[sclug] SCLUG competition!!! Free computers and beer!!!

[Tom Carbert-Allen]

right I take it from the lack of replies either:

you all hate me and wish I would get off the list
you can't think of anything clever/fun/interesting/amusing to say
you are affraid if you do come up with an idea you will have to take a 
computer you don't want (this is not the case)
you all hate free beer
you all hate talking about the wonderful stability and diversity of a 
low power linux box

please let me know

To make it easier I will now give away two of the harder to quess 
answers to the five projects quesitons, leaving only three to guess.

CCTV server: one NIC went to camera's on the first floor which took 
about 80mbit combined, the second NIC to camera's on the ground floor 
which took about 50mbit, the third again was to the main company 
network. The alarm system was also attached via the parralel port, so 
all door access could be logged to mySQL and viewed via PHP web 
interface. The box did this job for over a year, it eventually got 
replaced with a redundant desktop from the company's stock because that 
box had a larger pair of hard disks allowing for keeping recordings 
longer and "the fan was getting noisy". I cleaned the dust out of the 
fan when I got it back and it stopped being noisy. Again, no reboots or 
issues, uptime was over 400 days when I de-commisioned it. They never 
had any incidents to require reviewing the video footage but did look at 
the door access to see if people bothered coming to work, it's a shame I 
can't claim the box has helped solve a crime though.

Network diagnostics tool. Using one NIC connected to the main desktop 
VLAN so I can acces the box from a desk and the other two configured as 
a bridge and connected to various points in companies comms rooms. I 
have used this box to solve MANY network issues using nothing more than 
nTop and ethereal (now wireshark) and some clever tcpdump/pcap filters 
and reports. Everything from finding a hidden FTP server a employee was 
using to share warez on the company leased line to finding a faulty 
label printer which after 3 years uptime had decided to spew out 100mbit 
of garbage to the router! This box has won me loads of work by making 
lovely graphs showing were all the bandwidth has gone and why they need 
a throttling HTTP proxy and QoS being set up on there gateway router if 
they want to allow youtube access to staff and still get consistant 
performance on realtime protocols.

There are still 3 more projects this box has done to guess!

TCA


Tom Carbert-Allen wrote:
> How about a competition?
>
> In no less than one word describe an interesting and imaginative use 
> for a low spec Linux box with 3 X 100mb network cards.
>
> If my memory serves me correctly it's a 800mhz AMD on a 
> everything-on-board motherboard (VGA, sound, one of the LANs) 40GB 
> hard drive, serial, ppt, no floppy, old 20 X CD drive, I think it has 
> USB or I might have used a PCI USB card I can't remember. This box 
> isn't new, but with our favourite OS it can do atleast a million 
> different things at a decent speed.
>
> The prizes:
>
> The most insane project idea wins the box! Yes a complete x86 box of 
> joy totally for free!
> If there are more than one stunning idea I may give away a second box 
> of similar spec.
> Anyone that comes up with a unique project that genuinely uses all 
> three network cards wins a drink!
> Anyone that guess's all five of the projects I have used it for in the 
> past wins two drinks!
>
> Send your entries to the list and we will argue over the results on 
> Wednesday over an ale (ale festival is on at JDW)
>
> TCA
>
> ps. please bear in mind the box isn't PAT tested and I take no 
> responsability if it kills you etc but I will take the WEEE 
> responsability and I will dispose of it properly if you don't want it 
> anymore (or give it away again if it still works)
>
>
> Simon Heywood wrote:
>> The next meeting of the SCLUG will be at the Back of Beyond pub in 
>> King's Road, Reading, at 19:30 this Wednesday.
>>
>> See http://www.sclug.org.uk/ for directions.
>>