I have 2 old computers (Pentium III and Celeron computers circa early 2000’s) that I currently use as servers for file storage, backups, and testing. I thought it was about time to consolidate these servers I had, up the performance, and set up a flexible test environment for my coding endeavours. VMWare’s free ESXi hypervisor piqued my interests earlier last year. It’s comparable to XenServer but apparently has better support for Windows virtual machines. Being a bare-metal hypervisor, it should give better performance than a usual virtual machine sitting on top of a full-blown operating system. So I set my Continue Reading
XDMCP Login from Mac to Lubuntu 11.10
My old desktops run Lubuntu (Ubuntu but lightweight!) 11.10, which just became part of the official Ubuntu release. Life is a lot zippier in Lubuntu compared to Ubuntu when you’re on Pentium III and Celeron machines. I wanted to be able to login to these computers remotely with a GUI, sort of like Microsoft’s Remote Desktop but Linux style. I didn’t want VNC because I wanted to be able to create a new login session instead of using the main console. Luckily XDMCP does exactly that and most of it is built into Ubuntu. The Setup Following one question previously Continue Reading
Hello world!
Getting back into blogging! I debated long whether to use WordPress or to code up my own blog system. I figured that reinventing the wheel is a waste of time so here I am with WordPress once again. I’m probably going to modify the homepage a bit and the theme when I have time. I’m also going to dig through some of my archives on my old site and import some of my original blog posts… again when I have time.
Canada Line OMC Tour (Round 2)
I had the opportunity to tour the Canada Line Operations and Maintenance Centre for a second time yesterday. Photos from both of my visits can be found on my Flickr account.
Side Project 1: Real Time Bus Map in Vancouver
Since TransLink released their new mobile Next Bus site with real-time GPS updates of bus locations, I’ve been trying to find ways to get the data and rehash it into something that Metro Vancouver transit enthusiasts (more specifically, enthusiasts who chase buses and monitor the transit system’s operation) will find useful. There were two main shortcomings of TransLink’s site from the viewpoint of a transit enthusiast: Can’t search for a specific bus. Often times transit enthusiasts “chase” a particular bus, usually a new bus, a fresh bus after a midlife refurbishment, or a bus with a new advertisement wrap. Can’t Continue Reading