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04/04/2015
Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 – To be continued
By dch1 in Just Notes No Comments
This is a follow-up post for my last post. The TS140 is definitely worth the money I spent on and it’s really well made in Mexico (why it is not China?).
My old tower PC has just been upgraded from O.C version of E5200 to E8400 but it’s still getting slow. As a result, I bought TWO TS140, one for lab and server machine, the other one for workstation.
Surprise, surprise, surprise! My unit is equipped with the latest version of motherboard (FRU number is 00FC657) which supports Haswell Refresh CPU so I can use some of the latest LGA1150 CPU, including i7-4770 and E3-1231 V3 CPU. Unfortunately, I’ve bought a E3-1245 V3 CPU from eBay and it had been delivered. I am planning to buy another E3-1231 V3 for the 2nd tower.
Currently, one of the TS140 is up and running, and it’s very, very quiet! I could only hear the hard drive clicking in the night.
CPU: E3-1245 V3
Ram: 4GB * 2 ECC Unbuffered RAM (original 2 sticks from two TS140)
HDD: 1TB Segate
System: Windows Small Business Server 2011 (SBS 2011) Standard – One of my clients using this and I am just using it for evaluation purposes only, WILL change to 2012 R2 as soon as experiments is finished.
I am going to sell both of the i3-4330 CPU on eBay to compensate my costs.
So far, so good. I will try to post more screenshots for the system shortly.
26/04/2015
Free Dynamic DNS Service from NameCheap
By dch1 in Life No Comments
The title is a bit misleading and I don’t think it’s a complete free service from NameCheap as you might need an active domain name, such as .com, .org, or .info etc.
Background: I am seeking for a stable DDNS service for my home ISP in China. I was using free 3322.org DDNS years ago but they stopped working all of sudden and I changed to DyNS for a while. Unfortunately, it’s very unstable so I need to find alternatives.
I was trying to get a paid DynDNS service which is a popular option for end users. However, given the fact that it’s quite expensive – about $30 USD a year, I have to find a cheaper solution.
Finally, I found NameCheap. It is said that they provides free DDNS services if you are using their name server so I used one of my domain name to conduct the experiment.
I will be a good idea to have a transferred / registered domain name from NameCheap and they provide great service. I am trying to transfer all of my domain away from Godaddy to NameCheap (However, I have no affiliation with NameCheap at the time I am writing this blog).
1. Go and find drop down menu –> Manage Domains, then choose your domain name you wish to have DDNS service enabled.
2. Click All Host Records, create an A Record under SUB-DOMAIN SETTINGS for your DDNS service. For example, if you wish to create dynamic.YOURDOMAIN.COM, you can just type dynamic in the first text box under SUB-DOMAIN SETTINGS. You can then type some random IP address in the IP ADDRESS/ URL area and it will be replaced by real IP address for your DDNS host.
3. Click Dynamic DNS link and enable DDNS Service. Grab that password system has generated.
4. We can use wget or any browser to update our DDNS address. It will be very useful for some open source router and possibly Cisco ISR DDNS.
The wget format will be provide as follows:
where bjdch.org will be your domain name, PASSWORD is your DDNS password you have just grabbed, and dynamic would be your A record you wish to update.
As a successful request, the server will return some information:
YOURIP is your real local IP address and you can double check that IP address in NameCheap control panel.
There you have it! You saved nearly $20 to use elsewhere and you own a very special domain yourself. It is definitely a better deal!