OK, so since the re-jig of the house network, I’ve got a fair few things which are redundant. I’m trying to make use of all of them, here’s a list of what I’ve got and what I’m doing with them:

1 x Shuttle XPC : Using for a FreeNAS installation as a NAS box.
1 x Server : Going to be a HoST test box.
1 x 24-port 3com 10/100BaseT Switch : NO IDEA OF USE!
1 x Linksys WiFi Access Point : Maybe a WiFi repeater for my house?
1 x Belkin UPS : Maybe I’ll use this with the iMac in the office at home.

All good.

I decided to do a bit of “jiggery pokery” today with some old hardware we had lying around at home. I wanted to see if I could easily create my own NAS box. It makes sense to use old hardware and a nice Shuttle XPC was sitting in front of me!

Yesterday I did some Googling and found FreeNAS which is a distribution of FreeBSD with a web GUI for just the kind of thing I needed, so I decided to give it a go. The installation was easy and it’s now installed on an old 128mb USB stick I had (it only uses 32mb). I now have it set up to use the old 80gb hard drive in there as a storage drive and I have set it up for Apple file sharing, FTP and DAAP.

Apple file sharing is useful because it integrates so well with the other computers in the house (pretty well all Mac now).

FTP is useful because, well, I thought it might be a useful thing to have!

DAAP is the best bit… it’s a system I had on the old server in the house which basically exports your music library in the same way that iTunes does, using the iTunes protocol. So I can have a folder on the drive called “Music” (or whatever you want really) and then use iTunes to share that folder over the network – something which will be extremely useful in a household set up.

Anyway, I’m going to get two 500gb drives for it so that there’s actually some space on there and start using it as a proper storage device!

Well, this weekend has been very busy… but it’s been absolutely amazing. The ceremony went without a hitch and the reception was great. The speeches were all very good and we’ve even recorded them – so anyone who wants to hear Dad’s German again, get in touch with me . (Actually, maybe check out YouTube soon…)

Anyway, I can’t really say anything more because it would take a lot of typing to explain the whole weekend – so here’s a picture to give a small snippet of the day: