back to a Mac. Build quality is so much better, and let’s not talk about the Touchpad, I don’t think I’ll need my Bluetooth mouse any longer!
The new MBP with it’s Intel Core i5 also feels much faster than my one year old Mac Mini. And the display seems to be more accurate than my old 22″ Samsung LCD, so until I get to replace that one I think I’ll edit my images on the laptop. (Display calibrator is next on my shopping list)
Take care. I’m now going to copy last months images from the mobile HDD.
Dell Crappiness
I heavily shortened this article… it just happened way too much between Dell and me to tell everything.
In Summer 2008 I bought myself a Dell XPS M1530. An actually pretty nice and very fast laptop. I mean… the first one I received was damaged, the touchpad wasn’t in place. But they managed to sent me a new one after a month or so and I was happy again.
Six months later I even wrote an almost totally positive article about the laptop, though they already had to change the fan once on-location.
Now, another 14 months later I have a totally different opinion about Dell. Since Summer 2008 I had 6 repairs. Not that that isn’t enough, but their pick-up service usually doesn’t show up in schedule and even if they do… all they tell you is “be there between 8am and 6pm”. Once they didn’t even show up, and another time they came two days earlier then scheduled so I haven’t had any chance to erase my data. Surprisingly exactly that time they changed the HDD, which actually worked fine. (More about that soon) Ah and did I mention that it takes two weeks until you get your laptop back?
But I’m not even at the worst point. The last two service requests were only needed because the technician damaged my laptop. The first time they bent the alu-cover, the second time the display cover and the HDD was damaged (Yes, they changed my HDD, kept my data and installed a damaged one!).
Now let’s come to the strangest point: Because I insisted on some kind of compensation for the damage on my laptop they generously offered me a one-time on-location repair which I should pay for!!!!!! Wait? I shall pay to get your mistakes fixed?I Errr… no! I then told them I contacted my lawyer and all of a sudden their so called “head of department” wrote me a mail that they would do a favor and do a one-time on-location repair for free to get things finally fixed.
I accepted… the technician showed up with about 12 boxes of spares. And changed everything except the screws and the DVD drive. Lol!
It now works well again, but decided to sell it. It’s caused too much stress.
Ah and here’s a short list of all the repairs they had to make in the past 20 months:
- Replace Fan (on-location)
- Replace Fan
- Replace Mainboard
- Replace HDD (came back with damaged Alu-cover)
- Replace Alu-cover (replaced Display, HDD and Alu-cover – now Display-Cover and HDD are damaged)
- Replaced Alu-Cover, Display-Covers, the entire case, Motherboard, Fan and HDD – on-location
Their eMail support is also pretty much a joke. You write with people somewhere in Bratislava, which don’t have any power to decide anything. All they do is clicking together platitudes. It took me 5 mails until they finally understood that I want them to forward my mails to their principal.
I now sold it. No more Dell.
OpenBSD on the Intel D410PT
Recently my gateway died. I not even had to replace the cf-card, but the entire unit. The old Intel D945GCLF2 just was unstable after the outtage. Last year Intel came up with some nicer layouts of their Atom boards and they now have totally fanless and pretty green devices. I bought the Intel D410PT because it’s cheap (around 60€), fanless and doesn’t need much energy.
Assembled with PicoPSU-90, 1Gb of DDR2-800 RAM, a CF-to-SATA adapter, a 4Gb SanDisk UltraII and a dual-port Intel FastE nic, I installed OpenBSD-current as of 2010/03/09 (aka 4.7) to it.
To cool this thing I added two 40mm fans to the right of the board, cooling the PSU and the chipsets.
Sensors:
hw.machine=amd64 hw.model=Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D410 @ 1.66GHz hw.ncpu=2 hw.byteorder=1234 hw.pagesize=4096 hw.disknames=sd0 hw.diskcount=1 hw.sensors.cpu0.temp0=57.00 degC hw.sensors.cpu1.temp0=57.00 degC hw.sensors.lm1.temp0=42.00 degC hw.sensors.lm1.temp1=48.00 degC hw.sensors.lm1.fan0=1687 RPM hw.sensors.lm1.volt0=1.17 VDC (VCore) hw.sensors.lm1.volt1=3.95 VDC (+12V) hw.sensors.lm1.volt2=1.92 VDC (+3.3V) hw.sensors.lm1.volt3=5.04 VDC (+5V) hw.sensors.lm1.volt4=2.45 VDC (-12V) hw.sensors.lm1.volt5=5.07 VDC (5VSB) hw.sensors.lm1.volt6=0.05 VDC (VBAT) hw.cpuspeed=1666 hw.vendor=Intel Corporation hw.product=D410PT hw.uuid=c197189c-d5c3-11de-914c-000000000000 hw.physmem=1054441472 hw.usermem=1054363648 hw.ncpufound=2
Dmesg:
OpenBSD 4.7 (GENERIC.MP) #128: Tue Mar 9 09:54:33 MST 2010
deraadt@amd64.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/amd64/compile/GENERIC.MP
real mem = 1054441472 (1005MB)
avail mem = 1014898688 (967MB)
RTC BIOS diagnostic error 80<clock_battery>
mainbus0 at root
bios0 at mainbus0: SMBIOS rev. 2.5 @ 0xe0100 (24 entries)
bios0: vendor Intel Corp. version "MOPNV10N.86A.0159.2010.0104.1040" date 01/04/2010
bios0: Intel Corporation D410PT
acpi0 at bios0: rev 2
acpi0: tables DSDT FACP APIC MCFG HPET SSDT
acpi0: wakeup devices SLPB(S4) PS2M(S4) PS2K(S4) UAR1(S4) UAR2(S4) P32_(S4) ILAN(S4) PEX0(S4) PEX1(S4) PEX2(S4) PEX3(S4) UHC1(S3) UHC2(S3) UHC3(S3) UHC4(S3) EHCI(S3) AZAL(S4)
acpitimer0 at acpi0: 3579545 Hz, 24 bits
acpimadt0 at acpi0 addr 0xfee00000: PC-AT compat
cpu0 at mainbus0: apid 0 (boot processor)
cpu0: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D410 @ 1.66GHz, 1666.99 MHz
cpu0: FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF,SSE3,MWAIT,DS-CPL,TM2,CX16,xTPR,NXE,LONG
cpu0: 512KB 64b/line 8-way L2 cache
cpu0: apic clock running at 166MHz
cpu1 at mainbus0: apid 1 (application processor)
cpu1: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D410 @ 1.66GHz, 1666.69 MHz
cpu1: FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF,SSE3,MWAIT,DS-CPL,TM2,CX16,xTPR,NXE,LONG
cpu1: 512KB 64b/line 8-way L2 cache
ioapic0 at mainbus0: apid 8 pa 0xfec00000, version 20, 24 pins
ioapic0: misconfigured as apic 0, remapped to apid 8
acpihpet0 at acpi0: 14318179 Hz
acpiprt0 at acpi0: bus 5 (P32_)
acpiprt1 at acpi0: bus 0 (PCI0)
acpiprt2 at acpi0: bus 1 (PEX0)
acpiprt3 at acpi0: bus 2 (PEX1)
acpiprt4 at acpi0: bus 3 (PEX2)
acpiprt5 at acpi0: bus 4 (PEX3)
acpicpu0 at acpi0: C1, PSS
acpicpu1 at acpi0: C1, PSS
acpibtn0 at acpi0: SLPB
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 "Intel Pineview DMI Bridge" rev 0x00
vga1 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "Intel Pineview Integrated Graphics Controller" rev 0x00
wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
intagp at vga1 not configured
ppb0 at pci0 dev 28 function 0 "Intel 82801GB PCIE" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 17 (irq 255)
pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
re0 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "Realtek 8101E" rev 0x02: RTL8102EL (0x2480), apic 8 int 16 (irq 11), address 00:27:0e:05:12:ca
rlphy0 at re0 phy 7: RTL8201L 10/100 PHY, rev. 1
ppb1 at pci0 dev 28 function 1 "Intel 82801GB PCIE" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 16 (irq 255)
pci2 at ppb1 bus 2
ppb2 at pci0 dev 28 function 2 "Intel 82801GB PCIE" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 18 (irq 255)
pci3 at ppb2 bus 3
ppb3 at pci0 dev 28 function 3 "Intel 82801GB PCIE" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 19 (irq 255)
pci4 at ppb3 bus 4
uhci0 at pci0 dev 29 function 0 "Intel 82801GB USB" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 23 (irq 9)
uhci1 at pci0 dev 29 function 1 "Intel 82801GB USB" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 19 (irq 10)
uhci2 at pci0 dev 29 function 2 "Intel 82801GB USB" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 18 (irq 11)
uhci3 at pci0 dev 29 function 3 "Intel 82801GB USB" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 16 (irq 11)
ehci0 at pci0 dev 29 function 7 "Intel 82801GB USB" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 23 (irq 9)
usb0 at ehci0: USB revision 2.0
uhub0 at usb0 "Intel EHCI root hub" rev 2.00/1.00 addr 1
ppb4 at pci0 dev 30 function 0 "Intel 82801BAM Hub-to-PCI" rev 0xe1
pci5 at ppb4 bus 5
ppb5 at pci5 dev 0 function 0 "DEC 21154 PCI-PCI" rev 0x02
pci6 at ppb5 bus 6
fxp0 at pci6 dev 4 function 0 "Intel 8255x" rev 0x05, i82558: apic 8 int 21 (irq 9), address 00:50:8b:95:a4:d2
inphy0 at fxp0 phy 1: i82555 10/100 PHY, rev. 0
fxp1 at pci6 dev 5 function 0 "Intel 8255x" rev 0x05, i82558: apic 8 int 22 (irq 10), address 00:50:8b:95:a4:d3
inphy1 at fxp1 phy 1: i82555 10/100 PHY, rev. 0
pcib0 at pci0 dev 31 function 0 "Intel Tigerpoint LPC Controller" rev 0x01
ahci0 at pci0 dev 31 function 2 "Intel 82801GR AHCI" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 19 (irq 10), AHCI 1.1
scsibus0 at ahci0: 32 targets
sd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <ATA, SanDisk SDCFH2-0, HDX> SCSI3 0/direct fixed
sd0: 3919MB, 512 bytes/sec, 8027712 sec total
ichiic0 at pci0 dev 31 function 3 "Intel 82801GB SMBus" rev 0x01: apic 8 int 19 (irq 10)
iic0 at ichiic0
spdmem0 at iic0 addr 0x51: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM non-parity PC2-6400CL5
usb1 at uhci0: USB revision 1.0
uhub1 at usb1 "Intel UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
usb2 at uhci1: USB revision 1.0
uhub2 at usb2 "Intel UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
usb3 at uhci2: USB revision 1.0
uhub3 at usb3 "Intel UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
usb4 at uhci3: USB revision 1.0
uhub4 at usb4 "Intel UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
isa0 at pcib0
isadma0 at isa0
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
spkr0 at pcppi0
wbsio0 at isa0 port 0x4e/2: W83627THF rev 0x84
lm1 at wbsio0 port 0x290/8: W83627THF
mtrr: Pentium Pro MTRR support
vscsi0 at root
scsibus1 at vscsi0: 256 targets
softraid0 at root
root on sd0a swap on sd0b dump on sd0b
Spring Cleaning Time for my Setup
Last month really was a bad month for my IT. In just two weeks, my gateways CF card died, my server’s PSU and HDD died and my main switch now has 4 of it’s 8 ports failing so I finally had to send it in for service. I had no Internet, I had no eMail, no Intranet and no VPN, but at least I had backups of my personal stuff!
The one good thing about all that is that I now had time to re-organize everything. A few years ago I was very paranoid and decided to put everything I need on my LAN. Storage, eMail servers, Bookmark synchronization, Calendars, Contacts and so on. To get that but still keep my LAN secure I used SSH tunnels, reverse proxies, virtual machines, subnet and vlan separation… My LAN consists of many single points of failure: A single Internet uplink, a single gateway, a single switch and a single server. Internet uplinks can go down, gateways can fail, switches can fail, servers can fail… all this leads to SSH tunnels going down which leads to services being unreachable even when the rest is back up.
Today I’m no longer that paranoid. I learned a lot and now decided to outsource the important stuff. I needed a solution suitable for a poor man which means I can’t afford redundant dedicated servers or even co-locations.
I already got to work with Google Apps and so I decided to mix it with shared-hostings and someself-hosting.
I’m mostly back up. My gateway is re-installed, serving me Internet access, firewalling, VPN and a reverse-proxy.
Sometime next week I’ll restore my Server to serve Files and the Intranet website, Databases and an internal Mail-relay, do backups and some other things using KVM instead of Xen (more on that to come!).
What do I want to tell you with all that? Be prepared. Have backups. Keep it simple.
Stay tuned. Some new tutorials and ideas about VPNs, certificates and my new little love nginx will follow.
2009’s Virtualization Techniques Compared
Hi folks, before we get started a small explanation of my setup and why I want to replace it.
My small home server runs Xen 3.3 with Ubuntu Intrepid, a Debian Xen kernel and the guests on LVM devices. Guest OSs vary from Debian over Solaris to Windows. I built the server last year, but sadly I’m already running out of HDD space and want to upgrade soon. I also want to re-install the Dom0 because Intrepid doesn’t run very well: USB doesn’t work with all devices, there are some bugs in the start-up scripts and I have trouble with the ttys.
A lot has changed since I last fiddled with virtualization so I used this weeks bad weather to compare the current status of all those virtualization systems.
Because there are so many different needs, there are many specialized solutions for desktop and server virtualization. Open-Source, free or commercial ones.
I use VirtualBox on my workstation because it’s free, fast, easy to use and runs very very well. I’ve used the VMware products earlier on Linux and Windows until they became too feature-rich, slow and sometimes even buggy for me. But this post is not about desktop virtualization, it’s about open-source (or free) server virtualization.
VMware Server, VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, VirtualBox, Xen and KVM are the ones I’ve tried. There is also Virtuozzo, OpenVZ, UML and so on, but these are more like chroots on steroids. Continue reading to see what I liked and what I didn’t like about them.
My New Router
After my almost 10 years old P3/500 Compaq Deskpro EN made some ugly noises a few weeks ago I felt like I should replace it 
Especially because it’s my gateway to the Internet.
This old boy is big, noisy and probably wasted a lot of energy, but it ran more than just well as a dsl router, a vpn gateway, a packet filter, a proxy, a dns server, a ntp server and possibly other things for the last three years and for almost one year without even a reboot using OpenBSD 4.2.
Nevertheless it was time for something new. I wanted something smaller, something more quiet and something with less power comsumption. I came accross these new Intel Atom CPU’s. But after a lot of research I have not found a suiteable (small, low-power, fanless, inexpensive) Implementation of this CPU. 
So I bought this one: Intel D945GCLF2. It has an Intel Atom 330 CPU with a TDP of 8W and an Intel 945GC chipset with a TDP of 22W 
. If you look at the pictures you can see a fan. This fan doesn’t cool the CPU, it cools the Northbridge! But hey! it’s available for less than 70€… a totally fanless board like the MSI IM-945GSE-A costs almost 200€.
Combine the D945GCLF2 with a case, a PSU, some RAM, a CF-Card and an additional NIC and you’ve got a nice and small router. Read more…
6 months with a Dell XPS M1530
After 6 months of excessively using my XPS M1530 I’d just like to share a few thoughts.
I transported it in my bag without any shielding, I used it in trains, I used it in buses, I even forgot it outside when it started to rain (very light rain of course)… nothing. No scratches. No Damages.
Cons first:
- The display could be easier to open
- The display mounting doesn’t always close well
- The fan is very noisy with latest BIOS versions (thanks to the faulty nVidia GPU chipsets)
- The optical drive is pretty noisy, too
- NO GBIT LAN!!! (I really miss this feature two or three times a month…)
- The touchpad sometimes just hangs (until I press the right button)
- The battery runtime is “only” about 120min with the 6-Cell pack
And the Pros:
- All in all build quality is pretty good
- It runs very stable (Not a single crash. Not even in summer)
- I love my LED display with its 1920×1200 pixels
- The integrated bluetooth is nice
- Altough the integrated webcam has a very small sensor it’s quality is pretty decent
- The integrated cardreader is very useful but I need CompactFlash!!!
- HDMI out is very useful to me
I contacted Dell’s very(!) good (german) support because of the noisy fan and Read more…
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Hi, my name is Chris. I am a wannabe photog, traveler & geek that is again a student and lives in Hesse, Germany. more about me...
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