Credit is not debt, credit is paying off your debt. If all you do is get debt and don't pay it off your credit rating is going to be lousy.
I have a credit card. I pay it off 100% in full at the end of every month. See, unlike most of the idiots out there I don't use it to buy stuff I can't afford, I use it because it's far more convenient and safer than carrying around $1,000 in cash to make it through the month. Since I pay it off in full there is no interest.
Let me repeat that, no interest, no debt, and yet it builds my credit rating so when I want a mortgage, or a car, or other expensive thing I have the option to take on debt to do it.
If you did the exact same purchases on a credit card you do on your debit card and you chose your credit card wisely it would cost you no more money and build your credit rating. Then, down the road you might have a credit card with a $20,000 limit when a real emergency occurs, where as with your current plan you'll have whatever is in your bank account at that moment, as no creditor will have enough history to give you a loan.
I'm not sure a boot device / standard first partition for a laptop is where ZFS shines, or where Apple would put a lot of focus. However, look at the server space. Lots of people like XSan. Products like Final Cut Server demand huge piles of storage, often XSan, and could use a lot of the properties of ZFS file systems. They could also be exported directly as file systems and mounted on desktops and laptops.
"Default" in this case may mean the default for your XServe RAID, or XSan, but not for your laptop.
Actually, I think the market has fractured. Those who need ultra high speed or ultra high capacity still look to CF as there's more space for cutting edge stuff. CF has become the professional standard, and SD the consumer standard. Looking at most digital camcorder product lines tends to validate my statement.
The largest component of the cost difference is the SLA. Your T1 goes down on a holiday weekend and someone is there to fix it in a couple of hours. Manpower is very expensive.
I think something people fail to realize is that many short-haul T1's (where you don't need the old school high voltage equipment) are in fact DSL lines! Yes, SDSL, not ADSL, but they are delivered over DSL equipment. You're paying for guaranteed bandwidth, a symmetrical pipe, low latency and jitter, the ability to support TDM services, and an SLA. For the Internet, many people do not need all of that.
I have a "business class" cable modem. The speed is the exact same as my providers "residential" cable modem, and it's provided with the exact same modem over the exact same cable plant. But it's $20/month more. However, when it went out last week I called at 8AM, got a person on the first ring (no IVR, no waiting) who said they would have a tech out before noon on the same day. He was there by 10AM, and had it working by 11AM. The extra $20 was for better service, not upload/download speed service, better customer service.
There are an ever growing number of stories about companies that block WebMail, IM, VoIP, and other technologies being viewed as completely unappealing by the younger generation. Coming out of colleges and being used to being on 4 IM networks at once, using Skype to make free calls to all their friends, and being on Gmail 24x7 they have, quite frankly, shock when they go to places that block them and typically don't last more than 6 months.
So the pitch to the board isn't, our customers want to do this, the pitch is if you don't find a way to securely allow it you'll cease to be able to hire qualified applicants, cease to be able to attract the most clueful applicatants (who know the policy is stupid), and generally fall behind in information technology. Your competitors who have a more progressive policy will, on the other hand attract these candidates and put your company out of business with better technology.
1) Dell rep calls Suse, says they will pre-install Suse (and charge the going rate for it) if Suse will make the image and handle support (for the fee, of course).
2) Dell rep calls Red Hat. Cuts the same deal.
3) Dell makes images for 5-10 other distributions. Cost, perhaps a man month each, tops. So maybe $10-$15k of personel time. Charges 50% of the Suse/RedHat costs to pre-install the "community supported" option, includes huge disclaimer that they offer no support.
Dell gives you the option of any of the above on your new system. They modify their imaging solution ever so slightly to have 15 options (10 linux and 5 windows, rather than just 5 windows) and order entry system to allow the orders to pick.
Total cost to Dell? A few 10's of thousands to update all their imaging stations with 500 gig drives rather than 160 gig drives to store the images. Another $50k to update the order entry system. Plus costs per OS image developed.
Being generous, $500k of investment. Now, a half million is no chump change. But let's say they charge $25 for a Linux install (vrs $50-$70 to MS, for Windows et all). They only have to sell 20,000 boxes to recoup the investment. Given the number of computers Dell moves, if they can't sell 20,000 Linux boxes in a quarter or so (hey, an ROI of 3 months should be good enough) than their truely is no market for Linux.
Of course, the reality is it's probably such a broken large company that it will cost them $500k just to run the survey on their web site; and it's that level of mismanagement that will keep them from offering Linux.
I believe your comment is only playing the probabilities. If one software player is broken they may well revoke the key and make that player upgrade. However, if the set of players making up 95% of the software player market are all broken on a monthly basis it will become increasinly costly and inconvenient to have them all revoked each month. Are there any limits on the size of the revokation list? If it got too long, would that break the hardware players?
While breaking one or more hardware players may force the situation sooner, this may be a war of attrition.
I use FreeBSD at work, because it's the best OS for servers.
I deal with Windows, Exchange, Office, because my employer will bear the costs.
When I shell out my own money for a new machine, I buy an Apple. I pay money to never have to write this story. I am fortunate to have the money to do that (not that it's a huge premium), but I love being able to buy a new machine and well, start using it immediately to do useful work. It even helps me migrate from my old machine in a useful way. In minutes.
I see a lot of posts that 2MW is a lot of power. Perhaps.
There are many facilities out there with 10-30 2MW generators. I personally worked on a facility that had 18. 12 were for "critical load", that is, things fed via UPS's. This included all of the servers and networking equipment, the NOC, emergency lighting, fire supression systems and soforth. The other 6 were for "emergency load", these were things that did not need UPS protection (they could go down), just not for long. Virtually all of this load was air conditioning. So when the power went out the A/C's went off and came back 30-60 second later on generator, while the servers and all stayed up the same time.
While big, it's far from the largest facility out there.
Now, why would you buy one generator? Well, many buildings use bus variations (the whole N+1, or N+2 thing). So you build your data center for all 18 generators (as above), but install 6 and 3, or half the capacity. You now wait for the building to fill to 25-30%, and then start adding more generators, one at a time. However, they now have to be matched to the other generators.
Now, why are data center generators special? Well, to switch from one AC source to another the two loads must be approximately in phase (there is some tolerance, but it's small). So in order to be able to switch between generators, switch from UPS to generator, and all that other stuff you need additional circuitry to keep the generator just so. While the engine block and generator were the same as say a diesel locomotive, there were some additional sensors, lots of additional computer control, and some additional quick start features.
Most sites want their backup generators to be "ready to load" in 15-30 seconds. Indeed, several manufacturers make 10 second ready to load units. However that requires things like engine oil and coolant heaters that basically keep the entire motor warm 24x7x365. These are not found on industrial generators or locomotives.
So, they really are special, high tech tight tolerance units designed to work in a system. When you connect to WoW or your other large game you're probably one one of a thousand servers run by that company, who is one of but hundreds of companies in the larger colo facilities. It's not uncommon to find 50,000 servers under a single roof. So you need lots, and lots, of 2MW generators.
One of the nice advantages of the zealot-ware is that (generally) the applications are much more well behavied about where they install the software, and where they put your data.
Encrypting my documents is cool and all, but all sorts of apps, including many Microsoft ones put bits of your sensitive data all over the place. So encrypting my documents on your Windows PC gets you about 75% effectiveness, where as doing your home directory on an OSX box gives you about 99% effectiveness.
Of course, one also has to be worried that the Windows passwords are easily crackable (http://elliottback.com/wp/archives/2006/04/26/cra cking-windows-passwords-with-ophcrack-and-rainbow- tables/). But I guess that's good when you forget your password.
System Preferences -> Security. Click "turn on file vault". A few minutes later, you're done.
Also check "Use secure virtual memory" (aka encrypt swap) on the same tab.
Now swap and your home directory (so all important data) is encrypted. The OS and applications are not. As a result performance degredation is minimal.
In the business enviornment the business can set a recovery password in case the user forgets, dies, whatever. The user's login password is the only password they need.
Free. Easy to use, you do nothing. Minimal performance impact. So the real reason most people aren't doing it? They are stuck with Windows bloatware or are ignorant.
Telcos for years have been running equipment off -48v DC power. It makes a UPS unnecessary, have an A and B battery bank, feed it with a set of expandable rectifiers, and hook up the equipment through some breakers. You can even get -48v servers today from several vendors. It's high enough voltage the transmission loss isn't bad, but low enough and DC that it's easy to make efficient DC-DC converters.
Verizon EvDO comes to mind. Sprint offers a similar service. There are sometimes local LMDS providers. Cable, DSL, ISDN, T1 (it's not always as expensive as you think).
An EvDO or similar data card is typically around $60/month, and can be used by travelers to boot. Every business should have a backup when affordable, and this one is....
It's not manditory, and I believe it works the way most "non-geeks" would expect.
It follows the software volume setting from when you turned off your Mac.
You can also mute it by holding F3 while booting your Mac, which on any Apple keyboard has the "mute speaker" icon, which is also how you mute the speaker in software.
There are also many free utilities that can disable it for you.
I suppose using Google to search for "mac startup sound mute" and hitting I'm feeling lucky was too hard. The result is pretty clear....
I used to work with a guy who had wrist problems, which isn't quite the same. But still, he swore by a Data Hand keyboard. I tried to use them, and well, way to weird for me. If set up properly one of the fingers will work as your mouse, so you don't need one separate. When used properly you can also type WAY fast.
No, for higher geek value you should have bought one at http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/5a9f/ three years before Sharper Image had them. And yes, it's clear and you can see the inside workings.
Will students be able to install software on the laptop?
No, students installing software on school owned computers is a direct violation of the KASD Computer Policy. Students who violate the policy will be disciplined. All of the software necessary to integrate the laptop technology into the curriculum will be installed when the laptop is issued to the student. Security monitoring software will be used on all of the computers to assure that software is not loaded on the laptops. See the "Software" webpage in regards to the software installed on each laptop.
and
Will students be able to email, chat, and play games on their laptops?
Chat, IM, games, and email software will be removed from all computers. Student use of email, chatting, IM, and game playing is a direct violation of the KASD computer policy. Students who violate the computer policy will be disciplined.
most of all
What about computer viruses?
A virus that is written for the Windows Operating System (Win98, 2000, XP) cannot infect the Macintosh Operating system.
I'm sure to anyone reading slashdot it's clear the school board, and school district were completely unprepared for giving every student a computer. Use a computer without downloading any software? Ever? Are they high? You couldn't even install a dashboard widget. They also clearly don't understand why there is a much more limited virus risk for macs, there is still a risk.
It's crap like this that makes me not want to have kids.
Where I come from the airport charges you for how much gas you put in the plane. When the fuel bill was 2,600 lbs short that should have been a clue....
A New Jersey man was charged Tuesday under federal anti-terrorism laws with shining a laser beam at a charter jet flying over his home, temporarily distracting the pilots.
Justice Department officials said they do not suspect terrorism in any of the cases, but said Banach's arrest shows how seriously they take the matter.
So, if the agency arresting you doesn't suspect terrorism, how can they charge you under an anti-terrorism law? That's what is broken here. I hope this guy uses their public statements that he's not a terrorist and that they do not suspect terrorism against them.
Slashdot Mirror
Credit is not debt, credit is paying off your debt. If all you do is get debt and don't pay it off your credit rating is going to be lousy.
I have a credit card. I pay it off 100% in full at the end of every month. See, unlike most of the idiots out there I don't use it to buy stuff I can't afford, I use it because it's far more convenient and safer than carrying around $1,000 in cash to make it through the month. Since I pay it off in full there is no interest.
Let me repeat that, no interest, no debt, and yet it builds my credit rating so when I want a mortgage, or a car, or other expensive thing I have the option to take on debt to do it.
If you did the exact same purchases on a credit card you do on your debit card and you chose your credit card wisely it would cost you no more money and build your credit rating. Then, down the road you might have a credit card with a $20,000 limit when a real emergency occurs, where as with your current plan you'll have whatever is in your bank account at that moment, as no creditor will have enough history to give you a loan.
I'm not sure a boot device / standard first partition for a laptop is where ZFS shines, or where Apple would put a lot of focus. However, look at the server space. Lots of people like XSan. Products like Final Cut Server demand huge piles of storage, often XSan, and could use a lot of the properties of ZFS file systems. They could also be exported directly as file systems and mounted on desktops and laptops.
"Default" in this case may mean the default for your XServe RAID, or XSan, but not for your laptop.
Actually, I think the market has fractured. Those who need ultra high speed or ultra high capacity still look to CF as there's more space for cutting edge stuff. CF has become the professional standard, and SD the consumer standard. Looking at most digital camcorder product lines tends to validate my statement.
The largest component of the cost difference is the SLA. Your T1 goes down on a holiday weekend and someone is there to fix it in a couple of hours. Manpower is very expensive.
I think something people fail to realize is that many short-haul T1's (where you don't need the old school high voltage equipment) are in fact DSL lines! Yes, SDSL, not ADSL, but they are delivered over DSL equipment. You're paying for guaranteed bandwidth, a symmetrical pipe, low latency and jitter, the ability to support TDM services, and an SLA. For the Internet, many people do not need all of that.
I have a "business class" cable modem. The speed is the exact same as my providers "residential" cable modem, and it's provided with the exact same modem over the exact same cable plant. But it's $20/month more. However, when it went out last week I called at 8AM, got a person on the first ring (no IVR, no waiting) who said they would have a tech out before noon on the same day. He was there by 10AM, and had it working by 11AM. The extra $20 was for better service, not upload/download speed service, better customer service.
There are an ever growing number of stories about companies that block WebMail, IM, VoIP, and other technologies being viewed as completely unappealing by the younger generation. Coming out of colleges and being used to being on 4 IM networks at once, using Skype to make free calls to all their friends, and being on Gmail 24x7 they have, quite frankly, shock when they go to places that block them and typically don't last more than 6 months.
So the pitch to the board isn't, our customers want to do this, the pitch is if you don't find a way to securely allow it you'll cease to be able to hire qualified applicants, cease to be able to attract the most clueful applicatants (who know the policy is stupid), and generally fall behind in information technology. Your competitors who have a more progressive policy will, on the other hand attract these candidates and put your company out of business with better technology.
1) Dell rep calls Suse, says they will pre-install Suse (and charge the going rate for it) if Suse will make the image and handle support (for the fee, of course).
2) Dell rep calls Red Hat. Cuts the same deal.
3) Dell makes images for 5-10 other distributions. Cost, perhaps a man month each, tops. So maybe $10-$15k of personel time. Charges 50% of the Suse/RedHat costs to pre-install the "community supported" option, includes huge disclaimer that they offer no support.
Dell gives you the option of any of the above on your new system. They modify their imaging solution ever so slightly to have 15 options (10 linux and 5 windows, rather than just 5 windows) and order entry system to allow the orders to pick.
Total cost to Dell? A few 10's of thousands to update all their imaging stations with 500 gig drives rather than 160 gig drives to store the images. Another $50k to update the order entry system. Plus costs per OS image developed.
Being generous, $500k of investment. Now, a half million is no chump change. But let's say they charge $25 for a Linux install (vrs $50-$70 to MS, for Windows et all). They only have to sell 20,000 boxes to recoup the investment. Given the number of computers Dell moves, if they can't sell 20,000 Linux boxes in a quarter or so (hey, an ROI of 3 months should be good enough) than their truely is no market for Linux.
Of course, the reality is it's probably such a broken large company that it will cost them $500k just to run the survey on their web site; and it's that level of mismanagement that will keep them from offering Linux.
I believe your comment is only playing the probabilities. If one software player is broken they may well revoke the key and make that player upgrade. However, if the set of players making up 95% of the software player market are all broken on a monthly basis it will become increasinly costly and inconvenient to have them all revoked each month. Are there any limits on the size of the revokation list? If it got too long, would that break the hardware players?
While breaking one or more hardware players may force the situation sooner, this may be a war of attrition.
It worked to clean up the freeways, and gives NASA an excuse to develop faster cheaper ways to get people into space and do space walks.
The question is, is this post Funny or Insightful?
I use FreeBSD at work, because it's the best OS for servers.
I deal with Windows, Exchange, Office, because my employer will bear the costs.
When I shell out my own money for a new machine, I buy an Apple. I pay money to never have to write this story. I am fortunate to have the money to do that (not that it's a huge premium), but I love being able to buy a new machine and well, start using it immediately to do useful work. It even helps me migrate from my old machine in a useful way. In minutes.
I see a lot of posts that 2MW is a lot of power. Perhaps.
There are many facilities out there with 10-30 2MW generators. I personally worked on a facility that had 18. 12 were for "critical load", that is, things fed via UPS's. This included all of the servers and networking equipment, the NOC, emergency lighting, fire supression systems and soforth. The other 6 were for "emergency load", these were things that did not need UPS protection (they could go down), just not for long. Virtually all of this load was air conditioning. So when the power went out the A/C's went off and came back 30-60 second later on generator, while the servers and all stayed up the same time.
While big, it's far from the largest facility out there.
Now, why would you buy one generator? Well, many buildings use bus variations (the whole N+1, or N+2 thing). So you build your data center for all 18 generators (as above), but install 6 and 3, or half the capacity. You now wait for the building to fill to 25-30%, and then start adding more generators, one at a time. However, they now have to be matched to the other generators.
Now, why are data center generators special? Well, to switch from one AC source to another the two loads must be approximately in phase (there is some tolerance, but it's small). So in order to be able to switch between generators, switch from UPS to generator, and all that other stuff you need additional circuitry to keep the generator just so. While the engine block and generator were the same as say a diesel locomotive, there were some additional sensors, lots of additional computer control, and some additional quick start features.
Most sites want their backup generators to be "ready to load" in 15-30 seconds. Indeed, several manufacturers make 10 second ready to load units. However that requires things like engine oil and coolant heaters that basically keep the entire motor warm 24x7x365. These are not found on industrial generators or locomotives.
So, they really are special, high tech tight tolerance units designed to work in a system. When you connect to WoW or your other large game you're probably one one of a thousand servers run by that company, who is one of but hundreds of companies in the larger colo facilities. It's not uncommon to find 50,000 servers under a single roof. So you need lots, and lots, of 2MW generators.
One of the nice advantages of the zealot-ware is that (generally) the applications are much more well behavied about where they install the software, and where they put your data.
a cking-windows-passwords-with-ophcrack-and-rainbow- tables/). But I guess that's good when you forget your password.
Encrypting my documents is cool and all, but all sorts of apps, including many Microsoft ones put bits of your sensitive data all over the place. So encrypting my documents on your Windows PC gets you about 75% effectiveness, where as doing your home directory on an OSX box gives you about 99% effectiveness.
Of course, one also has to be worried that the Windows passwords are easily crackable (http://elliottback.com/wp/archives/2006/04/26/cr
System Preferences -> Security. Click "turn on file vault". A few minutes later, you're done.
Also check "Use secure virtual memory" (aka encrypt swap) on the same tab.
Now swap and your home directory (so all important data) is encrypted. The OS and applications are not. As a result performance degredation is minimal.
In the business enviornment the business can set a recovery password in case the user forgets, dies, whatever. The user's login password is the only password they need.
Free. Easy to use, you do nothing. Minimal performance impact. So the real reason most people aren't doing it? They are stuck with Windows bloatware or are ignorant.
Telcos for years have been running equipment off -48v DC power. It makes a UPS unnecessary, have an A and B battery bank, feed it with a set of expandable rectifiers, and hook up the equipment through some breakers. You can even get -48v servers today from several vendors. It's high enough voltage the transmission loss isn't bad, but low enough and DC that it's easy to make efficient DC-DC converters.
Why is reinventing the wheel at 12v better?
Verizon EvDO comes to mind. Sprint offers a similar service. There are sometimes local LMDS providers. Cable, DSL, ISDN, T1 (it's not always as expensive as you think).
An EvDO or similar data card is typically around $60/month, and can be used by travelers to boot. Every business should have a backup when affordable, and this one is....
It's not manditory, and I believe it works the way most "non-geeks" would expect.
a c_help/pages/0025-startup_sound.html
It follows the software volume setting from when you turned off your Mac.
You can also mute it by holding F3 while booting your Mac, which on any Apple keyboard has the "mute speaker" icon, which is also how you mute the speaker in software.
There are also many free utilities that can disable it for you.
I suppose using Google to search for "mac startup sound mute" and hitting I'm feeling lucky was too hard. The result is pretty clear....
http://homepage.mac.com/geerlingguy/mac_support/m
Give away hardware supported by ad revenue. Never seen that model before.
I used to work with a guy who had wrist problems, which isn't quite the same. But still, he swore by a Data Hand keyboard. I tried to use them, and well, way to weird for me. If set up properly one of the fingers will work as your mouse, so you don't need one separate. When used properly you can also type WAY fast.
So Intel can finally do what IBM developed back in the 1960's. LPAR anyone?
I think the burned CD can be made much more appealing via a $0.30 sharpie....
"Pam Anderson Sex Video"
"WoW cheats"
" home videos"
I'm sure there are many more possibilities...
I can't say how much this poster gets it. Right on, bravo...and if only most professors understood.
No, for higher geek value you should have bought one at http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/5a9f/ three years before Sharper Image had them. And yes, it's clear and you can see the inside workings.
Does this mean we can call them French Frys again and stop with all the Freedom Fry nonsense?
Where I come from the airport charges you for how much gas you put in the plane. When the fuel bill was 2,600 lbs short that should have been a clue....