Computers, As Promised

And it's still technically tomorrow.

The good news is that I've managed to scrounge together one fairly respectable dual 500MHz PIII machine with a gig of ECC RAM (an ex-server of my dad's). Only a 20GB drive in but that can change later (and I've got it all free, so who am I to complain?) and will certainly do for Subversion and OddJoth hosting (at least for the time being).

The bad news is that it's not quite ready to run headless. I'm guessing that this is due to the lack of a keyboard (No keyboard detected, press F1 to continue) which I should really have tested out previously. However, as I'm network socket limited in my room, I wanted my brother to plug it in in his room (and he had to get up in the morning, meaning he was going to bed a lot earlier than this). I was hoping to be able to set off the execrably slow process of emerging new versions of everything that is on there to begin with (as I could do with that being completed in time for me to transfer the various doodads across without having to do it entirely via the Internet) but 12 hours is unlikely to have made much of a dent in it...

Having started with so much potential stuff this evening (4 motherboards, 4 processors, 2 cases, 2 PSUs, 3 sticks of RAM), it has been somewhat disappointing how much stuff I've had to get rid of. 1 motherboard was known bad, 1 case turned out to be bad, 1 PSU turned out to be bad, 1 motherboard turned out to be bad, 1 mobo is looking to be bad (though I decided to call it a night before I could check a number of things, so there's hope). The latter motherboard is a Socket 462 for which I have 2 CPUs, both Athlon XPs, 2400+ and 1800+ so I'm hoping I was doing something stupid/hooking something up wrong in my tiredness, because it would be a shame to lose it.

The machine showing the most potential is using the motherboard originally in the bad case (hence its lack of testing thus far) which is a PIII 450MHz with a hodgepodge of RAM, up to a maximum of 256MB of PC133 stuff (though with a bus frequency of 100MHz, that'll be somewhat wasted).

Nonetheless, I have the server I wanted and, hopefully, the beginnings of distributed computing cluster of some sort. If anyone lives in the Peterborough area and is getting rid of computer stuff (even if it's because it's broken) old or new, I would be more than interested in taking it off your hands (though get in quick or wait until December, as I'll be at uni).

Street Pastors

I just read about Street Pastors in this months' Christianity magazine. To quote the website:

A Street Pastor is a Church leader/minister or member with a concern for society - in particular young people who feel themselves to be excluded and marginalised - and who is willing to engage people where they are, in terms of their thinking (i.e. their perspective of life) and location (i.e. where they hang out - be it on the streets, in the pubs and clubs or at parties etc).

It sounds like a pretty cool thing to do, and has some amazing results. To take an example from the article, the Met Police Disorder Data is quoted as saying there has a reduction in crime of 74% in Camberwell since the Street Pastors started their operations there.

This is the sort of thing that I think it is absolutely vital for Christians to do. It's all very well telling people about Christ and what he's done for me, but that doesn't actually mean anything to them. They haven't experienced him the way I have. Being a Street Pastor (or doing something in the same sort of vein) gives us the opportunity to demonstrate God's love, not just to talk about it.


It's hard to say how much scope there would be for this on-campus but perhaps something could be set up in Coventry city centre...

Warwick Accommodation

The first people to hear about their accommodation heard on Monday. As I obtained my place through Clearing, I wasn't expecting to hear immediately but it's now Friday. If I do get on-campus accommodation I'll be moving in in just over a fortnight.

If I don't, I need to find somewhere to live for over half of the next year in roughly the same period of time.



So, if any of the no people reading this blog currently have a bed going spare in a house within cycling/bussing distance of Warwick, please let me know, just in case.

Laptops Should Have a Video-In Socket

I had a great idea earlier:

Laptops should have a video-in socket, allowing you to use the screen while the computer itself remains unoperational.

I'm about to go to uni with my desktop. I'm also buying a laptop (well, my lovely parents are) so I can do stuff around and about on campus (without resorting to Windows, hopefully). This is all dandy.

However, whenever I'm using my desktop, my laptop will (hopefully) be sitting right next to it, unused. However, if the laptop had a video-in socket, then I could use it as a second screen, which would be wicked cool.

An alternative to this would be an open source project I stumbled over the other day, which allowed you to share keyboard and mouse between two computers connected only by Ethernet cables (and, presumably, IP). The names escapes me, but some Googling at a later date should bring it all back.