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

[Mayuresh Kadu]

Thats's impressive! You should consider writing an article on on how-to
forge (http://www.howtoforge.com/) :)

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Tom Carbert-Allen <tom at randominter.net>
wrote:

> 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.
> > >
> > >
> >


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