New ISP. ADSL has arrived!

Just when our new 30GB of storage was online and all was doing well, our favourite ISP Strongnet decided it would no longer provide dial-up serives. The new bunch, ConceptNet failed to provide the static IP, their support didn't happen on the weekend, and their support e-mail bounced. So we dropped them like a droppable thing.

We are now with win.co.nz, who have provided us with a dialup and vtund static IP. We have connected our firewall to an ADSL line to provide a more useful width of data pipe. During all this time, our Linux server has performed faultlessly.

Our old olliver.penguinpowered.com address has had to go due to abuse of the penguinpowered.com domain by those imbecillic spammer scumbuckets.

Our sound system has improved, with the server now driving a Sony DE545 6 channel, 120W-per-channel surround sound system. Suz hasn't had time to work on the player so we're using xmms these days. The VGA can also be output on our TV, allowing control from the armchair.

Hawk gets an upgrade, and we get snooped

Now we've taken the step to being a 24hr service, our venerable server, 'Hawk', is rather outgrowing its old 1.2Gb hard disk. We’ve given it a nice, new Seagate 7200rpm 40Gb hard disk. This gives us ample room for many more web pages and pictures.

The Olliver Jukebox is also under construction. Unfortunately we are unable to share the music with the world as they are copyrighted material which we have legitimatley purchased, but we will make any jukebox software that we create available under the GPL. Currently it is nothing special, using mpg123 to play the songs, and xmixer to control the volume on a Vibra-32 soundcard plugged into Goodmans 75W stereo speakers.

We are aware that our e-mail and web data are being intercepted by agencies originating in, or collaborating with the US. We therefore encourage people who wish to communicate with us to use PGP or GPG encryption. Here is Vik's Key.