At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers -in our computing center. This give us a challenge in tracking the -location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and -removed. Some times the location register is not updated when a -computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for -the "missing" computer.
- -In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project -libdmtx to write and read bar -code blocks as defined in the -The Data Matrix -Standard. This is bar codes that can be read with a normal -digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar -codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture. The bar code standard -allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag. There is another project -with a bar code -writer written in postscript capable of creating such bar codes, -but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar -codes.
- -It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the -machines in our computing center. If both racks and computers are -tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its -computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack. -If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all -locations, and can detect movements and removals.
- -I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a -random rack and tagged all the machines with their names. Next, I -took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program -these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read. This worked -fairly well. If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the -side, all tags in the image could be read. Because of limited space -between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire -rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering -about half the rack. I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread -to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.
- -My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look -at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for -easier automatic tracking of computers.
+Aftenposten +melder på forsiden av webavisen sin at de tror Erling Fossen +provoserer nordledinger med sine uttalelser på +fotballtinget. Jeg er utflyttet nordlending, og må innrømme at jeg +ikke kjennet så mye som et snev av provokasjon fra denne litt morsomme +uttalelsen til Hr. Fossen. Lurer på om Aftenposten har noen kilder +utenom redaksjonen for sin påstand om at nordledinger er provosert av +Hr. Fossen. Må innrømme at jeg tviler på det.
+ +Det hele bringer tankene tilbake til Sture Hansen i Hallo i Uken.