Marc's Public Blog

We were early for the Ferry in Tiburon, so we went to the vantage point to have a look:

Angel Island is a peaceful little island to visit. You have to plan your trip carefully to match ferry times (there aren't that many ferries during the week), and find parking that isn't outragerous. Leaving from Tiburon is the best bet but the closest parking lot is $25/night, whereas a farther one at a closeby bank is just $5.

Going around the Island was pretty scenic, and doing some of the hiking on the perimeter road is actually where you'll get the best views in some places. It's a little bit sad that they refugate campsites so tightly since they have loads of space where people can actually pitch tents, but so it is.

After setting up our tent (a jackhammer to put the stakes in would have come in handy), we continued going around the Island counter clockwise towards the nice vantage point and had dinner there, and stayed for some night shots. After that, we headed back to our tent for the night.

The next day, we hiked to the top for a panoramic view, and just made it back to the 11:20 Ferry (the next one was 2H later). This allowed us to drive to Point Reyes for our next hike.

old buildings used by the army

Point Reyes was a no frills hike. Outside of some asshole driving 15mph on the entire 30mn twisty piece of hwy 1 (where are the cops to pull those idiots over when you need them), we eventually got to the parking lot at the end of the paved road, and hiked to the falls from there.

It was a nice scenic hike, one however had to be careful and avoid the poison oak on the very overgrown 0.4 mile portion of trail going to the ocean. Also, the path down to the beach is very non solid rock that you can't grip to since it breaks in your fingers. Hiking down with a backpack was a bit dicy and I can see people falling and hurting themselves there every so often.
Once down, though, the view was quite nice and a good place to have a late lunch.

All in all, it was a nice little hike.

I can now see how it actually takes forever since after arriving about 2H late, the parade was around group #140, and still going strong. I basically joined from the end, by civic center where everyone was ending up, and worked my way back up the parade, still in time to see some nice floats, including my coworkers from Google. Yeah!

Street Blocks filled around Civic Center

Pick your color, shape, and size :)

Most companies were present

Although Gold's Gym did win by having the best male bodies :)

My coworkers

Where's Waldo? :)

To be honest, as a science museum, it's a bit undewhelming: I got through it in about 3H and that included their planetarium show which was more an Imax movie (although it was actually a good one).

For the rest, it was more a museum on animals of many kinds, which was interesting. It was however lacking on sience in general: computers, optics, genetics, medicinal sciences, math, physics, computers and so forth. On the upside their aquarium was good.

the biosphere was reasonably good

for people who don't dive, lots of nice things you'd see during dives

Anyway, it was an ok few hours, but not the best science museum I've seen in the US, I expected a bit more after having seen some in St Louis, Portland, or other places.

Instead of pasting the information here, here is the link with all the goods: https://web.archive.org/web/20120423061924/http://misterhouse.wikispaces.com/X10RFX10SecRFXCOM
or
https://github.com/hollie/misterhouse/wiki/X10RFX10SecRFXCOM (up to date, but formatting a bit broken).

I did also learn about RF and antenna design in the process. Here is the quarter wave antenna I built and that I'm now using on my MR26a:

And the simpler, but actually more effective dipole antenna I made and that I use for the W800RF32:

The serial W800RF32 is easier to extend with a long serial cable

One of my first applications was to read an X10Sec module in my mailbox to know when said mailbox was opened:

Although, after 6 years of usage, I got tired of replacing the batteries on that DS10A, and I also lost a couple to water damage (it's been hard to waterproof it without killing the radio signals coming out of it). Also, on occasion I would lose a state change due to RF loss. I ended up bringing power and ethernet to my mailbox for IP cams, so I ended up adding an insteon iolinc to read the mailbox open status and at the same time control a flood light to illuminate the mailbox if it gets opened at night:

iolinc has a 2nd relay in parallel with its own relay in put to act as an OR gate and leave the output on even if the input (mailbox) has gone back down

got a weather proof box this time, tight fit

lots of wires going to the mailbox now, but I've always prefered wired to wireless

The next one was to know when my garage doors were opened or closed.
The first thing was to move the door sensors to be at the bumper level, which included drilling holes in the gardrail, no small feat without diamond tip drills which I didn't have. After several hours of making new holes and adjusting the sensors, they are now set to detect the car's bumper as opposed to looking for the car's tires which made it easy to close the door on top of the hood ...

Next, I installed X10Sec sensors on each door so that I know when they get opened or closed.

Technical notes:

Here is the code I wrote for misterhouse:

#08/05/2010 11:34:22  State Garage2 is alertbattlowmin
#08/05/2010 11:34:22  State Garage2 is normalbattlowmin

my %x10rfstate; #noloop

foreach my $dev (["x10sec_garage1", "Main Garage Door"], ["x10sec_garage2", "Small Garage Door"], ["x10sec_mailbox", "Mailbox"])
{   
    my $obj = $dev->[0];
    my $name = $dev->[1];

    $obj = &::get_object_by_name($obj);
    $x10rfstate{$obj} = $obj->state if (not defined $x10rfstate{$obj});

    if ($obj->state_now)
    {   
        my $oldstate = $x10rfstate{$obj};
        my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime();
        $year += 1900;
        $mon++;

        print_log "X10SEC: $name is ".$obj->state." (was $oldstate)";

        open(LOG, ">>/var/log/x10sec");
        printf LOG ("%.4d/%.2d/%.2d %.2d:%.2d:%.2d $name: ".$obj->state." (was $oldstate)\n", $year,$mon,$mday,$hour,$min,$sec);
        close(LOG);

        if ($obj->state ne $oldstate)
        {   
            if ($obj->state =~ /alert/)
            {   
                system('date | Mail -s "'.$name.' Just Opened" EMAIL');
            }
            elsif  ($obj->state =~ /normal/)
            {   
                system('date | Mail -s "'.$name.' Just Closed" EMAIL');
            }
            else
            {   
                system('date | Mail -s "'.$name.' UNKNOWN STATE" EMAIL');
            }
            $x10rfstate{$obj} = $obj->state;
        }
    }
}

# vim:sts=4:sw=4

My original gargamel server

This server worked a good 6 years or so, and I eventually replaced it in 2006 with a dual P4 Xeon server board I got from my new then work. Drives also got bigger, so I removed SCSI and the 3 external disk arrays, switched to SATA with port multipliers, and settled with 12 internal drives (2 boot drives, 5x250GB and 5x500GB) for a total usable space of 3TB with a "much lower" power usage. Typical power was now in the 280-300W range for the entire server closet.
Note that my base usage in the closet with computer off is still 70W (UPS is 23W by itself, cable modem and 24 port switch is another 30W, and the other random stuff brings it to 70W).

Gargamel V2 with Sata and PMP

Eventually, another 5 years later, I was tired of debugging a couple of issues with the server that was sometimes low on memory that was hard/expensive to find vs bigger DDR3 dims. I also wanted to reduce the power consumption of that power hungry P4 Xeon Server board. One thing I did that helped a while ago was to write some software to make sure all the drives suspended (spun off), which explains the big spikes in power (drives spinning or spun down). See my Spinning down WD20EADS Drives and fixing load cycle page.
Thanks to help from coworkers who followed PC trends, I went for an Intel Sandy Bridge MB (it was hard to find one with a serial port for serial console booting, and onboard IDE, and 2 PCI slots, but eventually I think I got the last one available :) ). I paid a few dollars extra for an Intel i3 2100T dual core CPU, which is only 2.53Ghz, but that's more than plenty and it only uses 35W, which is awesome.

As a result, I came down to about 270W average for the computer closet (200W for the computer) to about 210W average (140W for the computer). It will now full idle at 180W (110W for the computer). Sure, one might say 110W is still a lot, but for a server with 10 drives, I/O cards, around 16 USB devices connected, dual ethernet, and dual sound (5 + 7 channels), that's not so bad. In the end, the power graph looks better, so that's good enough for me :)

The hole is where I changed the server

The here Christened Gargamel V3!

all wired up

Anyway, I wanted to have power a bit longer than 10mn when PG&E power went out, so I looked into UPS solutions while powering from a Marine or a AGM (Absorbed Glass Material) battery, both being better options than a car battery (car batteries are not meant to be deep cycled or use for extended periods of time and they do put out hydrogen when you charge them, which is undesireable inside a house).

Interesting bits I found out:

In the end, I got a couple of mostly matching AGM batteries and went ahead with those for my 24V APC 1400 SmartUPS. I know my runtime wouldn't be fantastic but good enough considering (at least until I can find another free marine battery :) ).

At 400W of actual use, that was 40% of the load for the APC 1400 inverter and a self test estimated that I would get about 1H of runtime, which gave 16Ah usable for my AGM batteries instead of about 55Ah at a lower draw (when new, and they were not new). It's a bit disappointing on one side, but on the other side, 1H of runtime for my computer gear ain't too bad, especially for AGM batteries that cost $20 a pieces (cheaper than the stock 7Ah batteries).

first I quadrupled the wire.

this is a big ass gauge jumper cable

what it looks like connected

Anyway, even if this isn't quite the runtime I was hoping for, and it seems hard to find any UPS with a good VA rating by using a single 12V battery (not too surprising due to the amp problem I pointed out), this is still pretty cool.

In my case, I picked up an 8 port ftdi usb to serial converter for only $15 on Ebay (woot!) but even its ports may not come up in sequence at boot time if other modules are loaded at the same time (a race condition can cause the pl2303 port to be in between one of the 8 ports from the ftdi hub).

Turns out there is a solution to this problem with udev, iff your usb to serial adapters have serial numbers (my ftdi ones did, but my pl2303 ones did not), or if you only have one serial adapter of each brand (like ftdi, pl2303, keyspan).

In my case, I have (don't laugh), 11 serial devices on my server:

This is what you do with udev:

gargamel:~# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/50-local-usb-serial.rules 
# /etc/udev/rules.d/50-local-usb-serial.rules

# http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html#udevinfo
# was udevinfo -a -p /class/tty/ttyUSB0
# now udevadm info --attribute-walk -p /class/tty/ttyUSB0

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvN", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_1"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvO", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_2"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvP", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_3"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvR", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_4"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvQ", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_5"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvS", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_6"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvT", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_7"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A7006gvU", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-ftdi-8_8"

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="FT232R USB UART", ATTRS{serial}=="A800dMFk", SYMLINK+="rfxcom"

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="USB-Serial Controller", ATTRS{manufacturer}=="Prolific Technology Inc.", SYMLINK+="usb-serial-pl2303"

After making a change udevadm trigger will update symlinks.

I hadn't gotten around to post pictures of my house after it had been staged, so it's done now.

Chen-Chen really did a fantastic job taking the place over and getting it ready for selling in a record time.

A few are picked here:

The virtual tour is sweet (I recommend that for as long as it's up):
http://www.tourfactory.com/623341

and the MLS listing for whatever it's up too: http://www.mlslistings.com/Default.aspx?pp=-1&pg=0&idx=1&l=19$978330$RES

But for posterity, here's the youtube video made from the virtual tour and embedded in this page (this will stay forever since it's a local copy 100% served from my server, gotta be careful with WEB 2.0 nowadays):

After the original post, 2 weeks later, we got several offers and I'm currently in contract with an old couple downgrading from a more expensive house in Palo Alto. I'm kind of relying on their house closing to happen for them to close with me, but they offered more than other folks as a way to make up for it, so I agreed to take the slightly extra risk.

I found out that Panasonic had fulfilled my wish and did come out with a new camera that had GPS geotagging built in a compact high zoom camera, and that a few other companies did too. I spent a lot of hours finding and reading all the reviews and deciding which camera would work for me.

Summary and ranking of each camera

Raw notes gathered on each camera

Panasonic DMC TZ10 (aka ZS7 in the US)

links and quotes:

Quick specs/notes:

Sony Cybershot DSC-HX5

links and quotes:

Quick specs/notes:

Canon PowerShot SX210 IS

links and quotes:

Quick specs/notes:

Samsung HZ35W/WB650

Quick specs/notes:

Ricoh CX3

Quick specs/notes: