yeah, I have IIS 6 and WSUS 3 SP1 on 2k3R2, and have to recycle the worker processes constantly (every 5 minutes or so), or the w3wp.exe processes will redline. To give IIS6 due credit, I don't think the problem is with the w3wp.exe process itself - seems to be some BS with the way the WSUS app communicates with IIS. Every fix from MS issued so far has done nothing for the problem. Ah, well. I do remember the IIS4 days, unfortunately. At the company I worked for, the developers there had some reporting BS that used a Crystal Reports ActiveX and IIS to query a SQL Server 6.5 database that was populated from my 'medium iron' AIX babies running DB/2. Anyway, every morning there would be a loss of communication between the IIS processes and the SQL Server, and then the SQL Server would stop responding. The developers couldn't figure out why, or didn't want to dig too deeply, so they simply had the server admins recycle the box every morning when the last shift went home.
Well, I guess by some definitions the Pentium 4 / Pentium D processors would be considered 'newer' (november 2005 for the P4, 2006 for the Pentium D), but I wouldn't think that would be new for production hardware. Except for Intel's bargain bin stuff, even the Core 2 processors since Conroe have had VT support. Unless someone's interested in hosting a virtual server farm on a batch of used P2/P3 Proliants they picked up from eBay I don't think this isn't such a valid concern.
Hopefully he'll have better luck getting ESXi installed on his hardware than I did. My test server was on the list of 'supported' machines for ESXi, and it still wouldn't install.
Out of curiosity, what does one use to manage ESXi if you're not willing to shell out for VMWare Infrastructure? Does it have a web GUI management setup like VMWare Server?
Actually, you're dead wrong. Xen runs Windows servers very well (2003 R2 and 2008). In fact, I have managed to get a stable and reliable AD configured on Xen VMs, which is far more than I could get while attempting the same thing on VMware. Xen has been much easier to install than ESXi, even when using VMWare-approved servers, and from my small-shop experience, the performance has been better.
SQL Server 2005, MOSS 2007, Exchange 2007 - these all run without issue under Xen 5, using Server 2003 R2 or Server 2008.
very well, actually. I use to host a slew of paravirtualized debian 'machines', alongside a couple of Windows 'machines'.
Xen Server is a nice product - it has good support for Linux and for Windows, and it's fast. I have had trouble setting up a DC under VMWare Server 1.x and 2 when using Linux as the host OS, but no such issues with Xen Server. No clock skew problems, fast networking, easy SAN support, etc.
I had managed to get the tightwads where I work to approve a budget for Xen Server this year (I'm using Xen Express), but now it looks like I'll get to use that money for something else.
... spoken by someone who apparently has not had to try to explain to users how to wade through tons of features that are of no interest to them (and in fact get in the way of doing their tasks) with no easy way of disabling this 'extra' functionality. Or, equally, the opinion of someone who hasn't had to deal with users who feel the need to use 'stationary' on their emails, or, as the example I provided, spice up their spreadsheet with WMF emoticons and 3D shaded text.
I don't agree with your statement, and as a devil's advocate stance, yours is weak.
Aha, that does make sense. In fact, I have converted some of our company artwork to wmf/emf for just the purpose you've mentioned (branding of documents). Unfortunately, the user in question was actually using WordArt to make shadowed text, and using the smileys and such from the clipart pack in the spreadsheet.
Before we leased the device, I asked if it was necessary that we print in color. The beancounter in question decided that it was, and so he leased a color machine. Now, of course, it's too expensive (though he had to have seen the costs, since he signed the lease).
argh. As for jury-rigging - he wanted me to physically jury-rig the mfc to run without the color toner in place, to prevent people from bypassing the b/w-only setting in any way.
unfortunately, excel is not immune to this truism - I had to "educate" a user at my company who was displeased that a spreadsheet she worked with daily took close to 60 seconds to open, even though it was less than 4MB in size. It turns out she had nearly 1000 WordArt objects embedded in the spreadsheet, and any time she wanted to change the contents of one of the objects, rather than editing or deleting the WordArt object she simply removed the text and created a new object instead. What a nightmare that was, removing hundreds of empty WordArt objects.
And for the record, wtf is a WordArt object doing in a spreadsheet anyway? I don't know who's more stupid - the user who feels the need to add such BS to a business document, or the developers who thought that allowing a user to put such crap in a spreadsheet was a great idea.
I only wish this were the exception, rather than the rule. I had the "controller" (I use quotes because he's not a CPA, though he more or less manages the finances here) ask me today if it was possible to jruy-rig our multifunction copier to work with the color toner cartridges removed, because the cost per page for copying or printing in color was too high, and he didn't trust users to print only in black and white.
well, incremental daily backups for sure, but not to tape. I think archiving weekly to a tape is fine, but daily? Too slow for writes and recovery, and too expensive. Use a disk-based intermediate storage for your incrementals, and archive weekly to LTO.
jesus, I had forgotten about that product until you mentioned it. the first IT job I had involved LANtastic for the company's pitifully small LAN and an IBM System/36. We used their proprietary adapters to get 2MBit/sec! Ugh, that was also my introduction to the joy that was Windows for Workgroups....
Wow... that's some serious flashback from an epoch long past...
I can recommend Zimbra Open Source Edition, as I installed it instead of MS Exchange at two small companies. It'll integrate with Active Directory, if you want it to, or it can host its own directory information. The OS edition is nice - installation is straightforward and easy and the software performs well enough. You'll have to come up with your own backup solution for the OSE, though there are a number of sample scripts floating around.
I don't know about the value of the subscriptions for Zimbra. It will depend on how many users you're licensing, and whether you need to factor in MS Office into the equation. The 'Professional' edition of Zimbra, which includes an Outlook connector runs $875 a year, the 'standard' edition, which doesn't include the connector but does have backup integrated in, is somewhat cheaper - $625 per year.
The web client is definitely very nice, and it can be downloaded as a standalone package as well, to interface with other mail services. PoS I have no direct experience with, unfortunately - google turns up stuff on Openbravo POS, among others. I know nothing about these products, though. Check out Zimbra, if you're serious. I've used it, and can definitely recommend it highly.
no, no, no. I don't like the game, I admit that. I think it's fine/cool/great/whatever if other people like it. I just think it's asinine to say that one is developing meaningful skills while playing the thing.
At least, not in a guild filled with people who feel that they individually are rockstars, and everyone else needs to cater. I've managed a couple of guilds, but they were small, and the people weren't all wrapped up in their characters or skills or whatever. We were all people who were of a mind that since we were paying to play the damned game, we should enjoy ourselves, not get into bitchfests about who got what loot or what we were going to do. In retrospect, I do remember a couple of guilds which were constantly recruiting because the leader was an absolute hard-ass (some military kid ) who decided everything, and their membership was constantly in turnover. So yeah, maybe you (and brkello) are right about that...
No, Eve isn't my thing, either. Sad to say, if I had to choose WoW or Eve, man... i don't know what I'd do. The reason I am posting is because I'm at work, bored as hell while waiting for approvals for layouts and such. I don't have a problem, per se, with people who play WoW - it's the attachment of 'skills' used in the game to some sort of significance in real life. It would be equally pretentious of me to spout off about how I'm a terrific marksman, and can survive on my own in the wilderness because I play Fallout 3.
I'd have to disagree with the premise that management in a guild has to do with catering to everyone's needs. If you are leading the group, what is this catering crap? You're in charge, fucker, for good or ill. This wishy-washy bullshit about not offending prima donna egos and such is exactly why I think all of you who talk about how 'difficult' it is to manage your guild all full of shit. All of these complications from your interactions are self-imposed. You make WoW sound like MySpace, but with quests. "Oh, I don't want to piss off Cairne_Bloodhoof_9993 because he/she will quit my guild, will talk shit about me to the other guilds, and our ranking will go down." I've worked with managers in Real Life (you know, where I get paid to do some work, not where I pay to sit and chat and play a game) - some were mamby-pamby like most of you defending the complexity of managing a guild. Some were hard-asses. The ones who couldn't decide to what to do for fear of pissing team members off had the most divisive, counter-productive groups: Programmers who each had their own agenda, depending on what their particular focus was (user interface vs back-end implementation); UNIX vs Desktop vs Network Admin vs Tech support, so on and so forth. The Bastards, who didn't care who was mad, seemed to generate about the same bit of resentment, but it wasn't from a shifting group of people every week. Everyone hated the Bastards, but we all knew where we stood in regards to getting our shit done. Trying to be everyone's friend didn't make the wishy-washy managers everyone's friend - it made everyone suspicious that every other group was getting special treatment.
High-end? Is that what it's called when you have a significant membership? I put the game down because:
a) fucktards like you spring to the defense of the thing, talking about how great it is and how you're developing your social/managerial/reflexive/whatever skills by playing it
b) it is extremely popular not because of anything new, innovative, or interesting, but because the entry-point is low
c) because the game is boring and pretty generic if you're not inclined to care one way or another about Blizzard's derivative works.
Game play is something that a 7-year-old with Down Syndrome could master after one session. Classes are tired DnD/Tolkien-derived archetypes, with Blizzard's GW-inspired fluff thrown on top. Then there is the WoW Community - many of whom are people who seem to think they're something special because they lead, co-lead, or otherwise participate at some level in a guild composed of groups of friends' friends or otherwise 1337-enuf players. Their amazing social skills rise to the forefront when they lead or otherwise ride herd over groups of these prima donnas through missions where the challenge is not in the mission itself, it's in keeping people focused on the simple objectives while aking sure everyone gets along and gets enough phat lewt for the hour or so to complete an instance. It's not like herding cats. It's like herding a bunch of developmentally-challenged people through a trip to the mall.
I've played your game, brkello. it's fucking retarded, and the user community is composed primarily of social malcontents who somehow believe that talking with their 'friends' while wearing a headset and watching each other's characters dance around on a computer screen is social interaction.
actually, I'm not the one who started the whole "WoW is a glorified chat app, blah blah blah", and then carried it forward with nonsense about how it being glorified chat wasn't a bad thing. There is a lot to do other than sit around and use it as a chat client, and I'm sure a good part of the subscriber base don't use it as some kind of fantasy Second Life. Troll I might be, but not ignorant. All it takes to see the ignorance is a perusal of the defenses presented for this game by a lot of the people who feel the need to defend their choice of entertainment - ignorance is attempting to present WoW as more than it is; as if WoW has ramifications and demonstrates broad skillsets needed beyond the confines of the virtual world it takes place in. I'll stop posting when you fans of this game lay off with your bullshit about how WoW is more than a game whose attraction stems from the fact that it caters to the least-common denominators in gameplay.
I didn't want to presume that people were buying WoW time or WoW + voice chat server in blocks. I figured someone would say something if they were. So, only $10 a month to have an AIM client with defined goals/objectives, oh, and with voice if you set that up with something else? Damn, what a deal!
"I don't remember any grinding" and "I remember grinding for cash way back when" could be considered exclusive statements, you know. Maybe you meant to say that you didn't repeat any content, after way back when? I know for a fact that the first 10 levels of the game (when it should be putting tenterhooks into your brain, not dulling it with stupid repetition) are packed with lots of mind-numbing "kill/return x of y" quests that do absolutely nothing to hook you into the game.
It seems like they're all here on Slashdot at the moment, going on about the social, managerial, and reflex-oriented skills that are needed to play WoW.
Seriously - social skills? The same set you use with AIM or when sending a text message on a cell phone. I love how organizing or co-leading a raid really means you've got what it takes(!) to manage people or resources.
For fuck's sake, people, WoW is the least-common denominator of gaming now - there's no skillset required. Persistence and slavish devotion is what this game rewards, not innovative tactics or strategy. PvP is a matter of who has the biggest grind-peen, and thus has the most 1337 gear. What kind of skill do you need to employ with autoattack?
It's great that people love WoW, but don't fucking try to tart it up. It's designed to sit you in front of the computer, grinding day in and day out, leeching $15 a month out of your pocketbook.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah, I have IIS 6 and WSUS 3 SP1 on 2k3R2, and have to recycle the worker processes constantly (every 5 minutes or so), or the w3wp.exe processes will redline. To give IIS6 due credit, I don't think the problem is with the w3wp.exe process itself - seems to be some BS with the way the WSUS app communicates with IIS. Every fix from MS issued so far has done nothing for the problem. Ah, well. I do remember the IIS4 days, unfortunately. At the company I worked for, the developers there had some reporting BS that used a Crystal Reports ActiveX and IIS to query a SQL Server 6.5 database that was populated from my 'medium iron' AIX babies running DB/2. Anyway, every morning there would be a loss of communication between the IIS processes and the SQL Server, and then the SQL Server would stop responding. The developers couldn't figure out why, or didn't want to dig too deeply, so they simply had the server admins recycle the box every morning when the last shift went home.
hahaha, well, i'm hoping they don't find out ;) Maybe I can weasel in a new developer workstation or something...
Well, I guess by some definitions the Pentium 4 / Pentium D processors would be considered 'newer' (november 2005 for the P4, 2006 for the Pentium D), but I wouldn't think that would be new for production hardware. Except for Intel's bargain bin stuff, even the Core 2 processors since Conroe have had VT support. Unless someone's interested in hosting a virtual server farm on a batch of used P2/P3 Proliants they picked up from eBay I don't think this isn't such a valid concern.
Hopefully he'll have better luck getting ESXi installed on his hardware than I did. My test server was on the list of 'supported' machines for ESXi, and it still wouldn't install.
Out of curiosity, what does one use to manage ESXi if you're not willing to shell out for VMWare Infrastructure? Does it have a web GUI management setup like VMWare Server?
not since Xen 5, actually.
Xen 4 was obnoxious, in that you could only use 1 or 2 cores, and were limited to 4GB of RAM with the free version.
Actually, you're dead wrong. Xen runs Windows servers very well (2003 R2 and 2008). In fact, I have managed to get a stable and reliable AD configured on Xen VMs, which is far more than I could get while attempting the same thing on VMware. Xen has been much easier to install than ESXi, even when using VMWare-approved servers, and from my small-shop experience, the performance has been better.
SQL Server 2005, MOSS 2007, Exchange 2007 - these all run without issue under Xen 5, using Server 2003 R2 or Server 2008.
very well, actually. I use to host a slew of paravirtualized debian 'machines', alongside a couple of Windows 'machines'.
Xen Server is a nice product - it has good support for Linux and for Windows, and it's fast. I have had trouble setting up a DC under VMWare Server 1.x and 2 when using Linux as the host OS, but no such issues with Xen Server. No clock skew problems, fast networking, easy SAN support, etc.
I had managed to get the tightwads where I work to approve a budget for Xen Server this year (I'm using Xen Express), but now it looks like I'll get to use that money for something else.
I mean, my copy of the beta from TechNet says right on the login screen 'Windows 7 Ultimate'.
That would imply a product selection similar to Vista...
... spoken by someone who apparently has not had to try to explain to users how to wade through tons of features that are of no interest to them (and in fact get in the way of doing their tasks) with no easy way of disabling this 'extra' functionality. Or, equally, the opinion of someone who hasn't had to deal with users who feel the need to use 'stationary' on their emails, or, as the example I provided, spice up their spreadsheet with WMF emoticons and 3D shaded text.
I don't agree with your statement, and as a devil's advocate stance, yours is weak.
Aha, that does make sense. In fact, I have converted some of our company artwork to wmf/emf for just the purpose you've mentioned (branding of documents). Unfortunately, the user in question was actually using WordArt to make shadowed text, and using the smileys and such from the clipart pack in the spreadsheet.
Before we leased the device, I asked if it was necessary that we print in color. The beancounter in question decided that it was, and so he leased a color machine. Now, of course, it's too expensive (though he had to have seen the costs, since he signed the lease).
argh.
As for jury-rigging - he wanted me to physically jury-rig the mfc to run without the color toner in place, to prevent people from bypassing the b/w-only setting in any way.
unfortunately, excel is not immune to this truism - I had to "educate" a user at my company who was displeased that a spreadsheet she worked with daily took close to 60 seconds to open, even though it was less than 4MB in size. It turns out she had nearly 1000 WordArt objects embedded in the spreadsheet, and any time she wanted to change the contents of one of the objects, rather than editing or deleting the WordArt object she simply removed the text and created a new object instead. What a nightmare that was, removing hundreds of empty WordArt objects.
And for the record, wtf is a WordArt object doing in a spreadsheet anyway? I don't know who's more stupid - the user who feels the need to add such BS to a business document, or the developers who thought that allowing a user to put such crap in a spreadsheet was a great idea.
I only wish this were the exception, rather than the rule. I had the "controller" (I use quotes because he's not a CPA, though he more or less manages the finances here) ask me today if it was possible to jruy-rig our multifunction copier to work with the color toner cartridges removed, because the cost per page for copying or printing in color was too high, and he didn't trust users to print only in black and white.
well, incremental daily backups for sure, but not to tape. I think archiving weekly to a tape is fine, but daily? Too slow for writes and recovery, and too expensive.
Use a disk-based intermediate storage for your incrementals, and archive weekly to LTO.
devil fist - \m/
jesus, I had forgotten about that product until you mentioned it. the first IT job I had involved LANtastic for the company's pitifully small LAN and an IBM System/36. We used their proprietary adapters to get 2MBit/sec! Ugh, that was also my introduction to the joy that was Windows for Workgroups....
Wow... that's some serious flashback from an epoch long past...
I can recommend Zimbra Open Source Edition, as I installed it instead of MS Exchange at two small companies. It'll integrate with Active Directory, if you want it to, or it can host its own directory information. The OS edition is nice - installation is straightforward and easy and the software performs well enough. You'll have to come up with your own backup solution for the OSE, though there are a number of sample scripts floating around.
I don't know about the value of the subscriptions for Zimbra. It will depend on how many users you're licensing, and whether you need to factor in MS Office into the equation. The 'Professional' edition of Zimbra, which includes an Outlook connector runs $875 a year, the 'standard' edition, which doesn't include the connector but does have backup integrated in, is somewhat cheaper - $625 per year.
The web client is definitely very nice, and it can be downloaded as a standalone package as well, to interface with other mail services.
PoS I have no direct experience with, unfortunately - google turns up stuff on Openbravo POS, among others. I know nothing about these products, though. Check out Zimbra, if you're serious. I've used it, and can definitely recommend it highly.
no, no, no. I don't like the game, I admit that. I think it's fine/cool/great/whatever if other people like it. I just think it's asinine to say that one is developing meaningful skills while playing the thing.
At least, not in a guild filled with people who feel that they individually are rockstars, and everyone else needs to cater.
I've managed a couple of guilds, but they were small, and the people weren't all wrapped up in their characters or skills or whatever. We were all people who were of a mind that since we were paying to play the damned game, we should enjoy ourselves, not get into bitchfests about who got what loot or what we were going to do.
In retrospect, I do remember a couple of guilds which were constantly recruiting because the leader was an absolute hard-ass (some military kid ) who decided everything, and their membership was constantly in turnover. So yeah, maybe you (and brkello) are right about that...
No, Eve isn't my thing, either. Sad to say, if I had to choose WoW or Eve, man... i don't know what I'd do.
The reason I am posting is because I'm at work, bored as hell while waiting for approvals for layouts and such.
I don't have a problem, per se, with people who play WoW - it's the attachment of 'skills' used in the game to some sort of significance in real life. It would be equally pretentious of me to spout off about how I'm a terrific marksman, and can survive on my own in the wilderness because I play Fallout 3.
I'd have to disagree with the premise that management in a guild has to do with catering to everyone's needs. If you are leading the group, what is this catering crap? You're in charge, fucker, for good or ill. This wishy-washy bullshit about not offending prima donna egos and such is exactly why I think all of you who talk about how 'difficult' it is to manage your guild all full of shit.
All of these complications from your interactions are self-imposed. You make WoW sound like MySpace, but with quests. "Oh, I don't want to piss off Cairne_Bloodhoof_9993 because he/she will quit my guild, will talk shit about me to the other guilds, and our ranking will go down."
I've worked with managers in Real Life (you know, where I get paid to do some work, not where I pay to sit and chat and play a game) - some were mamby-pamby like most of you defending the complexity of managing a guild. Some were hard-asses. The ones who couldn't decide to what to do for fear of pissing team members off had the most divisive, counter-productive groups: Programmers who each had their own agenda, depending on what their particular focus was (user interface vs back-end implementation); UNIX vs Desktop vs Network Admin vs Tech support, so on and so forth.
The Bastards, who didn't care who was mad, seemed to generate about the same bit of resentment, but it wasn't from a shifting group of people every week. Everyone hated the Bastards, but we all knew where we stood in regards to getting our shit done. Trying to be everyone's friend didn't make the wishy-washy managers everyone's friend - it made everyone suspicious that every other group was getting special treatment.
High-end? Is that what it's called when you have a significant membership?
I put the game down because:
a) fucktards like you spring to the defense of the thing, talking about how great it is and how you're developing your social/managerial/reflexive/whatever skills by playing it
b) it is extremely popular not because of anything new, innovative, or interesting, but because the entry-point is low
c) because the game is boring and pretty generic if you're not inclined to care one way or another about Blizzard's derivative works.
Game play is something that a 7-year-old with Down Syndrome could master after one session. Classes are tired DnD/Tolkien-derived archetypes, with Blizzard's GW-inspired fluff thrown on top. Then there is the WoW Community - many of whom are people who seem to think they're something special because they lead, co-lead, or otherwise participate at some level in a guild composed of groups of friends' friends or otherwise 1337-enuf players. Their amazing social skills rise to the forefront when they lead or otherwise ride herd over groups of these prima donnas through missions where the challenge is not in the mission itself, it's in keeping people focused on the simple objectives while aking sure everyone gets along and gets enough phat lewt for the hour or so to complete an instance. It's not like herding cats. It's like herding a bunch of developmentally-challenged people through a trip to the mall.
I've played your game, brkello. it's fucking retarded, and the user community is composed primarily of social malcontents who somehow believe that talking with their 'friends' while wearing a headset and watching each other's characters dance around on a computer screen is social interaction.
actually, I'm not the one who started the whole "WoW is a glorified chat app, blah blah blah", and then carried it forward with nonsense about how it being glorified chat wasn't a bad thing.
There is a lot to do other than sit around and use it as a chat client, and I'm sure a good part of the subscriber base don't use it as some kind of fantasy Second Life.
Troll I might be, but not ignorant. All it takes to see the ignorance is a perusal of the defenses presented for this game by a lot of the people who feel the need to defend their choice of entertainment - ignorance is attempting to present WoW as more than it is; as if WoW has ramifications and demonstrates broad skillsets needed beyond the confines of the virtual world it takes place in.
I'll stop posting when you fans of this game lay off with your bullshit about how WoW is more than a game whose attraction stems from the fact that it caters to the least-common denominators in gameplay.
I didn't want to presume that people were buying WoW time or WoW + voice chat server in blocks. I figured someone would say something if they were.
So, only $10 a month to have an AIM client with defined goals/objectives, oh, and with voice if you set that up with something else? Damn, what a deal!
"I don't remember any grinding" and "I remember grinding for cash way back when" could be considered exclusive statements, you know.
Maybe you meant to say that you didn't repeat any content, after way back when?
I know for a fact that the first 10 levels of the game (when it should be putting tenterhooks into your brain, not dulling it with stupid repetition) are packed with lots of mind-numbing "kill/return x of y" quests that do absolutely nothing to hook you into the game.
It seems like they're all here on Slashdot at the moment, going on about the social, managerial, and reflex-oriented skills that are needed to play WoW.
Seriously - social skills? The same set you use with AIM or when sending a text message on a cell phone. I love how organizing or co-leading a raid really means you've got what it takes(!) to manage people or resources.
For fuck's sake, people, WoW is the least-common denominator of gaming now - there's no skillset required. Persistence and slavish devotion is what this game rewards, not innovative tactics or strategy. PvP is a matter of who has the biggest grind-peen, and thus has the most 1337 gear. What kind of skill do you need to employ with autoattack?
It's great that people love WoW, but don't fucking try to tart it up. It's designed to sit you in front of the computer, grinding day in and day out, leeching $15 a month out of your pocketbook.