tcraighenry
Well-known member
I work in nerdery where it's important to keep our equipment in a temperature controlled room with back up power supplies. I've been thinking about what to do if our HVAC system fails at our house and take care of my chins. And I realized it's the same! The chins are tiny servers! 
I came across this: http://www.homecontrols.com/USB-Tem...-Email-Alerts-SHTMSTD30?sc=23&category=207373
http://www.itwatchdogs.com/product-detail-microgoose-9.html
They both have downsides, they require power. But both can send an e-mail to you if the temp goes above. And if your power is off, it's likely your air conditioning is off too.
You can also likely configure a Windows task to send an e-mail to you if it starts a shutdown.
For remote webcam/computer access, I use Orb:
http://www.orb.com/wii/index.htm
You can remotely login to a computer from anywhere as long as the client is installed and play videos/mp3s, etc. It will also trigger your webcam. I mainly use it for viewing iTunes videos from my Wii but it works for other things as well.
One thing we also use at work is a UPS. Ours only provides 20 minutes of power to our servers to give us time to safely shut them down or make sure surges don't fry the power supplies.
Consumer grade UPS:
http://www.amazon.com/APC-BE550G-Ba...04U8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337619192&sr=8-1
- provides 13 minutes of backup power at half load, 3 minutes at full
- I'm not sure if you can configure this to send an e-mail if it does switch over to battery. A lot of UPS interfaces do.
http://www.amazon.com/APC-Back-UPS-...9U/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1337619192&sr=8-14
- Doesn't have a great description of how much power, but a much more robust system than above.
I tend to stick with APC UPS products, for what I do they're industry standard and they have a price range from $100 to $100,000 depending on your needs.
So the configuration would be like this:
Computer, cable/adsl router/temp monitoring system/backup AC (if you chose the one with standalone power supply) connected to the ups. Temp triggers an e-mail and so does low battery.
We also have a low tech system of a whole ton of ice packs and water bottles for putting in the carrier before we can get them to a pet friendly hotel or, um, to one of our workplaces since everyone is fascinated by the little gals
This is a good nerd project too, if you have one hanging around all bored.
I came across this: http://www.homecontrols.com/USB-Tem...-Email-Alerts-SHTMSTD30?sc=23&category=207373
http://www.itwatchdogs.com/product-detail-microgoose-9.html
They both have downsides, they require power. But both can send an e-mail to you if the temp goes above. And if your power is off, it's likely your air conditioning is off too.
You can also likely configure a Windows task to send an e-mail to you if it starts a shutdown.
For remote webcam/computer access, I use Orb:
http://www.orb.com/wii/index.htm
You can remotely login to a computer from anywhere as long as the client is installed and play videos/mp3s, etc. It will also trigger your webcam. I mainly use it for viewing iTunes videos from my Wii but it works for other things as well.
One thing we also use at work is a UPS. Ours only provides 20 minutes of power to our servers to give us time to safely shut them down or make sure surges don't fry the power supplies.
Consumer grade UPS:
http://www.amazon.com/APC-BE550G-Ba...04U8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337619192&sr=8-1
- provides 13 minutes of backup power at half load, 3 minutes at full
- I'm not sure if you can configure this to send an e-mail if it does switch over to battery. A lot of UPS interfaces do.
http://www.amazon.com/APC-Back-UPS-...9U/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1337619192&sr=8-14
- Doesn't have a great description of how much power, but a much more robust system than above.
I tend to stick with APC UPS products, for what I do they're industry standard and they have a price range from $100 to $100,000 depending on your needs.
So the configuration would be like this:
Computer, cable/adsl router/temp monitoring system/backup AC (if you chose the one with standalone power supply) connected to the ups. Temp triggers an e-mail and so does low battery.
We also have a low tech system of a whole ton of ice packs and water bottles for putting in the carrier before we can get them to a pet friendly hotel or, um, to one of our workplaces since everyone is fascinated by the little gals
This is a good nerd project too, if you have one hanging around all bored.
