it holds its own against Horizon, III, Aleph and the big boys of integrated library systems.
Not even close - I've been keeping an eye on Koha and Evergreen, but they're missing a *lot* of features that our commercial ILS has . It costs an awful lot of money to run (and even more to buy in the first place), but until they support things like EDI, serials, and proper acquisition management it'll be very difficult to sell them to big libraries, even with the obvious cost savings. Koha has got a lot better lately, but it *still* doesn't support LoC classmark as far as I know:(
Anything that reduces costs for some libraries, and raises the bar for the commercial vendors has to be a good thing, though.
I've recently been looking at the Transtec IDE/SCSI rackmount disk packs. They do tower versions as well, which take up to 16 large IDE disks, with raid 0/1/5 and provide dual host SCSI out. Ideal for getting large amounts of redundant storage at a reasonable price if seek performance isn't critical.
If anyone has used these particular models, I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences...
Judging from the observed (in)competency of hundreds of college graduates, I'd say that anything requiring in-depth knowledge doesn't appeal to most boys, either.
Unfortunely, it appears that academic librarians like to use products that are far removed from open source. You have to pay and keep paying some company. Why universities of all plces do this is beyond me...
This is very true, however, there's also very good reasons for it. A good example is our main library system, which contains the catalogue, as well as purchasing and transactions for all our books and fines, support and responsibility is essential.
In fact linux (and other unixes) are used quite a bit its just that the databases/apps are commerical and very inflexible.
We also make heavy use of both linux and freebsd, but our critical systems are running solaris on sun hardware. Our integrated library system runs on top of oracle, and certainly isn't inflexible. It's a good, reliable product with excellent support, and for a role that pretty much the whole library, and to a certain extent, the whole of campus relies on, it's nice to _know_ that we have support.
I suspect libraries will be using a mix of OSS and commercial products for a long time. We've certainly found that using the two together allows a great deal of flexibility.
I work in the systems office of a fairly large UK university library, so I tend to keep a close eye on these things. Check out koha, a complete open source library catalogue system, which appears to be growing in popularity. Also worth a look are the perl4lib and oss4lib mailing lists.
The reason i prefer mozilla on win32 is quicklaunch
That's my major reason for preferring mozilla too. The other personal gripe is mozillas ctrl-enter in the addressbar for opening a site in a new tab has been removed from phoenix since 0.4.
I don't think Solaris 9 support the Sparc 10/20 series anymore.
Solaris 9 certainly does work on sparcstation 5/10 (and other sun4m machines, I assume). Looking at the docs, Sun say 9 will be the last release to support the sun4m architecture.
It runs surprisingly well, if a little slowly, on my 32 meg 85 MHz Sparcstation 5...
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but OASIS is an incredibly flexible ad management system. I've not used it in production (management decision), but in testing it showed itself up fairly well. It's fast, reliable, and has some excellent ad/sponsor management features.
uses a super-compatible (xml) format to store address info that would be interchangeable between cell phones, computers of any OS, and handhelds.
SyncML is exactly that - any compatible device (my shiny new 9210 does it:P) that can talk syncml can exchange contacts, data, and other personal info without problem. It's open too. Yum.
it'd be tempting to send Radek round, but you've got the problem of finding them in the first place. Get in touch with the police, and get your friends to note down the message headers of the emails. Then with a selection of times and IP's the police should be able to contact the ISP, and find out what phone number the theif is dialling from.
Of course, this hinges on the chances of you finding a cop with a clue;)
I have a dell inspiron 8000, and doing normal stuff (browsing, email, ssh, the odd game) I get about 3 hours per battery. With the second battery fitted I get about 6 hours, which is more than enough for most uses.
And that with that lovely 15.1" 1600x1200 display running. yum.
...it's horribly patent encumbered, and even more expensive than MP3 to license. At least we have Ogg Vorbis to make up for it. Sure, it may not be quite so small, but at least it's completely *free*, and storage isn't so much of an issue these days...
Now I'm putting all my CPU time towards finding a cure for cancer. IMO, United Devices' client is much better, too.
you have to be kidding me. The UD client is ram hungry, doesn't do multiple CPUs, and is windows only. The d.net client uses 600k of ram, handles as many cpus as you've got, and has a client for just about every OS/architecture there is.
worth it just for the terminal (and the ability to telnet, and remote-display,...)
My psion 5mx has VNC, SSH and telnet on it, along with a perfectly usable bash clone.
It also has a 640x240 display which makes it nice and practical, and a keyboard, which makes using SSH/telnet viable, and it also has a bunch of fantastic apps.
ok, so it's not open, and it's not linux, but it is practical, fast, and reliable. Unless the agenda really is stunning, I know what I'll be sticking with.
..with CPRM is that they've been pushing for it to be integrated into the ATA specification, which contrary to what they claim *IS* very relevant to hard drives. They claim it's specifically for removable devices, but almost all removable hardware uses the ATAPI commandset -of which CPRM won't be a part, so it will be largely ineffective from that point of view. AFAIK, the only mainstream removable device that uses ATA is onstream's series of ADR tape drives.
..is to implement 802.11 (or some similar wireless networking) all round the park - then provide online maps, info, streaming video, and maybe have the ability to order food/drink/mechandise and have it brought to you, all from a wireless equipped palmtop device.
oh, and it'd be cool to be able to check email too;P
Slashdot Mirror
it holds its own against Horizon, III, Aleph and the big boys of integrated library systems.
:(
Not even close - I've been keeping an eye on Koha and Evergreen, but they're missing a *lot* of features that our commercial ILS has . It costs an awful lot of money to run (and even more to buy in the first place), but until they support things like EDI, serials, and proper acquisition management it'll be very difficult to sell them to big libraries, even with the obvious cost savings. Koha has got a lot better lately, but it *still* doesn't support LoC classmark as far as I know
Anything that reduces costs for some libraries, and raises the bar for the commercial vendors has to be a good thing, though.
The disks are ok - the controllers are a bit pap. It's the same in the T2000, sadly :(
See my benchmarks - I might get around to doing one of the X4100s we've got for comparison...
Some of us already have.
Of course, you could buy a bluetooth GPS unit ;)
another mirror
buyer collects?
Does anyone have any solutions for a mirroring file system? Basically RAID 1 over a network.
Yes, drbd. RAID style redundancy is not an alternative to good backups though.
I've recently been looking at the Transtec IDE/SCSI rackmount disk packs. They do tower versions as well, which take up to 16 large IDE disks, with raid 0/1/5 and provide dual host SCSI out. Ideal for getting large amounts of redundant storage at a reasonable price if seek performance isn't critical.
If anyone has used these particular models, I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences...
here and here seem to have some interesting examples of this, but I guess you already know this, since you already did a google search? :)
They work fine under XP here.
Judging from the observed (in)competency of hundreds of college graduates, I'd say that anything requiring in-depth knowledge doesn't appeal to most boys, either.
If only this weren't so true...
Worth a look is this article written by a girl doing CS at the university of kent.
Unfortunely, it appears that academic librarians like to use products that are far removed from open source. You have to pay and keep paying some company. Why universities of all plces do this is beyond me...
This is very true, however, there's also very good reasons for it. A good example is our main library system, which contains the catalogue, as well as purchasing and transactions for all our books and fines, support and responsibility is essential.
In fact linux (and other unixes) are used quite a bit its just that the databases/apps are commerical and very inflexible.
We also make heavy use of both linux and freebsd, but our critical systems are running solaris on sun hardware. Our integrated library system runs on top of oracle, and certainly isn't inflexible. It's a good, reliable product with excellent support, and for a role that pretty much the whole library, and to a certain extent, the whole of campus relies on, it's nice to _know_ that we have support.
I suspect libraries will be using a mix of OSS and commercial products for a long time. We've certainly found that using the two together allows a great deal of flexibility.
I work in the systems office of a fairly large UK university library, so I tend to keep a close eye on these things. Check out koha, a complete open source library catalogue system, which appears to be growing in popularity.
Also worth a look are the perl4lib and oss4lib mailing lists.
The reason i prefer mozilla on win32 is quicklaunch
That's my major reason for preferring mozilla too. The other personal gripe is mozillas ctrl-enter in the addressbar for opening a site in a new tab has been removed from phoenix since 0.4.
I don't think Solaris 9 support the Sparc 10/20 series anymore.
Solaris 9 certainly does work on sparcstation 5/10 (and other sun4m machines, I assume). Looking at the docs, Sun say 9 will be the last release to support the sun4m architecture. It runs surprisingly well, if a little slowly, on my 32 meg 85 MHz Sparcstation 5...
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but OASIS is an incredibly flexible ad management system. I've not used it in production (management decision), but in testing it showed itself up fairly well. It's fast, reliable, and has some excellent ad/sponsor management features.
uses a super-compatible (xml) format to store address info that would be interchangeable between cell phones, computers of any OS, and handhelds.
:P) that can talk syncml can exchange contacts, data, and other personal info without problem. It's open too. Yum.
SyncML is exactly that - any compatible device (my shiny new 9210 does it
it'd be tempting to send Radek round, but you've got the problem of finding them in the first place. Get in touch with the police, and get your friends to note down the message headers of the emails. Then with a selection of times and IP's the police should be able to contact the ISP, and find out what phone number the theif is dialling from. Of course, this hinges on the chances of you finding a cop with a clue ;)
I have a dell inspiron 8000, and doing normal stuff (browsing, email, ssh, the odd game) I get about 3 hours per battery. With the second battery fitted I get about 6 hours, which is more than enough for most uses.
And that with that lovely 15.1" 1600x1200 display running. yum.
...it's horribly patent encumbered, and even more expensive than MP3 to license. At least we have Ogg Vorbis to make up for it. Sure, it may not be quite so small, but at least it's completely *free*, and storage isn't so much of an issue these days...
Now I'm putting all my CPU time towards finding a cure for cancer. IMO, United Devices' client is much better, too.
you have to be kidding me. The UD client is ram hungry, doesn't do multiple CPUs, and is windows only. The d.net client uses 600k of ram, handles as many cpus as you've got, and has a client for just about every OS/architecture there is.
Besides, UD is a for-profit company...
worth it just for the terminal (and the ability to telnet, and remote-display, ...)
My psion 5mx has VNC, SSH and telnet on it, along with a perfectly usable bash clone.
It also has a 640x240 display which makes it nice and practical, and a keyboard, which makes using SSH/telnet viable, and it also has a bunch of fantastic apps.
ok, so it's not open, and it's not linux, but it is practical, fast, and reliable. Unless the agenda really is stunning, I know what I'll be sticking with.
..with CPRM is that they've been pushing for it to be integrated into the ATA specification, which contrary to what they claim *IS* very relevant to hard drives. They claim it's specifically for removable devices, but almost all removable hardware uses the ATAPI commandset -of which CPRM won't be a part, so it will be largely ineffective from that point of view.
AFAIK, the only mainstream removable device that uses ATA is onstream's series of ADR tape drives.
..is to implement 802.11 (or some similar wireless networking) all round the park - then provide online maps, info, streaming video, and maybe have the ability to order food/drink/mechandise and have it brought to you, all from a wireless equipped palmtop device.
;P
oh, and it'd be cool to be able to check email too