Updates on Things - Lakka Box Finishing soon

Hello again!

It's looking like the Lakka Box should be done by Wednesday or so. I have to go grab a small SATA cable for it. Working on that guy has basically been rebuilding an Optiplex 780 bit by bit with parts that work best around an emulation station. I've been quite busy recently with lots of coursework in scripting, attempting to further automate my Factorio game and server, look up a test Soundcloud scraper I can modify for testing and I'll be working part-time soon for LexisNexis until my co-op semester begins in the Spring. It's interesting how I assumed I'd have all my projects done by the end of the year, that I started during my summer co-op semester!

My Spring co-op semester- I believe it's January to April or May- will be the last time I'm available for a co-op position and I'm still in talks with prospective companies...no idea who I'll be working for around then, however I'd really like someone I can stick with in the SysAdmin sector as I grow into new roles. Here's hoping I can find someone who wants to teach a student in I.T./Automation more Linux goodness! I much prefer learning open-source vs paid software, as there is a lot in the open-source sector that people don't realize can help them.

My recently-received Google Home DiY box will be done once I get a proper image for the Pi. I recently- as in maybe two or three months ago- received that MagPi edition that came with a kit to turn your Raspberry Pi 3 into a Do-It-Yourself Google Home which is quite interesting. I'll be playing with that more between entertainment, school and projects.

Still need to figure out how to boot windows on an upcoming project computer....this re-built Dell doesn't seem to like booting from CD, DVD nor USB....all I need to do is update the BIOS with Windows and then I'm immediately slapping Linux on there. That'll be all!

Life is moving

Life is moving along! Classes are going. Sometimes it's hard to keep one's head above the water in the cases of professors who don't understand or like you, but I attempt to power through anyway. Also learning in Scripting Languages courses recently that Python might be my new best friend for the Scraper project, once I get my servers mounted.

Recently did some work on rackmounting my servers, but learned that my HP DL380 G7 needs special rails or adapters for its rails to fit in square rack holes. The Dell R710 was succesfully mounted, awaiting a RAID card swap so that the hard drives can be passed directly through to unRAID. Also learned that my idea for using a Raspberry Pi 3 to monitor room ambient temperature, humidity etc has already been done before so that'll be fun and easy to setup for the new "server room" in the basement.

Other than the fact that the Scraper and VPS projects have been put on hold due to the inevitable delays caused by needing rails + parts for the servers, I should be able to complete the Lakka Box once the heatsink for the Dell gets here!

Alex out!

Further Projects - Update!

More parts that I need for projects coming in during these future weeks. I'll be reviving the servers and finally racking them using a cheap rack that  I found for the VPS Instances project, as well as setting up a Raspberry Pi 3 with a SENSE HAT to monitor the temp/dampness of the basement room the server rack will be in so as to monitor environmental variables that could hurt them.

For the Pi 3 with SENSE I'll likely either look into Parrot IoT, Ubuntu with Snaps or Raspian- regardless of what I use, it'll be command-line based.

I also recently got a Pi Zero W from someone; might look into some legal pentesting I can do with that in an Altoids tin. That'd be cool and definitely help my college fix their rampant wireless issues.

After racking my servers, because I can't sleep with them whirring next to me, I'll likely begin my foray into the unRAID space for the R710 to become a storage center and begin throwing ProxMox back on the HP dl380 so I can more effectively manage the vms....just no idea yet what I'll be doing for a frontend to the VPS Instances I'll sell or lend out to friends...with time I guess I'll learn!

Progress on The Lakka Box

Now that yet another college semester has arrived, I find myself yet again with a flexible schedule and yet more coursework than ever before. Good thing I have my personal projects continuing to motivate me forward! I've always felt that college should be to teach you instead of loading you down with unnecessary work. Nonetheless, that rant is for a different time.

Recently, I've made more progress on that Lakka Box project I started a while ago. My goal is to finish a project a week until I can finally get to rack-mounting my servers that have been lying dormant, thereby allowing me to make a lot more headway on the Scraper and VPS Instances projects. I've been toying with ideas for hypervisors for the VPS Instances project, but I heavily doubt my front-end I'd be presenting to my friends and family would look as good as DO's or Vultr's.  

You can see my Lakka Box progress here...

Back to School!

It's that time of year again! Back to school at University of Cincinnati. Thus far in my college career, I've been at three universities. Butler University in Indianapolis was overpriced and decided to get rid of my major, then Eastern Michigan was great for two years...however later on, they had a reshuffling of management and teachers in the college of Cybersecurity and my graduation date was murky.

After heading to the University of Cincinnati, I basically restarted my entire college experience. Not accepting most of my core classes from Butler nor EMU, I had to retake Java and many other basic classes. To me, this seemed more like a money grab than anything, but what college in the USA isn't? I started at UC in 2016 and it seems that I'll be on the "seven year plan" to being finished in 2019, starting college in 2012.

Here's to hoping this semester of catching up goes swimmingly! I do enjoy the social aspects of college, and learn more talking to teachers in after-hours than I do in classes. Here we go!