I didn't read TFA, but if the ISP is providing the VPN service, then they must control the VPN endpoint where the traffic is decrypted when it leaves their network. If that's the case, then it seems to me that they would still be obligated to log all of the traffic at that point, thus negating the whole point of using VPN in the first place. Maybe they've partnered with a 3rd party to provide the VPN service to get around this?
I was in the same situation you're in now. I was dealing with more than just photos, but since it's all just data, that doesn't really matter. I bought two USB hard drives and used them as offsite backups. I just took mine to work and left them in a desk drawer, but you can scale up/down from there depending on how much the data is worth to you. Other possible options might be a safety deposit box at your bank, or a relative's house in another state. Like I said, it all depends on how much not losing the data is worth to you, and how paranoid you are.
Remember that if your primary copy is not going to reside on your computer, then you need three USB drives (master at home, and two backups). ALWAYS keep a copy of the data offsite. You don't want to end up in the situation where you bring your backup drive home to sync it up and that happens to be the day your house burns down. If you're really paranoid, you might want to look at storing your backup copies at separate offsite locations.
There are various utilities that you can use to periodically sync the backup copies to the master, but I found that SyncToy works pretty well. It's a MS PowerToy and is free, although it is Windows only.
I replace all of my USB drives every 2 or 3 years. My rationale behind this is that all storage eventually dies, so by replacing the disks periodically I feel like I'm lowering my chances of a failed disk. If you do it frequently enough, you can sell the replaced drives on eBay while they still have some value and offset some of the associated cost.
Alternatively, you could try using an online backup service, but relying on someone else to store my data makes me really nervous. Especially so when you consider that if they happen to mysteriously lose your wedding photos, you really don't have any recourse other than cancelling the service. I don't know about you, but for me it's just not worth the risk.
You need to find a way to make it relevant. None of them are going to put in the time necessary to understand it if they don't see how it's useful to them. If the students are in a networking or security related program, maybe show them nmap, or kismet. If they're in a programming track, then LAMP would be a better place to start. Asterisk is also a cool proof of concept to show what linux can do. As I said, If you show them stuff that has no application to them or their field of study, then they're not going to care. The linux "cool factor" does not apply unless you already posses the geek gene, and more often than not, the people in today's computer classes are there because they think they'll be able to use what they learn to get a job and make money. Unless you can show them how linux can help them accomplish this goal, then it's useless knowledge to them.
I presume that at least some portion of convicted sex offenders have children they care for. Does this mean they can't enroll their child in day care, take them to a park, or drop them off at school?
Mod parent up, he's got it exactly right. There are many problems with doing your geolocation at the DNS level rather than the client level. One prevalent example that springs to mind is a corporation with remote users. If the users are connected to a VPN that does split-tunneling, they're likely to be doing their name resolution via internal DNS servers, which are almost certainly on a different ISP's network and geographically not as close to the client as you could get by doing a geolookup on the client's IP.
There is a performance hit by doing an HTTP redirect, but as others have said, it's very small when you're talking about a file of any significant size.
An HTTP redirect is typically resolved in less than a second. If your download is going to take over a minute, that's less that 1% of your total download time.
Over a minute means > 60 seconds, so 1 / 61 =.0164 = 1.6%, so while I appreciate the point you're trying to convey and I realize I'm just being nit-picky, your math isn't exactly 100%, no pun intended.
Yes, I agree that in general, the TSA could do a better job with their PR and interact with the public with a little more respect, but what do you legitimately expect them to do? There are those that will say it's "security theater" and that people who want to get explosives on a plane will find a way. Ok, fine, I can agree with that. So these people might say that the TSA should just give up because their searches won't catch the really determined terrorists. Seriously? Just give up, that's your answer?
If I was one of those really determined terrorists, one of my first thoughts would be to get the crabbiest kid I could find, and load her up with explosives in the hope that the TSA guys will just let her go through when she pitches a hissy fit. These guys actually did their job, and they catch hell for it. Can someone point out exactly what the point of this article is (i.e. what was done improperly)?
I'll admit, I didn't read the article, but from the summary I don't see a whole lot wrong with what she's doing. Moronic, yes, but legally unsound...I don't think so. If you click through to an article on her site and on that page it says that by clicking through to another page you agree to purchase a subscription, then I'm not sure why everyone thinks there's some sort of legal problem with this. Electronic signatures are just as enforceable as their paper counterparts, and like it or not, that text would qualify as a contract that you agreed to by clicking through. This has been upheld numerous times on sites where the TOS is just a link in the site's header or footer, I think they call it clickwrapping? Users would say, "well I never read the TOS", and the judge says "sorry, it was available to you, guess you shoulda read it".
Why not? ISPs log DHCP leases. How do you think they turn numbers into names for the RIAA/MPAA? It's the same thing here. You might not be able to prove it's the same person, but you can prove what subscriber on a particular ISP it was.
Sorry, but I disagree with some of what you've said. I agree that I'm probably not going to plunk down $10 for an album of some band that I have a passing interest in, but this is where NIN really has it right. He's built up a loyal fanbase and gives them a reason to pay. Like you mentioned, he released The Slip for free on the web, but he also had a few "for pay" options available ranging from a few bucks up to about $300 IIRC. The free version was MP3, and the $5 or $10 option got you lossless FLAC and the album art. The $300 got you an autographed vinyl or something similar, I can't remember. They sold out of the $300 packages in about two days I think.
Same thing with the live videos. ThisOneIsOnUs put together the AVOTT DVD/Bluray discs and made the video available for free via torrent, but you better believe I paid the 20 or 30 bucks to get a bluray with the special album art and all of that stuff. Granted, that money didn't go back to NIN, but it illustrates my point. It's not that people are unwilling to pay, you just have to give them something worth paying for.
I'll be the first to admit that there's a lot of made up science in ST, but one of the things I always liked about that show was the amount of what you saw on screen that wasn't made up. A surprising amount of the science is theoretically valid. Warp drive, for instance. There are other instances but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Slander is spoken, libel is written. It'd be difficult for someone to commit slander via a web forum, unless they're linking to an audio or video file in which they're speaking.
Assuming your TV has a VGA and/or DVI input, why not just use a PC w/ a wireless kb & mouse? I use an older laptop that stays on all the time. It runs Windows XP w/ Google Chrome for web, VLC for video and Winamp for audio. The power usage of a laptop w/ its screen turned off is minimal, so it doesn't bother me that it stays on all the time, plus it can do anything a regular PC can do, since it *is* a regular PC.
If you don't have VGA or DVI inputs, buy a better TV:), or you could try something like an original Xbox w/ XBMC. I use one in my bedroom for streaming audio and video content from my main PC. It's great for those functions, and the interface is really simple so the wife can use it too, which is a plus. It doesn't have a useful web browser though, so it's probably not what you're looking for.
Lock your ethernet port to 10 Mbps half duplex. You should be able to do this either on your switch or your Mac. His access to your files will become agonizingly slow, and if that isn't enough to make him stop, it won't matter much to you since transfers that slow will barely affect your Mac's CPU or hard drive. Of course, this would also mean that your access to others' files would also be equally slow, but assuming everything you need is on your computer, you should be set.
Makes you wonder how they managed to survive 20 years ago when they'd actually be required to use (gasp) the command prompt to get their work done. My parents owned a small business and they had a few PCs located at "computer stations" around the office that the various staff would use. They had all the commands written down on little post-it notes stuck at the bottom of the monitor. Tech support back then cost something like $200/hr, so if they had a problem they got together and figured it out on their own.
Fast forward to present day when everything on the screen is pretty and point/click easy and they give up at the first sign of trouble. We've made everything so easy for them, that they've forgotten how to think for themselves.
You know what an Ethernet cable is, but you shouldn't assume everyone else does. "The blue cable with a big phone plug on the end" will yield a higher chance of the user selecting the correct cable. Once you're sure they have the right cable in hand, then you can go back to refering to it as an "Ethernet" or "network" cable, so that particular user might remember what it's called for future calls to support.
At a previous job, we switched our time tracking software over from physical time clocks to fingerprint timeclock software we developed in house. We employed a lot of young people in positions that didn't have a lot of supervision so we had problems with people clocking their friends in early and out late.
As someone previously stated, the software doesn't store images of your prints, it just stores a digital equivalent. As I understand it, the actual data that's stored is akin to an md5 hash of your fingerprint such that when you put your finger on the scanner, the software can tell whether your fingerprint matches the signature on file, but you cannot recreate a copy of your fingerprint from the stored signature. Once people understood that, they became much more receptive to the idea of us using their fingerprints in this way.
I wonder what the distance limitations are for the quoted 200Mbps speed. If you could get even 100Mbps at 200+ meters, then that product might have applications for long-run applications, since Cat5 specs only list 100M as the max distance. Of course in reality I've run Cat5 much further than 100M and achieved 100Mbps, but in industrial or other applications where interference is a factor, coax might be cheaper than fiber.
There's no reason to run fiber at this point. You can do everything you need over copper. Wait until you actually have a need to go beyond copper before you spend the money...the whole present value of money thing..why have $500 of fiber sitting dormant for 3-5 years? Plus in 3-5 years when you need it, you can get the latest and greatest and not have an outdated cable plant, OR you could buy the same stuff you could buy today for half the cost. Of course with inflation the way it is, it might not make a huge difference:(
When Cat6 is no longer cutting it, it's easy enough to simply unterminate both ends of it and pull it out of the conduit prior to pulling whatever you're replacing it with using the pull string. I'd actually recommend putting redundant pull strings in place, as there is no rage quite like the rage experienced when you snap your pull string after pulling cable half way through a 200' run. The purpose built pull string offers very little in the way of resistance for cable to get caught up in, so it really adds no overhead if you throw an extra one in, and since you'll likely have to buy at least 500' of it anyway, you might as well make use of it.
I've wired my fair share of homes, and just built one from the ground up in 2008. I realize this doesn't help the OP, but what I did has worked out very well for me, so here are my recommendations to others. I put conduit in the walls everywhere I thought I might ever potentially want to run cable. For the places where you know you'll want cable, go ahead and install wall boxes before drywall goes up and run your conduit down from the attic to the box (make sure to leave 4 or 5 feet above the ceiling in the attic to make sure it will be visible above the insulation (after all, you can always cut off excess later). For the other areas where you won't have cable on day 1 but might want it later, don't put a wall box, just run the conduit and leave it behind the drywall, and make sure you staple it to the studs so it won't move around. This is especially useful on exterior walls in homes with sloped roofs, as it's a full day's job to run cable after the fact here because there is no clearance it the attic at these areas.
For your MDF, put up a solid backboard (1/2" plywood works well) on the wall and buy yourself a small wall-mount rack that swings out so you can access the back of it to do termination, etc. Invest in a patch panel, they can be had for next to nothing on eBay and the headache they save is worth every bit of what you spend. Same thing with a switch, get a rack mount switch with enough ports for today and enough expansion for the next couple years. If you'll have a phone phone, pick up a 66 block and mount that on your backboard to handle phone termination. Optionally, become a stockholder in a cable management company...get a bunch of zip ties, velcro, rack cable management, etc to dress everything up and make it look professional. This provides the smallest actual ROI, but this is what I like the most about my home wiring, it's clean, easy to maintain, and it just looks like the person that did it knew what they were doing.
One other thing to be aware of - I put my MDF in my master closet because it's pretty spacious, but my switch has a fan and the noise it generates is mildly annoying at night, so you may want to look for switches that are passively cooled. I used a big honkin 48 port Cisco switch because I needed layer 3 and PoE, but you may not need to get that complex.
Mod parent up. A gun being used for self defense should be as simple as possible. The only thing that will happen if this law was enacted was the price for pre-law handguns would skyrocket because nobody would want one of these so-called "smart" guns because you're essentially taking a proven technology and saying, "here, let me see what I can add to this to give it more opportunities to fail". No thanks.
Because the general population is ignorant and clueless about most everything, not just technology. They decide they want a new phone, go to the store and buy the one that looks the shiniest, has the biggest display and is pushed the most by the salespeople. I would wager that at LEAST 80% of phone purchases are impulse buys involving less than 20 minutes of research, or no research at all. I say this because as the resident IT monkey, people bring their new phones to me for help when they can't figure out why they can't get feature X to work, to which I reply your phone doesn't include feature X, and then I ask them if they bothered to read the spec sheet before signing on the dotted line and they sulk and walk away...
The helpdesk guys effectively *are* computer janitors. Unless they have some other non-helpdesk role as well, then their job is to help users when their computers aren't working. Is it a shitty way to look at the job? Sure, but it is what it is. It's all the more motivation to get promoted out of helpdesk so you can go back to wearing your own clothes.
We don't have to wear a uniform, but I usually wear a shirt with a company logo to work just because I have so many. I wouldn't be thrilled if that started making us wear IT specific shirts. In a small shop like ours, it wouldn't be effective at anything since everyone already knows who I am, but in a large shop I agree that it'll cause problems for the techs because they'll start getting pulled into cubicles at 3x the normal rate when they go get their morning coffee. Calling the helpdesk is still a more effective method of getting help, BUT...
The reason they're doing this is probably because they're getting feedback that after calling the helpdesk it takes too long to get a tech into your cube to fix your problem. The helpdesk software/administrator is prioritizing the requests, and the VP who always forgets to turn his speakers on is unhappy that it takes an hour for someone to stop in and press the power button for him, so he complains to the CIO/CTO that there aren't enough helpdesk people in the building. That's just life unfortunately...if they want to be able to respond to idiotic support requests in 5 minutes, then the solution is to hire more techs.
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I didn't read TFA, but if the ISP is providing the VPN service, then they must control the VPN endpoint where the traffic is decrypted when it leaves their network. If that's the case, then it seems to me that they would still be obligated to log all of the traffic at that point, thus negating the whole point of using VPN in the first place. Maybe they've partnered with a 3rd party to provide the VPN service to get around this?
I was in the same situation you're in now. I was dealing with more than just photos, but since it's all just data, that doesn't really matter. I bought two USB hard drives and used them as offsite backups. I just took mine to work and left them in a desk drawer, but you can scale up/down from there depending on how much the data is worth to you. Other possible options might be a safety deposit box at your bank, or a relative's house in another state. Like I said, it all depends on how much not losing the data is worth to you, and how paranoid you are.
Remember that if your primary copy is not going to reside on your computer, then you need three USB drives (master at home, and two backups). ALWAYS keep a copy of the data offsite. You don't want to end up in the situation where you bring your backup drive home to sync it up and that happens to be the day your house burns down. If you're really paranoid, you might want to look at storing your backup copies at separate offsite locations.
There are various utilities that you can use to periodically sync the backup copies to the master, but I found that SyncToy works pretty well. It's a MS PowerToy and is free, although it is Windows only.
I replace all of my USB drives every 2 or 3 years. My rationale behind this is that all storage eventually dies, so by replacing the disks periodically I feel like I'm lowering my chances of a failed disk. If you do it frequently enough, you can sell the replaced drives on eBay while they still have some value and offset some of the associated cost. Alternatively, you could try using an online backup service, but relying on someone else to store my data makes me really nervous. Especially so when you consider that if they happen to mysteriously lose your wedding photos, you really don't have any recourse other than cancelling the service. I don't know about you, but for me it's just not worth the risk.
You need to find a way to make it relevant. None of them are going to put in the time necessary to understand it if they don't see how it's useful to them. If the students are in a networking or security related program, maybe show them nmap, or kismet. If they're in a programming track, then LAMP would be a better place to start. Asterisk is also a cool proof of concept to show what linux can do. As I said, If you show them stuff that has no application to them or their field of study, then they're not going to care. The linux "cool factor" does not apply unless you already posses the geek gene, and more often than not, the people in today's computer classes are there because they think they'll be able to use what they learn to get a job and make money. Unless you can show them how linux can help them accomplish this goal, then it's useless knowledge to them.
I presume that at least some portion of convicted sex offenders have children they care for. Does this mean they can't enroll their child in day care, take them to a park, or drop them off at school?
Mod parent up, he's got it exactly right. There are many problems with doing your geolocation at the DNS level rather than the client level. One prevalent example that springs to mind is a corporation with remote users. If the users are connected to a VPN that does split-tunneling, they're likely to be doing their name resolution via internal DNS servers, which are almost certainly on a different ISP's network and geographically not as close to the client as you could get by doing a geolookup on the client's IP. There is a performance hit by doing an HTTP redirect, but as others have said, it's very small when you're talking about a file of any significant size.
An HTTP redirect is typically resolved in less than a second. If your download is going to take over a minute, that's less that 1% of your total download time.
Over a minute means > 60 seconds, so 1 / 61 = .0164 = 1.6%, so while I appreciate the point you're trying to convey and I realize I'm just being nit-picky, your math isn't exactly 100%, no pun intended.
Yes, I agree that in general, the TSA could do a better job with their PR and interact with the public with a little more respect, but what do you legitimately expect them to do? There are those that will say it's "security theater" and that people who want to get explosives on a plane will find a way. Ok, fine, I can agree with that. So these people might say that the TSA should just give up because their searches won't catch the really determined terrorists. Seriously? Just give up, that's your answer? If I was one of those really determined terrorists, one of my first thoughts would be to get the crabbiest kid I could find, and load her up with explosives in the hope that the TSA guys will just let her go through when she pitches a hissy fit. These guys actually did their job, and they catch hell for it. Can someone point out exactly what the point of this article is (i.e. what was done improperly)?
I'll admit, I didn't read the article, but from the summary I don't see a whole lot wrong with what she's doing. Moronic, yes, but legally unsound...I don't think so. If you click through to an article on her site and on that page it says that by clicking through to another page you agree to purchase a subscription, then I'm not sure why everyone thinks there's some sort of legal problem with this. Electronic signatures are just as enforceable as their paper counterparts, and like it or not, that text would qualify as a contract that you agreed to by clicking through. This has been upheld numerous times on sites where the TOS is just a link in the site's header or footer, I think they call it clickwrapping? Users would say, "well I never read the TOS", and the judge says "sorry, it was available to you, guess you shoulda read it".
Why not? ISPs log DHCP leases. How do you think they turn numbers into names for the RIAA/MPAA? It's the same thing here. You might not be able to prove it's the same person, but you can prove what subscriber on a particular ISP it was.
Sorry, but I disagree with some of what you've said. I agree that I'm probably not going to plunk down $10 for an album of some band that I have a passing interest in, but this is where NIN really has it right. He's built up a loyal fanbase and gives them a reason to pay. Like you mentioned, he released The Slip for free on the web, but he also had a few "for pay" options available ranging from a few bucks up to about $300 IIRC. The free version was MP3, and the $5 or $10 option got you lossless FLAC and the album art. The $300 got you an autographed vinyl or something similar, I can't remember. They sold out of the $300 packages in about two days I think. Same thing with the live videos. ThisOneIsOnUs put together the AVOTT DVD/Bluray discs and made the video available for free via torrent, but you better believe I paid the 20 or 30 bucks to get a bluray with the special album art and all of that stuff. Granted, that money didn't go back to NIN, but it illustrates my point. It's not that people are unwilling to pay, you just have to give them something worth paying for.
I'll be the first to admit that there's a lot of made up science in ST, but one of the things I always liked about that show was the amount of what you saw on screen that wasn't made up. A surprising amount of the science is theoretically valid. Warp drive, for instance. There are other instances but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Slander is spoken, libel is written. It'd be difficult for someone to commit slander via a web forum, unless they're linking to an audio or video file in which they're speaking.
Assuming your TV has a VGA and/or DVI input, why not just use a PC w/ a wireless kb & mouse? I use an older laptop that stays on all the time. It runs Windows XP w/ Google Chrome for web, VLC for video and Winamp for audio. The power usage of a laptop w/ its screen turned off is minimal, so it doesn't bother me that it stays on all the time, plus it can do anything a regular PC can do, since it *is* a regular PC. If you don't have VGA or DVI inputs, buy a better TV :), or you could try something like an original Xbox w/ XBMC. I use one in my bedroom for streaming audio and video content from my main PC. It's great for those functions, and the interface is really simple so the wife can use it too, which is a plus. It doesn't have a useful web browser though, so it's probably not what you're looking for.
Lock your ethernet port to 10 Mbps half duplex. You should be able to do this either on your switch or your Mac. His access to your files will become agonizingly slow, and if that isn't enough to make him stop, it won't matter much to you since transfers that slow will barely affect your Mac's CPU or hard drive. Of course, this would also mean that your access to others' files would also be equally slow, but assuming everything you need is on your computer, you should be set.
Makes you wonder how they managed to survive 20 years ago when they'd actually be required to use (gasp) the command prompt to get their work done. My parents owned a small business and they had a few PCs located at "computer stations" around the office that the various staff would use. They had all the commands written down on little post-it notes stuck at the bottom of the monitor. Tech support back then cost something like $200/hr, so if they had a problem they got together and figured it out on their own. Fast forward to present day when everything on the screen is pretty and point/click easy and they give up at the first sign of trouble. We've made everything so easy for them, that they've forgotten how to think for themselves.
You know what an Ethernet cable is, but you shouldn't assume everyone else does. "The blue cable with a big phone plug on the end" will yield a higher chance of the user selecting the correct cable. Once you're sure they have the right cable in hand, then you can go back to refering to it as an "Ethernet" or "network" cable, so that particular user might remember what it's called for future calls to support.
...if you don't already have some, sounds like now ought to be a pretty good time to buy up some stock in VMware.
At a previous job, we switched our time tracking software over from physical time clocks to fingerprint timeclock software we developed in house. We employed a lot of young people in positions that didn't have a lot of supervision so we had problems with people clocking their friends in early and out late. As someone previously stated, the software doesn't store images of your prints, it just stores a digital equivalent. As I understand it, the actual data that's stored is akin to an md5 hash of your fingerprint such that when you put your finger on the scanner, the software can tell whether your fingerprint matches the signature on file, but you cannot recreate a copy of your fingerprint from the stored signature. Once people understood that, they became much more receptive to the idea of us using their fingerprints in this way.
I wonder what the distance limitations are for the quoted 200Mbps speed. If you could get even 100Mbps at 200+ meters, then that product might have applications for long-run applications, since Cat5 specs only list 100M as the max distance. Of course in reality I've run Cat5 much further than 100M and achieved 100Mbps, but in industrial or other applications where interference is a factor, coax might be cheaper than fiber.
There's no reason to run fiber at this point. You can do everything you need over copper. Wait until you actually have a need to go beyond copper before you spend the money...the whole present value of money thing..why have $500 of fiber sitting dormant for 3-5 years? Plus in 3-5 years when you need it, you can get the latest and greatest and not have an outdated cable plant, OR you could buy the same stuff you could buy today for half the cost. Of course with inflation the way it is, it might not make a huge difference :(
When Cat6 is no longer cutting it, it's easy enough to simply unterminate both ends of it and pull it out of the conduit prior to pulling whatever you're replacing it with using the pull string. I'd actually recommend putting redundant pull strings in place, as there is no rage quite like the rage experienced when you snap your pull string after pulling cable half way through a 200' run. The purpose built pull string offers very little in the way of resistance for cable to get caught up in, so it really adds no overhead if you throw an extra one in, and since you'll likely have to buy at least 500' of it anyway, you might as well make use of it. I've wired my fair share of homes, and just built one from the ground up in 2008. I realize this doesn't help the OP, but what I did has worked out very well for me, so here are my recommendations to others. I put conduit in the walls everywhere I thought I might ever potentially want to run cable. For the places where you know you'll want cable, go ahead and install wall boxes before drywall goes up and run your conduit down from the attic to the box (make sure to leave 4 or 5 feet above the ceiling in the attic to make sure it will be visible above the insulation (after all, you can always cut off excess later). For the other areas where you won't have cable on day 1 but might want it later, don't put a wall box, just run the conduit and leave it behind the drywall, and make sure you staple it to the studs so it won't move around. This is especially useful on exterior walls in homes with sloped roofs, as it's a full day's job to run cable after the fact here because there is no clearance it the attic at these areas. For your MDF, put up a solid backboard (1/2" plywood works well) on the wall and buy yourself a small wall-mount rack that swings out so you can access the back of it to do termination, etc. Invest in a patch panel, they can be had for next to nothing on eBay and the headache they save is worth every bit of what you spend. Same thing with a switch, get a rack mount switch with enough ports for today and enough expansion for the next couple years. If you'll have a phone phone, pick up a 66 block and mount that on your backboard to handle phone termination. Optionally, become a stockholder in a cable management company...get a bunch of zip ties, velcro, rack cable management, etc to dress everything up and make it look professional. This provides the smallest actual ROI, but this is what I like the most about my home wiring, it's clean, easy to maintain, and it just looks like the person that did it knew what they were doing. One other thing to be aware of - I put my MDF in my master closet because it's pretty spacious, but my switch has a fan and the noise it generates is mildly annoying at night, so you may want to look for switches that are passively cooled. I used a big honkin 48 port Cisco switch because I needed layer 3 and PoE, but you may not need to get that complex.
It depends on the RAID driver, some will read from both drives, but I think the Windows driver only reads from one drive.
Mod parent up. A gun being used for self defense should be as simple as possible. The only thing that will happen if this law was enacted was the price for pre-law handguns would skyrocket because nobody would want one of these so-called "smart" guns because you're essentially taking a proven technology and saying, "here, let me see what I can add to this to give it more opportunities to fail". No thanks.
Because the general population is ignorant and clueless about most everything, not just technology. They decide they want a new phone, go to the store and buy the one that looks the shiniest, has the biggest display and is pushed the most by the salespeople. I would wager that at LEAST 80% of phone purchases are impulse buys involving less than 20 minutes of research, or no research at all. I say this because as the resident IT monkey, people bring their new phones to me for help when they can't figure out why they can't get feature X to work, to which I reply your phone doesn't include feature X, and then I ask them if they bothered to read the spec sheet before signing on the dotted line and they sulk and walk away...
The helpdesk guys effectively *are* computer janitors. Unless they have some other non-helpdesk role as well, then their job is to help users when their computers aren't working. Is it a shitty way to look at the job? Sure, but it is what it is. It's all the more motivation to get promoted out of helpdesk so you can go back to wearing your own clothes. We don't have to wear a uniform, but I usually wear a shirt with a company logo to work just because I have so many. I wouldn't be thrilled if that started making us wear IT specific shirts. In a small shop like ours, it wouldn't be effective at anything since everyone already knows who I am, but in a large shop I agree that it'll cause problems for the techs because they'll start getting pulled into cubicles at 3x the normal rate when they go get their morning coffee. Calling the helpdesk is still a more effective method of getting help, BUT... The reason they're doing this is probably because they're getting feedback that after calling the helpdesk it takes too long to get a tech into your cube to fix your problem. The helpdesk software/administrator is prioritizing the requests, and the VP who always forgets to turn his speakers on is unhappy that it takes an hour for someone to stop in and press the power button for him, so he complains to the CIO/CTO that there aren't enough helpdesk people in the building. That's just life unfortunately...if they want to be able to respond to idiotic support requests in 5 minutes, then the solution is to hire more techs.