I'd agree this shouldn't have been modded down and they should have let us agree to disagree.
Granted, HD's are far more failure prone than RAM and can be shut off. But so?
I've had RAM die more than once in more than one machine, etc. I've even had ONE MEMORY CELL/WORD DIE! (I've had one of those "support 1400 end-user machines" and 50+ server support jobs, in addition to other places I've worked over the last 9 years.) So, I probably have seen things you've not seen and you've seen things I haven't. Your "in my experience" is anecdotal evidence, not scientific evidence.
No, ECC cannot correct everything. But you're only partially right when you say, "ECC only protects you against failures directly on the memory stick itself." What about power glitches, especially ones that get past the UPS? Often, this IS a 100% correctable error, with ECC. Why do the manufacturers of servers (especially high-end stuff) rely on ECC RAM -- for uptimes? This is especially true of mainframes and high-end Unix servers. Just go ask IBM or HP/COMPAQ....
The fact that maybe 1 in 1,000 or even 1 in 10,000 DIMMs ever fails outside of manufacturer testing vs. 1 in 10 HD's is irrelevent. RAM still fails, plain and simple.
I'd bet that Google uses ECC RAM....
These days, a 256M DDR DIMM w/ ECC is only a few bucks more, for an extra level of safety and only a modest performance loss. Buy ECC, love ECC.
(Use RAID, too -- on servers. Again, RAID 5 and ECC are very similar technologies. If RAID 5, on failure-prone HD's is considered "fault tolerant enough," then why not ECC RAM?)
Again, it's ONLY A FEW BUCKS! Don't believe it's only a few bucks? Price it on http://www.pricewatch.com/ Today's prices (2002-05-06):
256M RAM PC2100: $37
256M RAM PC2100 w/ ECC: $42
512M RAM PC2100: $100
512M RAM PC2100 w/ ECC: $113
Well, that about defates that argument.
Yes, as far as more important issues:
UPSes
Backups
World Hunger
...
Re:My experiences, memory problems...
on
To ECC Or Not To ECC?
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· Score: 2, Informative
In my experiences, ECC is not worthwhile. There are too many ways the data can get corrupted before it ever hits the memory stick.
Huh? If ECC isn't worth it, then RAID 5 (the minimum-acceptable "poor man's" form of RAID) certainly isn't, for the same reasons.
If you're correct, then I can say this, using the same logic: "In my experiences, RAID-5 is not worthwhile. There are too many ways the data can get corrupted before it ever hits the disk."
Heck, all the built-in hard drive ECC, SMART technology, sector relocation, CRC-checking, etc. are useless, if we follow your argument to its logical conclusion.
Since ECC and RAID-5 are similar technology and perform similar roles in similar ways, and since RAM is always far more important than disk, at least once the OS is booted, then, ECC is more important than RAID, yet make data centers skip on ECC and spend on RAID. What's silly is that if MEMORY IS CORRUPT, THEN DISK CERTAINLY WILL BE -- PERMANENTLY.
A 1-bit error is the most common kind of memory error and can crop up for a multitude of reasons, including static, voltage spikes, bad motherboard timings, cosmic rays, etc. And, you'll still catch the 2-bit errors, the second most common kind. I'd be willing to bet that 1 and 2 bit errors account for 99+% of all memory errors, unless you got a bad chip. ECC was NEVER designed to fix all errors, just the 99+% we actually encounter.
The thing about some/.'ers is that they could care less about data integrity and care far too much about speed and price. I would never run a productional machine, or a home machine left on for 24 hours a day without backup power and ECC memory; I do this at home. A production box would also require some level of RAID and backup hardware/software.
If you're anti-ECC for ANY reason, then, to follow your logic, you should also be anti-RAID and anti-tape backup.
Who knows? That might be the best way out. Sprint PCS could even pick up a nice tax break, get more wireless and ads in your area, and would be nice PR for both.
Other than 3G, I wouldn't do "long distance" wireless, because of scalability issues.
I think this is based on the theory that electricity wants to travel the straightest path possible -- especially high frequency electricity, like lightning.
That's why you get RF leak from coax if there are kinks or knots in a line and why network cable (especially cat 5, 5e, and higher) should have no kinks, knots, or sharp bends in the twisted pair.
It makes very little difference for low frequencies, such as 50/60 Hz AC and lets it pass. In addition, the knot becomes an inductor. Inductors have progressively higher and higher resistance to higher and higher frequencies.
So, it sounds good on paper. I'll try it, myself. During bad storm years, like this one, we in Kansas get a lot of lightning. During really bad storms, we also get hail and tornadoes, which produce even more lightning, rain, and other storm artifacts, most of which make it even harder to protect your equipment.
Oh, and be sure to plug in to a GFCI, a Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor!!! A poorly grounded circuit, or one not protected from ground faults are even *easier* prey for lightning. In a strike, they could disconnect you from the circuit, perhaps, maybe, because the electrical ground may be screwy, with lightning and your surge suppressor duking it out. It takes about 1/40 second for most GFCI's to work, so don't expect miracles, but it's a few bucks well spent.
You can pick one up for about $6.50 USD at Home Depot, Lowes, or your favorite hardware store. GFCI's are the outlets with the RESET and TEST buttons, used in kitchens, bathrooms, out doors, and other places where there might be water, dampness, or ground faults.
A GFCI can also protect you from electrical shock.
So, do all the above: a GFCI, an overhand knot, and a good surge suppressor *with noise filter*.
Wait until the XP suite of software. If they have a standard, propietary, patented method, they could shut us out, if they wanted to do so.
We need to get behind something reasonable, like TLS, PGP, GPG, SMIME, whatever, and go for it. Make it an open (IETF) standard and be done with it.
Otherwise, there will be embrace -> extend -> extinguish, in a real hurry. Look at Netscape vs. IE, for instance. Sure NS still exists, but it's in the minority.
Just start posting some encrypted emails. If they're truly a friend, they'll want to read your email.:-)
I think you're merely joking, trying to pull people's chains, myself, but just in case you're not, or in case somebody out there thinks this "obvious" joke mail makes a good point (and it most certainly does not), I'll still reply, assuming you were actually serious.:-)
You answered your own question and didn't listen to yourself: 'The only advantage the new FSes hold is probably their journaling capability, leading to faster fscks, faster bootups and less risk of data loss.'
Those things you listed ARE stated goals of JFS's in general; performance never was, and most people are right when they don't care if it's *half* or a *third* the speed. In fact, they expect it. Want a faster file system? Get an UltraSCSI-III drive at 10,000 RPM's. That'll give you faster -and- Reiser-FS and XFS will pull further ahead of ext2, due to command tag queuing during journal writes!
Performance has always rightly been considered a trade-off for reliability, which should nearly always be the case in any application, anywhere, anytime. Would you make this argument if we were talking about OSes or apps, instead of file systems? Of course you (and most people) wouldn't, or Linux's (and BSD's/Unix's) reliability factor would never be brought up. (File system reliability is FAR more important than OS and app reliability combined).
In the cases of XFS and Reiser-FS, they're actually usually slightly faster, instead of being slower, which makes me enthused, not disappointed.
Perhaps:
This is a troll or is flamebait, and it probably is.
-or-
You haven't read about the future features of Reiser-FS and XFS. (Just go to the web sites and read about the *current* feature improvements of either, compared to ext2 -- it'll blow you away).
-or-
You haven't been the sysadmin of large shops that use both journaled and non-journaled file systems and just wouldn't understand.... Try recovering from a 100G non-JFS'ed system at 4 a.m. some time and you'll immediately change your mind. Turn off the power to a box like that -- I dare you. I triple dog dare you to do that with 100,000 small files on the box, with 500 of them opened for write!
-or-
You don't realize that to get point #1 at the top of this email usually requires you to have slower file systems, so that fact that they're "just" on par (actually a little faster) with ext2 is * EXTREMELY ADVANTAGEOUS!!!* (OK, I changed my mind, there is a use for the BLINK tag, after all!)
-or-
You haven't seen the EXTREME space savings on small files with Reiser-FS.
-or-
You don't have crash-recovery/data-recovery experience.
Don't *ever* run a productional, mission critical, or any "important" Linux box without RAID 0+1, 1, or 5; a good backup/recovery strategy; well-conditioned power; redundant networking, assuming you need it; and a journaled file system. For programmers, add hardcopies and CVS....
"Where's the advantage? Where's the progress? The benchmarks only leave me disappointed." You didn't even listen to your own extended Q+A, so I bet you won't listen to us, either. Now that's truly disappointing. (Of course, since you're joking in the first place, I'm actually amused....)
OK, once again, if the speed is slightly faster (overall), your files take up FAR less space in Reiser-FS, there are a whole slew of new features coming, it's 64-bit/large file/large directory ready (and ext2 isn't even close to ANY of that), it still works with LVM, AND you get those journaling advantages. Oh, by the way, it's also free in both senses of the word, and you're wondering about the advantages?!?!? He he.
I used to believe in "fast at all costs" until my first programming job, when an experieced programmer (I knew it all, right out of college, BTW) explained to me that CPU cycles are cheap, but people's time never is. If you waste a week recovering a system, you'll NEVER, EVER get that back if you had a file system *10* times as fast.
I bet you were just joking, right?:-) I bet this was just a troll spoofing speed vs. reliability, just like the overclocker trolls that run around SlashDot!:-)
The only reason I even dignified this joke with a reply was that somebody less acutely aware of the joke might actually be fooled into this line of reasoning and question switching from ext2 to Reiser-FS today. Switch right now, before you run another app.
(Not to start a distribution war, but Mandrake 8.0 with Reiser-FS will actually prove to be faster all around than most {all other?} distros out there. They actually compile everything with Pentium optimizations *and* install on Reiser-FS *and* install XFree86 4.0.3 *and* compile apps with their own optimizations enabled *and* tweak the kernel, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, etc. If you want faster *and* reliable, there's your distro)....
"(Slightly Faster + Journaled + MANY Other Advantages + More Disk Space + No 4 a.m. Wakeup Calls) == Disappointment"
He he, now that's a good punchline!:-)
Anybody who believes in speed at the cost of reliability is an obvious newbie.
Where I work, we use a mixture of hand-written Perl, manual testing, Segue's Silk Performer, Segue's Silk Test, Mercury, and Rational.
Each only does what it does best, unfortunately.:-)
I'm wanting to know the answer to this one, too.
Have you checked out SourceForge projects, Freshmeat, or HotScripts?
Also, remember that Perl's CPAN has modules for most scenarios and that expect (especially autoexpect and some hand-tweaking) can automate the command line....
Again, I want to see this very project come of age, too.
A good testing tool/suite should do specific things well as well as general ones. It should have good test data and should do sanity, regression, stress, and ad-hoc tests. It should be good at automation and reporting results. It should be able to automate almost anything and should allow for randomization of speed, load, timing, and data. It should also allow heavy customization, including you being able to insert your own source code or binaries to be executed. Today, it should be able to do heavy testing of Internet apps, especially webbed ones.
I know of no general-purpose OpenSource apps/projects like this, but would like to see one. If they're like me, when coders test, they run through it by hand or write a quick app that is specific to the program they're writing, which is not necessarily a good thing....
Some tools/projects, other than what's already listed:
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=testing&filter=836
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ltp/
http://www.protomagic.com/rjobd/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/va-ctcs
I had major problems with the equipment, users, telco, and software. I'd steer clear, IMHO. I lost major bucks on the deal, and I'm no newbie. You need to have major cash flow, have great business sense (far more important than your technical skills), need to really run it like a business, have an awesome accountant, market, have great customer service, oh and have at least semi-good tech skills.
My point is that being an ISP is a BUSINESS, not a tech job. Trained monkeys can (almost) do the tech work, especially now that things are SOOOO easy. Hopefully, you can get funding and business people on board to run it. Business concerns are primary, tech concerns are either secondary (or even tertiary). And, hopefully your local telco or other local ISP's aren't better at running an ISP business than you are, or they'll kill you off....
Nope, as one who has lost major money, it isn't worth it....
Well, paranoid delusionists, it is Open Source....
If there are backdoors and if it is Open Source, it will get red flagged before being put in something like Red Hat.... Open Source == ability to software audit.
Maybe we'll get REAL SECURITY for once. Now if Immunix, SWAN, and Bastille were all involved....
Your point is valid. There are TOO many "TLD"-like entities in Usenet. It was better organized, before the change.
I've always believed that the change was one thing that killed Usenet. It's now either "too disorganized" or "too organized", depending on your point of view.
The RARE times I look at Usenet are under the comp.* groups, and I hate wading through the mess to get there.
There needs to be a happy medium, since Usenet failed at the same (dis)organization.
Let's shoot for the middle. There should be an organization that lets maybe 100 new gTLD's in and more more, for quite awhile. English also shouldn't be the only game in town. Now, try to come up with a scheme that meets all those criteria without having domains that are either too long or that are too terse. And, then you need to sorta keep the tree balanced, unlike the.com,.net.,.org, and country code mess where everybody jumps on.com, ignoring the rest, unless they need to "protect" themselves.
I don't think the solution is easy. What I do know is that the current situation is a joke and that Usenet's free-for-all is also a joke. How do we get somewhere in the middle, balancing organization, freedom, length, protection, uniqueness, and readability?
First, I understand the free vs. free thing. Yes, yes, there are two types of "free". SlashDot often raves about the free I'm talking about (price) as well as the other kind (freedom). Cable T.V. is/has/does neither.
I used to rent cable T.V. just like everyone else, but it's expensive, the quality of programming is horrible, and programs like the Daily Show are stupid, IMHO. I sorta miss Sci-Fi, TLC, and the Discovery Channel, but all three have seen better days. Paying $40/month for the cable "just above basic" for channels with interference, is not what I call a deal. I saw a few episodes of the Daily Show and quit watching it. Yes, it's a whole lot better than SNL's "News" segment, but they both are stupid, IMHO. Thus, I dropped cable just a few months ago, before the election. (No, I cannot comment on their election coverage, but who cares)?
My points were that this wasn't SlashDot newsworthy and that the Peabody shouldn't have been awarded. The Daily Show is a comedy about real news; it is not true journalism, although most of the other choices were bad, too. Maybe the judges of the award thought they sucked less, I don't know, but the Daily Show shouldn't have gotten it.
There was SO much coverage of the election by SO many people that there was such a large pool of talent on just this one event that they should have had no trouble finding a more worthy choice. Also, there were plenty of other news stories in 2000, not the least of which was Y2K, itself. The election was a HUGE one, but to have the Daily Show get it is bad.
Perhaps this has all been an April Fool's Day gag. I don't care, since I haven't talked to anybody about this story, outside these two responses. But if it is true, perhaps the news media is even worse than I've even imagined.
Again, this isn't SlashDot worthy.
SlashDot really sucks, lately. The last 6 months to a year bite! I hope there is a better "News for Nerds" web site out there. I start looking today, on April Fool's Day. BTW, LinuxToday.Com offers real Linux news. A bunch of Science Sites, including BBC's are far better. Space.Com is great, too. Even Yahoo's Science section is better than SlashDot at "News for Nerds." This site is beginning to suck so badly! This site is becoming "Politics for nerds who believe the way we dictate at SlashDot."
The stories are mostly repeats, there is little checking of facts, people all over the place are getting mad, politics is rampant, or the stories are stupid, like this one.
It only proves three things:
The quality of SlashDot continues to plummet.
The news media's journalism is almost as bad as SlashDot's, that they'd stoop this low for a Peabody. I guess Peabody == Pander.
SlashDot authors are hypocritical. "I'll pay for cable, when I'm entertained, but rant about paying for software, services, etc."
And I'm not an M$ fan, promoter, etc. I'm just not hypocritical, like SlashDot is. I don't pay for cable, myself.
If no computers existed, then we'd have to reinvent the manufacturing process. Much of current knowledge relies on computers. If we still had large transistors it would make things a lot easier. As far a programming them, right now, many of us are old enough to know how to do it with toggle switches. In 50-75 years, it's likely that the whole toggle technology would need to be reinvented. As for what would I change, or would be likely to change. I suspect we'd be able to skip a lot of bad ideas.
He's right, you know, assuming you'd have to reinvent the wheel of technology.
We could run out of energy, if we were to either freeze or boil the planet, but nobody would really care about technology. A nuclear event, asteroid impact, or whatever, would also result in nobody caring. Large fires, global flooding or drying, major earthquakes and volcanoes, virus outbreaks, etc., same problem -- nobody cares, nobody can work on the technology.
About the only "cataclysm" that could do all this without wiping out all of humanity would be a bunch of extreme EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) blasts, but those would have to be world-wide. All chips/IC's are pretty much useless, at this point. Sure, you could start (expensively) manufacturing radiation-hardened chips, but then you'd need electrical power in the first place. Restore the power, shield everything (probably underground), and you can compute. Fiber optics would work, as long as the repeaters, hubs, switches, routers, and all other IC-based technology were underground and powered-up.
Just about any other event would wipe out humanity, so we wouldn't be waxing philosophical on this point.
As far as radios/communications, you'd need A) electrical power and B) older tube-type shortwave radios, since most solid state and almost all IC radios would be completely useless, especially mobile phones. Major EMP could make shortwave communications impossible, as well, of course....
The event described probably won't happen without major loss of human life -- chip makers and software engineers included.
Thus, the idea of reinventing technology is a better one. The question should have been, "If you were given a blank slate and could start over again, learning from past mistakes and being able to try new ideas, given unlimited resources, what would/could be different about technology, from software to hardware to user interface." Or, just imagine what kind of technology an alien world might have developed....
Just watch Star Trek, Star Wars, the Sci-Fi channel, etc., for more ideas, here.
Please do. The more bogus patents/copyrights/trademarks there are to dispute, the more attention ("awareness") will be generated about this problem.
Maybe, if you trademarked the terms "government", "senate", and "congress", somebody might actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!
For now, I think we need to tell SSH off. Go visit their web site, and Contact them, telling them you won't buy their product and that you'd recommend that your company and friends not do the same, until this is resolved.
Let all the commercial versions of SSH know that you won't be buying their products until this is dropped: SSH
Personally, I planned to buy commercial SSH for my business, especially for Windoze clients to Unix/Linux machines, but now I won't.
I noticed that the M$ anti-aliasing, which looks a little better, is more subdued.
Call me picky, but I think the screen shots (a lossless.PNG file, BTW) show Evolution and Mozilla as TOO anti-aliased, so that letter "o's" and "c's" and "w's" and "m's" and "e's" and "s's" look a bit odd.
It is a lot better, though.
Just tone it down a bit and I'm totally happy!
Re:People are missing the point.
on
MySQL FS
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· Score: 1
You're only partly right.
You still cannot provide anything universal or that can be done by an end-user. Only having fs access to a db allows for this. First of all, name one universal BLOB that works exactly the same for all db's that support BLOBs (there aren't any). Name one standard SQL command that does all this. Name one standard piece of source code that works in all languages, all the time, for all OSes. Name one totally standard API/interface/protocol/whatever. None of the above can be done.
Unfortunately, BLOBs are not universal. Nothing works exactly the same way everywhere, all the time. And, let's just assume that you'll be using one DB on one OS all the time in one programming language, just to make things as easy as you claim it is. Things still aren't clean, since you will have to include code repeatedly in all your apps. Possibly, you may have to change your code if your tables change. Assuming you do everything the "right way" and use an interface such as ODBC, JDBC, or DBI/DBD, and assuming you write good OOP that is generic, you still cannot take that code everywhere to all apps all the time, even in the same programming language/OS. There will always be porting, adaptations, and recoding to get this to work everywhere with all your apps. In fact, everything needs to be planned so that all apps that will be using your code should follow the same conventions all the time.
To avoid this mess and to make life easier for end-users, we could mount the DB as a file system. This gives apps, APIs, libraries, OSes, end-users, etc. the ability to query, read, write, and modify data, even if the platform doesn't even support SQL! By mounting the DB as an FS, you give (nearly) all apps the ability to work on your data (where db data==files), just by being able to open and close files! This is the ULTIMATE layer of abstraction, making access truly UNIVERSAL. (Security restrictions/permissions still should apply, of course.)
There is absolutely NOTHING universal about what you suggest. Nor do all BLOBs work, even in theory, as you suggest. Nor do end-users benefit. Nor do all apps automagically get access to your data just because you wrote something in language a for database b for OS c to support program d.
Oracle 8i's IFS, Informix's data blades, MySQL-FS, PGFS, etc. all have been written by the db experts to address these deficiencies. Why do they disagree with most of the people on this post?
It SHOULD be at http://ww.wv.com/ but I cannot get to that site. I want to know the same thing.
Re:People are missing the point.
on
MySQL FS
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· Score: 1
Q: What is are BLOBs?
A: Flat files stored in a database!
Q: What is a database?
A: Data stored in indexed flat files!
Q: What is an index?
A: More data stored in flat files, or a database of metadata that relates to the order of data!
Q: What is a file system -- Unix/Linux?
A: Flat files stored in a database (that's why it's called a file system) -- with at least one flat file, such as/dev/hda1!
Q: What is a hard drive (present day terms).
A: A device that logically maps data on a physical medium, or a database of sectors!
Q: What is version control, such as CVS?
A: A database of changes to flat files.
Q: Why don't (many) people get this?
A: Maybe they haven't been a DBA, haven't taken a class about modern operating systems, haven't developed a dynamically-generated website with images, haven't been a frustrated programmer dealing with dynamic and static data simultaneously, don't organize data well, haven't read about new FS'es (such as Reiser-FS), haven't used asset management software, think there really is a distinction between filesystems and db's, store all data in flat files, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
'nuf said.
Granted, HD's are far more failure prone than RAM and can be shut off. But so?
I've had RAM die more than once in more than one machine, etc. I've even had ONE MEMORY CELL/WORD DIE! (I've had one of those "support 1400 end-user machines" and 50+ server support jobs, in addition to other places I've worked over the last 9 years.) So, I probably have seen things you've not seen and you've seen things I haven't. Your "in my experience" is anecdotal evidence, not scientific evidence.
No, ECC cannot correct everything. But you're only partially right when you say, "ECC only protects you against failures directly on the memory stick itself." What about power glitches, especially ones that get past the UPS? Often, this IS a 100% correctable error, with ECC. Why do the manufacturers of servers (especially high-end stuff) rely on ECC RAM -- for uptimes? This is especially true of mainframes and high-end Unix servers. Just go ask IBM or HP/COMPAQ....
The fact that maybe 1 in 1,000 or even 1 in 10,000 DIMMs ever fails outside of manufacturer testing vs. 1 in 10 HD's is irrelevent. RAM still fails, plain and simple.
I'd bet that Google uses ECC RAM....
These days, a 256M DDR DIMM w/ ECC is only a few bucks more, for an extra level of safety and only a modest performance loss. Buy ECC, love ECC.
(Use RAID, too -- on servers. Again, RAID 5 and ECC are very similar technologies. If RAID 5, on failure-prone HD's is considered "fault tolerant enough," then why not ECC RAM?)
Again, it's ONLY A FEW BUCKS! Don't believe it's only a few bucks? Price it on http://www.pricewatch.com/ Today's prices (2002-05-06):
256M RAM PC2100: $37
256M RAM PC2100 w/ ECC: $42
512M RAM PC2100: $100
512M RAM PC2100 w/ ECC: $113
Well, that about defates that argument.
Yes, as far as more important issues:
UPSes
Backups
World Hunger
Huh? If ECC isn't worth it, then RAID 5 (the minimum-acceptable "poor man's" form of RAID) certainly isn't, for the same reasons.
If you're correct, then I can say this, using the same logic: "In my experiences, RAID-5 is not worthwhile. There are too many ways the data can get corrupted before it ever hits the disk."
Heck, all the built-in hard drive ECC, SMART technology, sector relocation, CRC-checking, etc. are useless, if we follow your argument to its logical conclusion.
Since ECC and RAID-5 are similar technology and perform similar roles in similar ways, and since RAM is always far more important than disk, at least once the OS is booted, then, ECC is more important than RAID, yet make data centers skip on ECC and spend on RAID. What's silly is that if MEMORY IS CORRUPT, THEN DISK CERTAINLY WILL BE -- PERMANENTLY.
A 1-bit error is the most common kind of memory error and can crop up for a multitude of reasons, including static, voltage spikes, bad motherboard timings, cosmic rays, etc. And, you'll still catch the 2-bit errors, the second most common kind. I'd be willing to bet that 1 and 2 bit errors account for 99+% of all memory errors, unless you got a bad chip. ECC was NEVER designed to fix all errors, just the 99+% we actually encounter.
The thing about some
If you're anti-ECC for ANY reason, then, to follow your logic, you should also be anti-RAID and anti-tape backup.
Other than 3G, I wouldn't do "long distance" wireless, because of scalability issues.
That's why you get RF leak from coax if there are kinks or knots in a line and why network cable (especially cat 5, 5e, and higher) should have no kinks, knots, or sharp bends in the twisted pair.
It makes very little difference for low frequencies, such as 50/60 Hz AC and lets it pass. In addition, the knot becomes an inductor. Inductors have progressively higher and higher resistance to higher and higher frequencies.
So, it sounds good on paper. I'll try it, myself. During bad storm years, like this one, we in Kansas get a lot of lightning. During really bad storms, we also get hail and tornadoes, which produce even more lightning, rain, and other storm artifacts, most of which make it even harder to protect your equipment.
Oh, and be sure to plug in to a GFCI, a Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor!!! A poorly grounded circuit, or one not protected from ground faults are even *easier* prey for lightning. In a strike, they could disconnect you from the circuit, perhaps, maybe, because the electrical ground may be screwy, with lightning and your surge suppressor duking it out. It takes about 1/40 second for most GFCI's to work, so don't expect miracles, but it's a few bucks well spent.
You can pick one up for about $6.50 USD at Home Depot, Lowes, or your favorite hardware store. GFCI's are the outlets with the RESET and TEST buttons, used in kitchens, bathrooms, out doors, and other places where there might be water, dampness, or ground faults.
A GFCI can also protect you from electrical shock.
So, do all the above: a GFCI, an overhand knot, and a good surge suppressor *with noise filter*.
Oh, and you could start sending empty message bodies in emails but attach the text in an encrypted file....
We need to get behind something reasonable, like TLS, PGP, GPG, SMIME, whatever, and go for it. Make it an open (IETF) standard and be done with it.
Otherwise, there will be embrace -> extend -> extinguish, in a real hurry. Look at Netscape vs. IE, for instance. Sure NS still exists, but it's in the minority.
Just start posting some encrypted emails. If they're truly a friend, they'll want to read your email. :-)
I think you're merely joking, trying to pull people's chains, myself, but just in case you're not, or in case somebody out there thinks this "obvious" joke mail makes a good point (and it most certainly does not), I'll still reply, assuming you were actually serious. :-)
You answered your own question and didn't listen to yourself:
'The only advantage the new FSes hold is probably their journaling capability, leading to faster fscks, faster bootups and less risk of data loss.'
Those things you listed ARE stated goals of JFS's in general; performance never was, and most people are right when they don't care if it's *half* or a *third* the speed. In fact, they expect it. Want a faster file system? Get an UltraSCSI-III drive at 10,000 RPM's. That'll give you faster -and- Reiser-FS and XFS will pull further ahead of ext2, due to command tag queuing during journal writes!
Performance has always rightly been considered a trade-off for reliability, which should nearly always be the case in any application, anywhere, anytime. Would you make this argument if we were talking about OSes or apps, instead of file systems? Of course you (and most people) wouldn't, or Linux's (and BSD's/Unix's) reliability factor would never be brought up. (File system reliability is FAR more important than OS and app reliability combined).
In the cases of XFS and Reiser-FS, they're actually usually slightly faster, instead of being slower, which makes me enthused, not disappointed.
Perhaps:
This is a troll or is flamebait, and it probably is.
-or-
You haven't read about the future features of Reiser-FS and XFS. (Just go to the web sites and read about the *current* feature improvements of either, compared to ext2 -- it'll blow you away).
-or-
You haven't been the sysadmin of large shops that use both journaled and non-journaled file systems and just wouldn't understand.... Try recovering from a 100G non-JFS'ed system at 4 a.m. some time and you'll immediately change your mind. Turn off the power to a box like that -- I dare you. I triple dog dare you to do that with 100,000 small files on the box, with 500 of them opened for write!
-or-
You don't realize that to get point #1 at the top of this email usually requires you to have slower file systems, so that fact that they're "just" on par (actually a little faster) with ext2 is * EXTREMELY ADVANTAGEOUS!!!* (OK, I changed my mind, there is a use for the BLINK tag, after all!)
-or-
You haven't seen the EXTREME space savings on small files with Reiser-FS.
-or-
You don't have crash-recovery/data-recovery experience.
Don't *ever* run a productional, mission critical, or any "important" Linux box without RAID 0+1, 1, or 5; a good backup/recovery strategy; well-conditioned power; redundant networking, assuming you need it; and a journaled file system. For programmers, add hardcopies and CVS....
"Where's the advantage? Where's the progress? The benchmarks only leave me disappointed." You didn't even listen to your own extended Q+A, so I bet you won't listen to us, either. Now that's truly disappointing. (Of course, since you're joking in the first place, I'm actually amused....)
OK, once again, if the speed is slightly faster (overall), your files take up FAR less space in Reiser-FS, there are a whole slew of new features coming, it's 64-bit/large file/large directory ready (and ext2 isn't even close to ANY of that), it still works with LVM, AND you get those journaling advantages. Oh, by the way, it's also free in both senses of the word, and you're wondering about the advantages?!?!? He he.
I used to believe in "fast at all costs" until my first programming job, when an experieced programmer (I knew it all, right out of college, BTW) explained to me that CPU cycles are cheap, but people's time never is. If you waste a week recovering a system, you'll NEVER, EVER get that back if you had a file system *10* times as fast.
I bet you were just joking, right? :-) I bet this was just a troll spoofing speed vs. reliability, just like the overclocker trolls that run around SlashDot! :-)
The only reason I even dignified this joke with a reply was that somebody less acutely aware of the joke might actually be fooled into this line of reasoning and question switching from ext2 to Reiser-FS today. Switch right now, before you run another app.
(Not to start a distribution war, but Mandrake 8.0 with Reiser-FS will actually prove to be faster all around than most {all other?} distros out there. They actually compile everything with Pentium optimizations *and* install on Reiser-FS *and* install XFree86 4.0.3 *and* compile apps with their own optimizations enabled *and* tweak the kernel, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, etc. If you want faster *and* reliable, there's your distro)....
"(Slightly Faster + Journaled + MANY Other Advantages + More Disk Space + No 4 a.m. Wakeup Calls) == Disappointment"
He he, now that's a good punchline! :-)
Anybody who believes in speed at the cost of reliability is an obvious newbie.
Yeah, I saw this one, too. Actually, if using B-Trees or better, you can achieve better speeds, in the real world, than log2(n).
Each only does what it does best, unfortunately. :-)
I'm wanting to know the answer to this one, too.
Have you checked out SourceForge projects, Freshmeat, or HotScripts?
Also, remember that Perl's CPAN has modules for most scenarios and that expect (especially autoexpect and some hand-tweaking) can automate the command line....
Again, I want to see this very project come of age, too.
A good testing tool/suite should do specific things well as well as general ones. It should have good test data and should do sanity, regression, stress, and ad-hoc tests. It should be good at automation and reporting results. It should be able to automate almost anything and should allow for randomization of speed, load, timing, and data. It should also allow heavy customization, including you being able to insert your own source code or binaries to be executed. Today, it should be able to do heavy testing of Internet apps, especially webbed ones.
I know of no general-purpose OpenSource apps/projects like this, but would like to see one. If they're like me, when coders test, they run through it by hand or write a quick app that is specific to the program they're writing, which is not necessarily a good thing....
Some tools/projects, other than what's already listed:
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=testing&filter=836
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ltp/
http://www.protomagic.com/rjobd/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/va-ctcs
Somebody needs to get a project together, badly.
My point is that being an ISP is a BUSINESS, not a tech job. Trained monkeys can (almost) do the tech work, especially now that things are SOOOO easy. Hopefully, you can get funding and business people on board to run it. Business concerns are primary, tech concerns are either secondary (or even tertiary). And, hopefully your local telco or other local ISP's aren't better at running an ISP business than you are, or they'll kill you off....
Nope, as one who has lost major money, it isn't worth it....
If there are backdoors and if it is Open Source, it will get red flagged before being put in something like Red Hat.... Open Source == ability to software audit.
Maybe we'll get REAL SECURITY for once. Now if Immunix, SWAN, and Bastille were all involved....
The sky is rising.... The sky is rising...
The RARE times I look at Usenet are under the comp.* groups, and I hate wading through the mess to get there. There needs to be a happy medium, since Usenet failed at the same (dis)organization.
Let's shoot for the middle. There should be an organization that lets maybe 100 new gTLD's in and more more, for quite awhile. English also shouldn't be the only game in town. Now, try to come up with a scheme that meets all those criteria without having domains that are either too long or that are too terse. And, then you need to sorta keep the tree balanced, unlike the .com, .net., .org, and country code mess where everybody jumps on .com, ignoring the rest, unless they need to "protect" themselves.
I don't think the solution is easy. What I do know is that the current situation is a joke and that Usenet's free-for-all is also a joke. How do we get somewhere in the middle, balancing organization, freedom, length, protection, uniqueness, and readability?
I used to rent cable T.V. just like everyone else, but it's expensive, the quality of programming is horrible, and programs like the Daily Show are stupid, IMHO. I sorta miss Sci-Fi, TLC, and the Discovery Channel, but all three have seen better days. Paying $40/month for the cable "just above basic" for channels with interference, is not what I call a deal. I saw a few episodes of the Daily Show and quit watching it. Yes, it's a whole lot better than SNL's "News" segment, but they both are stupid, IMHO. Thus, I dropped cable just a few months ago, before the election. (No, I cannot comment on their election coverage, but who cares)?
My points were that this wasn't SlashDot newsworthy and that the Peabody shouldn't have been awarded. The Daily Show is a comedy about real news; it is not true journalism, although most of the other choices were bad, too. Maybe the judges of the award thought they sucked less, I don't know, but the Daily Show shouldn't have gotten it.
There was SO much coverage of the election by SO many people that there was such a large pool of talent on just this one event that they should have had no trouble finding a more worthy choice. Also, there were plenty of other news stories in 2000, not the least of which was Y2K, itself. The election was a HUGE one, but to have the Daily Show get it is bad.
Perhaps this has all been an April Fool's Day gag. I don't care, since I haven't talked to anybody about this story, outside these two responses. But if it is true, perhaps the news media is even worse than I've even imagined.
Again, this isn't SlashDot worthy.
SlashDot really sucks, lately. The last 6 months to a year bite! I hope there is a better "News for Nerds" web site out there. I start looking today, on April Fool's Day. BTW, LinuxToday.Com offers real Linux news. A bunch of Science Sites, including BBC's are far better. Space.Com is great, too. Even Yahoo's Science section is better than SlashDot at "News for Nerds." This site is beginning to suck so badly! This site is becoming "Politics for nerds who believe the way we dictate at SlashDot."
The stories are mostly repeats, there is little checking of facts, people all over the place are getting mad, politics is rampant, or the stories are stupid, like this one.
The quality of SlashDot continues to plummet.
The news media's journalism is almost as bad as SlashDot's, that they'd stoop this low for a Peabody. I guess Peabody == Pander.
SlashDot authors are hypocritical. "I'll pay for cable, when I'm entertained, but rant about paying for software, services, etc."
And I'm not an M$ fan, promoter, etc. I'm just not hypocritical, like SlashDot is. I don't pay for cable, myself.
Hmmmm.
He's right, you know, assuming you'd have to reinvent the wheel of technology.
We could run out of energy, if we were to either freeze or boil the planet, but nobody would really care about technology. A nuclear event, asteroid impact, or whatever, would also result in nobody caring. Large fires, global flooding or drying, major earthquakes and volcanoes, virus outbreaks, etc., same problem -- nobody cares, nobody can work on the technology.
About the only "cataclysm" that could do all this without wiping out all of humanity would be a bunch of extreme EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) blasts, but those would have to be world-wide. All chips/IC's are pretty much useless, at this point. Sure, you could start (expensively) manufacturing radiation-hardened chips, but then you'd need electrical power in the first place. Restore the power, shield everything (probably underground), and you can compute. Fiber optics would work, as long as the repeaters, hubs, switches, routers, and all other IC-based technology were underground and powered-up.
Just about any other event would wipe out humanity, so we wouldn't be waxing philosophical on this point.
As far as radios/communications, you'd need A) electrical power and B) older tube-type shortwave radios, since most solid state and almost all IC radios would be completely useless, especially mobile phones. Major EMP could make shortwave communications impossible, as well, of course....
The event described probably won't happen without major loss of human life -- chip makers and software engineers included.
Thus, the idea of reinventing technology is a better one. The question should have been, "If you were given a blank slate and could start over again, learning from past mistakes and being able to try new ideas, given unlimited resources, what would/could be different about technology, from software to hardware to user interface." Or, just imagine what kind of technology an alien world might have developed....
Just watch Star Trek, Star Wars, the Sci-Fi channel, etc., for more ideas, here.
While it's a work in progress, it works with Squid.
Nicolas Petreley recommends it.
It's called Mnesia: Mnesia
Also Visit Erlang
It's not necessarily SQL based.
Please do. The more bogus patents/copyrights/trademarks there are to dispute, the more attention ("awareness") will be generated about this problem. Maybe, if you trademarked the terms "government", "senate", and "congress", somebody might actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS! For now, I think we need to tell SSH off. Go visit their web site, and Contact them, telling them you won't buy their product and that you'd recommend that your company and friends not do the same, until this is resolved.
Let all the commercial versions of SSH know that you won't be buying their products until this is dropped: SSH Personally, I planned to buy commercial SSH for my business, especially for Windoze clients to Unix/Linux machines, but now I won't.
Call me picky, but I think the screen shots (a lossless .PNG file, BTW) show Evolution and Mozilla as TOO anti-aliased, so that letter "o's" and "c's" and "w's" and "m's" and "e's" and "s's" look a bit odd.
It is a lot better, though.
Just tone it down a bit and I'm totally happy!
You still cannot provide anything universal or that can be done by an end-user. Only having fs access to a db allows for this. First of all, name one universal BLOB that works exactly the same for all db's that support BLOBs (there aren't any). Name one standard SQL command that does all this. Name one standard piece of source code that works in all languages, all the time, for all OSes. Name one totally standard API/interface/protocol/whatever. None of the above can be done.
Unfortunately, BLOBs are not universal. Nothing works exactly the same way everywhere, all the time. And, let's just assume that you'll be using one DB on one OS all the time in one programming language, just to make things as easy as you claim it is. Things still aren't clean, since you will have to include code repeatedly in all your apps. Possibly, you may have to change your code if your tables change. Assuming you do everything the "right way" and use an interface such as ODBC, JDBC, or DBI/DBD, and assuming you write good OOP that is generic, you still cannot take that code everywhere to all apps all the time, even in the same programming language/OS. There will always be porting, adaptations, and recoding to get this to work everywhere with all your apps. In fact, everything needs to be planned so that all apps that will be using your code should follow the same conventions all the time.
To avoid this mess and to make life easier for end-users, we could mount the DB as a file system. This gives apps, APIs, libraries, OSes, end-users, etc. the ability to query, read, write, and modify data, even if the platform doesn't even support SQL! By mounting the DB as an FS, you give (nearly) all apps the ability to work on your data (where db data==files), just by being able to open and close files! This is the ULTIMATE layer of abstraction, making access truly UNIVERSAL. (Security restrictions/permissions still should apply, of course.)
There is absolutely NOTHING universal about what you suggest. Nor do all BLOBs work, even in theory, as you suggest. Nor do end-users benefit. Nor do all apps automagically get access to your data just because you wrote something in language a for database b for OS c to support program d.
Oracle 8i's IFS, Informix's data blades, MySQL-FS, PGFS, etc. all have been written by the db experts to address these deficiencies. Why do they disagree with most of the people on this post?
It's because they're right.
It SHOULD be at http://ww.wv.com/ but I cannot get to that site. I want to know the same thing.
A: Flat files stored in a database!
Q: What is a database?
A: Data stored in indexed flat files!
Q: What is an index?
A: More data stored in flat files, or a database of metadata that relates to the order of data!
Q: What is a file system -- Unix/Linux?
A: Flat files stored in a database (that's why it's called a file system) -- with at least one flat file, such as /dev/hda1!
Q: What is a hard drive (present day terms).
A: A device that logically maps data on a physical medium, or a database of sectors!
Q: What is version control, such as CVS?
A: A database of changes to flat files.
Q: Why don't (many) people get this?
A: Maybe they haven't been a DBA, haven't taken a class about modern operating systems, haven't developed a dynamically-generated website with images, haven't been a frustrated programmer dealing with dynamic and static data simultaneously, don't organize data well, haven't read about new FS'es (such as Reiser-FS), haven't used asset management software, think there really is a distinction between filesystems and db's, store all data in flat files, etc.