Meadow Musings: Computer Stuff

Have you ever seen that Shakespeare play "As You Like It"?  Did you know that Kenneth Branagh made a version of it a few years ago set in Japan?  Well, he did.  It's pretty good, but there's that part in the middle where Oliver and Orlando are attacked by a lion...  and he didn't bother to change it.  I think I might have yelled at the screen, "A LION???  YOU MOVED THE WHOLE PLAY TO JAPAN, BUT YOU KEPT THE LION?."

Well, my friends, today's post is like a great big lion in the middle of Japan.  Which is to say, incongruous.  When we moved the whole site to solar hosting a few weeks back, we also changed blogging software, from LifeType to Movable Type.  Obviously, I didn't want to lose all the entries we had written before, so I set out to move them over to our new Movable Type installation.  Well, Google as I might, I was not able to find one bit of help out there in the wild interwebs.

Fortunately, I am apparently some sort of "programmer"!  So I wrote my own script that takes a LifeType database and converts all of the information into a format that Movable Type can digest.  I am posting it here for all the world to see, so that the next person who wants to make the same move won't have to reinvent the wheel.

Right-click and save this file.  There are instructions in it; you'll need to be a little familiar with PHP and your LifeType database to make this work, but at least you won't have to start from scratch.

Sorry for the interruption; I now return you to your regularly-scheduled duck-watching.

You're reading this blog, so you know that we build websites using solar power. Well our blazing new news is that we just upped the ante: we now we offer solar web-hosting! That means that in addition to creating websites using solar power, we can serve websites up to visitors on the web using the power of the sun.

Who was our first client for this total solar-powered web solution? Ourselves. We moved the hosting of webmeadow.com away from a conventionally-powered host to our current digs. So webmeadow.com is now powered by the sun!

Why does solar hosting matter? Serving up web pages takes a lot of energy, just like building them.

To put servers into perspective: when I worked with the Internet Archive, they had a server room chock-a-block full of computers (around 600 I think) to serve up their data. All those computers produce lots of heat, so in addition to all the server power, it took a huge amount of air conditioning power just to keep things running.

The company that we've partnered with powers their servers AND their air conditioning with solar panels. And they've even designed their server room so that it needs less air conditioning than traditional designs (complete with a living roof of drought resistant plants -- it reduces their cooling and heating requirements by over 50%).

A smart choice all around, and we're excited to be part of it!

A concept very dear to our hearts is efficient computers.  And when they're powered by the sun, they become even more exciting.

I just ran across the Aleutia E1, a desktop computer that bills itself as "The Ultimate Off Grid Computer".  It runs off of an astonishing 18 Watts of power!  Contrast that with Eileen's Linux desktop that runs on about 75 Watts of power or our laptop that runs on 60 Watts.

We at webmeadow central have also built a computer (in an Ikea metal storage bin!) that uses XP Pro and runs on only 22 watts of power.  And in fact, the computer that we built has more RAM, a better processor, and a little more oomph over all (the stats of the Aleutia are perhaps a little pokey).

But!  The Aleutia has us beat in 2 key categories:  it is completely silent, and the solar package comes with solar panels and a battery.  You can unpack the whole setup in a field somewhere (preferrably with a desk) and be up and running immediately.

Less power + silent + run by the sun = awesome.  I will be more excited when the Aleutia can have a bit more muscle, but I definitely like where this technology is headed.

A beep and a click. That's how it happened. We were finishing up the layout of a site that twill be launching this week, we heard a beep and a click, and then we had no power.

We haven't yet talked about the components of our solar setup, but I'll jumpstart the conversation by saying we knew what we were looking for in batteries, panels, charge controller, etc., but not so much with an inverter.

Inverters are the part of the system that converts the DC power (what solar panels spit out) into 110V AC power (what your computer eats). There are basically two types of AC inverters out there: pure sine wave and modified sine wave. Pure sine wave inverters have more even, steady power than modified, but they cost about 3 to 5 times more than comparable modified sine wave inverters.

Easily the most important pieces of our office equipment are our computers and servers, and experts can be divided on which type of inverters are best for computer equipment. So we went with a cheaper modified sine wave inverter, figuring that if we tried the cheaper option, we could always upgrade.

Eileen's computers and servers worked quite well with the modified sine wave inverter, but from the beginning, my setup buzzed constantly. It fell under the category of "oh, we'll have to get a pure sine wave inverter at some point" irritating, but otherwise everything was great.

Well, after 6 weeks of use, the loss of power from the inverter has settled the case quite clearly:

If you have computers, get a pure sine wave inverter.  Avoiding that buzzing noise is reason enough.

#31 in our ongoing series, "Reasons You Don't Want a Website"

You know what the best part about having a business is?  Answering the same questions over and over again.  What are your hours?  What's your address?  Do you take credit cards?  And the more esoteric ones:  what does your company do, exactly?  How can I do X with product Z?  What is the meaning of life?

Sure, it might take hours out of your day to answer these types of calls and questions, and they may pop up at the least opportune moments.  But really, nothing is more fun than saying, "We close at 5pm weekdays, and we're closed on Sundays" 4 or 5 times a day.  Because how often do you get to deal with questions you actually know the answers to, right off the top of your head?  (You could answer these in your sleep!)

Apparently if you have one of those new-fangled "websites", you could put all of that information up there, and then your customers could find the answers without your help.  They could find them when you're busy or closed.  They would even find your phone number right next to the answers, in case they had follow up questions.  That could free up a lot of time in your day, but what exactly would you do with all that extra time?  Relax?  Land a new sales account? 

I'd rather answer more repetitive questions, thank you.

#23 in our ongoing series, "Reasons You Don't Want a Website"

If you have a website, people might find you.  You may innocently put up some sort of "Contact us!" page on your site, and think nothing of it.  But you know what happens?  Google happens.  Then some potential customer can just type your name willy nilly into practically any search engine, and BAM! Information on how to find your business is delivered right to them.

Obviously, this is nothing less than disastrous.   They might call you.  They might email you.  They might even wonder if there is a way for them to exchange some form of money for your goods or services.  And then what?  Who is going to respond to those emails?  Who is going to fulfill all those orders?  What in the world are you going to do with all those customers?

The path is clear:  you'll have to hire an underling.  You'll have to teach that person how to work in your business, how to make your clients happy, how to jam all that cash into the overflowing till.  You'll have to figure out how to break the news to your CPA that you've just jumped a tax bracket, then you'll have to give your underling some vacation, during which time he or she will undoubtedly be eaten by a shark, and you'll be back at square one.  

All because of that stupid website.  It's definitely not worth the hassle.