Difference between revisions of "User:Armorgnome2"

Revision as of 03:23, 10 August 2012

What is an Armor Gnome?

I love a good challenge. In fact one of my favorite hobbies is doing things people think can not be done. Beginning around 2002 and going up through 2010 I was an EverQuest player. If you played on the Rathe server during that time I am certain you probably ran into me as Lovehate, the female Gnome Shadowknight. For those of you who don't know standard fantasy race attributes; my character was 3 inches shy of 3 feet tall, somewhat but not especially nimble or dexterious, weak, but highly intelligent with a knack for tinkering. My chosen class or role was that of an evil, axe wielding, dumb brute of a fighter who charged into battle ahead of all others to overpower enemies. A large part of this game revolved around finding groups of other players and fighting monsters for experience. For a group to be effective certain elements had to be present such as a healer type to restore hp lost to being attacked, a tank class such as a warrior, paladin or shadowknight to draw the attention of the monster and suffer the brunt of its damage, and damage dealing classes such as rangers, rogues or wizards to kill monsters quickly so that the group could move on to the next monster. Imagine my difficulty as a gnomish tank trying to sell my services to groups looking for party members. Where an ogre warrior might have 5000 hit points, my character had 2000. Let's just say I wasn't ideal and spent a lot of time LFG (looking for group). Like any challenge however I refused to remake my character and wanted to prove to myself and everyone else that if played smart a gnome could be a tank. It took me just under 8 years to happily state that I accomplished my goal.

I retired from EverQuest as one of the top shadowknights on all servers, which I accomplished with hundreds of hours of play time and intelligent armor selection. I studied the game, I stayed up late looking over parsed data pulled down over hours of battles, I composed formulas to calculate damage per second received and conducted experiments to try and reduce that number. I participated in lengthy discussions on armor and tactics with fellow players to debate the finite details of the game mechanics. In the end my calculations proved correct and I had successfully equipped my character with the necessary armor to be more efficient at my role than a less devoted player of a 'tougher' race. Though I am long done playing Everquest, many friends of mine from that time still jokingly refer to me as "gnome." I accept that as a compliment to my tenacity and willingness to stick with challenges until they are not only beaten but completely destroyed.

Who am I?

I am a 33 year old guy, currently living outside of Portland, Michigan. I am a full-time student trying to finish my degree in Occupational Health & Safety. As the story above probably indicates I am stubborn and un-wielding at times but only because I believe if I am not challenging myself then I am not getting the most out of life. If I start something I finish it. If I am unclear about something I research it to death until I know it backwards and forwards. Professionally and socially I have also done it all you might say. I have broken bread with CEOs at expensive restaurants and I have split the last piece of bread with fellow homeless people in a cardboard box. I have flown business class to consulting work around the US and I have also hitchhiked from California to New York. If I go on much more about my life I am afraid I may cut out the possibility of selling my life story later. Currently I am in-between those extremes and happy. I devote any free time away from my studies and the occasional consulting task to my latest passion: LinuxMCE.

Why LinuxMCE?

Like a lot of people currently involved in this project, I am a victim of THE video. I can not even remember how I stumbled onto it, but since that moment I have been fascinated with its development. It has been my introduction to the Linux experience. That software this impressive comes from the combined efforts of brilliant people working for free and on their own time amazes me. I truly believe in the open source concept and feel it is my responsibility as a user to contribute wherever possible. I have never programmed anything more complex than a VCR, but I do have some artistic ability so I plug away at UI skins while those more apt at programming contribute their abilities. The reward then for me goes beyond integrating components in my home. The thought that a skin I draw might be the preferred choice of a new user two years from now keeps me striving for perfection. As I have had more time recently in my schedule to work on LMCE projects I have found new possible ways to contribute such as dce device implementation, template creation and eventually (I hope) code development.

Current Equipment

My current setup is a Hybrid Core mounted in a wall between my office and living room. In this image I am showing what pipes to the office and what pipes to the living room. The gray area is actually the hidden space behind a full wall entertainment center. As described in forum post about my video card, my CORE is pulling triple duty and functioning as the core, a media director and another media director. I refer to this setup as my hybrid-hybrid.

Red Lines are:

Power Lines showing both the Core and another non-LMCE computer protected by the UPS, to

save a lot of line drawing I will just state that half of the system is UPS protected but didn't want to

draw all of that

Green Lines are:

From the non-LMCE PC out to a KVM switch under my office desk

From the CORE to the same KVM switch

From the CORE out to my LG TV and to a stereo preamp, and Sony Receiver located in the living room

Blue Lines are:

Network cables starting with input from a 4G wireless card to my external router

From the external router to the CORE (eth0)

From the Core (eth1) out to a Linksys 10/100/1000 five port switch

From the switch out to non-LMCE PC

From the switch out to VOIP adapter (not working yet)

From the switch out to HD Homerun

From the switch out to Netgear Wireless N router (functioning as a wireless switch only)

Yellow Lines are:

Connecting RJ-11 phone line from VOIP adapter to a standard cordless phone (not working yet)

Concepts and Projects

One of the very exciting things about this project to me when I first dug into it was that support for devices came from users and developers who using what they had, got it working and wrote support for those devices into LinuxMCE. Because of this, just as I have noticed with many flavors of Linux, the latest and greatest hardware might not have support written for it yet. Tried and true hardware that is now bottom shelf or eBay fodder probably has several varieties of code written for it. Though some might not care for it, I am a duck taper. I love finding a new Goodwill store that may have a serial cable for me to tear apart and make a 1-wire device out of. I slam the brakes when I see a computer tower at a yard sale. At any given time I have four to five half assembled devices on the bench going through RAM testing or waiting on parts from eBay to show up.

Though it may not seem the Linux way, I am developing and creating some hardware with the intention of selling it. Obviously I am not selling software, it is free to me and it will be free to everyone else. I hope to sell my time and solder to users who appreciate custom components and want something unique. Any development or templates I have to create to make my creations work under LinuxMCE will be offered to the community freely. A percentage of profit from sold will go directly to LinuxMCE as a donation and profit remaining will go to adding new equipment to my setup. Time will tell how well this works out for me... if nothing else it keeps my soldering iron hot and keeps me trying to learn more about the way things work inside LinuxMCE.

Case Moding Media Directors:

As much as I like the clean look of a vesa mounted nettop behind a flatscreen, I can not ignore that in most setups there will always be some type of entertainment center. A TV can be mounted in a wall but not many non-custom built walls will allow you to recess a PS3 or a receiver. This is where my media directors come in. Using 100% compatible and tested hardware I will create one of a kind 'showcase' media directors. Some could be described as contemporary HTPC designs and some can be called nothing short of radical.

Ideas and Current Projects:

Entertainment Center Typical: Mini and Micro ATX computers modded to fit inside electronics. An old cable box which actually houses a full media director, A receiver that contains a working media director AND retains function as a receiver,

Component Hidden: In-wall touchscreen orbiters. In-TV hidden receiver and media director (imagine a child's bedroom television, tube style case with a flatscreen tv inside that allows all that empty room for me to cram in components)

Radical: Pressure sensitive doormat, voice recognition services from everything like orbiter commands to front door locks, 'orbiting' orbiter using robotics such as Roomba, LinuxMCE operated fireplace (this one is a little scary... )

More Content to Come

A lot. As you might have gleamed already, I like to type.