From what I can tell, Exchange Replacements are going for exactly the SMB world, because they think an Exchange costs a lot of money and requires an expensive, high-power server. Over 4 years ago, I set up a Bynari mail server (Cyrus + Outlook plug-in), that required no special knowlegde, aside from clicking next-next-finish on a Linux Server. Exerything was done from a clean web-GUI and you could make it as simple or as complex as you wanted. The only thing you -had- to pay for was the Outlook plug-in, but for a few hundred dollars, you could get the complete mailserver platform as well (saving time in figuring out how to mesh Cyrus, OpenLDAP and Postfix).
The reason there are not that many packages in Red Hat's repository is that they actually provide support for each and every one of them. Their master needs to find ways to make money to pay their in-house programmers to support the software they sell and support, even after the community has abandoned the package.
Red Hat may not provide these by default, but: Have you tried the -extras channel? Have you tried livna or one of the other community-powered repositories? Have you heard of rpmfind.net? Have you heard of 'tar' and 'make'?
So you want clueless newbies to start swimming in the deep end and either drown or survive?
Sending them out co configure one person;s personal hobby linux might not be the right thing to do. If you want them to learn the inner working of Linux, send them to Linux from Scratch. If you want them to learn 'on the job', show them 'cp', 'find -mtime' and 'diff' and gently help them along. If you simply want to turn them into a paranois schizophrenic, send them to BSD (any distro will do).
If iPods were simply accessible as a USB mass storage device, I don't think there would have been a problem. From what I can see, Apple uses a proprietary device-type, so they can talk to it using an encrypted connection. All that, simply to keep you from copying files you supposedly don't have the right to copy.
These days, laws force people that store data to keep a copy of that data for 'forensic puropses'. OTOH, when posting anything to The Internets, don't be surprised if it shows up in some odd places (like a google search by your boss).
Good news, everyone! Those asinine morons who canceled us were themselves fired for incompetence.
[the crew cheers] And not just fired, but beaten up, too... and pretty badly.
[the crew cheers doubtfully] In fact, most of them died from their injuries.
[the crew remains silent while Bender laughs evilly] And then they were ground up into a fine pink powder.
I came in fifteen minutes late, too. (10.15am) Went looking for management, ran through the e-mail, checked some reports, checked Slashdot, went looking for management again, had lunch, called management, apparently the meeting was called off, they just forgot to tell us. Fixed a licensing issue with a (clustered) database, fixed a library-linking issue with a (production) cluster application, pre-loaded 300+ updates on a pair of (RHEL4) servers, downloaded latest VMWare for tomorrow, drove home at 20:45 (pm) Just an average, boring day at the office
Unfortunately, tomorrow I can't be late for work (10.00), because I have a meeting on how to squeeze a 35GB backup through a 100Mbit uplink every day without interrupting 24x7 production-traffic.
Have you considered the amount of energy required to move the hydrogen? Electrolysis creates hydrogen GAS, which may have to be liquified (expensive), then moved (truck/pipeline).
Then consider the efficiency. First off, you have the efficiency of the device generating electricity. Then, loss before/during transport Then, efficiency loss when running the fuel cell.
When you combine all those factors, is it still worth the investment?
(People forget that their pluggable electric car still charges off the grid, have you seem your local power plant?)
In a way, lots of houses in the Netherlands are already heated in this way. Except the water tank isn't really as big as you think. The amount of water stored is usually enough to fill up a bathtub, while the heater takes its time to (efficiently) heat up the next batch of water for you.
Keep in mind that this system needs about 20 minutes to start to be effective to heat up a house (longer than air-based heating). 1. The water heats the pipes and the radiators. 2. When warmed up, the radiators heat the air. 3. When the air heats up, it starts to (slowly) circulate its way around the house (hot air rises, travels and comes down when it cools) 4. When enough hot air has circulated, the room will be 'warm'.
This means programmable heating controllers in every house and, if you get home unexpected, sitting in the freezing cold for half an hour. (no, you don't get used to it).
Also, this system cannot be used to cool houses. First, the cold air will simply sit there at the bottom of the radiator and slowly grow, providing you with cold feet. Second, actually cooling the air around the radiator means it has to be VERY COLD. Think sub-zero. (heating requires water at around 200F)
To make matters worse, the water still needs to be heated, preferably by gas mains. Take a look at the economics section of the link above to see the cost of running this.
It's not the carrier that does that, it's Motorola themselves (I also have a RAZR V3). I have come accross several devices that will only charge (or charge at a decent rate) when connected to their own dedicated charger or when connected to a real, live computer. sometimes even requiring a special driver (I'm looking at you, blackberry!) Maybe it will charge if you plug it into a powered USB hub?
I have noticed, though, that I can use the same 5V, 2A plug for my PSP, my Creative Zen and my iPaq (with a tiny conversion plug). USB harddisks also seem to standardize on a similar plug at 12V, 2A (I have 6 different ones, 4 are compatible).
The only thorn in my eye is my new Nokia, which uses a new, tiny charger plug. They make matters worse by charging a fortune for a conversion plug.
I'm a big fan of open source. Most of the hardware at home has had its OS/firmware replaced with open-source variants. BUT Keep in mind that the software in certain types of devices is part of the 'competitive advantage' over other suppliers. If you open-source the firmware/software of your instrumentation, a competitor can very easily build a similar device cheaper (because you already did most of the development).
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but you should show management that you are not 'giving away the keys'. Show them you can provide a better quality of software to clients than competitors. New features will make it into your software first, then the competitor will still have to factor it into their code.
If you want to keep yourself safe, document and report all 'blind spots' in your method. Make sure you present an overview of what you can control and what you cannot control.
If management does not agree with a certain blind spot, show them the resources required to cover that blind spot.
You cannot have bug-free code without strict rules and a literally astronomical budget. (and even NASA has had a few bugs) What you can do is prevent embarassing/dangerous bug from making it into 'production software'.
Might I suggest backing up the harddrive to tne Internet, mailing yourself a copy on DVD and taking the HD OUT OF the laptop before flying in/out of the US?
Sir, you are welcome to inspect my laptop, but I am afraid there is no information in it. At all.
Might as well buy a simple prepay phone in the US and leave your regular cell phone at home/office.
I know these are not solutions, but sometimes working around something takes considerably less effort that fighting it.
for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing
If I understand the article correctly, they are no longer required to return the laptop, so I say break out the 2048-bit keys! You know, using fun keys like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (bloody Dark Forces game).
CIA planes? I thought they only had those for 'people transport' (Guantanamo expresse).
It's good to see that there are still a Few Good Men in the US Military that use their Grey Matter. I would have loved to see what that tank looked like after. 2K pounds of concrete instead of HE charge, brilliant!
Maybe the US should consider reviewing its TSA/NSA/CIA/GenericMiB personnel and throwing out the ones that 'have not had a positive effect on overall national security'.
I never meant to blame the soldiers. The problem is with the people controlling them and the fact that no-one checks the Guys with the Stripes. Our (Dutch) boys got court-martialed after a detailed investigation into a shooting where some sivvies got hurt.
No-one would dare question a general that decides to fire 4 Hellfires into a single house. Those things are meant to blow up a -tank- If missile 1 succeeds, missiles 2, 3 and 4 will hit the other nearby houses.
You might want to read the article at: http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=868 The US is definately trying, but that's ONE successful, clean assassination in a sizable set of operations.
In 2001, U.S. officials mistook a convoy of elders headed for Afghan president Hamid Karzai's inauguration for a Taliban group and bombed it, reportedly killing some 20 civilians. In Iraq, U.S. warplanes tried to hit Saddam and his deputies based on their sat-phone signals, though these only pinpoint a phone to within about a city block. hrw found that not a single air strike aimed at Saddam's henchmen during the invasion achieved its objective, and instead, dozens of civilians were killed. The "complete lack of success and the significant civilian losses" showed a disregard for civilian casualties, in violation of the laws of war, the organization concluded.
Techinicalities aside (UN seems not to consider it a liberation of people)
Isn't this what the 'Western Civilisation' did a few hundred years back? (Africa, India, Korea, Indonesia, South America) We even re-drew their borders for them, so villages from opposing countries suddenly became neighbours.
Do you remember what happened (and is still happening) after we (Western Europe) left? (hint: Civil War in America, India, Korea, Indonesia, South America, etc)
It's not the 'liberation' that's the problem. It's the execution of the liberation that's wrong. (No support to local civilians, no exit strategy)
Aside from that, if you wanted to liberate the country, you'd be supplying troops, equipment and medical care to the oppressed. I don't see the oppressed being helped.
Slashdot Mirror
From what I can tell, Exchange Replacements are going for exactly the SMB world, because they think an Exchange costs a lot of money and requires an expensive, high-power server.
Over 4 years ago, I set up a Bynari mail server (Cyrus + Outlook plug-in), that required no special knowlegde, aside from clicking next-next-finish on a Linux Server.
Exerything was done from a clean web-GUI and you could make it as simple or as complex as you wanted.
The only thing you -had- to pay for was the Outlook plug-in, but for a few hundred dollars, you could get the complete mailserver platform as well (saving time in figuring out how to mesh Cyrus, OpenLDAP and Postfix).
The reason there are not that many packages in Red Hat's repository is that they actually provide support for each and every one of them.
Their master needs to find ways to make money to pay their in-house programmers to support the software they sell and support, even after the community has abandoned the package.
Red Hat may not provide these by default, but:
Have you tried the -extras channel?
Have you tried livna or one of the other community-powered repositories?
Have you heard of rpmfind.net?
Have you heard of 'tar' and 'make'?
So you want clueless newbies to start swimming in the deep end and either drown or survive?
Sending them out co configure one person;s personal hobby linux might not be the right thing to do.
If you want them to learn the inner working of Linux, send them to Linux from Scratch.
If you want them to learn 'on the job', show them 'cp', 'find -mtime' and 'diff' and gently help them along.
If you simply want to turn them into a paranois schizophrenic, send them to BSD (any distro will do).
Apparently, you haven't tried mounting a recent iPod in a generic Linux machine.
Hint: it won't work
If iPods were simply accessible as a USB mass storage device, I don't think there would have been a problem.
From what I can see, Apple uses a proprietary device-type, so they can talk to it using an encrypted connection.
All that, simply to keep you from copying files you supposedly don't have the right to copy.
These days, laws force people that store data to keep a copy of that data for 'forensic puropses'.
OTOH, when posting anything to The Internets, don't be surprised if it shows up in some odd places (like a google search by your boss).
Land of the free, eh?
Good news, everyone! Those asinine morons who canceled us were themselves fired for incompetence.
[the crew cheers]
And not just fired, but beaten up, too... and pretty badly.
[the crew cheers doubtfully]
In fact, most of them died from their injuries.
[the crew remains silent while Bender laughs evilly]
And then they were ground up into a fine pink powder.
I came in fifteen minutes late, too. (10.15am)
Went looking for management, ran through the e-mail, checked some reports, checked Slashdot, went looking for management again, had lunch, called management, apparently the meeting was called off, they just forgot to tell us.
Fixed a licensing issue with a (clustered) database, fixed a library-linking issue with a (production) cluster application, pre-loaded 300+ updates on a pair of (RHEL4) servers, downloaded latest VMWare for tomorrow, drove home at 20:45 (pm)
Just an average, boring day at the office
Unfortunately, tomorrow I can't be late for work (10.00), because I have a meeting on how to squeeze a 35GB backup through a 100Mbit uplink every day without interrupting 24x7 production-traffic.
Have you considered the amount of energy required to move the hydrogen?
Electrolysis creates hydrogen GAS, which may have to be liquified (expensive), then moved (truck/pipeline).
Then consider the efficiency.
First off, you have the efficiency of the device generating electricity.
Then, loss before/during transport
Then, efficiency loss when running the fuel cell.
When you combine all those factors, is it still worth the investment?
(People forget that their pluggable electric car still charges off the grid, have you seem your local power plant?)
In a way, lots of houses in the Netherlands are already heated in this way. Except the water tank isn't really as big as you think.
The amount of water stored is usually enough to fill up a bathtub, while the heater takes its time to (efficiently) heat up the next batch of water for you.
Keep in mind that this system needs about 20 minutes to start to be effective to heat up a house (longer than air-based heating).
1. The water heats the pipes and the radiators.
2. When warmed up, the radiators heat the air.
3. When the air heats up, it starts to (slowly) circulate its way around the house (hot air rises, travels and comes down when it cools)
4. When enough hot air has circulated, the room will be 'warm'.
This means programmable heating controllers in every house and, if you get home unexpected, sitting in the freezing cold for half an hour.
(no, you don't get used to it).
Also, this system cannot be used to cool houses.
First, the cold air will simply sit there at the bottom of the radiator and slowly grow, providing you with cold feet.
Second, actually cooling the air around the radiator means it has to be VERY COLD. Think sub-zero. (heating requires water at around 200F)
To make matters worse, the water still needs to be heated, preferably by gas mains. Take a look at the economics section of the link above to see the cost of running this.
7805 FTW!
I've seen someone fille a regular car plug with a 7805 and some sand and pull some mad amps without frying anything!
Awww... I use 7805's to power lots of interesting tidbits in my car ;-)
(Then again, I use a hig-power 12V power supply for my subwoofer amp in my living room )
It's not the carrier that does that, it's Motorola themselves (I also have a RAZR V3).
I have come accross several devices that will only charge (or charge at a decent rate) when connected to their own dedicated charger or when connected to a real, live computer. sometimes even requiring a special driver (I'm looking at you, blackberry!)
Maybe it will charge if you plug it into a powered USB hub?
I have noticed, though, that I can use the same 5V, 2A plug for my PSP, my Creative Zen and my iPaq (with a tiny conversion plug).
USB harddisks also seem to standardize on a similar plug at 12V, 2A (I have 6 different ones, 4 are compatible).
The only thorn in my eye is my new Nokia, which uses a new, tiny charger plug.
They make matters worse by charging a fortune for a conversion plug.
I'm a big fan of open source.
Most of the hardware at home has had its OS/firmware replaced with open-source variants.
BUT
Keep in mind that the software in certain types of devices is part of the 'competitive advantage' over other suppliers.
If you open-source the firmware/software of your instrumentation, a competitor can very easily build a similar device cheaper (because you already did most of the development).
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but you should show management that you are not 'giving away the keys'.
Show them you can provide a better quality of software to clients than competitors.
New features will make it into your software first, then the competitor will still have to factor it into their code.
If you want to keep yourself safe, document and report all 'blind spots' in your method.
Make sure you present an overview of what you can control and what you cannot control.
If management does not agree with a certain blind spot, show them the resources required to cover that blind spot.
You cannot have bug-free code without strict rules and a literally astronomical budget. (and even NASA has had a few bugs)
What you can do is prevent embarassing/dangerous bug from making it into 'production software'.
Might I suggest backing up the harddrive to tne Internet, mailing yourself a copy on DVD and taking the HD OUT OF the laptop before flying in/out of the US?
Sir, you are welcome to inspect my laptop, but I am afraid there is no information in it.
At all.
Might as well buy a simple prepay phone in the US and leave your regular cell phone at home/office.
I know these are not solutions, but sometimes working around something takes considerably less effort that fighting it.
for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing
If I understand the article correctly, they are no longer required to return the laptop, so I say break out the 2048-bit keys!
You know, using fun keys like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (bloody Dark Forces game).
One other thing:
Aside from being a general Karma Whore, I'm just glad I seem to have sparked some intelligent converation.
I don't mind people having a different point of view, but I'd like to know their reason for it and maybe discuss the finer points of it.
One (probably) American I hold in high regard would be Firethorn, the guy who replied to:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=631199&cid=24416421
(He has managed to raise my opinion of the US Armed Forces)
Opportunist, above, has also made some vey valid points.
Thanks, everyone, for showing you care.
CIA planes?
I thought they only had those for 'people transport' (Guantanamo expresse).
It's good to see that there are still a Few Good Men in the US Military that use their Grey Matter.
I would have loved to see what that tank looked like after. 2K pounds of concrete instead of HE charge, brilliant!
Maybe the US should consider reviewing its TSA/NSA/CIA/GenericMiB personnel and throwing out the ones that 'have not had a positive effect on overall national security'.
Let's hope they never get to Scorched Earth tactics.
In the middle east, that could cause a few nasty smoke-plumes.
I never meant to blame the soldiers.
The problem is with the people controlling them and the fact that no-one checks the Guys with the Stripes.
Our (Dutch) boys got court-martialed after a detailed investigation into a shooting where some sivvies got hurt.
No-one would dare question a general that decides to fire 4 Hellfires into a single house.
Those things are meant to blow up a -tank-
If missile 1 succeeds, missiles 2, 3 and 4 will hit the other nearby houses.
Try puttin on a blue UN hat and see what happens.
You might want to read the article at:
http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=868
The US is definately trying, but that's ONE successful, clean assassination in a sizable set of operations.
In 2001, U.S. officials mistook a convoy of elders headed for Afghan president Hamid Karzai's inauguration for a Taliban group and bombed it, reportedly killing some 20 civilians. In Iraq, U.S. warplanes tried to hit Saddam and his deputies based on their sat-phone signals, though these only pinpoint a phone to within about a city block. hrw found that not a single air strike aimed at Saddam's henchmen during the invasion achieved its objective, and instead, dozens of civilians were killed. The "complete lack of success and the significant civilian losses" showed a disregard for civilian casualties, in violation of the laws of war, the organization concluded.
Techinicalities aside (UN seems not to consider it a liberation of people)
Isn't this what the 'Western Civilisation' did a few hundred years back?
(Africa, India, Korea, Indonesia, South America)
We even re-drew their borders for them, so villages from opposing countries suddenly became neighbours.
Do you remember what happened (and is still happening) after we (Western Europe) left?
(hint: Civil War in America, India, Korea, Indonesia, South America, etc)
It's not the 'liberation' that's the problem.
It's the execution of the liberation that's wrong.
(No support to local civilians, no exit strategy)
Aside from that, if you wanted to liberate the country, you'd be supplying troops,
equipment and medical care to the oppressed.
I don't see the oppressed being helped.