Linksys NSLU2 and OpenWrt

I have two Linksys NSLU2's that I bought three years ago, during the early days of this blog, to use as print servers. I chose to run the Unslung firmware and use CUPS as the print server. Unfortunately, after using them for a while, I discovered that NSLU2+CUPS was not stable enough for volume printing, and as I was able to get p910nd to run completely stable on a number of other wireless routers, so I had set the NSLU2's aside and switched to using wireless routers with USB ports. I loved the NSLU2's for what they're capable of, but a wireless router doubling as a print server and an access point is far more practical than a single purpose print server that needed a USB flash drive to work.

Recently I suddenly needed additional print servers to support our growing printing needs, and because the WRT160NL was discontinued, I decided to dust off the NSLU2's off and install OpenWrt on them. I thought that since OpenWrt has a much smaller footprint, and if I'm only going to install p910nd and the necessary USB support, it should fit the onboard memory.

I had to use VMware to run the Sercomm upgrade utility, since it doesn't work with Windows 7. When the NSLU2 is placed into recovery mode for flashing, it automatically takes an IP address of 192.168.0.1, so I had to change my VMware's IP address to the same subnet. I installed the latest version of OpenWrt "Backfire" which is 10.03.1-RC5 as of this writing.

After flashing, the NSLU2 automatically changed its IP address to 192.168.1.1. Because I did the flashing inside VMware, and I could configure the NSLU2 using a web browser in Windows 7, I actually had to change my Windows 7's IP address to connect to the NSLU2. I gave it a new IP address to go with my LAN, and plugged it into the LAN.

After that, I installed the p910nd and the USB support packages. These packages are needed: kmod-usb-core, kmod-usb-printer, kmod-usb-uhci, kmod-usb-ohci, kmod-usb2, p910nd, luci-app-p910nd. I was mostly concerned whether I would have enough memory, but as the image shows, no problems there.

After enabling p910nd and plugging in my USB printer, I could print right away without any problems, but after some testing, I found that once in a while I get a timeout when the print jobs are finishing up, which suggested that I needed to disable bi-directional signaling on the print server, and there's an option for that. One funny thing about OpenWrt on the NSLU2 is that it doesn't turn on the power LED light by default, but there's an option for that too.

So I'm happy with the NSLU2's again.

Upgrade pains

Sometimes I hate buying new hardware. It's one thing to experiment with new hardware, learning and breaking things in the process, but it's another thing when you've experimented enough and want to put the newly gained knowledge into production use, but only to find out shortly later that everything was in vain since that particular piece of hardware was discontinued.

This happened recently with the Linksys WRT160NL. I've wrote about the WRT160NL previously and mentioned that it was quickly turning into my favorite router. Coupled with recent versions of DD-WRT (17201 as of this writing) it's an extremely stable and capable wireless router. I have a number of them running as regular routers (ha!) as well as USB print servers and VPN servers. Unfortunately when I tried to buy more recently, the shops told me they're discontinued and want me to buy the Linksys Cisco E2000 or E3000 instead. I know the E2000 and E3000 are newer dual band routers with gigabit Ethernte ports, but I already have the WRT160NL running smoothly, buying an entirely different series would mean starting everything over again, and with a different chipset too. (Atheros vs. Broadcom.)

After some research, I found that the Cisco E2100L is the equivalent of the WRT160NL. Unfortunately, the E2100L isn't available locally. I called all my suppliers and they managed to find three WRT160NL's for me, so I bought them right away to keep them for future use. Over the past few months I've also recommended the WRT160NL to serveral friends, so I'm actually tempted to buy the E2000 to exchange with their WRT160NL's. I wish I still lived in the States as the WRT160NL is still available from Amazon.com. (Don't trust those reviews on Amazon.com.)

Still, it looks like it's time to break more things again.

I'm a computer, not a tablet

I hate Gmail's new look, and I hate Google Calendar's new look even more. I always thought Google is big on the usability front, but apparently they either think everyone's using huge 22" monitors, or everyone's using tablet computers.

P.S. The above is an actual screen capture of Google Calendar's new look from my notebook. None of my events can fit properly on the monthly calendar view.

SysAdminDay 2011

Happy SysAdminDay! The amount of posts I make here is indirectly proportional to the amount of work I have. I'm now deep in the middle of business process re-engineering, and I seem to have been in stuck in more meetings in the past few months than in my entire life combined, including the times we were implementing the ERP. I only wish the new boss was here when we implemented the ERP years ago!

I was just thinking about how my job has changed over the past two years or so (under the new boss) from massaging the servers into managing projects and implementing business processes. I know IT is business and all that, but it's still a big change for me to go from managing machines to managing people, and I'm still getting my feet wet. And then I saw this article on TechRepublic: The future of IT will be reduced to three kinds of jobs. Perhaps starting this November I'll be celebrating Project Management Day.

While searching for an image to go with this post, I came across this great post. It's exactly how I feel too!

Samsung S1 Mini

I have a 32 GB Kingston DataTraveler 200 Flash drive that I carry with me wherever I go for installing warez^H^H^H^H^Happlications. I have an older 4 GB Kingston DataTraveler Elite that I use for data.

Frankly, 32 GB isn't enough in these days of multi-gigabyte applications, and I really don't like to carry around a 2.5" portable drive, even though I have several of those. I've been wanting to get something larger, perhaps the 128 GB DataTraveler 200, but the price is just slightly out of my reach. (Actually, I paid more for the 4 GB DT Elite back in 2005 compared to the 128 GB DT 200 today, but it's painful to pay such high prices year after year to get the latest and greatest.) So when I came across the Samsung S1 Mini, a portable 1.8" with a reasonable price, I bought it immediately. The S1 Mini comes in six different colors, I bought the black one to go with my ThinkPad. The S1 Mini has been out for around two years, but it was never available here.

Here's a comparison shot between the WD My Passport Essential 500 GB portable drive, the Samsung S1 Mini, the Kingston DT 200, and Kingston DT Elite. The keyboard below is a ThinkPad X61 so it's slightly smaller than a standard sized keyboard.

One thing that always worries me when buying shrink-wrapped hard drives is how the USB port looks like. Sometimes drives claim to use standard USB ports, but they need a proprietary cable to fit into the proprietary hole. The iPhone was famous for this: it had a standard earphone jack, but it's recessed and most earphones won't fit into that hole. Portable hard drive reviews need to show how the USB port really looks like.

The drive speed is nothing to write home about. I didn't expect it to be any fast since it's a 1.8" drive, but it still me a long time to copy all my installation files from the DT200 to the S1 Mini.

Oops. I just noticed my mouse pointer got captured into the photos in this post. I was doing a demo earlier and needed to capture the mouse pointer, and I forgot to turn it off. I'm too lazy to remove them so I'll leave them as they are this time.

The pen is mightier than the keyboard

When I started taking notes using Moleskine notebooks a bit over two years ago, one other thing I had to do was get a good pen to go with the notebook. Even though I didn't mention it at the time, I bought the supposedly hugely popular Pilot G-2 pen. I liked it so much I even bought the G-2 Pro a few months later.

Unfortunately, I don't know if it's the weather in Thailand or if it's bad usage (I write very softly), but so far all of my G-2 refills except one have died on me, and each time it happened it was the exact same symptom: the ball of the pen came out from the tip (see photo) when I let someone borrow my pen just for a few seconds. Until finally it happend to myself. While I was taking notes during a meeting the pen just suddenly stopped working and the tip came out. I wasn't even doing anything special.

So I went to the office supply place to pick out a new pen without reading any reviews, and I picked up the Pentel Vicuna. A quick web search shows that it's new and appears to be quite popular. Strangely enough, even though only the dark blue colored body is supposed to be blue ink, mine is the light blue / violet colored body, and it even says black on the barrel, has blue ink inside. Unfortunately, even though when I tested the pen at the store it was really smooth and the ink looked good, but when I actually took notes during today's meeting, a lot of ink globs were visible and lines were uneven.

While searching online to see if others are experiencing the same problem I have with the Pilot G-2. I came across a whole bunch of sites "teaching" people how to swap the G-2 refill for a Mont Blanc refill. I thought the whole idea of using the G-2 pen is for the smooth writing and ink quality. Perhaps the grass is greener on the other side? I also see a lot of people complaining that Mont Blanc refills dry up very quickly, but Mont Blanc rollerball pens are capped, so I wonder how many of those people complaining are actually using Mont Blanc refills on other pen bodies such as the retractable Pilot G-2 body?

I've also been using Evernote more frequently lately. Maybe one day these traditional pens (like cameras) will be called analog pens, and I will finally be taking notes with digital pens.