Talk to your customer, and ask them if you should be keeping copies of their data.
If they don't want you to, problem solved.
If they do, ask them how badly they want to (ie $$$)
If they won't pay the costs, problem solved
If they will, again problem solved
My advice would be to cost out the price of a proper tape library - I know you said you don't want to do that, but honestly if you don't want to do it properly you are taking a huge risk by cutting corners. Tape is one of the best archival forms for storing (you've seen how many people are doing it) and to do it on disk takes more work and effort that you can probably manage. If the customers want multiple copies kept, then charge it at a sensible price and use a commercial storage firm.
It may sound strange, but if you do it properly while you are a small business, then you will have fewer problems when you become a large business. If you are trying to grow your own solution then you are effectively expanding your menu of services to scientific and storage services, or potentially risking becoming a small business that failed.
Lease companies take care of the messy bits like maintenance, and you don't need to worry about the ability of the technicians - it's the companies problem.
Of course as part of this you will probably need to review the state of your existing UPS's - if they are no longer covered by the manufacturers warranty then the batteries probably need replacing by now.
yeah - but let's not get to carried away about this.
This season there have been people who received these messages - about a fire that occoured 12 days previously. The carrier technology is interesting, but as the emergency services people who manage the back end systems don't update them they are not what you consider reliable.
They are making these SMS's spacially aware - they use your billing address to work out where you are located. Unfortunately the billing systems have a habit of aggregating states. Tasmania is considered part of Victoria, so you have a whole state that gets warned when a fire occours in another state separated by a large body of water and no chance of it spreading.
The Australian solution is cr*p - it's not managed properly, not targetted properly, and is already viewed as unreliable.
At present the best way to stay informed is to buy a scanning radio receiver and tune into the local voluenteer fire brigade radio channels.
Twitter has the potential to be a much better solution than SMS - once you can easily look for tweets within a geographical area of interest. Couple that with staff who are IT savvy rather than good with the hose and there is a real chance this could be quite good.
My High School did have such courses. They were mandatory, and I did attend.
I was advised by the teacher to avoid keyboards as I did not have the aptitude. I've been an IT professional for the following 20+ years, and it (frankly) hasn't been an obstacle - I've coded for years, and written more than I care to remember.
IT is not about typing - it's more about adaptability, analytical skills, communications, and problem solving.
It would be far better if schools invested in teaching pupils more useful general skills, such as communications, problem solving, presentation skills and teamwork.
Highly recommend you try out VMware 3.5i and build a proper virtualisation server. The hardware compatability list is a bit of a challenge, but I found out (purely by accident) that the Intel ICH6 SATA controller in my server was visible and worked.
My server has 8GB of RAM (AU$250), an Intel QX6600 quad core cpu (AU$250), and an Intel Etherexpress 100 NIC (pull from old box). I can't seem to stress it out - it just runs great.
The reason I did this was:
I had a 42RU 19" rack full of desktop PC's I used to use, and the idea of spending money on them upgrading memory and CPU - and then having to pay the power bill turned out to be stupid.
I also saved a large amount of space, my server pulls 120 watts no matter what I throw at it, the noise level is down, it no longer heats the room (I'm in Australia and it's summer here), and it is a useful piece of contemporary software to get experience with. It's also much easier to spin up another server without having to make space for another PC.
Your problem is that you are doing currently is perfectly sensible in a technical environment, but you are dealing with people who live in a different world. You need to provide them with an asnwer that makes sense to the way they work.
Explain to management that there are implications for your infrastructure - that they can potentially create a load that your existing infrastructure may not be able to manage along with existing business focussed work.
Then suggest a cost recovery model - implement quotas on machine resources, and associate charges with those resources.
Have your legal people draw up a contract, specify a reasonable figure for implementing this facility, a per month figure for monitoring and billing, and ensure that whatever the contract states they pay for what they consume. I would also ensure that the contract has a minimum period so that they can't just try it for a month and then walk away.
Make the numbers real - don't try to make them artifically high - and see what happens.
I would be quite confident that once your clients see that you are willing to work with them, but that they will have some additional costs, then their management will have issues they can comprehend. Oh, and you can then pray for that nice big cartesian product that will pay for your next new server;-)
Have used them successfuly over WAN links. They do a great job of accelerating Exchange traffic, and if you do the maths you'll probably find that they pay for themselves in data costs.
Where I have used them the costs of comms links was such that the Steelheads paid for themselves in around 18 months.
Of course your mileage may vary, but remember that cached data is bandwidth saved and that's either money in your pocket, or additional bandwidth for other uses.
How much power are the computers actually consuming ? A 300 Watt power supply has the ability to deliver up to 300 watts sustainably - it does not consume 300 watts all the time.
My laptop (from where I am currently posting this) uses a 65 watt power brick. It's an 18 month old Lenovo 3000 N100 with 1Gb RAM, dual core 1.8GHz CPUs, and other bits.
Despite using a 65 watt rated power supply I know it is using between 25 and 27 watts (thanks to a Jaycar power meter).
When you are doing the maths for determining power useage you need better data than the stickers on the boxes, or the manufacturer supplied data. They will give you the peak power consumption expected, but the typical day to day useage is often a lot lower.
Given how little power it consumes, I leave it switched on 24x7 and just replaced a few more light fittings around the house with compact flourescent lamps and planted a tree.
Jokes aside, the real question seems to be what safety standards should these devices comply with, have they been adeqately tested, and are the standards rigourous enough ?
There appears to be an ongoing problem with laptop computer power supplies. Dell has in the past issued recalls on defective power supplies, there have been stories of power supplies melting and catching fire.
Either the problem is that consumers are being sold inferior products that fail to meet the required safety standards, or the standards that currently exist are not sufficient to protect people.
What will it take to stop this happen ? Does someone need to sue a manufacturer, or do we wait until someone dies ?
Anyone seen support for IMAP IDLE functionality ?
on
Free IMAP On Gmail
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Has anyone seen if this supports the IMAP IDLE mode of operating ?
This is where your clients stay connected, and the server notifies the mail client when there is mail waiting, rather than having the client repeatedly polling the server.
If/when they get this working it will be fantastic for those of us with mobile devices who can't afford a high end data plan.
PS - if you have a Gmail account, and you can't see the IMAP option in settings, log completely out of gmail, close the browser window, and then connect and check again - that's all it took for me to find this nice new feature;-)
What training and development are they providing to assist you to meet those expectations ?
Technicians tend not to make good managers. The skills and abilities do not always overlap (when was the last time you had to politic an application free of bugs ?). If your organisation is expecting you to make this transition, but have not/are not providing you with the appropriate traning and development opportunities to develop good management skills then you are moving on to shakey ground.
The fact that you are looking for advice or direction shows that you have some concerns about your ability to step into this role. You really should discuss them with your new managers, and be prepared to face the consequences if this is a 'sink or swim' exercise and there is a chance you will sink.
When I first saw this posting I was quite disappointed. My previous employer paid for my subscription, and over the years I found it to be timely, useful, and topical. The fact that the issues were organised on a themed basis (eg this month security, next month storage, etc) made it far more useful and interesting to read than many of its competitors.
The fact that the magazine called for papers from its readers, rather than simply pay a small group of contributors for whatever they could scrawl out in a month seemed to deliver better quality articles - I suspect this is something similar to more academic journals. I always had a good deal more faith in their articles than in any other periodicals I read.
The idea of a web based version on the surface seems like a good idea. However, based on other postings on this thread this does not look like something that will take off with CMP.
Doesn't this leave an opportunity for someone else to step in ?
If you think about this, if CMP are discontinuing the magazine, then the only remaining assets of value are their website, subscriber list, stock of backissue CD's, and possibly any articles in their library that have not yet been published. Maybe there is an opportunity for someone ( eg OSDN - hint hint) to talk to CMP and see if they can buy the domain. That, coupled with the potential use of their subscriber email list, could be an opportunity to develop a web based publication of similar quality (you know - one with editors that dupe check, spell check, fact check, etc) to fill the void.
Sell advertising in the publications, pay people to review the content before it's release to subscribers, and do it while people remember that the magazine actually existed.
Irrespective of the delivery method, I believe that there is still a need for such a publication. If it was priced in the same market as some of the other electronic magazines (eg Linux Journal) it may work.
I'm not sure about the US, but here in Australia, anything other than the usual ATX family is hard to buy. That's why they are popular.
The VIA boards are also marketed on their physical size (smart move), where other platforms place more emphasis on other attributes.
There are certainly other options around, but they are either difficult to find (you need to find a distributor in the industrial PC market who will sell single boards) or just too expensive (you are buying from a hobbyist who has imported them from overseas).
It's like the VHS verses Beta war - it's not the quality of your product, but rather the speed at which the market can acquire them (price and availability).
It will be interesting to see if these ever reach the retail space. After VIA released their ITX form factor boards, they announced their NTX sized boards - which I have never seen available for purchase. It will also be interesting to see if their boards have fixed the DMA disk i/o problems as well.
The Treo simply plugs into the cradle and mates with the connector in the base. You don't need to connect any wires to the Treo, you just insert it.
The picture on engadget shows a pretty basic design - apart from a more form specific holder it's not much better than one of the generic phone/gps/whatever cradles. The Seidio designs add value by breaking out the serial port, audio lines, and power.
I love the idea, but I don't see an option for a car cradle.
Given the pain it was to get a proper fitting car cradle for my Treo 650 (I'm in Australia, and I had to buy a Seidio cradle from the US) It would be nice if they had a cradle with power, data, & audio that the phone would just slot into.
It would be even better if they had support for an external antenna.
I may buy one of these - the SDK for the Treo is a joke, and the Palm O/S is more reminiscent of a University project than a commercial product. A native Linux environment can't help but be better, and it's a far more appealing piece of equipment than an iPhone (damn hippies).
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If they don't want you to, problem solved.
If they do, ask them how badly they want to (ie $$$)
If they won't pay the costs, problem solved
If they will, again problem solved
My advice would be to cost out the price of a proper tape library - I know you said you don't want to do that, but honestly if you don't want to do it properly you are taking a huge risk by cutting corners. Tape is one of the best archival forms for storing (you've seen how many people are doing it) and to do it on disk takes more work and effort that you can probably manage. If the customers want multiple copies kept, then charge it at a sensible price and use a commercial storage firm.
It may sound strange, but if you do it properly while you are a small business, then you will have fewer problems when you become a large business. If you are trying to grow your own solution then you are effectively expanding your menu of services to scientific and storage services, or potentially risking becoming a small business that failed.
Lease companies take care of the messy bits like maintenance, and you don't need to worry about the ability of the technicians - it's the companies problem.
Of course as part of this you will probably need to review the state of your existing UPS's - if they are no longer covered by the manufacturers warranty then the batteries probably need replacing by now.
I wonder if the owner has disclosed this modification to his insurance company ?
I'm sure they would like to be financially responsible for the consequences should the car start and cause an accident.
This season there have been people who received these messages - about a fire that occoured 12 days previously. The carrier technology is interesting, but as the emergency services people who manage the back end systems don't update them they are not what you consider reliable.
They are making these SMS's spacially aware - they use your billing address to work out where you are located. Unfortunately the billing systems have a habit of aggregating states. Tasmania is considered part of Victoria, so you have a whole state that gets warned when a fire occours in another state separated by a large body of water and no chance of it spreading.
The Australian solution is cr*p - it's not managed properly, not targetted properly, and is already viewed as unreliable.
At present the best way to stay informed is to buy a scanning radio receiver and tune into the local voluenteer fire brigade radio channels.
Twitter has the potential to be a much better solution than SMS - once you can easily look for tweets within a geographical area of interest. Couple that with staff who are IT savvy rather than good with the hose and there is a real chance this could be quite good.
My High School did have such courses. They were mandatory, and I did attend. I was advised by the teacher to avoid keyboards as I did not have the aptitude. I've been an IT professional for the following 20+ years, and it (frankly) hasn't been an obstacle - I've coded for years, and written more than I care to remember. IT is not about typing - it's more about adaptability, analytical skills, communications, and problem solving. It would be far better if schools invested in teaching pupils more useful general skills, such as communications, problem solving, presentation skills and teamwork.
My server has 8GB of RAM (AU$250), an Intel QX6600 quad core cpu (AU$250), and an Intel Etherexpress 100 NIC (pull from old box). I can't seem to stress it out - it just runs great.
The reason I did this was:
I had a 42RU 19" rack full of desktop PC's I used to use, and the idea of spending money on them upgrading memory and CPU - and then having to pay the power bill turned out to be stupid.
I also saved a large amount of space, my server pulls 120 watts no matter what I throw at it, the noise level is down, it no longer heats the room (I'm in Australia and it's summer here), and it is a useful piece of contemporary software to get experience with. It's also much easier to spin up another server without having to make space for another PC.
Your problem is that you are doing currently is perfectly sensible in a technical environment, but you are dealing with people who live in a different world. You need to provide them with an asnwer that makes sense to the way they work. Explain to management that there are implications for your infrastructure - that they can potentially create a load that your existing infrastructure may not be able to manage along with existing business focussed work. Then suggest a cost recovery model - implement quotas on machine resources, and associate charges with those resources. Have your legal people draw up a contract, specify a reasonable figure for implementing this facility, a per month figure for monitoring and billing, and ensure that whatever the contract states they pay for what they consume. I would also ensure that the contract has a minimum period so that they can't just try it for a month and then walk away. Make the numbers real - don't try to make them artifically high - and see what happens. I would be quite confident that once your clients see that you are willing to work with them, but that they will have some additional costs, then their management will have issues they can comprehend. Oh, and you can then pray for that nice big cartesian product that will pay for your next new server ;-)
I see someone has already posted the TLE's for this, so at least there is a chance that we can track it.
Does anyone know if Gpredict can calculate impact points ?
Where I have used them the costs of comms links was such that the Steelheads paid for themselves in around 18 months.
Of course your mileage may vary, but remember that cached data is bandwidth saved and that's either money in your pocket, or additional bandwidth for other uses.
My laptop (from where I am currently posting this) uses a 65 watt power brick. It's an 18 month old Lenovo 3000 N100 with 1Gb RAM, dual core 1.8GHz CPUs, and other bits.
Despite using a 65 watt rated power supply I know it is using between 25 and 27 watts (thanks to a Jaycar power meter).
When you are doing the maths for determining power useage you need better data than the stickers on the boxes, or the manufacturer supplied data. They will give you the peak power consumption expected, but the typical day to day useage is often a lot lower.
Given how little power it consumes, I leave it switched on 24x7 and just replaced a few more light fittings around the house with compact flourescent lamps and planted a tree.
There appears to be an ongoing problem with laptop computer power supplies. Dell has in the past issued recalls on defective power supplies, there have been stories of power supplies melting and catching fire.
Either the problem is that consumers are being sold inferior products that fail to meet the required safety standards, or the standards that currently exist are not sufficient to protect people.
What will it take to stop this happen ? Does someone need to sue a manufacturer, or do we wait until someone dies ?
This is where your clients stay connected, and the server notifies the mail client when there is mail waiting, rather than having the client repeatedly polling the server.
If/when they get this working it will be fantastic for those of us with mobile devices who can't afford a high end data plan.
PS - if you have a Gmail account, and you can't see the IMAP option in settings, log completely out of gmail, close the browser window, and then connect and check again - that's all it took for me to find this nice new feature ;-)
- What are their expectations of you ?
- What training and development are they providing to assist you to meet those expectations ?
Technicians tend not to make good managers. The skills and abilities do not always overlap (when was the last time you had to politic an application free of bugs ?). If your organisation is expecting you to make this transition, but have not/are not providing you with the appropriate traning and development opportunities to develop good management skills then you are moving on to shakey ground.The fact that you are looking for advice or direction shows that you have some concerns about your ability to step into this role. You really should discuss them with your new managers, and be prepared to face the consequences if this is a 'sink or swim' exercise and there is a chance you will sink.
The fact that the magazine called for papers from its readers, rather than simply pay a small group of contributors for whatever they could scrawl out in a month seemed to deliver better quality articles - I suspect this is something similar to more academic journals. I always had a good deal more faith in their articles than in any other periodicals I read.
The idea of a web based version on the surface seems like a good idea. However, based on other postings on this thread this does not look like something that will take off with CMP.
Doesn't this leave an opportunity for someone else to step in ?
If you think about this, if CMP are discontinuing the magazine, then the only remaining assets of value are their website, subscriber list, stock of backissue CD's, and possibly any articles in their library that have not yet been published. Maybe there is an opportunity for someone ( eg OSDN - hint hint) to talk to CMP and see if they can buy the domain. That, coupled with the potential use of their subscriber email list, could be an opportunity to develop a web based publication of similar quality (you know - one with editors that dupe check, spell check, fact check, etc) to fill the void.
Sell advertising in the publications, pay people to review the content before it's release to subscribers, and do it while people remember that the magazine actually existed.
Irrespective of the delivery method, I believe that there is still a need for such a publication. If it was priced in the same market as some of the other electronic magazines (eg Linux Journal) it may work.
I'd buy it.
The VIA boards are also marketed on their physical size (smart move), where other platforms place more emphasis on other attributes.
There are certainly other options around, but they are either difficult to find (you need to find a distributor in the industrial PC market who will sell single boards) or just too expensive (you are buying from a hobbyist who has imported them from overseas).
It's like the VHS verses Beta war - it's not the quality of your product, but rather the speed at which the market can acquire them (price and availability).
It will be interesting to see if these ever reach the retail space. After VIA released their ITX form factor boards, they announced their NTX sized boards - which I have never seen available for purchase. It will also be interesting to see if their boards have fixed the DMA disk i/o problems as well.
These would be so cool for demonstrations and conventions.
I wonder how many of these cards you could fit in a single computer ?
The Treo simply plugs into the cradle and mates with the connector in the base. You don't need to connect any wires to the Treo, you just insert it.
The picture on engadget shows a pretty basic design - apart from a more form specific holder it's not much better than one of the generic phone/gps/whatever cradles. The Seidio designs add value by breaking out the serial port, audio lines, and power.
Given the pain it was to get a proper fitting car cradle for my Treo 650 (I'm in Australia, and I had to buy a Seidio cradle from the US) It would be nice if they had a cradle with power, data, & audio that the phone would just slot into.
It would be even better if they had support for an external antenna.
I may buy one of these - the SDK for the Treo is a joke, and the Palm O/S is more reminiscent of a University project than a commercial product. A native Linux environment can't help but be better, and it's a far more appealing piece of equipment than an iPhone (damn hippies).