You can do what Sun, adobe, vmware, and others do. Create a statically linked package with your own installer. You can also release distro specific packages for the common distros, and use the generic binary for all the others. Gives the best of both worlds and doesn't leave out people that prefer obscure distros.
A spreadsheet doesn't give you the ability to link information across all docuents instantly. A wiki also available wherever you are, without needing VPN access or any special software. It does require your server to be up, but that's generally not an issue. IMHO, plain text is the worst, spreadsheet next worse. Visio is over rated (bloated, slow, and unstable.) It's also a tremendous amount of work to keep up if you try to keep ALL your info in it, and the benefit is questionable. It's fine for general diagraming though.
When I'm out at the colo, I don't have Office or Open office installed on my servers. I do generally have at least one machine that has a web browser however. When I make changes, I can update the wiki "right now" and not wait until I get back to the office (or deal with VPN / manually sshing a file around.)
I actually keep a local copy of the wiki on my laptop (doesn't EVERYONE run a webserver / database on their laptops?) and a cron syncs the db (one direction - laptop is for read-only offline reference use.) I suppose I could extend the wiki software and do two way sync with conflict resolution, but I have no need at this point.
Then you have to deal with the "master" spreadsheet.
We use a wiki. Switch ports are in a table on the wiki. Click on the machine name in the port assignment and it goes to the wiki page for the machine. Back and forth links. And the IP address table, firewall translations, etc. All on the wiki. Apache config notes? On the wiki. Docs for new users? Policies? On the wiki. Why have 15 different documents?
And don't go running to the linux community for help when you do run into problems. They can be remarkably unhelpful beyond laughing at you for not already knowing the answers or repeating 'RTFM'.
That's unfair and untrue.
The community WILL tell you to RTFM if you have NOT even bothered to consult google or basic FAQ's AT ALL, but if you have a real question that ISN'T totally obvious to anyone that has spent 5 minutes of research, you will find that the responses are rather good and helpful.
Verizone has declared DSL dead. It's Fios now... Basically, nobody (or near enough to nobody for the sake of this conversation) is doing "extended reach" DSL or adding new DSLAMS. If you can get DSL now, great. If not, don't hold your breath. You options are Fios sometime in the next 10 - 20 years or WiMAX in the next 5.
One other option may be to find someone else who CAN get DSL and has line of sight to your house. Do a WiFi bridge. Offer them "free" internet for the use of their house / business. Technically this may violate AUP, but screw em.
What about EDITING a PDF file? PDF is not designed for editing. So ya, you may be able to READ it, but not CHANGE it.
Plain text is the MOST standard, but doesn't really handle modern needs (embedded images, tables, etc.)
HTML may be a little better, because formatting isn't as important as content. Of course if your source is MS Word, the HTML generated is HORRIBLE.
I think the bottom line is that there really isn't a good format that easily handles complex documents. Theoretically, XML w/ SVG should work, but with certain companies that are based in the northwest US not following standards and using proprietary extensions, this option is limited too.
Charging based on ability to pay is not discrimination. Just look at income taxes - not only do people who make more pay more, but they pay at a higher rate.
Companies who license software do the same thing too with educational pricing, non-profit pricing, government pricing, Small business pricing, etc.
Um, not the OP but with a 3-ring binder it should already be organized. Searching shouldn't be an issue. These are notes - reminders. The main stuff is in your head including where you put the information. The human brain is really one heck of an awesome search engine.
As far as replication goes, photocopies and scanners work just fine. What's the problem?
Then it's even LESS money. You are totally uninformed if you think that government does things less expensivly than the private sector. EVERYTHING costs more if the government does it. You don't just need an investigator, you also need the entire bureaucracy that goes along with him.
We are not talking about a problem that affects a small town where $10K makes a difference. We are talking about a world-wide problem that is a MULTI billion dollar problem.
BTW, (and this is also for the MS fanboy moderators that modded me a troll) I did NOT say that MS was "evil." I said that they had a RESPONSIBILTY that they need to own up to.
Sorry, $6M in the business world is not much at all. It's very very little when you need quality tech investigators, lawyers, equipment, etc.
Keep in mind that most spam is now sent from trojaned Windows boxes. While end users are responsible for keeping their machines patched, they wouldn't need patching to this extent if MS had designed their software with security and reliability as the top priority rather than useless features and eye candy. For a long time, MS refused to fix the "autoexecute everything on reception" mentality in their email clients saying that their customers "demanded" such functionality. Furthermore, MS has derailed the process of getting sender validation in email with their demand for licensing parts of Sender-ID (in which the technology is really an evolution of technology, and not "innovative" at all.) Furthermore, MS is making it MORE difficult to patch machines with their "genuine advantage" program.
I'm not saying that MS is responsible for all spam. I'm not saying that MS is all bad. I'm saying that they do, however, have a hell of a big responsibility at this point for the magnitude of the problem given their historically poorly designed products and "standards unfriendly" behavior. While I am happy that MS is making these steps, they are baby steps.
MS is not alone in needing to take steps. ISP's also need to wake the hell up and help identify, and disable spambots on their networks, and take other proactive measures. Frankly, ISP's are in a better position to deal with this problem than MS, and VERY VERY few ISP's are doing ANYTHING about it. Charter, RoadRunner, Comcast, Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and most all you other big ISP's so TOTALLY suck when it comes to spam. Many of you have agressive inbound spam policies yet do nothing to stem the tide of outgoing garbage...
OK, now I get to sit back and watch the MS fanboys start foaming at the mouth for suggesting that MS has any responsibility for the magnitude of the problem.
So go with something like CentOS which has the binary compatability with RHEL (for third party drivers, apps, etc.,) awesome community support, and no annual fees.
But I like Suse too. And for my personal machines, Ubuntu.
Um, no. Different kind of scanner... The type of scanner they are talking about in the article looks for characteristics of the paper / media itself and not what is printed on it. The key phrase in the article is "Using the optical phenomenon of 'laser speckle'"... This implies that they shine a laser on the document. Don't think your standard flat bed scanner is going to be doing that anytime soon...
Content filtering is by far the most effective mechanism. Looking for known spam URLS via SURBL (for example) is Highly accurate. 419 scams generally come from REAL accounts on REAL email servers (mostly the free ones...) Are you saying that those shouldn't be filtered? That's nuts!
If you look at the logs from any fairly high-volume mail server, you will find that it's quite normal for the HELO argument to have nothing at all to do with the domain forward or reverse in non-spam mail. It's so common that anyone that did super strict checks would probably be blocking mail from 20% of the fortune 1000, and a rather large percentage of government sites.
Reality is that if you HELO with a valid resolvable domain name, it's pretty irrelevant in real life what your RDNS is (as log as the RDNS also has a forward...)
Yes, we would all LOVE for all sites to HELO with a valid DNS entry, and have it match RDNS, but it's just not the case in about 30% (or more) of all the email servers out there.
Good luck getting a DSL ISP to set RDNS for you. Very few will - the larger ones the more reluctant.
OK, you may look at WBM as a library, but IS it? Even libraries don't have the right to violate copyright AFAIK. Google also got itself into trouble for caching things from the Church of Scientology and others IIRC...
Lets say person A posted copyrighted info on your web site. You didn't know it was copyrighted at the time. Person B tells you that it is and you pull the content. Copyright owner (C) later sues your ass since they found it on the WBM.
Make sense now? Even if you are NOT ignorant of the law, you can still be screwed.
Just the process of defending yourself can bankrupt you (that is if you had enough $$$ to mount any kind of defense at all in the first place.)
1. What end user can add a repository without special training?
One that can read and understand about 5 Very simple sentences. It's a one line addition to a text file fer cripes sake.
2. Why would a commercial vendor want to setup an entire repository just to distribute his 5 megs of software?
Because setting up a repository is incredibly easy, and it makes his software MUCH easier for end users to install / update.
3. What end user is going to want to add a repository for every piece of software he wants to install?
One that would like ALL his software automatically updated when he does and apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. This is in contrast to Windows software that either has it's own updating tool (like symantec) or just a totally manual system that requires that you constantly check the web site for updates by hand.
4. How does the vendor know that primary repository changes won't break his software without even a new OS release coming out?
Because his repository and the distro repository are ISOLATED. Keep in mind that well-designed software has no problem running on virtually any version and distro of Linux (that's on the same architecture...) Crossover Office (which has.deb's,) firefox, and vmware are good example of this.
It's REALLY not as hard or as bad as you seem to think it is.
Harmless? Modded Informative? WTF? Do you not remember that foam falling off is what damaged the last shuttle resulting in death and destruction???
It was harmless *in this case*. It wasn't last time, and may not be next time?
One of the major changes this flight was new foam that was supposed to NOT fall off. Obviously it didn't work, so it is a MAJOR setback. Seems to me that they need to add some webbing (carbon fiber mesh or something) to the foam so it CAN'T break off in chunks. This would be much like the mesh they embed in concrete to add strength. Concrete, like this foam, handles compression fine, but has virually no sheer or tensile strength.
I would also gather that there is no major roadblocks tht would prevent Intel from creating a dual-core Pentium M that is socket compatible with 478. That would be a chip that I would be interested in...
Um, the CIO did not write the RFP. I wrote it, and wrote it in a vendor neutral way based on our needs. We were pretty much an HP shop (all HP servers anyway), with several MSA500's already. We needed to go beyond the MSA and were looking at the EVA4000. Our purchasing process mandates 3 compeeting bids, I did 4 just to be sure we really were getting the best solution, but started with HP based on our existing business relationships.
My HP rep using an HP sales engineer tried to sell me an IBM DS4000. Yes, I said that right. HP was trying to sell us an IBM solution. We balked, and they pointed me at another reseller who was "authorized" to sell the EVA line. I had each vendor come up with their own statements on where they felt their solution was superior over the competitors knowing which base models the competitors were proposing (DS4000, CX500, FAS3020)
Bottom line is that NetApp and EMC were the best "integrated solutions" with both NAS appliance and SAN exactly the way we wanted it. IBM's licensing was nuts, and they wanted us to go through a reseller than we didn't care for. EMC had the best overall total comprehensive solution (with all the bells and whistles support and hand-holding) though price was higher and performance was lower than NetApp.
I'm not saying that HP's offering was horrible, but it just didn't measure up to the others. It seemed to be much more a collection of disparate parts rather than a solution. That and they just don't seem to have their shit together dealing with channel partners...
Yep - HP has really lost it. Having just gone through an RFP process for an enterprise SAN, we looked at HP since most of our servers were HP. What a disappointing offering! Nothing innovative at all. IBM, NetApp, and EMC blew them away.
FWIW, that's pretty close to the sites I've been working with that get several million hits a day consistantly. Our users are (depending on what site the user goes to) either general consumers or government / educational users so we get a pretty good mix. A third site is targeted towards large enterprise.
That report does not seem to mesh with reality. I'm actually surprised that MSN is so low due to the IE default home page - but it is.
Slashdot Mirror
You can do what Sun, adobe, vmware, and others do. Create a statically linked package with your own installer. You can also release distro specific packages for the common distros, and use the generic binary for all the others. Gives the best of both worlds and doesn't leave out people that prefer obscure distros.
A spreadsheet doesn't give you the ability to link information across all docuents instantly. A wiki also available wherever you are, without needing VPN access or any special software. It does require your server to be up, but that's generally not an issue. IMHO, plain text is the worst, spreadsheet next worse. Visio is over rated (bloated, slow, and unstable.) It's also a tremendous amount of work to keep up if you try to keep ALL your info in it, and the benefit is questionable. It's fine for general diagraming though.
When I'm out at the colo, I don't have Office or Open office installed on my servers. I do generally have at least one machine that has a web browser however. When I make changes, I can update the wiki "right now" and not wait until I get back to the office (or deal with VPN / manually sshing a file around.)
I actually keep a local copy of the wiki on my laptop (doesn't EVERYONE run a webserver / database on their laptops?) and a cron syncs the db (one direction - laptop is for read-only offline reference use.) I suppose I could extend the wiki software and do two way sync with conflict resolution, but I have no need at this point.
Then you have to deal with the "master" spreadsheet.
We use a wiki. Switch ports are in a table on the wiki. Click on the machine name in the port assignment and it goes to the wiki page for the machine. Back and forth links. And the IP address table, firewall translations, etc. All on the wiki. Apache config notes? On the wiki. Docs for new users? Policies? On the wiki. Why have 15 different documents?
And don't go running to the linux community for help when you do run into problems. They can be remarkably unhelpful beyond laughing at you for not already knowing the answers or repeating 'RTFM'.
l
That's unfair and untrue.
The community WILL tell you to RTFM if you have NOT even bothered to consult google or basic FAQ's AT ALL, but if you have a real question that ISN'T totally obvious to anyone that has spent 5 minutes of research, you will find that the responses are rather good and helpful.
See: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.htm
Not if his telco is Verizon.
Verizone has declared DSL dead. It's Fios now... Basically, nobody (or near enough to nobody for the sake of this conversation) is doing "extended reach" DSL or adding new DSLAMS. If you can get DSL now, great. If not, don't hold your breath. You options are Fios sometime in the next 10 - 20 years or WiMAX in the next 5.
One other option may be to find someone else who CAN get DSL and has line of sight to your house. Do a WiFi bridge. Offer them "free" internet for the use of their house / business. Technically this may violate AUP, but screw em.
Nah. Better blame the people who are pissed off that they are taxed too much.
I have a fundimental problem taxing people in North Dakota and Virginia to pay for protection for people who built homes below sea level.
We (all taxpayers) WILL be paying for all this now. It is going to cost us MANY billions to fix (although still a bargain compared to Iraq.)
What about EDITING a PDF file? PDF is not designed for editing. So ya, you may be able to READ it, but not CHANGE it.
Plain text is the MOST standard, but doesn't really handle modern needs (embedded images, tables, etc.)
HTML may be a little better, because formatting isn't as important as content. Of course if your source is MS Word, the HTML generated is HORRIBLE.
I think the bottom line is that there really isn't a good format that easily handles complex documents. Theoretically, XML w/ SVG should work, but with certain companies that are based in the northwest US not following standards and using proprietary extensions, this option is limited too.
Charging based on ability to pay is not discrimination. Just look at income taxes - not only do people who make more pay more, but they pay at a higher rate.
Companies who license software do the same thing too with educational pricing, non-profit pricing, government pricing, Small business pricing, etc.
Um, not the OP but with a 3-ring binder it should already be organized. Searching shouldn't be an issue. These are notes - reminders. The main stuff is in your head including where you put the information. The human brain is really one heck of an awesome search engine.
As far as replication goes, photocopies and scanners work just fine. What's the problem?
Then it's even LESS money. You are totally uninformed if you think that government does things less expensivly than the private sector. EVERYTHING costs more if the government does it. You don't just need an investigator, you also need the entire bureaucracy that goes along with him.
We are not talking about a problem that affects a small town where $10K makes a difference. We are talking about a world-wide problem that is a MULTI billion dollar problem.
BTW, (and this is also for the MS fanboy moderators that modded me a troll) I did NOT say that MS was "evil." I said that they had a RESPONSIBILTY that they need to own up to.
Sorry, $6M in the business world is not much at all. It's very very little when you need quality tech investigators, lawyers, equipment, etc.
Keep in mind that most spam is now sent from trojaned Windows boxes. While end users are responsible for keeping their machines patched, they wouldn't need patching to this extent if MS had designed their software with security and reliability as the top priority rather than useless features and eye candy. For a long time, MS refused to fix the "autoexecute everything on reception" mentality in their email clients saying that their customers "demanded" such functionality. Furthermore, MS has derailed the process of getting sender validation in email with their demand for licensing parts of Sender-ID (in which the technology is really an evolution of technology, and not "innovative" at all.) Furthermore, MS is making it MORE difficult to patch machines with their "genuine advantage" program.
I'm not saying that MS is responsible for all spam. I'm not saying that MS is all bad. I'm saying that they do, however, have a hell of a big responsibility at this point for the magnitude of the problem given their historically poorly designed products and "standards unfriendly" behavior. While I am happy that MS is making these steps, they are baby steps.
MS is not alone in needing to take steps. ISP's also need to wake the hell up and help identify, and disable spambots on their networks, and take other proactive measures. Frankly, ISP's are in a better position to deal with this problem than MS, and VERY VERY few ISP's are doing ANYTHING about it. Charter, RoadRunner, Comcast, Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and most all you other big ISP's so TOTALLY suck when it comes to spam. Many of you have agressive inbound spam policies yet do nothing to stem the tide of outgoing garbage...
OK, now I get to sit back and watch the MS fanboys start foaming at the mouth for suggesting that MS has any responsibility for the magnitude of the problem.
Open source can never be very easy to use and easy to run
Ever hear of a product called Tivo? Runs Linux. Or maybe a linksys router...
I guess those products are beyond your ability to use or run...
So go with something like CentOS which has the binary compatability with RHEL (for third party drivers, apps, etc.,) awesome community support, and no annual fees.
But I like Suse too. And for my personal machines, Ubuntu.
Um, no. Different kind of scanner... The type of scanner they are talking about in the article looks for characteristics of the paper / media itself and not what is printed on it. The key phrase in the article is "Using the optical phenomenon of 'laser speckle'"... This implies that they shine a laser on the document. Don't think your standard flat bed scanner is going to be doing that anytime soon...
Content filtering is by far the most effective mechanism. Looking for known spam URLS via SURBL (for example) is Highly accurate. 419 scams generally come from REAL accounts on REAL email servers (mostly the free ones...) Are you saying that those shouldn't be filtered? That's nuts!
If you look at the logs from any fairly high-volume mail server, you will find that it's quite normal for the HELO argument to have nothing at all to do with the domain forward or reverse in non-spam mail. It's so common that anyone that did super strict checks would probably be blocking mail from 20% of the fortune 1000, and a rather large percentage of government sites.
Reality is that if you HELO with a valid resolvable domain name, it's pretty irrelevant in real life what your RDNS is (as log as the RDNS also has a forward...)
Yes, we would all LOVE for all sites to HELO with a valid DNS entry, and have it match RDNS, but it's just not the case in about 30% (or more) of all the email servers out there.
Good luck getting a DSL ISP to set RDNS for you. Very few will - the larger ones the more reluctant.
OK, you may look at WBM as a library, but IS it? Even libraries don't have the right to violate copyright AFAIK. Google also got itself into trouble for caching things from the Church of Scientology and others IIRC...
Lets say person A posted copyrighted info on your web site. You didn't know it was copyrighted at the time. Person B tells you that it is and you pull the content. Copyright owner (C) later sues your ass since they found it on the WBM.
Make sense now? Even if you are NOT ignorant of the law, you can still be screwed.
Just the process of defending yourself can bankrupt you (that is if you had enough $$$ to mount any kind of defense at all in the first place.)
I'll byte...
.deb's,) firefox, and vmware are good example of this.
1. What end user can add a repository without special training?
One that can read and understand about 5 Very simple sentences. It's a one line addition to a text file fer cripes sake.
2. Why would a commercial vendor want to setup an entire repository just to distribute his 5 megs of software?
Because setting up a repository is incredibly easy, and it makes his software MUCH easier for end users to install / update.
3. What end user is going to want to add a repository for every piece of software he wants to install?
One that would like ALL his software automatically updated when he does and apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. This is in contrast to Windows software that either has it's own updating tool (like symantec) or just a totally manual system that requires that you constantly check the web site for updates by hand.
4. How does the vendor know that primary repository changes won't break his software without even a new OS release coming out?
Because his repository and the distro repository are ISOLATED. Keep in mind that well-designed software has no problem running on virtually any version and distro of Linux (that's on the same architecture...) Crossover Office (which has
It's REALLY not as hard or as bad as you seem to think it is.
Harmless? Modded Informative? WTF? Do you not remember that foam falling off is what damaged the last shuttle resulting in death and destruction???
It was harmless *in this case*. It wasn't last time, and may not be next time?
One of the major changes this flight was new foam that was supposed to NOT fall off. Obviously it didn't work, so it is a MAJOR setback. Seems to me that they need to add some webbing (carbon fiber mesh or something) to the foam so it CAN'T break off in chunks. This would be much like the mesh they embed in concrete to add strength. Concrete, like this foam, handles compression fine, but has virually no sheer or tensile strength.
I would also gather that there is no major roadblocks tht would prevent Intel from creating a dual-core Pentium M that is socket compatible with 478. That would be a chip that I would be interested in...
Um, the CIO did not write the RFP. I wrote it, and wrote it in a vendor neutral way based on our needs. We were pretty much an HP shop (all HP servers anyway), with several MSA500's already. We needed to go beyond the MSA and were looking at the EVA4000. Our purchasing process mandates 3 compeeting bids, I did 4 just to be sure we really were getting the best solution, but started with HP based on our existing business relationships.
My HP rep using an HP sales engineer tried to sell me an IBM DS4000. Yes, I said that right. HP was trying to sell us an IBM solution. We balked, and they pointed me at another reseller who was "authorized" to sell the EVA line. I had each vendor come up with their own statements on where they felt their solution was superior over the competitors knowing which base models the competitors were proposing (DS4000, CX500, FAS3020)
Bottom line is that NetApp and EMC were the best "integrated solutions" with both NAS appliance and SAN exactly the way we wanted it. IBM's licensing was nuts, and they wanted us to go through a reseller than we didn't care for. EMC had the best overall total comprehensive solution (with all the bells and whistles support and hand-holding) though price was higher and performance was lower than NetApp.
I'm not saying that HP's offering was horrible, but it just didn't measure up to the others. It seemed to be much more a collection of disparate parts rather than a solution. That and they just don't seem to have their shit together dealing with channel partners...
Yep - HP has really lost it. Having just gone through an RFP process for an enterprise SAN, we looked at HP since most of our servers were HP. What a disappointing offering! Nothing innovative at all. IBM, NetApp, and EMC blew them away.
FWIW, that's pretty close to the sites I've been working with that get several million hits a day consistantly. Our users are (depending on what site the user goes to) either general consumers or government / educational users so we get a pretty good mix. A third site is targeted towards large enterprise.
That report does not seem to mesh with reality. I'm actually surprised that MSN is so low due to the IE default home page - but it is.
Well, there IS the Telemarketer Torture script...