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User: ewilts

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  1. Re:Oh, for Pete's sake. Not again! on Not Quite Dead: SCO Linux Suit Against IBM Stirs In Utah · · Score: 1

    The article says that this will be judge #7.

  2. Re:LOL on Samsung's Open Source Group Is Growing, Hiring Developers · · Score: 2

    > One of the major problems with working for Samsung in, say, Austin is that the local managers have no say at all. All the decisions come from South Kore

    100% BS, at least for my Samsung office. Some decisions, yes, like any other satellite company office where decisions come from "corporate" or "headquarters". Sure, major purchases get approved in Korea, but I get them approved significantly faster here than at my last job where I was in the same friggin' building as the folks doing the approving.

    Again, there are MULTIPLE Samsung facilities in Austin. YMMV.

  3. Re:LOL on Samsung's Open Source Group Is Growing, Hiring Developers · · Score: 4, Informative

    You have to realize that Samsung Electronics - which is only part of the Samsung group - has about 250,000 employees. As with any company this big, there's going to be a collection of good teams to work in and a (hopefully smaller) collection of not-so-good teams to work in. There are going to be communication breakdowns where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. No big company is immune to this. Find a good group with a good manager in any company and you'll be happy. Find a bad manager in an otherwise good company and you'll be miserable.

    I work in the Samsung Austin R & D Center where we design CPUs for mobile devices. I love it here - an awesome work environment, awesome people, and excellent benefits because of Samsung's size, even though our building only has about 300 people in it. We have people here contributing to open source projects even though they're not part of the open source team that this article is referring to.

  4. Re:optical media on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 1

    100 years of your data is absolutely meaningless if you can't read the media.

    Do you have anything around that have the ability to read a tape that was written 20 years ago? 5 years ago?

    Darn, I can't listen to my 8-tracks!

  5. Re:Go on the internet and find a DLT drive on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 3, Informative

    You're dating yourself. LTO-5 is 1.5TB native, 3TB compressed at $25 per tape. LTO-6 is 2.5TB native and 6.25TB compressed. Both of those compressed numbers are using the built-in compression in the drive.

    A 10-pack of LTO-5 tapes is about $250.

    You can easily encrypt the tapes and tape them offsite. You can keep a copy onsite and offsite. You're simply not doing that with disk.

    Your speed is also off - an LTO-5 can write at 280MB/sec. The limiting factor is not the write time on the media but the read time from disk.

    Restore times are typically limited by the write rate on the destination raidset, not the read rate from tape.

  6. Re:If you want to hoard bits... on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 4, Informative

    The dataset isn't that huge. Tape can write at speed at least as fast as disk - LTO-5 writes at up to 280MB/sec - far faster than you can read the source at which isn't likely to be fast disk. The seek for a single-file restore will be slower than disk but after the initial seek, the read will be as fast as from a typical archive disk (no, you're not archiving 20TB to SSD, nor are you storing the source data on SSD either)

    However, the change rate for this application is likely to be low. That makes it very feasible to do random testing from the new backups where a minute to do the tape mount/seek is not a problem. You won't be writing more than a single tape in any single run (LTO-5 is ~1.5 TB of uncompressed data).

    For $2K, you'll have the LTO-5 drive. Add $500 for 20 tapes and you can back up the entire set (once) plus a bunch of incrementals. I haven't done the math with LTO-6 which is faster and holds more data. If you want multiple generations, tape is a lot cheaper per TB than disk. The initial drive cost hurts but after that, the price is good at $15/TB or so.

  7. Re:If you want to hoard bits... on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 1

    That's a lousy answer. Tape *does* work. It can be slower than disk, but disk is not the *only* way to have a usable backup. Tape is not dead.

    Tape works. Disk works. Offsite replication works. Do the math for how much data you have and how much bandwidth you have or can afford, and do the calculations on how much data you really have to back up. In many cases, recreating the data can be significantly cheaper than backup it up and restoring it. If you have your original CDs and DVDs, put them in an offsite location. If you have a disaster, you can have them re-ripped for a LOT cheaper than backing them up.

    I've help run a multi-petabyte data center with backups to tape and they worked. Everything written to tape was restorable. I currently run a multi-petabyte data center and replicate everything to disk in an offsite location. It also works. Neither is cheap.

    Figure out what part of the data is important to you and how long you can wait to get it back. If a fire burns down your house but you need the data back in minutes or hours, then tape is obviously not the answer but then neither is DVDs or any cloud provider.

    There is NO single answer that's good for everybody. It's a cost/benefit/risk analysis that every first year comp sci student better become familiar with.

  8. Same questions that you would ask a Unix admin on Ask Slashdot: What Should a Unix Fan Look For In a Windows Expert? · · Score: 2

    Whether it's Windows, Linux, VMS or ESXi doesn't really matter. The external differences boil down to syntax. If you find somebody who only knows the syntax, you're not going to be happy unless you're looking for a short term employee or contractor. You don't hire a Unix admin because he knows how to write a bash script - you find somebody who understands the importance of automation, the ability to document and test, and the ability to pick up new technologies. You know technology is changing so you need a person who can adapt. If you can troubleshoot the root cause of a system crash, it doesn't matter what OS you're working on and you'll pick up a different OS quickly. But hire an idiot that can't troubleshoot worth a darn and it doesn't matter if he's an RHCE, MCSE or VCP or holds all three.

    If you find somebody that can't tell the difference between they're, there, or their or between its and it's, he's not on the learning curve you need him to be on. It means that in 20 or 30 years, he still doesn't care about quality and is too lazy to look things up. Those aren't good combinations.

  9. Monitor size on Ask Slashdot: How To Shop For a Laptop? · · Score: 1

    Think really hard on that monitor size. A large display will add a lot to the price and make it heavy. If your sister really needs the larger display when it's sitting a desk at home the vast majority of the time, pick a laptop with a small display, add a docking station and buy an external monitor.

  10. Re:Canon or Nikon on Ask Slashdot: Best Camera For Getting Into Photography? · · Score: 1

    Actually the superzooms these days do have manual focus if you want to use it. I've been pretty happy with my Canon S5 IS and my wife just ordered me an SX40 for Christmas. I don't use the manual on my S5 often but it's nice when I do need it. Some objects just won't focus automatically.

  11. Re:Out of context on Dropbox TOS Includes Broad Copyright License · · Score: 1

    That's why that following sentence ends with "to the extent which we think it necessary for the Service."

    But what if making money is "necessary for the Service"? The are implying that they have the right to license your work for profit so they can continue running Dropbox.

  12. Re:Great for middle-class employed people. on Obama's Goal: 98% of US Covered By 4G · · Score: 1

    "voice plan: $20 a month" on an iPhone. Really? You are NOT getting a smartphone voice service for $20 per month. Unlimited voice minutes, which is what a landline gives you, is significantly higher. An individual phone line with unlimited minutes is $70 per month - that's $600 added to your cost for the first year alone.

  13. Re:Great for middle-class employed people. on Obama's Goal: 98% of US Covered By 4G · · Score: 1

    It's not just that job search sites don't work well over dial up. You can't even keep up with security patches on your PC over dial up. I've got a relative that only has dial-up access and limited hours per month. Every time she turns on her PC, the patches start downloading and take over the phone connection. The only practical solution for dial-up users is to turn security patching off and that SUCKS. By the time you add up Window security patches, your Acrobat Reader security patches, and your antivirus patches, you'll easily consume hundreds of MB per month.

  14. Re:Great for middle-class employed people. on Obama's Goal: 98% of US Covered By 4G · · Score: 1

    Not even close. You can't get a smartphone from any of the large retails for under $60 per month and that's to talk for 5 hours per month. MANY US citizens are not in an area where smartphone access is even an option - a vast majority of the central plains is dead.

    A landline is cheap and gives you unlimited minutes - simply purchasing a dumb phone with unlimited minutes is going to cost easily 5 times as much. Data is significantly more.

  15. Legal in Calgary, Alberta 20 years ago on ACLU Sues To Protect Your Right To Swear · · Score: 1

    I remember this going to court in Calgary, Alberta, around 1990. Somebody had a T-Shirt that said "Fuck off and die" on it and was arrested. The judge's decision at the time was that "fuck" could no longer be considered obscene because it had become everyday use. He did say the wearer demonstrated poor taste but it was unfortunately legal. And this was 20 years ago!

  16. Re:Stitch files on The Mystery of the Mega-Selling Floppy Disk · · Score: 1

    Even single-head sewing/embroidery machines for home use have floppy drives. We've got one and it would cost us easily several grand to replace it with a newer model that uses USB sticks instead.

  17. Obviously... on 3rd Grader Accused of Hacking Schools' Computer System · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...their IT folks are not smarter than their 5th graders.

  18. Re:Not sure about the hype on Do You Have a Secret Immunity To 3D Movies? · · Score: 1

    Not all geeks with bad eyesight can wear contacts. My eyeballs have a funny shape and I'm not a candidate for Lasik nor contacts. 3-D movies with glasses make me want to throw up although I have no problems with 2-D movies. For me, I will *never* watch a 3-D movie.

  19. YOU take the risk on Licensing an Abandonware Game? · · Score: 1

    To create an "open source game", you're giving your customers a license but you would be given them a license for something you KNOW you don't own. You're setting yourself up for a world of hurt. Not only can the original copyright and/or patent holders come after you, but every single one of YOUR licensees could come after you for damages as well. Whether or not you charge a fee has absolutely no bearing on the matter. The real question you need to ask is not whether you'd be in the right or wrong but whether or not you can afford the legal bills if somebody does go after you. You, and you alone, need to decide if you are willing to take that risk. Is the game THAT important that you'd be willing to risk thousands or tens of thousands of your own money on legal fees?

  20. Re:Why are you so backwards? on Home Phone System That Syncs To Computer? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why on earth are you still using a landline? A mobile phone will probably be cheaper

    Mobile phones are a lot of things, but being cheaper isn't one of them. We talk to Canada for over 1000 minutes per month. I can easily afford to pay for my Qwest landline with unlimited calling to Canada for just those long-distance charges. Any time you get into many minutes for multiple people, cell phone plans start to suck.

  21. Usenet? on US Tests System To Evade Foreign Web Censorship · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a Usenet to email gateway to me!

  22. Re:I wonder if ... on RIAA Loses Bid To Keep Revenues Secret · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if they told the artists one set of numbers and need more time to make sure what they give to the court matches that set.

    Herein lies the issue. If they go with the artist numbers, then revenues might be small. Punitive and compensatory damages will likely be small as a result. However, if they want to claim higher numbers, then the artists will turn around and sue them for the stolen revenue. They're caught between a rock and a hard place, and that's good...

  23. Re:No controller? No failover? No interconnect? on Building a 10 TB Array For Around $1,000 · · Score: 1

    RAID 5 will not protect your data. The odds are extremely high that if you lose a drive in a 12TB array, you *will* get an error during rebuild. RAID 5 on an array this large is for those people who don't do storage for a living.

    RAID 0? Let me simply repeat what that 0 is for: the percentage of the data you will get back if anything goes wrong.

    Any time I see somebody build this kind of uber-cheap setup reminds me of a simple formula: good, fast, cheap. Pick any two. Yeah, you've built cheap, and maybe fast, but it isn't any good.

    I have rebuilt cheap 12TB file systems that have gone corrupt. I've seen double-disk failures on RAID 5 sets. More than once. I still see people suggesting RAID 5, naively thinking that they'll survive disk failures. I see people putting crappy, unsupported file systems on big arrays. I see people putting non-journaling file systems on these arrays. I see single stream benchmarks, or benchmarks that make no pretense of mimicking a production workload.

  24. Simple math... on Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule? · · Score: 1

    As an IT guy, you can appreciate basic math. If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you burn more than you eat, you will lose weight. Eat the right foods that aren't just a waste of calories - there are a gazillion references to what these are. Don't eat more than you can burn. If somebody brings in donuts at work, take a pass. Drink lots of water, not caffeine-laced drinks. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park at the parking spot the farthest away from the door. Remember, you have to burn calories and every calorie helps. You can also search online (wikihow for example) for lots of exercises that you can do while sitting at your desk or while driving.

  25. Time will tell on AP Considers Making Content Require Payment · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When all newspapers become pay sites, you'll see where they're adding value - by bringing you the news in the first place.

    Ads are no longer a viable revenue source for most of the providers.

    Perhaps you'll trust the news being broadcast from around the world by free broadcasters. Others won't and will expect CNN or AP to send professional reports to the events and provide professional analysis. We'll see where the value add ends up.

    You can see it today - who do you go to for your political coverage? Your sports coverage? How about your technical coverage? All of those have "amateur" coverage, yet here *you* are, on a site managed by professionals. Something has to pay the bills.