AustinTek homepage

Joseph Mack

jmack (at) austintek (dot) com

May 2009


Table of Contents

1. Wifi, SysAdmin and Contract Programming Services
2. Library of Congress Talking Books for the Blind Duplicator
3. HOWTOs
3.1. Linux Virtual Server (LVS), a layer 4 router
3.2. Gnucash
3.3. Howto make an external usb/firewire harddisk from the PENR-525u2f case
4. Ham Radio
4.1. AZ_PROJ Azimuthal Equidistant Projection Ham Radio Software (azproj)
4.2. Articles on the Future of Ham Radio
4.3. Aurora Propagation
4.4. Analysis of VHF Contest Logs
5. Articles
5.1. Outsourcing
5.2. Partition Magic Critical Error 19
6. OutDoor Trips
7. Book Reviews
7.1. The IBM Way
7.2. Leaving Earth; Genesis
8. Amateur Astronomy
8.1. Cloud Survey of North Carolina
8.2. Wifi in the Wilderness: setting up wifi internet connectivity at a star party
8.3. Yet another home analemma project: the Mack family driveway analemma
9. Computing Programming Class for High School Students
10. About Joseph Mack

1. Wifi, SysAdmin and Contract Programming Services

Austintek is a small consulting business, based in North Carolina, USA. Services requiring physical presence are concentrated in the Triangle (RTP, Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill) area. Service in the Triad and outside can be arranged. Contract programming is available for anyone.

  • Austintek provides wifi connectivity and networking for conferences, meetings and outdoor events, and installs permanent wifi setups for businesses.

  • Austintek does sysadmin for unix computers (and clusters of computers).

  • Austintek can do contract programming, benchmarking and data analysis. We can program in -

    • languages: C, C++, Java, Fortran, Perl (and cgi), Python, mpi, omp, pvm, X-windows (Xt, Athena widgets), Motif, RPC sockets, APL, xml, html, shell (bash, csh, awk, sed, tcl/tk), Pascal, LaTeX.
    • databases: mysql, postgres
    • scientific, math packages: Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, R.

2. Library of Congress Talking Books for the Blind Duplicator

In the middle of 2009, the National Library Service (NLS) of the Library of Congress (LOC) will be releasing their new Talking Books for the Blind reader. Libraries will be able to download these books from the NLS and put them onto the cartridges which fit into the new reader. The device which does this is called a cartridge duplicator. The NLS is not supplying duplicators, but has published the specifications for one, so that vendors can produce them. Here's AustinTek's Talking Books for the Blind Duplicator and instructions to make your own duplicator.

3. HOWTOs

3.1. Linux Virtual Server (LVS), a layer 4 router

Linux Virtual Server (LVS) HOWTOs

The Linux Virtual Server (LVS) Project is a GPL'ed layer 4 router for Linux, which allows you to combine low cost servers (e.g. web, database) into a single highly available, high throughput server.

For my write-ups on LVS (HOWTOs, performance, meeting note, trivia quiz, iron-on labels, presentations, configure script), please see my LVS page

3.2. Gnucash

Gnucash tutorial.

Gnucash is a GPL double entry accounting package. This tutorial is referenced from the Gnucash website documentation page.

This presentation was delivered, on 9 Jul 2001, to the North Carolina Sysadministrator's Association (NCSA), an organisation based in RTP, NC, USA, which has monthly meetings with

  • a technical presentation
  • free food (courtesy of sponsors), i.e. pizza and soda
  • an opportunity for computer people to meet each other and to look for jobs

I was the treasurer of NCSA from Dec 2000 to Dec 2003.

3.3. Howto make an external usb/firewire harddisk from the PENR-525u2f case

Making an external USB/firewire harddisk from the PENR-525U2F case

4. Ham Radio

I've been a ham radio operator since High School (first licensed in 1964 as VK2ZJM). I currently hold the callsign NA3T. I'm interested in VHF equipment design and moon-bounce (communication using the moon as a passive reflector).

4.1. AZ_PROJ Azimuthal Equidistant Projection Ham Radio Software (azproj)

I maintain (and co-authored along with Michael NV3Z) the AZ_PROJ azimuthal equidistant projection website. This projection produces maps of the world in which you are at the center. Great circles through your location are straight lines enabling you to determine bearings to anywhere in the world. The code for the map generator is freely available under GPL.

4.2. Articles on the Future of Ham Radio

A 50yr plan for ham radio in response to the ARRL's plan for restructing for ham radio.

4.4. Analysis of VHF Contest Logs

Analysis of the 1999 Spring Sprints (the sprints are a VHF/UHF contest on the US east coast).

5. Articles

5.1. Outsourcing

A talk (http://www.austintek.com/outsourcing/outsourcing.html) given to the North Carolina Systems Administrators (http://www.ncsysadmin.org/) 12 Jul 2004. Outsourcing is the replacement of American workers by cheaper labor from overseas. The labor can be imported into the country, e.g. by giving the worker an H1-B visa, or by contracting the job to workers overseas.

5.2. Partition Magic Critical Error 19

How I recovered a disk with the undocumented Critical 19 error.

6. OutDoor Trips

I've hiked for most of my life. I wrote up

by John Ward:

7. Book Reviews

7.1. The IBM Way

The IBM Way, by Buck Rodgers, the VP of marketing at IBM from 1974-84 (publ 1986). This what Buck Rogers' wants you to think about how IBM works.

8. Amateur Astronomy

8.2. Wifi in the Wilderness: setting up wifi internet connectivity at a star party

Wifi in the Wilderness: Setting up internet connectivity for observers at the Mid-Atlantic Star Party using wifi.

8.3. Yet another home analemma project: the Mack family driveway analemma

Yet another home analemma project: the Mack family driveway analemma .

9. Computing Programming Class for High School Students

Teaching Computer Programming to High School students: An introductory course with Python as the high level language.

Google stopped indexing the programming class page about Aug 2008, when the file reached 1M, although the other indexing services seem to have no trouble with it. There is no mention of size limits on google's guide to author's page e.g. googles addurl and associated pages. I've divided the sensible single page into teensy-weensy pages in the hopes that google can now handle the material. I haven't changed the internal links to external links (so many of the links don't work); I'll wait till I know that google has indexed these small files first. If you want the material I'm using in class, go to the link immediately above. Here is the same material divided into what I hope are google sized pages.

10. About Joseph Mack

I'm a scientific programmer working as a contractor at a US Govt supercomputer center. I have Ph.D. in biochemistry and 25 yrs of scientific research, including University of California (Davis), Yale University, US Department of Agriculture, National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institutes for Health (NIH) before turning to programming for a career.