What they are actually doing is the latest modern improvement in the scientific method:
This is the new step where a non trained and non qualified person gets to make a final determination on subject that previously could only be judged by waiting for the results of experimentation.
This replaces the previous doctrine of popular acclaim in the mainstream media.
("Did you know the average 50 year old man has 5 pounds of undigested red meat in his colon?")
It used to be that the RAID failures that I would see went pretty much by the book. Maybe it was most of the file servers we worked with were NetWare (which just plain worked...) or some other detail like less intelligence in the drive to mask problems. No matter what the reason, RAID failures with less then wonderful results have become rather common.
As a broad generality:
The onboard and inexpensive SATA and IDE controllers seem to have problems detecting a failure or even which drive is failing. They also don't seem to have a good way to report to the OS that a drive is having troubles. It is also common for them to not have a way to rebuild the mirror from a single drive. It is mind boggling when the build functions wipe both drives!!!
The fact that Windows doesn't like to tell you about drive errors makes the built in software RAID fail in really irritating fashions. Here is the prize winning failure:
Customer calls in and claims "All of my data on the server is 6 months old". I explained that the server didn't have a mechanism to roll back the data to an earlier version. I head over to their office and the data is really 6 months old and no one there has the technical sophistication to do this.
After I get them back up I take the problem server back to the shop and discover that the 1st drive is totally dead, the BIOS doesn't even see it. The server was booting off the 2nd drive and from the eventlog it was obvious that the drive had been offline for 6 months.
- Obviously the fault tolerance had failed 6 months ago and the lack of a repetitive and/or audible alert (like NetWare does...) had allowed the problem to go on without any notice. After 6 months the first drive died completely and the server boots from the 2nd drive with 6 month old data. SInce then I have seen multiple variations on this theme...
The end result is that RAID doesn't hurt but you need to backup as if the computer is going to fail because they always do if given enough time.
To a large extent I agree with this. I just don't agree with the conclusion.
FAT is a little more prone to wonkyness in the directory, and yes it can pile up over time but what does that prove? Even though the directory has been stirred with a spoon you can still get at it.
NTFS has a higher tendency of having a problem and then everything is gone unless you have some serious tools.
The bad part of recovery is when you are working with a drive that is seriously in failure mode and getting worse you are in a race against time getting the data off the drive.
With NTFS the scanning process to find data takes time that may kill the drive.
With FAT you can usually start pulling data right from the start and as the drive degrades it gets harder and slower until the drive is dead. Often the NT based system you are trying to recover it with will refuse to mount the drive. The Win 9X systems will look at the drive and still try to mount it.
I'm not a big fan of full OS recovery backups for non AD dependent systems. For file data backups I work from a "Get the data and slap it into a fresh loaded box" kind of theory. It means you can toss the data onto any working box or put it on a fresh image/load on the old system. Just step past the problem and keep going. (besides it does away with all of the assorted junk people load on their computers...)
Windows can toast NTFS just as often as FAT. I know Microsoft has trained everyone on the gospel of NTFS but it isn't a big selling point. One difference is that FAT gives you a much larger variety of recovery options. You can have a FAT toasted beyond recognition and still get it back by putting it into a Win 9X box. It is amazingly resilient.
The big problem in this picture is the way that Windows deals with drive errors. It doesn't report them and people commonly discover that one of the drives in a mirrored pair is dead when the second drive dies and leaves them with nothing.
The only way to seriously protect data is Multiple methods of backup and multiple media.
Plus you need to remember that a common first sign of a drive failure is the backups start to fail. If you don't notice it and keep swapping media, pretty soon you have a media set with no backups on it.
One of the bad assumptions in this chain of logic is that the poor schmuck who had their identity stolen can get their $5k (or whatever...) in losses back from the hospital.
A more likely scenario is they either eat the cost or they get a lawyer and spend $$$ to have their lawyer whomped by the hospital's much larger legal department and then end up eating the lawyer fees on top of the initial losses.
The fact that the military discovered that they had lost terabytes of info on a new fighter tells me that they have no clue. A secure military network with any sort of internet link??? GAAAAK!
Anyone who says they can absolutely protect an internet connection is either lying or deluded. You can protect against known attacks. There is no way to be 100% protected against unknown attacks. The attacks to be worried about are always the unknown attacks.
SP3 can break things. Just one example: Latitude D600 hooked to external monitor that is rotated. Upgrade to SP3 and you can't rotate. I have about 3500 PCs out in the field in 800+ customer's offices that are not on 'managed networks'. I have 2 guys on the phones and 4 in the field to support all that. The possibility of breaking their core business software (that might not be current) is a very valid business reason not to jump off that cliff.
Should they update to SP3? Maybe but SP3 isn't a notable safeguard against malware. Updating Flash, Java, the browser, and a few individual security patches is a notable safeguard.
They can work today. Assuming their HD doesn't pack it in I can assure them that they can work tomorrow but I can't do that if they update to SP3.
SP3 has been very good at uninstalling without pooching the OS which is a major improvement from previous MS SPs. Probably by the end of the year or so we will be at the point where enough of the equipment and software will have been updated so we can make a blanket recommendation to update to SP3.
I was rather shocked to find the Win 7 beta to be easy to deal with. (after the disaster/joke that is Vista!) On a generic 1 year old laptop it was 22 minutes from inserting the DVD to completing login to the desktop. And it didn't ask for a single driver.
I used it the next day to do dial in support for customers while I was on jury duty. I had a drive with my XP load for the system but it wasn't worth shutting down the computer to swap drives.
I still dislike the visually complex 'cartoon' interface (visually simple lets the eye see what's important faster) and the graphic "Let's guess the user with the weak password" login. My real worry is doing data transfers. There is so much of the file system that you can't touch that moving people's randomly scattered junk will probably be a real pain in the future.
A server should be an appliance. You may use the browser to grab drivers and what naught but the only reason someone should be doing generic browsing on a server is if someone is on a terminal server. The Win2k version of that is rather dead. I can't see being worried about support for such a minute slice of users.
What I can't understand is dropping support for XP SP2. That is a massive percentage of PCs. Cutting that many possible users out of the pie is just nuts.
Batteries(95% efficient) * Electric Motor(95% efficient) = 90% efficient ...
You forgot a a major part of the system. It doesn't start at the batteries. It starts and the power plant. The losses over just the transmission lines are estimated at 7.x%. The actual generation equipment isn't 100% efficient either.
It still is better then internal combustion by a whole bunch though and power plants are much more efficient then an ICEs and cleaner too...
Lets try that "Freedom of Speach" defense when you yell FIRE in a theater.
Can you say "Freedom of Prosecution"?
Untruthful, damaging speech is not protected. You can't say anything you want in a commercial venue. Being purposefully deceptive for monetary gain is not protected speech.
--- So how about I sell you a car after telling you how perfectly it runs. When you discover that there is no engine in it remember "caveat emptor" so you not going to sue me are you?
(thank god I'm protected!)
The part I want 'splained is: Why does anyone think that the stock market is a serious indicator of the state of the economy?
These types of exchanges (stocks, commodities, etc...) are Gambling dressed up for high society. That doesn't mean that they aren't reasonable investments over the long haul. Any reasonable person looking at them over the short haul will see that they are driven by everyone trying to guess which way everyone else is going to jump. This is simply gambling.
Everyone knows the market is going to be way up in a few years because it is currently highly undervalued but because the vast majority of investing groups are buying and selling with short term gain in mind the market is bouncing around like a superball. Maybe if someone was required to hold a stock for a minimum period of time it would make stocks an indicator of something.
Off to the side of this:
I really think that the government could free up a huge quantity of the credit blockade by lending directly to the enduser to force the various credit companies to wake up and try to compete for their markets.
Example: Home loans. 30 year fixed rates have usually floated at around 2+% over prime. Now because the mortgage companies wrote unserviceable loans so they could sell them instead of service them, they are all licking their wounds and are currently loaning at 5+% over prime. This works out to a subsidy to the mortgage companies so they can make up for their idiot losses. At the same time no one can sell their house because no one can get credit and if the houses don't move the price drops screwing home owners. At the same time banks are dumping foreclosed homes further driving down the home price comps. (Oh and the banks DO make loans for the houses they are dumping!!!)
If they would just refinance the so called "Toxic debt" mortgages at 3% over prime it would drop the payments down to a point where most of the "toxic" loans would be workable for the debtors and then they wouldn't be toxic. At 3% over prime it would be plenty profitable too. If they would force the mortgage companies to carry the paper on a portion of the loans (selected at random) it would guarantee that they wouldn't write fraudulent loans either...
(now get off soapbox...)
Re:Do you live in a van down by the river?
on
IT Job Without a Degree?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
No degree. No certs. Went through the whole CNE 4.1 bit but never bothered with the test. My ability is what people come to me for. None of my top guys have degrees. None of them have certs. They are all too busy.
I have never seen a degree program that could improve the troubleshooting process that goes on inside someone's head. A lack of functional fixedness is a major plus and that can't be taught either.
We tend to laugh at MCSEs and people with Computer Science degrees. They come out of their training with ideas that need to be beaten out of them to make them useful. (Three users on a network! Lets install a domain!!! (GAAACK!?)) We've tried hiring a few people with MCSEs and A+ certs. They are all gone. Degrees and certs do not delineate a person's ability. You are better off asking applicants how they would solve various technical issues so you can see their brain at work.
Lots of customers ask me how their kids/relatives can get into the business. I tell them that a certification might get them an entry level job but the real important bits are how they think and how much experience they have. They need to be the type of person who remembers every bad thing that ever happened to them and what they had to solve those things. Then they have to go out into the world and let bad things happen to them for about 10 years. Then they will be good techs.
Programming is a totally different side of IT. A degree would actually make a difference there. Companies also love to snap up young programmers too.
And apparently the correct punishment is hanging by the neck until dead?
In the RTFA department: No where does it say that he guessed a password or used a stolen password. It says at this page, "All that was needed to access the information was a district password. School officials have admitted that thousands of students, faculty and employees could have accessed the same file for up to two weeks."
I read that as meaning ANY authenticated user had access. Sure the kid had a stupid way of telling them but what do you expect from a 15 year old that has caught the authorities in the act of stupidity?
I suggest emailing the school district and expressing an interest in their method of educating their students.
The contact list: http://www.shenet.org/district/fingertip%20_facts/FFaddressbook.htm
Email addresses are in the format: first four letters of the last name, first four of the first name @shenet.org i.e. John Smith would be smitjohn@shenet.org
In Canada they are going to outlaw passengers in cars.
It is a great way to cut down on the number of people injured during a traffic accident! No more 2 car accidents with 3+ injured parties!!!
Slashdot Mirror
It is amazing how a simple campaign of drive-by installs and default check boxes that change your search provider can increase your market share!!!
What they are actually doing is the latest modern improvement in the scientific method:
This is the new step where a non trained and non qualified person gets to make a final determination on subject that previously could only be judged by waiting for the results of experimentation.
This replaces the previous doctrine of popular acclaim in the mainstream media.
("Did you know the average 50 year old man has 5 pounds of undigested red meat in his colon?")
It used to be that the RAID failures that I would see went pretty much by the book. Maybe it was most of the file servers we worked with were NetWare (which just plain worked...) or some other detail like less intelligence in the drive to mask problems. No matter what the reason, RAID failures with less then wonderful results have become rather common.
As a broad generality:
The onboard and inexpensive SATA and IDE controllers seem to have problems detecting a failure or even which drive is failing. They also don't seem to have a good way to report to the OS that a drive is having troubles. It is also common for them to not have a way to rebuild the mirror from a single drive. It is mind boggling when the build functions wipe both drives!!!
The fact that Windows doesn't like to tell you about drive errors makes the built in software RAID fail in really irritating fashions. Here is the prize winning failure:
Customer calls in and claims "All of my data on the server is 6 months old". I explained that the server didn't have a mechanism to roll back the data to an earlier version. I head over to their office and the data is really 6 months old and no one there has the technical sophistication to do this.
After I get them back up I take the problem server back to the shop and discover that the 1st drive is totally dead, the BIOS doesn't even see it. The server was booting off the 2nd drive and from the eventlog it was obvious that the drive had been offline for 6 months. - Obviously the fault tolerance had failed 6 months ago and the lack of a repetitive and/or audible alert (like NetWare does...) had allowed the problem to go on without any notice. After 6 months the first drive died completely and the server boots from the 2nd drive with 6 month old data. SInce then I have seen multiple variations on this theme...
The end result is that RAID doesn't hurt but you need to backup as if the computer is going to fail because they always do if given enough time.
To a large extent I agree with this. I just don't agree with the conclusion.
FAT is a little more prone to wonkyness in the directory, and yes it can pile up over time but what does that prove? Even though the directory has been stirred with a spoon you can still get at it.
NTFS has a higher tendency of having a problem and then everything is gone unless you have some serious tools.
The bad part of recovery is when you are working with a drive that is seriously in failure mode and getting worse you are in a race against time getting the data off the drive.
With NTFS the scanning process to find data takes time that may kill the drive.
With FAT you can usually start pulling data right from the start and as the drive degrades it gets harder and slower until the drive is dead. Often the NT based system you are trying to recover it with will refuse to mount the drive. The Win 9X systems will look at the drive and still try to mount it.
I'm not a big fan of full OS recovery backups for non AD dependent systems. For file data backups I work from a "Get the data and slap it into a fresh loaded box" kind of theory. It means you can toss the data onto any working box or put it on a fresh image/load on the old system. Just step past the problem and keep going. (besides it does away with all of the assorted junk people load on their computers...)
I have a Win 98 box that is just for doing data recovery.
(And, yeah, I'm the only one where I work who remembers how to use it...)
Windows can toast NTFS just as often as FAT. I know Microsoft has trained everyone on the gospel of NTFS but it isn't a big selling point. One difference is that FAT gives you a much larger variety of recovery options. You can have a FAT toasted beyond recognition and still get it back by putting it into a Win 9X box. It is amazingly resilient.
The big problem in this picture is the way that Windows deals with drive errors. It doesn't report them and people commonly discover that one of the drives in a mirrored pair is dead when the second drive dies and leaves them with nothing.
The only way to seriously protect data is Multiple methods of backup and multiple media.
Plus you need to remember that a common first sign of a drive failure is the backups start to fail. If you don't notice it and keep swapping media, pretty soon you have a media set with no backups on it.
One of the bad assumptions in this chain of logic is that the poor schmuck who had their identity stolen can get their $5k (or whatever...) in losses back from the hospital.
A more likely scenario is they either eat the cost or they get a lawyer and spend $$$ to have their lawyer whomped by the hospital's much larger legal department and then end up eating the lawyer fees on top of the initial losses.
We have a winner!!!
The fact that the military discovered that they had lost terabytes of info on a new fighter tells me that they have no clue. A secure military network with any sort of internet link??? GAAAAK!
Anyone who says they can absolutely protect an internet connection is either lying or deluded. You can protect against known attacks. There is no way to be 100% protected against unknown attacks. The attacks to be worried about are always the unknown attacks.
Idiots with lots of your dollars at work.
SP3 can break things. Just one example: Latitude D600 hooked to external monitor that is rotated. Upgrade to SP3 and you can't rotate. I have about 3500 PCs out in the field in 800+ customer's offices that are not on 'managed networks'. I have 2 guys on the phones and 4 in the field to support all that. The possibility of breaking their core business software (that might not be current) is a very valid business reason not to jump off that cliff.
Should they update to SP3? Maybe but SP3 isn't a notable safeguard against malware. Updating Flash, Java, the browser, and a few individual security patches is a notable safeguard.
They can work today. Assuming their HD doesn't pack it in I can assure them that they can work tomorrow but I can't do that if they update to SP3.
SP3 has been very good at uninstalling without pooching the OS which is a major improvement from previous MS SPs. Probably by the end of the year or so we will be at the point where enough of the equipment and software will have been updated so we can make a blanket recommendation to update to SP3.
I was rather shocked to find the Win 7 beta to be easy to deal with. (after the disaster/joke that is Vista!) On a generic 1 year old laptop it was 22 minutes from inserting the DVD to completing login to the desktop. And it didn't ask for a single driver.
I used it the next day to do dial in support for customers while I was on jury duty. I had a drive with my XP load for the system but it wasn't worth shutting down the computer to swap drives.
I still dislike the visually complex 'cartoon' interface (visually simple lets the eye see what's important faster) and the graphic "Let's guess the user with the weak password" login. My real worry is doing data transfers. There is so much of the file system that you can't touch that moving people's randomly scattered junk will probably be a real pain in the future.
A server should be an appliance. You may use the browser to grab drivers and what naught but the only reason someone should be doing generic browsing on a server is if someone is on a terminal server. The Win2k version of that is rather dead. I can't see being worried about support for such a minute slice of users.
What I can't understand is dropping support for XP SP2. That is a massive percentage of PCs. Cutting that many possible users out of the pie is just nuts.
The sad truth is the majority of people using Vista have it because that was the only choice at the computer store.
(Then there is the fun bit where MS counts every Vista license purchased as a downgrade to XP as a "Vista sale".)
Batteries(95% efficient) * Electric Motor(95% efficient) = 90% efficient
...
You forgot a a major part of the system. It doesn't start at the batteries. It starts and the power plant. The losses over just the transmission lines are estimated at 7.x%. The actual generation equipment isn't 100% efficient either.
It still is better then internal combustion by a whole bunch though and power plants are much more efficient then an ICEs and cleaner too...
Read the end of the article...
April Fools...
Youth is a disease...
Get over it.
(The trick is to stay young once you are over it...)
Cuba comes up on the short list of safe havens. (Beats the tar out of North Korea!)
Depends on if one of the special jobs was there...
Officially do you count a contraction as one word or two?
Lets try that "Freedom of Speach" defense when you yell FIRE in a theater.
Can you say "Freedom of Prosecution"?
Untruthful, damaging speech is not protected. You can't say anything you want in a commercial venue. Being purposefully deceptive for monetary gain is not protected speech.
--- So how about I sell you a car after telling you how perfectly it runs. When you discover that there is no engine in it remember "caveat emptor" so you not going to sue me are you?
(thank god I'm protected!)
If I was going to kill them from ten feet, ten yards, or ten miles...
I would use a car.
The kid probably hit the utility pole while he was trying to run over "a pimp or a ho" on the sidewalk...
The part I want 'splained is: Why does anyone think that the stock market is a serious indicator of the state of the economy?
These types of exchanges (stocks, commodities, etc...) are Gambling dressed up for high society. That doesn't mean that they aren't reasonable investments over the long haul. Any reasonable person looking at them over the short haul will see that they are driven by everyone trying to guess which way everyone else is going to jump. This is simply gambling.
Everyone knows the market is going to be way up in a few years because it is currently highly undervalued but because the vast majority of investing groups are buying and selling with short term gain in mind the market is bouncing around like a superball. Maybe if someone was required to hold a stock for a minimum period of time it would make stocks an indicator of something.
Off to the side of this:
I really think that the government could free up a huge quantity of the credit blockade by lending directly to the enduser to force the various credit companies to wake up and try to compete for their markets.
Example: Home loans. 30 year fixed rates have usually floated at around 2+% over prime. Now because the mortgage companies wrote unserviceable loans so they could sell them instead of service them, they are all licking their wounds and are currently loaning at 5+% over prime. This works out to a subsidy to the mortgage companies so they can make up for their idiot losses. At the same time no one can sell their house because no one can get credit and if the houses don't move the price drops screwing home owners. At the same time banks are dumping foreclosed homes further driving down the home price comps. (Oh and the banks DO make loans for the houses they are dumping!!!)
If they would just refinance the so called "Toxic debt" mortgages at 3% over prime it would drop the payments down to a point where most of the "toxic" loans would be workable for the debtors and then they wouldn't be toxic. At 3% over prime it would be plenty profitable too. If they would force the mortgage companies to carry the paper on a portion of the loans (selected at random) it would guarantee that they wouldn't write fraudulent loans either...
(now get off soapbox...)
No degree. No certs. Went through the whole CNE 4.1 bit but never bothered with the test. My ability is what people come to me for. None of my top guys have degrees. None of them have certs. They are all too busy.
I have never seen a degree program that could improve the troubleshooting process that goes on inside someone's head. A lack of functional fixedness is a major plus and that can't be taught either.
We tend to laugh at MCSEs and people with Computer Science degrees. They come out of their training with ideas that need to be beaten out of them to make them useful. (Three users on a network! Lets install a domain!!! (GAAACK!?)) We've tried hiring a few people with MCSEs and A+ certs. They are all gone. Degrees and certs do not delineate a person's ability. You are better off asking applicants how they would solve various technical issues so you can see their brain at work.
Lots of customers ask me how their kids/relatives can get into the business. I tell them that a certification might get them an entry level job but the real important bits are how they think and how much experience they have. They need to be the type of person who remembers every bad thing that ever happened to them and what they had to solve those things. Then they have to go out into the world and let bad things happen to them for about 10 years. Then they will be good techs.
Programming is a totally different side of IT. A degree would actually make a difference there. Companies also love to snap up young programmers too.
And apparently the correct punishment is hanging by the neck until dead?
In the RTFA department: No where does it say that he guessed a password or used a stolen password. It says at this page, "All that was needed to access the information was a district password. School officials have admitted that thousands of students, faculty and employees could have accessed the same file for up to two weeks."
I read that as meaning ANY authenticated user had access. Sure the kid had a stupid way of telling them but what do you expect from a 15 year old that has caught the authorities in the act of stupidity?
I suggest emailing the school district and expressing an interest in their method of educating their students.
The contact list: http://www.shenet.org/district/fingertip%20_facts/FFaddressbook.htm
Email addresses are in the format: first four letters of the last name, first four of the first name @shenet.org
i.e. John Smith would be smitjohn@shenet.org
Yeah! The mainstream media is an incredibly good way to get clear, concise, and unbiased information...
Gaaaak!
In Canada they are going to outlaw passengers in cars.
It is a great way to cut down on the number of people injured during a traffic accident! No more 2 car accidents with 3+ injured parties!!!
Uhhh, no.
He was asking about 8-track.