Airplanes, hardware, software, jazz
Appliance: an instrument or appratus for a specific purpose. In other words, an appliance is not a general-purpose machine like a desktop computer. Another term heard occasionally is media-pc. It’s a network end-point in the living room that can play and record audio/video, and is a connection point for USB devices like webcams or memory card readers. It’s silent and has no moving parts, and is controlled primarily with an infra-red remote.
The infrastructure here is DNS, NTP (stratum 1), and firewall.
At Languid House, the “home server” is a Linux (RedHat 8) machine with a TV card, infra-red receiver, and a modem (phone) card that understands Caller-ID. The monitor and speakers are in the living room or bedroom but the noisy box is in the next room, with cables going through an outlet hole in the wall. It’s a TV that can be controlled with an ordinary remote (I use an old Sony remote I happened to have lying around). When a phone call comes in and I happen to be watching TV, the caller-ID information appears on the screen. (If I’m not watching TV, then a popup window appears on the screen.) If I decide not to answer, the computer is an answering machine: it plays the outgoing message to the caller and allows them to leave a message. I can listen to messages by viewing a webpage. Continue reading »