Work Work Work!

Hello again all. It's been quite a while since I've updated this space. I've been working on quite a few things for Tesla now that I'm out here working for them. I got an extension on my original contract to work out here and now I'll be out here till August! Woo hoo!

I've worked on lots of things out here so far, from working on Model 3 infrastructure in the factory, to keeping sites up, to learning Ansible for mass provisioning and integrating it with Jenkins for version control, to learning how to setup a dashboard when a team has no clients or anything to plug into other than networking switches at multiple locations. Learning a lot of varied tools that helpdesk, sysadmin and DevOps have all used in the past while here!

Here's to looking forward to the future and the side projects I can work on when I get home!

A New Chapter

While still working- rushing- to get my homelab remotely accessible in time before I fly out to San Francisco to intern at Tesla Motors, I'm struggling with balancing hanging out with friends, playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and working on this homelab. So many friends and family want to say hello before I leave for five months.

Sorry for the few updates, I just haven't found time to update this site in a while. The holidays are quite busy. Looking forward to seeing what this new job, albeit temporary, on the West Coast brings. I've needed a break like this for a while. The slow, bureaucracy-filled norm that I'm used to with companies I've worked for in the Midwest will likely have no place out at Tesla if I'm hearing correctly. Here's my chance to work somewhere great and bring back a different mentality to the Midwest.

Happy holidays everyone and I'll see you in the new year! 

Updates on Things - Lakka Box Finishing soon

Hello again!

It's looking like the Lakka Box should be done by Wednesday or so. I have to go grab a small SATA cable for it. Working on that guy has basically been rebuilding an Optiplex 780 bit by bit with parts that work best around an emulation station. I've been quite busy recently with lots of coursework in scripting, attempting to further automate my Factorio game and server, look up a test Soundcloud scraper I can modify for testing and I'll be working part-time soon for LexisNexis until my co-op semester begins in the Spring. It's interesting how I assumed I'd have all my projects done by the end of the year, that I started during my summer co-op semester!

My Spring co-op semester- I believe it's January to April or May- will be the last time I'm available for a co-op position and I'm still in talks with prospective companies...no idea who I'll be working for around then, however I'd really like someone I can stick with in the SysAdmin sector as I grow into new roles. Here's hoping I can find someone who wants to teach a student in I.T./Automation more Linux goodness! I much prefer learning open-source vs paid software, as there is a lot in the open-source sector that people don't realize can help them.

My recently-received Google Home DiY box will be done once I get a proper image for the Pi. I recently- as in maybe two or three months ago- received that MagPi edition that came with a kit to turn your Raspberry Pi 3 into a Do-It-Yourself Google Home which is quite interesting. I'll be playing with that more between entertainment, school and projects.

Still need to figure out how to boot windows on an upcoming project computer....this re-built Dell doesn't seem to like booting from CD, DVD nor USB....all I need to do is update the BIOS with Windows and then I'm immediately slapping Linux on there. That'll be all!

Life is moving

Life is moving along! Classes are going. Sometimes it's hard to keep one's head above the water in the cases of professors who don't understand or like you, but I attempt to power through anyway. Also learning in Scripting Languages courses recently that Python might be my new best friend for the Scraper project, once I get my servers mounted.

Recently did some work on rackmounting my servers, but learned that my HP DL380 G7 needs special rails or adapters for its rails to fit in square rack holes. The Dell R710 was succesfully mounted, awaiting a RAID card swap so that the hard drives can be passed directly through to unRAID. Also learned that my idea for using a Raspberry Pi 3 to monitor room ambient temperature, humidity etc has already been done before so that'll be fun and easy to setup for the new "server room" in the basement.

Other than the fact that the Scraper and VPS projects have been put on hold due to the inevitable delays caused by needing rails + parts for the servers, I should be able to complete the Lakka Box once the heatsink for the Dell gets here!

Alex out!

Progress on The Lakka Box

Now that yet another college semester has arrived, I find myself yet again with a flexible schedule and yet more coursework than ever before. Good thing I have my personal projects continuing to motivate me forward! I've always felt that college should be to teach you instead of loading you down with unnecessary work. Nonetheless, that rant is for a different time.

Recently, I've made more progress on that Lakka Box project I started a while ago. My goal is to finish a project a week until I can finally get to rack-mounting my servers that have been lying dormant, thereby allowing me to make a lot more headway on the Scraper and VPS Instances projects. I've been toying with ideas for hypervisors for the VPS Instances project, but I heavily doubt my front-end I'd be presenting to my friends and family would look as good as DO's or Vultr's.  

You can see my Lakka Box progress here...