Ben Hovinga

So up until yesterday I have been using my laptop (with Boxee Media Center installed) connected to my TV via HDMI for watching my movies. This was a pain in the butt if say my mom wanted to watch a movie but I needed my laptop for work (aka play games). So set out to find a way to for my mom to watch her movies an I can still use my laptop. The result a laptop (other laptop) server.

I could have put together a bunch of parts from old broken down systems that I have sitting in the basement to make a cheap tower server that would be loud and take up a bunch of space. But that was just the problem. I don’t have much space for it and my parents would complain about the noise, trust me I have tried. Then there would be the issue of network wires to get to the server.

I remembered that I had a old laptop that nobody would use. In fact it was so old it wouldn’t be the effort to sell. Just clean it up with a new OS and install some software, it was perfect.

Now it is small, it is quiet, it has WiFi and built in battery backup. I can store this thing almost anywhere. Under or behind a couch, under a bed, behind the TV, strapped to the underside of a table behind your current computer. The options go on and on.

My Setup

• Old acer laptop that took 5 minutes to load Windows
• External 320 GB HDD
• xubuntu
• wine
• utorrent (with web gui enabled)
• PS3 media server (because I have a PS3 connected to my TV)
• SSH

I hid mine behind the couch and also decided to put the rest of the network gear there so I can free up some space on my desk.

My hidden network

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Our school is one of the few in Ontario that are trying to become an eco-school. We have been a silver eco-school as of last year and this year we are trying for the gold.

In Academic Resources there is a sign-in system. When you come into the room you must sign your name on the sheet. The problem with this system is that it uses a lot of paper and most of which is just thrown away. It was a teacher in AR that had the idea of having an electronic sign-in system using excel. After seeing it while he was still making it I just about cried by how difficult it would make things for entering and leaving the room. I decided that during my spare I would sit in AR and write a neat and user friendly php/mysql program on my laptop. For those that now what these are you would also know that you need a web server, I used xampp lite just because everything was in one place and I could run it from my USB drive.

Here are the functions of the sign-in system.
I had a nice looking home page that everyone would see when they go to sign-in. This page has three buttons, a door with the words sign-in below, a door with the words sign-out below, and a button almost invisible in the top right that says Administrator (need user and pass).

When a student would come in they would click on the sign-in door. They would do a search for their last name. If they are not in the list they can create their self (just first and last name). If they are in the list they would enter why they are here. Once submitted it is automatically time stamped and stored in the database.

When a student is going to leave they would click the sign-out door, find their name from the list of signed in students and sign-out. Again once submitted the sign-out time is automatically tracked and stored to the database.

Teachers could easily access all of this information and more from the administrator panel. Stuff like student list and a mass sign-out function for students who forget to sign-out (like me).

As I was working on this I was also learning more about PHP and a week of working on this went by and after I was done I showed the head of AR. She loved it and wanted it setup now. We setup a time to talk to the LAN tech to see if he can setup a computer at the door.

Here is the kicker. I never even showed him the program. As the computer was starting up I was explaining how I did it and what I used. When I told him that I used xampp lite he flipped out and said no servers even if its on a stand alone system (off the network).

So in the end I was learning against the the rules and I also wasted a week of my life.

Ever wanted to have a Diablo II LAN party? Never had the patience to install it on all of your friends computers? Want to play Diablo II from any computer in your house and still have your same character? This is the solution to all of your problems. This how to will guide you through installing Diablo II on a network computer, setup sharing, and setup the other computers in your house to play.