Welcome user from 38.107.191.110, local time is 15:34.

You're connected to theblackmoor.net owned and operated by Walter Francis on a 1500k/256k DSL connection thanks to qx.net.

cygnus.theblackmoor.net
 Cygnus is my OpenNap server for Necessary Evil, web server, mail server, proxy server, and irc server irc.necessary-evil.org. Also, Cygnus serves up khayts.us my personal website, and the Necessary-evil.org website as well. Cygnus also does a lot of little things, mainly serving up my web pages, collecting my email, and serving web-based email using Squirrel Mail, a web-based forum using Ikonboard, acting as a web caching proxy, a distributed.net client proxy, a d.net RC5/DES/OGR client, an ad-blocking proxy called Junkbuster. As previously mentioned, Cygnus is also an OpenNap server for the Necessary Evil network on port 7000. Cygnus is also my firewall and router for my internal lan.

My web server is powered by Apache which has PHP, CGI, SQL, and lots of other extras so I can pretty much run anything I like.

Cygnus is a full-sized tower with a KIA6100 motherboard, Pentium II processor at 400Mhz with 512M of ram and 28G of disk space, two SMC 100Mbit ethernet cards, and a half-working Hewlett Packard 7200i CD ReWriter, and yes, that is a 250MB tape drive, but I just stuck it in there for kicks; it's not even plugged in. :). Cygnus does have on-board sound and a video card, but the only cables Cygnus typically has plugged in is the power cord and two 100Mbit ethernet cables.

Cygnus runs Red Hat Linux 6.1 with hordes of security updates, with typical server installations of Apache, proftp, sendmail, etc.
psi.theblackmoor.net
 Psi is my workstation, my X terminal, mp3 player, picture depository, etc. Psi also acts as a second OpenNap server for Necessary Evil since I can't put more ram in Cygnus and wanted to host more users. I do all of my experimentation on Psi, including adding new software, upgrades of the system, etc. I'm always running XFree86 4.02 with several Eterms running, Licq, Xmms, GKrellM, Lopster, and typically other assorted things such as Netscape, Firestarter and a custom IPChains monitor (both for firewall monitoring).

I keep Psi up to date with the latest software, and in doing so I have broken the system completely several times. However, each time I've managed to recover without any big problems and thus far have not had to reinstall or anything of that nature. Matter of fact, in 13 years of using computers I have yet to need to reinstall an Operating System.

Psi is a full tower with an Asus P4T motherboard, Pentium 4 at 1500Mhz with 1024M of RDRAM at 400Mhz, 275G of disk space, Aureal Vortex sound card, GeForce 2 Ultra video card, one SMC 100Mbit ethernet card, a D-Link DWL-500 PCI/PCMCIA wireless card, a wonderful Plextor PlexWriter 12/10/32A CD-ReWritable, and an Adaptec 7850 SCSI controller with a Plextor UltraPlex 32x CD-ROM. I use a Monopolysoft Elite 2.0 keyboard for the ergonomics and size, and a Trackman Marble (again, for ergonomics). I also have a CTX PL7 17 inch monitor and Boston Acoustics BA635 speakers.

Psi runs Red Hat Linux 9 with lots of security updates, tweaks, and enhancements. I have a full installation on Psi so it could run theblackmoor.net should I need it to do so, but that shouldn't happen as I'm quite careful with Cygnus when it comes to updates.

You can see what my desktop usually looks like look here. I have a pretty busy screen, and really high resolution (1400x1050) but I like it that way.
sphere.theblackmoor.net
 Sphere is my Sony SRX87 laptop. P3 850Mhz 384M of ram, 20G disk space, Fedora Core 2. It's teeny tiny, 10x7x1.3 inches, which means small screen and keyboard, but didn't take long to get used to it. Built in wireless card, network card, modem, USB, firewire, etc. I had trouble with USB and firewire DVD at first but both work quite well now. Sphere seamlessly goes between the wireless home network and the wireless network at school, which is extremely cool :) Something of that might be of interest are my kernel config files for both 2.4 and 2.6.
dargon.theblackmoor.net
 Dargon is my IBM Thinkpad 600E, my portable Psi.. :) I have a D-Link DWL-650 wireless card with an Ad-Hoc network to Psi, as well as a 3Com CardBus 100Mbit network card.. I have most everything set up on Dargon, Licq, Netscape, Xmms, Xplns, Gkrellm, etc.. I tend to use Dargon more than I do psi, as I can carry her all over the house without interruption. :)

Dargon is a mid-sized laptop, 11.75x9.5"x1.5" , Pentium II running at 300Mhz, 288M of ram, 6.2G disk space, 13.3 inch (diagonal) TFT LCD (1024x768). She is running Red Hat Linux 9 with several updates.

amiga.theblackmoor.net
 Also on my network is my faithful Amiga 2000. She has been happily running for 12 years, originally with a Motorola 68000 at 7Mhz and 1M of ram, and 40M hard disk space. Today, she has a Motorola 68040 at 33Mhz with 24M of ram, and 4G of hard disk space. Up until January of 1999 I had only owned an Amiga, Cygnus and Psi are both upgrade leftovers from my upgrade-happy father (nothing better than free hardware. :) She doesn't do a whole lot these days, still runs a Distributed Net client for cracking RC5/DES/OGR, and serves up my saved texts and pictures I have accumulated over the years. She has a bad motherboard ram which will likely eventually put her out of service. I hate to see the day, even if she's mostly idle anymore. The Amiga is connected only by a direct serial PPP link, as it's hard to find ethernet cards for Amigas.

Sorry for the cruddy pictures, I have my computers in a corner of a room with a desk to the left and in front of them, so there is very little room to take good pictures of them. You can click on the pictures for a larger version and I also have a few more pictures of the computers, plus some typical screenshots of my desktop in my photo album.

and this document was last modified on 06/11/2004 at 21:54.