Month: April 2009

I have spent the last week or so optimising the Shoe Rack 1.0 into something that consumes even less power and generates less heat. Basically, I consolidated the two servers into one and the two wifi devices into one. At the moment, the setup is still far from ideal but it is certainly more so than before.

The router that I have is actually a wifi router. So, instead of using a different wifi device, I ended up using just one. The reason that I had used a 802.11b access point earlier was because of some old computers at home that only have 802.11b. However, those are hardly ever used. So, I’ll just put everything on an 802.11g network and use the single wifi router for it. Furthermore, the next DD-WRT release is supposed to support multiple SSID/encryptions on the same radio.

As for the servers, I got rid of the FreeNAS box and just plugged in the harddisk to the regular development server. I felt that it was unnecessary to have a standalone file server when it is idle 90% of the time and only serving one box, mine. So, I’ll just use the single server for now.

I decided against getting an Atom based system for a couple of reasons. My ShoeRack 1.1 is currently silent. There is nothing moving except for the harddisks, which move irregularly. Therefore, there is no noise at all, bliss. An Atom based system would require a regular ATX power supply, which has a fan in it. So, that would be noisier. Furthermore, my present computational needs do not call for an Atom, yet.

I do foresee a potential change in the future, when my file server has to serve multiple boxes. This is because, all data on the file server is encrypted. So, computational power is required to decrypt/encrypt the data as it flows from/to the harddisk. If too much data is required, the present VIA C3 systems would not be able to cope unless I use the Nehemiah one, which comes with hardware cryptographic acceleration.

All in all. I think that the Shoe Rack will still change in the future. That is why I have numbered the optimised Shoe Rack with a minor revision number. The next massive change would be the use of either a Atom or low-power AMD system instead, coupled with a more robust wifi implementation.

“I’m just tired of people. Human. Cylon. Whatever.” — Galen Tyrol

Recent events have taught me one thing. People are selfish and greedy. I guess the Buddha was at least right about one thing. There is a reason why I personally prefer to deal with computers. Things are so much easier to do when you are just dealing with computers.

You see, with people, things are always fluid and dynamic. You need to do several orders of differentiation before you get a meaningful figure that you can deal with. With machines, everything is static. So, what you see is what you get.

That is why I think that our bureaucracy in Malaysia should be entirely computerised so that things are easy to deal with. The manual systems should just be kept as a secondary system to help those whom are less competent with computers.

The thing is that the bureaucracy will resist change – that is the nature of the beast. Too many people will have to lose out if everything is computerised. However, what we will get is a cleaner and meaner system.

Anyway, this is a vague rant for a reason. Don’t ask.

At work today, I got to toy around with some equipment worth millions. I use the word ‘toy’ because I was literally fooling around with it to figure out how things worked. It is nice that we get to play with these kinds of toys at work because I would not be able to afford these kinds of toys at home.

Then, while this was happening, a co-worker and I were discussing about the cost of these expensive toys. You see, the actual cost of manufacturing these expensive toys is probably not very much, certainly nowhere near the millions that they are sold at.

However, the engineering world is filled with a lot of these high-margin toys. We engineers just love these toys to death and just cannot afford to live without them. They are our bread and butter in many many ways. Therefore, one should always treat toys with respect.

Which was exactly what I did when I was toying around with it.

We had to move it out from another place to ours, in order to fool around with it. It took 3 people to remove it and carry it all the way up to our lab. Then, we were a little worried that the table would not hold the weight. So, we ‘borrowed’ another piece of furniture to use.

Thing is, although I am currently not working in my comfort domain, I have been picking things up rather quickly. Basically, I just plunged myself into the deep-end from the very first day. I figure that that’s the best way to force myself to learn.

Good thing is that although it is not my comfort domain, I am not entirely n00b about it either. I do have some related knowledge that I can leverage on. Personally, I think that my co-workers have been quite nice. I have basically been bugging them with queries.

Hopefully, I will be able to finish my learning process soon and start working on the solution instead.

Today, was my first day at my new job. After a couple of false starts, I’m finally moving into a different environment. As first days go, I would say that this was a particularly interest one.

I find my co-workers very fun people to hang out with. We are a fairly small team but there seems to be a good mix of all kinds of people from all sorts of experiences, backgrounds and tastes. I think that things will probably be fine on this front.

To me, the most important thing is to be able to get along with the people whom you are working with. In small organisations, I have always been able to do everything myself. If I needed something done, I just did it. I’m presently working for a fairly large organisation and the challenge in any large organisation is to get other people to do it. That is why, inter-personal communication skills are important.

So, my first day was not very eventful. I have not gotten my computer set up yet, but I did managed to choose my cubicle. Since I do not yet have my login and machine, what I can do is fairly limited. However, I spent much of today talking to people, to try to get up to speed on the project. My role seems to require me to work across a few teams. So, that is why I am trying to catch up with as much as possible.

I think that I have a general grasp of the first bit of work that I need to do. I spent most of the morning trying to figure out the data flow of the design. As a microprocessor guy, that is where I start from – the brains of the system. My plan is to then branch out from there. Everything has to go through the microprocessor anyway. So, that’s as good a place to start, as any.

Honestly, I do hope that I will get to contribute something to the team and help them solve their problems.