Domain: sourceforge.net
Stories and comments across the archive that link to sourceforge.net.
Comments · 31,462
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Re:Solving the Spam Bot problemCheck out Privateye.
Privateye is a tool that our network security admin here at Middlebury College, Mike Halsall, wrote to automatically quarentine computers into a VLAN (that stays with their mac address) that only has access to a help page, anti-virus tools, and windows update.
Due to the use of this and campus manager (I believe it's the software that actually manages the VLANs, could be wrong), viruses have gone from taking down the campus network several times a year, to being a non-issue. From the project page:
Privateye came into being to satisfy the tedious task of corrolating event data being gathered from disparate security sensors (Snort, HoneyNet, IPS) and automatically take action on the sources generating the alerts.
Example 1: You have an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) that is dumping its alerts to a log file. Privateye is reading in this log file, in real time, and watching which alerts are being thrown by which IP addresses. Now, let's also say you have a user registration system, allowing each user's name to be associated wit h their current IP address. One of your users gets a virus that starts doing Bad Things; this virus starts scanning for open shares on your network (which, in and of itself, doesn't necessarily mean something is amiss) AND connects to an IRC server out on the Internet. Privateye's configuration (all done through one powerful configuration file) has a trigger that specifies, "if I see one of 'my users' perform 50 NetBIOS scans in 60 seconds AND connect to an IRC server, I'll run an external script to do something to that user." That "do something" could be shutting down the switch port the computer is connected to, flipping it into a quarantine VLAN, or just sending the user an email letting them know their machine probably has a virus.
Example 2: You have a Snort box that alerts on SSH connections from the Internet to some of your internal hosts. You know that SSH brute-force attacks are prevalent, as every day your logs show thousands of login attempts from many machines on the Net. You configure Privateye such that if any external host (to your network) attempts more than 5 SSH logins in a minute, Privateye will run an external action that blocks the offending host from accessing your network for 2 hours at your firewall. If, when the 2 hours is up, they return, they'll then be blocked from accessing your network for 4 hours. Wash, rinse, repeat.
- Adam -
Re:The best feature of this toolkit
Been there done that: http://zk1.sourceforge.net/
Opensource and free.. take that Google... -
C++'s response: Qt-like AJAX Toolkit
We've been working on C++ AJAX toolkit called Wt. Similar to GWT, it completely hides the complexity resulting from Javascript ui logic, DHTML, XML, etc associated with creating AJAX applications. Best of all, it is pattterned from the Qt toolkit and allows you to design webapps as you would in any desktop Qt application.
It is completely object-oriented and the event mechanism is even handled by the signal and slots approach, allowing the same programming elegance found in Qt-based software. It allows you to focus on the design and logic of your program in one place and one place only! Quite similar to how Qt hides the details of the underlying window system from the programmer.
See this overview and a sample
Note the familar Qt-like syntax in creating a tree widget. [kuleuven.ac.be]
If you like writing GUI apps in Qt and would like to do the same in AJAX apps including the possiblity to integrate with desktop programs, please check it out!
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C++'s response: Qt-like AJAX Toolkit
We've been working on C++ AJAX toolkit called Wt. Similar to GWT, it completely hides the complexity resulting from Javascript ui logic, DHTML, XML, etc associated with creating AJAX applications. Best of all, it is pattterned from the Qt toolkit and allows you to design webapps as you would in any desktop Qt application.
It is completely object-oriented and the event mechanism is even handled by the signal and slots approach, allowing the same programming elegance found in Qt-based software. It allows you to focus on the design and logic of your program in one place and one place only! Quite similar to how Qt hides the details of the underlying window system from the programmer.
See this overview and a sample
Note the familar Qt-like syntax in creating a tree widget. [kuleuven.ac.be]
If you like writing GUI apps in Qt and would like to do the same in AJAX apps including the possiblity to integrate with desktop programs, please check it out!
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Other ways to fight back
Spam vampire - sap the bandwidth of spamming web sites. Copy and paste the urls from the spam you receive into the config file (make sure to check them first), or just pick someone elses below. Leave it on all day.
http://thescambaiter.com/antispam/SpamVampire/inde x.htm (scroll down to "Other Vampires")
http://www.feedbackarchive.com/spamvampire/
http://spamdot.sourceforge.net/
One that targets 419 and bank sites:
http://aa419.org/vampire/ladvampire.php
Oh, and for you pussies that think fighting fire with fire is wrong, you can kiss our asses. They probably smell better than what is in your inbox anyway. -
3GP sox?
When will sox support conversion from/to the 3gp format?
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What parts are FOSS, what parts are free beer?
This is a lot of code to pick apart -- can someone post a concise summary of what can be done with the Apache licensed gwt-user.jar part, versus the "You may not redistribute" parts?
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Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up! -
Re:The best feature of this toolkitHere's a much better implementation of the same idea that's been available for some time now: http://zk1.sourceforge.net/
It's not "beta" like this half-baked "me-too" from google, and it's open-source.Also commercial support is available it you want to pay for it.
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Sneakemail for email addresses
I love using Sneakemail for hiding my real email address much of the time. It's great for reducing spam, too.
I use loop-AES to encrypt my hard disk. -
Re:Not really
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It works!
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It works!
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Using a variety of tools...
Firstly, tor with Privoxy and a Firefox plugin that makes it easy to switch between it and a direct connection. Others may use FreeNet, but I personally don't bother.
For IRC, connect using SSL (If you trust the network admins. Even if you don't, still better than nothing) and perhaps through Tor as well. For email, anything PGP-ish.
Also, for protecting my files, I use TrueCrypt. -
from the trenches
I won't go into why validation is important, others have covered that well. Instead, here's just a couple of thoughts from the trenches.
Compliance is simple when you have full control over the site and all data that is input. In business reality, this is impractical. Fact is, editors, salespeople and the CEO will want to make website changes. Now, you could make it your job to clean up the garbage HTML sent by these folks. What you'll figure out quickly though, is that suicide is a more attractive option. So we of course now have content management systems so our bosses, et. al. can change what they like at 2 in the morning.
The thing is, these people will do horrible, horrible things. They will paste the most evil non-ASCII characters you could ever imagine into your lovely system. If you've only (gasp) given them a textarea in which to paste HTML, things are even uglier - they will paste the worst hackjob code you can imagine into there. Or worse, they'll paste the output of the MS word HTML export (yikes!). So now what you have is a lovely framework / skin for your site with pristine tags for navigation and advertisements, with a nice steaming heap of dog doo in the middle of it.
So now you're not compliant. Not because of anything you did directly yourself, but because you just handed the keys to the kingdom over to the vilage idiot.
Here's how I deal...
1) DON'T ALLOW FOREIGN HTML. This can easily be achived if your CMS provides an in-page HTML editor which produces valid code. You may be able to upgrade an existing CMS with something like "HTMLArea": http://sourceforge.net/projects/itools-htmlarea which is a replacement for a textarea tag.
failing #1,
2 Run W3CTidy (as others have mentioned) on the INPUT to your CMS. Give the jackass a preview. If it's borked, they'll try to fix it or call you if they really can't do it.
Happy webmastering!
--graveyhead
(cred) -
Re:A relevant quote
Aside from the all-important issue of "does it look right?", there is the professional issue of what sort of standards you should apply to your work. It's difficult to come close to a more extensive (and yet simple to implement) baseline metric of quality control with HTML/CSS than the W3C parser. Sure, I could go through and decide how I am going to do everything, but that's time-intensive and inflexible. Running something through the parser gives me a fast and consistent report. I can do whatever I want with the results, but they are there.
It does not solve problems for you or guarantee much of anything, but it allows you to see your formatting code in a more objective way. As a bonus, it can help you spot potential problems, mistakes, and open your eyes to some of the structure you are relying upon.
I always use the Tidy Firefox extension. It is a little friendlier than the online W3C parser interface. Disclaimer: not a professional web designer. -
Re:hmmm
As I sad in another post, Tapioca-Voip framework is already to talk with GTalk. What we need, in my opinion, is a better VOIP client to make the things more easy for the user. Linux has a lot of IM client, not VOIP clients. IE Landell project http://sourceforge.net/projects/landell/.
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Re:does it matter?
For sure
... Actually linux is already to talk with GTalk. The Tapiooca-Voip framework can talk with GTalk(voice and IM) without problems. Landell project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/landell/) is developed in C# using tapioca-voip framework too and it works fine. I think is not necessary has GTalk ported for linux, but is necessary make a better voip client to make the things more easy for the user, because, in my opinion, linux has great IM clients, not VOIP clients. -
Re:Not really
Microsoft has in fact open-sourced its own work from time to time. See, e.g., WiX.
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Mplayer
Or better yet, Mplayer http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/
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No kiddingOn windows you would use acdsee to browse your porn. On linux? Pornview, I kid you not.
On the other hand nothing beats OS-X for porn. The capability to have audio volume per program rather then a global volume level makes it very easy to set the porn volume low and the mp3 volume high to hide your activity.
When you see someone buy an Mac Mini you know what they are going to be using it for. The perverts.
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Re:Page based sockets?
As I understand it, as a novice, the only way to communincate or syncronize data is via copies of data passed via something analogous to a socket. A Socket is a serial interface. If you think about this for a moment, you realize this could be thought of as one byte of shared memory. Thus a copy operation is in effect the iteration of this one byte over the data to share. At any one moment you can only syncronize that one byte.
But this suggests it's own solution. Why not share pages of memory in parallel between processes. This is short of full access to all of the state of another process. But it would allow locking and syncronization processes on entire system states and the rapid passing of data without copies.
There is another solution: All data shares the same address space, so it can be accessed by simple pointers; no copying is necessary. To ensure the integrity of the system, all code in the kernel space must be proofed for correctness. To decrease the cost of such proofs, automatic proofers are used. Such systems are already in use: the proofs are done using a type checker on a type system. The type system ensures, that the data is only modified on a certain way, e.g. using certain primitives. When the code is loaded, a type checker verifies, that the code is properly typed, i.e. follows the rules of the type system. Using an appropriate type system, it can be ensured, that correct locking is performed, that onlycertain modules can access specific data, or that each access is monitored by some security system.
Using a type system to ensure the integrity of the data is used in most modern programming languages. E.g. many applets can share the same address space in the same Java VM; but they cannot tinker with each others data -- the type system prevents this. Type checkers in an operating system are already in use. Examples for this are Kernel Mode Linux and Java Operating System.
To use a type system in the kernel context, it is not necessary to use a full blown virtual machine, which interpretes the code and provides garbage collection. But the assembler code must contain type information. This is ensured by modern assembler varaints, e.g. Typed Assemlber Language or the Low Level Virtual Machine.
Using this approach, you can have a better compromise between speed and isolation. Shared memory looks nice on the first glance, but gives an component full access on the shared data. Shared memory does not solve synchronization. Using a proper type system, synchronisation becomes trivial. Just think of the synchronized keyword or the atomic datatypes in Java.
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"Classic" skin (like 6.4) is included in WiMP 10
Windows Media Player 10's "Classic" skin makes it look like version 6.4, but I'm pretty sure it's not the default Skin Mode skin (several skins are included). To enable the "Classic" skin, click the "View" menu, select "Go To," then select "Skin Chooser." In the Skin Chooser, select "Classic." When you push "Apply Skin," Media Player will switch to Skin Mode and look like version 6.4. To go back to Full (bloated) Mode, select "Full Mode" in the "View" menu. ...version 6 (6.4 specifically, I think) was when WiMP essentially reached maturity.Really, what more possible features could you need in a media player other than the usual play, pause, rewind, etc. buttons...
I disagree if you include music playlists in you definition of "media." I think Media Player 6.4, VLC, and Media Player Classic are great at playing single video or music files, but not so great at music/CD playlists. I think Windows Media Player's problem is that it's trying to be the default player for both video and music. The version 6.4 interface is nice and simple for playing videos, but kinda lousy for displaying your music/CD playlist, album art, video/audio library, internet radio, music/video stores, etc. But if you just want to play a video, all that extra shit in Media Player's current version looks like a waste of space and resources.Microsoft should take a hint from VLC or mplayer, and realize that we don't want the useless junk they're piling on. The reason why VLC and mplayer are so great is they do one thing and do it well: play media. Period.
I guess there are strategic reasons for having an all-in-one video/audio player, but I haven't seen a good implementation/interface yet. Maybe version 11 will get it right, but I have doubts. I think Microsoft would have been better off separating Media Player into two apps: Windows Video Player and Windows Music Player. For now, I'll keep using MPC for video and foobar2000 (with Columns UI) for music.
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other options for ogg
Other options for Ogg Vorbis support include Illiminable Ogg Codecs for Windows and OggDS. OggDS has been around the longest, but it's now unmaintained and last time I tried it it didn't support adding files to the Windows Media Player library (I had to drag and drop single files into the Windows Media Player window to play them). Illiminable also claims to support the new additions to the Ogg family such as Speex, Theora, and FLAC, so that one seems more promising.
There's also a program to edit Ogg Vorbis files inside Windows Explorer called Vorbis Extension.
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ffdshow doesn't support ogg
What are you talking about?
The page you linked to doesn't list support for the Ogg container format or the Ogg Vorbis audio format. The ffdshow audio decompressor page doesn't list Ogg Vorbis and says that it is "almost unusable".
The Vorbis software page suggests Media XW insted. -
ffdshow doesn't support ogg
What are you talking about?
The page you linked to doesn't list support for the Ogg container format or the Ogg Vorbis audio format. The ffdshow audio decompressor page doesn't list Ogg Vorbis and says that it is "almost unusable".
The Vorbis software page suggests Media XW insted. -
Re:Leak or astrohyping?
mplayer2.exe is actually Windows Media Player 6.4 if you take the time to check out the About dialog box.
If you like that however, you should definitely check out "mplayer2's" open-source clone, Media Player Classic, a full featured Media Player.
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(almost) Full OGG support in WMP
I use an iriver mp3 player for a combination of home-ripped oggs and napster to go DRM wma. Not much choice but to use WMP 10 (will try WMP 11 after it is shaken out a little). Fairly easy to find ogg codecs for WMP (e.g. http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/ ). But these only allow you to play oggs, and they get treated as Other Media instead of Music. There is a project named WMP Tag Support Extender found at http://wmptagext.sourceforge.net/index.html which will recognize the tags and allow you to have much better functionality. A little more info can be found related to my iriver solution at http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=34423
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Re:MPlayer"They have one, but it doesn't work with the latest windows codecs. It's called mplayer2."
Hey, thanks for that! Count me amongst those who can't stand the all-singing, all-dancing GUI of recent versions of Windows Media Player. If you like that classic look but need the latest codecs, you should also check out Media Player Classic: http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/
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Feature Creep in WiMP
Windows Media Player is a great example of a piece of software that has reached maturity, and been going steadily downhill ever since. Everyone who's had to struggle with a slow computer with windows knows that version 6 (6.4 specifically, I think) was when WiMP essentially reached maturity. Really, what more possible features could you need in a media player other than the usual play, pause, rewind, etc. buttons, and some useful codecs (which, of course, Microsoft would never even dream of distributing, as they promote "piracy", or help alternative formats like Real).
l I'm even aware of at east one open source media player project based off the WiMP 6.4 design (has essentially the exact same look and feel, but is supplied with all the good codecs), namely "Media Player Classic" (here).
Since 6.4, which was last distributed with Win2k (though the auto-update features try their darndest to sneak the newer versions in), WiMP has gotten progressively worse. Version 9 was a disgrace, and 10 was even worse. Seems like the only innovation Microsoft has to offer in media players is bundling in more DRM features that no one wants, useless and ugly skins, and support for their own worthless WMV/WMA formats.
Please, don't use this new "feature"-laden crapware. Microsoft should take a hint from VLC or mplayer, and realize that we don't want the useless junk they're piling on. The reason why VLC and mplayer are so great is they do one thing and do it well: play media. Period. -
Re:MPlayer
you could always give Media Player Classic (aka guliverkli) a go. I've found it to be much better.
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ffdshow
...is your answer.
http://ffdshow.sourceforge.net/
Supports just about everything in use and works great. I use the builds from here when trapped in Windows:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm -
Re:Whatever...
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
Will hardware drivers be developed faster and more reliably with a microkernel? That seems to be the biggest hurdle in reliable OS development these days... Anyone have a good answer for that, I honestly don't know.
I can't honestly tell you the difference between developing drivers for microkernels and monolithic, because I haven't worked with a monolithic enough to know. However, I'm spearheading an effort to develop a true uniform driver interface (not corporate crap like UDI) called the Extensible Driver Interface. It's an API for driver coding whose aim is to allow driver development for a stable platform across kernels, thereby taking much of the pain and suffering out of bootstrapping a new operating system into the Real World.
The framework wraps kernel and driver functionality up into "classes", which can actually be written in any language capable of exporting functions from a shared library (ie: exporting functions compiled to binary in a C-like protocol). A standard set of classes exist for the kernel to supply to the driver, drivers will (RSN) be able to implement one of a standard set of classes representing driver types, and either kernel or driver can expose any other class they like. This means that non-standard functionality can be added or required of any kernel or driver as long as standard functionality is exposed, freeing OS and driver developers to code what they damn well want to.
Note that this is a pure API, it doesn't care what kind of environment drivers run in. It only cares that the correct function calls are accessible, so it can be used under a micro- or macro- kernel.
The most recent tarball of headers and documentation is located at EDI tarball, and the next revision (coming soon, when I clean up the example driver) includes easier communication (via classes rather than serialized streams) and an toy example driver written in C++.
I can be contacted about the project (to give me advice, suggestions, flames, etc) in #edi on WyldRyde, or at the email address listed for my Slashdot account (eligottlieb@gmail.com). Any constructive criticism, or even criticism bordering on flame that still makes a point, is very welcome. Please, please, PLEASE respond with some kind of idea(s) and/or code.
[/SHAMELESS PLUG] -
Re:Cold Books vs. Cozy Books
That means reading any format I throw at it, including LIT, Palm, RTF, HTML, anything.
Tell me you're at least using Palm Fiction (and don't balk at the Russian-language site... the English version works fine :). It certainly reads Palm, RTF, and HTML (though not sure how well it does the latter), as well as Word97, plain text, and some other formats, and has more features than I could ever want in an e-book reader. It's a *fantastic* application! -
Re:We need to get hardware going autmagically
Bromskloss wrote: "my grandparents surely wouldn't"
Hi,
I've got some installation problems with the Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badgers too. I had to use the option vga=771 (and some other boot arguments for the DVD that I've written somewhere) on my Laptop Gericom Hummer 2830 Advance.
I understand that it could be difficult for some users that have some difficulties with computers.
But, when I tried to install Windows XP Pro, I've got problems that are not so easy to solve. WinXP Pro doesn't recognize properly my sound card and my video card. That is, with no extra drivers : slow (even for just XP and explorer.exe) 640x480 VGA with no sound... To install the drivers without an internet connection at home, I had to use a backup (that doesn't work to reinstall btw) and to find the right .INF and other files and to enter them in the right dialog boxes. No doubt that a lot of grandparents wouldn't.
With Ubuntu, my sound card and my video cards works fine, without extra download (I just used the complete DVD found on the website). I just had to disable my network card to gain some speed at boot but it was optionnal.
Moreover, I don't speak about the excessive time Windows can take when I connect USB devices for the first time...
So, I don't think than Windows is easier for Grandparents or other kind of people that often (but not always) have difficulties with computers.
Ah, if it was easily possible to buy PC with ubuntu preinstalled and a restauration system (+ the normal installation support of course), I think Ubuntu would be at least as easy to use as Windows... (I know this is already obvious for some people but not all)
__________
Search engines are better too when they are free : http://yfittu.sourceforge.net/ -
Two Things Left?"Ordinary User"
From what I understand, "Ordinary Users" should be fine with Linux. It's when they attempt to step out of the box that they can run into trouble - editing video, say. Or, trying to convert documents for use with Office. The two things mentioned in the article as being problematic just happen to be the two things left on the list for Linux to solve.
The first on the list will be taken care of as soon as someone releases a video package that's as comprehensive as Audacity is for audio.
The second on the list, Office interoperability looks like it's headed for a showdown very soon as a result of MS's legal battles in the UK.
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Unanswered Question.
OK, the article tells us about 3dmark, quake 4 specs, video playback, etc etc etc.
But, they don't tell us which one (if any) has a vendor supported OSS compatable driver.
Since XGL, etc (and I'm sure I'm not alone here), I've been on the lookout for a cheap & good 3d card, that doesn't give me 'kernel tainted' messages when I insert the driver.
Does anyone know if any of these have good open support (I'm going to presume patchy [at best] for ATI, closed fast drivers from nvidia & good drivers [but crappy hardware] for the s27) -
Re:What makers are in the "Good" books for GPL?
My VIA EPIA M10000 has open source drivers for every single piece of hardware, including the MPEG accelerated video driver. VIA provided source code to Linux and X.org developers. So, you could look at VIA Unichrome. Not all variants have drivers, but some do. There's also an alternative open source driver set, I don't know how they compare to the 2.6 kernel and X.org drivers.
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Re:gtalk = jabber + voice
Likely they'll use Tapioca, since that's being developed by the Nokia Technology Institute (INdT). It already runs on Linux, and, from what I've read, has been built with mobile devices in mind, specifically the 770.
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Re:hmmm
I amend my previous statement. But like many users, I was holding out for a "it just works" solution. I find that Tapioca has "won the race" (at least for me) to incorporate VoIP functionality. To my knowledge, more popular IM clients have not managed to do this. Gaim has been working on incorporating this since October, and it's still not going to get done until after the 2.0 release, which has been in beta for about 6 months. Psi is a little closer, but requires some compiling to complete, as does the plugin for Kopete. Tapioca has debian/ubuntu packages and Fedora/Suse/Mandriva rpms ready to go.
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Re:Tapioca (PLEASE MOD PARENT UP!!!)
I never knew that... GTalk voice is already implemented and tested using Tapioca, and guess what: It's been developed by Nokia!! This software has been developed at the Nokia Technology Institute at Manaus in the heart of the brazilian Amazon and that's the reason of its name. Tapioca is a typical brazilian food from Manaus.
http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php /Tapioca
Great news huh? -
Depends...
Do think of all your options. Since I don't know of any thumb drives that'd be useful, here's what I'd recommend:
I suggest you set up a dedicated backup server at each site. It doesn't have to be much of a box -- it may even cost less than the thumbdrive. We used BackupPC to manage the backups -- it's entirely automated, and it can be configured to send out an email if a backup didn't complete successfully. It'll be doing mostly incremental backups. Keep the backups on a separate partition, so you can use something like DRBD over OpenVPN to backup a more central location, which has some sort of IT staff and can handle things like putting the whole thing on a RAID, maybe even swapping out removable hard disks to take home, and of course taking snapshots just in case the filesystem itself decides to die.
Others have talked about keeping everything at multiple datacenters, so that your backup is simply that any one can be hit by a tornado and none of your branch offices even notices. That's a lot more complex than what I've described, and if your DRBD/OpenVPN should lose its connection, local operation will likely still happen -- thus backups will still happen, if only to another local hard drive.
As far as "easy to use", that's not good enough. You want "Automatic". The datacenter is really your best option, with some sort of custom software or a web-based interface. Short of that, the packages I've described will hopefully be reasonably easy to implement, and the restores can happen from a web interface. It's a bit "do-it-yourself", but in a sysad way, not a full-time-programmer way.
Physical security, I leave to you. But if you must, it's certainly easy enough to encrypt the entire hard disk. However, if someone's able to carry off your backup computer, you're probably already hosed, and in any case, they only get information related to the local branch, I hope. Your datacenter/backupcenter would obviously be much more secure, but if the whole thing goes boom, your branch offices still work, and when you bring up a new datacenter, at worst, the branch offices have to reboot the backup server. And even that can be avoided with a few cron jobs.
The thumb drives are doubtless easier to implement -- buy one, plug it in, it works -- but if you get a knowledgeable IT staff to put together a system like the one I've described, it will pretty much run itself, and be mostly free of the whole "human error" problem -- the problem of, say, the guy who forgot to backup the data that day, or the idiotic tech who, rather than backing up, decided to use the thumb drive as primary storage, or the thumb drive that went through the wash, or the building that burnt down with the thumb drive and what it was backing up inside, or that one virus that manages to get into your data, hiding for awhile before it starts destroying things, so you restore from backup, only to find the same virus in every backup.
Oh, and one more thing -- whatever you choose, test it. And by "test it", I mean take all the hardware out of the branch office, bring in brand new hardware, and try to restore from your backup. There's no meaningful test of a backup other than actually attempting to restore it, if for no reason other than to prove to your superiors, customers, and the world in general that your backup is absolutely bulletproof. -
Depends...
Do think of all your options. Since I don't know of any thumb drives that'd be useful, here's what I'd recommend:
I suggest you set up a dedicated backup server at each site. It doesn't have to be much of a box -- it may even cost less than the thumbdrive. We used BackupPC to manage the backups -- it's entirely automated, and it can be configured to send out an email if a backup didn't complete successfully. It'll be doing mostly incremental backups. Keep the backups on a separate partition, so you can use something like DRBD over OpenVPN to backup a more central location, which has some sort of IT staff and can handle things like putting the whole thing on a RAID, maybe even swapping out removable hard disks to take home, and of course taking snapshots just in case the filesystem itself decides to die.
Others have talked about keeping everything at multiple datacenters, so that your backup is simply that any one can be hit by a tornado and none of your branch offices even notices. That's a lot more complex than what I've described, and if your DRBD/OpenVPN should lose its connection, local operation will likely still happen -- thus backups will still happen, if only to another local hard drive.
As far as "easy to use", that's not good enough. You want "Automatic". The datacenter is really your best option, with some sort of custom software or a web-based interface. Short of that, the packages I've described will hopefully be reasonably easy to implement, and the restores can happen from a web interface. It's a bit "do-it-yourself", but in a sysad way, not a full-time-programmer way.
Physical security, I leave to you. But if you must, it's certainly easy enough to encrypt the entire hard disk. However, if someone's able to carry off your backup computer, you're probably already hosed, and in any case, they only get information related to the local branch, I hope. Your datacenter/backupcenter would obviously be much more secure, but if the whole thing goes boom, your branch offices still work, and when you bring up a new datacenter, at worst, the branch offices have to reboot the backup server. And even that can be avoided with a few cron jobs.
The thumb drives are doubtless easier to implement -- buy one, plug it in, it works -- but if you get a knowledgeable IT staff to put together a system like the one I've described, it will pretty much run itself, and be mostly free of the whole "human error" problem -- the problem of, say, the guy who forgot to backup the data that day, or the idiotic tech who, rather than backing up, decided to use the thumb drive as primary storage, or the thumb drive that went through the wash, or the building that burnt down with the thumb drive and what it was backing up inside, or that one virus that manages to get into your data, hiding for awhile before it starts destroying things, so you restore from backup, only to find the same virus in every backup.
Oh, and one more thing -- whatever you choose, test it. And by "test it", I mean take all the hardware out of the branch office, bring in brand new hardware, and try to restore from your backup. There's no meaningful test of a backup other than actually attempting to restore it, if for no reason other than to prove to your superiors, customers, and the world in general that your backup is absolutely bulletproof. -
Re:GPLTalk
You may try Tapioca-VoIP http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/. It can talk with Google Talk and runs on open software, with GStreamer 0.10 and DBus being major components.
It's still in development, they support SIP, but not in GUI, just the underlying framework. -
Re:Intel is the cause
Oh no? PearPC has allowed one to run the PPC version of OSX on a regular x86 box for quite some time now. Plus, old G4's are pretty cheap.
-
Re:hmmm
After I posted my remark, I started doing some more digging around again. I did run across Psi, and was going to examine it further, but it some source compiling. Kopete appears to have similiar functions available to connect with a Psi client, but it requires svn access and more compiling. While looking further, I checked out Tapioca which had simple instructions to get it going (and a number of packages for whatever linux distrobution you use). It installed, it runs, now I just need one of my friends to test it on.
;) -
Tapioca
Just use Tapioca in linux!
http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/
Connects to GTalk network, and has all the voip protocol implemented. Who needs gaim?! -
Re:gtalk = jabber + voice
-
spellchecker for firefox/moz) Re:Spelling the caus
Do you mean like this: http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/
I coincidentally only installed it today, but it appears to have been around since July 2004. -
Re:Oh yeah?
Are you aware that Sun is allowing the Apache Software Foundation to create a 100% open source build of java that complies with the official Sun spec?.
This is the best of both worlds and gives those who want a "Free Software" VM their own VM, while allowing Sun to continue shaping the future of the platform according to outside comments (JCP - Java Community Process, a process where IBM, Nokia, Intel, etc. have a say), but preserving the right to prevent "pollution" of the platform like Microsoft attempted years ago with their windows-only win32 hooks in their Java implementation.
I think some slashdotters need to read The Inquirer more often... ;-)
Sun-approved Open Source Java making progress
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30688
MAR 31, 2006
Argentina students help Apache's Open Source Java effort
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30689
MAR 31, 2006
Apache Foundation to create clearn-room Java
with Sun's blessing
Compatible open source J2SE in the works
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23127
MAY 10, 2005
About Java based apps, the "Java is a failure on the desktop" is an old MYTH. Java has been getting really nice on the desktop lately, starting with J2SE 5.0 just at the time most systems above 1Ghz are now (finally!) the norm and at a time when 512MB ram is the average.
There's a lot of java based apps that I run on my linux AND windows desktop and whic I've learned to love:
http://phex.kouk.de/ http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ http://www.artofillusion.org/index
http://www.evermoresw.com/weben/product/productOve rview.jsp - http://www.jedit.org/ - http://sourceforge.net/projects/frinika
http://sourceforge.net/projects/javaamp - http://sourceforge.net/projects/humaitrader - http://sourceforge.net/projects/jgnash/
http://megamek.sourceforge.net/idx.php?pg=main ...Editors, Music, Office Suites, P2P clients, 3D design, financial apps, games.... you name it, there is one best-of-breed app written in Java. And without having to chase a Microsoft API from behind like it happens with Mono...
https://mustang.dev.java.net/
"Sun is releasing weekly early access snapshots of the complete
source, binaries and documentation for Java SE 6 ("Mustang"). These raw snapshot releases let you review and contribute to Mustang as it is being developed."
What part of "Source" don't you understand??
I rest my case.
Finally about Desktop apps and Swing. Swing is MUCH faster in Java 6.0 (aka 1.6.0), because a lot of stuff is maped to native windows and gnome widgets. -
Re:Oh yeah?
Are you aware that Sun is allowing the Apache Software Foundation to create a 100% open source build of java that complies with the official Sun spec?.
This is the best of both worlds and gives those who want a "Free Software" VM their own VM, while allowing Sun to continue shaping the future of the platform according to outside comments (JCP - Java Community Process, a process where IBM, Nokia, Intel, etc. have a say), but preserving the right to prevent "pollution" of the platform like Microsoft attempted years ago with their windows-only win32 hooks in their Java implementation.
I think some slashdotters need to read The Inquirer more often... ;-)
Sun-approved Open Source Java making progress
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30688
MAR 31, 2006
Argentina students help Apache's Open Source Java effort
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30689
MAR 31, 2006
Apache Foundation to create clearn-room Java
with Sun's blessing
Compatible open source J2SE in the works
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23127
MAY 10, 2005
About Java based apps, the "Java is a failure on the desktop" is an old MYTH. Java has been getting really nice on the desktop lately, starting with J2SE 5.0 just at the time most systems above 1Ghz are now (finally!) the norm and at a time when 512MB ram is the average.
There's a lot of java based apps that I run on my linux AND windows desktop and whic I've learned to love:
http://phex.kouk.de/ http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ http://www.artofillusion.org/index
http://www.evermoresw.com/weben/product/productOve rview.jsp - http://www.jedit.org/ - http://sourceforge.net/projects/frinika
http://sourceforge.net/projects/javaamp - http://sourceforge.net/projects/humaitrader - http://sourceforge.net/projects/jgnash/
http://megamek.sourceforge.net/idx.php?pg=main ...Editors, Music, Office Suites, P2P clients, 3D design, financial apps, games.... you name it, there is one best-of-breed app written in Java. And without having to chase a Microsoft API from behind like it happens with Mono...
https://mustang.dev.java.net/
"Sun is releasing weekly early access snapshots of the complete
source, binaries and documentation for Java SE 6 ("Mustang"). These raw snapshot releases let you review and contribute to Mustang as it is being developed."
What part of "Source" don't you understand??
I rest my case.
Finally about Desktop apps and Swing. Swing is MUCH faster in Java 6.0 (aka 1.6.0), because a lot of stuff is maped to native windows and gnome widgets.