
Jim Lux  wrote:
> > the remote device isn't working well. With IMPI, you can actually mess
> > with the bios. Supposedly it ls like really being there.
> 
> Thanks, I'll take a look..  The ability to poke at the device remotely 
> at a very low level is quite useful (e.g. if it's unattended).

Pretty sure this is IPMI, the "intelligent" platform management interface. Some related terms to familiarize yourself with:

ComBIOS: Lets you tinker with the BIOS settings and stuff over RS232, useless unless you're local or have a terminal server plugged into the thing, but nice for big-iron folks who are used to managing headless machines.

DRAC: Dell Remote Access Card.
iLO/iLOM: integrated Lights-Out (Management), HP nee Compaq's version
IBM RSA: Remote Supervisor Adapter
MegaRAC: AMI's Remote Access Controller
Four versions of essentially the same thing, these are all console-over-network implementations that let you do crazy voodoo like feed virtual floppy and CDROM images to the thing and install an entire OS remotely, while redirecting the video framebuffer back to you. Sometimes the virtual video card requires funky driver support once the OS is installed, which can lead to awkwardness and pain. Each is tied to a specific vendor.

IP KVM: Variously implemented, it's a separate box that does keyboard-video-mouse over a network, sometimes with additional virtualized USB peripherals including CDROMs and stuff for the above tricks with whatever machine you plug it into. Notably, the AdderLink products use VNC as the transport, so there are already clients for everything. Driverless, because it just plugs in where the regular UI devices would go. You'd want a model with passthrough, of course, so the local UI could still work.

Depending on the degree of remote access you need, that may all be silly and expensive overkill. How much will the customer cry about downtime? Often a simple remote reboot will bring you back, and if that fails, you probably need hands on-site anyway. There's the $200 version:
http://dataprobe.com/iboot-remote-reboot.php
And the $2 version:
http://www.i3detroit.com/reset-on-lan-an-ethernet-aware-remote-reboot-device-from-junkbox-parts
aka http://preview.tinyurl.com/resetonlan

Your best bet for the hardware itself would be any of the numerous embedded computing forums. Actually the car-PC folks (mp3car.com, etc) probably have a lot of relevant knowledge, though they represent a fairly price-sensitive market so take it with a grain of salt. 

If the end device will be thermally constrained, power turns into heat, so an efficient system makes sense. Heat requires fans, and fans make noise, so you know who has the best rundown of gutsy-but-low-power systems? SilentPCReview! Their audience is mostly building living-room PCs for entertainment, but set-top boxes doing HD video playback take a bit of grunt, after all, and their hardware review methodology is solid.

But none of this is time-related. ;)
-Nate-

