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It's About Time by VB · 2002-11-08 10:56 · Score: 2, Informative · on EMI Customer Relations Tells It Like It Is

I've been trying to convince my family and friends for months to boycott CDs until the RIAA gets real. Now that they'll start running into useability issues when they try and play CDs in their new stereo, it looks like they'll finally get that disincentive to buy $20 CDs churned out by the media/ad agencies (who are one and the same, at this point). Hopefully, they'll start buying independent artists' works. It's a shame that much of this type of product is still poorly produced, but compared to 10 years ago, the indies have really made some progress. It's exciting to see where indies' production quality will be 10 years from now.

Of those 250MM blanks purchased for the sole purpose of raping the RIAA and its members, I'm responsible for about 250 units. None of them are CD-R for audio, since I don't subsidize the RIAA. Not a single one of them was used to burn a copy of a purchased, or burned-from-a-purchased, or even third, fourth, or 10th generation pirated audio CD. About half were used to archive old data from servers / workstations, perform backups; and the rest were used for my own musical projects: original Ded Serius songs, and practice CDs so I could promote other artists work (covers) during live gigs in bands.

So, now that the "industry" is about to force it's consumers to stop buying, I'd like to continue to offer my own material here:
Ded Serius Music, some friends' music here: Layden Robinson, Turkestan Road, and Twig free of charge. Because real musicians (Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, etc.) did it (and still do) for... the music. People who do music for the $$$ are... the Industry. Who are you going to support?

Go see a local band play live and buy their CD. We'd love to see some people show up for the show.

Re:The most telling indication he's full of it by VB · 2002-11-07 11:53 · Score: 1 · on Operating Systems Are Irrelevant

'Waiting to Index' my files.

Precisely why if I need to find something quickly I fire up a putty session to my samba server and do a quick grep -i 'word2find' /datadir/* 2> /dev/null. I have yet to see either coldfusion server, or win2k complete an "index." And, that machine is sometimes up for over 2 and 3 days at a time.

What really sucks is this moron will probably actually sell enough of this crapware to retire in 2 years. Technology will continue to suck until Bill Gates dies. OSes are irrelevant! Actually, I guess they are...

Not Beautiful Code; Beautiful Results by VB · 2001-09-04 18:55 · Score: 2 · on Software Aesthetics

The point we as coders seem to consistently miss is that code isn't supposed to be pretty. It's supposed to provide utility to the human using it to make them more productive. Don't misinterpret me, pretty (better stated: more concisely and completely documented) code can co-exist within software that meets this goal.

At the time I started using Dr. T's music sequencing software on a Commodore 128 I had no fscking idea what C was. I don't know what that thing was written in to this day. But I wrote over 75 songs in 2 years and haven't created that level of product in the past 13 years.

I used Cakewalk 2.0 on Win3.1 for a couple years and was equally productive there until 1995. That's when music went away and I started hacking Linux because MickeySoft pissed me off so much with their "innovations" in Win95 that it completely killed my machine's ability to perform my most important task (writing music).

Thankfully, with Win2k and it's better stability Cakewalk 9 and my killer 128Mbit Creative Platinum with built in MIDI have brought songwriting back as an option. Yeah, it's Windows, I hate it, and it screws me sometimes, but not so bad that I can't write songs now. Honestly, I'm not that interested in coding C, now that I can write music again. Trust me: my music is better than my coding, although my coding isn't lousy.

What I want is Cakewalk for Linux and then I'll leave you talented hackers to your domain and drift back into that which I've wanted to remain in before all this sloppy coding pulled my sorry ass out of it.

I don't care what the source looks like, but you should comment your code. I just want results. I'm sure most others do as well.

Re:64 Bit computing just now becoming affordable. by VB · 2001-08-30 10:12 · Score: 1 · on Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

True, you can play with 64-bit DEC Alpha in the home user space, but my EV5 is no screaming eagle at 300MHz. 64-Bit Intel chips will certainly bring this level of computing closer to home. Not that I'd run Windoze on it, but it would be nice to have a 64-Bit 1GHz x86 box around.

More Qwest Troubles Today by VB · 2001-08-22 18:35 · Score: 1 · on Code Red Refunds?

At 16:05 MST, Qwest (Phoenix) started having some routing problems. 80-90% packet loss to all destinations until 21:05 MST. I have this data because my Slackware Alpha runs this home-rolled MRTG monitoring application. It wasn't a complete disruption of service. After 10 or 15 minutes the password prompt for an ssh request would appear from a remote ssh server. Occasionally you'd receive bits of a web page, and other times you'd get a "connection timed-out" in Linux Netscape 4.7x, or in IE: "couldn't find site, dns problem or server error" message. IE error messages are so incredibly unuseful in situations like these where you need information about why you can't reach a site, not just Micro$oft's packaged 40x client-side dll. Anyone know why they do that anyway? I can't see any reason why your browser should override the server's error message. BTW, you can disable this through options. WRT the "cannot connect to host" error, why would it say DNS server issue when the status bar shows the ip of the server you're trying connect to? Should say: can't establish a session with the server and not spew dns problem messages. Obfuscation. Probably FUD.

Actually, I don't know that we'll ever learn why Qwest had issues today, but the segment of the Qwest network affected did have a fairly pronounced Code Red II infestation. About 2/3rds of the infections reported at this Code Red report are from a monitor on the Phoenix Qwest DSL network. I can only suspect that the disruption was the result of having all those compromised hosts with root.exe running on them undetected.

With:

tcpdump -i eth0 host not myhost.my.lan and not arp
while true; do ping myexternalserver.com -c 100; sleep 1; echo; done
cat tmp.txt | while read a; do traceroute $a; done
iptraf -i -q

running on separate Eterms for the day, I've learned that Qwest shut down the router from the Phoenix DSL network a couple times and brought it back up only to find the behavior was the same. After some (infered) head-scratching after a period where they turned the router off for about 35 minutes, I saw a new hop beyond loop1.phnx-dsl-gw8.phnx.uswest.net but then dropped. This new router (not putting it out here since I'll leave that forensic recon to any potentially involved individuals in this outtage who are interested) had a new IP. No further hops for about 20 minutes (configuring this new router with new routes?). And, then it popped. All ETerms started showing smooth flow of traffic.

Perhaps a fairy tale inspired by a consultant who just lost a billable day. Perhaps a clue to solving a riddle that probably affected anyone on the Qwest Phoenix DSL network today. Potentially, a clue as to what people out there are doing with infected IIS machines.

If these conjectures have any modicum of merit; we're in trouble. Serius trouble.

Of course, this could all be my own imagination and the outtage the result of a backhoe operator on a Cottonwood corn farm.

You be the judge. If you're using Qwest DSL in Phoenix, this probably happened to you also.

An Interesting Tangent Just Taken by VB · 2001-07-10 11:04 · Score: 1 · on MS, CNET On 7-Day Messenger Outage

Set cookies to prompt me in your NS 4.x preferences and hit these URL's and you'll see why I found it necessary to send the following to help@msn.com:

Hi:

I just tried to send you feedback using your contact us page at:
http://messenger.msn.com/support/contactus.asp

It seems to need a passport. Unfortunately, that's not an option for me right
now due to an unfortunate misunderstanding between the local police and me a
couple years ago. But, surely, I digress.

I then checked out your page at:
http://supportservices.msn.com/us/default.asp
and, it sent me around and around with some pop-ups about cookies, or
something. {BTW, I don't like cookies because I lost my dental plan when I was
laid off during the IT downturn recently, so I figure the less sweets I consume
the better. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink. Know what I mean? >:)}

The pop-up kept saying something about upgrading my browser to use advanced
features, or something-or-other, but, last I checked, you guys don't have an IE
browser for Linux. Just MAC OS 8 and higher (which I would assume means OS-X; a
UNIX OS), and Solaris (also a UNIX). Perhaps you guys just haven't gotten
around to porting it to Linux, yet. Lord knows you have lots on your plate with
all the Maelstrom, and .Yet services you're rolling out. Please send me the
download link to IE, when it's available for Linux, would you?

So, anyway, I was able to stop that little endless loop by holding down the
ESCAPE key and just left your site. Was a good thing I found this link:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/10/1832 23 1&mode=nested
where someone had posted this help e-mail address so I could send it to you
directly.

Of course, there's always the possibility you'll never have IE, or Instant
Messanger for Linux, in which case, it could only be explained by a personal
bias on Bill Gates' part, since clearly, you've got Instant Messenger for OS-X
and have had IE for Solaris for a few years. Or, possibly, you guys just
realize no dedicated Linux user would ever run native MS binaries on a Linux
system. If that's the case, I applaud your market research people's wisdom;
since, they would be correct. >:) If the former; well, that's just petty, but,
whatever.

Some folk don't wish to rent software. Just a little draconian for some.

Best Regards,
Van
Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

It's Really Not That Complicated by VB · 2001-07-09 12:20 · Score: 1 · on Deciphering Windows Product Activation

I've been running the same 600MHz Athlon for about a year and a half, and, really can't see the benefit of running a 1.5 GHz processor given the cost. With 2 13GBytes IBM 7200 RPM drives (primary for Slack/secondary for 2k Pro), it shouldn't run out of space in the foreseeable future. Memory's really cheap right now so sticking 256MBytes of RAM in the machine should be sufficient.

Can't see moving to WinXP, though, since I'm not sure if it will work as seemlessly in the VMWare virtual machine as 2K. I might have to turn off setiathome, and, I definitely can't afford that.

vanboers@sedona:~$ uptime
9:17pm up 25 days, 4:20, 2 users, load average: 1.04, 1.14, 1.18

Whoops! I forgot that we were talking about XP as the primary workstation. Well, if it stays up for any useful amount of time, perhaps even power users (whatever that means) won't have to phone home too often.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Slackware means you are old. by VB · 2001-07-01 05:23 · Score: 1 · on Slackware 8.0 Released

Slack jumped from 4 to 7 at about the time RH was going to 6.x. There was an interview with Volkerding around that time. The 4 to 7 version number change also marked the adoption of glibc, which Slack was slow to adopt for hopefully obvious reasons, but, when it was adopted it was very painless and the disclaimers were right in your face to warn you during installation.

Boy I'm glad I rsynched my mirror over here, yesterday. These people updating to =day must be stepping all over each other. >:)

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Other's going somewhere else by VB · 2001-06-25 13:20 · Score: 1 · on Caldera Per Seat Licensing

The difference between NT Workstation and Server is in 2 registry settings.

While I agree NT was created to make money and Unix to do a job, I don't think those goals are mutually exclusive. If NT does the job, as well as make money, it's a win for people. As Linux matures and can continue to establish that it can do the job, there's no reason it shouldn't be allowed fair compensation for that service.

Keep in mind, there are other free OSes that do an extremely similar job to Caldera, equally effectively. If your game is service, you can easily use one of those distributions, or put together one of your own and save the money on licensing to contribute to your services draw on those services.

Bottom line: it's all up to you what you wish to do with all the free software that makes up a distribution. If you prefer one that charges licensing fees, it's your prerogative to use one that does not.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Compaq's loss is Linux' gain by VB · 2001-06-25 01:30 · Score: 1 · on Compaq Transfers Alpha to Intel

My XL 300 has been happily running Slackware 7.x for over 4 months and also at Kernel 2.4.3. This is a slow machine, but, a great tool for porting 64-bit applications, which is why I picked it up. The underlying hardware is very solid and stable, and, network speed through the bus blazes data at 8 MBytes/sec (that's bytes) through a cheap Lite-On 82c168 PNIC. As a file server my dual Celeron 400 doesn't even come close.

It's a shame to see Intel get the Alpha, but, for those of us out here seeking to continue to use these machines for what they're good at, it's very Linux-friendly.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Funny, I Thought it was the Mogollon Rim Network by VB · 2001-06-24 08:24 · Score: 2 · on Slashdot Back Online

Made the mistake of goin' camping this weekend, and, got a little confused when I rigged up a Ponderosa pine that had a telephone line a couple feet from it with a WAP device a local squirrel was friendly enough to wear for the exercise after I gave him one of my nuts (not those nuts, you deviant; I had some planters in my napsack). Picked up e-mail through a pine cone; checked on my primary server through a knot-hole, and then slashdot. No dice.

Kinda feel bad, now that I'm home, that I didn't trust that squirrel and re-negged on the nuts. Guess I'll have to go back up there and make good on it. Sh|t, he's still got my WAP device! No wonder I don't have any mail.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Implications for Samba? by VB · 2001-06-21 07:01 · Score: 2 · on Microsoft EULA stokes crusade

While similar clauses to "...Recipient may not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any portion of the Software, ..." have existed in past Micro$oft licenses, this could have some consequences.

It's obvious that Samba is one of the greatest arguments for deploying Linux file-servers over the proprietary alternative(s), but, advances in the authentication schemes in a Micro$oft client/server environment, such as Active Directory and Passport will require more work. If this license, in conjunction with the Open Source disclaimers makes it into the final release, or exists in WindozeXP, it could be argued the Samba team has to cease development that will make Samba compatible with future releases of that software.

Clearly there is a message, here. Remains to be seen who will listen to it, and, what they do with it if/when they do...

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Here's a clue ... by VB · 2001-06-17 02:12 · Score: 1 · on Former Dot-Com Workers Crowd Homeless Shelters

Dude, Phoenix is great! Actually, Tempe's better. The babes dry up in the Summer on Mill Avenue, but, it's tough to beat $600/mo rent for a two bedroom apartment.

Of course, I did save most of my income on my last contract so that I won't have to advertise for a roommate to cut the rent to $300 any time soon. But, if I do, it's not tough to find them near ASU in August.

Now, if I could just get this stupid VB/SQL7 contract I'm working on finished and move on to some full-time C programming, life would be perfect.

And, you're right; there's work out there for people with skills. You just have to prove you have them, these days. Perhaps that's not a bad thing.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

The Ball is Really in the Admins' Courts on Scans by VB · 2001-06-10 16:12 · Score: 2 · on Law Review Article Says Port Scanning Illegal

And, they're not communicating their game plans in an obvious way. Port scanning is legal because there's no precedent for defining that a particular permanent IP is providing anonymous services for applications that aren't commonplace. With a secure web-application, a user-password attack could probably be argued, since demonstration of malice could be asserted and that server has established that it provides secure web access.

What about rpc, though? The problem with the property assertion is that it establishes the fence metaphor but without a tie-in for those in a certain physical access zone who do have access. So what, then? The trespassing sign would say, you can jump the fence if you live within 2 blocks of me, but, otherwise, not? Clearly, the metaphor needs further definition. ex.: I allow mountd from 192.168.1.0, 10.0.0.0 but, firewall it from anything else. So, a DENY rule triggers an alert, and, I have to go track down the ISP abuse account to let someone know.

Now, the Admin (an NT/2k, sort) and I exchange e-mails about what's port 111 and I don't understand why you're upset about my end-user trying to do file-sharing on your host. Of course an nfs mount doesn't trigger the same pop-up that an attempt to mount an NT/2K share does, so we're talking about different beasts and the implementation hasn't evolved to that point, yet, where we can strategically produce end-users with a NO TRESPASSING sign that suits the situation.

Implementation of such a mechanism would be equally problematic because if we offer a challenge to their request to use our nfs server, we're going to need to connect to a suspect port on their server/proxy/firewall, which will initiate another dubious service request query from their provider. It's not all put together in a way that solves these problems, yet.

The problem with making a scan illegal is that those who've done any research know that if they get a printer/mount/anon-ftp sequence on a server that's running IDS from a particular ip within a reasonably short period of time know they're getting checked on by a vulnerability assessment script. How do you distinguish that from a simple potentially legitimate nfs connect request?

Short answer: You can't. Because that connection request for port 111 might have been initiated by someone who just loaded up the latest RedHat and wanted to do some nfs updates from some server and their dns server was configured to look at where updates.redhat.com was 6 months ago, and, you just happened to get that IP the last time your router initiated a dhcp request. Who knows?

The point is, you can't apply voodoo law when the network is still a lot of voodoo being implemented by newbie witch doctors.

Port scanning is legal. No, I don't like it. But, you can do something about it. You just can't sue anyone if they try it and break into your server. Bummer, huh? >:)

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

GPart by VB · 2001-06-10 03:56 · Score: 2 · on The Pentagon Discovers dd

You'd be amazed at what this tool can recover.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Where are these so-called zingers? by VB · 2001-05-29 09:44 · Score: 1 · on RMS Says Free Software Is Good

If you take some GPL-ed software and improve it, but, don't want to distribute those improvements, how the hell is that any different than what you got in the first place?

If you want to proprietarize GPL software for a specific client, do it. Just don't send it back. Keep it at your client's site. You just can't sell that as an offering. Which is great since you didn't write all the code, anyway. Just what you changed. Why are people so flipping hung up on this? It's a good thing...

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Happy Memorial Day by VB · 2001-05-28 07:59 · Score: 1 · on SourceForge Server Compromised

Fortunately, I was allowed to leave all my servers alone for the weekend to defend themselves, and, the worst news I got was that:

winslow was still up for 227 days;
I had a shitload of portscans to forward to derelict admins;
there were a bunch more logchecks to file off to the appropriate places;
Big Brother was e-mailing me incessantly because BB is dicked up, but, all the servers were fine;
and, Source Forge reset my password because their unfortunate holiday staff members who had to be there discovered it, fixed the server and did the right thing.

Wonder if anything like that happened in Redmond, today.

My hat's off to SourceForge along with my gratitude. I'll get back to work tomorrow after my 3-day weekend's over.

These poor bastards had to work, and, all 21k+ of our OSS projects are still in tact: I've checked mine.

It's a shame the butthole(s) who did it couldn't have called a truce and gone and done some fishing on a particularly beautiful weekend.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:SW 7.1 + Xfree 4.0 by VB · 2001-05-26 01:01 · Score: 1 · on Linux Distribution Round-Up

It most certainly is in 7.2. I keep an NFS share with the Slackware-Current at all times. Helpful for newbies, and, let me tell you: the next SW CD is going to be even better than 4.x to 7.0 upgrade. (Watch out for Perl 5.6) >:)

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Microsofts Infomation War by VB · 2001-05-17 04:23 · Score: 1 · on Mundie Responds

Mod this up. Read the article.

Go back to work. I have some coding to do...

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Clipper's Death by VB · 2001-05-15 06:58 · Score: 1 · on The Feds Thoughts on Clipper

From Schwartau's Information Warfare: "... unless everone uses Clipper, the entire effort is futile. In order for everyone to use it, it would have to become a mandate or law, therefore making other forms of encryption illegal. That will never happen in an open society. Second, for Clipper to be accepted, theGovernment has to be trusted not to abuse their capabilities to decrypt private transmissions without proper court authorization, as is required today."

If you search around for "Winn Schwartau" on Google, you'll probably be able to find your researcher. Information Warfare is a good read if you're parano^H^H^H^H^H^Hsecurity and privacy conscious.

Further Reading

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Should be fined by VB · 2001-05-14 04:41 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Admits To Backdoor In IIS [updated]

I'm going to be spending the rest of the day patching!

About 2 hours. I don't believe any give the choice to not reboot, either.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:A Point Missed... by VB · 2001-05-04 02:02 · Score: 1 · on Linus Responds To Mundie

"If a private company dumps a load of money into research and development, they deserve the opportunity..."

Agree absolutely...

It's just too bad they dumped so much more effort into staving off competition that for better than a decade, there was no competitive environment in which consumers could compare other products to see what M$ gained from that R & D.

IT is an incredibly new field, taken in perspective. We need all the minds possible to look at the complex issues we face when deploying it. Not just 20,000, or so, proprietary programmers...

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Cakewalk 9.0 for Linux, Please... by VB · 2001-05-03 12:10 · Score: 1 · on MS VP Speech Online

Definitely not meant as a dig, and, perhaps the past 6 years are starting to bear fruit. Hacking's fun, but, my primary reason for choosing Open Source is because I just wanted to write songs. So sad, that tangent has lasted this long, but, perhaps the tides are changing, and, we'll begin to see choice in applications in the near term, as well.

C'mon.... Wouldn't you love to see Cakewalk ported to *n*x? I sure, as hell would.

Excellent and timely rebuttal from Alan. You should read it. Sure, I'm biased. But, my MPU401 is NOT! a gameport joystick controller. It wasn't on Win3.1, and, it still isn't. It controls drum machines and MIDI synthesizers. If Microsoft hadn't fscked that up, I'd probably still be using their crap.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Cakewalk 9.0 for Linux, Please... by VB · 2001-05-03 12:10 · Score: 1 · on MS VP Speech Online

Definitely not meant as a dig, and, perhaps the past 6 years are starting to bear fruit. Hacking's fun, but, my primary reason for choosing Open Source is because I just wanted to write songs. So sad, that tangent has lasted this long, but, perhaps the tides are changing, and, we'll begin to see choice in applications in the near term, as well.

C'mon.... Wouldn't you love to see Cakewalk ported to *n*x? I sure, as hell would.

Excellent and timely rebuttal from Alan. You should read it. Sure, I'm biased. But, my MPU401 is NOT! a gameport joystick controller. It wasn't on Win3.1, and, it still isn't. It controls drum machines and MIDI synthesizers. If Microsoft hadn't fscked that up, I'd probably still be using their crap.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Slashdot readers disappoint again. by VB · 2001-04-28 09:33 · Score: 1 · on FBI Seeks 2 Days Of IndyMedia Traffic Log

Just wanted to correct you: most of us have problems with short-term memory, not long-term.

Also, only half of us voted for Bush {depending on which half you ask}... >:)

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Three Relevant Issues Here by VB · 2001-04-28 09:24 · Score: 2 · on FBI Seeks 2 Days Of IndyMedia Traffic Log

Gag order on a First Amendment protected organization;
Seeking information that is relevant to the warrant;
Seeking information in such a way that it doesn't cripple the operations of the provider complying with the request.

They only need the IP addresses for the people who posted. If the agents can't present IndyMedia with URLs to the specific posts they are investigating, they should be given nothing.

The bottom line is, after reading this, did you visit IndyMedia.org? You can guess my answer. I'm on a static.

Thankfully, sunbird posted this RealAudio of the Press Conference, so I could get more information about this without exposing my IP to a potentially misguided and overreaching law enforcement exercise.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Re:Stable Alpha distro? by VB · 2001-04-25 02:35 · Score: 1 · on Dueling Distros - It's All Good, Apparently

I'm pretty pleased with my XL 300Alpha Slackware box. Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA 2064W [Millennium], Symbios Logic Inc. (formerly NCR) 53c810, Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX, 196MBytes RAM, Alcor, running with MILO.

The SRM install wasn't supported, when I built it, but, with a little bit of work, was able to build my own boot disk to get it to run. I don't use it much for games, but, it's a rock-solid file/database server.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com

Resisting Power-Outtages, Lightning, and the Cat by VB · 2001-04-17 11:38 · Score: 1 · on The Myriad Ways of Wiring Your Home?

Running a DSL from Qwest since October 2000, and have been very pleased with it. I pay a little extra, but, last Sunday, I toasted my 675 with a CBOS update at 5:30 am, and, had a 678 replacement by 11:30 am Tuesday, courtesy of UPS as an RMA. My Hat's off to Qwest, for this. They truly came through for me.

Friday, I had a power outtage (first since I moved here). Was only about a minute and a half, but, that was enough to knock all the machines and the router off-line. So, yesterday, I headed to Fry's and picked up APC 500VA BACK-APC Back-Ups and started my planning.

I used Xfig to draft up a decent network layout and to plan my UPSes and which machines to plug into them based on power needs, and availability priorities. Then, I set out on the physical changes by starting from the left and moving right. I was able to remove 4 power strips (along with the concommitant electrical hazard and wiring mess) by using the 3 UPS-powered outlets in the APC's for the machines, and, the 3 surge-protected outlets for monitors, printers, alarm clocks, sound-card power adaptors, etc. I ran the RJ-11 phone chord through the small UPS that only has the router and the primary server to thwart electrical charges from coming through at the DeMarc.

I also made sure to take up all slack on CAT-V cables so there was little cable left dangling that might attract the cat (feline type of device) to chew on it. Trust me: this is important if you have one of these biological devices with access to the server room. Just coil them up and use twisties to secure them (the CAT-V cables; not the cat).

I use my 2nd bedroom that has a stand-alone air-conditioner in it that keeps the temperature at 78 degrees so they don't overheat. Also, don't smoke (if you do) in the room you reserve for your machines. I have one of these machines (can you guess which) in a different room with a 19" monitor that I use for all my other needs.

Lastly, I'm using Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG) to keep an eye on things and check it in the morning to make sure no one's using the DSL router, but, me. A quick check on traffic usage, and, then, another check to make sure there are no machine crashes let's me start the day. Then, I start by checking mail to deal with the port-scanners, my customers, and, make my tour of the latest security news.

Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com