USB Powered != USB Gadget
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Outré USB Gadgets
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm sick of every man and his dog working out that their product can run from 5v dc, and therefore sticking a usb port on it, and saying its now able to connect to your computer!
Imagine if a photocopier did this. Oh no, you can't *print* to it. It just runs off USB power, but because the specification limits a single USB port to 200mA, we have provided a "conveniant" multiheaded usb plug (count them, 4 usb plugs).
No no no no no no
There are some really neat ICs out there that allow you to build a device thats USB controlled, eg the PC can send a signal down the wire (and vice versa) and you can make the device do something. USB pencil sharpers are not a great category for this. USB weather stations are.
Heck, I've always wanted to build a USB *controlled* fan. One that you can change the direction and speed via the USB port.
A really big useful-ness of the USB devices is that you can now replace almost any part of your PC. USB serial, USB parallel, USB sound, USB network. Case-in-point, my network took a power surge via the network/switch. Best I can tell, the server took the main charge, probably though the power supply, and happily diverted it through the ethernet port, which the switch passed on to each device connect. Then end result is the network component on every device on the network is fried. The simple answer, especially for my beauitful geeked-out slimline MythTV box is a USB network. (No room for any more PCI cards)
During heavy disk read activity, the HD is only uses 15% of all the power. (source) The real key to decreasing laptop power consumption is dimming the screen, which can reduce power consumption percentage from 26% down to 7%.
Dimming the screen is something that the user can do, and can be done easily. Reducing disk power usuage isn't as simple as turning the brightness knob down (damn how I miss those knobs. Nothing has knobs now). If the HD power usage is dropped from 15% of total consumption at peak load to 1%, then thats a huge power saving.
And besides, it doesn't matter what the heavy usage rate is, its the idle that counts. My laptop would be under heavy usage about 10% of the time. The other 90% its idling or doing little activity (typing, mouse movements, etc). An idle spinning hard disk still uses heaps of power, and spinning down the disk means it takes time before it speeds up.
I would love to see a "hard disk" that is actually a non-volitile storage system (eg HDD, flash, etc), fronted with battery backed up RAM. The battery will provide power even after shut off, and will provide enough power to write the entire contents to non-volitile storage. This is why flash would work best, it takes much less power to write to flash than it does to spin a HDD and write to it.
A Flash/RAM/Battery smart storage system would have an effective read/write speed limited only by the BUS that it was connected with (under the assumption that a prepherial bus will never be as fast as RAM).
The only reason its not done yet is:
Too much power is required to power a HDD on battery effectivly and long enough to write the whole disk
Flash drives weren't big enough. Though 16GB is enough for a boot/app system, writing user data to convential HDD.
Hmmm. I should patent that idea. Better yet, this comment can be considered prior-art against such a patent if I don't beat you bastards down to the patent office.
Continuously variable transmission rocks. The car alters the torque as you accelerate, this leads to massive improvements in fuel efficency.
Re:Space travel - no kidding
on
10 Technologies MIA
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Space is essentially the only frontier we have left, and I think humanity needs a frontier. The Earth is fully populated now, in the sense that only the very remotest regions remain unexplored and all regions are claimed.
You must be kidding! There is a vast expanse that has only been touch upon, only a bit more than space itself. Undersea oceans and ocean floors. These vast, and relativily unexplored plains offer mountains and valleys that you only ever see on other planets.
The technology to truely explore them is perhaps even more difficult that space, and its in our own backyard.
Fertilization! Just have unprotected sex with your life-partner[*] as often as possible for the next 10 years. Observe whether the rate of her pregnancy goes down over the years.
This is in no way a valid test, nor will it reveal anything about the laptop, but it'll be fun in the process, and you'll be able to claim its all in the interests of science!
[*] Usual rules regarding STDs and ensuring you and your life partner stay true to each other, no nipping off to the local establishment to perform other not-so-valid scientific tests with other, um, subjects.
I had a piece of malware that had hooked itself in the WinLogon api, so even in safemode the malware ran.
If you went into safemode, and removed the registry entries, it would put itself right back in.
The file couldn't be delted even in safemode because the process locked the file.
The solution was, in the end, easy: Boot to a WinXP/2000 recovery CD, go into recovery console (DOS), delete the files from there, reboot.
Windows may complain about the lack of the files, but removing the registry entries then, tidies it all up.
Try to figure out which exploit the malware used to get it, and patch it.
Oh, and why is this the almost worst? The worst is malware that hooks in at kernel level and intercepts all the api calls and removes itself from every list (directory list, process list, memory usage list, everything). You can pop into DOS, do a DIR/ah and still not see it. The file and process is effectivily hidden. The process also removes its own entries from the registry, so when you list a regkey, it doesn't appear, even though its there. With this piece of malware, the only way to remove it is as follows: Produce a complete filesystem list from windows with the filename and md5sum. Then boot to a CD (eg knoppix) and produce the same filesystem list with name and md5sum, compare the results. Files that appear in the 2nd list are ones that are hidden (or unreadbale). Thats a bitch to remove, i'm just hoping someone will write the tools to do it for me.:)
look at all the graphics of where this guy flew north, then around then down again. I DARE them to try taking off at the equador, and REALLY go around the world... not this farce of going north to go around the short portion of the planet.
They did it according to the official record keeping requirements. They flew the equivilant distance of the circumfrance of the tropic of capricorn.
I had a similar joe job. The way I delt with it was simple; All (afaik) legitimet bounces include a copy of at least the headers of the original email that was bounced.
If the email came from my system, those headers will contain reference to my system.
At receipt time (Eg before the MTA accepts the message), my filter scans bounce messages for my mail system name. If it doesn't have it. its either: a) A bounce for a message where the MTA doesn't include a copy of my original email. (oh well). b) A bounce for a message that I sent from me, but through another MTA (unlikely, since I use spf codes and authenticated relaying) c) A joe job email.
Its not patenting the idea of the broken Y axis, its a patent on an algorithm to automatically calculate where and how to break the y-axis on a graph. (Not as bad, but still bad).
The patent goes in to explicit detail on how the calculation is done, so you should be able to avoid it by simply doing something slightly differently. The "prior art" mentioned isn't applicable in this case, because the patent is on a particular method of doing this that is different to the prior art mentioned
This however doesn't mean the patent shouldn't be thrown out. Its the equivilant of patenting a sorting algorithm (eg bublesort).
This is part of the threat the senior US official made at a London conference on Galileo.
The senior official promised that in the event China used the Galileo system against the US, the US would attempt what they called reversible action, but, if necessary, they would use irreversible action, to knock out the Galileo system.
I run ipv6 here at my site, every PC ont the LAN is using it.
Inside the LAN its almost totaly native IPv6. Only the printers are IPv4 only. When surfing the web, the users browser does a AAAA DNS lookup, if it succeeds, then it does a native IPv6 connection. If you try to connect to IPv4 only site (very common), then the PC initiates an IPv4 connection. Our Internet router provides the IPv6 tunnel and does NAT'ing for IPv4. Its all totaly transparent, requiring no end-user setup or mucking around with.
I regularily use IPv6 websites, and I don't notice that they are IPv6 unless a) the website notifies me I'm connecting over IPv6 (eg http://www.ipv6.org/) or b) i look at the traffic going through.
The only thing I could do to "improve" the situation here would be to have my ISP IPv6 aware, so I didn't need to use a tunnel broker.
The way that would work would be the ISP would issue a single IPv4 address and a IPv6 prefix on connect. Then the would would be a great place:)
All my applications I write are IPv6 aware, infact they are primarily IPv6 applications with fallback to IPv4.
Most applications you use today are IPv6 aware. The next step for IPv6 is hosting companies and ISPs proving IPv6 natively. This will happen once the backbone routers are fully IPv6 aware.
I'm using Firefox 0.8 and the vuln doesn't work for me (I'm strangely sad about this). Instead, it simply takes down my X session by making X consume all its ram.
This could be another bug in X though. Since when I load lots of images in firefox, after awhile, X consumes all available ram.
In the case of the vuln however, X rapidly starts consuming ram, but when I -9 firefox, it stops and returns back to normal.
I love IBM hardware, its always been good to me, but I've got a related story.
an x225 that was less than 2 weeks old had a motherboard failure, IBM sent a tech out who replaced the motherboard, all nice and good. However the last thing the tech did was flash the bios. Its the last thing the motherboard ever did too. The replacement motherboard was toast. (And believe it or not, it was the last x225 motherboard in the country at the time).
Either way, apparently the flash util erased the bios, but didn't write a new one. Now according to IBM there are procedures in place to stop that from happening and if it does happen, to recover, but none of that worked.
Afaik, when you first burn eeproms, you can mask off a region that can't be reburnt, thus allowing you to have recovery, but I'm guessing this didn't work on this system.
Either way, EIGHT days after the motherboard died, we had a replacement server. I must say though, this has been the only bad experience I've had with IBM support.
I've recently attended a couple of Novell presentations, and also attended a free Novel Linux Salesperson training course. They aren't all that bad. At least in New Zealand, they are really making an effort. They've contacted the local LUGs, made presentations. They offer a pretty good selection of courses, and some of them free or very low price.
I've never really bled red (supported Novell) before, but I'm starting to be swayed.
So go try 'em out. Go find a local Novell office and ask when they are doing their next presentation regarding Linux. I've been pretty impressed so far, they've been very receptive. We had the head of something-or-rather from Asia Pacific Novell at the Linux Salesperson course, and attending the course what the CEO of one of NZ's leading Linux companies. They knew what they were talking about:)
I've found the best place for Linux support is either google, or failing that, Linux User Groups (LUGs). There are local LUGs everywhere. The LUG mailing lists can be very helpful, especially if you explain your problem properly. I know LUG guys who'll fix your PC problem (if they think they can) if you bring it over to them, for free.
I've had potential clients ring me up and ask if I do personal linux support (as opposed to supporting a company). I say, yes I do, but I charge so much it would be far cheaper just to ask on the LUGs. I pointed out that I read the LUGs, and may well end up helping you, but I do the LUG thing for free.
I'd like to recycle my old notebook's LCD into a secondary monitor for my desktop. Does anyone have any ideas how one could do that?
The only way to do this would be some VNC type system using the laptop. Generally, you can't convert an LCD monitor into something that will take VGA inputs. The problem is due to the high level of intergration in the laptops, there is no seperate video card, its all bundled in.
I suppose if you found who made the actual laptop LCD, and found what chipset was needed, you could make a hardware driver, but you'd end up spending $1000s for a $300 LCD screen.
Just a dumb question, but if I remember correctly the regular segway works by having the operator balance it somewhat like a bicycle, hence the small learning curve to operate the Segway.
Nope, the segway works by using a gyroscope to detect balance, then driving the wheels forwards or backwards to keep balance. (Think; those guys in the circus who have those long poles with plates/etc on their heads and run backwards and forwards to keep the poles balanced).
And use a damn pencil, paper, and an old fashion camera!
I'm all for using technology to make our lives easier, but you start going out of your way in order to incorporate technology into something, it gets a bit rediculas.
Ask yourself if it is really that important that people have a report of your trip as you do it, live on the internet?
Take a look at the advantages:
Compatibility, both forwards and backwards. A pencil can write on almost any plain surface, including paper! You can also write on the back of a PDA, which is what you will be doing WHEN (not if) it gets wet.
Cost: Yes, it is absurd to pay $1 for a pencil at an out-of-the-way service station, but hey, thats what happens when you travel. Now try and find a replacement part for your PDA or Digital Camera?
Weight: Sure, you can go for those super light-weight plastic pencils, but I prefer the good old fashion lead surrounded by dead-wood approach.
You get the picture. Speaking of which, most places in the world have photo-processing labs that will allow you to have your old-fashion film-based camera photos developed. Try finding Techtronix Phaser 3000 printer to get those photo-realistic shots printed.
As for communicating to the rest of the world. Either post your journal (complete with photos) back to someone, or scan 'em at a cyber cafe and email them back. No, really.
10 to 1 says you'll be scrawling your journal on a piece of paper 2 weeks into the trip anyway. Those PDAs are nice and all, but you can't really keep a journal in them.
I understand they have written a wrapper for the NDIS bindings in Windows, (I think, much the same way Wine is doing for the entire Windows API), but did they need to purchase anything/licenses etc from Microsoft?
If not, then is it possible to do this as open source, there-by removing the problem of this going commercial (much like Crossover)?
As I understand it, there is nothing stopping someone from writting a similar product and releasing it under an open source license.
Is there anything in particular that would stop someone from doing this?
Can someone actually second the idea that the driver bridge will actually run on a 2.6 kernel? I'm having to reboot back to 2.4 for the Cisco vpn driver, some of my hardware support, et al. I hope this isn't just another of those...
Confirmed, it does run on 2.6. Infact, they recommend it if you have ACPI problems.
Though they say support is more difficult for 2.6 since its still evolving.
Ok, first, with RAID. There are, what I define loosely as 3 levels of doing RAID mirroring.
Software RAID
You are just looking to ensure that if one HDD goes down, you still have most of your data. Software RAID mirroring incurs large performance penalties.
Oh, and do note that many companies produce "Hardware RAID" cards that aren't hardware raid. Its hardware ASSISTED raid. These systems can't, or have great dificulty booting root of a raid system.
Hardware RAID
Either SCSI or IDE. I've changed my tune about IDE RAID. If you do it in hardware, it is a pretty good and valid option. It provides increase in speed and ease of setup (in most cases, litteraly plug and play). 3ware are a good company for hardware IDE raid controllers. Also they are very well priced.
Big hunking hotswappable SCSI RAID
If you have money to blow, here's the best place to blow it. Here the RAID system (whatever level) is done with hotswapping drives. 99.99% of the time, THIS IS A WASTE OF MONEY. For most small companies, and a lot of midrange companies, hotswap is throwing money away. Unless your server NEEDS to run 24/7 with 5 nines reliablity, hotswap is a waste. Hotswap only offers the ability to replace a bad drive without downing the system. But if you want to spend the money, or like the look of the flashing lights on the cases, go for it.
Ok, next, is RAID the answer?
Yes and no. RAID (mirroring) protects against hardware failure. It doesn't stop anyone from typing `rm -rf/` or anything similar. So if you want backups against mistake, RAID doesn't offer this.
Backups
Unless you have money to burn, tape backups are expensive. Most of us have 20 or 40 gig HDD drives. If you try and buy a tape backup at this level, you are talking a significant ammount of money (eg possibily the same as the cost of your system in the first place).
It is possible to do tape on the cheap, but not recommended.
CD/DVD burners
CDs hold 700MB of data (maximum), so doing a 20gb backup would require 29 CDs in total. This is probably not viable. So lets put that asside for now.
DVDs hold between 2 and 4GB (depending on various hardware, etc). That becomes more viable. You wouldn't do a full backup each day with this mehtod (still requiring 6 dvds to do 1 full backup), but you can do it using a base + data method.
By backing up the entire system on 6-7 dvds say once a month, you can then procede to do incremental backups over the month on 1 or 2 dvds (depending on how much you change). If you also are careful how you store your data, things that you want, but aren't likely to change. Eg your mp3 collection, you can backup to a seperate dvd, saving space on your incremental and full system backup.
Removable HDDs
The final option is, imho, the best. By having, preferably, 2 external HDDs (either using USB drive holders or the old caddy system), you can backup most, if not all of your system onto the removable drive. If you get removable disks that are the same size as your internal HDD, you can backup the entire system.
The pros are obvious. The cons however may bite you. First, in theory, you can drop a tape on the ground and have no problems. Do NOT drop your remoable HDD. So you'll need to be careful. HDDs are also rather more volatile than tapes or CDs when it comes to keeping its data. You'll need to ensure that you store the HDDs in a good location.
If one HDD fails (either a removable, or your internal) you'll be able to restore from one of the working ones. I said you should have atleast 2 removable HDDs because when you do a backup, the first thing you do is delete the old data from the removable. if the system failed then, you are screwed.
I prefer this system, and for some SOHOs I offer it as a viable option if they need data backups.
Summary
Either way, in the end, it comes down to how much you are willing to pay. Backups are still NOT cheap. Its something that should change, but in the short/medium term, it won't.
I sure hope he means his Driving life, otherwise he's is no more than 10 years old. And if he is driving at 10, I understand why he uses MapQuest, he can't see over the dashboard!
Automap services are great if you are going somewhere new, but if you are going to take a route frequently, nothing beats driving it a few times then getting out an old-fashion paper map and seeing if you can shave a few minutes of your trip going down side roads, etc.
Traffic is still a major factor, and although some mapping systems take this into account, you can't beat a local's knowledge.
I'm constantly finding shorter and shorter cuts around traffic to my regular client sites using a combination of observation and checking on a map.
Oh, and road works don't feature on auto maps. I tried out a few, and found a nice quick (so I thought) short cut.. Which it will be, in 2 years when the road works are finished. The road was a one way, the wrong way.
Many of the people I've spoken to in the area of 802.11, wireless, and telecommunications have indicated this for awhile.
In fact, I spoke with a guy earlier in the year about a wireless internet access product his company provided. When he revealed the device is currently the size of a pack of cigaretes, and will be getting smaller, while providing megabits of bandwidth, I made a comment about putting VoIP into it and turning it into a phone. At that point he shut up and said something to the effect of, yes, well, thats a distinct possibility. I got the impression that was exactly where they are going.
The idea behind VoIP on 802.11 style networks is if you have a big enough grid, you can do away with cellphones for that area.
There is still the problem of routing calls outside the "cloud" of coverage. Obviously each company would need its own internal phone solution still, but if the "cloud" gets big enough, you'll find that companies start offering 802.11+VoIP to teleco phone gateways.
I find it nice in the sense that the PRS radio system could replaced in these 802.11 hotspot areas. By making a small 802.11 phone, you could provide "free" wireless calls inside a 802.11 "cloud".
I say free, because bandwidth will ALWAYS be the bain of a wireless users existance, until solutions such as UWB (Ultra-Wide-Band (check it out, very exciting technology)) become a reality, wireless will always be slower than wired.
As geeks, unless we work for someone big like IBM, Bandwidth is always a precious resource. You can never have too much. Wireless networks never have enough. Try fitting 20 VoIP calls down a 802.11b wireless network and see how it runs.
I'm not saying it won't work, in fact, I'm saying the oppisite, it will. It will just require some more technology, and a bit more planning than most people realize.
On another slightly related note: Anyone know where I can buy a 802.11b frequency jammer?
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I'm sick of every man and his dog working out that their product can run from 5v dc, and therefore sticking a usb port on it, and saying its now able to connect to your computer!
Imagine if a photocopier did this. Oh no, you can't *print* to it. It just runs off USB power, but because the specification limits a single USB port to 200mA, we have provided a "conveniant" multiheaded usb plug (count them, 4 usb plugs).
No no no no no no
There are some really neat ICs out there that allow you to build a device thats USB controlled, eg the PC can send a signal down the wire (and vice versa) and you can make the device do something. USB pencil sharpers are not a great category for this. USB weather stations are.
Heck, I've always wanted to build a USB *controlled* fan. One that you can change the direction and speed via the USB port.
A really big useful-ness of the USB devices is that you can now replace almost any part of your PC. USB serial, USB parallel, USB sound, USB network. Case-in-point, my network took a power surge via the network/switch. Best I can tell, the server took the main charge, probably though the power supply, and happily diverted it through the ethernet port, which the switch passed on to each device connect. Then end result is the network component on every device on the network is fried. The simple answer, especially for my beauitful geeked-out slimline MythTV box is a USB network. (No room for any more PCI cards)
Dimming the screen is something that the user can do, and can be done easily. Reducing disk power usuage isn't as simple as turning the brightness knob down (damn how I miss those knobs. Nothing has knobs now). If the HD power usage is dropped from 15% of total consumption at peak load to 1%, then thats a huge power saving.
And besides, it doesn't matter what the heavy usage rate is, its the idle that counts. My laptop would be under heavy usage about 10% of the time. The other 90% its idling or doing little activity (typing, mouse movements, etc). An idle spinning hard disk still uses heaps of power, and spinning down the disk means it takes time before it speeds up.
I would love to see a "hard disk" that is actually a non-volitile storage system (eg HDD, flash, etc), fronted with battery backed up RAM. The battery will provide power even after shut off, and will provide enough power to write the entire contents to non-volitile storage. This is why flash would work best, it takes much less power to write to flash than it does to spin a HDD and write to it.
A Flash/RAM/Battery smart storage system would have an effective read/write speed limited only by the BUS that it was connected with (under the assumption that a prepherial bus will never be as fast as RAM).
The only reason its not done yet is:
Hmmm. I should patent that idea. Better yet, this comment can be considered prior-art against such a patent if I don't beat you bastards down to the patent office.
Continuously variable transmission rocks. The car alters the torque as you accelerate, this leads to massive improvements in fuel efficency.
You must be kidding! There is a vast expanse that has only been touch upon, only a bit more than space itself. Undersea oceans and ocean floors. These vast, and relativily unexplored plains offer mountains and valleys that you only ever see on other planets.
The technology to truely explore them is perhaps even more difficult that space, and its in our own backyard.
Fertilization!
Just have unprotected sex with your life-partner[*] as often as possible for the next 10 years. Observe whether the rate of her pregnancy goes down over the years.
This is in no way a valid test, nor will it reveal anything about the laptop, but it'll be fun in the process, and you'll be able to claim its all in the interests of science!
[*] Usual rules regarding STDs and ensuring you and your life partner stay true to each other, no nipping off to the local establishment to perform other not-so-valid scientific tests with other, um, subjects.
For those interested in New Zealand, Google has added the North Shore in Auckland, an area just south of Auckland, and the Nelson region.
I had a piece of malware that had hooked itself in the WinLogon api, so even in safemode the malware ran.
/ah and still not see it. The file and process is effectivily hidden. The process also removes its own entries from the registry, so when you list a regkey, it doesn't appear, even though its there. :)
If you went into safemode, and removed the registry entries, it would put itself right back in.
The file couldn't be delted even in safemode because the process locked the file.
The solution was, in the end, easy:
Boot to a WinXP/2000 recovery CD, go into recovery console (DOS), delete the files from there, reboot.
Windows may complain about the lack of the files, but removing the registry entries then, tidies it all up.
Try to figure out which exploit the malware used to get it, and patch it.
Oh, and why is this the almost worst? The worst is malware that hooks in at kernel level and intercepts all the api calls and removes itself from every list (directory list, process list, memory usage list, everything). You can pop into DOS, do a DIR
With this piece of malware, the only way to remove it is as follows: Produce a complete filesystem list from windows with the filename and md5sum. Then boot to a CD (eg knoppix) and produce the same filesystem list with name and md5sum, compare the results. Files that appear in the 2nd list are ones that are hidden (or unreadbale).
Thats a bitch to remove, i'm just hoping someone will write the tools to do it for me.
I had a similar joe job.
The way I delt with it was simple;
All (afaik) legitimet bounces include a copy of at least the headers of the original email that was bounced.
If the email came from my system, those headers will contain reference to my system.
At receipt time (Eg before the MTA accepts the message), my filter scans bounce messages for my mail system name.
If it doesn't have it. its either:
a) A bounce for a message where the MTA doesn't include a copy of my original email. (oh well).
b) A bounce for a message that I sent from me, but through another MTA (unlikely, since I use spf codes and authenticated relaying)
c) A joe job email.
Problem, solved.
Its not patenting the idea of the broken Y axis, its a patent on an algorithm to automatically calculate where and how to break the y-axis on a graph. (Not as bad, but still bad).
The patent goes in to explicit detail on how the calculation is done, so you should be able to avoid it by simply doing something slightly differently. The "prior art" mentioned isn't applicable in this case, because the patent is on a particular method of doing this that is different to the prior art mentioned
This however doesn't mean the patent shouldn't be thrown out. Its the equivilant of patenting a sorting algorithm (eg bublesort).
This is part of the threat the senior US official made at a London conference on Galileo.
The senior official promised that in the event China used the Galileo system against the US, the US would attempt what they called reversible action, but, if necessary, they would use irreversible action, to knock out the Galileo system.
Article on the threat
Seriously, what problem is this solution solving?
:)
I run ipv6 here at my site, every PC ont the LAN is using it.
Inside the LAN its almost totaly native IPv6. Only the printers are IPv4 only. When surfing the web, the users browser does a AAAA DNS lookup, if it succeeds, then it does a native IPv6 connection. If you try to connect to IPv4 only site (very common), then the PC initiates an IPv4 connection. Our Internet router provides the IPv6 tunnel and does NAT'ing for IPv4. Its all totaly transparent, requiring no end-user setup or mucking around with.
I regularily use IPv6 websites, and I don't notice that they are IPv6 unless a) the website notifies me I'm connecting over IPv6 (eg http://www.ipv6.org/) or b) i look at the traffic going through.
The only thing I could do to "improve" the situation here would be to have my ISP IPv6 aware, so I didn't need to use a tunnel broker.
The way that would work would be the ISP would issue a single IPv4 address and a IPv6 prefix on connect. Then the would would be a great place
All my applications I write are IPv6 aware, infact they are primarily IPv6 applications with fallback to IPv4.
Most applications you use today are IPv6 aware. The next step for IPv6 is hosting companies and ISPs proving IPv6 natively. This will happen once the backbone routers are fully IPv6 aware.
Nick
I'm using Firefox 0.8 and the vuln doesn't work for me (I'm strangely sad about this).
Instead, it simply takes down my X session by making X consume all its ram.
This could be another bug in X though. Since when I load lots of images in firefox, after awhile, X consumes all available ram.
In the case of the vuln however, X rapidly starts consuming ram, but when I -9 firefox, it stops and returns back to normal.
I love IBM hardware, its always been good to me, but I've got a related story.
an x225 that was less than 2 weeks old had a motherboard failure, IBM sent a tech out who replaced the motherboard, all nice and good. However the last thing the tech did was flash the bios. Its the last thing the motherboard ever did too. The replacement motherboard was toast. (And believe it or not, it was the last x225 motherboard in the country at the time).
Either way, apparently the flash util erased the bios, but didn't write a new one. Now according to IBM there are procedures in place to stop that from happening and if it does happen, to recover, but none of that worked.
Afaik, when you first burn eeproms, you can mask off a region that can't be reburnt, thus allowing you to have recovery, but I'm guessing this didn't work on this system.
Either way, EIGHT days after the motherboard died, we had a replacement server. I must say though, this has been the only bad experience I've had with IBM support.
I'd like to just say, hear them out.
:)
I've recently attended a couple of Novell presentations, and also attended a free Novel Linux Salesperson training course. They aren't all that bad. At least in New Zealand, they are really making an effort. They've contacted the local LUGs, made presentations. They offer a pretty good selection of courses, and some of them free or very low price.
I've never really bled red (supported Novell) before, but I'm starting to be swayed.
So go try 'em out. Go find a local Novell office and ask when they are doing their next presentation regarding Linux. I've been pretty impressed so far, they've been very receptive. We had the head of something-or-rather from Asia Pacific Novell at the Linux Salesperson course, and attending the course what the CEO of one of NZ's leading Linux companies. They knew what they were talking about
Just a note:
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When it comes to wiring Cat5 outdoors, or between buildings, there are some VERY important bits of knowledge you need:
http://volker.top.geek.nz/linux/tech/outdoorwirin
It is possible to end up making your PC chassis live due to a wiring fault and running Cat5 to your neighbours.
Nick
I've found the best place for Linux support is either google, or failing that, Linux User Groups (LUGs). There are local LUGs everywhere. The LUG mailing lists can be very helpful, especially if you explain your problem properly. I know LUG guys who'll fix your PC problem (if they think they can) if you bring it over to them, for free.
I've had potential clients ring me up and ask if I do personal linux support (as opposed to supporting a company). I say, yes I do, but I charge so much it would be far cheaper just to ask on the LUGs. I pointed out that I read the LUGs, and may well end up helping you, but I do the LUG thing for free.
The only way to do this would be some VNC type system using the laptop. Generally, you can't convert an LCD monitor into something that will take VGA inputs. The problem is due to the high level of intergration in the laptops, there is no seperate video card, its all bundled in.
I suppose if you found who made the actual laptop LCD, and found what chipset was needed, you could make a hardware driver, but you'd end up spending $1000s for a $300 LCD screen.
Nope, the segway works by using a gyroscope to detect balance, then driving the wheels forwards or backwards to keep balance. (Think; those guys in the circus who have those long poles with plates/etc on their heads and run backwards and forwards to keep the poles balanced).
And use a damn pencil, paper, and an old fashion camera!
I'm all for using technology to make our lives easier, but you start going out of your way in order to incorporate technology into something, it gets a bit rediculas.
Ask yourself if it is really that important that people have a report of your trip as you do it, live on the internet?
Take a look at the advantages:
You get the picture. Speaking of which, most places in the world have photo-processing labs that will allow you to have your old-fashion film-based camera photos developed. Try finding Techtronix Phaser 3000 printer to get those photo-realistic shots printed.
As for communicating to the rest of the world. Either post your journal (complete with photos) back to someone, or scan 'em at a cyber cafe and email them back. No, really.
10 to 1 says you'll be scrawling your journal on a piece of paper 2 weeks into the trip anyway. Those PDAs are nice and all, but you can't really keep a journal in them.
If not, then is it possible to do this as open source, there-by removing the problem of this going commercial (much like Crossover)?
As I understand it, there is nothing stopping someone from writting a similar product and releasing it under an open source license.
Is there anything in particular that would stop someone from doing this?
Confirmed, it does run on 2.6. Infact, they recommend it if you have ACPI problems. Though they say support is more difficult for 2.6 since its still evolving.
Software RAID
You are just looking to ensure that if one HDD goes down, you still have most of your data. Software RAID mirroring incurs large performance penalties. Oh, and do note that many companies produce "Hardware RAID" cards that aren't hardware raid. Its hardware ASSISTED raid. These systems can't, or have great dificulty booting root of a raid system.
Hardware RAID
Either SCSI or IDE. I've changed my tune about IDE RAID. If you do it in hardware, it is a pretty good and valid option. It provides increase in speed and ease of setup (in most cases, litteraly plug and play). 3ware are a good company for hardware IDE raid controllers. Also they are very well priced.
Big hunking hotswappable SCSI RAID
If you have money to blow, here's the best place to blow it. Here the RAID system (whatever level) is done with hotswapping drives. 99.99% of the time, THIS IS A WASTE OF MONEY. For most small companies, and a lot of midrange companies, hotswap is throwing money away. Unless your server NEEDS to run 24/7 with 5 nines reliablity, hotswap is a waste. Hotswap only offers the ability to replace a bad drive without downing the system. But if you want to spend the money, or like the look of the flashing lights on the cases, go for it.
Ok, next, is RAID the answer?
Yes and no. RAID (mirroring) protects against hardware failure. It doesn't stop anyone from typing `rm -rf /` or anything similar. So if you want backups against mistake, RAID doesn't offer this.
Backups
Unless you have money to burn, tape backups are expensive. Most of us have 20 or 40 gig HDD drives. If you try and buy a tape backup at this level, you are talking a significant ammount of money (eg possibily the same as the cost of your system in the first place).
It is possible to do tape on the cheap, but not recommended.
CD/DVD burners
CDs hold 700MB of data (maximum), so doing a 20gb backup would require 29 CDs in total. This is probably not viable. So lets put that asside for now.
DVDs hold between 2 and 4GB (depending on various hardware, etc). That becomes more viable. You wouldn't do a full backup each day with this mehtod (still requiring 6 dvds to do 1 full backup), but you can do it using a base + data method.
By backing up the entire system on 6-7 dvds say once a month, you can then procede to do incremental backups over the month on 1 or 2 dvds (depending on how much you change). If you also are careful how you store your data, things that you want, but aren't likely to change. Eg your mp3 collection, you can backup to a seperate dvd, saving space on your incremental and full system backup.
Removable HDDs
The final option is, imho, the best. By having, preferably, 2 external HDDs (either using USB drive holders or the old caddy system), you can backup most, if not all of your system onto the removable drive. If you get removable disks that are the same size as your internal HDD, you can backup the entire system.
The pros are obvious. The cons however may bite you. First, in theory, you can drop a tape on the ground and have no problems. Do NOT drop your remoable HDD. So you'll need to be careful. HDDs are also rather more volatile than tapes or CDs when it comes to keeping its data. You'll need to ensure that you store the HDDs in a good location.
If one HDD fails (either a removable, or your internal) you'll be able to restore from one of the working ones. I said you should have atleast 2 removable HDDs because when you do a backup, the first thing you do is delete the old data from the removable. if the system failed then, you are screwed.
I prefer this system, and for some SOHOs I offer it as a viable option if they need data backups.
Summary
Either way, in the end, it comes down to how much you are willing to pay. Backups are still NOT cheap. Its something that should change, but in the short/medium term, it won't.
I sure hope he means his Driving life, otherwise he's is no more than 10 years old. And if he is driving at 10, I understand why he uses MapQuest, he can't see over the dashboard!
Automap services are great if you are going somewhere new, but if you are going to take a route frequently, nothing beats driving it a few times then getting out an old-fashion paper map and seeing if you can shave a few minutes of your trip going down side roads, etc.
Traffic is still a major factor, and although some mapping systems take this into account, you can't beat a local's knowledge.
I'm constantly finding shorter and shorter cuts around traffic to my regular client sites using a combination of observation and checking on a map.
Oh, and road works don't feature on auto maps. I tried out a few, and found a nice quick (so I thought) short cut.. Which it will be, in 2 years when the road works are finished. The road was a one way, the wrong way.
Many of the people I've spoken to in the area of 802.11, wireless, and telecommunications have indicated this for awhile.
In fact, I spoke with a guy earlier in the year about a wireless internet access product his company provided. When he revealed the device is currently the size of a pack of cigaretes, and will be getting smaller, while providing megabits of bandwidth, I made a comment about putting VoIP into it and turning it into a phone. At that point he shut up and said something to the effect of, yes, well, thats a distinct possibility.
I got the impression that was exactly where they are going.
The idea behind VoIP on 802.11 style networks is if you have a big enough grid, you can do away with cellphones for that area.
There is still the problem of routing calls outside the "cloud" of coverage. Obviously each company would need its own internal phone solution still, but if the "cloud" gets big enough, you'll find that companies start offering 802.11+VoIP to teleco phone gateways.
I find it nice in the sense that the PRS radio system could replaced in these 802.11 hotspot areas. By making a small 802.11 phone, you could provide "free" wireless calls inside a 802.11 "cloud".
I say free, because bandwidth will ALWAYS be the bain of a wireless users existance, until solutions such as UWB (Ultra-Wide-Band (check it out, very exciting technology)) become a reality, wireless will always be slower than wired.
As geeks, unless we work for someone big like IBM, Bandwidth is always a precious resource. You can never have too much. Wireless networks never have enough. Try fitting 20 VoIP calls down a 802.11b wireless network and see how it runs.
I'm not saying it won't work, in fact, I'm saying the oppisite, it will. It will just require some more technology, and a bit more planning than most people realize.
On another slightly related note: Anyone know where I can buy a 802.11b frequency jammer?