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Author Archives: timmd909

CATPOO 2021 — A New Beginning

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Note: This post is a work-in-progress and will be updated as requirements are fully fleshed out.

Way back when I started playing around with robotics and electronics years ago, the most important thing to me was having a good name for my robotics projects. I came up with Cat Antagonizing Tactical Platform Of Oppression (or CATPOO for short). With the hardest part done, I remembered following the KISS principle. Within a week, I had a working remote controlled robot. It had a wireless access point with a web based UI with streaming video from the robot’s perspective. It just worked, and was compatible with every phone and laptop thrown at it.

However, aesthetically it was a mess. Ever since then, I’ve been running into situations where I’ve gone way into the weeds chasing a particular look without any concern for functionality. I’ve finally become fed up with spending tons of time creating robots that look great, but are difficult to work on. I’m tired of having to spend 45 minutes tearing it down to swap out of a single part, or check a single solder point.

We’re going way back to my original design: a cube with 4 wheels. Once I get everything working well, then and only then, will I begin to care about aesthetics again.

Continued Reading

I was originally going to have one long and lengthy post about my goals, but decided it’d be easier for me to break up into smaller chunks. I’ll be adding to the following list as I continue fleshing out the project.

  1. CATPOO 2021 — What Does It Do?
  2. CATPOO 2021 — Power Supply
  3. CATPOO 2021 — Internal Structure

Personal Cloud Software Pain Points

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For the last few weeks, I’ve been evaluating using ownCloud for building my own personal cloud. The install process is more time consuming than it is difficult. Now that I’ve got my server up and running well, I’ve been putting it through the paces more. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t hitting a bit of resistance.

I did have second thoughts early on that maybe I should’ve gone with Nextcloud. Before panicking, I decided to read up more on Nextcloud. The issues that were extant in those reviews of Nextcloud’s software were more or less the same deal as ownCloud, but with slightly different caveats.

Same shit, different day.

So I’m good. Absolute worst case, Nextcloud provides a migration path from ownCloud if the need arises. No need to backtrack or start from scratch just yet.

Moving on, I found that the apps for my mobile devices were not $0. I didn’t like that. I was reluctant to pay for any apps to sync mobile devices with my new server. I’ve been burned in the past enough times, and I’m an open software zealot. I then quickly shut up once I found out that I could install all the necessary software for free, if I was willing to spend a couple hours setting up an Android build environment. Spending less than $10 total once for precompiled and continuously updated apps was obviously a fair deal.

The only problem not addressed by the ownCloud app was contact syncing. For the best experience with both contact and calendar syncing, go straight to DAVx5. It’s also free if you want to put in the time. Don’t do that and instead donate a few money units to dev team. It solved the issues that plagued me. Syncing contact information while avoiding unnecessary duplicates is actually a difficult problem to solve, and I’m grateful it’s been solved. I still clearly remember the Palm Pilot days. I ended up with numerous duplicate contacts. I still find those duplicates or other syncing error artifacts from that time in my address book to this very day. That was over a decade and many, many devices ago.

Speaking of, I should probably start clearing out my contacts. There are people in there who I’ve not talked to in many years, and there’s quite a few who have passed away. To those who I no longer talk to, I have no problem deleting their contact information. To those who are no longer here, I simply can’t delete. I cannot erase any evidence that they were here, now that they’re aren’t any longer.

Anyhoo, thanks to ownCloud, my shared files and contacts are now synced up.

Cannibalizing Servers

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In an era inundated with plagues of thin-skinned people with too much free time, I feel it necessary to first state the obvious: I’m referring to removing serviceable parts for use in the repair of other equipment of the same kind. People eating other people is likely a micro-aggression by the time you’ve read this. This has been your trigger warning. #futureproof

— The Editorial Staff

It’s Time

Near the beginning of the year, I realized it was time for an upgrade. I had things largely figured out requirements wise, and was planned on pulling the trigger on purchasing everything in a couple weeks. I had priced out a reasonable video card that would do what I needed (PNY – XLR8 Gaming Single Fan NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER) for around $220. At time of writing, it’s now going for over $550 on Amazon. I saw similar video cards skyrocket during that time to nearly $1,000 dollars.

Oh shit…

My upgrade plans were suddenly in peril.

Don’t Panic

Knowing that panic is best to be avoided, I immediately forgot that advice. I ended up spending the next month or so battling the sort of defeatist ruminations our society has been so thoroughly plagued of as of late. I knew that panic buying expensive video cards was to be avoided, yet I knew not what to do. I waited for inspiration. Time then passed slowly and fast at the same time.

I spent a lot of time lamenting the lost of whole chains of computer and electronic stores such as RadioShack, CompUSA and Circuit City. (Technically RadioShack still exists, but it’s not what it once was.) I still don’t understand how it happened. When did it become so hard to get hardware? My old server reliably running for 10 years left me blindsided by how much the world changed. Compared to 20 years ago, it’s beyond my ability to understand.

This lead me to realize that I was becoming a greybeard. I’ve been programming, building computers, and whatnot for more than 20 years. I even have a bunch of gray hairs now (which I jokingly tell my wife are her fault). I’m a greybeard and I should be better than this. I owe it to my family and my wife to do better. It’s time to go level up past Gandalf.

Around that time I stumbled upon Micro Center. It reminded me much of what proper stores were like. I looked through their catalogue seeing the same thing I’ve seen everywhere else: sold out video cards.

Greybeard Plotkai

That’s when my new greybeard status kicked in. I’m not a victim. There has to be a better way to look at this problem. Do they sell the computers with the components I need inside them? Are the motherboards in them still a standard size? Will this fit in my existing 4U server case?

As it turns out, yes they do, yes they are, and barely yes on that last one.

Hell, even Costco has desktop computers with NVIDIA 1650/1660s in them for reasonable prices. If a 1660 costs $700, that $900 barebones kit with a 1660 is looking mighty nice. There is no law against turning a gaming rig into a proper server. I was already going to need a new motherboard, RAM, CPU, and other things. Why not get 80% of the way there with 20% of the money? Find a good deal, add $100 of RAM, and BAM! You’ve got yourself a server.

It’d have been nice to think of this earlier. Hell, I watched Moneyball. I should’ve seen this coming.

Conclusion

And that, my friends, is how I was able to upgrade my server within budget.

In our next episode, I’ll explore more about where I’m going with cloud software now that I have the metal. It’s down to ownCloud and Nextcloud.

In possibly a future sidebar, I’ll explain how convincing your wife to spend a whole day in the car hunting for computer parts is easier than you might expect. Sell the trip as an opportunity to try out a new restaurant in a new city. Buy tickets to a local art museum. By the time you get to “and let’s stop by Micro Center for 15 minutes” she’ll already be sold.

Personal Cloud Requirements Gathering

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To distract myself from excruciating pain while paining for a dental procedure, I figured I’d go over what an ideal end state for my personal cloud would look like. Let’s start by looking at what devices I’ll need to be worried about as head of IT in my household.

Devices to Support

DeviceOperating SystemStorage Space (GB)Notes
Pixel 2 XLAndroid64GBMost of this photos/videos taken w/ the camera app that I need off the phone
Old Samsung tabletAndroid32GB (estimate)Possibly going to be retired soon. Screen isn’t easy to read and it’s not fast enough to keep up with software bloat.
iPhone ?iOS128GB (estimate)Wife’s cat and flower photo collections must be treated with equal importance to financial records
iPadiOS256G (estimate)Used for audio books and researching supplies and materials for remodeling
Macbook AirMacOS256GB (estimate)Floater laptop that shouldn’t have much on it
Macbook ProMacOS512GB (estimate)Important information and video editing
Custom 4U serverLinux8TBThis will be the server handling the cloud. It is the one that needs to be greater than all the other devices attached. Can’t be larger than 8TB at the moment due to that costing too much to backup w/ current hardware.
Dell XPSLinux256GBFloater laptop for serious software engineers who also value battery life
System76 Serval WSLinux1TBUltimate badass laptop with a cooling system louder than jet engine with matching power
This table doesn’t include devices that don’t nee to be synced up with the cloud. All the Raspberry Pis don’t need complicated backup and syncing.

Observations

  1. All systems are *nix systems. That affects nothing, but does make me happy.
  2. I’ll need, at minimum, 6TB to handle everything as is. I’ll therefore want 8TB in the server for allow for growth.
    • Going above 8TB gets expensive, as single external drives larger than that are very expensive. Having two 8TB drives to rotate through is much more affordable.
    • I can always add another 4TB drive to the RAID for a total of 12TB down the road. I’ll have to reconsider my backup plans potentially.
    • This should keep me covered on space for a few years. Will definitely need to upgrade within 5 years, but no sooner than 2 years.
  3. This will create a lot of network traffic
    • I was considering splitting the home network into multiple isolated networks:
      • Private network for me and my wife
      • Guest Network for friends and family
      • IoT, Smart TVs, and other devices with histories of atrocious security
    • Doing this ahead of time would definitely be feature creep for the “build my own cloud” project.
    • Might just put the guests on the same network as the IoT, as neither are to be trusted.
    • I’ve got a Raspberry Pi or two laying around for building a custom router

Conclusion

My goal is to get this new system up and running before 2021Q2. However, hardware is becoming harder to get one’s hands on. That’s why I expect this to take some time. I’m also expecting my tax return won’t be arriving before beginning of March.

Long Awaited Server Upgrade

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https://pixabay.com/photos/calculating-machine-calculator-370777/

An Upgrade Is In Order

My current server is running a Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2100 CPU. Based on archeological evidence and carbon dating, experts estimate that it is around 10 years of age. It’s had minor upgrades over the years with a respectable 4 × 2TB drives setup in RAID5 for 6TB usable. However, it’s simply too long in the tooth. It’s been working flawlessly for so long, I seem to have taken it for granted.

I really only thought about it when I’d occasionally have to reboot it every couple months. Looking at it that way, I almost feel bad putting out such a long running workhorse to pasture.

End of the day, I should feel proud that I built a system that worked near flawlessly for a decade.

Mission accomplished. What’s the next mission?

Requirements

I’ve become a simple man when it comes to servers. All it takes me is half a dozen cores, heaps of memory, and terabytes of space to be happy. I’m wondering how much the hardware game has changed since I last went down this road. I’m hoping I’ll be left with the end result of a reliable workhorse for many years.

Off the top of head, here are requirements, typical workloads, and tasks the server will encounter:

  • Building the personal cloud that spawned this thread
  • Storing over 9,000 new photos and videos daily from my wife’s phone of our 8 month old cat.
  • Video stabilization and other processing of grainy VHS home movies
  • Secure storage of personal documents
  • 3D scanner processing
  • Minecraft server
  • Git repo to avoid relying on Github too much

Here’s what I’m thinking will be sufficient:

Parts List

Total: $1,000 estimated

Conclusion

If I can get 5 years out of this build, I’ll be happy. There’s a leap year in there. That’s a savings of $0.0003 per day. Cost of ownership should be around $0.55/day ($1,000 / (5 × 365 + 1)).

Virtual Homesteading

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For a few years now, I’ve been gotten complacent and lazy due to Google’s services. Free space on someone else’s server was too tempting, regardless of privacy concerns. It’s time I do something about it by creating my personal cloud for my household. This is a big enough undertaking that I might as well write down my thoughts in this blog.

Requirements

  • Automatic syncing of photos from our mobile devices
    • Apps will need to be available for both iOS and Android
  • Easily securely share files with third parties
  • Works well with syncing large files
  • Zero external dependencies
  • Back up and restore procedure in place
    • Automatic syncing of all data to an offsite location
    • Offsite backup should be encrypted
    • Incremental backups to external hard drives

Known Unknowns

  • How to test the backup and restore procedure?
  • How to sync the backups to an external location?
    • Probably looking at a Raspberry Pi based solution with an 8TB external hard drive.
    • Looking at around $250 for both.

Evaluating Options

The above requirements hint at me needing two main pieces of software. I can’t only worry about the cloud software. If my server dies, I’ll need a rock solid plan for restoring from a backup.

It’s also been maybe 6 years since I’ve done a major upgrade to my server. At this point, I’m thinking of replacing everything except the case. I like my giant black rock sitting on the shelf, and it’s got plenty of space for loading up drives.

On cloud software front, I’m a bit torn between Nextcloud and ownCloud. I’m leaning towards ownCloud because the documentation seems a bit nicer. There aren’t really any other viable options for open source software that I’ve been able to find.

The backups remain a mystery to me. Up until now, I’ve been using a Raspberry Pi based computer and SyncThing to automate partial backups. That’s not going to work well. I also don’t want to have to use a GUI to backup. Currently I’m leaning towards using BorgBackup. It seems pretty feature rich.

Closing Thoughts

The general plan of attack will be:

  • Upgrade server hardware with bare install of OS (do not immediately start copying files back!)
  • Create backup and restore procedure, and test that it works
  • Install and configure ownCloud
  • Reload all the terabytes of old data into the new cloud
  • Set up my phone to sync with my new cloud to disentangle myself with Google as much as possible

Thinking each of those deserves its own post, so we’ll leave it there for now.

New Years Goals

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It’s very easy to miss the mark if you don’t know where you’re aiming.

To that end, here’s some goals for the year:

  • Create a private cloud for me and my family
    • Google’s notorious for cancelling services without little warning.
    • Facebook and Instagram don’t always act in the best interests of their users.
    • I don’t want everything I take a picture of being uploaded to someone else’s server farm.
  • Create another robot
    • I did a bunch of work on designing different robots over the years.
    • Buying a house right before getting married during a global pandemic was distracting.
    • This is mostly an excuse to purchase a laser engraving and cutting machine.
  • Finish first pass of remodeling my house
    • Living room, main stairwell, and dining room remain.
    • Kitchen, master bedroom, office, and guest bedroom are mostly done already.
    • Link to everything that I used to help others. Utilize affiliate links where possible to profit if deserved.
  • Write a post for each major goal
    • Writing down goals and evaluating keeps me honest and me keep moving forward.
    • One’s ability to write can help or hinder one’s progress through life. Might as well Git Gud™.

New Year / New Website

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It was sometime after the initial Sniffle Snafu Panic of 2020 that I realized I’d not updated my website in years. It’s unfortunate, but a cold hard fact of life that microscopic entities can be deadly. Bad times are inevitable if there’s a bad enough pathogen, and there will be death. That we’ve had. We should be reminded that we all should be grateful to be alive every day.

Around that time there was the proposal of 15 days to slow the spread. Expecting to bunker down for only a short period, I resolved myself to make a new website. I knew I’d not be in the office for a couple weeks. Fast forward many moons to the present year, and I’d still not yet accomplished my original goal. I’ve still not been back in the office.

It seems that they should have said 15 months to slow the spread…

That said, it’s been more than a few weeks. Time to go on doing what I can. Time to update this website.

So It Begins Again

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I’m writing this as I start playing with WordPress again. This is not the first blog I’ve started. It may hopefully be the first blog I’ve not abandoned. Time will tell.

Initial thoughts are that WordPress is still just like riding a bike you don’t like downhill. It’s easy enough to get back up to speed, but it’s not a pleasant journey. This is especially true and something goes wrong. Where are the damn breaks on this thing?

That said, I’ve had to error_log(...) the hell out of code in the past. I’ve been through worse.

Let’s play with the templates and styling again. It’s not glorious; but sure as God’s got sandals, it gets the job done.

First Time Home Owner Regrets

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The original regret.

It’s been almost a year since becoming a first time homeowner. It’s been pretty great. However, some mistakes have been made.

I neglected to take photos of rooms before I moved things in. I really regret not having proper before and after photos of past renovations.

My record keeping was also shoddy. It would have been nice to go back and look at what materials were used. Adding affiliate links to the Lowes, Amazon, and other purchases would have been a nice option in the future.

Not all hope has been lost. I’ve only renovated a single bedroom. The rest of the stuff I’ve done has been replacing electrical outlets and adding half a dozen or more circuits. There’s still plenty of projects to do.