zigbee???

A Dollar number means nothing because electricity is much cheaper in Florida. How many kWh in one month? Last month's bill was typical here,

- Running a 3000+ sqft building

- Pool pumps which eat the lion's share

- Security perimeter lighting all night

- HP boat anchors running all day long

Have you measured it? Rack mounted servers can be real power hogs. The li'l 12V LAN drive I have is 500GB. They also have 1TB, 2TB and 4TB versions at similar economic power intake but I don't need this much and thus didn't want to spend the extra dough for something I'll never need.

It uses around 10W when running, BTW. Try that with your server.

My LAN drive doesn't either, makes very little noise, and it's smaller than my bible :-)

Sure, but you can't let the kids starve. We cannot punish them for the mistakes their parents and their countries made.

One of the dogs we were sitting did just that during his inauguration walk with his newly assigned blind person. He refused to cross a street but forced the blind person (who usually doesn't know the busy Bay Area) to circle around until they got to where the push button for the street crossing is. They don't exactly learn this circling around, he simply decided that on his own because it was safer.

I do miss him, but that's part of the whole game. And he left a "souvenir scratch" on the desk where I am right now.

Yes, but the point of my example was, you have *two* of these identical printers seen, now, for the very first time by you *and* your machine at exactly the same instant. How does it differentiate between them? HP5L_1 and HP5L_2? How do you know which is _1 (since *it* -- or something -- decided to call one of them _1 and the other _2)

Yes, MS networking was designed for SOHO's, not "businesses" (It can be used there but it increases maintenance issues)

Most of the "paperless" offices I've been exposed to generate MORE paper than ever! They just don't *keep* it as long!

I think I barely use a single ream of paper in a year. The biggest threat for me is some of these 1000 page datasheets. Try as I might, I just can't trudge through 1000 pages "on a screen" when I am doing the initial design (I can easily consult a PDF as a *reference*, ex post facto, but not when I am initially trying to grasp the various I/O's available, the restrictions on their use, shared resources, etc. -- I like thumbing through *pages* with a pen in hand to make notes...)

I pruned a lot of databooks a few years back (I had 80 "copy paper" cartons full of them). It was just *way* too much bulk to hold onto.

I saved anything that pertained to old projects. And, some old "classics" that have long since been out of print (older tomes seemed to have "better information" -- not just "data"). Too many new datasheets are "vanilla" -- or, outright contain grossly incorrect application data.

Why don't you connect only one at first, let it find it, call it HP5L_1, and then connect the next one?

Hmm, as said before we didn't have maintenance issues. Not at the small start-up and not at the 100+ employee division and there the whole big production was connected via it as well.

When I visited a new client for the first time last November they signed my consulting agreement and gave me the signature page but only kept a scan for themselves.

That's because Acrobat Reader is so friggin' slow and many docs don't work with other programs. And it crashes all the time here.

Yep, with datasheets it sure shows that the old guard has retired. Wait until the baby boomers are all gone, then it's going to be really, really bad :-(

I think the refrigerator and hot water heater (whether it be gas or electric) are the two biggest energy hogs in most households.

The design of most refrigerators is very inefficient -- open the door and all the "cold" falls out (nowadays there seems to be a slight trend towards returning to the "freezer on bottom" which can help). Ideally, you should be able to "ground source" the condenser coils but I imagine the gains would never offset the inconvenience.

"On demand" water heaters look promising. But, their pricing structure is ridiculous! Yeah, I *moght* be able to make up the added cost in terms of energy savings over the life of the WH... but, *only* if it NEVER needs service!

(I can just see the PLUMBER coming out: "You need a new microprocessor card. They're $500. I'll have one for you in a week..." -- "Um, couldn't I buy an entire WH for that $500 you're going to charge me???")

The same holds true for solar water heaters. It would "make sense" here (lots of sunshine). Until you look at the costs! A few kilobucks. *And* you're still stuck with something that requires a PLUMBER to deal with ELECTRONIC devices! (plus the added mechanical load on the roof, etc.)

When guaranteed MTBF exceeds 15 years, they *might* make sense...

Meanwhile, anyone for a Stirling Engine?? :>

Mine was 406 kWh with two refrigerators, electric heat, all the computers and lighting. Then there is the computer network with the cable Modem, various servers, hubs & ethernet switches, plus TV and CCTV security cameras. Add a couple laser printers and three inkjet.

BTW, my TV draws less than you NAS, what little time it's on. A whole

My electric rate is:

Base Rate : 6.886 cents/ kWh Fuel Charge : 4.611 cents/ kWh Total Charge: 11.497 cents/ kWh

or $46.68 + tax.

Measure what? I told you that I haven't picked it up, yet. How much over the 325 Watt power supply rating do you think you'll get before the supply dies?

You're comparing apples & oranges. You have NAS, not a server.

The KJV bible is about 5 MB of text.

4597 kWh / $347.79 .... 7.566¢/kWh

4 PC's on 24/7

Separate Sub Zero Refrigerator and freezer

Freezer in garage

Aquarium pumps 24/7

All-Electric except for BBQ: propane. ...Jim Thompson

Electric heat? In Florida? File a request for your fair share of global warming. And then be kind and send some of that over here.

What difference does it make in daily life? (other than that mine is much more economical).

I meant the physical size :-)

Although I do have the New Testament in SMT, size of a cigarette pack, for the road.

Per month? Ouch!

Ten years ago I didn't even need a heater, and the fact that the propane furnace had rusted out from not being used, didn't matter. I had the heat on for most of two months, around the clock and at night, the rest of the time.

All the Global Warming is in Politics. They suck the heat from other areas to create smoke screens, to try to hid their dirty deals. :(

All you have is a hard drive with an ethernet port. It's not a server. It can't take care of E-mail, newsgroups, FTP or host a website. It is barely a glorified 'USB memory stick' with a power cord. You can't plug a monitor or keyboard into it. There are hundreds of things it won't do. You can't drop in a sound card and use it to stream background music, or operate a mailing list. You can't run MFP software, or a database of customers, or a membership list for a non profit group.

It isn't economical if it can't do what I need it to. Look at Apache, Joomla and other software needed for a modern server. Add Leafnode for a personal NNTP server and you can trap almost every speck of Spam. You can't do any of that with just an external hard drive with a crippled Linux install.

I know what you meant, and what you said. :)

I forgot the well pump, the 60 Gal 'Husky' (Campbell Hausfeld) air compressor, the drill press, and other metalworking tools.

I have a propane stove in the kitchen, but I am planning to rip it out and replace it with a good electric stove. There are two gas BBQ grills I'm getting rid of, too. The only gas tanks I want are the pair for the Oxy-Acetylene torch.

It's about half that in Winter. In July it will be close to double. IIRC you have virtually no cooling expense, just cords and cords and cords... :-P ...Jim Thompson

Here's another inexpensive -- used -- system if anyone is looking:

$235 for a 2.4GHz slimline desktop PC, 17" LCD, and Windows XP.

Come to think of it, this might not be *that* great of a deal -- Geeks.Com often has ~$100-$150 desktop PCs like this, although their shipping charges are often a bit steep. (

That's when we stopped giving to the Red Cross, when we found out that Liz Dole was pulling down $.5M. ...and forget the United Way; 100% waste.

That's what makes it tough. The kids will be the next adults with nothing solved.

My solution to that is very simple: I pay a company $80/year. For that they keep my domain name registered and provide web/email/FTP and whatever other service, 90% of which I never need or don't even know what they are. All the rest is handled by this here PC and laptops.

I was never a fan of centralized "do it all" servers but prefer things decentralized. If the server goes down your stuff stops and you must fix it. When a PC coaked here a while ago I just hopped onto another one and continued, then fixed the one with a broken HD when I got around to it.

What would I need that stuff for anyhow?

Simplify all you want, but you still haven't proved that a server is an energy hog.

I didn't say that you needed it, or even understand it. What you have is the same as someone trying to use an 'Etch-A-Sketch to do CAD work. It is absolutely useless for my needs. No mater how much hand waving or bragging you do, you're using a 500 GB drive to back up your work files. It may be low power, but don't depend on it for long term use or you may lose a lot of important data.

Hi Jan,

mouth falls open and all

I don't let many decorations clutter the screen. uwm with a three button mouse and two monitors.

I don't like virtual screens or workspaces larger than my display.

I've never found emacs to be sluggish -- on modern hardware.

OTOH, I subscribe to the philosophy I was taught in my language design class: programs should fit on a single sheet of paper. (of course, no one ever defined what a single sheet was...)

I spend almost half of my total effort preparing specifications for each routine I write. An equal amount of time spent testing it and verifying that I can't break it. The time spent coding is probably only 10-20% of the overall effort.

Lately, I have been writing my specifications more as "explanations" than as formal specifications. This eliminates the need to "describe" things afterwards -- something that is missing from 98.7325081106% of all software projects (more or less).

E.g., I wrote a memory management system in two days. It took me over a week to "describe" it before I started writing *any* code. And, another week to create and exercise all of the test cases to prove that it works as advertised "all the time".

Regular text editors are dreadfully ineffective at preparing this sort of documentation (illustrations, tables, cross references, etc.). (I use FrameMaker) So, all I need the text editor to do is let me write code.

Depends on what you are doing. E.g., I like to use functions as arguments (to other functions). (I'm a big fan of pointers :> ) If I have to store a "choice" which indicates which function to invoke, I would, instead, store a pointer to the function in place of the "choice". Then, just call *thru* the pointer (instead of switching on a "choice" variable)

kiddies who try

Don't expose your machines to the outside world! :>

Or, make *a* (sacrificial) machine exposed and keep everything else bottled up.

(you can also harden bind and change the default announcement so probes don't know *what* you are running for that service)

But, how much traffic do you run *through* those filters? I.e., all traffic through my access point, PLC bridge or "elsewhere" passes through my bastion host. (no routers outside it)

My ./data for PostgreSQL is a bit over 2GB (big tables with lots of foreign keys). Queries can sometimes get pretty hairy (unlike other trivial apps that use pgsql -- like for tracking backups, etc.). E.g., my "address book" has lots of tables: person, city, state, locality, location, etc. So, I can easily do things like:

"Tell me everyone over the age of 30 who works with John Doe's mother" (literally!).

(i.e., from "John Doe", use the MotherID to find the record for his mother. In that record, find the EmployerID of her employer. Use that EmployerID to identify everyone else who lists that as their EmployerID. Ignore those people whose birthdate is sooner than today-30years)

when to disconnect the 27 MHz GPA)

connected to /dev/ttyUSB0

My automation controller is a distributed system -- anything can talk to anything else. E.g., the irrigation system asks the weather station what the recent rainfall amounts have been and what recent temperatures have been. From this, it can decide which plants are likely to need water by querying the Plants database (to determine the needs of the plants) and the Irrigation database (to determine how what sort of water flows to each plant when manually irrigated as well as when it rains). The zone can then call for water from the "water service" (which, in turn, requires the master valve to be commanded "on").

The bastion host's involvement in all this is merely a support role. It provides the PostgreSQL database and program images for the various "nodes". It can crash and everything else keeps running (i.e., if it rains tonight, the weather station will have updated data available for the next set of queries from the irrigation controller) -- essential for a reliable system (all you lose is the "human aspect" of monitoring and control)

Now, remove the disk drive from your machine and run top again :>

Along with ps. I'm especially anxious to see how well your SQL queries run without that disk ("gee, where will the tables get stored?")

Many tools are only available under Windows. Or, affordable. I would *hate* to try to do PCB, 3D CAD, DTP, multimedia production, etc. on any other platform!