RushWorx Labs

I recently resurrected an old Windows 7 VM to deal with some iCloud bullshit. Naturally, Microsoft has decided that “old Windows doesn’t work with new CPUs”.
I knew there was some way around this but I didnt see an option in the VirtualBox GUI to specify the CPU. This thread saved me from perusing the lengthy man page.

Unsupported Hardware

I turned off the VM, ran: VBoxManage modifyvm Win7 –cpu-profile “Intel Xeon X5482 3.20GHz” where Win7 is the name of my VM, and turned it back on again. Lo and behold:

Windows Update Successful

A minor victory.

So, it didn’t work. Why? I think CloudFlare is caching the response. Let’s change that.

You could do this with ‘Page Rules’ but on the free tier of CloudFlare you only get three. I am going to skirt that by telling CloudFlare to not cache any url with a query string, and change my wp-cron.php request accordingly.

CloudFlare Query String

* * * * * wget http://rushworx.net/wp-cron.php?foo

Begrudgingly Increased the frequency from every three minutes to every minute. I tested it and it did not work.

What did work was instead of getting it, I executed it:

* * * * * php /var/www/rushworx.net/wp-cron.php
Actually it would show up as ‘Missed Schedule’ for a minute or so and then it would show published. Fixed.

Plenty of folks want to write articles and schedule when they actually go live on their WordPress instance.  I’ve run into the ‘Missed Schedule’ issue with a customer before but recently ran into this on my own blog.

The post scheduler uses wp-cron. One critical thing about wp-cron is it requires visitors to actually visit your page!  That is probably why I have a problem with it, I have doubts anybody reads this shit and well hey here is the proof.

Per the wordpress docs found here, the easy solution, assuming you have access to your webserver and it is a linux box, is to automate some hits to your site side-stepping the problem that no one reads it.

root@www:~# crontab -e

*/3 * * * * wget http://rushworx.net/wp-cron.php

I will have to test this to make sure it actually solves the problem, but I suspect it will.

I’m not sure when I originally had this idea, but I always though it would be cool to put my gaming PC in a rack.  At one time I envisioned putting game consoles in rack mount boxes of some sort as well, but that has not come to fruition.  Rack mount gaming PC on the other hand is nearly done, I just have a few loose ends to wrap up.

First things first, the case.  Most of the benefits of rack mount server cases, hot swap disks, fast access to replace parts, redundant power, are unnecessary for a gaming pc.

Rack Mount PC Case

To that end, I wasn’t trying to drop serious coin.  These things can easily go for $200 without even a being bundled with a power supply.  Cheap shit on craigslist to the rescue! I found a case much like the one pictured for $60.

I don’t have the rack in the same room.  That is part of the allure of this set up: How nice would it be to have zero noise and zero heat from your gaming desktop? How nice would it be to have zero clutter from cables and what not? It’s very nice! It poses the obvious problem of long range cabling.  The ubiquitous Category cable to the rescue!  I already had a small patch panel in my office since I planned on only having one large Cisco switch on the premises. I just hate having little desktop switches adding clutter and unruly patch cables.

HDMI over Cat5/6 Extender

For video, this passive HDMI over Cat5/6 Extender for $18 from Monoprice suits my purposes well.  It has limitations, namely that 1080p@60hz is the most you can push through it. Presently I only have a 1080p@60hz monitor and do not have a card that can handle higher resolutions so I have not attempted to see if those are indeed hard limits. In the case that they are, some active unit would be necessary. I think if I do move toward 4k gaming the whole idea of having the PC remote might be reconsidered anyway.

USB over Cat5/6

For input, USB Extender over Cat5/6 for $12 again from Monoprice allows me to put a USB hub on my desk.  For ultra wirelessness I could of course get a wireless keyboard and mouse, but I prefer not having to deal with batteries.  Plus I like using a keyboard that support serious remapping with zero dependency on drivers or software.

I still have a bunch of Cat5e from whenever I bought a box of 1000ft of it way back when. Sadly, at ~75ft with Cat5 the extender did not work. Begrudgingly I picked up 250ft of Cat6 and some Cat6 patch cables and it works great. I am curious if Cat6 patches on the Cat5 would be any different.  I tested MechWarrior Online and did not perceive any additional buffering.  Success!

I still need to figure out what to do about audio.  The monitor does have built in speakers and the HDMI audio passes through the extender just fine, however the only output the monitor has is analog two channel by way of 1/8″ stereo jack.  I’ll be on the market for at least a surround USB headset if not a pc surround sound setup.

At this point, all I really need is to make some cables for remote power / reset / power LED / HDD LED.  More on that later.

In the search to make my computing experience as ergonomic as possible (read: mouse free), I use i3.  I change between a built-in laptop keyboard where I would like to use the Windows key aka Super aka mod4, and an ErgoDox where I use AltGr aka ISO_Level3_Shift aka mod5.

I have two scripts to facilitate easily switching between them. A command line tool:


#!/bin/bash
# i3changemod
# CLI tool to switch between i3 modifiers by editing the i3 config.

case $1 in
1)
sed -i "s|set \$mod Mod4|set \$mod Mod1|g" /home/$U/.i3/config
sed -i "s|set \$mod Mod5|set \$mod Mod1|g" /home/$U/.i3/config
;;
4)
sed -i "s|set \$mod Mod1|set \$mod Mod4|g" /home/$U/.i3/config
sed -i "s|set \$mod Mod5|set \$mod Mod4|g" /home/$U/.i3/config
;;
5)
sed -i "s|set \$mod Mod1|set \$mod Mod5|g" /home/$U/.i3/config
sed -i "s|set \$mod Mod4|set \$mod Mod5|g" /home/$U/.i3/config
;;
esac


The default shortcut to restart i3 in-place is mod+shift+r. If you do not have the modifier key, you can’t restart it. So, I added another shortcut:
bindsym Ctrl+Shift+h restart


#!/bin/bash
# GUI tool to pick an i3 modofier, uses i3changemod script.

# for my ergodox:
xmodmap -e 'keycode 104 = ISO_Level3_Shift' # 104=kp enter


For convenience, I added the xmodmap command that I need to map AltGr on to KP Enter on my ergodox, rather than having to use another keyboard shortcut for that too.