We all know this. We launch our browser, we type an URL
and – bingo – there’s our desired content (hopefully!). But
fewer already know that behind a website there’s a large
server farm. LowTech Magazine however is special!

The first thing you notice, when you open that URL, is, that it looks sort of 90’s WWW.

The images look like strongly compressed GIF graphics (but they aren’t!). They’re modern PNG files however strongly reduced in color depth to ensure the graphics can be loaded fast.

But wait, what’s that in the lower right corner? A percentage value and a sun symbol? What does that mean?

Funny… now it even shows a battery symbol. The image already tells you what that means and a click on the battery symbol reveals some power info.

Yes, the website you’re looking at, runs on a small Olimex one-board-computer (Raspberry-like)

Funny to see that a whole webserver can run on these tiny computers nowadays. And they operate completely ecologically. This website goes offline when the backup battery goes to zero and the sun isn’t shining. So let’s hope, the weather will become better soon because 9% battery capacity remaining would probably only suffice for about 2.5h of operation.

But despite the fact that this website is blazing fast eventhough it runs on such a small computer, it contains interesting information for you, so give it a try.

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/power.html

And for those who want to know what’s the magic of the website: The webserver and OS are completely stored on a microSD card which provides also good performance at way less power demand than a HDD/SDD would need.

Cleverly made!