Corporate Mallet
My windows domain at home recently passed its ten year anniversary. I've been running a windows domain controller at home since Windows 2000 days. It's now up to Windows 2008R2.

For many years, it lived under the stairs (like Harry Potter, but more useful and not as horcruxy). These days the ankle biters have left home and it now has its own "comms room". Mrs.Booce even put in a patch panel and hardwired the whole house for 1GB Ethernet.

It hosts the family and friends user accounts, a mail server, a webserver and a full implementation of Citrix running remote applications.
It's my PVR and stores 4 terabytes of movies, TV, music, over a decades' worth of digital photography and home movies. It's also a UPNP server serving multiple different device types (xbox, smartphones etc). It has a VPN and I can access anything on it from anywhere with a net connection. It's also connected to a webcam covering the front door and so acts as a security system too.

It's massive overkill, I've spent many many months working on it over the years, spent thousands of pounds on it and I love it. It's my technological folly.

Much like the golden gate bridge, it'll never be finished, and as it's a Microsoft product, it'll never be perfect either. The ideal project for a man.

Sad, I know, but to me that classes as an incredible project.
(Booce, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 17:01, 12 replies)

Part of me wonders why
But most of me is quite impressed. Clicky
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 17:03, closed)

Why...
Why not? I have the tools, I have the skills, and it's a great way to learn. I suck at any kind of DIY or mechanics so I have to build my projects out of software. This one is enormous but it does offer more facilities than many corporations offer their employees (including my own company) and that gives me a warm glow for some reason.
(Booce, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 17:10, closed)

I nearly understand some of those words.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 17:06, closed)

you do? I'm impressed.
Your reply is about the only thing I have understood in this thread.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 17:54, closed)

Just waiting for someone to tell you
all that can be done on a 386dx running mummified Meerkat Linux.
(username failed moderation, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 17:59, closed)

It's amazing what it can achieve.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 19:43, closed)

Life...
is too short for linux :-) Awesome link by the way.
(Booce, Fri 18 Nov 2011, 15:26, closed)

Hope you keep it backed up properly, like offsite
That's a lot of data to lose.
( Tribs 🦇 ↓ dn ʎɐʍ sᴉɥʇ ↓🦇, Thu 17 Nov 2011, 18:12, closed)

Backups...
All backed up to DLT and kept at the office, as well as really essential data on an external TB HD. Good enough for me :-)
(Booce, Fri 18 Nov 2011, 15:23, closed)

The real question is
How many of those licenses have you paid for?
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Fri 18 Nov 2011, 7:32, closed)

Bought and paid for
I've bought all the licenses I need. I still have a reciept somewhere for the original Windows 2000 server install I bought many years ago. If you read the post, you'll see "spent thousands of pounds on it ". Some of that was licensing. You should look in to getting an MSDN subscription if you're the type of anal fucktard who cares about licensing. It's £250 a year for all MS products. Good value comapred to buying each OS seperately.
(Booce, Fri 18 Nov 2011, 15:26, closed)

I'm impressed
Your passion, your time your money.

Why not enjoy them all together, and at the end of the day your hobby serves a useful purpose.

Well done and click.
(justin(e), Sat 19 Nov 2011, 15:47, closed)