homemade – Look, It's Another Blog

So back in 2008 I started on a project to build a media/storage server. The whole thing was for a senior capstone project with lots of research, hours of configuring/testing, and finally presenting. Using Windows Home Server and FreeNAS I showed the pros and cons of each. Unfortunately I lived on campus so setting up a real server was frowned upon. Instead, everything was simulated using Windows Virtual Server running on my now gaming PC.

This year I thought it was time to finally build a physical media server and move all of my music, videos, and old documents off my PCs. The original plan was to build a server using a mini-ITX motherboard with 4 SATA ports, and 3x 2 terabyte hard drives in a RAID 5 configuration, stuffed inside the smallest case possible. The system, in theory, would sit behind my TV and share everything out using FreeNAS.

Unfortunately, those plans have not worked out so now I’m falling back on an alternative. Why not take an old computer I already have and turn it into the storage I want?
Continue reading “Homemade NAS Box”

It’s been a while since I added a blog entry, but this is worth it. This time I am building a DVI to ADC adapter so I can connect an old Apple Cinema Display to a PC.

The Backstory:
The PR department at the college I work for was going through some old stuff. They came across some Mac equipment they no longer wanted and asked my office, the Help Desk, to dispose of it properly. What came back were some Apple video cables and one 20″ Apple Cinema Display. It wasn’t the aluminum version, but the older white one that looked like an easel. Of course, this display couldn’t be connected to any regular computer because it used an ADC connector. Apple specially engineered the ADC connector so that power, video, and USB were carried along a single cable. While this was great for reducing the amount of cabling you had, it also meant you had to have either a PowerMac with a compatible video card or a DVI to ADC adapter. That originally cost an $130. Oh, don’t forget your computer had to have a DVI.

The Idea:
If you fast forward to today you can buy a DVI to ADC adapter for $75 from Amazon.com. That would be the quick solution for connecting the monitor to a computer, but I have an idea: why not build my own? The ADC standard is basically the same as DVI with extra wires for power and USB ports. The pinout on the connectors between DVI and ADC are a little different, but shouldn’t be too hard to over come.

Continue reading “DIY ADC Adapter”