A Coffee Table with Built in Speakers and LCD Panel

This is version two of a media center coffee table I built last year. The original was my very first project, and a learning process.  The final result is a table that has a LCD screen, hidden speakers underneath, and LED lights illuminating the area around the table.


Quite a few things have changed from the original design, except the size.  I wanted the table to be big enough to handle any kinds of board games and small projects. A table that is the center piece of the room, or focal point.

Inside of the table is an older computer mounted along the wall.  The computer did not need to be to beefy since it is only used to display security cam feeds and live TV sometimes.  The LCD panel is from a second hand monitor I got cheap. The sides of the LCD panel sit on 2 walls. the rest of the inside is totally open to help air circulate. The computer system fan sucks air through a filter from the bottom of the table.  I designed the inside this way for possible future projects, like the home made projector from Revison3,s Systm. Or the Microsoft surface hack using a webcam, and a projector from the show Hack5.

I installed 4 LED lights, one on each side. The lights are actually just those keyboard night lights people buy for their laptops. The lights are angled so they light up the floor up to 6 feet away from the table.

I installed two sets of the Logitech X-240 2.1 speakers. The subs are inside the table open to the floor.  And the speakers and mp3 docks placed under the lip of the table. The computers power switch and usb hubs are placed between the speakers.

I'm not the type of person that is into the surround sound.  And i hate having speakers everywhere.  Unless it is art, technology should be easily used but not seen.

The Base padded with foam covered with vinyl. the original (version 1) was just wood and did not look right. Having padding makes it less cold looking and softer on legs and feet.







Thanks for checking this out.

The Clear Computer Case Table

I wanted to design a computer case that could function as a table, and make it easy to modify and upgrade the system. This is what i came up with.

The Table is made out of clear Duraplex acrylic sheets. Similar to what impact modified windows are made out of.





















The table has 2 case fans, one below the hard drives near the bottom and the other up on the front. The case has a positive air flow so air filters are need on the bottom intake and in front of the front fan. The air is then pushed out through the power supply and the top back behind the cpu. You will notice that most computer cases have the outtakes close to parts that give out the most heat. In this design the air flows quickly without making any hot spots (areas were air gets trapped and does not move).

Proper air flow is the most important thing when designing cases. Bad air flow can reduce the life of your system, and cause noise. Dirt and dust can also build up which causes more heat and your fans to make more noise.

In this design the air moves in one direction bottom to top, keeping it cool and noise free.

One thing that always bugged me with standard case with how the motherboard is on its side. What the person that put together your system didnt notice that the cpu heat sink wasnt properly attached, or broken? with the mb on its side the heat sink would break off. Without the heat sink a cpu will fry in less then 5 seconds. the main reason mb's are placed vertically is to prevent dust and dirt from building up on the components. Since this design has a positive air flow with filters, we dont need to worry about dust. I personally feel better being able to see the motherboard in the horizontal position.








With this project I tryed to design the case with the minimum amount of materials needed. This makes it less expensive to build, easier to build, and faster to build. I sure that if anyone of you chose to build a case like this, you could cut its matireal needs even more.




















As i said in the begining, I wanted to design the system to be easy to upgrade or fix. This is what i came up with. All the computer part are attached to the inner core, some might call it a computer core. The inner core rests on the inside corners and can be removed all in one piece through the top. You only need to unplug one of the case fans and cable in the back. once the core is removed you can plug it in and turn it on with all component easy to access.















Cables can come up through the front or sides. I recommend the front though, the side indents are more for your hands when removing the core.

Placing the power supply under the motherboard ensures that all standard cables can reach their destination. It also makes the power supply less visible. The leased attractive part of the system in my opinion.



















Another thing that bugged me with standard case designs was how cables are place, more often not placed it a better way to put it. to fix that I placed a gap between the power supply and the motherboard. It is the area that extra cables seem to be located. This also hides them and preventing them from disrupting the air flow.
















I designed the system with support for only 2 hard drives. with the popularity of network drives and products like the drobo, and terabyte drives, 2 is more them enough.



















You might noticed that the system doesn't have a CD-rom drive. I personally use an external one for the rare times i need it. CD-roms are going the way of the floppy drive from what i have seen.

This project is still unfinished. I am thinking of installing a usb port and card readers on the front under the top of the table. also I need to modify it to support video cards and PCI cards.

Thanks for taking the time to checkout my project. And if anyone builds a case similar to this, I would love to see it. This design can definitly be improved. and i would love to see your modifications.

How-to setup NFS shares in debian

This is a re-write of malco2001's (HOWTO: NFS Server/Client) from the ubuntu forums.
The original How-to can be found here

Step-1 Install NFS Server Support On The Machine that will Host The Share

at the terminal type:
sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap
(This installs the needed software)

sudo dpkg-reconfigure portmap
(chose "no" do not bind loopback)

sudo /etc/init.d/portmap restart
(restarts the portmap service)

At this point you should choose were you want the folder that you want to share. Or an existing folder, like your Music folder. In my example coming up I chose to make a folder called "shares" in my home directory.

Step-2 Editing /etc/exports

The export file is used to tell the system which folders to share, and how they are shared.

In the terminal type:
sudo gedit /etc/exports
(This opens the file with gedit. you can use any text editor you want like; vi, vim, nano. Or type "sudo apt-get install gedit".)

At the end of the file add this line, except replace the [] with your info
/home/[username]/[name of file you want to share] [your routers ip]/24(rw,no_root_squash,async)
(example: /home/darren/shares 192.168.0.1/24(rw,no_root_squash,async) after save the file. )

In the terminal type:
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
(after changing the export file you need to restart the nfs server)

Then Type:
sudo exportfs -a
(You have to enter this command to set your changes)

Then type:
sudo /etc/init.d/portmap restart
(This ensures that the path to the share is set)

*If you get any error while going through Step-1, go back and check the edits you made. It is very easy to mis a step or even just one letter. "Rinse Lather Repeat" as the saying goes.

And your done on this machine!!!

Step-3 Installing NFS Client Support On The Other System

In step-1 we installed both server and client software, I recomend doing the same on this system as well. this will save you time if you chose to host a share on this system as well. If you chose not to this is all you need.

In the terminal type:
sudo apt-get install portmap nfs-common
(this installs the the needed software)

In the terminal type:
sudo dpkd-reconfigure portmap
(Just like you did on your host system, chose "no")

In the terminal type:
sudo /etc/init.d/portmap restart
(this restarts portmap)

Now you just need to make the folder were the share will be mounted in. you can put this anywere you want. If you chose to share your music folder, you might want to put the folder in your music folder. Example: /home/darren/music/sharedmusic. Were "sharedmusic" is the name of the new folder. just make sure you know the full path to the file.

in my example I made a folder called "sharefolder"

Step-4 The Test

In your terminal replacing the [] with your info type:
sudo mount [HostsIP]:/[path to hosts share] [path to your mount folder]
(example: sudo mount 192.168.0.109:/home/darren/shares /home/darren/sharefolder )

You may need to restart your services. In the terminal type:
sudo /etc/init.d/portmap restart
sudo /etc/init.d/nfs-common restart

If you do not get any errors it means that it worked. You can go to your new mounted share folder. If not "Rinse Lather Repeat".

If you restart your system you will need to re-enter:
sudo mount [HostsIP]:/[path to hosts share] [path to your mount folder]

In the original How-To, the guide showed you how to set your system to auto mount your shares by editing your "fstab" file. To be honest I could not get this to work, and the original how-to has 44 pages of posts from people with the same problem. I tryed different ways of setting up the shares and studied all the fstab variables with no luck. If your thinking about writing a bash file to auto mount, keep in mind that the mount command requires ROOT privileges.

If you want to try it click here. I just mount the share after a reboot. The same way you did in your test.

One thing you might want to know is that the terminal remembers all the commands you have entered. When in your terminal just press the "up key"

You will notice that NFS is a lot faster then smb or windows shares. The share folder feels and acts like a folder on your system.

Thanks again to malco2001 from the Ubuntu forums for the fun how-to.

Lovin the #!

I have been playing with the alpha release of Crunchbang linux, powered by Debian on my Eeepc.
For an alpha release i was expecting crashes and bug, but haven't had any problems yet. All my hardware worked out of the box.

I found that #! is best suited for;
- people that want a lite weight distro
- people that prefer editing config files rather then using gui settings
- people that know or want to learn about making scripts and batch files.
- people that want more control over their system.
- people that like and not scared of using the terminal

If these apply to you, then this is the distro for you.

I have been having fun editing my config files, and setting up conky. and learning how the system works.

If you want to try crunchbang linux, here is the link
http://crunchbanglinux.org/

Here is a screenshot of my desktop with my conky setup, it is a work in progress.