HI '09 .... see you soon ...

'09

Its coming close to the end of the year ... '08 has been a great year all around and i came to alot of realizations that have been building up from the begining of 2006 all the way through to 2007. When i look back at the past years i think i have been very lucky, alot of things could have gone south and life could have been very very different. Eventually things all work out and you become wiser.

Now things are exciting cause career wise things are great, there are 2 exciting personal projects being worked on that hopefully bear some fruit in mid to late '09 and life in general is pretty much care free .... just the way i like it ...

I think about alot of weird and wacky things sometimes (on the train, in the car different random places when im not doing anything) but lets for instance say that there are alternate universes where every possibly path of life is played out (similar to the movie sliding doors with gwenth paltrow where the movie shows 2 possible realities as a result of a single point in her life) ... i am greatful that i am in this universe where things are as they should be and where i and the people i care about are happy ...

I really wanted to posted this on the 31st but im thinking that its better i do it now so that i dont forget as im having abit of a shindig on the 31st and i might forget. I wanted to atleast talk about the new year and the past year of '08 before '09 came along ....

So '08 has been one of those years were alot of things have happened ...

• I have changed jobs 4 times and all with different (and great) perks
• I have settled back in after a long stint overseas and working interstate or pretty great though interesting projects
• I am well into the process of development and hopefully soon launch for both projects
• There is a great team working on the projects, guys i can really trust and work with well
• The family is happy
• I have reliquished myself from stresses that shouldnt be there and that everyone can do without

All i can say is that '09 will be an exciting year, and like all the previous years prior, entry into the new year with guns blazing and excitment of whats to come is the way all new years should be started ...

New years resolutions ??? None ... i never make them, why wait for a new year to resolve anything, there is plenty of time *During* the year to resolve any issues you may have with personal life, career choices, love choice and life issues in general, there is no need to do those things in the new year ... though if something hits me on new years eve, an idea a resolution of some sort then i will say from this point on i will execute the idea in '09 (which i guess kind of means its a new years resolution)

I guess thats about all, will be having abit of a shindig in darling harbour with a few close mates maybe, enjoy the fireworks, toast the arrival of '09 and hopefully the successes that will come with the new year ...

So in closing .. if i dont write again till after the new year ... HAVE a HAPPY and SAFE NEW YEAR TO ALL ...

Project Status Report 2 - (Amber)

Core Application Code Development

The development of the code is going well. The core application code has been completed. All database inserts and updates have been tested and done. There are still alot of boundry condition tests that need to be completed they will be taken care of at a later state.

The delete and edit components of the code still need to be done but should be a much easier task as now the information can be refreshed and inserted and displayed on the html interface.

Alot of code cleanup needs to take place because certain shortcuts where taken when doing the first cut of the code, mainly to ensure that each of the concepts that were discussed worked

Looks like final V1.0 version of the code will not be ready until atleast the end of february or march depending on how things progress

Template Development

Templates are coming along good. There have been 4 base templates designed in photoshope but not yet translated into HTML. That is currently being completed.

This along with all the javascript code that comes with each of the templates also is in the process of being completed. Currently the code all works but is not in a state that would be good for future maintenance and a v1.0 release.

Some javascript needs to be cleaned up and various blocks of code rearranged to ensure that future maintenance is manageable. All in all however the code all works and all POC's (proof of concepts) have been completed.

Mobile Device Webapp

We are still in the processes of setting up the environment for the mobile device webapp. There are still documents to read and understand, however this is not a major concern as yet as the mobile device webapp will be in version 2.0 of the software.

Summary

At the moment thats our status. Things progressing well but we have the issue with only having 24 hours in the day and a team of 3 who are also holding full time jobs. Its not easy but it sure is fun and exciting ... So why are we amber, because we had an initial launch date for end of january but that doesnt seem like it will be the case at the moment ...

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Till the next entry ... Garage Datacenter CEO signing off the status report ...

Patterns & Pattern Matching ...

This is kind of a random entry but I thought it would be fun as bit of a thought experiment ...

Our brain looks at patterns to help us solve problems (how many times have we had to solve those phsycology questions (for jobs etc) through understanding the pattern and finding out what the next pattern should be).

When we look at a foreign language we try to see if there are repeating characters and from the pattern of repeating characters we can take a guess at what the english equivilant of that set of characters may mean.

For particular types of AI algorithms we look at patterns and reoccurances and based on those patterns we can allow a program to classify and take an educated guess at what a particular value should be or may mean.

Even in music, under all the guitar, the piano and the drums there is a pattern which is follow'd. Thats why good musicans can *jam* with each other even though they havnt ever played with each other before, cause they understand the underly pattern and the way the music works and repeats.

Now lets take this one step further, have we ever looked at our lives and tried to determine if there was a pattern in the way *things* happens to us. Do certain things more often than not always happen in a certain way. Do we always experience bad luck before good luck, do we always experience success/failure if we surround ourselves with certain people. If we look at the major events of our life i think the lead up to the event is the most important aspect to look at. How did the major event start (what was the seed). I think if you take that approach and take it all the way to the actual occurance of the event (if there is a pattern) you will be able to notice it.

The question i guess is ... can we see through all those patterns and decipher if there is a hidden message, a hidden way in how we should do things to ensure that more often then not we succeed ?!?!

Just something fun to think about .... Anyway for everyones fun .... a pattern below ... can you see the hidden image :) Enjoy ..

My work week starting in '09

'09 will be great, prepration in lucky '08 went well and alot of things that were out of order have now been rectified. Also in '09 I'll be doing 4 days a week instead of 5, yes there will be a pay cut ;) but thats alright. I need this extra day off to complete the startup ... it getting close and every hour counts to ensuring what we release is as stable as possible .... I got the idea to attempt to do a 4 day week from the timothy ferris book called the 4 hour work week, great book though i still havnt finished the whole thing ...

Thanks to my mate for lending this book to me (if you read this blog entry, i still got your book and im 3/4 through it) if you want it back though just let me know :)

BTW, im posting this at christmas day and things are nice and quite on christmas day .... I dont celebrate christmas but i want to wish everyone who does to have a merry christmas and a happy new year !

Project Status Report 1 - (Amber)

Why not, we always do this kind of stuff at work. Status reports and all sorts of meaningless documentation that add's hours upon hours of overhead and thousands upon thousands of meaningless dollars (in some cases)

So how is the development of the software going. If i was going to submit this as a status to the project board i would say amber. Reason being that we have quite a few problems but we know how to address them all, nothing is in an unknown state (which to me is very important), only thing is we are abit behind schedule interms of timeframe and implementation.

Garage Datacenter Mobile Man has taken the iMac to his place to begin development for the iPhone so that we have mobility available for our application. He has begun looking into the web application aspect of it and this is probably the way forward for our application. The decision of native app VS web app was decided in a meeting last week and its going to be moving forward as a web application.

Garage Datacenter Artist has been hacking away at the templates and the Javascript to get the UI frontend working as required. This has been a difficult and tedious task but he has done an extremely supurb job progressing as he has. All the issues and difficulties have all been address and its all down to the implementation and the nitty gritty of the development and implementation of the solved problems.

Garage Datacenter CEO (me). I have been working on a few of the backend algorithms and processes to ensure things are optomized. I have looked at memcaching and various other ways to address better performance. I have also been working heavily on the integration of the templates to the core backend application. Most of the heavily technical problems that where present at the backend have also been addressed and implemented, the main requirement now is to finish all facets of integration.

Garage Datacenter Hitman: Garage datacenter hitman has been working on procurement lately as the core backend hardware has been built. He has managed to source the apple iMac for a whopping $0 for us to develop on. Great job in getting the iMac for the best price possible.

So thats about it for project status 1 for the application build. Things going well and an updated status report will be posted next week friday or thursday reporting on progress.

Till the next post .... enjoy christmas and have a safe holiday to all ... i'll be coding all holiday long (well accept for new years eve where im going to let loooooooossse)

Ciao !

QuANTum mechAnicS ...

Quantum mechanics ... what is it ? Quantum mechanics is the way the world works in the microscopic world beyond the human eye's capability to see, beyond the most powerful microscopes, beyond what we as the human race to date understand even with the most ADVANCED equipment .... alot of the behaviour in the Quantum world is unexplainable. Alot of the properties of this world can be seen and observed from our world but how it actually operates and functions internally is still unknown ...

Quantum mechanics in many cases is just weird ... quantum mechanics predicts alternate universes and different realities (the twilight zone maybe) where things can be very similar to this world only with minor differences or can be very different, where the constructs of nature itself is not that which is similar to nature in this universe we have we are just *beginning* to understand ...

SO ... lets for a moment imagine we are in one of these alternate universes that QuANTum mechAnicS creates ....

Imagine an alternate universe, a universe where people run around mindless and almost drone like, not everyone but a large portion, where people follow orders without thinking, without knowing why they are doing a particular task ... imagine a world where people talk but do not do or a world where a person who has a title such as ENGINEER isnt really an ENGINEER but a COOK even though ENGINEER in this alternate universe actually does mean someone who is technically aware in a particular field, whether it is computing, mechanical or industrial.

Imagine an alternate universes where people run around in circles without reason, similar to that of headless chooks. Imagine an alternate universe such as that which QuANTum mechAnicS creates where the people who are supposed to be leaders act like spinless robots and where manipulation and evil forces are strong and affect the flow of this world, where this evil is old and cunning, where this evil knows no bounds and this evil wishes to destroy everthing that opposes it ...

What would this world be like that QuANTum mechAnicS creates and predicts .. i would be scared to enter a world such as this .. i would pray that if i ever encountered a place like this in my dreams that i would never again be exposed to such stupidty, such evil and such incompetence ....

Lets hope that when quantum mechanics works out a way to open wormholes and portals to other worlds that the technology can also predict places such as this ...

*shivers*

Success driving success ...

So SWA magazine, an indonesian magazine has just listed 50 entreprenerus currently gaining respect and recongnition for their contributions to the indonesian business and economy. Its great to see these indonesians not moving out of indonesia to gain success but looking inside and finding opportunities within.

I am indonesian and i left indonesia to come to australia when i was about 4 years old because parents saw opportunity in australia. They were right and im very happy that they took this step and considered my well being as a major factor to move out from indonesia even though they were well off and were more then comfortable where they were.

Even though i live in australia now, speak with an australian accent and was educated in australia i still speak indonesian *rather* fluently (specially after my stint working in indonesia) still hold an indonesian passport and still feel patriotic about proud to see successful indonesians (expecially our students that won gold, silver and bronze at the world academic olympiades).

I love australia because its the country where i have been educated and were i learnt everything that i know however i also love indonesia because alot of who i am culturally, including my views and preferences is because my parents brought me up in the indonesian way.

I hope that one day if i become a successful entreprener i can contribute to indonesia in whatever way i can and that i can also share alittle corner on the pages of SWA magazine with other successful indonesians who have made a name for themselves through hard work, clever ideas and with the willingness to succeed.

Congratulations to all the guys in the magazine ... you should be proud :)

Hmmm i think i promised to talk about garage datacenter mobile man in this post ... bahhhh he can wait till the next one :)

The Entrepreneurial Spirit ... (Part 2)

So, i'll continue ....

During uni was there any hair brain ideas that i embarked on ... not really, thinking back, during uni i didnt do many startups or try any type of money making scheme, i was mainly concerned with finishing assignments and tryin to get good grades as well as having fun with my uni friends so any ideas of how to make money just wasnt there. Towards the end of my computer science degree i did try to start a web design company but i had gotten a job as a grad working for a big 4 consulting company getting (what i thought at the time was ridiculous money, $48,000 a year, think i was about 21 at the time...) so that idea of a web design company went out the door.

Around age 21-25: During this time all i really did was do assigments and thesis's for people. I was developing code in the office for my 9-5 and did peoples thesis's and assignments during my free time. It generated some good money, around $1000 dollars per thesis and $200-$400 per assignment depending on the assignment. So during this time, along with money from my 9-5 i was getting assignment money from people to lazy to do their assignments and thesis's.








Around age 25 - 27(nowish): So i started to get serious about doing things now ... the first hair brain idea i had when i was working overseas was to setup VSAT satellite systems and use these as the backbone infrastructure for voice over IP to all the remote regions of indonesia ! believe it or not i pulled it off at 2 actual sites and made some money. The investment was about $12,000 AUD of my own money and the return was about $20,000 - $22,000 minus various costs leaving me with about $6000 dollars for about 4 days of work. This worked but since i moved back to australia i couldnt make deals of this kind anymore

Around age 25 - 27(nowish): I came up with this idea to make life easier for certain types of people using a certain type of equipment so i designed this *thing* and put a patent (provisional on it) i just finished the market research and i have 4 retailers and 1 distrubutor interested, from a total of 15 that i interviewd, will be meeting up with the product managers of these retailers in early '09. See how it goes and whether or not it will bear any fruit.

Around age 25 - 27(nowish): In parallel to the above project is this startup im doing, we are about 75% of the way through the code and the infrastructure is about 90% built. I can focus on this because my other project (above) that im running doesnt require my devoted time as i have assigned it to someone who i am paying to complete. To tell you the truth this startup myself, garage datacenter hitman, garage datacenter artist and garage datacenter mobile man (final additon to the team) are working on is the most exciting ... lets hope it can be a major success :)

So there you have it ... my attempts at making money in somewhat unconventional ways, tried many things in the past, some failed some successful and some still in progress. However, any which way you look at it, its always been exciting and always full of twists and turns. Most importantly i learnt alot of things along the way .....

So do i have the Entrepreneurial spirit ... well i think i do, am i a successful Entrepreneur, to date no, but one that is learning alot and hopefully sometime close in future can fall into the successful Entrepreneur's category :)


OK, until next time ... think i will write about garage datacenter mobile man, the final and new additon to the garage datacenter team ....

The Entrepreneurial Spirit ... (Part 1)

So what does it take to be an entrepreneur ? Its really hard to say actually and i dont know any first hand other then myself ... Could i classify myself as an entrepreneur ?!? I dont know, i have tried to setup various businesses from a very young age (startups, small business etc etc), some of them have provided decent returns and some of them a total flop.

As a result of this let me rephrase the question .... what has Garage Datacenter CEO done in his past that could be considered Entrepreneurial .... (its probably better cause i dont know what it takes to be an entrepreneur cause i still read books and various different articles on this topic so that must mean that im also still learning to answer that question)

So lets start at the early years: Age 10-16

Around Age 11: At the age of 11 (from the lunch money and pocket money i had) i bought myself a plastic bucket, some detergent and a window washer. I stood at the corner of the street (where the traffic lights would stay red for a reasonable amount of time) with another mate of mine and we started to wash car windows. Since i was so small i think it shocked some people and they gave me money *possibly* out of pity. Whatever the case this was successful cause by the end of the day i would have $25 or so ... investment was 5 dollars, return was 25 dollars, this totals to a 500% return. SUCCESS in my books ...

I tried this again on the next weekend and was in the middle of washing a ladies window when she screamed out my name *Garage Datacenter CEO !* what are you doing, i was shocked and said, *hi aunty teresa, im just making some money washing windows, (with a smile on my face)* she told me to get into the car and drove my to my mums work. At my mums work she began to explain what i was doing. My mum simply laughed and said, let him know how hard it is to make a buck (my mums cool like that) anyway, aunty teresa (bless her soul she has passed away now) convinced my mum not to let me do it again. My mum had a few words to me and convinced me it was dangerous so i stopped doing it.

Around Age 11-12: At around the same age i tried to have a garage sale. I scowered through the garage to find any items i didnt need. I rounded them all up, put them into a trolley and wheeled it to the main street where i lived. I layed out a towel put all the items on it and sat there with the same mate who had done the window washing gig with me ... i was there for a whole DAY from 10 to 4pm and sold *NOTHING* absolutly nothing. It was terrible, i actually had a lady who was looking closley at the rollerskates i was trying to sell but when i said 5 dollars she walked away .... I have to say this garage sale was a failure. Sold nothing and had to wheel everything back home, then got a scolding cause parents found out i was trying to sell some bed sheets that they actually wanted :(

Around Age 11-13: At around this age i got word that woolworth trollies would return 2 dollars if they where returned ! This was absolute gold, every trolley i found and returned would pop out 2 dollars from the little lock on the trolley handle. Spent almost a month (4 weekends) doing the rounds around my local westfields making money this way. Eventually though these trollies stopped poping out 2 dollars cause they had offical trolley collectors doing the work. This was a major success, over the 4 weeks i made about $120 dollars ! (investment $0, return $120)

Around Age 12-14: Kriss kross will make you jump jump the mac dad will make you jump jump ahuh ahuh ... This was the most popular song of the time ... KRISS KROSS's jump ! So what did i do ... i made 20 pirated copies of these and sold it to people for $4 a pop. I was young and stupid, i was at most 14 at the time ... I had no idea this was an illegal activity. Guess how i found out this was illegal .... my little kriss kross business was picking up soo much i actually recruited someone to help me make the tapes and distribute them (i actually did this little gig with the now current garage datacenter artist !, yes we been friends since primary but kind of lost touch until now). My new recruite began making copies and was doing a great job, then one day he said to me, my grand mother told me not to do it anymore cause its illegal ! I was thinking how could this be, it must be a ploy to take business away from me ... (after much research) ie asking my dad, he did tell me it was illegal ... i was so distraught and saddened by this that i threw away all the cheap 20c tapes i had brought and did away with this business. I invested about 10 dollars ad made back almost $100 in a span of 2 weeks ! (i guess this doesnt count though cause it was kind of illegal) I'd like to take this time to say sorry to kriss kross :)

Around Age 14 - 16: So the basketball card craze hit ! It was all about the basketball cards that you had and i was dead set in the middle of this. I began trading and making money through various deals between people. I used to put a premium on finding particular cards that people needed. For example, if someone was searching for a jordan living legend i would say, i will get you a jordan living legend and you will pay me an extra 5 dollars for being able to get this card for you. This worked for a whole two years until the craze finally died down. There was a time when i got abit sinister and actually created fake (first issue) cards but i felt guilty and stopped this practice immediatly. My returns doing this was great, i made money in the hundreds, both from trading and putting premiums on getting cards people wanted ... i didnt know that what i was doing was charging for a service, all i knew was the money was good !

Around Age 14 - 16: Around the same age i learnt how to work with wood in shop/woodwork class. I also learnt how to manipulate plastic with a fry pan and bend the plastic into shapes that you wanted. What did i do ... i bought some plastic, bought a similar fry pan as we had in shop class, made some bowels and bought some chocolates. I then placed all the chocolates into the bowels wrapped it up in nice selphane plastic and tried to sell it door to door. This was a major failure ... sold nothing, i didnt have a good sales pitch, it wasnt for a charity and quite frankly i had no reason why i was selling it other then to make money for myself .... investment was time + money for the plastic and chocolates (not much money) and return on investment was a big fat $0.

These where my Entrepreneurial activites prior to graduating from highschool .... sometime in future i will put the ideas that i put into action during university and post university ...

Long post .. if your up to here, thanks for reading ...

Taking the day off ....

Usually Satudays are spent in the garagedc (above) coding away integrating the application we are building. Its a full days work and usually the outcome is another module completed or integrated. This saturday however was quite different.

Friday the weather was absolutly terrible, it was raining, it was cold and from my point of view it was a totally undesirable day ! (i love the heat. I am pretty much like superman and all my energy comes from the sun) Thursday was the same, also a terrible cold and damp day...

Saturday however was GREAT, it started out pretty cold but the sun came up and shone brightly in the sky, pushing away all the clouds, the gloom and rejuvinating my energy source.

A mate of mine called up and said he wanted to come over at 3ish. This was was perfect cause garage datacenter artist and i had been working till about 2:30 and he had to leave to do some christmas shopping. When my mate arrived we had a bit of a chat in the garage then headed off to the beach to get some fish and chips and sit under the sun. We literally sat under the sun for 3-4 hours, it was great and its what summer is all about in sydney. It cant be beaten, whether your in any other state in australia or any other country (well the ones i have been to anyway) none of them can compare.

On the sand we talked about the financial crisis, the project we were doing, work and how to get out of being sue'd (more on that later) it was great and my energy source is truelly now replenished. I even managed to save a lady bug that was stuck in the sand and getting washed around in the waves :)

Sunday (ie today) is also nice and sunny, however im getting back to work to do some more integration.

Above are some images from the day off from the garage datacenter ... The truth of the matter is, i work so hard in the garagedc to one day *hopefully* be able to enjoy this kind of atmosphere EVERYDAY .... I could really see myself sitting on a balconey somewhere, outlooking this view and typing away on my laptop *taking care of business* (whatever that business maybe)

Ok ... gonna put in my next entry :)

The Corporate World ...

The "corporate" world ... hmmm, what do i think of it, One Word ... GrrrrRRRrrRRrrrrrr .... yeh, thats about it for now ...

Programming Languages Only ? .... Na ... ;)

Lets take this post to divert alittle away from technology :) Other then technology i love to travel and one of the things that i like to do as a result of this is to learn languages. I spent last year learning mandarin and its still pretty bad but i guess enough to get around and learn much quicker if ever required, i mean i could get around china on my own but it would be pretty funny ;)

If i ever spend time in china im pretty sure with what i know i should be able to get into the language details reasonaly quick, i guess the main thing is that i have the basics and know the basic language constructs, knew how to write but kind of forgotten but its in there somewhere ready to begin again if ever the time came.


This year I spent the last 4 months learning japanese cause Datacenter hitman said ... lets learn japanese, so im like, alright cool ! lets go for it ! I submitted my japanese assignmnent which i thought was pretty fun to do (it was a speech) and have posted it up for you to see below. Its basically just an introduction to who I am :) *pretty basic stuff* but im happy its slowly getting there.




I also have to say that the class was great cause everyone got along really well. We also had a great dinner at the end to celebrate closing of japanese module A & B. Below are my class mates, wonder if you can guess which one is me :)

Dinner Photo's :)

Class Photo with our teach Mayumi Sensei

So yeh, programming languages arnt the only fun things to learn, asian languages or ANY language for that matter is fun too :) 27th of january i'll be signing up for modules C & D, it will be fun ! :)

OK until next time ...

Coding ... Coding ... Coding ...

Coding .... Thats what we spent the whole day doing ... garage datacenter artist arrived at about 11:00am and we got stuck right into it. We began by preparing each of our own modules for integration, then finally putting it all together. We overcame quite a few issues and sorted out all our unknowns. Most of the components have been integrated now - (crewd) but all modules talking, we have been preparing for the last 3 months .... Im also abit tired now cause im not feeling 100% and also quite tired mentally ... 12 hours infront of the computer cant be good .... Yeh i think i'll make this entry quite short ...

My coding Quarters ...

OK ... Night ... going to sleep ...

Baby dont cry... Baby dont get ...

Some people are afraid to ask so they dont, then they complain about not getting ... its an easy concept though lots of people dont understand this ... including me until about a couple of years back.

We are grumbling and disgruntled in the office, unhappy cause we think we are underpaid, we wonder why we are underpaid and usually the answer its pretty easy, its cause we just didnt ask :)

I remember thinking a few years ago (possibly as a result of the dot com bust) that if i was offered a job i should take it and not question the money (yes i know ... i was dumb). The reason why i attribute it to the dot com bust is i graduated from uni around that era (2 years or so after) and the competition for jobs was huge cause no one was hiring. I remember when i was a grad it would be 500 grads to 4 jobs and if you were offered you should just take it.

Times have changed now and i have learnt alot over time. Now not only do i cry .. i also jump up and down, roll on the groud in circles and throw tantrums, so to speak ;) and yes it seems to work :P

At the moment im negotiating a 4 day week (doing infrastructure architect role *thank god*) with good contract rates and a great working environment. I am doing this so that i have time on my hands (albeit abit less) for my startup as time is drawing near. This deal is still under negotiations so lets hope my tantrums are enough to seal the deal ....

Chance Advice ....

Its funny how buddies of yours seem to creep up from nowhere. Guys that you were friends with before even starting highschool. You wonder where they are and all of a sudden you meet them at a the local department store, talk abit and found out that you pretty much are into the same things. Sometimes i ask my self the question. Was this a chance meeting or was it something pre-destined by a higher power. Anyway, whatever the case these chance meetings can end up really changing alot of things.

I had a buddy, lets call him Bedroom CEO. Bedroom CEO is actually doing a startup also, he lives (apparently) 5 minutes away from me (something which i wasnt aware of until a few months back). He is very in tune with the startup and technology scene here in the great land down under. Anyway, by a chance meeting we started talking and at about the same time we decided (in our own time .. not together) to do startups. Difference between Bedroom CEO and Garage CEO (myself) Bedroom CEO took the big step and totally quit his job.

I would like to do that aswell (i guess for a year) to get my startup of the ground but im in a bit of a different situation. If i did that, the repo's from the bank would be banging at my door and fighting hard with me to pry my house keys away as i would be kicking and screaming (yes im one of the sad *young* individuals who has a mortgage thinking property investment is the way to go).

OK since Bedroom CEO is very intouch with the Startup and technology scene here he has introduced me to various different events, various different reading material and various different people that provide information about startups, he is almost like the umbilical cord to silicon valley :P I guess it shows that even though i understand technology to a certain extent in the great scheme of the startup world im not even past the 9-month stage yet ;)

Last week Bedroom CEO scheduled some time with ryan junee from omnisio/youtube and we hungout and had some beers with various other geeky type guys and gal and just chatted away. We first hangout at the shelbourne for some beers, went to this startup/recruitment christmas party where there was some wanna be startup guys (us) and other startup guys later in the game who have been successful.

So here is a photo i took of that night (im not in it *as usual* ;))

So there you have it, i thought there was no startup scene here but apparently there is, i think its time for me to delve deeper into this world as im in the later part of my startup project (couple months to go till launch).

Catch you all in my next post ... (which im about to start in the next 5 mins :P)

Getting into the Software Side of things ....

CentOS

I guess its a legacy thing for me. It may not be the best *nix operating system for some people but i just want the system to work. In the past, both at work and at home i got very accustomed to redhat ... and now since redhat ES and AS are no longer free i had to find an alternative. For me CentOS was the most obvious choice.

I like CentOS because:

• Im pretty accusomed to how the Administor and manage the operating system, how to install the location of the various configuration and system files, startup scripts and standards etc
• It already had LVS and various other clustering software installed - along with its tools already installed
• Worked without any problems on the hardware that i purchased which was a big plus and all round easy to use OS - (for me)

MySQL

I used MySQL because again its something im very much used to. Used it during development at work and also when experimenting on my own and pretty much accustomed with how it works. There are alot of tools and libraries available. I also had very good documentation of the clustering packages that come with MySQL 6.0+ so it was the obvious choice to go.

The MySQL cluster now works over 4 servers and is bound together with a hardware LVS load balancer. Still getting used to operating the cluster commands but all in all its a pretty good tool.

CherryPy + Cheetah

Hmm okie, so why cherrypy .... I tried zope, django, turbo gears and at the end, after looking around and playing with the different technologies i decided to use cherrypy. I think its because things just came together alot easier with cherrypy and i was able to get what i wanted up and running alot quicker. I think its really just me here and possibly my old school way of thinking .... most of the other guys i know who are building sofware have gone down the django route.

Good thing with variety is later once our applications are finished we can share experiences and ideas so for me .. its cherrypy all the way ... :)

Python 2.5

It was easy to get my head around all the different concepts. The language was easy to learn and i could get applications built rapidly. Other then that nothing much else. I am currently using python 2.5 (which i complied specifically for the application). There is also 2.4 installed by default by centOS.

Lighttpd

I went down this path as a result of alot of reading and recommendations. In the past i have used apache (as most people may have) but after alot of reading and various types of experiments i have gone down the lighttpd path. It sets up pretty nicely and is performing well. I have tested its mod_proxy function but will also need to experiment with lighttpd's mod_fastcgi modules as well to see which one is actually better.

SQLObjects

When i was playing around with turbogears SQLObjects was the default ORM. I became accustomed with SQLObjects so at the moment this is what i have used. From a technical point of view im not sure which of the ORM's is best so this may change in future.

Well there you have it ... thats my software stack. I have other software packages installed but they are just tools ... OK more updates on the software build and the integration with the hardware later ...

Application, Software Stack ....

So what kind of application are we writing, hmmmm, dont want to reveal that just yet ;) however this is the software stack that we are using ...

• CentOS
• MySQL - (cluster)
• Cherrypy
• Python
• lighttpd
• SQLbjects

I'll discuss what these modules are and the interaction between each of these components of the software stack in a later post :) .... time to go to work .... :(

success on the internet ...

There have been alot of successes on the internet. More so during the dot com boom around the 2000 period, i think all that is over now as investors arnt as willing to invest in anything.com as they did back then. In the dot com boom any joe selling grass on the internet could be a millionaire.

That being said, i do think that there is somewhat of a boom, well not a boom but a willingness ot invest except that, its more controlled and not everything will make the creator a millionaire.

If you look at the recent web successes post 2000, most of them had some novelty or something that highy attacted the masses. Some of thes novelties that were present in some of the recent successes didnt seem like they had traction but eventually did gain traction and did become successful applications. With that being said, Lets look at some of the great successes of the internet ....

Google: Well probably the greatest success of all time and im glad. Couldnt have happened to a better pair of guys. They care about the world, provide the kind of working environment that any technology guru would feel welcomed in (instead of shunned and viewed as a *resource*). Google from the outset had alot of traction, their search was great and i think it was because of google and its searching ability that i was able to do alot of my assignements during uni ... back then nothing beat a google search when learning how to program :) ... so in saying that thanks to Sergey & Larry ... good job, keep creating the great technology and keeping the company creed alive ... 'dont be evil' (id shudder to think what would happen if google no longer took this creed seriously)

Youtube: A great success and something that i use very often, the idea is simple but is very useful. Its become the standard for online video delivery and has created many stars that have spun of making youtube videos. Different to google though, youtube's success was built by the population, it became what it is because of the users and the content they provided to drive popularity to youtube. I guess its like beez to honey, if you provide something everyone likes it will attract the masses.

Facebook: Another iconic internet website. Again another website that is created by the masses. Facebook provides the platform and people all around the world build the content. The ablity to share details, share experiences , share media and share information has created a website that is enourmously popular ... why, possibly because it allows us humans to endulge our normal human tendencies to share and let people know what we are doing in a way that is widley excepted ...

There are many other sites out there that are very popular that people may or may not know about, however still popular and sucessful none the less.

• Twitter


• Craigs List


• Dig


• Flicker


• mySpace


• Wikapedia

Simon - Left & Ryan - Right

I just want to also add a congratultions to some guys from my university where i did my undergrad - (university of sydney) who have succeeded in building a website/application that has launched them to stardom in the geek world !, specially in sydney. http://www.omnisio.com/ is their website and its a video mashup technology that allows editing of videos online by adding text bubbles, comments, combining powerpoint presentations along with many other features.

Google bought the technology and the guys are in the process of integrating the omnisio video mashup technology to youtube. Some of the features of their new technology have now been integrated into youtube and noticed them when i was uploading some of my own youtube videos.

I remeber these guys from my uni:

Ryan Junee: I had Ryan Junee as my tutor for operating systems and also for my initial blue (introduction to programming) class. Ryan was a great tutor and its good to hear of the successes of fellow university alumi's

Simon Ratner: Simon was in the same year as i was (if im not mistaken) and i remember seeing simon in our uni halls, seemed like he had always finished his assignments when all of us where doing late nights either in the labs or at home.... Also great to hear of the success simon has had ....

So ... how does this relate to us ... well i guess it just adds to the motivation and the driving force to succeed. I heard of Ryan and Simon's success half way during the development of our own little startup and even though Simon and Ryan are legends of the computer department of sydney uni, i feel that with enough hardwork our little startup can also be successful, how successful ... well i dont know, i guess time will tell.

Dare to dream ....

So for some reason i cant sleep, good thing is im in the mood to write, so lets write ! OK ... Dare to dream ... thats the title of this entry ... hmmm, its abit different then what i would usually write as i usually write about technical topics related to the implementation of the project. However I guess this entry is somewhat related cause its related to the inspiration behind the teams motivation to continue working ....

i wrote about the how all this started in 2 posts, the events that gave the ideas to begin this project and the initial driving force that prompted me to get off my but and 'JUST DO IT'. Starting is important but so is continous motivation .... I guess regardless of what i wrote earlier the reason why this project has continued to progress is every member of the team has dared to dream. If you think about it, who knows what will happen when we release this application for everyone to use, was this work we put in worth the effort, was it worth the time spent, is it a dud and did we just waste it all, if you think to much about it things start to play in your mind, but if you think of the end goal and what you want to achieve then you prevent any negative thoughts.

Regardless of what happens at the end, the journey that is currently taken is important. It builds the foundations and is also a learning experience. That being said most things in the life, regardless of the outcome, good or bad is a learning experience its really just our own interpretation.

So whats the dream ?!? The three guys working together on this project dream of running a successful and profitable business. Make some money and friends along the way, help some people and be free from the shackles of a 9-5. No one has told us we are going to be successful, but the dream keeps us going.

So looking back, below are some links to the youtube videos that have been posted to show the progress of the datacenter build since inception, since the days when the garage was cramped and full of rubbish, when we didnt have proper equipment ... to todays completion of the hardware build and half of the code we are deploying - (well the main components anyway) ... when looking back and watching the videos i think we can smile at the work we have done ...

OK, hope that wasnt too deep, i think im really gonna go to sleep now, below are links to the various you tube videos from Garage DC 1 - Garage DC 8 (more to follow later) nite ....

• GDC1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZQiIIm_sdo
• GDC2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-aAqg0GZ3w
• GDC3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruCU9GAU5-k
• GDC4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6CrRS7lDUc
• GDC5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjldDs89mAA
• GDC6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtXTRFQzttY
• GDC7 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5SJeTMfCbo
• GDC8 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUXpRdilryM

... nighters .... time for some ... zzzZZZzzZzz

Introducing the Garage Datacenter Artist ...

I would like to extend a warm welcome to garage datacenter artist ..... Garage datacenter artist contributes many different skill sets into the team that marry up very well with the current skill sets present ... hmmm, before we talk about datacenter artist lets look at the current team and the skill sets ...

• Garage CEO - (ME) : Garage CEO brings to the table, the idea's, the knowledge, the architecture skills and a broad scope of techical know how, extending, development skills, networking skills, linux/unix skills and a good understanding of technologies.



• Datacenter Hitman: Datacenter hit man is the Fix-It man. Give datacenter hitman any peice of hardware, damaged, not working, configuration errors and the Hitman will shoot the problem down and find a resolution. Datacenter Hitman has also extended his skills to great deal making and the ability to get things for dirt cheap prices. Datacenter hitman has been through the think and thin of the build and without the help of datacenter hitman much of this would not be possible.



• Datacenter Artist: Datacenter Artist is a new addition to the team. Datacenter artist brings to the table the design skills and the design know how to make a bland looking website that character and life. The garage datacenter team is relying on Datacenter artist to create mad designs which will enhance the usability of all the user interfaces. Datacenter artist also has good development skills - (as we went to uni together for a while) and will be able to help with the development and integration of the project .... i look forward to working with datacenter artist and looking at the designs that datacenter artist comes up with .....

So how does Datacenter Artist skills match up .... well currently the garage datacenter team is missing a design guru but with the addition of datacenter artist skills this is now no longer an issue. Also as a result of datacenter's ability to learn and understand code, itwill also help with the speed of development. Datacenter Artist also lives 5 minutes away so meeting up to finish some work is an easy task ... so again the garage datacenter team extends its welcome .... so if i was japanese i would say IRASHIMASEN .... - (welcome)

So there you have it, there are now currently three members. There have been guest appearances by various individuals who will get a mention later in latter sections of the record of events for the garage datacenter team ....

Thats about it for now, its getting late so time to hit the sack ... just about the quick picture above, its to show a small gathering for the datacenter team. To celebrate datacenter artist and Garage CEO's birthdays (AKA my birthday) we had a bit of a bbq at the datacenter, it actually wasnt t be because Dad had some things to do but he came home early so we just unpacked the meat and ate ! ... picture is of garage CEO and Dad of Garage CEO enjoying a satay, also present there was Datacenter Hitman ....

OK until next time :)

The Recap of the Garage Datacenter Build ....

Pictures are worth a thousand words arnt they, i have typed alot of text and provided alot of descriptions in my previous posts, but nothing beats a good old image & the odd video ;). So below are the images of the datacenter build over the last few months, starting from the days prior to the garage being available to the now currently completed equipment setup.

Its been quite a long road, with lots of challenges but we press on and continue to develop the system, the software and the documentation. I just want to say that im proud of the work that the guys have put in and its great to see what a bunch of guys can do when they work together.

Its a funny thing really, in the corporate world you have 10's of people on a team, dedicated for eight hours a day working on a particular task. People put on suites, and ties and talk *professional* but the funny thing is, dressed in shorts, ripped singlets a will to succeed, good team work and communication, we have done more over the last 8 months then what 10's of people do in the *corporate* world .... go figure. Even now i think we have achieved alot but for the garage datacenter team the true test of success is a system that provides a service that the general public can find useful and are willing to use ....

The road is still long but i think we are on the right path :)

So ok, without further a due, below ... the images ...

	There you have it, 8 months of hard work, configuration, setup and all our servers are up and configured. The database servers, application servers, network elements have been configured and tested. Tweaking is required to get best performance.
	The nortel switches have arrive and are waiting to be installed ...
	Another view of the switches ...
	Arrival of the second rack and our ML570 compaq proliant storage node ...
	Arrival of the first rack ...
	Racking of the first set of servers in the first rack ...
	Moving the two racks out whilst cleaning the garage ...
	Servers and workstations prior to buying the compaq racks...
	Same as above ...
	Purchase of the first set of dell machines to create the beowulf cluster ... This image shows the beowulf machines stacked up in my room. Machines stacked up whilst the garage is being prepared.
	Cleaing up the garage by sorting out all the old pc's. Sourcing materials as spares...
	Mum going through all the items in the garage to see if there is anything she needs to bring upstairs ...
	Taking out all the garage from the garage, the most painful part of the garage datacenter build ...

Procuring hardware the poor mans way .....

As a project manager in my 9-5 day job i see the different ways hardware is procured.

I see how hardware is procured when a company has a *preffered* service provider and uses this vendor for all hardware purchases regardless of the project and i also see how hardware is procured when the decision is made for selecting the *best* provider to supply hardware for a particular project.

Outsourcing was the way to go some years ago and possibly even now it is still the preffered method. It must be understood however that even outsoucing the management of infrastructure isnt as simple as saying to a hardware provider, here is my hardware go and support it !

There are many things that must be supplied to the vendor and there needs to be a certain amount of collaboration to succed in an out sourced model. When selecting the outsourced model, without correct management the kind of service you can end up with is a under par service, lots of finger pointing and millions of dollars worth of wasted money.

OK OK so what has this got to do with the garage datacenter you may ask ... Im getting to my point now .... :) so sorry for that little bit of a tangent ...

So here at the garage datacenter we procured hardware by looked at the kind of hardware we needed, the different channels we could get it through and the best possible savings we could achieve. We procured hardware and also bought backups incase of failure, this is mainly cause we are poor individuals and dont have millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to waste...

However, even though we saved alot of money on hardware, our datacenter has great equipment capable of running the system comfortably, all it takes is to purchase the right equipment, understand how to configure that equipment and maximize its throughput, takes bit of know how and abit of tweaking but the savings and the performances cant be beaten.

OK so lets take a look at how we procured hardware ... what did we do ?!?! Many of our hardware components where purchased as follows:

- Dell 2550's - Unverstiy of Technology Sydney throw away - Load balancers
- ML350's - Ebay - Application Servers
- ML370's - Ebay - Application Servers
- ML570's - Ebay - Storage Servers
- DL580's - Warehouse resellers - 4xDatabase Servers 2xFirewalls
- Racks - Ebay
- Switches - company seconds
- Dell p4 2ghz machines - Routers

Many of the challenges we had to overcome as a result of getting hardware at a really cheap, or almost free cost is as follows .... i guess time is money, but if you have some time and no money its better to spend time ;) ... So our issues that would waste our time:

- Damaged hardware - hard disks, missing back planes, memory modules, scsi cards
- Non standard hardware - Funny bolts and screws, different types of rails
- Non standard configurations that needed reverting - Funny pre-configured servers
- Getting components - Huge racks, heavy servers, lifting, mounting, racking
- Pickng up equipment

Myself and Datacenter Hitman had to pickup the racks ourselves and at times when it came to picking up some of the equipment we had to do it in the dead of night to avoid police detection. The reason for this was because some of the methods we used to bring back the equipment such as huge racks were less then what is regarded the *safe* way of doing things ;)

After all this heavy lifting though im glad to say our hardware is setup and completly configured from a hardware and systems software point of view. Along the way we also made very good friends with some of the people we dealt with and im sure in future these individeuals we met would be able to further assist us with out journey.

When i look back at the difficulties datacenter Hitman and I went through and what we have today , i sit back and think at whats more to come and the future ahead. Its been a great job and im proud (regardless of what happens) of the job data center hit man and I have done to get to this point.

For the next entry of this blog, i will add some comments of the additional team members who have joined our journey over the last few months ... this should complete the catchup posts and i should be able to post then from a day to day basis .....

The Garage Datacenter Hardware Stack ...

So lets get down to it, what is the hardware stack we are using for the application ...

Servers

Application Servers

The servers used to house the application in a HA and Load Balanced environment are the Compaq Proliant ML350 servers. They make up the first half of the applcation cluster'd environment

The servers each have the following specifications:

2 x Compaq Proliant ML350's Running
- Dual 1.4 ghz CPU
- 2 Gig of Ram
- 6 x 18.2 SCSI disk

The second half of the of the application cluster are the Compaq Proliant ML370 servers. The specification of the servers are as follows:

2 x Compaq Proliant ML370's Running
- Dual Pentium III 1.4 ghz CPU
- 2 Gig of Ram
- 6 x 18.2 SCSI disk

(pretty much the same as theh ML350's)

Database Servers

The database servers are also going to be configured in a clustered environment. They will be running the mySQL clustering suite over 4 servers. The servers to be used have the following specification:

4 x Compaq Proliant 6400 Running:
- Quad Pentium III 700mhz Xeon
- 3 Gigz of Ram
- 4 x 36.4 Gig hard disk

Storage Servers

The storage servers are used to store various files and videos that are uploaded by the users. The servers used for this purpose have the following specification:

2 x Compaq Proliant ML570 Running
- Quad Pentium III 700mhz Xeon
- 2 Gigs of Ram
- 12 x 36.4 Gig hard disks

Batch Processing Cluster

There are various batch job that need to be run and various user executed processes that can contribute to the workload on the application servers. These processes have been identified and have been migrated to a seperate cluster so that any execution of these processes do no conflict with the operations of the application servers. This is to ensure that the user browsing experience is not hindered or degraded by any backend processing jobs. The following hardware has been used for these servers

10 x Dell GX270 optiplex Running
- Pentium IV 1.8ghz
- 768 megs of Ram
- 1 x 70 Gig hard disk

Racking and Storage

All of the equipment mentioned above along with the switches and networking equipment is housed within 2 x compaq 9000 racks (white in color).

Well there you have it .... the initial datacenter setup. The next post is the more interesting area of hardware, that being ... how we procured all this hardware at reasonable costs.

Procuring hardware ... or not ... decisions decisions ...

To buy the hardware or not to buy the hardware .... that is the question .... hmmm ....

So the goal of the garage datacenter team was to purchase the hardware as cheap as possibe but to ensure that the hardware platform does not jeopordise the application performance. There are many options to go with regard to the hardware platform , there is the hosting of own hardware and there is the VPS route. There are pros and cons to both and its basically about weighing out the best options:

Hosting our own hardware

Pros:

Pros1:

There is full flexibility on our server configuration. We can use as much hardware as we like and there is no additional price for extra hardware or resources other then the cost of the equipment.

Pros2:

We have full control of the parameters that we require and we can do various different clustering configurations with ease

Pros3:

There is no prices for rack space or any additional cost of hosting

Pros4:

Increasing resources like capacity, memory etc, doesnt attract a premium price as you can buy the memory cheap and do it yourself.

Cons:

Cons1:

Electricity and power consumption needs to be considered. It may be insignificant but it depends on how much power we are drawing per day. We also need to consider the amount of watts being used from a saftey point of view and ensure all our power sockets, fuses and breakers can withstand the current being drawn.

Cons2:

Internet costs need to be considered because if the application becomes popular, increasing bandwidth may require clever bonding or aggregation of connectivity to increase the speed of the internet or going with a bigger pipe which may have a much larger cost then currently being used, if available. Worst case scenario is that there is no option to increase bandwidth and it may require that there is a relocation of equipment

Cons3:

You must be full in charge of your own own SLA's and uptimes. If a server fails then you need to make sure you are on hand to ensure it comes back up in an acceptable amount of time.

Virtual Private Server - (VPS)

Pros:

Pros1:
SLA's are taken care of by the datacenter operations team so any downtime will be addressed by a specific datacenter team

Pros2:
Speed of the internet is taken care of by the datacenter operations team and will increase when required

Pros3:
There is no seperate price for elecricity as it is bundled with the whole package

Pros4:

Prices for VPS's are usually very resonable if only a small amount of servers is required, however when requiring more then one or two servers, the price can be quite costly

Cons:

Cons1:

If you require a standard server configuration its fine, but anything outside the standarad requirement will attrack a premium price

Cons2:

Requiring an increase in the amount of servers or specifications can be quite expensive, so requireing 5 servers can attract a price of $250 to $300 a month assuming that a VPS is about $30 - $50

Cons3:

Less ability to tune and tweak the network and hardware setup to meet needs

The Decision

The decision is not an easy one to make cause as you can see there are quite a few for and against. You need to think about growth, ease of maintanence and how you expect to grow. It is also highly dependent on how you want to run your application.

The decision that the garage datacenter team was to host our own equipment. We had alot of equipment already lying around which we could use, and we knew that purchasing other equipment second hand could allow us to get the hardware we wanted at a lower price.

One of our main concerns was the power saftey issue but after discussing with various electricans installing larger power sockets is not an issue. Also with the introduction of Annex M we can get very good upload speeds at a very good rate and if larger bandwidth is required, we can go via the bonding method or increase our internet requirements with the ISP as there is still room to move.

With this we began to build our equipment requirements and began to purchase our servers nd network equipment from all different locations to ensure that we can get the most reasonable price and still run our application correctly. Our next phase is the actual procurement of our hardware, this alone was a pretty interesting journey ....

Operating System Install ... Boring ... How to pass the time ...

OK so we are installing operating systems on the hardware that we have. Its a dead boring but obviously critical activity. You cant leave the machine to install on its own cause you have to press the 'next' button and you cant ask your little sister to do it cause she would either one, make a mistake or two ask for a significant amount of funds to do it, so like everything else in this world its better that you do it yourself. So how do you install the operating system without falling asleep ? There are a multitude of ways to do this so let me list them ...

Argue about politics ... never ending discussions about why we are getting ripped off by the government and why we are paying to much taxes and why we should over throw the government

Argue about why the operating system is taking so long to install.

Argue about why the IBM x340's are not working and why swapping disks around and attempting to solder a larger capacitor on the scsi card is a waste of time

Argue about why t isnt a good idea to paint the roof white even though it might increase the brightness of the garage

Argue why beer *does* make you bloated and fat and the fact that beer doesnt make you bloated is BS

Argue about why my 1.1 litre mazda 121 *definetly* uses less fuel then the 3.6 litre holden commodore even though the driver of the holden commodore may be an *extremely* good driver and can see how much fuel is being used up depending on how hard the throttle is pushed

Argue about why using a particular ISP is crap and that why its better to go with another even after obvious figures

Play music and sing happily ...

So there you have it, a list of things to do whilst installing the operating system. All very productive things to do as you can see. Oh and the last point of 'Play music and sing happily' ... Here is a list of songs we play

- Stand by me - Ben . E . King
- Living on a prayer - Bon Jovi
- To late to apologize - One Nation
- Always - Bon Jovi
- Imagine - Beatles
- Sweet child of mine - Guns & Roses
- summer of 69 - Bryan Adams
- heaven - Bryan Adams
- wonderful tonight - Eric Clapton

And a whole list of other songs i cant remember right now ....

Putting together all the pieces ...

So all the peices are there, well the main components anyway,

The application idea
The working space
The people (Garage BA, Garage CEO and Datacenter Hitman)
(and most importantly) The drive and motivation to finish the project

Once all the main ingredients are there the aim of the game is to combine it all to produce your solution and most importantly to keep the momentum going and drive throughout.

The development of the solution began with discussing the business model and the functionality of the application. The initial framework and functionality of the application was discussed by myself (Garage CEO) and my first partner (Garage BA). We looked at the different functions that could be implemented into the application that would make it unique and different to all other similar applications currently out in the market.

This process took about 3 weeks in total and the output of this was some business process flows along with some initial designs of what the user interface would look like. The detail of the documents was not very deep but as we were going to develop it ourselves we knew what we wanted to do in detail so we used the business process flow documents just as a guideline during the development. I created the user interface documents so that when designing the initial cut of the user interface i had a rough of idea what it would look like to prevent me from designing it as i was developing.

A parallel activity to the development of the business process flows of the application and the user interface design was the procurement of hardware. The idea was that we would have redundancy and decent processing power at a total cost of below $1000 dollars. I along with Datacenter hitman embarked on this journey of purchasing low cost hardware and equipment. Let me outline what we run today as an initial setup. The journey of how we procured this hardware will be done in detail as the story progresses as it is a story on its own however below is the outline of what we are now currently running.

Server equipment
- Compaq proliant G2 ML350 x 2 (dual 1.4 ghz + 2 gig of ram)
- Compaq proliant G2 ML370 x 2 (dual 1.4 ghz + 2 gig of ram)
- Compaq proliant 6400 x 4 (quad 700mhz Xeon + 4 gigs of ram)
- Dell poweredge 2550 x 2 (dual 1.1 ghz + 1 gig ram)
- Dell GX270 desktops x 10 (1.8 ghz + 512 gig ram)
- Compaq proliant ML 570 ( quad 700mhz Xeon + 2 gigs of ram)

Network equipment
- Cisco 5000 series switch
- 3com superstack switch
- baynetworks stackable switch
- Cisco 877 m k9 router

Misc equipment
- Compaq 9000 rack x 2

Equipment thrown out after either getting them for free or purchasing at low cost
- IBM x340 eServer x 2 (didnt work as had faulty mother boards)
- Compaq Alpha upright server ( had no memory etc etc)

Of this equipment the described above the first set of servers that were bought was the ML350's. They are great servers and dont have any problems even until now. Very easy to configure and setup and also to maintain. Datacenter hitman had the role of checking all the equipment and making sure that there were not faulty components and if everything checked out alright, to install the required operating system.

Both the activites progressed in parallel and as Garage CEO i was across both the activities. I would schedule my time as follows to ensure that i could cover both parts.

Weekdays:
During the week days I would come home from work and develop the application, (in the early stages) either on business processes or the user interface design. I would get home at about 6:00pm from work, have a shower, eat then begin coding

Weekends:
I would get up at about 6:00am in the morning, have breakfast, have a shower then begin coding until about 12:00 in the afternoon. Garage hitman would usually arrive at about 12:00 - 1:00 so at that point in time we would begin on the hardware configuration.

It was a great setup and things would get done and progress smoothly. Setting up hardware can be an exciting job but when installing the OS it gets down right boring ... however we are resourceful guys and we would do different things to pass the time ....

The Garage Datacenter Build ...

Lets step back to the post on the birth of the garage datacenter ...

It was by chance that we were able to get this garage. I was contemplating how i could get space to house this project and didnt have space in my current garage as it was packed to the brim full of old fridges, TV's, furniture clothes and other stuff that belongs in the tip.

I was standing infront of the garage and looking at how i could move all this equipment. I called various different storage facilities but i wasn't happy with the prices they were quoting, it just didnt seem like it was worth it.

One day, simply by chance i was walking upstairs and noticed that some new people had moved in downstairs, they were a new young couple and it seemed like they didnt have to many possessions at the time. It seemed like they were recommended to move in to this flat by a next door neighbour of mine. As i was walking upstairs i heard them having a discussion about the space, about the garage and i overheard the new couple saying they didnt have much things and the garage would be empty. That night as i was laying in bed i decided to walk downstairs the next morning and ask if they would rent the garage to me.

The next morning i actually went downstairs and knocked on the door and asked them about paying some rent for their garage space. Without to much hesitation they agreed .... i was shocked cause an initially seemingly difficult problem to solve was solved, i now had a whole garage to use and it only set me back $10 a week ! I thanked them and asked them to give me a reciept everytime i paid, they agreed and its been like so ever since.....

Moving all the bits from my current garage into the new garage wasnt easy, it took three days of back breaking lifting and wheeling. There was rearranging and arguments about what should be thrown out and what shouldnt. Eventually everything migrated from the current garage to the new one i had rented. It was great i now had all the space i needed and i started to rearrange the equipment i already had. I pulled in my development desk, my stack of dell pc's my switch and other cabling that i already had .....

Now that was needed was to spruce up the garage and to start purchasing the required equipment. Purchasing equipment sounds easy right ! Give money get equipment, well this wasnt the case for the garage datacenter team, lots of interesting events along the way but i guess it adds to the experience and the overall journey that we have embarked on.

Beginning the development, past present and future ....

In the past i have done various different types of development ....

As a graduate i worked in the SCADA engineering area and developed modules for realtime systems more specifically control systems for the electrical industry. I used to develop some of the bearer modules that communicated with the remote RTU's and used to develop some of the monitoring processes that would generate alarms when various components out in the field failed.

As a graduate the work in SCADA was great. My experience in this industry taught me alot and opened up alot of doors. You may think that SCADA is a very specialized field (which it is) but if you look at it from an IT perspective it covers alot of key areas.

- The requirement for redundancy
- Mission critical applications
- Required quick response times
- Protocols and communications
- Communications with external devices
- Realtime processing
- etc etc ...

As a graduate usually the menial jobs are passed on and all we get are the crappy repetative development roles but the development that i was doing was exciting. Along with development of code and i also go a view of how infrastructure is built to support realtime mission critical systems, something that i dearly value when looking back as it was experience that would contribute to my future roles.

Most of my development here was in C and C++ with alot of database work and work with different protocols used in the SCADA industry such as DNP and Baker.

I did various other support roles in different industries over time and i had a good technical background because of this experience.

Over time i moved into purely infrastructure work and initially did work as a unix/linux engineer and also started to get into network engineering through my own studies of cisco technology. It was great cause infrastructure work makes way for alot of travelling and as a young dude travelling for work is ideal. I was able to get into infrastructure work (initially) because i had experience when i was a graduate working on the SCADA systems infrastructure doing the basic network setup, configuring and setting up all the linux and sun servers along with the (at the time) windows 2000 servers.

Over time my development work decreased other then perl and shell along with some basic C and my infrastructure work started to increase until eventually i didnt do any more development except for unix shell.

So what does this have to do with the garage datacenter build and the development of the software to be housed by the garage datacenter ...... ?!? Well everything ......

See when you have done development before you think that you will never loose what you know, you developed throughout university, you developed in the early stages of your career, you look at code and you understand it, but for me anyway ... it did start to slip away and when i came to begin developing the application to be housed in the garage datacenter it didnt flow like it used to.

At the time when i was developing web applications they mostly consisted of cgi scripts (very complicated ones) to do alot of what is now support by the various frameworks. Now we have great technology such as ajax, XML and alot of remote communication libraries are built into the standard release of various programming languages, the problem was i had no idea about these and had to begin the learning processes again (dont get me wrong though ... it was fun and i enjoyed it).

After considering various frameworks and building all the sample applications from each of the frameworks such as django, ruby on rails, turbogears, zope and all the others i settled for a slightly different option and im glad i took the alternative route.

The development now is going well (i believe) and i feel i am comfortable with the option that i have chosen. Development happens everynight after dinner which is about 7:30pm - 8:00pm and extends to about 12:00am - 1:00am depending on how sleepy or how close i am to completing a certain module. I enjoy the development because its a great change from the mind numbing conversatios i have at work regarding issues that are really none issues but creates work and makes people look busy.

I can pretty much speak for all the members of the garage datacenter team when i say, i think we all enjoy the garage alot more then our day to day jobs. We thank the man upstairs we have them to support this venture but we all hope to be able to do something more worth while in the future to come ..