Dirk-Jan's log

Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro - dag zes

Na ons thee en digestive koekjes kon de ellende beginnen. 6 uur lang naar boven klimmen/ wandelen. We begonnen allemaal heel goed en sterk. Sev kreeg op een gegeven moment echt last van evenwichtsstoornis. Ze is een paar keer gaan wankelen en werd opgevangen door BJ die achter haar liep.

Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro - dag vijf

We zijn vandaag (zaterdag 16 Jan) van Karanga kamp naar Barafu kamp gelopen en zijn daarmee aangekomen op 4700m. Over deze klim hebben we twee uur gedaan. Het was een erg mooie route met bijzondere stenen, soort leisteen. Bram is vandaag in zijn t-shirt omhoog gelopen. Vanmorgen goed zicht gehad

Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro - dag vier

Dag vier van de trek. Vandaag zijn we na een korte loop weer droog aangekomen in het kamp genaamd Karanga. Net na aankomst begon het weer te regenen, dus de regen goden waren ons weer gunstig gestemd. Alhoewel er wel weer kanalen om de tent gegraven moesten worden om het

Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro - dag drie

We hebben goed uitzicht gehad op de top, hij lag er prachtig bij. De hoogte wordt nu pas echt goed voelbaar. We zijn vandaag aangekomen in Baranco camp op 4100m na een pittige 5 en een half uur lopen. De wandeling ging van het Shira camp 2 naar Lava tower

Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro - dag twee

Vandaag een lange dag omdat we een camp site (Shira 1) hebben overgeslagen. Zitten nu op 3900m in Shira 2 en hebben uitzicht op wat ons te wachten staat. BJ, Sev en ik hadden bij aankomst in het kamp een lichte hoofdpijn, maar dat is redelijk weggezakt. De kok zet

Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro - dag een van de trek

Lang gewacht en kort gelopen, dat was een samenvatting de 1e dag. We zijn vanmorgen rond 9 uur met een busje vertrokken uit het Keys hotel, richting de berg. De rit viel tegen omdat het langer duurde dan we hadden verwacht. De gidsen stopten om wat te eten en 1,

Kilimanjaro

Aangekomen in Kili

Na een voorspoedige vlucht van 8 uur vliegen zijn we geland op de luchthaven van Kilimanjaro. De paspoort controle verliep helaas minder voorspoedig, want van iedereen die het land in wou moest een leuke foto gemaakt en de vingers gescand. Van de luchthaven naar het Keys hotel in Moshi was

Home automation

Opentherm Gateway for the win

At the end of last year the central heating system (including hot water) at home started to fail. Luckily it was not directly broken, but it slowly gave less and less heat, which was most noticeable while taking a shower, brrr. I was not totally unhappy then the maintenance guy

Security

Install SafeNet eToken PRO on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Some time ago I wrote an installation guide on how to install the Aladdin eToken on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS [https://vleeuwen.net/2012/08/install-aladdin-etoken-on-ubuntu-12-04-lts]. This information is somewhat outdated as most of us are using a more recent version of Ubuntu today. I still use the eToken at

Home automation

Home heating setup using openHAB

Three weeks ago I finished my home build thermostat and heater control using openHAB [http://www.openhab.org/] and MySensors [http://mysensors.org/] and I am really pleased with the result so far. The set-up consists of two Arduino Pro Mini’s, one 3.3v for the battery powered MySensors

Arduino

Low power mod for Arduino Pro Mini

Today I replaced the Deek Robot Pro Mini clone by an original Sprakfun [http://www.sparkfun.com/] one. Although the clone worked quite well I could not manage to cut the traces right to preserve power for this battery powered Arduino. In an attempt to disable the onboard power regulator

Home automation

Homematic dimmer and LED light bulbs

The last two weeks I’m replacing frequently used lights in and around the house with LED lights. This is a relatively easy job, but I had some issues with the Homematic [http://www.homematic.com/] dimmers. Those dimmers do a good job with standard light bulbs, but when using

Linux

Goodbye OSX, hello Ubuntu!

Because of some features in the latest stable XBMC release I felt the urge to upgrade my XBMC install from 12.3 to the latest stable version. Somewhere I have read XBMC 13 “Gotham” had dropped support for OSX 10.6, so I decided to migrate to Ubuntu, because my

Databases

Oracle datapump status

[https://vleeuwen.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/oracle-logo.gif]During a import run of a +100GB Oracle database I was curious what the current progress was. I discovered you can press Ctrl+C to go to an interactive command mode during a import of export using datapump (impdp of expdp)

Home automation

Multiroom audio experiment

Today I have setup my second squeezebox emulator (squeezelite [https://code.google.com/p/squeezelite/]) on the new Raspberry Pi B+. The objective is to setup synchronization between the two players and second create a energy en cost efficient player. This player will mainly be used for streaming internet radio,

Easyclick

Wireless home automation with EnOcean

A year ago I installed a wireless switch in the kitchen to switch on the kitchen spots. I chose the Easyclick system by PEHA [http://peha.de] which works without batteries and it performs very well. This Easyclick system uses the EnOcean [http://www.enocean.com]energy harvesting wireless technology.

Cryptocurrency

Custom build mining rig

One of my spare time projects I’m recently into is mining altcoins for fun. As most of these projects start small, in my case a single GPU in a desktop PC. Which ended up with an open rig containing four GPU’s. I tried to build a rig that

Linux

Create a persistent Debian Live USB Flash Drive

For a hobby project I have recently build a new computer system. This system is setup only for mining altcoins using three ATI Radeon 7950 graphics cards. I decided to make use of an unused USB Flash Drive for two reasons. Because it is cheap and less power hungry then

Networking

CIDR subnet mask cheatsheet & more

I just came across this clean sheet with CIDR subnet masks and ICMP types. This information should be know by heart, but it’s handy to lookup and double check. Especially when editing DHCP server configurations manually. Check it out: http://www.vleeuwen.net/pub/cidr.html [https://vleeuwen.net/

Zimbra

Zimbra Appliance upgrade

Nearly one year has past using Zimbra 8 [https://vleeuwen.net/upgrading-to-zimbra-appliance-8], so I decided it was time to upgrade the appliance from version 8.0.0_GA_5434 to the latest and greatest 8.0.4_GA_5737 by doing a clean install on a brand new VirtualBox vm.

Hellendoorn

Fisherman's Friend StrongmanRun 2013

[https://vleeuwen.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/finisher-strongmanrun-2013.png]The last two weeks of training [https://vleeuwen.net/stats] finally paid off at the Fisherman’s Friend StrongmanRun 2013 in Hellendoorn. It’s a great place for a outdoor running event like this. The obstacles were really doable, but the

firefox

Add ixquick to Firefox location bar

[https://vleeuwen.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ixquick-logo.gif]A few years have past since I discovered ixquick [https://vleeuwen.net/2011/09/search-safely-with-ixquick]. As a happy user I use it for all my online searches. I’m using it in combination with my favorite browser and have added it

Debian

Fresh HDD space arrived

[https://vleeuwen.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/zoom-WD30EZRX.jpg]Two years have past since I installed two 2TB disks on my home server. Last week I squeezed out the remaining bytes of my data volume, so I ordered two brand new 3TB Western Digital harddisks (WD30EZRX) to replace the current

Asterisk

Green phones in the house

[https://vleeuwen.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Siemens-N300A.jpg]A long time ago I did a post about the new home phone setup [https://vleeuwen.net/2009/09/home-phone-by-asterisk]. Since that time I really liked the combination of Asterisk with the Siemens Gigaset VOIP handset. Now that I’ve moved

HP

Noisy HP Z620 Workstation

I really like my new workstation, but it has one irritating habit. It makes a monotone sound that comes up and fades away. One of it’s numerous fans was driving me crazy. At first I had a look at the BIOS configuration. There is a BIOS configuration option named