Adventures in 2014

So when I decided to move back into my folks place, it was the smartest move I've made at that point in 2014. Its expensive living on ones own. Furthermore I've been making plans on finally making use of my A.S. degree and transferring to a 4 year degree program. I've already hashed out the details with a guidance counselor at ASU's Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering. Basically I'm going to go for a B.S in Computer Science, or a B.E in Computer Engineering, or both. Really its the difference in the theory of computer science or a few applied courses in microcontroller programming. Honestly both sound awesome. (Thats been my biggest problem in school--I want to learn everything.)

In light of my plans of continuing my education, living off of my folks--I meant, living with my folks! Makes plenty of sense. Ahem.

While mosing about on my travels unfortunately I had to sell most of my possesions just to get by (its expensive living on ones own, and especially hard when your unemployed). So, first item on my agenda was obtaining a decent computer of sorts. So I hit craigslist with a bloodthirst.

(Up to this point I had been doing my programming stuff via a shell account I purchased at xshellz at Tempe Library via putty. This actually worked out quite well. The shell account cost 4 buckaroos.)

I've been hooked on the idea of getting a server since I first purchased a Gen3 HP ML350. The thing was a monster, it had dual core 32 bit Xeon processors (it was the last line of processors Intel made prior to including emt64), but it supported up to 12 GB of ram (which I maxed out--and made use w/ PAE). It also had a 6 bay SCSI bay. The system I bought actually came loaded w/ 6 SCSI drives. I bought it at the time (2010-11ish?), for a whopping 50 bucks. The dude I bought it from was some 20 year old kid who was most likely was cleaning old stuff out of his parents garage and was eager to figure out how to afford his next 8th of kind buds. I've seen the same server, and ones w/ similar specs, being sold for up to 200 bucks on craigslist. After spending 50 on the Gen3, I'm looking at their asking price thinking, "these guys are nuts."

I was hoping to get an HP. However after my stint at GoDaddy I had some hands on experience w/ Poweredge servers. So I decided to widen my horizens and look into Dell's stuff. My price range: 50-100 bucks.

I finally found a guy that had an awesome deal: Poweredge 1850, dual proc, 4Gb Ram, $75. That is a great deal. However I only had 50 bucks to spend. I sent the guy an email, and thankfully he was willing to work with me. But get this, that wasn't even the coolest part. I bought the server, and it came fully loaded w/ 6 10k7 SCSI drives! Before I left he also threw in a Poweredge 750!

So I got two servers, at the discounted price of 50 bucks! I don't think I can ever beat that! Thanks to the awesome dude who shall remain anonymous, rest assured he is indeed awesome!