fantasing with hardware

Problems and successes with specific brands/models of networking hardware.
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Enrique Corbellini
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Joined: Wed 20 May 2009, 17:59

fantasing with hardware

#1 Post by Enrique Corbellini »

Hello,
i just bought a new computer. I was only needing to send and receive e-mails, and practically never watching videos (since when needing to watch them -very few times-, I have the possibility of going outside to a cyber-cafe).
So now am too much -powered , using a recent Sempron processor, to have many possibilities I don’t need. If I had opted for buying a used computer, probably it won’t have lasted enough before getting broken.
I also have cable tv in my living room. The people who installed it, gave me a decodifier to choose the tv channels, which has an input for ethernet. According to the manual, that’s to allow actualizing the decodifier’s inside software when needed.
Then I wonder, is it so difficult to have a decodifier which allows to send and receive mails? If existing this gadget, it should use a keyboard, and a e-mail manipulation program. I don’t think this adding to the decodifier would have mean to make it extremly complex or impossible to create it.
Does anyone know if a gadget like this exists? And if not existing, does anyone know if it’s possible to create it without using too much technology?
thanks

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Flash
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#2 Post by Flash »

My internet access is with my cable TV company (Cox cable), through a cable modem which I purchased. The same cable carries all the cable TV channels, plus my phone, plus my high-speed internet! However, I pay for only the phone and internet, so I don't get cable TV channels or have a cable TV decoder box.

So I think what you seem to be asking for is physically possible with the cable you have, though your cable company may not have the other hardware that would be required to give you internet access through your cable.

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Enrique Corbellini
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Joined: Wed 20 May 2009, 17:59

the company announced it but still didn't give it

#3 Post by Enrique Corbellini »

But anyway, the input for ethernet that the decodifier has, is adaptable to adsl coming from normal telephone connection line.

Perhaps the point is that, if having internet through cable tv, it is more or less the same like connecting through the telephone line.
Probably there’s no way to use mail boxes like gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc. if going to use a gadget instead of a computer, since those sites are complex by themselves.
My fantasy is that if using a very simple mailbox (ex. as the one that puppy users have?) , wont that mean we can use a very stable software to manipulate it, without having to actualize it for long periods of time?
If so, hardware instead of software is possible to manipulate the mailbox, and because of it’s small size, it could be implemented in a small gadget... of the size of a tv cable’s decodifier.
It is obvious that when depending from big companies as google or yahoo, there’s no choice to determine the exact software that’s going to be needed, since those companies permanently change their mailbox’s characteristics (without asking us for any advice).
Now I’m writing a letter to ecologist partners, since they say that in their community (very known in Argentina) they use computers with the real minimal hardware.
This is a site that shows how this community lives:
http://www.gaia.org.ar/english/index.html
I hope they’ll have some answer.

dogle
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#4 Post by dogle »

Enrique, not a fantasy - a brave company tried to sell something like this way back .... but I don't think they sold very many!
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/desktop-har ... s-2078046/
I'm puzzled though -
i just bought a new computer.
-and you a Puppy guy! WHY???
If I had opted for buying a used computer, probably it won’t have lasted enough before getting broken.
No way! The only computer I ever bought new is now landfill, my old recycled Puppy boxes are going strong after 10+ years (certainly old enough to drink, and still not smoking).

Just tell those nice folks at the gaia ecovillage they don't need new computers, tell them about Puppy (should fit in well with their ideals of 'coexistence, harmony, participation, democracy and tolerance') and they can add communication to the list, without doing more damage to poor old Gaia's resources.

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Enrique Corbellini
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Joined: Wed 20 May 2009, 17:59

interesting

#5 Post by Enrique Corbellini »

that's news from 12 years ago, isn't it? so perhaps I'm a little slow in considering some things haha

now we can send mails using cellular phones. But I didn't want to use a cellular because of wanting to have photos and videos in my hard disk (not necessarily to send them by mail).
Plus looking comfortably inside web pages....

In my country a used computer normally comes some crashed when arrives to your hands, even if the seller tells you everything's ok. It's a big risk. That's why I put some more dollars (not many more) and bought a new one.
Now I'll install ubuntu to use the exceding amount of hard disk space. I'll continue being a Linux user at least, even if puppy stops being the unic system I use.
And probably puppy will continue being my favorite system, truly (even though a ubuntu's community exists in my country and no puppy one!).

dogle
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Joined: Thu 11 Oct 2007, 12:41

#6 Post by dogle »

Thanks, Enrique -
In my country a used computer normally comes some crashed when arrives to your hands, even if the seller tells you everything's ok. It's a big risk.
In my country, perfectly good computers get thrown in the garbage when M$' latest bloatware makes them too sloooooooow (and we Puppy people can recycle them for free! - thanks for that, Bill G). Heck, I wasn't suggesting you BUY one! :-)
And probably puppy will continue being my favorite system, truly (even though a ubuntu's community exists in my country and no puppy one!).
Now that is an important point - on this forum we have long had German and French speaking communities, why not Spanish? Surely South America is one of Puppy's great areas for new enthusiasts .... so don't just sit there, go ahead and make it happen!

Also, if you would enjoy talking (live) to fellow enthusiasts in your own locality/language, you need to take a look at the PuppyPhone conference facility, it is really, really good.

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Enrique Corbellini
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i'll try

#7 Post by Enrique Corbellini »

really? better than skype?
i’ll try
now the people of Gaia’s community answered me: “we aren’t having any computer’s expert between us, but we did in the past. Now we have a conventional conection and using ubuntu system in an normal PC

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Aitch
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Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

#8 Post by Aitch »

Enrique

Something for you to discuss with the people at the Gaia ecology group about technology, is also a possible communications method to escape paying lots of connection fees
The One Laptop per Child project was set up for educating children about computing, and they included in the design of the OLPC laptop a system called mesh networking, which enables each PC to act as a network node in a local network, adding to any signal from the service provider, so internet access is spread to more people/villages

Mesh networking isn't just usable with the OLPC laptop, as it can be used with any PC that has 2 or more network interfaces, especially if one is wifi
Wifi aerial signals can be boosted and directed to other aerials for long distance connections, and many such devices can make a local network.
This is being done in some Countries with Government support, in others freelance by hackers/nerds/geeks ...and puppy users

Please google/scroogle it, but here is some info, to whet your appetites

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Mesh_Network_Details

http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-home ... air-460201

http://www.oreillynet.com/wireless/2004 ... smesh.html

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/ ... ls/6758/1/

http://www.tinc-vpn.org/

http://tinyurl.com/7qwx926

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wi ... _by_region

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE_b-W2Q ... re=related

the last is in Spanish, and is just one example of aerial booster/cantenna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6JN7yOd ... re=related

I hope you will discuss this and using Puppy with your friends

If you can get some people to help with old PCs many can be made usable with puppy without even a hard drive for some uses, and can be an email, webbrowser, or VOIP telephone station easily

Aitch :)

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Enrique Corbellini
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ok

#9 Post by Enrique Corbellini »

thank you
here we’ve got lots of XO computers, thanks to a government strategy to give em to every child coursing school.
Once I heard ubuntu’s people in Uruguay, my country, went to a group of hills far from town, and did internet connection to know the possibilities of having an independent and autonomal net.
What I was trying to explain, was that Gaia’s people and other ecologists in my region, look for using the minimal amount of technology as possible. Not because of disliking technology, but to avoid unnecesary problems, as we do when we use puppy to not having to wait for a system’s installation, opening programs, etc.
I confess that when I use gmail’s account service, I feel comfortable, because of its simplicity and powerfull contacting that allows you to see who’s on-line, in example.
But no one ever said that feeling comfortable is a priority, and to say the truth, people like Gaia’s, and mine in my country (who are other ecologists), tend to use only mailboxes, without requiring anything else. Simple mailboxes as the ones we have in the puppy forum.
So, what I’m thinking to do right now, is to start using my puppy’s mailbox to communicate with anyone, stoping to use my gmail’s account. But I cannot do that since puppy’s mailbox is only for internal puppy’s community members, isn’t it?
Perhaps ubuntu’s people have an open mailbox account, I should look for that.

About hardware’s recycling or creating our own, it seems more difficult to have our own microprocessors instead of INTEL or AMD ones, than creating our own ways to provide electrical energy.
That looks credible since we know the high tecnology needed to create those processors. But was then a lie the description of biodegradable processors made in Europe some years ago?
And as you say, since internet is only net telephony, we shouldn’t necessarily need high technology to connect.

So mesh networking is possible here, since we also have the “one laptop per child

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Aitch
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Location: Chatham, Kent, UK

#10 Post by Aitch »

Enrique

My feeling is, having been on a few permaculture courses and camps here in UK, that many such communities have very little in the way of computing onsite, as most energy is put into growing, building composting toilets, recycling projects...and trying to keep the Local Authorities off the property, as they want to tie everyone up in red tape...doing admin work to comply with their regulations....
People take laptops/tablets and smartphones

Here's a story I found inspirational

http://permaculture.org.au/2012/03/13/w ... #more-7221

I have built several small windmills, and helped with a miniature [100watt] water turbine battery charger project, and several reedbed waste-water schemes, and solar water heaters and the like - small is definitely beautiful, AFAIK

Communications can be VOIP or just messenger type stuff using something like pidgin or puppysip...
For the adventurous, you could have your own private telephone setup using an asterisk type OS, or a communal file/webserver using LAMP
Getting low power hardware is fairly important in the wild, away from power grids...though I did make a bicycle powered generator, for which the design got copied and ended up in Africa, I believe

We are currently looking forward to puppy porting to ARM for the Raspberry PI

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76363

...but there's nothing really wrong with Intel/AMD, apart from the high power use, low power can be done, especially underclocked mobile processors....flash memory saves power, too, as a replacement for hard drives


Bill Mollison's manual

http://liteguru.posterous.com/4-u-bill- ... dbook-plan

He/they seem to focus on permaculture courses/training now - I lean more towards alternate technology projects....

http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.ph ... rmaculture

http://www.tagari.com/courses/pdc_sept_2012

enjoy

Aitch :)

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Enrique Corbellini
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ok

#11 Post by Enrique Corbellini »

thanks again

about permaculture and other knowledge related to ecology, we have a regional mailgroup centered at Buenos Aires, through which we receive much information. I already sent a copy of this information you just sent me to this mailgroup.

Perhaps if we continue conversating about something that’s not puppy linux, our partners will ask us to move to other forum haha.

About processors,.... it’s true that there’s probably nothing important to say against INTEL or AMD.
But, since our partners of the Transition Movement* awared us about the convenience of start being independent of any corporation, we try to do everything by ourselves, even when not having any visible problem yet.
* http://player.vimeo.com/video/27847304

In this same line of trying to be independent, goes a work that a department of the United Nations proposed us to do now.
We don’t know if the UN have trustable people to do so, but a document they showed us explains a way to work in a net of ecological developers, that they want to help.
I wonder if in your country, your ecological partners are receiving any help from the UN or other world’s organization.

Receiving or not this sort of help, I believe it’s possible to have world’s communication between ecologists.
I find this puppy forum is helping to do so.

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