as in, Taco, who are you co-locating with? Actually this was covered in a previous story. Slashdot moved to Exodus from Digital Nation (I think). At the time didn't they cite better support as well as being closer to home?
Seriously, the claims are going to be very similar from co-lo companies. Previous posts really covered the technical things you want to look for. But I think the real value is in first hand experience. For my $.02 I have always liked Pair Networks, but I don't know if they offer co-location with your own servers any more.
Ultimately, I think it would come down to:
1. Support. This includes the overall competence of the company. 2. Location, so you can physically administer your servers when needed. 3. Good routing and bandwidth capabilities.
Or maybe reverse the order of these. Like I said I have always gotten a good feeling from Pair.
And since you are reading slashdot you are obviously a step ahead of the average consumer, skills-wise. I am glad you have had such good experiences installing Windows. Most people don't.
There is a good reason to throw Windows on your machine: Games
But earlier I thought you said that you don't run Windows anymore.
I don't want to have to head out and buy a 90$ piece of crap when I'll only use it once a month.
And you didn't listen carefully. The Windows CD files are kept in C:\Windows\Options\Cabs. Burn them onto CD. Or stick the harddrive from your built system into the other one and copy the cab files over.
In fact, you don't even need the Boot Disk at all. Just head into your BIOS settings and tell it to boot from the CD.
I could be wrong, but I think only Win98 2nd edition is a bootable CD. 98 1st ed. and the 95's are not. And what about machines that don't have bootable CD's? Like older Compaqs for instance?
The fact that it took "trained" technicians more than 30 minutes to reinstall Windows - What is the world coming to?
Actually, my emphasis was on the fact that it makes life so much easier for consumers. But why would anyone (other than you) want to do a multi-step installation of windows when it could really just be a one-step process--boot to the restore CD (or companion diskette on older systems) and click restore. Done. No installing extra drivers or extra software. If the machine hasn't been modified, and the majority in the hands or retail consumers haven't been, this is a faster and easier process. We do seem to agree about the qualities of most technicians, though (dimmer than a dead lightbulb??).
Finally: disclaimer--if you just trolled me, good job. But you raised some interesting points to respond to anyway.
Next time use the recovery CD, then go to the run prompt and type "msconfig." This will let you disable all those background utilities from starting up. Total time this way: 20 minutes. Total time installing windows from scratch: hours.
Compaq Presarios suck. If you disagree, just spend some time fixing the damn things (not one or two for friends, but dozens in a professional setting). They come preloaded with too much crap, and the hardware tends to be too proprietary. But msconfig is a great utility for disabling all that crap and making things run better.
Granted, Compaq has been doing some stupid things with recovery partitions, but recovery CD's are really very nice. Again, if you don't like the recovery CD's, make a copy of the cab files in C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS and spend your six hours reinstalling everything.
OK, first off, not giving a copy of the Windows CD is bad. Really bad. That's like buying a copy of the latest Peal Jam CD (insert your favorite bad here) and then finding that it only plays on the bundled CD player. If you ever want to buy (or build) a new CD player it won't work on it. Fine. Bad.
BUT... for the average consumer this is a GOOD thing. Having to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows (which WILL happen eventually) is a real pain. Normally, the average consumer takes the computer in to the local shop (CompUSA, Micro Center, etc). And pays a fee to have Windows reinstalled.
Ah, you say. Installing Windows is easy! Well... not really. You boot to the boot disk (do you have one that has CDROM support, if not, too bad) and type D:\setup. This installs windows, no problem. But what about the drivers? When Windows restarts it asks you for the drivers for the sound, video, and modem cards, which are usually included on batch made CD's with multiple drivers. Find the CD for the video card. Navigate to the directory where the driver is, because windows isn't smart enough to scan the whole CD for the correct driver. Load it. Repeat with the other devices, etc. But hope that Windows detects support for your CDROM drive before it detects your other devices, otherwise you won't be able to load the drivers--something that happens pretty often.
When I worked as a technician for a major computer retailer--our house brand did not include recovery CD's, but just Windows and individual driver disks. I am pretty sure that this is because we could charge $50 a pop for reinstalling Windows properly. (As technicians, WE had the recovery CD's) Lots of revenue there.
Giving the customer a recovery CD which reinstalls everything properly in one step is a Very Good Thing.
I cannot stress this enough. 15 - 30 minutes to get back up and running when Windows gets wrecked. This makes life so much easier for consumers and for technicians.
The main complaint I hear is that you can't then take the OEM Windows CD and install it on a computer you build. But how big a percentage of the population is this anyway? (Since this is slashdot, I also have to ask, why are you installing Windows on a computer you slaved hard at building??? You should now enough to run Linux (or *BSD)).
If you really want the Windows installation files, buy a burner and copy them from C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\, right where they've always been on OEM installations of Win9x. Nothing too tough there, is there?
Yeah, but if you ask most Windows users to configure the display adapater properly they don't know what to do either. I can't say how many times I've seen people who run with only 640x480 and 16 colors for months because they have no idea how to reload the display adapter under win9x. (sometimes they don't even realize it's misconfigured).
I have to say that most people rely on the preinstallation of Windows. If linux is preinstalled, it has the potential to be just as easy (or hard) to use as Windows. The thing which we (linux/*nix/*BSD) users overlook is that if linux were a successful desktop OS it would come preinstalled. The average user would never have to do any configuration (just like with Windows now).We overlook this because we ALL have had to manually install and configure linux.
In a related note, the majority of people seem to have that "computer friend" who helps them out with most things. Most people are only interested in a few simple tasks, and never stray beyond those. If they need to do anything other than the 5 or so things they normally do, they ask for help.
The main reason linux is not currently a suitable desktop OS is that there are not enough people who even think they know linux well. There is no shortage of people who think they know windows well enough to fix help out.
yeah, but how much you want to bet that the process responsible for doing the writing would be the first to go. or you'd get a process which hangs, not badly enough for the whole machine to go down, but enough to cause a reboot--too bad multitasking let that backup process do the backing up with a frozen one. oops!
for this to be really effective you'd need multiple layers of backups so you could choose the state most trouble free. on the other hand, you'd be restoring the ram to the state it was in JUST before a major crash--not a very comforting state of affairs.
A more promising situation would be using the stuff to store ram so that a power failure would not result in catastrohic downtime for rebooting. again, this would be more applicable to windows. but i'm getting tired of waiting for my linux and bsd boxen to boot up after i power them down (which I do a couple times a week so i don't have to hear the fans, or so I don't have to pay the giant boston edison bill).
But there is nothing special about OUM as NV storage--that's what hard drives do best as long as you don't have size/power/price/portability constraints.
The worm utilizes a known Microsoft Outlook Express security hole, Scriptlet.Typelib, so that a viral file is created on the system without having to run any attachment. Simply reading the received email message will cause the virus to be placed on the system. --from http://www.symantec.c om/avcenter/venc/data/wscript.kakworm.html.
Granted, this is the kak virus, and granted MS issued a patch, how long is it before someone ports the ILUVU virus to exploit this hole where the user DOES NOT NEED TO OPEN THE ATTACHMENT, just view it. Outlook and OE have horrible security. Tying the scripting language into the system was their way to make MSN as easy (sorta) to set up as AOL. Ever tried to set up MSN? Uses pervasive scripting which does not always ask for a prompt before runnning. This is not a buffer overflow error, but one (perhaps of many) exploits where windows scripting does not ask for permission to run.
The thing is, no one's gonna stop telemarketers because they pay the phone company to use the system. This is the key difference between telemarketing and spamming. Spammers don't pay to use the bandwidth they suck up on the 'net. Telemarketers do.
Nope. They'll probably just try to patent more stuff to defend themselves. How about a patent on a hypertext system capable of delivering data across a global wide area network. Yup, that should cover them.
!--It's not an invasion, it's a preemptive counterattack--!
Does it bug anyone else that Katz can't do basic math? (Granted he gets it right the second time he mentions it, but still... please PROOFREAD!) </RANT>
Depends on what you're crunching, but a 450MHz PPC G4 does 4 Megakeys/second on distributed.net. If you're wondering, my dual celeron 550 only does 3.08 MKeys/sec. Since the celeron uses the same P6 core as the P3, and the distributed.net client is heavily multi-threaded, this is one of the few cases where 2 processors should be faster than one much faster one. In other words, in this, and only this case, 2 celerons have the number crunching power of a 1.1 Ghz P6 processor (read Pentium II/III). Or they have 75% the number crunching power of a 450MHz G4 using the altivec unit. If your number crunching can be done in vector operations and not floating point, the G4 rocks. Oh yeah, you can run linux on a G4 and use the altivec unit www.blacklablinux.com.
Depends on what you're crunching, but a 450MHz PPC G4 does 4 Megakeys/second on distributed.net. If you're wondering, my dual celeron 550 only does 3.08 MKeys/sec. Since the celeron uses the same P6 core as the P3, and the distributed.net client is heavily multi-threaded, this is one of the few cases where 2 processors should be faster than one much faster one. In other words, in this, and only this case, 2 celerons have the number crunching power of a 1.1 Ghz P6 processor (read Pentium II/III). Or they have 75% the number crunching power of a 450MHz G4 using the altivec unit. If your number crunching can be done in vector operations and not floating point, the G4 rocks. Oh yeah, you can run linux on a G4 and use the altivec unit www.blacklablinux.com.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, the claims are going to be very similar from co-lo companies. Previous posts really covered the technical things you want to look for. But I think the real value is in first hand experience. For my $.02 I have always liked Pair Networks, but I don't know if they offer co-location with your own servers any more.
Ultimately, I think it would come down to:
1. Support. This includes the overall competence of the company.
2. Location, so you can physically administer your servers when needed.
3. Good routing and bandwidth capabilities.
Or maybe reverse the order of these. Like I said I have always gotten a good feeling from Pair.
There is a good reason to throw Windows on your machine: Games
But earlier I thought you said that you don't run Windows anymore.
I don't want to have to head out and buy a 90$ piece of crap when I'll only use it once a month.
And you didn't listen carefully. The Windows CD files are kept in C:\Windows\Options\Cabs. Burn them onto CD. Or stick the harddrive from your built system into the other one and copy the cab files over.
In fact, you don't even need the Boot Disk at all. Just head into your BIOS settings and tell it to boot from the CD.
I could be wrong, but I think only Win98 2nd edition is a bootable CD. 98 1st ed. and the 95's are not. And what about machines that don't have bootable CD's? Like older Compaqs for instance?
The fact that it took "trained" technicians more than 30 minutes to reinstall Windows - What is the world coming to?
Actually, my emphasis was on the fact that it makes life so much easier for consumers. But why would anyone (other than you) want to do a multi-step installation of windows when it could really just be a one-step process--boot to the restore CD (or companion diskette on older systems) and click restore. Done. No installing extra drivers or extra software. If the machine hasn't been modified, and the majority in the hands or retail consumers haven't been, this is a faster and easier process. We do seem to agree about the qualities of most technicians, though (dimmer than a dead lightbulb??).
Finally: disclaimer--if you just trolled me, good job. But you raised some interesting points to respond to anyway.
Compaq Presarios suck. If you disagree, just spend some time fixing the damn things (not one or two for friends, but dozens in a professional setting). They come preloaded with too much crap, and the hardware tends to be too proprietary. But msconfig is a great utility for disabling all that crap and making things run better.
Granted, Compaq has been doing some stupid things with recovery partitions, but recovery CD's are really very nice. Again, if you don't like the recovery CD's, make a copy of the cab files in C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS and spend your six hours reinstalling everything.
Too lazy to fire up the copy sitting 3 feet away.
BUT... for the average consumer this is a GOOD thing. Having to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows (which WILL happen eventually) is a real pain. Normally, the average consumer takes the computer in to the local shop (CompUSA, Micro Center, etc). And pays a fee to have Windows reinstalled.
Ah, you say. Installing Windows is easy! Well... not really. You boot to the boot disk (do you have one that has CDROM support, if not, too bad) and type D:\setup. This installs windows, no problem. But what about the drivers? When Windows restarts it asks you for the drivers for the sound, video, and modem cards, which are usually included on batch made CD's with multiple drivers. Find the CD for the video card. Navigate to the directory where the driver is, because windows isn't smart enough to scan the whole CD for the correct driver. Load it. Repeat with the other devices, etc. But hope that Windows detects support for your CDROM drive before it detects your other devices, otherwise you won't be able to load the drivers--something that happens pretty often.
When I worked as a technician for a major computer retailer--our house brand did not include recovery CD's, but just Windows and individual driver disks. I am pretty sure that this is because we could charge $50 a pop for reinstalling Windows properly. (As technicians, WE had the recovery CD's) Lots of revenue there.
Giving the customer a recovery CD which reinstalls everything properly in one step is a Very Good Thing.
I cannot stress this enough. 15 - 30 minutes to get back up and running when Windows gets wrecked. This makes life so much easier for consumers and for technicians.
The main complaint I hear is that you can't then take the OEM Windows CD and install it on a computer you build. But how big a percentage of the population is this anyway? (Since this is slashdot, I also have to ask, why are you installing Windows on a computer you slaved hard at building??? You should now enough to run Linux (or *BSD)).
If you really want the Windows installation files, buy a burner and copy them from C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\, right where they've always been on OEM installations of Win9x. Nothing too tough there, is there?
I have to say that most people rely on the preinstallation of Windows. If linux is preinstalled, it has the potential to be just as easy (or hard) to use as Windows. The thing which we (linux/*nix/*BSD) users overlook is that if linux were a successful desktop OS it would come preinstalled. The average user would never have to do any configuration (just like with Windows now).We overlook this because we ALL have had to manually install and configure linux.
In a related note, the majority of people seem to have that "computer friend" who helps them out with most things. Most people are only interested in a few simple tasks, and never stray beyond those. If they need to do anything other than the 5 or so things they normally do, they ask for help.
The main reason linux is not currently a suitable desktop OS is that there are not enough people who even think they know linux well. There is no shortage of people who think they know windows well enough to fix help out.
But I will post anyway
there goes my karma.
for this to be really effective you'd need multiple layers of backups so you could choose the state most trouble free. on the other hand, you'd be restoring the ram to the state it was in JUST before a major crash--not a very comforting state of affairs.
A more promising situation would be using the stuff to store ram so that a power failure would not result in catastrohic downtime for rebooting. again, this would be more applicable to windows. but i'm getting tired of waiting for my linux and bsd boxen to boot up after i power them down (which I do a couple times a week so i don't have to hear the fans, or so I don't have to pay the giant boston edison bill).
But there is nothing special about OUM as NV storage--that's what hard drives do best as long as you don't have size/power/price/portability constraints.
Don't laugh, my other .sig is a porsche!
The worm utilizes a known Microsoft Outlook Express security hole, Scriptlet.Typelib, so that a viral file is created on the system without having to run any attachment. Simply reading the received email message will cause the virus to be placed on the system. --from http://www.symantec.c om/avcenter/venc/data/wscript.kakworm.html.
Granted, this is the kak virus, and granted MS issued a patch, how long is it before someone ports the ILUVU virus to exploit this hole where the user DOES NOT NEED TO OPEN THE ATTACHMENT, just view it. Outlook and OE have horrible security. Tying the scripting language into the system was their way to make MSN as easy (sorta) to set up as AOL. Ever tried to set up MSN? Uses pervasive scripting which does not always ask for a prompt before runnning. This is not a buffer overflow error, but one (perhaps of many) exploits where windows scripting does not ask for permission to run.
Printed manuals add a touch of class. Some people like em, some don't.
The thing is, no one's gonna stop telemarketers because they pay the phone company to use the system. This is the key difference between telemarketing and spamming. Spammers don't pay to use the bandwidth they suck up on the 'net. Telemarketers do.
!--It's not an invasion, it's a preemptive counterattack--!
Does it bug anyone else that Katz can't do basic math? (Granted he gets it right the second time he mentions it, but still... please PROOFREAD!)
</RANT>
that's Oscar Wilde, not Rupert Everett. That's like saying: "to be or not to be" -- Mel Gibson.
Depends on what you're crunching, but a 450MHz PPC G4 does 4 Megakeys/second on distributed.net. If you're wondering, my dual celeron 550 only does 3.08 MKeys/sec. Since the celeron uses the same P6 core as the P3, and the distributed.net client is heavily multi-threaded, this is one of the few cases where 2 processors should be faster than one much faster one. In other words, in this, and only this case, 2 celerons have the number crunching power of a 1.1 Ghz P6 processor (read Pentium II/III). Or they have 75% the number crunching power of a 450MHz G4 using the altivec unit. If your number crunching can be done in vector operations and not floating point, the G4 rocks. Oh yeah, you can run linux on a G4 and use the altivec unit www.blacklablinux.com.