for keeping track of my digital experiments

I managed to get a few computers in the past week, just in time for my spring break. I transferred my XP Home license onto one of them. I then stuck a 128mb GPU I had, and enough ram into the 1.6ghz computer, I snagged from recycling intentions, to run pc Halo. I then plugged in a playstation 2 controller into this pc by means of an adapter I had purchased from a Hong Kong EBay shop. I hooked a S-Video cable into my graphics card instead of to a VGA cable and jacked into my tv. The graphics need to be tweaked a bit to display just right, but it worked great for a trial run.

The setup in picture form

Halo for PC gameplay on a TV

Well I have a computer cluster in my Zamboni room. It is a pain booting up these semi-hidden machines. After getting a few more computers, as the result of tedious negotiations, it became high time to find a solution to this problem. Essentially, as long as said computer is plugged into a live ethernet hookup, it is possible to boot the computer when BIOS settings allow Wake-On-LAN. [more info on Wikipedia]

I continued poking around my google search results and found a website that runs a PHP implementation of the wake on lan protocol, called remotewakeup.com. If you setup your router properly, I guess you can wake a machine from any remote location. I also found some PHP source code that is probably what remotewakeup.com is running. Check it out at phrackattack.net. There are plenty of implementations available based upon the WOL rfc. A java implementation I found –> http://www.moldaner.de/wakeonlan/wakeonlan.html.

[Added April 5th] I was working with Debian a lot and I found some information on implementing a remote wakeup for Debian/Ubuntu systems.

At about 6:45pm this evening (Saturday) I got picked up by my friend Ben Feldkamp and we drove over to this restaurant called “Mi Familia”, which literally means My Family in Spanish. Surprisingly I had never heard of this place before, even though I had been to the shopping mall that it is located in many times before.

A few shots of the restaurant. Chris Kim thought the lights were pretty fashionable. The staff was rather personable and we were helped right away. The establishment is owned and cooked for by a Mexican family, bestowing upon itself authentic. It sure did taste authentic, just like the stuff I remember eating while I was living in Los Angeles.

James Buchen, Chris, Ben, and myself shared three platters of food among the four of us which was quite enough. We ordered:

1. Mi Familia Nachos – You can opt for beef or chicken and if I remember correctly, pork. All of the serving platters are nine inches in diameter. We had a pile of nachos at least four inches tall with cheese, lettuce, beef, sour cream, and a home brew salsa and guacamole. I have never tasted such amazing guacamole for the life of me. The combination of flavors changes each time as you get a different amount of each component with every bite of chip. The taste I will always remember.
   
2. Flautas – Three of them with a interesting cheese, lettuce, and salsa topping. Comes with beans and rice. The cook nailed the taste and texture right on and the topping only adds refreshment to the taste. The rice was prepared with green onions and other spices.
   
3. El pollo de mole (at least that’s what I think it’s called) – As Ben said, “if you’ve never had mole don’t be expecting anything otherwise it ruins the taste.” I had never had mole before so I can’t compare it to any other preparation. To do it a disjustice and try to describe what mole is. It is liquid chocolate with Mexican-like spices mixed in that leaves a semi-spicy aftertaste. The dish was ultra-tender chicken covered in mole sauce served with beans, rice and a lettuce mix.
   

Hopefully you can tell by now that I totally recommend this place to anyone with taste buds. For directions and more you can check out The Rake.