Date   : Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:36:14 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Them pesky case stickers (was 1MHZ SCSI/ATA board.)

Annihilannic wrote:
>> Doesn't always help anyway - I remember us losing a machine at an old 
>> workplace. We knew the hostname, could ping it, but had absolutely no 
>> clue where it was physically located in the building :-)
> 
> Wouldn't it be nice if... machines had built in GPS so you could log in 
> and ask "Where are you??".

heh heh, yep.

Although I did write a 3D app that would let you click on a machine name and 
it'd zoom in to where it was located in the building (it was primarily 
designed for finding people rather than hardware :)

Of course it relied on the locations database actually being kept up to date, 
which wasn't likely to happen in the long run (I used to be as guilty as 
anyone else for that, liberating hardware from other projects that hadn't been 
used in a while for whatever latest and greatest thing I was working on!)

Ahhh, the good old days when it was possible to get paid for doing R+D stuff 
like that!

I do remember my uni trialling active badge systems back in the early 90's - I 
suppose that'd work equally well for hardware. Expensive though I suppose. 
Maybe this is one useful app for RFID, assuming that there are enough RFID 
readers dotted around a building...

cheers

Jules