Using an Orange Pi PC and RTL-SDR usb stick to feed ADS-B data to the ADSB Exchange

In my last post I outlined the steps necessary to load an .img file so we could get a functional OS on the Orange Pi PC.

A fun project I wanted to try out was to start sending aircraft ADS-B data to an online service.

This post will outline what hardware you will need and how to load RTL-SDR drivers, Install ModeSMixer2 and ModeSDeco2 and configure the software to feed the ADSB Exchange.

I ended up using the following commands:

ModeSDeco2:

./modesdeco2 –gain 49.5 -–web 8000 –sbs10001 10001

ModeSMixer2:

./modesmixer2 –inConnect 127.0.0.1:10001 –outServer sbs10001:10002 –outConnect avr:feed.adsbexchange.com:30005

For more commands – visit the source site at: xdeco.org

Installing Linux .img files on the Orange Pi PC

I had to dig around for this information and I did a little trial and error to figure it out but I got a working version of Linux on the $15 Orange Pi - PC.

The first place you need to look is:   Orange Pi Forums - Thread on Installing .img files

This thread will answer 90% of your questions because forum moderator Loboris knows his stuff.

He has good instructions but I am not the most proficient Linux user in the world, so I needed a little extra help. I hope this helps someone else like me that is not proficient at the command line.

I am going to assume you have a  Linux computer with a GUI like Gnome or KDE, LXDE, Etc.

Step 1.
Create a folder on your PC where you can store some files that you will download. I just put my folder on the desktop. I created a folder called opi

Step 2.
Download any of the available distro images (xz archive) from the Mega or GoogleDrive sites Loboris has listed.

You have lots of options: Debian, Arch, OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Fedora, Etc. I downloaded OrangePI_Lubuntu_Vivid.img.xz

Step 3.
Download scriptbin_kernel.tar.gz, it contains the latest Linux kernel (uImage) and script.bin.

Step 4.
Navigate to the folder you created and unpack, unzip, uncompressed, extract or whatever you want to call it BOTH files you just downloaded. Most modern versions of Linux let you right click on a file and extract it. I used the Engrandpa archive manger that come with the Mate desktop but yours may be called Ark, File Roller, Etc.

Step 5.
Open a terminal program like Xterm so we can get to the command line. The first command we need to run is df -h to see what devices are currently mounted.

Step 6.
If your computer has a slot for SD cards, insert the card. If not, insert the card into an SD card reader, then connect the reader to your computer

Step 7.
Run df -h again. The new device that has appeared is your SD card. The left column gives the device name of your SD card; it will be listed as something like /dev/mmcblk0p1 or /dev/sdd1. The last part (p1 or 1 respectively) is the partition number but you want to write to the whole SD card, not just one partition. Therefore you need to remove that part from the name (getting, for example, /dev/mmcblk0 or /dev/sdd) as the device for the whole SD card. This will be important in step 10.

Step 8.
Now that you've noted what the device name is, you need to unmount the SD card so that files can't be read or written to the SD card while you are copying over the SD image. Run umount /dev/sdd1, replacing sdd1 with whatever your SD card's device name is (including the partition number).

Step 9. - The hard part
In the terminal, write the image to the SD card with the command below, making sure you replace the input file if= argument with the path to your .img file, and the /dev/sdd in the output file of= argument with the right device name. This is very important, as you will lose all data on the hard drive if you provide the wrong device name. Make sure the device name is the name of the whole SD card as described above, not just a partition of it; for example sdd, not sdds1 or sddp1; or mmcblk0, not mmcblk0p1. 

Now for the command:  
sudo dd if=OrangePI_Lubuntu_Vivid.img of=/dev/sdd bs=1M oflag=direct

I ended up using this based on where my files were located and the name of my SD card:

sudo dd if=/home/john/Desktop/opi/OrangePI_Lubuntu_Vivid.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M oflag=direct

Go get a cup of tea / coffee and a snack. This could take several minutes.

Step 10. - downhill from here
Run command  sync in the terminal, this will ensure the write cache is flushed and that it is safe to unmount your SD card. You can close the terminal program now.

Step 11.
I used a graphical file manger for the rest of the steps. Open up your graphical file manager and then physically remove the SD card from the computer and then reinstall it in the SD slot. You should see the SD card appear in the graphical file manager. Right click it and mount the SD card. You should see two items now. One partition called BOOT and the other partition called Linux. If you do not see this you may want to remove the SD card and try again.

Step 12.
In the graphical file manger double click on the BOOT partition. When you do, you should see a bunch of files. We are only interested in two files: script.bin and ulmage. Rename both files. I renamed them script.bin.default and ulmage.default

Step 13.
Remember that folder you created on your computer at the beginning of this little project and downloaded the two files to which you extracted? Navigate to that folder.

Step 14. 
Find the file uImage_OPI-2 or uImage_OPI-PLUS (depending on the type of Orange Pi you have ) and rename it to uImage (The Orange Pi-PC use uImage_OPI-2)

Step 15. 
Determine the resolution and refresh rate of the monitor you will connect your Orange Pi to. You may also want to figure out how you will supply the video feed to the monitor. I am using a TV with a resolution of 1080p with a 60Hz refresh rate. I also wanted to use the HDMI cable.

Step 16. 
In the folder you created on your PC, find a script.bin.OPI-XXXX file that best matches your version of Orange Pi and monitor setup. For my Orange Pi PC and the TV I was going to use as a monitor, the best file was script.bin.OPI-PC_1080p60_hdmi. After you find the best file rename it to script.bin

Step 17. 
Copy the the two files you just renamed to ulmage and script.bin and paste them into the BOOT partition. Unmount and safely remove the SD card from your computer.

Step 18. Install the SD Card into the Orange Pi and boot into your new system! The username and password are: orangepi

Step 19.
Resize the Orange Pi partition to fit your SD Card size by using the following command in a terminal: sudo fs_resize After running this command you will be prompted to reboot.

Step 20.
After rebooting it is a good idea to update all system package with the package manger

Step 21.
Have Fun!

TLLTS Discussion About Virtulization

Linc over at The Linux Link Tech Show (TLLTS) had a very good conversation about Virtulization and VMWare last week. Look for episode 340.

Another Day Another DL

I finally pulled the trigger and purchased my 4th HP DL360 Proliant Server for my brother-in-laws growing IT system. This new sever will be used as an email server running SME Server 7.4. I guess it is the nerd in me but I am always amazed at how much technology you can purchase for so little if you are willing to shop around.

The latest server specs are:

HP DL360 G3
Dual Xeon 2.8 GHz processors
Dual 36GB Ultra 320 SCSI Drives
Dual Power Supplies
Dual 1 GB Ethernet
HP 5i on board RAID Controller
HP iLo management
2 GB of RAM
CD-ROM and Floppy Drive
On board Video and Legacy Ports

And how much for all of this technology? A hefty $99 USD on eBay. The last DL360 I pickup I was able to purchase for $51 USD!

What is truly funny is replacement rack rails end up cosing 40% of the total cost of the server!

Vector Linux

I have spent the last few weeks evaluating different distros I can use as an OS on my brother-in-law's administration terminal server. I tried a net install of Debian 5.0 but in the end it required way too much tweaking to get what I was after. Debian with LXDE was very speedy and would have done the job but for some reason I was really having difficulties making OpenSSH and VNC work in harmony. VNC is must because I must administer several applications that use a web interfaces.

I did a search on DistroWatch under the category of old computers and it come up with about 20 recommendations. The usual suspects came up; Puppy, DSL, Slitaz, Tiny-Core. The rest fell into two broad categories, the first being Ubuntu based distros using lightweight window managers. The second group were based on Slackware. I have a soft spot in my heart for Slackware. Wolvix was the first distro I could get my wireless card at the time (three years ago) working properly. Because of this Wolvix paved the way towards full time Linux usage breaking my Windows fix. I haven't looked back. 

Absolute, AUSTRUMI, SaxenOS and Vector were the Slackware based distros that caught my eye. A quick review narrowed my interest to Absolute or Vector. I decided to install Vector on a 700mhz test machine with 512meg of RAM because they had just released their 6.0 Lite Version. 

I remember trying Vector early on in my Linux trials and thinking how intimated I was by the installer. I definitely did not get that warm comfy feeling I got when I installed Ubuntu! This time was totally different. I guess after a few Arch Installs my confidence level has raised a few notches (LFS users I bow - I am still intimidated!)

After the install I was greeted with a very usable system even on the 700mhz test rig. I was able to configure OpenSSH and VNC without any major issues. At boot, running JWM as the window managers, I was using only 50meg of RAM and CPU utilization was in single digits. I am very impressed with Vector so far!

I Like My Time

I got my Webmin books and I started to review them. It dawned on me after a few days I was going to have to speed a lot of time setting up the various services in S*M*S. I think this would be a great learning experience but I just do not have the time so I am going with SME Server as my solution. I hope version 8 comes out soon but I have a feeling I will have to install the current stable version which is 7.4.

I have also started to looking for a distro that I can use on an administration server at my brother-in-laws practice. This a very old Penguin Computing server that has a 700MhZ processor with 512Mb of ram. I have been using Puppy Linux for a few months but I am looking for a lightweight distro that has a little better out of the box support for OpenSSH. I favor rolling release distros so it will be interesting if I can find something light enough to server my purpose. I could always and should install Arch Linux but I want to see if anything different is out there.

Learning Curve

I finally found time to install S*M*S on the OptiPlex at work yesterday. It turned out to be a a relatively painless install. I fired up Firefox on another computer on the network and was able to pull the Webmin interface up. A quick test drive revealed a pretty zippy system even on this ancient OptiPlex that could serve as a boat anchor. It also revealed I am pretty rusty when it comes to Webmin. I have not used it actively for over 5 years so I started looking for some good books on using Webmin but it appears the most recent ones are around five years old. The good thing about five year old books is you can pick them up dirt cheap on Amazon. Two of the the best user rated Webmin books were only a few clicks and $18 bucks away. I should get them some time next week. If the books turn out to be too out of date I guess I can resort to printing out the 800+ page pdf webmin book or sections out of the offical Webmin Wiki.

The big question now is do I go with S*M*S and deal with the steep learning curve of relearning Webmin or should I just use SME Server to save time knowing it will do most of what my brother-in-law wants.

Nothing But Trouble

I took my ebox 1.2 disk to work today and I wanted to see if I could load it on an old Dell OptiPlex I use for testing during lunch but I still got the same errors about the CD-ROM. I even went so far as to burn another copy of ebox at an excruciatingly slow 4x speed just to make sure it was not a bad CD but in the end it still came up with the same error. I guess this rules out ebox, Ebox has had nothing but problems with the various pieces of hardware I have laying around. I guess it is time to move on. I am going to play with S*M*S next.

Ebox chokes on install

I downloaded ebox over the weekend and wanted to give it a try. The MD5 sums matched and I used the check media option on the ISO image and the CD checked out fine. The system reboots and it appears if it is going to boot without a hitch and then it hangs. I get an error about the CD-ROM Drive and maybe the disk is not Debian based, I installed it twice for good measure and it still hangs at the same spot with the same error. I have installed about two dozen different operating systems on the old 1 gig machine I have laying around for test purposes. I have installed Ubuntu on it before so I have no clue why ebox which is based on Ubuntu 8.04 chokes on this box.

FreeNAS to CF to PCI = Cool

I picked up a very nice Supermicro 5014C-MT server for my brother-in-law since he is in the market for a storage server. The big selling point was the four hot swappable SATA hard drive backplane in a 1U form factor. I picked it up for $80 on ebay. I added a couple of Western Digital RE3 1TB hard drives so I could create a simple RAID 1 array. The RE3 drives are designed to be put into a RAID array and have a ridiculous 1.2 million hour MTBF rating. This turn out to be something like 137 years!

Finding drive tray hardware and a suitable rack rails has been a minor nightmare. I ended up ordering the wrong rails only to find out the right rails are not listed on the Supermicro website! Supermicro tech support finally help get me straight with the proper part number.

The interesting part of the project was installing FreeNAS onto a 1 gig compact flash (CF) card which was pluged into a PCI card, a poor man's solid state dive (SSD). I found the CF card and PCI adapter card on Newegg for around $35 USD. The PCI card supports up to four CF cards. I guess you could create a small SSD raid 1+0 array if you ever wanted to.

The install went with out a hitch. I really like the CF solution since it allow you to dedicate the hard drives strictly to storage.

What comes around goes around

In previous posts I indicated I was leaning away from an all-in-one server solutions like e-box, ClarkConnect or SME Server. My rational at the time was they were too big and inflexible for home use. Having set-up a phone system for my brother-in-law and now looking at the prospect of setting up an email, print and file server for his growing practice I want something that I can easily manage remotely. The web-based interface of these solutions make that pretty easy over a VPN connection but what happens if the VPN goes down? I am going to have to talk someone who is 1100 miles away though diagnosing a problem and getting the system back up and running. The last thing I want to do during this call is to have to talk someone through a bunch of command line kung-fu.

I burned images of ClarkConnect 5.0 and SME Server 7.4 and have been evaluating them. For some reason I cannot get comfortable with the ClarkConnect 5 web interface. I guess it really does not matter because the 10 free user account cap is a deal killer. Per the Clark Connect website:

"By default, the Community and Enterprise Editions include 10 accounts that have groupware/mailbox functionality. The Enterprise Edition is upgradeable to 250 users (in units of 5) by purchasing additional mailbox licenses from Point Clark Networks."

I have SME Server 7.4 loaded on an old Dell OptiPlex GX110 and it is running fine. The interface has a dated feel to it. It seems to have all the feature that my brother-in-law is immediately looking for and has additional features he can grow into.

e-box looks like it has been under heavy development since the last time I looked at it. I plan on downloading it soon. The interface looks great and it may give SME Server a run for its money.

Wow! Where the hell was this during my searches?

I was serching around again and found this jewel at softpedia:

"The Slack Mini Server (SMS) Project team announced yesterday, August 10th, the release of Slack Mini Server 1.4.5, which celebrates 2 full years of activity. The new release is based on Slackware Linux 13.0 RC2 and it brings Asterisk PBX, Samba 3.4.0, PHP 5.3.0 and many updated packages (see below for details)."

"It's been 2 years already, and this project I believe matures quite fast. In those two years SMS make a lot of good friends. I want to thank all of you, who are contributing – visibly or not – in any way you can to this project, and for all your kind words. A big THANK YOU to all of you." was stated in the official release announcement.

Highlights of Slack Mini Server 1.4.5:

• Linux kernels 2.6.29.6
• Dovecot 1.2.3
• Dovecot-sieve 0.1.11
• Apache 2.2.12
• Apr 1.3.8
• Apr-util 1.3.9
• Fetchmail 6.3.11
• MySQL 5.0.84
• LibX11 1.2.2
• Pixman 0.15.18
• Samba 3.3.7
• Bind 9.4.3_P3
• Phpldapadmin 1.2.0
• Cxxlibs 6.0.10
• e2fsprogs 1.41.8
• Nmap 5.00
• getmail 4.9.2
• iwlifi-4965 228.61.2
• Gnupg2 2.0.12
• dirmngr 1.0.3
• libksba 1.0.6
• DHCP 3.1.2p1
• libXt 1.0.6
• Subversion 1.6.4
• GIT 1.6.4
• Testdisk 6.11.3
• Linux kernel headers 2.6.29.6
• Linux kernel source 2.6.29.6
• hal-info 20090716
  

Light and fast - I cannot wait to play with it as a virtual machine.

Acer Aspire easyStore H340

I came across the Acer Aspire easyStore H340 while surfing the Internet today. On the surface it looked like a pretty nice little atom based home server for about $400. 

Acer states: "Put your photos, music, video and important documents all in one place. The Aspire easyStore H340 Home Server holds up to 500,000 digital photos, 300,000 MP3 files and 4,285 hours of movies (based on 3MB per photo, 5MB per MP3 file and 350MB per hour playing time)."

"Protect you vital documents and precious family photos from PC or hard drive failure. The easyStore automatically saves a copy of important files from every computer connected to it."

Digging deeper into the specifications revealed this unit has a personality crisis, It is running Windows Home Server but as its name implies it is being sold as a simple NAS with a 1TB hard drive and backup capabilities vs. a full blown home server.

A review of the specifications also revealed its running on a Atom 230 single core processor, will only support Microsoft clients and can only accept a maximum of four 1TB drives. 4TB should be more than enough for home users but why put a limitation on drive size when 2TB drives are shipping?

The The new HP MediaSmart Server also has some of the same problems as the Acer easyStore. The LX195 has a $399 suggested retail price, runs Windows Home Server, and uses the Atom 230 processor, 1GB of RAM, 640GB 7,200-RPM hard drive, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and four USB ports. You can substitute the 640GB hard drive for a higher-capacity option, but the only way to add more storage is by adding USB external drives. No Serial ATA RAID in other words.

More & More RAID

One of the things that sold me on using DL360 servers was the fact they already had hardware RAID and hot swappable SCSI drives. The HP hardware RAID is very easy to set-up via a bios utility. I made a simple RAID 1 array for the phone systems and I will probably do the same when I roll out an email server for him later on this year. This set-up makes it dead simple for anyone to rebuild the array by simply replacing the hard drive which only takes a minutes if you have spare drives already in caddies.

All my research on RAID was interesting but in reality a RAID 1 array is all I will probably need for a home server. RAID 5 and 1+0 would be an interesting mental exercise but is overkill for home purposes. This is additionally true since 1TB drives can be purchased for under $80 and 2TB drives for $200 USD now. The side benefit of only using two drives is a smaller case can used and electrical consumption will be reduced.

I still plan on using software RAID in my home server due to the cost factor.

Not Dead Yet

Wow, I was totally off the radar for a year. During that time I have learned a lot about Linux, RAID, backups, virtulization and servers in general.

The Intel Atom processor has really created numerous low power, small form factor server possibilities. Building a small home server using the dual processor Atom 330 makes a relatively high performance sub $300 home server a reality.

My brother-in-law asked me to put a phone system together for his small physical therapy practice. I once again evaluated the numerous asterisked based pbx solutions to see if any changes had occured and I still ended up selecting PBX In A Flash (PIAF) primarily due to its focus on security. It is also nice knowing I can post a message on the forums and get a very quick answer to my questions and in some cases directly from the creator himself! More on storage and email servers later....

Another PBX option and Network Mangement

I run a couple of Trixbox systems at work and try to keep up with what is going on in the open source PBX world. In a March post, I indicated I was leaning away from Trixbox due to some company decisions they made. It appears Fonality may be making additional poor decisions if this is true: Why Does Fonality Choose to Deceive You?

When I came across that link I also noticed a PBX comparison:
Trixbox vs PBX in a flash vs Elastix

Elastix was a new one for me. The limited reviews I have read are very positive. I may want to put that into consideration.


Network monitoring is going to be a by-product of running this server. I have never really looked at what the monitoring options are but as it turns out there are a plethora of options. What started this? I saw this headline popup in my RSS reader: Network Monitoring with Zenoss: A Reluctant Administrator's Guide

It looks like OpenNMS, Zabbix, Hyperic, Pandora FMS, Argus, Collectl and Opensmart are just some of the solutions. All I know is I want something simple to install and use.

What Got It All Started

One of the things that got me interested in rolling my own server was a review I came across over at Linux.com about a very small and low powered home server called Bubba from a company call Excito.

After doing a little research, it become pretty clear getting my hands on the Swedish Bubba Server would not be easy since they did not have a United States distributor and the currency exchange rate made purchasing a unit from a UK based supplier prohibitive. After learning this it begged the the question, could I make something similar at a lower coat and learn something in the process?

Today I was reviewing what applications the Bubba Server is running and learned they are now selling the second generation of the Bubba which unimaginatively is named the Bubba Two. Specs have beefed up:

SERVICES	BUBBA|TWO
Downloader (HTTP, FTP, TORRENT)
Itunes music streaming (Firefly/DAAP/Soundbridge)
UPnP media streaming (Mediatomb)
Squeezebox Streaming (Slimserver/Squeeze center)	Future firmware upgrade
File server (HTTP, Samba, FTP, SCP)
Web server	(Lighthttpd)
Webmail client	(Horde)
Email Server (Dovecot, Postfix)
Fetchmail Server (Fetchmail)
Printer Server (Cups)
SSH connetion to internal Linux
Linux 2.6 + Debian Etch
Firewall
Router
Wireless access point	Planned
DNS server
DHCP server
RAID 1 support with external eSATA disk(s)	Planned
HARDWARE	BUBBA|TWO
Internal hard drive	up to 1TB SATA
Internal memory	256 MB DDR2
Processor	333 MHz Power PC
Network connectivity	2 x 1000 Mbit/s
USB 2.0	2 x 480 Mbit/s
eSATA	Yes, 2
Power consumption**	7-12W (disk dependent)
Kensington lock slot	Yes
Fan	No

For a turnkey solution the new Bubba looks compelling but at $452 USD for the 1T version it is still out of my reach. I guess I am going to have to keep learning how I can put something together for myself and that is just fine with me. I relish the learning experience.

For the same amount of money I will be able to put together a much more powerful and flexible system that is nearly as thrifty with electricity. The only real drawback will be the lack of Bubba's consolidated web based configuration and management tools.

5 Reasons Why You Should Use VirtualBox Over VMware Server

I read a very concise post over at MAKETECHEASIER that outlined five reasons why VirtualBox is better than VMware Server. His five points were:

1. File size - 20meg vs. 102meg (small is beautiful)
   
2. Easier install due to pre compiled package available for download. (not a big deal for me)
3. Speed Boost (faster is better)
4. Remote File Sharing
5. Integration with Host OS via ‘seamless mode‘. With this mode on, you can access the applications from the guest OS from the host’s desktop. (interesting from a system management point of view)

I wondered if anyone else had done a comparison recently and I came across a link to this article: Virtualization smackdown: Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.6 vs. VMWare Server 2.0 Beta 2

This was a much more in-depth look at the two virtualixation solutions. The overview at the end really struck a cord:

VirtualBox has the widest range of host system support and has the lightest hardware demands, and excels for single PC personal virtualization needs, but requires more UNIX/Linux command-line skills when used as server virtualization solution. VMWare 2.0 has an excellent web-management UI with the lightest client payload, but this comes at the expense of heftier hardware requirements for good performance and a fatter software drop on the server.

List Mania Continues

Security
mOnOwall - Security
Smoothwall - Security
pfSense - Security
IPCop - Security
Endian - Security UTM
Comixwall - Security UTM

HTPC
MythDora
Mythbuntu
Knoppmyth
Freevo
MythTV
GeeXboX - Frontend Only

File Server
CentOS Server (roll own)
FreeNAS - File Server
Debian Server (roll own)

Web Server
Cherokee
Abyss

Virtualization
VMware
Virtual Box

VoIP
PBX In A Flash - SELECTED

• Ubuntu Servier was eliminated becuase it was twice the size of a Debian net install.

• Took Yvatta off the list because it is a little over the top for SOHO use IMO. mgrave while making a response to a Smith On VoIP article about the new Netgear WGR614L wireless router summarized what I has been thinking about Yvatta:

mgraves // Jun 30, 2008 at 9:01 pm

You are exactly right about this. It will attract very few. However, Vyatta while interesting and truly open source, is totally over-the-top for the kind of application suited hardware such as this. M0n0wall or pfSense are more in line with the target market. Also, pure open source. Well proven and very well supported.

• I need to see if a web server was added to FreeNas in a recent release. For some reason I think I saw something about this new feature. The website says "Add generic webserver service" under FreeNAS 0.69b1. Hummmm.....................................

A Long VOSS Hiatus - I'm Back

I pulled the plug on the blog for awhile. I love technology but between tech at work and then more tech at home I was a little burned out. In fact I used the occasion to simplify my life and get rid of all my rigs except 5 of them. The normal person at this point is saying why the hell do you need five computers and is that really simplifying? For those reading this blog I fully expect you to understand.

So what did I do with the other 5+ rigs? I fixed them them up, loaded up linux (Puppy Linux 4 - Dingo to be specific), put a I want you linux sticker on the case and pushed them out to the local Goodwill where I hope they find happy new owners.

I have been fighting the urge to bring any new toys homes. Of course now that I have paired down my toy collection all these great Craigslist opportunities keep coming up........

I haven't been a total tech prude at home. I have been playing around with Madriva and I must say I am pretty impressed with it. I have never been a big fan of RPM based distros but the Spring 2008 version is very polished, has good hardware detection and a some well thought out software selections which have made me take a second look.

I also did a few Debian net installs and got comfortable with the process of installing various packages and figuring out which ones had the least amount of bloat.

After spending sometime mulling over my previous posts I made some decisions about which direction I want to go. I decided big monolithic solutions are not what I am after. They require lots of resources and install lots of features I do not have a need for nor do I want them cluttering up my system(s).

Power consumption and the physical size of the solution are still very important to me. Over the last few months a few pieces of hardware have caught my eye. The first one is the Chenbro ES34069 Mini-ITX server case. It looks great and has some very nice features:

ES34069 Specifications
Dimensions (w x h x d)	260 mm x 140 mm x 260 mm 10.24" x 5.51" x 10.24"
Hard Drive Bay	4 x 3.5" SATA HDD (hot-swappable) 1 x 2.5" notebook HDD (internal)
Optical Drive Bay	Slimline CD/DVD drive
Expansion Slot	N/A
Front Access	2 x USB 2.0 SD/Mini-SD/MMC/MS card reader Power button Reset button
Cooling System	2 x 70 mm fans (rear) 1 x 60 mm fan (front: optional)
Power Supply	Built-in 180W DC board External AC adapter (brick)
Input	AC 100 ~ 240V
Output	DC 19V @ 9.5A

The second item of interest is the release of numerous low power components. I am particularly interested in the dual core version of the Intel Atom CPU that should be released sometime next month based on a recent article posted at DigiTimes. Initial reports on the single core version of the Atom processor have been mix at best but it will be interesting to see what upgrades occur over the next month or two.

I have also been looking at small fast web servers and I am interested in evaluating Cherokee and Abyss.