StormRaiser's WorkShop

Disclaimer: This is the personal web page of Edward W. Wensell III. The views and opinions stated here are not those of any employer, relative, friend, spouse, or any other person related to the owner unless expressly stated otherwise. If you have any problems with any information here, please see the owner of the web page rather than flying off the handle and causing a bunch of tax-payers to pay for a lawsuit they really don't care about.

LINK OF INTEREST

Every so often, I find something "interesting" on the Internet. I can't promise a "Link of the Day" like some places, but hopefully there will be something to check out.

AT&T Labs Research - Text to Speech
This is a new improved version of a oldie but goldie. AT&T Labs has had a Text-to-Speech demonstrator on the web since as long as I can remember. Recently it was taken down, gone for good I thought. Well, looks like it's back and has been improved. The speech synthesis in this latest incarnation is worlds better than before.
As a demonstrator, it's fairly limited in it's uses. Here's one tip though. If you are one of those who tends to stumble when recording their outgoing answering machine/voicemail message, this can help considerably.

PAST LINKS

KNOPPIX
Ok, so you've heard about this Linux thing and all the stuff it can do. Problem is your current and only PC is well entrenched with Microsoft software. All your documents are there. Pictures, memories, applications, everything. And for all you know you need to wipe it all out to try Linux. And you're not sure if Linux will work with all the latest gizmos that your PC is built from (ok, your PC probably isn't cutting edge, but I bet you have at least one device that is questionable whether or not would work under Linux).
Enter KNOPPIX. KNOPPIX is a Linux-on-a-CD distribution which lets you try Linux without wiping out your current configuration. Just download CD image, burn it, and boot from it (if supported by your PC). If you like it, you can even 'anchor' it to your system without affecting any of your files.
KNOPPIX isn't the easiest in the world to work with, but it's much easier than doing a full Linux or Windows install. Just read ALL of the instructions and you'll do fine.

Tiqit Computers, Inc
The ultimate geek toy? Perhaps. Will be on every geek's Christmas/Hanukkah list? Most definately!
Tiqit is the result of the Stanford Wearable Computing Laboratory, where they put 'micro' back into microcomputer when they created the world's smallest web server (about the size of a matchbook). They have expanded on this and went commercial by creating a full fledged hand held PC (not a PDA/HPC mind you) with all the features you'd expect in a desktop or laptop computer. What's kinda neat is they were able to build most of it using industry standard parts (eg. Here's an example of one such standard I considered using to build a Quake server 'brick' back in 1999/2000).
Unless it's gawdawfulexpensive, this thing will trounce iPaqs and Palms.

BBIagent.Net
This is another Firewall/Router-on-a-floppy solution based around Linux (ever hear of one based around Windows??). It appears to be a very clean package and will run on just about any hardware starting at the 386 level. On the downside, there does not appear to be a way to install the package on a harddrive and there does not appear to be any add-on software packages (although, it's not wise to let your firewall/router be anything other than a firewall/router).
I have not personally tried it. Mainly because I already have a working firewall/router setup (see FreeSCO). However, if they update it to run from harddrive and add a print server, I'd probably make the switch. Have fun!

Sun System Handbook
Only Sun geeks will appreciate this one... Perhaps an engineer or two too.
In my cube at work I have two books which make up what is known as the "Sun Field Engineer Handbook" (Sun FE Handbook). These two books have information on almost all Sun computer hardware known to man. An invaluable resource for people who work on these systems. Think of it as the 'Chiltons' of Sun equipment.
Well, the kind folks at Sun have taken this information and placed most [all?] of it on their Sunsolve website. Just about everything in the FE Handbook can be found in the online SS Handbook. Whatever is not in the SS Handbook will probably show up within the next several weeks. Granted, most of this information has been available scattered throughout SunSolve for a long time, but it's organization and searching facilities are... Lacking... This places all the hardware info in one well organized place. Now all it needs is a decent search option.
Interesting story. When I first started working at US Cellular, there was this company that kept calling me trying to sell me what was basically a CD version of the FE Handbook. It was some really nice stuff. It went above and beyond the FE Handbook with all kinds of diagrams, images, and info links. Only problem was the price. Several thousand dollars to get it initially with updates costing several hundred dollars each. Sorry, I'll stick with my hard-copy FE Handbook with it's $120/yr updates.
And even with this new resource I'm going to keep getting my FE Handbook updates, if for no other reason than when I'm in a crisis and the corporate Internet pipe is down. But I can see myself using the SS Handbook more... And will point it out the next time the salespeople call.
Hmmmmm... Wonder how much of it I could fit on my iPaq... :)

Bochs IA-32 Emulator
Bochs (pronounced box) is a rather complete x86 system emulator that can run on just about any platform. So far I have used it to run Win95/98SE on AlphaNT, NetBSD/Alpha, and Solaris/SPARC. Since the emulator is emulating an entire machine (processor, IDE drives, VGA device, etc), it is considerably slow. Still neat to play with nonetheless. Perhaps I could use it to provide Outlook access on Solaris boxen? Nah... Wine may be the better route.
Along the same lines, plex86 should also get mention here. plex86 is a 'virtual machine' package which allows you to run multiple instances of various operating systems on one x86 system. Imagine running Windows98, WindowsNT, and Linux simultaneously on the same system. All instances run at near native speeds since there is very little emulation. The OS instances have direct access to the underlying hardware for the most part. I haven't tried it personally, but I plan on it. I've wanted to run NetBSD on my K62-500, but didn't want to risk trashing my Win98 install with funky dual boot partitioning schemes. That and swapping back and forth between Windows/NetBSD could be a pain in the arse... This would allow both on the same screen at the same time.
The tie in is the original creator of Bochs went on to create plex86.

Paint the Moon (Defunct, but preserved for posterity)
File this under "yeah, whatever". Although I'll probably participate [which I did]

Put simply, an artist is attempting to put a large red dot on the moon using millions of laser pointers.

The idea is simple. On October 27 and November 24, 2001 at 11:00pm eastern time anyone and everyone with a laser pointer is to go outside and point their little light emitting device at the dark side of the moon for five minutes. The goal being to make a red dot appear on the moon. There is no reason why this should not work... Except for all the laws of physics. The mathematics against this working is staggering.

With that said, I'll probably be out there both nights, weather permitting [overcast first night, was out there for the second], looking and pointing just for the heckuvit. Who knows. Maybe it'll work and blow all those mathematics and physics outta the water. Maybe it won't work at all, but an interesting side effect will happen. Maybe it won't work at all and a bunch of people will have had five minutes of fun they otherwise would not have had. Who knows...

NetBSD Architecture Farm
File this under the "things I'd love to do, but my wife would kill me" heading.

Basically, this person is attempting to collect at least one specimen of each platform NetBSD runs on. To what purpose? The official reason is for development and testing. Unofficially and completely my personal opinion, to gain geek bragging rights.

Personally, I do not have the time or space. Money usually isn't as much of an issue considering some of the more 'exotic' and antiquated hardware NetBSD runs on can be had for cheap or free if one knows where to look.

I repeat, the wife would kill me. She's already sick of my current collection.

See Also:

The Colossus Rebuild Project

ENIAC-on-a-Chip

Obsolete Computer Museum

FREESCO
What do you do if you have five computers in the house, but only one Internet connection/IP address? Why, you run a FREESCO on a spare 486 DX2/66, that's what!

FREESCO is a Linux based firewall-on-a-floppy type package. Comes bundled with IP/NAT, lightweight HTTP, and a few other goodies. Works with broadband and dialup connections. Windows-only based ISP dialups (like Bluelight.com) need not apply.

Defective Computer Test
Read this note in its entirety before clicking!
Check your computer for problems. The above link subjects your workstation to a rigorous series of tests checking it's installation and stability. "Not found" errors are normal and can be ignored. "Blue Screen" errors are not normal and indicates massive problems with your system. If you get a "Blue Screen" type error, please have your workstation serviced immediately. Please be sure to exit ALL applications (except your web browser, of course) before executing the test.
Ok... Not really. That URL exploits a bug in both Windows95/Windows98 and most web browsers. For some reason, all web browsers pass that particular URL to Windows, and Windows tries to execute it, choking with a 'Blue Screen' in the process. It does not appear to effect any other operating system (including NT... Dunno about Win2K or Win3.1). This is supposedly a well known bug that Microsoft never addressed in Win95/98. Go figure.
Stone Soupercomputer
So, let's say management comes to you and says they need some data analysis requiring mucho computing horsepower to produce. Next, they tell you there is no budget to help with this project. What do you do? Why, you link together a bunch of 'obsolete' i486-based computers into a high-performance super computer!

FreeBe (defunct, but still kicking elsewhere)

BeOS is a high-performance graphic-rich operating system for x86 and PPC based computers. A free version of the operating system was made available April, 2000. At the very least, it's one more reason NOT to buy Microsoft stuff. Anyone see the irony in all these free operating systems yet?