Remote maintenance of servers...

I'm going to geek out a bit with this entry. Apologies to you non-techies.

To keep myself entertained during my time between jobs, I've decided to get myself a server to host a few projects I've been working on. I don't want to host them on a home sever because a home server is too noisy and too warm. Besides, I'd have to share the outbound traffic with my web surfing. So, rather than getting more bandwith at home, I can just put the server in a data center for just a little bit more money.

And there's the issue. It's in a data center. Behind locked doors. No monitor or keyboard. So, how do I access it? An Serial-over-IP device would be cool, but they're expensive and don't do much. I've looked into IPMI, which my server supports, but It needs a VPN to get out of the local network. I've found a KVM-over-IP device that looks pretty cool, but I need to get it shipped out from the US.

But, there's always the option of putting a DVD in the DVD drive. Most of the time it won't be used. In fact, I'll probably not use it unless I need to do an install from the console. So, I'm thinking having a Linux live dvd might be a good thing to keep in it, just in case of an emergency. I got Puppy Linux to work, but it doesn't have LVM in the package, so it looks like I'm off to figure out another option with a different distro, or trying to work out how to get LVM into Puppy Linux...

At least it keeps me out of trouble.

Frank worth more than US Dollar

I checked this morning and Oanda.com had updated their site with values from the weekend. Yes indeed, the Frank did officially overtake the US Dollar on Friday.

The Frank's had a long journey to this point. Back in 1970 a US Dollar was worth FIVE Swiss Franks.

Dollar Frank equivalence?

On Saturday we saw that the Dollar had fallen below the Frank on Friday. However according to oanda.com, the Dollar is still worth just about 1-3 cents more. Any day now.

And, I just noticed that blogger is telling me that it's saved a draft of my posting, but has told me IN GERMAN. C'mon guys, if you're going to do multiple language support, can't you do it in multiple languages?

Just as I finished that, it started talking to me in English once again. :)

Press finally picks up on Swiss Franks rise on the US Dollar

This morning's New Zurich Times' leading story has to do with the falling US Dollar vs. the rising Swiss Frank. I mentioned this earlier. They mention that prices for US goods sold in Switzerland are near twice that for those same goods in the United States. They post the price of the Dollar at about 1.01 Swiss Franks, which I haven't seen yet, as most quotes I've come across have been about 1.03.

Further inside the paper they give a chart of various goods that are overpriced when purchased here in Switzerland. They also editorialize that the prices must fall. Trademark goods are ridiculously expensive. Especially when you consider that many of these products are no longer made in the United States.

Yesterday, I wandered around a couple of shops. One was a bookstore, but I realized that at the prices involved to buy from a scant collection of English language tech books, I could order from Amazon, with overnight shipping and still save. I take hits all along the way in that transaction, first with a padded exchange rate, a fee to transfer funds to my US account, expensive shipping to Switzerland, and lastly a potential 2.3% or so sales tax and 10 Frank fee from the Swiss Government. Still, it is way cheaper to get these goods from the United States. I get a better selection and cheaper prices.

A couple stories that haven't seem to hit the English speaking news yet.

There are a couple stories out there that haven't seem to have hit the English speaking news of yet here in Switzerland....

The Swiss Frank is quickly gaining on the US Dollar
This one is quite surprising that it hasn't yet hit the news. There was all sorts of stories when the Canadian Dollar was approaching the US dollar awhile back. Now, it's the Swiss Frank's turn. Currently a Dollar is worth approximately 1.02 Swiss Franks. At this rate the Frank might achieve parity with the dollar next week, or even pass it. I'm quite surprised to not have seen any info on this.

Non-Smoking Restaurants soon in Switzerland?
This hit the German language news, but I haven't seen anything in English on it. Apparently, last week the Standerrat (Swiss Senate) voted in favor of limiting smoking in Restaurants to specifically built fumoirs, with restaurants largely being smoke-free. A law like this is already in-force in the Canton of Ticino, where there are currently only about 25 fumoirs that have been built so far.

Three year old German Students.

I was going to wax all editorial about my views on forcing three-year-olds to have High German instruction in a Swiss German speaking country, but I think I'll just put the link out there about making these kids learn a language that people don't really speak here.

Is it a good idea? I suppose only time will tell, though I've got just a little bit of doubt on this....

Old Fasnacht video

Here's some video I shot last year of Fasnacht. I'm just getting around to putting it up on the web. We wandered around with some friends that are in a Fasnacht clique.



I quickly realized that I wasn't going to get any good pictures with my camera. However, the video function seemed to work decently with the low light conditions, but the Canon S40 is a sorry replacement for my Panasonic video camera.  The quality isn't great, but it's not so bad. There's a better version at my .mac video gallery.