I’m going to be upgrading the Laser cutter PC to newer hardware in 2-3 weeks. Please move any files you need off this computer before then. If you cannot make it to the space and need help backing up your work, let me know. MonStor, FaStor are both available for secure network storage.
Thanks for your help in in improving the computing resources available @hive13
-DaveB
CTO
Funny, just last Saturday I was thinking “I should tell Dave that yes, the laser cutter machine could indeed use an upgrade, like he asked during that meeting.”
Good job on MonStor.
If I recall correctly there are 2 places people tend to store files on the laser. Each person puts their files in a folder with their name. I think these folders are under Documents but may also be on the Desktop. I would just grab those if you see them and copy them off. If I get a chance to swing by the space this week (doubtful) then I’ll copy them off for everybody. If somebody else gets to this, please update the mailing list so we don’t duplicate efforts.
Excited for the upgrade!!! I will get my files off this weekend sometime, thanks for the extended warning 
Not sure if this has been done or not yet, but I meant to reply back.
How about all the personal files on the Laser Cutter PC be moved onto the network storage and map a network drive on the PC to that location? I keep forgetting to do this when I’m actually there.
~Dave
I was planning on doing something of this nature. Realistically, it will be may before this gets done or at least late April. I’m totally swamped with work now.
-D
Is this something you’d want to offload? I’m using the laser frequently lately, and could certainly build/configure a PC while the laser is occupied burninating the plastics.
Fastor already appears in Network Places on the laser PC, so I’ve just been dropping my files there for the time being. I can copy anything that looks like a user file over while I’m down there this evening, and leave it for people to prune at their leisure.
If you want to do this, great. Somewhere ™ there is a WinXP CD. If you can’t find one, lmk and I’ll bring in mine from home temporarily. The replacement machine is one of the dell GX620s (I think) that are sitting under the bench in the pallet rack near the scopes and electronics area PC. Needs wiped, installed with XP, installed with laser software.
-D
I’ve put WinXP on the previously unformatted Optiplex 360 and promoted it to a new position atop the bench. The other 360 was booting into Fedora with a default Hive13 user, so I left it alone. All required drivers and current security patches have been installed. I noticed an EasyCut installation directory out on FastStor that doesn’t match the files on the LaserCut installer CD, so I stopped short of installing the laser cutter drivers and software.
Does anyone know which of these installers should be used? Also, will the little dongly thing protruding from the current laser cutter PC be required during software installation, or just for operation of the laser?
I’ll resume setup the next time I’m at the Hive. Probably Tuesday evening after the meeting.
Thanks a bunch Ryan! Hopefully someone else can answer on the software question.
-Dave
The new laser cutter PC is ready for use, and has been moved into the fablab next to the current PC. EasyCut has been installed and successful test cuts made. Everything appears to be functioning properly.
I reattached the laser cutter to the older machine for the time being. Most of the user directories appeared to be located in the Administrator\Desktop directory, so I've copied this to the "lazzzzzorcut backup" directory on hivestor. I'll search more thoroughly for remaining user files the next time I'm at the Hive and copy anything else I find into the aforementioned backup directory.
In addition to EasyCut, I've installed Gimp, SketchUp, and Inkscape on the new PC. If there are other commonly used applications, just let me know and I'll try to install them while I'm completing the final configuration later this week.
- Ry
Awesome, you rock!
Thanks a lot Ryan! I hope it’s substantially faster than the old machine, too.
-D
I know there are a bunch of user files on the dropbox folder
I can work on setting up the dropbox folder next time I am here. At the moment the Hive’s dropbox folder is actually tied to my @hive13.org email address. We should probably look into creating an ‘apps@hive13.org’ email address or something like that which we can use to register hive specific services.
I’d be very grateful if you could take care of that Paul. I don’t use dropbox. If you do it, go ahead and update the IT google doc with the information.
thanks!
-D
I'm having some crashing problems with the newly built PC that might be resolved by an updated driver for the machine. These should be accessible from the Full Spectrum website, but they appear to be password protected.
Craig, Jon mentioned that you might have been the one to place the initial order. Are the site login credentials stored anywhere?
I’ll search my emails to see if they gave me anything. I’m sure I can request creds if necessary.