I updated my webserver with Ubuntu 18.  Then I decided to upgrade to Ubuntu 19.  But first I needed a backup of WordPress.  I decided on “UpdraftPlus“.  I backed up my WordPress data and moved it to a thumb drive.  Then for the move to Ubuntu 19.  It failed.  After about 1.5 hours the process just hung.  I did a hard reset and that was it.  I should also point out that I had no power to the PC internals – MB, disks so I am assuming that shortly after I started the upgrade the Power supply failed.  Can’t complain:  10 years x 24 hours a day.  Took me 4 days to rebuild the box.  I had good Readme.files but many of the commands in them were no longer valid because mysql, apache2 had changed their syntax for their commands/statements.  Lots of Googling.  Anyway once I got the box configured  to support WordPress and got WP downloaded and installed I once again downloaded the UpdraftPlus plugin for backups/restore.  I moved the backup files from the thumb drive to the newly build PC and using UpdraftPlus restored the data.  PERFECT!!!  About 2 minutes and my WordPress blog was recovered vs. 4 days of rebuilding a PC.  UpdraftPlus is definitely a winner.

Configuring and installing a V380 network camera. The hardest thing I have ever done!!!

The details are here.

After a gateway swap out that AT&T promised would be simple the website is finally back online.  Much of the problem was me finding the time.  But here we are!!!  Tah Dah!!!       

Continue reading →

Got an IP camera to livestream to Youtube using Blue Iris as the video streaming application.  There were a few bumps, for example why does my stream run  for several hours/days then suddenly quit?  The answer to that question is here

Yesterday I bought a new “cruncher”:  a Dell AMD Ryzen 7 1700 with an AMD Radeon RX 580.  As soon as I got home I removed Windows 10 and installed Ubuntu 16 (tried 17 on this node but had issues).  This PC required the installation of new AMD GPU PRO driver support because Einstein@Home did not recognize the onboard GPU.  There were errors in the AMD procedure which I will address later in a more detailed page on this website.  Now for the “bad news”  Once the drivers were successfully installed Einstein@Home is reporting the GPU as being a 480 and not a 580.  I will have to look into this and depending on what I find contact the store to see what is going on.

Had to evacuate to avoid Hurricane Matthew.   Had planned on a 2 day outage but fortunately for me a 1000s more Matthew spared us so down time was only ~24 hours.

Finished the build of the 3D tank.  It took longer than I thought but here it is.

The main differences between this tank and a previously PS3 controlled tank are:  Its body was fashioned from CAD designed 3D parts giving it a more completed look, the headlights do not require their own circuit board (the ground and positive of the LEDS are plugged into the signal pin and ground on the ServoHAT which has built in resistors for each of the 3V channels, and the video provided by the on board camera did away with the Linux Motion app in favor of “ffplay”.  ffplay provided for a simpler integration/configuration with less latency as seen in this video.  Also ffplay is started with this application.  There is a gotcha however.  If you want a larger “TankEye”  change the window size in the application code which triggers ffplay.  If you size on the go it locks up the video feed.

You can see more of the 3D build here if you wish.