Gary Drumm – PMP, ITIL

OK, so I know a couple of weeks ago I wrote about Mandriva getting all the love, but I had multiple issue getting the wireless card working. I couldn’t even make work using ndiswrapper… I don’t, something to do with the particular wireless card in my machine. Anyway, I made the decision to go back to Ubuntu for my home computers. So my Dell 700m is running Ubuntu Studio, which looks BEAUTIFUL on the 700′s screen by the way, and Ubuntu 7.10 is running on my “primary” laptop, the Dell Latitude D620.

I addition, I converted the VMWare Server box (Dell GC 280, Ubuntu Server 7.10) into an Xubuntu box and removed VMS for now. I don’t have enough hard drive capacity for that system to serve as my VMS box for two Win2K3 servers.

So here’s my hardware profile:

- Dell PE 600 SC – Win2K3 (My DC)
- Dell PE 600 SC – Win2K3 (My File, Email, and Web Server)
- Dell Latitude D620 – Ubuntu 7.10 (My “main” laptop)
- Dell Latitude D620 – WinXP (My “video studio” laptop – i.e. Adobe Premier, CS2, etc.)
- Dell Latitude 700m – Ubuntu Studio (My new “video studio” laptop that I’m still learning)
- Dell Optiplex GX280 – WinXP (My son’s “desktop”)
- – Running VirtualBox
- – - Running Dyne:Bolic
- Dell Optiplex GX280 – FreeNAS (My über NAS)
- Dell Optiplex GX280 – Xubuntu 7.10 (My main “desktop”)
- Nokia n770 Internet Tablet – Nokia’s custom Debian system (This actually belongs to work, I’m just borrowing it for some testing)
- Samsung Q1 UMPC – WinXP MPCE (Again, belong’s to work)
Barracuda Web Firewall 210 – Vyetta (The open source router I’m currently playing with).

In addition, my wife has another 700m, I have a non-working Dell XPS (I really need to send it in before the warranty expires!), and my cousin is borrowing a couple of older Latitudes, several other 600SC’s, a GX280, and a couple of 500 SC’s as well – I should give it all to him and let him have a good time instead saying “borrowing”, I sure don’t need them.

I don’t even want to go into what I run at work all day: 40+ Dell servers running Windows, Red Hat, ESX, Debian, etc…, 2 Cisco Pix 515′s, Cisco ASA, Cisco Cat 4507 &4506, Cicso VOIP phone system, two Dell D620 laptops with Vista Ultimate and Mandriva 2008 PP with KDE respectively, and so on, and so on, and so on!

So what does all this mean? It means I need to figure out what the heck I want to do and consolidate! I have 7 computers running at any given hour of the day! Here’s what I’m thinking…

I’ll use my D620 primary laptop for most of what I do. Learn more about the Ubuntu Studio product so I can convert to other D620 to U-Studio – giving me a dedicated studio machine, but in a Linux environment. Maybe load Dyne:Bolic on the 700m, and Slackware on the XPS (once I get it fixed). Probably 86 the GX280 personal desktop (Xubuntu) and use it as a “test load” machine – keeping it in the garage. Keep my son’s GX280, but load Vista (he’d get a kick out of that!), but remove VirtualBox. Keep the FreeNAS server, of course. And finally, build a single, custom, quiet box to act as my server, install Xubuntu on it wiht VMS 2.x and convert my existing boxes.

Wow! That’s a lot of work. But I’m still not done. Once I get the Vyetta server configured, I’ll put that in my home NOC/DC and then probably re-route some of my wiring so I can put all of the headless boxes in the closet. You know, I think I to develop a project plan for this… Hmmmmm……

So I renamed my blog. It used to be “Gary Drumm’s Project Management and IT Blog”. The new name is Gary Drumm’s Geek Blog. I changed it because I talk about a lot of other things here and I thought that “Geek Blog” was actually more descriptive. Same great content, new name. I’m thinking of also splitting my YouTube content into two different sections. I’m going to move all of the paintball videos over to a new account (yet to be created) and the current gldrumm account will become the VLog partner to this site, where I’ll post geek related videos (i.e. my FreeNas install video), and any face-to-face videos I decide to do.

I’ll provide links to all of the great Gary Drumm content later.

I’ve been doing a lot of video editing work lately and so I’m thinking of, perhaps, acquiring a Mac to get this done. Mac’s have always been the tool of choice for professional grade video editing, and I’d like to give my videos a more professional polish.

So, to start off, I’m thinking of acquiring a iBook G4 and a copy of Final Cut. That will give me all of the major OS environments on a regular basis. I pretty much do my day-to-day computer work, at home, on a Linux laptop. I work almost exclusively on Windows systems at work, and now I’m going to add Mac OS X into my world.

Any thoughts? Any Ideas!?

I’m looking to spend less the $500 for this new machine, and I’d prefer it in laptop form, rather than desktop, because I just don’t have the real estate for anther desktop and, with a laptop, I can just stick in a drawer wen it’s not in-use.

If you know me, you know I live for my son. He’s the light and joy of my life. And, like all proud Papa’s, I have to brag on him when he does something cool. So the other day I buy this little electronics learning kit. You snap the circuits into place, turn on the juice, and viola! You have an electronic thing running.

So I follow the directions and put this little fan together. I explain to Anthony how the circuit works, what the electricity is doing, and how it’s powering the motor that’s spinning the fan.

He looks at it for a few minutes, starts pulling it apart, and snapping in other pieces, adding to the complexity of the original design! Then he presses the button and PRESTO! The thing works!!!

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I started congratulating him and shaking my head in amazement. I took some pictures of him holding his new “invention”, and shot some video of him playing with it.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. It’s a fluke. No way a 5 year old understands what this thing is doing. That would be true were it not for the fact that we took it apart, placed it back in the box. A couple of days later he rebuilds the thing, and in almost the exact the configuration he had previously built.

So here’s the picture of my extremely proud little boy holding his first circuit design. (The video will be posted to YouTube later)…

::: NOTE: Don’t mind the date on the picture. I need to fix my camera’s clock.

So my office has gotten a little messy, what with all the study paperwork, computers, and Linux University materials I have lying around. So later today, after I get a “good” night’s sleep, I’m going to be performing some cleaning in my office. I’ll probably also go ahead and re-org my servers. I’ve been thinking of moving them into the closet, since I never really do anything with them.

On another note. I finally put the $405 together for the PMP. I also renewed my membership for a whopping $167. And after all of that, I get flagged by PMI for an audit of my experience and educational credentials. Ugh!

I mean, I understand why they do this, it’s just a pain that it has to happen to me, since I’d rather spend my time preparing for the exam, not contacting all of my “project management experience” references. Oh well, I’ve already got 2 of them out of the way, so if either one of the other 2 responds to my request, I’ll be in the clear with plenty of experience to spare. Assuming, of course, that PMI accepts their references.

So, I’m looking ahead to May for the PMP test. Yes, I know I said I was going to take it in April, but I don’t think there will be enough time, considering the audit. It takes them 10 days to confirm everything, and I’d like at least a month to study a prepare, so it’s looking like May. No biggie. Once it’s done, I’ll be a certified PMP.

After that It’s MCSA time. Time to put the Linux books down for a tad and dig into Microsoft’s world again. Then comes CCNA, then ITIL Foundation, and finally, perhaps, Linux +, by the last two will probably bleed into next year. So much to learn, so little time. Good times…. Good times indeed…

OK, so I just got the TV-B-Gone kit from ladyada.net. This little device turns off any TV in the US or Asia (not that I have much of an opportunity to get to Asia, at least I haven’t been since ’97). Anyway, being a computer guy, and the fact that I love to tinker with stuff, I though this would be fun for my first electronics kit toy.

So, like I said, the thing arrived the other day. This afternoon I spent about 45 minutes putting it together. I recorded some video for YouTube, but somewhere along the way the thing stopped recording and I didn’t notice. Oh well. I took a couple of pictures of the final product. Plus, now that I’ve done it once, I think I’m going to buy another kit and do it again, only this time I’m going to modify the design a little bit and make it a bit more discreet.

So here’s the pics:

Here’s a reach back to 2006. There’s some foul language here, but it’s worth it. Enjoy…

So I’ve been looking at MythTV lately. Looks like a pretty cool project to try. I’ve always wanted to have a PVR, but I’ve just never gotten around to buying one, so why not build it myself with a bunch of open source software?

So I think that’s going to be my next project. That means I now have X Linux projects in the works:

1. Ubuntu/VM Ware Server Config and 600SC Conversion
2. Monowall of SmoothWall install (using the Barracuda, of course – I didn’t leave it as my FreeNAS box)
3. RESTORE Backup Server (For home)
4. A Mythbuntu box.

Here’s what I’m thinking…

- I set up a MythTV Back-end server that I’ll keep in my office.
- Set up a fanless computer as my front-end server
- And finally, something I thought was kind of cool, see if I can get a MiniMyth or Maemomyth system installed on a Nokia n770 and use it as a remote control for the front-end box plugged into the TV.

This would be very cool. Of course, I’ll have to upgrade my homer network infrastructure to gigabite networking!

Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) is currently availavble in Alpha release. It looks like this has some cool new features, including an iSCSI connector for Server. The Ubuntu site (http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/alpha6) has a complete listing the enhancements.

Seeing as I just installed 7.10 back on my D620 last weekend (don’t ask) but this new release looks pretty promising. Linux is getting closer and closer to user-friendly design, which is what put Microsoft in the game in the first place.

So I’m excited about this new release. I’ll be downloading it and playing around with it in the coming days. I’ll post back some of my experiences here. Who knows, maybe another video is in the cards…

Here’s the promised video of the Barracuda Firewall hack/FreeNAS Server install. Enjoy!