Very true, I find that a lot of articles about things like that give just enough information to confuse me. For the 'which is better' type thing, generally just sit on the fence and never really seem to have the balls to make a decision.
Sometimes you just stumble on the one things that makes sense to you. Often I find there is not even a valid pro and con type summary at the end.
Quite sad really when people can write these and not really say anything - good way to make a couple of $$ though!
I mean I've never heard of those 'artists' so I can't say what the target market is. I mean are they teeny bopper type stuff, or hardcore rap? It'll make a difference to what socioeconimic group the 'music' is targeted towards.
I mean Bowie would have a different target market to Brintey Spears (or whoever the lastest half naked prepubesent music factory output is). And particular target markets will have greater tendancies to CD sales vs online sales and singles sales vs album sales.
There is still the remains of the generation of network admin types that know Netware has the server OS to end all server OSs. As they see Novell adopting Linux, people start thinking... hmm, Linux, if Novell is using it I should seriously look at it.
Now if Novell is using Linux, and I want to use Linux, do I have to use Novell's Linux. Ahh, I have the choice - I'll use Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian etc.
So to me it seems realistic to expect the numbers to be unbalanced - there is more choice in the linux market.
At the recent Linux Conference Australasia in Dunedin I had the opportunity on several occasions to wander around Dunedin with Maddog. As well as doing the tourist thing, sampling the scenery, and the food with him, it was a mind opening experience for me listening to someone with so much background and knowledge - and quite strong in his views.
Some great thoughts in the head of his, great to be able to tap into some of it.
Where ultimately although people are important, they aren't more important than the business - no precious people please.
Yes, people have to be able to do the job. But if the machines aren't working then the peope can't do the job. In a way you almost need to assume the worst of people - not nice, but by doing that you protect the business by ensure those that don't kow any better don't get 'their' machines into a state where they can no longer do their job. Machines weighed down by extra 'applications' such as viruses and trojans don't help people work.
A lot of windows (for those that use it) applications are now better able to deal with multiple people using the same machine and are more intelligent about permissions and what people need access to to get an application working - still far from perfect, but better than 5 years ago!
By ensuring the machines are stable and in a controlled, locked down environment (Control Freak Alert!) you can ensure that a business can continue. Everyone (including me) must remember that the business network is more important than any one person.
Cool, so the Mexicans, Canadians, Brazilians, Peruvians, Argentines, Bolivians, Chilians, Columbians etc. invented the Internet? And there I was thinking it was people from the USA (Useless Section of America) that did that.
But then I have been known to be wrong before... and I have been known to pour petrol on the ground, hold a lighter over it and dare someone to knock it out of my hand - have learnt that a flameproof/retardnat suit is handy:-)
This is weird. There must be something funny about your virus protection then.
I use McAfee VirusScan Enterprise and my dual boot PC has no issues. It boots Windows 2000 and linux from Grub with no issues, in fact there is also a DOS boot option - it all works beautifully.
I'm a windows admin and I take the full view that 'I IS GOD' everyone else (including my other personality) is a user.
When I first started where I am, the IT staff had domain admin accounts - that is me as me was a domain administrator, I didn't need to login as administrator to change someone's password, when I was writing something up in word I was a domain admin ('great' for changing the word global template). That was soon changed. Now there is me as 'pleb' and me as 'god', helps with the separation of roles (of course with terminal server, I have a session of a me as god running behind me as pleb). This model is critical in a environment where there is a 'communal' resource such as a terminal server or networked/shared applications - you can't have random people dicking around with them.
Sure it means that some people get upset that they can't do things (don't get me started on people wanting to install a new browser because some website was badly designed). I as pleb have the same issues that they do, I as god doesn't do things like open word documents or browse web sites. Of course there are also some applications that think they need write access into silly places like the root of c: or want to keep the data in the same place as the application:-( I try and explain that NO one person or application is more important than the network and the business that the network supports.
I even have my home machines setup in the similar fashion (I'm going to have to logout as me soon to update gimp, winamp and windows). I suggest to people when I help with their home machines that a similar security model is the safest thing, some think it is a good idea, some get sick of not being able to install any old 'junk' whenever they download it - I don't work with their machine a second time.
I get accused of being a control freak, but to be honest I don't give a shit because it balances out - at other times they tell me that the horror stories they hear of other networks don't seem to happen where I am (touch wood, throw salt over the shoulder, cross fingers, sacrifice a goat etc)
I use Mdaemon for Windows (yes flameproof suit is on) and there is an option to also send all email to another server.
I would go with the idea of sticking another server in front of your live system that can send the email to the different points, I would assume that if a 'dumb-arse' windows app can do it something like sendmail should be able to do.
I can't give you any more than that (as little as it is) but I would be interested in knowing your solution. It sounds like a cunning plan (so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel) - something I hadn't considered as part of the process of replacing my current mail server setup.
We have a migration path planned out, there are two tracks we are running...
Track One: This is to get people comfortable with the idea of Linux as the OS. 1/ Migrate off the Windows 2000 workstations - after all they are only used to connect to the terminal servers. Once people are using Linux on the desktops to connect, then the first part of that fear of the 'unknown', the shift in thinking will happen. We already have shown that people don't need to have Win2K on the desktops - we have 25 Wyse 1125 terminals (dead end there) and 80 PCs scattered around the country. 2/ Start getting FreeNX working and letting people use that to get to OOo, Firefox and Evolution (to access the Exchange server) as an option.
Track Two: This is to get people comfortable of the idea of open sourced applications. 1/ Install OOo onto the Windows Terminal servers and get people using it as an alternative (to Office 97). 2/ Install Firefox onto the Terminal Servers. 3/ Start setting up new servers without MS Office (will still need Outlook though).
The show stoppers (or at least show slowdowns) are the laptops, the couple of Windows finance apps we have, our Windows membership system (there is talk of change there though) and Exchange.
In the end it will happen for us, but getting the powers that be to be comfortable with the change in direction will be the hard part.
But OOo will happen for us and really I think that server based is the best way to deploy it.
I must agree here. I've already said it a couple of times on/. - and got modded up for it too:-) that Terminal Services are great for a Windows environment.
No matter where someone goes on our network, no matter office they work out of they have their own settings, their very own settings. They don't have to reconfigure their settings at a new computer, they don't have to wait for their network profile to be dragged across the country - the settings and profile are there centrally stored and located on the gig network, with the terminal server sitting just next to the file server.
The number of times we have had bottles of wine and chocolate fish on our desks from people who go from almost crying because PC shat itself and they have lost all their work to the joy of discovering that when they login to another machine everything is there just as they left it.
Anyway back to OOo, yes we are just starting to test OOo under W2k Terminal Services, and it does suck a bit of RAM and CPU compared to Office 97. I can get a default profile copied to their home drive, so they have 'our default settings'. Still got to work out the best way for dealing with file locations etc.
But what the hell, I get paid to have this sort of fun:-)
I first saw the title and thought well, it's good to see Microsoft agree that the All Blacks' scrums were pretty bloody good in the spanking they gave the Irish over the weekend.
Then I thought - What!?! has/. branched out into sports now?
Many years ago, I took a job running the polytech network after being there as a student for 1 1/2 years.
The main server was Netware 3.12 (I assume there are some people who remember that). Anyway during my first week, I had to go in to make a small change to the server's autoexec file (autoexec.cnf?). To cut what could be a long story short, I created a new file rather than edited the current one.
Needless to say things didn't quite work after that. It took me about 1/2 an hour to make enough floppies for the remote boot DOS/Windows 3.1 workstations and then another couple of hours to work out what the hell I did and then fix it.
I think one of the biggest causes of issues in networks is from bad config changes - corrupt/missing files, typos (192.168.0.1 vs 192.186.0.1)
So... if you want to stuff things and then fix them - destroy config files and learn how to recreate them.
Getting the memory usage down would be a godsend. It seems that 'big' OOS projects seem to have tendancies to hog memory - Firefox, OpenOffice.org - what causes that?
The download is not that bad (how big is MS Office?). What is bad is that the update requires a new download rather than an update/service pack type thing.
Can 2.01 be a smaller download to update a 2.0 install, rather than a complete download that'll try to install itself to OpenOffice.org2.01?
I was over in OZ visiting, we thought we'd have a quiet night in watching a video - getting to a crucial scene and the phone rings, fumble with the remote, rush to the phone (stepmother was off at a duatholon event or something).... well, just as well he is quite fit - I though he was gonna burst a blood vessel or have a heart attack.
It took a good 15 minutes for him to calm down afterwards. But boy oh boy, I learnt some new words that night!!
We had an issue with Veritas - it wasn't urgent so I said that it was OK to call me back the next day.
I was not expecting a call at 3:30am!! Fucking retard must of had trouble working out what timezone I was in.
I called an Auckland number, that should have been the first clue that the timezone was NZST, the fact that the number I gave them to call back on was a Wellington number should have been clue number 2.
And it wasn't the first time that had happened! Needless to say when I got into work I gave the New Zealand head office a call, rattled some cages and got lots of apologies. I only wish I had the area manager's cellphone at the time.
I don't think anything beats a nice big whiteboard and plenty of colour markers (and eraser) for brainstorming and mapping out flows, structures, links, in and outs.
I've looked so many times for a nice computer package for doing that but I pretty much always go to the whiteboard - I can stand, I can pace, I can step back, I can use my fingers to rub out. A digital camera is handy when working with a whiteboard - that you can take a photo, save it and print it out for later. I have seen some whiteboard type things that have markers (and eraser) that can be tracked and imported straight to the computer, but I know that when I've got thoughts happening I don't want to have to interrupt and remind myself that using my finger to rub something out isn't replicated to the 'puter.
Big sheets of paper can work, a premanent record to go back to (very handy if you suddenly realise that your new brainwave is a f$#% up), but it is hard to rub out stuff and when starting from scratch on a new sheet with some old info some thoughts can be lost. A chalkboard/blackboard can do the same thing, but you want to keep the dust away from the insides of the monitors, system units etc. Besides there is the added bonus that if you get the right markers you end up nice and relaxed while you are working:-)
Also plenty of fresh air and a bit of pacing room for when you need to think things through a bit more.
By installing the bare minimum (maybe even linux running from compact flash) and locking it down so they are only allowed to connect to a terminal server certainly has it's advantages.
They would need to be able to connect through... LAN, dialup, broadband, wireless (office, motel, airport, web cafe etc), mobile data, directly or via a VPN. Of course, those tools would need to be installed and have a nicely locked down configuration that they can't f$#% with.
The downside to this is when there is no-coverage and an element of downtime (eg sitting on a plane, yeah I know there is some talk of it internet access happening on some flights) they have an effective paper weight.
Installing applications so they can work offline effectively negates the cut down, restricted nature of the setup. It's not a show stopper if all they have is a simple text editor and can organise themselves. Being able to copy text to and from the terminal server session and a local store before they go offline and when they get back online can mean that that work can be done with no network access.
As for those of our staff that think that they need a $3000 mp3 player - they have been told to rethink! They don't even have a CD drive installed - just wish I could work out how to disable USB flash drives under Win2k.
Slashdot Mirror
Very true, I find that a lot of articles about things like that give just enough information to confuse me. For the 'which is better' type thing, generally just sit on the fence and never really seem to have the balls to make a decision.
Sometimes you just stumble on the one things that makes sense to you. Often I find there is not even a valid pro and con type summary at the end.
Quite sad really when people can write these and not really say anything - good way to make a couple of $$ though!
Can we please have examples of good music?
I mean I've never heard of those 'artists' so I can't say what the target market is. I mean are they teeny bopper type stuff, or hardcore rap? It'll make a difference to what socioeconimic group the 'music' is targeted towards.
I mean Bowie would have a different target market to Brintey Spears (or whoever the lastest half naked prepubesent music factory output is). And particular target markets will have greater tendancies to CD sales vs online sales and singles sales vs album sales.
Hmm, my guess is that it just validates Linux.
... hmm, Linux, if Novell is using it I should seriously look at it.
There is still the remains of the generation of network admin types that know Netware has the server OS to end all server OSs. As they see Novell adopting Linux, people start thinking
Now if Novell is using Linux, and I want to use Linux, do I have to use Novell's Linux. Ahh, I have the choice - I'll use Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian etc.
So to me it seems realistic to expect the numbers to be unbalanced - there is more choice in the linux market.
At the recent Linux Conference Australasia in Dunedin I had the opportunity on several occasions to wander around Dunedin with Maddog. As well as doing the tourist thing, sampling the scenery, and the food with him, it was a mind opening experience for me listening to someone with so much background and knowledge - and quite strong in his views.
Some great thoughts in the head of his, great to be able to tap into some of it.
Hmm, yes I agree ... sort of.
I think that there is a 3rd type.
- ones who think the business is their client.
Where ultimately although people are important, they aren't more important than the business - no precious people please.
Yes, people have to be able to do the job. But if the machines aren't working then the peope can't do the job. In a way you almost need to assume the worst of people - not nice, but by doing that you protect the business by ensure those that don't kow any better don't get 'their' machines into a state where they can no longer do their job. Machines weighed down by extra 'applications' such as viruses and trojans don't help people work.
A lot of windows (for those that use it) applications are now better able to deal with multiple people using the same machine and are more intelligent about permissions and what people need access to to get an application working - still far from perfect, but better than 5 years ago!
By ensuring the machines are stable and in a controlled, locked down environment (Control Freak Alert!) you can ensure that a business can continue. Everyone (including me) must remember that the business network is more important than any one person.
Cool, so the Mexicans, Canadians, Brazilians, Peruvians, Argentines, Bolivians, Chilians, Columbians etc. invented the Internet? And there I was thinking it was people from the USA (Useless Section of America) that did that.
... and I have been known to pour petrol on the ground, hold a lighter over it and dare someone to knock it out of my hand - have learnt that a flameproof/retardnat suit is handy :-)
But then I have been known to be wrong before
This is weird. There must be something funny about your virus protection then.
I use McAfee VirusScan Enterprise and my dual boot PC has no issues. It boots Windows 2000 and linux from Grub with no issues, in fact there is also a DOS boot option - it all works beautifully.
I'm a windows admin and I take the full view that 'I IS GOD' everyone else (including my other personality) is a user.
:-( I try and explain that NO one person or application is more important than the network and the business that the network supports.
When I first started where I am, the IT staff had domain admin accounts - that is me as me was a domain administrator, I didn't need to login as administrator to change someone's password, when I was writing something up in word I was a domain admin ('great' for changing the word global template). That was soon changed. Now there is me as 'pleb' and me as 'god', helps with the separation of roles (of course with terminal server, I have a session of a me as god running behind me as pleb). This model is critical in a environment where there is a 'communal' resource such as a terminal server or networked/shared applications - you can't have random people dicking around with them.
Sure it means that some people get upset that they can't do things (don't get me started on people wanting to install a new browser because some website was badly designed). I as pleb have the same issues that they do, I as god doesn't do things like open word documents or browse web sites. Of course there are also some applications that think they need write access into silly places like the root of c: or want to keep the data in the same place as the application
I even have my home machines setup in the similar fashion (I'm going to have to logout as me soon to update gimp, winamp and windows). I suggest to people when I help with their home machines that a similar security model is the safest thing, some think it is a good idea, some get sick of not being able to install any old 'junk' whenever they download it - I don't work with their machine a second time.
I get accused of being a control freak, but to be honest I don't give a shit because it balances out - at other times they tell me that the horror stories they hear of other networks don't seem to happen where I am (touch wood, throw salt over the shoulder, cross fingers, sacrifice a goat etc)
I use Mdaemon for Windows (yes flameproof suit is on) and there is an option to also send all email to another server.
I would go with the idea of sticking another server in front of your live system that can send the email to the different points, I would assume that if a 'dumb-arse' windows app can do it something like sendmail should be able to do.
I can't give you any more than that (as little as it is) but I would be interested in knowing your solution. It sounds like a cunning plan (so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel) - something I hadn't considered as part of the process of replacing my current mail server setup.
Take your hand off your dick?
Why bother? Because people are scared of change.
...
We have a migration path planned out, there are two tracks we are running
Track One: This is to get people comfortable with the idea of Linux as the OS.
1/ Migrate off the Windows 2000 workstations - after all they are only used to connect to the terminal servers. Once people are using Linux on the desktops to connect, then the first part of that fear of the 'unknown', the shift in thinking will happen. We already have shown that people don't need to have Win2K on the desktops - we have 25 Wyse 1125 terminals (dead end there) and 80 PCs scattered around the country.
2/ Start getting FreeNX working and letting people use that to get to OOo, Firefox and Evolution (to access the Exchange server) as an option.
Track Two: This is to get people comfortable of the idea of open sourced applications.
1/ Install OOo onto the Windows Terminal servers and get people using it as an alternative (to Office 97).
2/ Install Firefox onto the Terminal Servers.
3/ Start setting up new servers without MS Office (will still need Outlook though).
The show stoppers (or at least show slowdowns) are the laptops, the couple of Windows finance apps we have, our Windows membership system (there is talk of change there though) and Exchange.
In the end it will happen for us, but getting the powers that be to be comfortable with the change in direction will be the hard part.
But OOo will happen for us and really I think that server based is the best way to deploy it.
I must agree here. I've already said it a couple of times on /. - and got modded up for it too :-) that Terminal Services are great for a Windows environment.
:-)
No matter where someone goes on our network, no matter office they work out of they have their own settings, their very own settings. They don't have to reconfigure their settings at a new computer, they don't have to wait for their network profile to be dragged across the country - the settings and profile are there centrally stored and located on the gig network, with the terminal server sitting just next to the file server.
The number of times we have had bottles of wine and chocolate fish on our desks from people who go from almost crying because PC shat itself and they have lost all their work to the joy of discovering that when they login to another machine everything is there just as they left it.
Anyway back to OOo, yes we are just starting to test OOo under W2k Terminal Services, and it does suck a bit of RAM and CPU compared to Office 97. I can get a default profile copied to their home drive, so they have 'our default settings'. Still got to work out the best way for dealing with file locations etc.
But what the hell, I get paid to have this sort of fun
However, in the long run it is always better not to compromise on your beliefs.
What if those beliefs are asinine, as in this case?
Which beliefs are you talking about? The one about compromising beliefs, or the ones about this case?
I first saw the title and thought well, it's good to see Microsoft agree that the All Blacks' scrums were pretty bloody good in the spanking they gave the Irish over the weekend.
/. branched out into sports now?
Then I thought - What!?! has
Many years ago, I took a job running the polytech network after being there as a student for 1 1/2 years.
... if you want to stuff things and then fix them - destroy config files and learn how to recreate them.
The main server was Netware 3.12 (I assume there are some people who remember that). Anyway during my first week, I had to go in to make a small change to the server's autoexec file (autoexec.cnf?). To cut what could be a long story short, I created a new file rather than edited the current one.
Needless to say things didn't quite work after that. It took me about 1/2 an hour to make enough floppies for the remote boot DOS/Windows 3.1 workstations and then another couple of hours to work out what the hell I did and then fix it.
I think one of the biggest causes of issues in networks is from bad config changes - corrupt/missing files, typos (192.168.0.1 vs 192.186.0.1)
So
I think Sybase has done that as well - just quickly though I think it is only for Linux, and can't be used for a production environment.
--------------------
I was wrong once before, but that was only because I thought I was worng.
Getting the memory usage down would be a godsend. It seems that 'big' OOS projects seem to have tendancies to hog memory - Firefox, OpenOffice.org - what causes that?
:-)
The download is not that bad (how big is MS Office?). What is bad is that the update requires a new download rather than an update/service pack type thing.
Can 2.01 be a smaller download to update a 2.0 install, rather than a complete download that'll try to install itself to OpenOffice.org2.01?
Just my list of demands, feel free to ignore
I've seen him go ballistic at a telemarketer.
.... well, just as well he is quite fit - I though he was gonna burst a blood vessel or have a heart attack.
I was over in OZ visiting, we thought we'd have a quiet night in watching a video - getting to a crucial scene and the phone rings, fumble with the remote, rush to the phone (stepmother was off at a duatholon event or something)
It took a good 15 minutes for him to calm down afterwards. But boy oh boy, I learnt some new words that night!!
We had an issue with Veritas - it wasn't urgent so I said that it was OK to call me back the next day.
I was not expecting a call at 3:30am!! Fucking retard must of had trouble working out what timezone I was in.
I called an Auckland number, that should have been the first clue that the timezone was NZST, the fact that the number I gave them to call back on was a Wellington number should have been clue number 2.
And it wasn't the first time that had happened! Needless to say when I got into work I gave the New Zealand head office a call, rattled some cages and got lots of apologies. I only wish I had the area manager's cellphone at the time.
Err, is that fresh, or long life?
Specs are rarely useful breasts up-front
I've always thought that breasts were best up-front, the ones that end up down low just don't do it for me!
My specs aren't much use as breasts, although in moments of deep thought I have caught myself sucking on them (the specs that is)
Has much changed since this ...
2 48214&tid=4&tid=106
/. before asking my question! Sorry in a bitchy mood today, sun is shining and I'm stuck inside.
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/17/2
Funny what gets through - yes, I do search
I don't think anything beats a nice big whiteboard and plenty of colour markers (and eraser) for brainstorming and mapping out flows, structures, links, in and outs.
:-)
I've looked so many times for a nice computer package for doing that but I pretty much always go to the whiteboard - I can stand, I can pace, I can step back, I can use my fingers to rub out.
A digital camera is handy when working with a whiteboard - that you can take a photo, save it and print it out for later. I have seen some whiteboard type things that have markers (and eraser) that can be tracked and imported straight to the computer, but I know that when I've got thoughts happening I don't want to have to interrupt and remind myself that using my finger to rub something out isn't replicated to the 'puter.
Big sheets of paper can work, a premanent record to go back to (very handy if you suddenly realise that your new brainwave is a f$#% up), but it is hard to rub out stuff and when starting from scratch on a new sheet with some old info some thoughts can be lost.
A chalkboard/blackboard can do the same thing, but you want to keep the dust away from the insides of the monitors, system units etc.
Besides there is the added bonus that if you get the right markers you end up nice and relaxed while you are working
Also plenty of fresh air and a bit of pacing room for when you need to think things through a bit more.
By installing the bare minimum (maybe even linux running from compact flash) and locking it down so they are only allowed to connect to a terminal server certainly has it's advantages.
They would need to be able to connect through ... LAN, dialup, broadband, wireless (office, motel, airport, web cafe etc), mobile data, directly or via a VPN. Of course, those tools would need to be installed and have a nicely locked down configuration that they can't f$#% with.
The downside to this is when there is no-coverage and an element of downtime (eg sitting on a plane, yeah I know there is some talk of it internet access happening on some flights) they have an effective paper weight.
Installing applications so they can work offline effectively negates the cut down, restricted nature of the setup. It's not a show stopper if all they have is a simple text editor and can organise themselves. Being able to copy text to and from the terminal server session and a local store before they go offline and when they get back online can mean that that work can be done with no network access.
As for those of our staff that think that they need a $3000 mp3 player - they have been told to rethink! They don't even have a CD drive installed - just wish I could work out how to disable USB flash drives under Win2k.
And there I was thinking it was the Dark Star written by Stephen Stills and done very well by Crosby Stills and Nash.
Oh well, each to their own in terms of music, distro, religion and government ;-)