[Discuss] Issues with blu.org mail
We're having some issues with the BLU mail server. This message is to check whether the list is working. Sent on Sunday, June 12 at 9:40 AM. -- John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux Unix GnuPG KeyID: 0xD5C7B5D9 / Email: abre...@gmail.com GnuPG FP: 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[Discuss] Small Form Factor PCs
I'm looking for a very small form factor computer to install some home automation software on. The software is not very resource intensive. Here are the key requirements for the system: 1. Must be able to power back up without human intervention if power to the unit is lost. 2. Should be small and less energy intensive than a regular PC. 3. I would like it to be less than $500. 4. Must be capable of running Windows (so either an AMD or INTEL cpu). Can anyone make any suggestions about what might work well for me? I was looking at the Dell Zino, but am unsure if a better option exists. Thanks, Chris O. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[Discuss] Fwd: Small Form Factor PCs
-- Forwarded message -- From: Chris O'Connell omegah...@gmail.com Date: Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 11:49 PM Subject: Small Form Factor PCs To: blu discuss@blu.org I'm looking for a very small form factor computer to install some home automation software on. The software is not very resource intensive. Here are the key requirements for the system: 1. Must be able to power back up without human intervention if power to the unit is lost. 2. Should be small and less energy intensive than a regular PC. 3. I would like it to be less than $500. 4. Must be capable of running Windows (so either an AMD or INTEL cpu). Can anyone make any suggestions about what might work well for me? I was looking at the Dell Zino, but am unsure if a better option exists. Thanks, Chris O. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Fwd: Small Form Factor PCs
On 06/12/2011 10:31 AM, Chris O'Connell wrote: -- Forwarded message -- From: Chris O'Connellomegah...@gmail.com Date: Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 11:49 PM Subject: Small Form Factor PCs To: bludiscuss@blu.org If you go the way of the LinuxPCRobot.org, I bought an Intel Dual Core Atom board D510M0. Mini ITX form factor and very efficient. It will even run with a 65W 12V ATX power supply. The board, with CPU, costs about $100 bucks. I'm looking for a very small form factor computer to install some home automation software on. The software is not very resource intensive. Here are the key requirements for the system: 1. Must be able to power back up without human intervention if power to the unit is lost. 2. Should be small and less energy intensive than a regular PC. 3. I would like it to be less than $500. 4. Must be capable of running Windows (so either an AMD or INTEL cpu). Can anyone make any suggestions about what might work well for me? I was looking at the Dell Zino, but am unsure if a better option exists. Thanks, Chris O. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Small Form Factor PCs
On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 11:49 PM, Chris O'Connell omegah...@gmail.com wrote: I'm looking for a very small form factor computer to install some home automation software on. The software is not very resource intensive. Here are the key requirements for the system: 1. Must be able to power back up without human intervention if power to the unit is lost. 2. Should be small and less energy intensive than a regular PC. 3. I would like it to be less than $500. 4. Must be capable of running Windows (so either an AMD or INTEL cpu). Can anyone make any suggestions about what might work well for me? I was looking at the Dell Zino, but am unsure if a better option exists. I have a fit-pc2 (www.fit-pc2.com) which works very well. Maybe it will suite your needs? Scott Thanks, Chris O. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Fwd: Small Form Factor PCs
On 06/12/2011 10:31 AM, Chris O'Connell wrote: -- Forwarded message -- From: Chris O'Connellomegah...@gmail.com Date: Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 11:49 PM Subject: Small Form Factor PCs To: bludiscuss@blu.org I'm looking for a very small form factor computer to install some home automation software on. The software is not very resource intensive. Here are the key requirements for the system: 1. Must be able to power back up without human intervention if power to the unit is lost. 2. Should be small and less energy intensive than a regular PC. 3. I would like it to be less than $500. 4. Must be capable of running Windows (so either an AMD or INTEL cpu). Can anyone make any suggestions about what might work well for me? I was looking at the Dell Zino, but am unsure if a better option exists. I know I replied once already, I want to ask a quick couple questions. (1) Is this a on-off or do you intend to productize your system? (2) What version of Windows? You can use Wince. (3) umm, why Windows? (4) What do you expect for $500, a full PC or just the components. $500 is, IMHO a very generous number. (5) If this is a one-off, I have a VIA-800 miniitx motherboard with 512M of ram and an IDE compact flash adapter that makes a neat little pseudo-embedded disk-free system that was removed from my robot last year. I could probably let it go for $100 bucks with a standard ATX power supply. With regards to #1, if you are going to product-ize this, you may want to consider a lower cost platform such as ARM. With regards to #3 and maybe #1, unless there is a REALLY specific need, Windows is a very poor platform for this type of application. Also, take a look at www.mini-itx.com ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Small Form Factor PCs
On Jun 11, 2011, at 23:49 , Chris O'Connell wrote: I'm looking for a very small form factor computer to install some home automation software on. The software is not very resource intensive. Here are the key requirements for the system: 1. Must be able to power back up without human intervention if power to the unit is lost. 2. Should be small and less energy intensive than a regular PC. 3. I would like it to be less than $500. 4. Must be capable of running Windows (so either an AMD or INTEL cpu). Can anyone make any suggestions about what might work well for me? I was looking at the Dell Zino, but am unsure if a better option exists. I built one myself with a Mini-ITX board with an integrated Intel Atom 330 (dual core, 1.6GHz) I don't think the motherboard I bought 2 years ago is still around, but there are plenty of alternatives. Most motherboards these days have a power on after failure option in the BIOS. I used some spare SODIMMs, a cheap case, a couple lower power hard drives, and an 85+ efficient PSU. The whole thing cost ~$400, and I've been very happy with it for the past couple years. It uses ~40 watts at idle, and ~50 watts when it's cranking. My suggestion, is therefore to build something yourself around a MiniITX platform. :) -peter ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Relevance of PGP?
On Jun 11, 2011, at 9:14 AM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote: But you can certainly establish all the same external context using S/MIME or PGP alike. The only difference is whether or not you HAVE TO establish external context. You have it backwards. PGP/GPG do not require the use of the external verification channel. They can be used just fine with blind trust that the sender or signer is who he claims to be. The difference is that with S/MIME I am required to trust that the CA has not been compromised, but with PGP/GPG I have an independent verification mechanism. Let me give you two real world examples. The first is trusting PGP/GPG blindly. Install Debian over the network. There. You've just blindly trusted that the signatures on all of the packages were made by the valid Debian keys. No web of trust or external verification required. No different from using S/MIME signatures. The second: Several jobs back I had to communicate with a little company working on a sensitive project. Their preference was to use PGP for encryption. We -- the person I was dealing with specifically and myself -- exchanged keys. We then called each other in turn and verified the fingerprints of our respective keys. This verification was not required to use PGP, but the option is there and the company insisted on using it. That verification would not be possible with S/MIME. There is no validation mechanism besides the CAs with S/MIME. We would both need to trust that our CAs had not been compromised. This company was unwilling to make that assumption. The company? Rohr Industries (now owned by Goodrich). At the time, circa 1997, it was a Lockheed contractor on the X-33 programme. Rohr had justifiable concerns over both foreign and domestic espionage and they chose PGP instead of S/MIME for communications with other contractors. S/MIME is not the same as PGP/GPG. It is not a religious argument. It is a clear, technical distinction. --Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Relevance of PGP?
The point I'm trying to make is that automation is similar to simplification. As Albert Einstein used to say, Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. When you oversimplify something, you essentially destroy a fundamental part of it. The same concept applies to automation. We don't want to be required to do something manually, or hire someone to do it for us, if it can be automated. But something that cannot be automated without sacrificing a critical part of its essence should not be automated. And my gut feeling is that when you try to automate the trust model, there's a serious danger that you could recreate weaknesses similar to what we see in the SSL infrastructure. Maybe there are parts of it that can be safely automated, but I'd want to examine the implementation long and hard to make sure they were safe. On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Anthony Gabrielson agabriels...@comcast.net wrote: On Jun 12, 2011, at 4:50 PM, John Abreau wrote: If you don't like the web-of-trust model at all, then instead of extending it, you can replace it entirely. Either way, I'm just saying that a distributed model where you choose who to trust, or choose who to delegate decisions about trust, is better than a model where everyone in the world is effectively compelled to trust the One True Authority. Agreed. I think a decentralized model is ideal. If one one central server is compromised the network as whole should not be dead. If someone compromises your lawyer who you trust to manage your PGP keys, you need to change your lawyer and your keys' trustdb. You should be able to hire a PGP locksmith to audit and clean up your keyrings. I think a web-of-trust (note: not the current one) can do that for you. PGP provides you with a public key and private key, who cares who has your public key. So if I want to send an email to you - my computer should be able to ask yours for it. There is a little bit of infrastructure involved, like Kerberos, but if my key server gets hacked the results are alot less dire and easier to clean up. I don't necessarily think we need to hire people to do things that should be handled automatically. If someone compromises Verisign's top-level root certificates, you need to change your top-level SSL authority. How many independent top-level certificate authorities are there? My understanding is that all of them are heavily depended on Verisign, and none of them can truly be considered independent. If my understanding is correct, then there is no other authority that can replace Verisign. I think the very idea of a root level certificate is a loser. Its one of my main gripes against DNSSEC. They are essentially saying you need to trust them and they give you no visibility at all. If they are compromised or paid to do something (by say a government) the users may have no visibility. Have you followed Blackberry in India? If so I think you will see I'm not stretching at all. -- John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux Unix AIM abreauj / JABBER j...@jabber.blu.org / YAHOO abreauj / SKYPE zusa_it_mgr Email j...@blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0xD5C7B5D9 PGP-Key-Fingerprint 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Fwd: Small Form Factor PCs
Mark Woodward wrote: ...unless there is a REALLY specific need, Windows is a very poor platform for this type of application. Yes, considering that if you went with Linux you might be able to get by with a $30 router platform. In fact, there are commercial home automation products that do exactly that: http://www.micasaverde.com/ (Earlier versions of this product clearly use a repurposed ASUS router. They've since switched to a custom platform.) -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA Enterprise solutions through open source. Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Small Form Factor PCs
On 6/12/2011 3:11 PM, John Abreau wrote: The R10-S4 may be discontinued, but if you search Neweegg for Foxconn atom, you find the R30-D4, which also has an Atom cpu. Presumably this should also be low-power as well. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119039 This one (and the related ones that show up in the similar products links that Newegg offers you) look like updated versions: GMA 3150 graphics instead of the 945 and a faster Atom CPU. There might be slight differences in power consumption due to the faster CPU and updated chipset but I would expect them to still be low power systems. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
