As my former Special Night Squad grandpa used to tell me... "talk is cheap and so is a petrol bomb". The idea being that politicians should be reminded from time to time who is really in charge.
Not that I am advocating anything today (or hopefully for a long time if ever), but this nation has a pretty darn long history of getting violent when push comes to shove. There is a reason why personal weapons and ammo sales are through the roof right now and it isn't the coming zombie apocalypse.
It's OUR country and OUR job to look after OUR own interests through the democratic process. Those whackjobs we send to the legislature are OUR representatives in the process.
Microsoft SQL server is a fine product but like Oracle gets real expensive real fast...
OpenBravo POS and LemonPOS are both great open source POS solutions that have commercial support available. Also, Xymon can be used to monitor windows and/or linux service or executables, notify on downtime and restart or perform other scripted operations.
Collusion plugin for Chrome/Safari from Disconnect.me blocks all known trackers. Since using it for a while, I have noticed a disappearance of eerily targeted ads in Google searches, etc.
Most of the cloud (IaaS, SaaS, whatever) services out there boils down to this: you are outsourcing some or all of your infrastructure (losing control) and are still saddled with all of the responsibility to make it work.
It is yet another way to hack away at the internal IT cost center. Can "cloud" be a good idea? Sure, if you are delivering metered services (Netflix, SaaS), or are entirely office-less.
We outsourced our fax, CRM, and backup and it is "fine." Management thinks it's fantastic because it is so cheap... but I am sitting here right now waiting for a our fax system to come back online due to a cable outage in California (I'm in the midwest). That's the reality of this type of shift. I am completely responsible for this outage and I can do absolutely nothing to fix it or to prevent further outages (other than redundant services which management shot down due to cost).
I really do thikn Win7 is nearly perfect and love abstracted storage (Libraries feature). I manage about 50 desktops at work. Laptop usage is also very good. Active Directory and application integration is huge and probably the biggest plus in the business sector.
That said, I have been watching Sogo and Samba4 for a while and they are getting close to removing that hole in the linux infrastructure.
Enterproid http://www.divide.com/ mobile device management is a service that costs $60/device/year that creates a secured remotely wipe-able sandbox on Android. They also submitted their app to the Apple store so it should be appearing soon for iPhone's.
FYI, they are working with Fixmo to be Common Access Card compliant for NSA standards...
So there's finally a good reason to move to Linux on the desktop. Thanks, Microsoft for taking a masterpiece of design like Windows 7 and making it a pain in the butt to use.
The combo of Observium (network monitoring), Hobbit (monitor everything with extreme ease), and either ESXi or Proxmox VE for consolidation and ease of management/isolation/testing/etc has served me well for years to take control of large organizations quickly. Last two business I was hired to fix, I set this up and then built a parallel enterprise as VMs (the right way this time) and then cut everyone over in a weekend. No one noticed the change except to say stuff didn;t crash anymore and it was really fast.
Also OpenFiler and NexentaStor make for a great SAN.
If you need more: PFSense for firewall or VLAN router, BlueIris for IP cameras, PBX in a Flash for VoIP, SoGo for Outlook compatible email, LibreOffice, etc.
You are dead on that algae is a super fuel and is cheap. The reason corn and palm oil has dominated the bio fuel markets is national economics pure and simple. Corn is horrible for a fuel source and has cause the price of food around the world to skyrocket (and I come from where it is booming the local economy). Palm oil production has done more to slash and burn rain forest than beef production ever has.
The problem with algae production for fuel is that it is difficult for any nation to grow out the production on anything except international waters and no one can own that. Okay, the problem lies with strictly capitalistic countries and the multinational companies that have strong vested interests in seeing that never happens.
Corn subsidies in the United States are tens of billions of dollars and yet corn is selling for the highest price in history. These are not family farms. They are gigantic factory farms owned by huge corporations. That's what needs to be fought to get algae accepted. It sucks.
I know this comes off as naive to the security issues, but small breeders are much cheaper to build and maintain and the waste costs are next to nothing (which is where most of the operating expenses come from). I don't have a problem with wind. I live in Indiana and we are building a huge wind farm here to get away from our other big native energy source - cheap coal.
"Easy" to get to hydrogen for direct use is abundant from Iceland and is a route of exploration by traditional oil companies. I see it as one of the most likely planet scale replacements for gasoline unless there is some major breakthrough in fusion energy in the next 10 years or so.
Dam's are great for humans in the short run, but as we have seen with nearly every attempt we have made to shape nature to our will it causes long term damage. Dams restructure entire ecosystems. They (obviously) change water levels in adjoining rivers and streams will leads to kill offs of entire ecosystems. They mess up spawning patterns of various fish and even the ones that add fish ladders still screw it up because there is a severe temperature gradient between the two sides of a dam that upsets egg viability. There are several more ways and I am sure you can find lists on the web from the Army Corps of engineers, etc. that are less biased than some of the more radical green groups, but in general dams are not good for the environment.
Slashdot Mirror
As my former Special Night Squad grandpa used to tell me... "talk is cheap and so is a petrol bomb". The idea being that politicians should be reminded from time to time who is really in charge.
Not that I am advocating anything today (or hopefully for a long time if ever), but this nation has a pretty darn long history of getting violent when push comes to shove. There is a reason why personal weapons and ammo sales are through the roof right now and it isn't the coming zombie apocalypse.
It's OUR country and OUR job to look after OUR own interests through the democratic process. Those whackjobs we send to the legislature are OUR representatives in the process.
You want to point a finger, point it at yourself.
Microsoft SQL server is a fine product but like Oracle gets real expensive real fast...
OpenBravo POS and LemonPOS are both great open source POS solutions that have commercial support available. Also, Xymon can be used to monitor windows and/or linux service or executables, notify on downtime and restart or perform other scripted operations.
http://www.openbravo.com/product/pos/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lemonpos/
http://xymon.sourceforge.net/
NOD32 from ESET is cheap and works without crushing your computer.
Collusion plugin for Chrome/Safari from Disconnect.me blocks all known trackers. Since using it for a while, I have noticed a disappearance of eerily targeted ads in Google searches, etc.
Purdue was first in 1962... and no I'm not THAT old and I didn't have to RTFA. I went there.
Most of the cloud (IaaS, SaaS, whatever) services out there boils down to this: you are outsourcing some or all of your infrastructure (losing control) and are still saddled with all of the responsibility to make it work.
It is yet another way to hack away at the internal IT cost center. Can "cloud" be a good idea? Sure, if you are delivering metered services (Netflix, SaaS), or are entirely office-less.
We outsourced our fax, CRM, and backup and it is "fine." Management thinks it's fantastic because it is so cheap... but I am sitting here right now waiting for a our fax system to come back online due to a cable outage in California (I'm in the midwest). That's the reality of this type of shift. I am completely responsible for this outage and I can do absolutely nothing to fix it or to prevent further outages (other than redundant services which management shot down due to cost).
I really do thikn Win7 is nearly perfect and love abstracted storage (Libraries feature). I manage about 50 desktops at work. Laptop usage is also very good. Active Directory and application integration is huge and probably the biggest plus in the business sector.
That said, I have been watching Sogo and Samba4 for a while and they are getting close to removing that hole in the linux infrastructure.
Enterproid http://www.divide.com/ mobile device management is a service that costs $60/device/year that creates a secured remotely wipe-able sandbox on Android. They also submitted their app to the Apple store so it should be appearing soon for iPhone's.
FYI, they are working with Fixmo to be Common Access Card compliant for NSA standards...
So there's finally a good reason to move to Linux on the desktop. Thanks, Microsoft for taking a masterpiece of design like Windows 7 and making it a pain in the butt to use.
Chiclet style but ultrathin and powerful 15"
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,3253,l%253D295660%2526a%253D295655%2526po%253D4,00.asp?p=n
I wonder what happened to the Dobelle Eye... same style but wired directly into the visual cortex: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vision_pr.html
It's called encryption... use it!
I use OpenThinClient.Org and $45 diskless workstations from Geeks.com. Works better than the $250 HP's we have.
Apple has a huge amount of stock options that dilute the stock if they do not keep up with buybacks. They have been doing this for decades.
Encryption isn't just for warez, you know...
The combo of Observium (network monitoring), Hobbit (monitor everything with extreme ease), and either ESXi or Proxmox VE for consolidation and ease of management/isolation/testing/etc has served me well for years to take control of large organizations quickly. Last two business I was hired to fix, I set this up and then built a parallel enterprise as VMs (the right way this time) and then cut everyone over in a weekend. No one noticed the change except to say stuff didn;t crash anymore and it was really fast.
Also OpenFiler and NexentaStor make for a great SAN.
If you need more: PFSense for firewall or VLAN router, BlueIris for IP cameras, PBX in a Flash for VoIP, SoGo for Outlook compatible email, LibreOffice, etc.
Acronis or Ghost Enterprise can do this with every PC on a single network segment.
Breeder reactors...
Add a entry in your mail server to drop everything from their netblock. Better yet, block them at your DNS, too.
He's referring to Helium 3 which is thought to be abundant on the moon and very rare here. Great for fusion power.
You are dead on that algae is a super fuel and is cheap. The reason corn and palm oil has dominated the bio fuel markets is national economics pure and simple. Corn is horrible for a fuel source and has cause the price of food around the world to skyrocket (and I come from where it is booming the local economy). Palm oil production has done more to slash and burn rain forest than beef production ever has.
The problem with algae production for fuel is that it is difficult for any nation to grow out the production on anything except international waters and no one can own that. Okay, the problem lies with strictly capitalistic countries and the multinational companies that have strong vested interests in seeing that never happens.
Corn subsidies in the United States are tens of billions of dollars and yet corn is selling for the highest price in history. These are not family farms. They are gigantic factory farms owned by huge corporations. That's what needs to be fought to get algae accepted. It sucks.
I know this comes off as naive to the security issues, but small breeders are much cheaper to build and maintain and the waste costs are next to nothing (which is where most of the operating expenses come from). I don't have a problem with wind. I live in Indiana and we are building a huge wind farm here to get away from our other big native energy source - cheap coal.
"Easy" to get to hydrogen for direct use is abundant from Iceland and is a route of exploration by traditional oil companies. I see it as one of the most likely planet scale replacements for gasoline unless there is some major breakthrough in fusion energy in the next 10 years or so.
Dam's are great for humans in the short run, but as we have seen with nearly every attempt we have made to shape nature to our will it causes long term damage. Dams restructure entire ecosystems. They (obviously) change water levels in adjoining rivers and streams will leads to kill offs of entire ecosystems. They mess up spawning patterns of various fish and even the ones that add fish ladders still screw it up because there is a severe temperature gradient between the two sides of a dam that upsets egg viability. There are several more ways and I am sure you can find lists on the web from the Army Corps of engineers, etc. that are less biased than some of the more radical green groups, but in general dams are not good for the environment.