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You heard it here? |
| September 2004 - A bunch of news! |
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Finally the 757.org website has been updated. It is amazing, but the news really
spans back to 1999 on these pages, and that doesn't include the really old site
that existed before the switch to an Intel based host from a SGI Indigo. So I will try to catch up on the web version of the news... On the project side: Haunted Forrest didn't happen this year, so my planned contribution to that is null. Christmas light project is BACK! This time I'm going to use the MidiBox64 and DOUT platform instead of custom ISA card setup used in 2000. Join the HRGeeks list if you are interested in participating in local projects! Anyone that knows me knows I've got a million ideas... I'd love to see some of them materialize, and love to share the credit! Mostly I would like to see local participation in creating things with technology. There are many talented locals, it's time to bring some attention to our region. On the sort of commercialish HRConnect side: The local music site is about to launch, should be big! It will be followed by a ton of other technology driven projects that should turn a few heads. Props to acd1c and Skifter for hosting the box for the Popeye's drive thru live audio feed! HRConnect.com had a table at this years HamFest! A good number of flyers are now in circulation. The hamfest isn't quite as large as it was in the past, but it was still a good time. I missed out on a few deals Saturday morning. Get there early! There are good things to be had! Other things: 757.org Tshirts and stickers are on the goal list. The Hampton Roads 2600 meetings are going well! Decent participation, and conversations that are more technical than those found at the local professional meetings. If you haven't been, you should come check them out. First Friday of every month around 6pm at the Lynnhaven Mall food court. It can be hard to identify until the group forms, so be patient. - Ethan |
| September 2004 - Defcon, etc |
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Defcon is over and beat my expectations! A large number of locals were on the scene in the Nevada desert: Met up with Syn-ack and all of his very cool friends, law and meow, and from California (but previously from Hampton Roads) Erik and Stott. On top of this I bumped in to the usuals. Fun time! I enjoyed it quite a bit! The crowds were thick I think, but I never really went to and of the speaches. I brought some of the equipment left over from Hope, and along with contributions from Erik/Stott/Jeff and Syn-ack's hotel TV feed we made an attempt to record everything. We lost a bit of material, but that is okay because in the end someone else hooked me up with a complete DVD set recorded with 3 Tivo style devices. Lots of potential for future projects to show off. Unfortunately the people that surround the conference leader tend to be a bit a bit hostile. Not really impressed with the bunch, but Dark Tangent seems okay. More discussion about the potential projects after the new year. - Ethan |
| July 2004 - Hope, etc! |
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757.org hit the 5th Hope conference in New York City. What a blast! A good amount of work was put into
it, and the results paid off -- sort of. Things didn't work totally as planned, but the video network
project made it -- and was a success in some ways. Already things are planned for the next conference in
2006. We will most likely work with Thomas from DC who will be taking over the public terminal cluster.
Chris and Patrik both represented the 757.org. To my surprise I ran into a number of other locals! PHPheonix, TSB, Brenden, and others! Flyers were being handed out for a game fest in Williamsburg! Could southeastern Virginia be heating up on the tech scene? I think so! Once again I got to hang with one of the chumps(.net), and of course ran into many people I've known for years from the computer world. Dragorn's wireless setup was amazing, arp's leadership in the network was outstanding, the AV crew had their stuff together. Overall a good time, and I look forward to doing a better job on our part. We did manage to stream video realtime from the 18th floor to the 2nd floor for the Wozniak keynote, Jello Biafra's speach and several other performances. We didn't have live archiving as everything happened as planned, and recording of things ground to a halt. The Pinnacle MPEG2 encoders worked reliably under linux for capture but something was wierd with the file, playing it back on Optibase hardware decoders had a flicker. So we moved to Windows for capture, and the automatic timing didn't work properly, the software crashed, it didn't work well. By Sunday, Chris had gotten command line utilities to work fine under Windows, and everything was working. Next time, there are several changes in store. In addition the content library of video related to computers is steadily growing, I'd expect by 2006 to have no less than 500gb on hand and accessable. Other planned additions are mini "Movie rooms" instead of terminal/tv pairs. See you in 2006 !! -- Ethan |
| July, 2002 - 757.org upgrade |
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Maybe they wanted to give back. Maybe they wanted root.
Maybe they wanted to prevent me from replacing users.757.org with
a Silicon Graphics Origin 2000. Whatever the reason, Predictive
and Erik have donated a large set of parts to upgrade the 757.org
system. This upgrade is LEAPS and BOUNDS. Currently users.757.org
is a Pentium 166 with 80megs of ram and an 8 gig Seagate disk.
Erik has donated dual 60gb Seagate disks (one for mirroring) and
Predictive has donated a 1ghz AMD cpu, systemboard and 1gb of ram.
The owner (Ethan) purchased a new rackmount 4u ATX case and drive sleds. The upgrade will most likely happen on Friday the 28th. Users will be converted from OpenBSD to FreeBSD. Not that OpenBSD was bad, but since Erik and Predictive are pushing for FreeBSD, they can have it since they have donated so much in terms of hardware. The existing 757.org system will have OpenBSD reinstalled and serve other functions unrelated to 757.org. Everyone needs to thank Erik and Predictive (jeff@ and Erik@) for the hardware upgrades. Users.757.org will gain many capabilities and provide for a better development environment thanks to this upgrade. |
| May something, 2002 - Cray part 2 |
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The Cray systems are in our possesion. The trip was long and rough. Much
thanks to Jim, Ken and Chris for helping on the 3 day trip
to retrieve the system. We will definitly keep at least one
of the systems. It will sit next to various other large and
small systems in the collection, and hopefully at some point
we can afford to power the system 24x7. A few pictures will
be posted at a later date. |
| March 1st, 2002 - Cray Supercomputer |
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Even though the previous Cray deal never materialized, hope
was not lost. 757.org has purchased a Cray J932se supercomputer.
Actually, four of them. It is a long story. The roadtrip has
not been made to retrieve the 9000 pounds of computer, but planning
is in progress.
Most likely we will only keep a single 32 CPU 3 cabinet
J932se system, due to floor space, heat and power. We are looking
to trade one of the systems for a 16 or 32 CPU Silicon Graphics
Origin 2000 The MasPar MP2 was sold to a collector in Flordia to help make room. |
| February something, 2002 - Kodak and Merlin |
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Some updates have been made to the projects page. In progress
is some reverse engineering work and software work to drive
a Kodak CD-R autoloader from Unix. Also new is some pictures
and video of Ken's Merlin Robot. The Merlin is a full size
industrial automation robot.
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| April 24th, 2001 - Noncommercial Wireless MAN |
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757.org is planning to start to put together a wireless metropolitan
area network in the Hampton Roads area. Built on realatively inexpensive
wireless hardware, directional antennas and older computers loaded
with free operating systems like OpenBSD and FreeBSD, this network will
span the Southside. The first segment will be between houses in Virginia
Beach, with a 3rd and 4th hop scheduled shortly thereafter.
Members of TWUUG have expressed interest and depending on distance and
obstacles, it may reach Suffolk and Chesapeake. |
| April 3rd, 2001 - Cray Supercomputer |
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In the upcoming months, 757.org will be taking possesion of
a Cray J90 supercomputer. Definitly a peice of history, and
a work of art. It is unknown if the system will have the
operating system intact. It is a quad processor (1 CPU board
of a possible 4). Power and cooling would be another issue.
It is not liquid cooled. |
| February 15th, 2001 - AS/400 |
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Thanks to gauge, 757.org has taken delivery of a CISC based
black hardware AS/400 system. In the future this system will
be online and availible to anyone that might want an account.
The biggest obstacle is the fact that there isn't a shareware
or freeware base of software. Everything is seriously commercial.
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| January 15th, 2001 - SMDR |
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Mr804 is working on a portion of the code for the SMDR
logging software. The goal is to take the SMDR output from
many PBX and office phone systems and log them into a SQL
database. Then another set of tools will pull that data and
build web page reports of call use statistics.
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| May 28th, 2000 - yohamptonroads.com |
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757.org is now sponsoring/hosting yohamptonroads.com. A serious site
intended
more for young people living in Southeastern Virginia with non-computer
interests. We will see if it takes off.
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| May 12th, 2000 - Cluster project |
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Fenriswf, Oreo and some other locals are working on setting up
an experimental cluster based on a free unix OS and lots of old
hardware. For more details, email him at
fenriswf@home.com.
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| January 4th, 2000 - New year! |
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Welcome to the new year! We made it just fine, and all of the non
Y2k compliant hardware laying around seems to be working just fine.
Go figure. Time to sue our y2k consultant and planning cordinator. (joking).
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| December 2nd, 1999 - Christmas.757.org |
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Christmas.757.org is well underway. A good portion of decorating is
done, a big portion of the software is done. Once the web interface is
scripted, it will be online. This site allows anyone in the world to
select the colors of various bushes and trees in the yard of some of
our supporters. Check it out at
http://christmas.757.org
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| November 12th, 1999 - 757.org changes |
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The sites of 757.org are undergoing some renovation. We are finally
going to finish adding in message bases, and mailing lists. After
this is done, we will start a propaganda campaign to get people to
join mailing lists of several different special interest groups.
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| November 1st, 1999 - Joint venture for hamptonroads.org |
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Several members from 757.org core crew have entered a joint agreement
with John Buchanon to work on the hamptonroads.org website. Planned
development of this site will lead to an informative, useful community
website. This website is shure to give other "local" websites a run for
their money. The difficult part? Since we aren't the cable company, and
we aren't the newspaper we won't have the advertising channels. That
doesn't matter. We posses something they don't. Innovation. This will
officially replace the Freenet.757.org project. |