Happy 2014!

My last post was back in 2010, but since then I’ve rehoused the blog itself numerous times.  The very first incarnation was running on a Mini ITX system I built to run MythTV, but it was too large and noisy to be a convenient server.

The next iteration was  on a SheevaPlug (which I first used to prototype Little Printer at BERG), and was the first completely solid state system I’d run at home. Sadly it didn’t get enough community traction to progress past running Ubuntu 9.04, and soon fell behind the cutting edge.

Next was a pcDuino. Faster, cheaper and smaller, it was an ideal system, but ARM-based single board computers are a cut-throat business, so in the last month I’ve opted for the brand-new Cubietruck. It has 2GB of RAM, a dual-core ARM A9, Gigabit ethernet, built-in WiFi+Bluetooth, and even comes with a minimal laser-cut acrylic case. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re looking to run a small home server.

So that’s the recent history behind nick.recoil.org. I’m going to start publishing on a more regular basis, both here and on the BERG engineering blog Robots and Clouds. Happy 2014!