Category: Computer bits

Computer stuff

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Computer testing

CSCLUG is getting involved in setting up another computer lab and today was hardware testing day for the first batch of what looked like a zillion computers.

This was only half of the bunch. There are apparently more on the way.

Stacks of computers

Each of the computers was given a quick check to see how operational it was. Machines with missing bits (typically RAM) were set aside. We ran Memtest and tested to see if they would PXE boot off the network.

Testing the computers

We made it through about half the stack of machines and ended up with somewhere around 24 out of 33 usable machines with nearly 50 more to test.

A batch of usable machines

Working computers and spare bits

We ended up with a bunch of machines that haven’t been tested yet because they have no memory. If anybody has sticks of memory for Dell GX 270s and GX 280s (DDR 333 or better) that are cluttering up your drawers, we can put them to good use!

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Tungsten T3 retirement party

Looks like my T3 will be retiring sooner than I thought.

It’s probably not a good sign when it gives me a low battery warning while it’s sitting on the cradle.

Guess it’s time for the retirement party.

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Tungsten T3 farewell soon?

It seems like the battery on my Tungsten T3 is starting to fade and drain faster than it used to. I found it at 25% battery after leaving it off the cradle for a couple of days.

I suppose I could do a battery replacement and keep it going for a few more years. It’s getting pretty close to 3 years since I’ve had it (purchased off eBay after my first one got waterlogged) so I’m not sure if there’s much point in doing that. I’ve been using my Cliq more for PIM stuff lately even though it’s not perfect and not nearly as good as PalmOS was at that kind of stuff. The Android version of Pimlical is helping with that though.

I’ll probably end up letting my T3 retire to the Drawer of Old Gear.

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Beefy Miracle for Fedora 16!

There are a lot of suggestions for Fedora 16’s codename, but Beefy Miracle is perhaps the best (at least the most interesting) I’ve seen on the list.

The campaign for Beefy Miracle is in full swing.

I wonder what that will do for naming Fedora 17 and beyond…

Beefy Miracle is a <blank>, and so is <new name>

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Dealing with MCNP mesh data

MCNP mesh tallies generate a lot of numbers to deal with. It all gets written to a formatted text file. Depending on the size and resolution of your simulation, you can easily end up with GBs of data in a single text file.

The first simulations I did, I decided to stuff it all into a database and use Excel to pull out the bits I wanted. It’s a little clumsy and somewhat cumbersome but it works.

As I work with MCNP more, I’ll probably come up with better ways and find better tools to help deal with the data. For now, this is the snippet of PHP code I wrote to stick the data into my DB.


// Mesh simulation data format
// '   Energy         X         Y         Z     Result     Rel Error     Volume    Rslt * Vol'
// '  1.000E+36   -98.000   -98.000   -94.000 8.44128E-19 4.58915E-03 6.40000E+01 5.40242E-17';
// Open the file for reading
if ($fh = fopen($mesh_file,"r")) {
    // Read file line by line
    while ($mesh_line = fgets($fh)) {
        // Split the data and insert into the database
        if ($c=preg_split("/\s+/",$mesh_line)) {
            $x=(float)$c[2]; // x
            $y=(float)$c[3]; // y
            $z=(float)$c[4]; // z
            $result=(float)$c[5]; // result
            $rel_err=(float)$c[6]; // rel error
//          $vol=(float)$c[7]; // volume
//          $result_vol=(float)$c[8]; // result_vol
            $res =& $dbh->query("insert into MeshData 
                (sim_id,x,y,z,result,rel_err) values ($sim_id,$x,$y,$z,$result,$rel_err)");
            if (PEAR::isError($res)) {
                echo ($res->getMessage().' - '.$res->getUserInfo());
            }
        }
    }
}