[ELECTRON] Electron Club, excess bandwidth and computers

[Ben Dembroski]

I also dropped off a "Little black box" that can be used to install
whatever and used by the club.

It's a Biostar mini-pc (Shuttle knock off).

--
Ben

PS. Thanks Martin!

On Wed, 2010-12-22 at 15:10 +0000, Bob wrote:
> Good work Martin
> I have a machine at my mates I will find out the spec. Its got a sound card 
> and a flat screen and is running linux, might be useful. Thanks for the 
> heads up on the mail. Merry xmas Bob
> 
> On 22/12/2010 14:43, Martin McGrath wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I've spent quite some time here over the last couple of days investigating
> > potential causes of bandwidth excess problem.
> >
> > There are two machines currently connected to the router in the club room.
> >
> > 1. Compaq 5221, AMD K6 380Mhz, 320MB RAM. Running Windows XP, missing lots
> > of patches, no Antivirus software installed.
> > 2. Ubuntu based machine, reasonable spec CPU, 512MB RAM. Running an
> > unsupported (ergo unpatched) version of Ubuntu.
> >
> > In the interests of security please don't operate a Windows PC without anti
> > virus software installed, it's just common sense.
> > Please user Firefox as your default web browser.
> >
> > The XP machine had no application software other than uTorrent (a bit
> > torrent client) and CClean installed.
> > This machine is terribly slow, I've earmarked a machine to replace it which
> > is significantly faster and we have more RAM in the cupboard which I can fit.
> >
> > Do we really need a Windows machine in the club? I'd like feedback on this
> > please.
> > A linux machine is just as easy to use for everything this machine could
> > have been used for, and far easier to maintain.
> >
> > The XP machine passed a full system virus scan and three rootkit scans.
> >
> > I plan to upgrade the Ubuntu machine to a version of the operating system
> > which is at least supported. If anyone has data they'd like backed up
> > please do so, or let me know where and what it is and I'll do it for you.
> >
> > The room still has it's WIFI point, at the moment secured with WPA-PSK, the
> > details for which are on the poster on the right as you enter the room.
> > I plan on investigating this more at a later date.
> > I disabled the WIFI point on the modem running in the comms room. There was
> > no point in us having two.
> >
> > I'm not convinced that anyone would waste time cracking the WPA passphrase,
> > given that there are two other open access points in the area.
> >
> > I plan on documenting and laminating some notes about EC kit, the network,
> > the computers etc. I'll get round to this once I've fixed up the systems in
> > question.
> >
> > Snail mail has arrived for the following people, I've left it in a neat
> > pile on the table:
> >
> > Mitch Miller
> > Glasgow Social centre limited (two items)
> > Robert Hamilton
> > Jonathan Agnew (two items)
> >
> > When I arrived yesterday the place was a bit of a mess. There were chairs
> > all over the place, some rubbish on the table, an old mug of what I assume
> > was coffee and papers scattered over the desks.
> >
> > I've done a little tidying but I've got other things I need to be doing at
> > the moment.
> > The room is a space for all of us, please tidy up before leaving.
> >
> > Have a nice Christmas and a safe New Year.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > members mailing list
> > members at electronclub.org
> > http://lists.electronclub.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/members
> >
> > Instructions for changing your mailing list settings:
> > http://lists.electronclub.org/emailhowto.html
> 
>