Linux powers controllable Christmas lights-Charity

Santa Claus writes: Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier's recent article at Linux.Com tells the hilarious story of Alek's Controllable Christmas Lights for Celiac Disease. When he out'ed himself to the Wall Street Journal that it was a simulation/hoax in 2004, the mass media howled at being fooled while Slashdot simply said Humbug. But Alek claims that he went legit in 2005 as confirmed by the Rocky Mountain News and Zonker did an on-site visit to actually see and report in detail how the system really works ... for real!

For 2006, there are three D-Link DCS-6620G webcams providing live coverage of 15,000 Christmas Lights, plus giant inflatable Elmo, Santa, and Homer Simpson — three wise men I guess — D'OH! X10 power technology allows web surfers to turn stuff on & off with a click of a mouse. You can also type in text for everyone to see on a laptop in Santa's Workshop Cam — Zonker says watch out for the occasional vulgarity. Finally, over $15,000 has been raised for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research. Zonker and the Christmas FAQ says it is load-balanced across four dedicated 100 Mbps Apache/Linux servers running mod_perl.

On December 20th, Colorado was hit my a monster snow storm, shutting down the airport, highway, and paralyzing the state. But Clark Griswold-wanna-be's webcams stayed up, providing live coverage of the blizzard .. plus his Christmas Lights. So is it really real this year? And can it (and Alek's neighbors) handle the Slashdot Effect? Lets find out here — HO HO HO!