So, we need a Garden Server, and we've decided to turn our P3 'bookshelf' PC (currently triple booting Win2K, BeOS [R.I.P.] and Red Hat 6-dot-something) into a full-time Linux box, and, come what may, move the garden cam, Web pages, telemetry etc. over to it.

But to free up the P3 box, I needed to get another machine into its place in the family room... otherwise there's only Macs (not a bad thing, but there are lots of good things that run on Intel hardware, like BSD, Linux and most Open Source software).

So my IWILL K266 board is a really good candidate to move from the garage rack to the family room. It has been sitting in a $29 el cheapo Fry's OEM-reject box - hot AMD processor waiting to be overclocked, and everything - but the cheesy box wouldn't even fit a CD ROM (the motherboard was too deep... the CD stuck out the front of the box about 4 inches).

I have been looking, not a little enviously, at the all-aluminum enclosures that have been showing up in the BYO aisle at Fry's the last couple months. They cost more than $500 (no power supply) when they first came out... the feature was better heat conduction, big chassis, room for lots of fans and drives. Good for overclockers. They looked very cool: brushed finish, some had smoked or iMac blue glass doors over the front. Lately, some have had clear plexiglass side panels, and blue lights inside[sigma] so you could see the outrageous video card and monster fan on the CPU.

When I was a kid in Pennsylvania, the very coolest custom cars that local 19-year olds used to hack (including my cousins Joe and Gary) had lights in them. Lights under the hood, so you could see the chromed motor better, an eery glow under the dash (conversation piece at the drive-in) and, if it was really cool, blue lights in the wheel wells.

So today, as I cruised Fry's (looking for a shaver and a mini-Cuisinart) I saw a new shipment of aluminum boxes. Like everything computer, their price point has been diving. From $500 for bare aluminum, recently the $500 bought you the box, power supply, bare hot mother board with a major 'gamer' video card, fans and - I kid you not - a blue fluorescent light under the plexiglass side panel.

The new shipment - Fudin model AL228USBs - cost 99 bucks. I took one look, grabbed one from the pile, picked up a $19 blue fluorescent light and headed for check-out. When I got it home and unpacked, I discovered there was already a blue fluorescent light in the box... what a deal!

So, I was off the air today, moving the IWILL over to the Fudin... a major brain, heart and lung transplant. And, while I was at it, figured we[base ']d throw in more drives, CD-RW, FireWire etc[sigma] More TK...
Comments 9:26:20 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures