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Don't fix it if it ain't broke: up 292 days, 22:26 The reason for the short uptime, is PSU upgrades...

My Gentoo system was up 309 days before I realized that the PSU fan had stopped turning and the motherboard overheated and blew 6 capacitors which is why the clock got so far out of sync (the computer thought it was April when I rebooted it back in November) which explains the graph weirdness.

Prior to that I had an uptime well over 200 days ruined by a blackout that outlasted my UPS.

I perform updates here and there on my server periodically and perform a full-scale "bleeding edge" upgrade whenever I'm forced to reboot the machine.

When I started working at a local high school administering their network I found an amalgamation of two networks. One running primarily thinnet (10Base2) through the classrooms uplinked to 10BaseT hubs (three 16 port stackables) which were each connected to a 10BaseT switch ("the core"). The server ran Novell, the PCs ran a combination of DOS and Windows 3.11 which ... worked.

Now the new network installed right beside it consisted of a mighty IBM NetFinity 5500 server with a RAID 5 array of about 50GB and a plethora of IBM switching equipment. The core switch wasn't high-tech or anything, but atleast it had 100MBit fibre running to the IDFs which ran switched 10BaseTX to the workstations. Now, this was all fine and dandy and wired real pretty-like by people who had no comprehension that the labs running PII-400s would most likely place more demand on the network than the labs running 486DX4s, so we had to re-wire the thing to balance the loads somewhat. :)

Shortly thereafter we installed a Linux server to handle DNS and HTTP cacheing for the 128KBit ISDN connection to the Internet (real practical for a network of some 400+ workstations eh?), revamped the configs on the workstations, re-configured the network from the core on outward, re-wrote the network wiring diagrams manually (they were, apparently, somewhat classified "need to know" information and we as system administrators did not "need to know") and generally made the place hospitable.

The network where I'm currently working (along with the phone system) was apparently installed by a monkey. All 19" rack-mountable equipment with its rack mount hardware installed in such a way as to be able to bolt them flat alongside three inner walls of a closet. There's a nice Panduit patch panel there - with about 4' of patch cables tempting their connections by gravity; they just sortof hang there in a loop before connecting to the Cisco switch installed above it. Not so much as a zip tie in sight!

There's a 3Com 16-port switch in there that was powered and creating plenty of heat and noise; but the strange thing is it's not connected to anything but the AC outlet. (Yes, it's now unplugged, but still hanging there all useless-like). I also find myself at a loss to explain why, with a single ADSL connection to the building, we require three (yes, three (3!)) DSL modems. Or why, when there were 2 spare electrical outlets even before I unplugged the 3COm someone felt the need to connect one of the devices to an extension cord running out the closet and 5' along the wall.

The network drops consist of a motley combination of mis-labelled jacks and broken wall mounts compensated for by the random installation of cheap hubs and duct-taped CAT5 cables running helter skelter around the place.

The network is so shaky it's not possible to install a centralized high capacity network printer as of now because, well, too many print jobs and something could catch fire in that closet. I can't WAIT to write up a cost benefeit analysis for my boss to justify the disposal of the dozen or so laser printers installed on various desktops around the place. :)

Oh, and these aren't mine, but they make me feel better about my own situation whenever I look at them.

>>I wouldn't call MS IE a standard just because most people are too lazy to download and install an alternative.

Please replace "are too lazy" with "have no reason".

I dare say you're looking for "don't know they have a good reason to ... are too lazy to do legwork to look for an alternative."

People will spend weeks deliberating over purchase of items they'll use every day, but will happily plop themselves in front of a PC day in, day out at work and at home alike and never consider that there may be something out there that does the job just that much better than their current tool.

Hitting a web page and being innundated by upwards of 100 pop-up / pop-under (onload / onexit) adverts alone would find me running screaming for another browser. (No, you don't even have to be looking for porn; www.whitehouse.org (in its former state), www.britnyspears.com, et al. will do just nicely)

Or, every time somebody showed me a link saying "Use IE? Click here for a neat trick!" (or worse; automatic re-directs) only to find myself staring at a blue screen.

If you want to completely ignore the surface problems, what about finding out that you're actually not supposed to trust software that's digitally signed by Microsoft, because that'll allow people to gain access to your computer through a web page? Or any number of ActiveX controls that install to the local security zone and then proceed to wreak havoc on your PC?

I see these problems all the time (a side effect of working in a retail PC sale/service outlet), yet some people as much as get offended if I suggest an alternate. Outlook seems to be the stickiest subject; I wrote a little blurb (2/3 down) about my experience in that regard.

There are plenty of reasons not to use IE, and there are plenty of good reasons to use an alternate browser. Tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, image controls, javascript limitations, integrated download manager, etc. Personally, I find myself apalled whenever I'm forced to use IE, and I'm sure others would feel the same way if they'd try an alternative, even for one week of regular surfing. You know what they say; you'll never know until you try.

That said I am letting them know I'm unhappy and will be avoiding PCI whenever possible.

I've written a similar letter to the people referenced at this page at the time of writing (which I now understand may be slightly errant, but atleast the lawyer will receive a copy, which is the important part. I may send a follow-up to a proper leading member of the PCI-SIG group should I find a valid address to do so).

i never even filled my 20gb drive. and i had 3 operating systems and an impressive collection of pr0n and mp3s on it. unless you do digital video editing, you probably won't ever need anything larger than 40gb. at least until the next version of windows and office comes out.

I've come pretty close to filling my 80GB Western Digital that resides in my server, and the 20GB and 40GB that make up my workstation are getting pretty close to filled based on;

• Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault
• MechWarrior 4: Vengeance
• Max Payne
• Need For Speed III
• Oni
• Soldier Of Fortune Platinum
• Soldier Of Fortune II: Double Helix
• Return To Castle Wolfenstein
• WarCraft III
• WarCraft II
• Star Trek: Armada 2

With more coming (Comanche 4, Silent Hill 2, Hitman 2: Silent Assault, etc) as soon as I upgrade my video card. That's not to mention the fact that I've got;

• Windows XP
  • Microsoft Office 2000
  • Corel Office 2002
• Windows 2000
• Gentoo 1.2
  • KDE 3.0.5a
  • OpenOffice 1.0.1
  • VMWare
  • Windows 98SE
  • Windows 2000
  • SuSE 8.0

Gentoo 1.4

FreeBSD 4.7

installed presently. Video editing does eat up a lot of space, but there are probably dozens of reasons why a person would require large amounts of storage capacity. A friend of mine with 30GB worth of MP3s, another friend with several game CD images stored on his drive (he hates hunting for the CDs), a colleague who runs a recording studio and deals with raw, uncompressed digital audio, etc. etc.

The 15GB drive in my laptop is getting a bit brimming right now, since I have to have three operating systems and a lot of data (network maps/plans, company information, images, price lists, development tools, etc.).

From Dell's online ordering [dell.com]: Power management features limit processor speed when running on battery.

There is no excuse for not reading this.
If you wonder "Gee, how much does it limit processor speed?" You should put down your credit card and start researching.

It's a year and a half later (halfway through my warranty - eep!) and I'm still just as happy with it as the day I got it.

Point being; I did my research beforehand (it was actually about 2 months before I bought it. As a result of my patience, I got an extra 200MHz, 5GB of HDD space, and double the RAM), then I made sure I was satisfied with my purchase before it was too late.

For all who've said 'Caveat Emptor' - good on you. Merely having a credit card isn't a license to spend money like it's going out of style. Spend wisely, think before you buy, and most important of all pay attention.

(And yes, Slashdot was slow for me all day on a 3MB connection)

Actually, IBM make some of the most reliable drives I've ever used. Yes, they had a very high profile failure on one particular range of IDE drives, but I've never had any problems with their SCSI disks.

If you hit up this page and scroll down to the Media Centre picture, you can see the little buggers all lined up in a row.

Why not drop them a line [mailto]

My server (AMD K62-400) has been running dnetc for approximately 2.5-3 years (coupled with four-times daily team stats update) and now.. it's not.

From a constant 1.0 load average to just the load of my regular maintainance and server functionality, will the CPU itself be ok? I mean, it's going to run a lot cooler until I find a new project.

I'm no expert on sillicon, but isn't there an issue when sillicon heats up, stays hot for a long period of time, then drops in temperature?

My server (AMD K62-400) has been running dnetc for approximately 2.5-3 years (coupled with four-times daily team stats update) and now.. it's not.

From a constant 1.0 load average to just the load of my regular maintainance and server functionality, will the CPU itself be ok? I mean, it's going to run a lot cooler until I find a new project.

I'm no expert on sillicon, but isn't there an issue when sillicon heats up, stays hot for a long period of time, then drops in temperature?

My server (AMD K62-400) has been running dnetc for approximately 2.5-3 years (coupled with four-times daily team stats update) and now.. it's not.

From a constant 1.0 load average to just the load of my regular maintainance and server functionality, will the CPU itself be ok? I mean, it's going to run a lot cooler until I find a new project.

I'm no expert on sillicon, but isn't there an issue when sillicon heats up, stays hot for a long period of time, then drops in temperature?