Have you ever wanted to create a mobile embedded computer for a car or truck, but couldn’t figure out how to mount it securely?
Now you can easily and securely mount an ALIX 2-2 or an ALIX 6 in a vehicle or on any surface, with our new vehicle-mount ALIX enclosure.
Our new vehicle-mount case incorporates surface-mount wings with keyhole mounts that allow you to attach the unit to cars, boats, trucks, buses or walls.
It also includes an integrated cable tray that ensures your connections won’t come loose in high-vibration environments, and the durable textured black powdercoat finish easily hides dust and fingerprints.
The extruded design of the case body is designed specifically for the ALIX 2 and ALIX 6 boards, and allows you to slide the board in and out with ease, providing ready access to the Compact Flash card.
At the same time, the internal threaded channels and high-tensile steel screws hold the case together firmly, while allowing easy assembly and disassembly.
This enclosure is completely fanless and made from aluminium so it’s light yet durable, with excellent heat dissipation qualities, and includes punchouts for ethernet, serial and USB ports, plus SMA (with blanking plug) and power.
Available as both a complete unit and a case, the new vehicle-mount solution makes your ALIX truly mobile!
Need a solution with integrated 3G?
If you’re after a solution with integrated 3G, you might want to take a look at the ALIX 6.
The ALIX 6 includes a miniPCI express slot, ideal for adding a 3G wireless modem (such as the Sierra Wireless MC series), and two integrated SIM slots, allowing you to have multiple or redundant 3G providers.
New to our shop this month is a bundled ALIX 6 product, which includes an ALIX-6 board and our professional-grade “bookshelf” case, ready for you to add your choice of accessories.
Our extruded bookshelf case is designed specifically for the ALIX 6 board, allowing you to slide the board in and out with ease and providing ready access to the Compact Flash card.
Case Study: Creating a Music-on-Hold appliance
If you’ve ever wanted to create your own music-on-hold solution, you might be interested in this month’s case study.
One of our customers took an ALIX 3 box and created an inexpensive, reliable, and easy-to-manage music-on-hold appliance for his company.
He chose to use an ALIX 3 with VGA because it comes with audio in and audio out, and is running OpenBSD with mpg123, plus Samba and a small amount of scripting.
The unit has now been playing music endlessly for over a year, and is easy to manage, even remotely!
Read all about it on our case studies page.
Learn how to use the pfSense® software on an ALIX
If you’d like to discover how to get your ALIX box to do all kinds of cool stuff using the pfSense® system, then check out the growing collection of articles at [interspective].
It starts with the basics, and covers a broad range of topics, including more advanced configuration:
- Installing pfSense® software on an ALIX 2-3
- Configuring pfSense® software
- Setting up your devices to use NTP
- Configuring Squid proxy
and I’m sure there’ll be even more to come, so keep watching [interspective].
How to install FreeBSD on an ALIX
Ever wanted to install FreeBSD on an ALIX board?
Well the guys at FreeBSD Online have created a very handy tutorial on installing FreeBSD onto an ALIX 2-2 board.
To make it happen, they used a Compact Flash card, a PC and an external USB CF card reader.
This tutorial takes you step-by-step through installing and configuring FreeBSD to work seamlessly on an ALIX 2-2 board.
It also includes some handy tips and traps to avoid, and pointers to other useful resources.
To learn more about FreeBSD, and why you might want to use it, visit the FreeBSD website.
Create kiosks, signage and thin clients with Linutop OS
If you’re creating digital signage solutions, information kiosks or thin clients, you might be interested in Linutop OS.
Designed to run on PCs, and ideal for use on a fit-PC2, Linutop OS is based on Ubuntu Linux and is:
- energy-efficient
- secure
- easily configured for specific applications
- able to be backed-up and deployed via USB key
It includes Linutop’s Kiosk software, for information display or internet access, plus Firefox, VLC Media Player and Open Office pre-installed, as well as easy access to add software via Synaptic.
A free trial is available on their website, and the full version is currently being offered for 79EUR.
pfSense 2.0.1 now available
The pfSense® project have released a minor upgrade to their open-source firewall/router software.
The latest version is 2.0.1, which is a maintenance release, and we’re now offering this on all of our boxes with pfSense® software pre-installed.
If you’re currently using pfSense 2.0, you can upgrade to the latest version from within the pfSense® software interface (please back up your installation first!)
Updated prebuilt images are also available for the ALIX and net5501 from our O/S images page.
For more information on the changes in the latest version, please visit the pfSense® blog.
Voyage Linux 0.8.5 released
Voyage Linux has also released a new version of their operating system.
We’re now offering this latest version on all of our Voyage boxes or you can download a prebuilt image and do-it-yourself.
And Voyage now also supports 802.11n.
For more information on the latest release, please visit the Voyage website.
Get paid to educate your clients about energy-efficiency
If you’re in the business of helping other businesses become more energy-efficient, you might be interested in the Government’s “Energy Efficiency Information Grants” program.
This program offers grants to businesses to help them provide information and education to small business and community groups to help them improve their energy-efficiency.
Our range of computers is an ideal way to help organisations lower their electricity bills, so why not let the Government pay you to educate your clients about their options for more sustainable computing?
Our entire range of computers is now fully deductible!
Hey, it’s the start of another new financial year!
And with that comes a change to the instant asset write-off tax laws.
Ah! Tax! Run away!
Well, you may be interested to know that small businesses can now instantly write-off in full any assets purchased that are valued under $6500, a significant increase from the previous limit of $1000.
What does this mean for you?
Well, it now means that our entire range of servers, can be deducted in full, with no need for depreciation!
Exciting news, I know…
For more information, visit the ATO website or ask your accountant.
