"Christ, get me out of this shithole banana republic."
Since when do we grow banana's?
Re:Can't wait to see the rebranded offerings
on
Dell To Acquire Wyse
·
· Score: 1
Yes, a Raspberry PI would work great as a thin client, just have to have the specific agent for whatever system you are running on the backend. I imagine there would be some tweaking involved to get audio/video streams that sync well. As for booting over the network, wouldn't really need to if you can have a small image on the device. The screen is delivered from the backend servers/clusters anyway. I guess upgrading the image would be easier with booting over the network, but not neccessary. This is what I liked about the PanoLogic solution --- there is no OS on the device itself. It takes one piece out of the equation, which is nice when dealing with cloud type of architecture.
Can't wait to see the rebranded offerings
on
Dell To Acquire Wyse
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Maybe Dell can finally offer an affordable thinclient. I am a big fan of their FX100, but it is priced out of range. By the time you license it and plug it in, it costs as much as a small form factor desktop. Not exactly the value customers are looking at with thin clients.
Lately we've been using PanoLogic Zero Clients. They are basically glorified network cards in a cube. No RAM, Processor, or other overhead that is prevalent in traditional ThinCleints. They are inexpensive and have a good management tool. Its inevitable that someone buys them out at some point.
From the slide show/article it says the drives were removed before hand to prevent customer info from being leaked.
I'm wondering why these had hard drives with data on them at all. Wouldn't the data be on a SAN on the backend? Kind of defeats the purpose of a blade in the first place, seeing you want to be able to replace it quick if something goes wrong.
In fact, if there are using the local drives, they better be sure to remove the RAID controller, as these might have info left in the cache as they are battery backed up.
I named all my servers after ships in EVE, and just prefixed them with type of server. So AS-Scorpion for an application server, FS-Blackbird for a file server. To add to the confusion, we use a prefix of VM- for machines that have been virtualized.
It doesn't matter what you name servers, as long as the people working on them know what they are, and documentation is always important in any case.
Re:Why isn't slashdot blacking out?
on
SOPA and PIPA So Far
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Why isn't Slashdot blacking out? It is one of those sites that could be greatly effected by this bill. Besides I need to be more productive today. And most of the sites I visit are blacked out too.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of those that would be affected by a Slashdot blackout are already against SOPA/PIPA, and already are vocal about it.
I think that BBS's over the internet loose a lot of the charm of what BBS's were in the 80's and 90's. There was something about being mostly restricted to an area code that kept BBS's more intimate, and I think a lot of the discussion boards a lot more interesting than the mostly anonymous discussion today. There was something to be said that if you said something to really piss somebody off, they might just drive over to your house to confront you in person. Not to mention the monthly user gathers at the mall or as part of a computer club. Things like FidoNet and the rare BBS that was able to host Usenet was very cool, but was a subsection of the BBS most times, and the main focal point was the local message bases. Then in the 90's, there were the Apogee distribution sites, and excitement would build when a new title was coming out.
A lot has changed, and most of it for the better, but I do miss the old BBS days. I've tried a few of the internet based ones for nostalgia, but nothing will capture the experience of being at the end of a modem either as a user or a SysOP.
I wouldn't compare him to a car thief. A dick, yes, but not exactly a criminal.
Actually, I thought a lot about this. My first thoughts when I read the penny arcade e-mail chain was this guy needs to be strung. And I even had some of his rationale of "you don't know who you're fucking with!"
Then it hit me. As much as this guy is being a douche and is on a very high ego trip, the mob mentality of the Internet is going to ruin him.. For nothing more than having a very bad day. It's something that should be looked at.. I'm all for putting someone in their place, and this guy should be fired. On the other hand, the press this gets means this guys life is over. At least his online life... Has the Internet Mob Mentality become the modern day witch hunt?
In any case, the customer reigns high and mighty, and any response to them needs to be very carefully weighed, cause the internet hath fury.
The points I made in my original post all assume that IT is working with the other departments to meet their needs. I don't think IT acts autonomously in matters concerning policy and procedure. Especially when most companies that need an IT department also have a Law department. The main function of the IT department is to facilitate systems so users can get their jobs done. I firmly believe that any truly functional IT department works with managers, supervisors, etc. to get things done.
This doesn't always mean IT is just a puppet department. There is valuable insight, and IT should be a guiding force in moving manual process to automated processes where it makes sense. We just completed a major Time and Attendance overhaul. It was the type of project that needed input from various levels, including IT. We had Finance, Personnel, and the various other departments involved to make the project work. The decision was made higher up to move from paper based time sheets, to time clocks, hand scanners, etc. It was our job to research the best ways to accomplish the task using the information provided to us by the managers and supervisors. Some things were very clear and almost common sense (you don't put hand scanners in the Auto Maintenance department, unless you want to stock up on a ton of degreaser). Other things were more complex and took time to iron out, like departments that had more than one Union, and worked under different codes.
That was one project, we typically have 30 - 40 projects open at one time. We have to take some initiative, or they don't get done. I guess the culture I work in is that we've built a lot of trust over the years, so maybe we do get more leeway... In any case, IT is an investment. If you look at it as something to do because everyone else is, or something not to do because nobody else is, you are looking at it from the wrong angle. IT should make a company either direct profit, or make the job at hand easier to do. It also has to make sense to do, and bring value to the company as a whole. I know plenty of places that have 1 or 2 IT guys that are under other departments, and they work fine. Same thing with some companies hire IT people for departments that need IT people, but don't have an overall structure. There are also IT departments out there just for the sake of IT, they are usually R&D arms of tech companies.
In any case, I hope my original post doesn't get construed as "IT needs to be the overseer of everything technology related". That certainly wasn't what I wanted to convey. IT in most business isn't an autonomous function. It needs to be tightly integrated into the climate of the business. But being a separate department allows it to serve all departments and could bring more value as a whole to a company.
Not sure what the business speak is, but the primary points to get across are:
An IT Department will evaluate needs of the other departments and determine ways computers can streamline day to day functions, primarily by automating current manual processes
An IT Department will help build computer usage policies that keep employees productive and the data systems reasonably secure
An IT Department will help determine systems to expand service to the customer base. i.e. web applications
An IT Department will recommend avenues to promote the company online to the marketing department
These are all things that IT people do that the Engineer department doesn't need to get their hands in. Honestly, most IT departments split time between engineering like functions (Network design and implementation), business analysis (Finance, Personnel systems, etc) , and marketing (online presence). When IT is gets lumped into one of those departments instead of being it's own entity, usually it takes on the persona of that departments function. When I first started in my job (back in 1997), IT was part of the finance department. We relied heavily on consultants for network, security, etc., and were mostly comprised of programmers. Our main function was to help finance with spreadsheets, and write time and attendance systems, and other financial tools.
We are now a fully functioning IT Department, with our own hierarchy. We do all the network implementation, pc support, server implementation. We have a few programmers who still do business analysis and programming for the different departments (not just finance). We also maintain a disaster recovery site, and have invested heavily in virtualization on both the server and desktop side. Things we would've never been able to do if we were still under finance. In the end, our whole IT department is about 1.5% of the total budget. That seems low, but our budget is around 300 million a year and about every 4 or 5 years, we can infuse more capital into the budget if our projects warrant it. We also charge back to the other departments as we are a shared service. It all needs to be analysed to determine if a business is large enough to warrant a separate IT department.
To me, The Hobbit left more of an impression on me than Lord of the Rings. Maybe because I was younger when I read it, but it always came off more mystical to me. The story isn't all over the place either. As epic as Lord of the Rings was, The Hobbit was more tidy and wasn't too fixated on trying to explain the whole of Middle Earth and it's languages, but more a story that happened in Middle Earth.
I hope Peter Jackson translates this well, and tells the story for it's own sake. Yes, there are tie ins to the Lord of the Rings, but I hope he doesn't go overboard trying to explain them all, and gives us a film that focuses more on the journey of Bilbo Baggins. The ring was just a magic ring that made anyone who wore it invisible. Gollum was just a cave dweller of a creature, and wasn't revealed to be twisted by power. I know it's hard to keep these things at that when the trilogy was filmed first, but I think to really tell the story properly, these things need to be kept in their places in context of the story... I'm crossing my fingers this happens, because if they get it right, this could be one of my all time favourites.
What do you mean by "nobody has the "freedom" to subject others to their point of view"?
The word "subject" has some contention. Does this mean nobody should be able to display their faith? I think that would run afoul the 1st Amendment. I can certainly agree nobody should be able to "impose" their religion on somebody.
Should we even be discussing religion, or lack thereof, on a forum like Slashdot? It could be construed that we are subjecting unwilling participants to their views, and that may make people uncomfortable. It might even offend some people. We can't have that, can we?
Enough of my rhetorical questions...
I think there is fault in both sides of this argument. Religious fanatics want their faith, and most of the times, only their faith to be displayed and forced on people, because after all, they feel they are right. The secular government people want to have people of faith to bury that faith and only practice or show it behind closed doors. To them, any display of religion is akin to public fornication. I guess I'm more in the middle. I don't want religion forced on me either. I've learned how to say to people "While I appreciate you are trying to save me soul, I have my own beliefs that I like to keep." Usually that's the end of the discussion. If it's not, I tell them I'm calling the cops. There are a few nuts out there, but most Religious people I run into respect my rights, even if they think I'm probably going to burn in hell.
What I personally can't stand is how out of hand this whole thing has gotten. My parents both had a belief and faith in God, but never disowned me for differing from there views. Maybe because they were taught some core Christian values of tolerance, love and forgiveness that seems to defy a lot of debate on the issue at hand. What I truly think is the more one side tries to unwit the other, the higher the flames seems to go. If people could actually agree to live and let live, then we may see some progress.
As far as my beliefs... Maybe their is a God, maybe not. I just know I'm not the center of the universe, and maybe that makes my less offendable than a lot of people in this debate.
I'd give them more credit than just a commodity PC maker. They have made some significant acquisitions that run a lot of data centers. Equallogic is a fairly big player in mid-size data centers. They also picked up a fairly sizeable software distribution house in ASAP. Dell's problem has been getting away from what they were once superior at: Support. They still sell support, but don't seem to back it up like they used to, and a lot of people are starting to shy away from that.
The problem with TV is the cost to get what I want. My FiOS TV costs half of my $200 Verizon Bill (Internet and Phone are also on it). Which isn't much value to me, but is to my wife and son. I watch 3 shows regularly: Daily Show w/Jon Stewart, Pawn Stars, and now for some reason American Horror Story. I also watch the NFL and sometimes Baseball. If it wasn't for my wife, I would definitely cut off TV out of the equation, but she is a stay at home mom (cost of Daycare doesn't justify her working and having someone else raise our kids). Things like Sesame St. and Disney programming are great for my son. But of 150+ channels, we maybe hit 6 or 7 of them in a week.
Here is how you improve TV: Offer A la Carte programming. Let me choose about 20 channels, and cut my bill about 70%. Right now, the Internet is a pain in the ass to watch TV on, but it's the best way to get the programming I want. If I could choose the channels I want, with the simplicity of DVR and a remote, for a cost that is reasonable, then TV would be in the golden age.
Also, being double sided was more than a convienence, especially for BBS SysOps who couldn't just flip disks 24/7 but needed extra storage for file transfer sections or door games. While IBM PC's took over the BBS landscape early in the 90's, Commodore I remember being an early front runner in the 80's because of decent BBS software and ease of setting one up. It took BBS's from the mainframe systems and let home enthusiasts have some of the fun, or frustration depending how you look at it.
I really miss those days. Online was way more personal, because it was way more local being confined mostly to an area code.
've been hit by credit card fraud (was actually a debit card). Yes I got my money back, after weeks of fighting the bank. I'm not living bad, I try to live within my means, but something like this set me way back. I have a wife who lost employment and 2 kids. It wasn't an easy time at all when I had to scrape for diapers and formula for the baby. Granted, I made it out ok, and I'm not comparing my plight to the struggles of someone in poverty, but it wasn't just the bank that got hit. I got money back in my account, but they didn't cover late fees, bounced check fees from my utilities, and the overall hassle that I basically had to live for 3 weeks with no money and a family of 4. I wish anonymous would see who they are really hurting with this type of shit, especially seeing the options are getting slimmer and slimmer for not paying bills online and having some type of primary debit account.
I've done this. The problem is, most systems have some type of proprietary connector that allows you to plug a SATA or SaS drive into whatever hot swappable format the manufacture has concocted. So if the drive goes, you are fine and can just reuse the connector, but a lot of my failures (especially on EMC SAN's) has been with the connector itself.
Also, even though the drives are outrageous, we buy support for whatever we need to protect, not just the drives. Whether it be a server or a storage array, we need support on everything. Plugging in third party drives is usually a no-no when it comes to manufactures warranties.
On the other side... We have been following closely the efforts of OpenDedup to finally be able to build cost effective arrays with off the shelf components as backend storage for our VMWare clusters. It's looking very promising, and we are starting to test. We've seen a 10 fold increase in storage usage in the past 3 years, and SAN storage is crippling our budget. At least in this case, we are close to making consumer grade technology work in an enterprise level system.
Slashdot Mirror
#%^#%$$ n00bs....I've had a /. account longer than most of you have been using Linux.
Oh yeah, Mr. Enry (630), what proof do you have?
You should be ashamed... Because I really was wondering how using a narcotics store could shut down Tor.
Which is why open source drivers should be discredited everywhere. Because it can be done, but at a disservice to everyone...
Why scratch an itch when the manufactures will stand up eventually and do the right thing? /end sarcasm
"Christ, get me out of this shithole banana republic."
Since when do we grow banana's?
Yes, a Raspberry PI would work great as a thin client, just have to have the specific agent for whatever system you are running on the backend. I imagine there would be some tweaking involved to get audio/video streams that sync well. As for booting over the network, wouldn't really need to if you can have a small image on the device. The screen is delivered from the backend servers/clusters anyway. I guess upgrading the image would be easier with booting over the network, but not neccessary. This is what I liked about the PanoLogic solution --- there is no OS on the device itself. It takes one piece out of the equation, which is nice when dealing with cloud type of architecture.
Maybe Dell can finally offer an affordable thinclient. I am a big fan of their FX100, but it is priced out of range. By the time you license it and plug it in, it costs as much as a small form factor desktop. Not exactly the value customers are looking at with thin clients.
Lately we've been using PanoLogic Zero Clients. They are basically glorified network cards in a cube. No RAM, Processor, or other overhead that is prevalent in traditional ThinCleints. They are inexpensive and have a good management tool. Its inevitable that someone buys them out at some point.
From the slide show/article it says the drives were removed before hand to prevent customer info from being leaked.
I'm wondering why these had hard drives with data on them at all. Wouldn't the data be on a SAN on the backend? Kind of defeats the purpose of a blade in the first place, seeing you want to be able to replace it quick if something goes wrong.
In fact, if there are using the local drives, they better be sure to remove the RAID controller, as these might have info left in the cache as they are battery backed up.
Please... Don't listen to this drivel. I have kids and an angry wife at home. I want to be at work 80 hours a week.
Most of my minmatar servers are made from leftover Dell, HP and IBM parts held together with duct tape for good measure.
I named all my servers after ships in EVE, and just prefixed them with type of server. So AS-Scorpion for an application server, FS-Blackbird for a file server. To add to the confusion, we use a prefix of VM- for machines that have been virtualized.
It doesn't matter what you name servers, as long as the people working on them know what they are, and documentation is always important in any case.
Why isn't Slashdot blacking out? It is one of those sites that could be greatly effected by this bill. Besides I need to be more productive today. And most of the sites I visit are blacked out too.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of those that would be affected by a Slashdot blackout are already against SOPA/PIPA, and already are vocal about it.
Not so with sites like Wikipedia, Google, etc.
RSI? What about RCS... Restless Cock Syndrome ... Seems to happen often when I'm touching the screen... Especially when porn is on it...
I think that BBS's over the internet loose a lot of the charm of what BBS's were in the 80's and 90's. There was something about being mostly restricted to an area code that kept BBS's more intimate, and I think a lot of the discussion boards a lot more interesting than the mostly anonymous discussion today. There was something to be said that if you said something to really piss somebody off, they might just drive over to your house to confront you in person. Not to mention the monthly user gathers at the mall or as part of a computer club. Things like FidoNet and the rare BBS that was able to host Usenet was very cool, but was a subsection of the BBS most times, and the main focal point was the local message bases. Then in the 90's, there were the Apogee distribution sites, and excitement would build when a new title was coming out.
A lot has changed, and most of it for the better, but I do miss the old BBS days. I've tried a few of the internet based ones for nostalgia, but nothing will capture the experience of being at the end of a modem either as a user or a SysOP.
I wouldn't compare him to a car thief. A dick, yes, but not exactly a criminal.
Actually, I thought a lot about this. My first thoughts when I read the penny arcade e-mail chain was this guy needs to be strung. And I even had some of his rationale of "you don't know who you're fucking with!"
Then it hit me. As much as this guy is being a douche and is on a very high ego trip, the mob mentality of the Internet is going to ruin him.. For nothing more than having a very bad day. It's something that should be looked at.. I'm all for putting someone in their place, and this guy should be fired. On the other hand, the press this gets means this guys life is over. At least his online life... Has the Internet Mob Mentality become the modern day witch hunt?
In any case, the customer reigns high and mighty, and any response to them needs to be very carefully weighed, cause the internet hath fury.
The points I made in my original post all assume that IT is working with the other departments to meet their needs. I don't think IT acts autonomously in matters concerning policy and procedure. Especially when most companies that need an IT department also have a Law department. The main function of the IT department is to facilitate systems so users can get their jobs done. I firmly believe that any truly functional IT department works with managers, supervisors, etc. to get things done.
This doesn't always mean IT is just a puppet department. There is valuable insight, and IT should be a guiding force in moving manual process to automated processes where it makes sense. We just completed a major Time and Attendance overhaul. It was the type of project that needed input from various levels, including IT. We had Finance, Personnel, and the various other departments involved to make the project work. The decision was made higher up to move from paper based time sheets, to time clocks, hand scanners, etc. It was our job to research the best ways to accomplish the task using the information provided to us by the managers and supervisors. Some things were very clear and almost common sense (you don't put hand scanners in the Auto Maintenance department, unless you want to stock up on a ton of degreaser). Other things were more complex and took time to iron out, like departments that had more than one Union, and worked under different codes.
That was one project, we typically have 30 - 40 projects open at one time. We have to take some initiative, or they don't get done. I guess the culture I work in is that we've built a lot of trust over the years, so maybe we do get more leeway... In any case, IT is an investment. If you look at it as something to do because everyone else is, or something not to do because nobody else is, you are looking at it from the wrong angle. IT should make a company either direct profit, or make the job at hand easier to do. It also has to make sense to do, and bring value to the company as a whole. I know plenty of places that have 1 or 2 IT guys that are under other departments, and they work fine. Same thing with some companies hire IT people for departments that need IT people, but don't have an overall structure. There are also IT departments out there just for the sake of IT, they are usually R&D arms of tech companies.
In any case, I hope my original post doesn't get construed as "IT needs to be the overseer of everything technology related". That certainly wasn't what I wanted to convey. IT in most business isn't an autonomous function. It needs to be tightly integrated into the climate of the business. But being a separate department allows it to serve all departments and could bring more value as a whole to a company.
Not sure what the business speak is, but the primary points to get across are:
An IT Department will evaluate needs of the other departments and determine ways computers can streamline day to day functions, primarily by automating current manual processes
An IT Department will help build computer usage policies that keep employees productive and the data systems reasonably secure
An IT Department will help determine systems to expand service to the customer base. i.e. web applications
An IT Department will recommend avenues to promote the company online to the marketing department
These are all things that IT people do that the Engineer department doesn't need to get their hands in. Honestly, most IT departments split time between engineering like functions (Network design and implementation), business analysis (Finance, Personnel systems, etc) , and marketing (online presence). When IT is gets lumped into one of those departments instead of being it's own entity, usually it takes on the persona of that departments function. When I first started in my job (back in 1997), IT was part of the finance department. We relied heavily on consultants for network, security, etc., and were mostly comprised of programmers. Our main function was to help finance with spreadsheets, and write time and attendance systems, and other financial tools.
We are now a fully functioning IT Department, with our own hierarchy. We do all the network implementation, pc support, server implementation. We have a few programmers who still do business analysis and programming for the different departments (not just finance). We also maintain a disaster recovery site, and have invested heavily in virtualization on both the server and desktop side. Things we would've never been able to do if we were still under finance. In the end, our whole IT department is about 1.5% of the total budget. That seems low, but our budget is around 300 million a year and about every 4 or 5 years, we can infuse more capital into the budget if our projects warrant it. We also charge back to the other departments as we are a shared service. It all needs to be analysed to determine if a business is large enough to warrant a separate IT department.
My first tuna sandwich was half eaten by a rich guy.
To me, The Hobbit left more of an impression on me than Lord of the Rings. Maybe because I was younger when I read it, but it always came off more mystical to me. The story isn't all over the place either. As epic as Lord of the Rings was, The Hobbit was more tidy and wasn't too fixated on trying to explain the whole of Middle Earth and it's languages, but more a story that happened in Middle Earth.
I hope Peter Jackson translates this well, and tells the story for it's own sake. Yes, there are tie ins to the Lord of the Rings, but I hope he doesn't go overboard trying to explain them all, and gives us a film that focuses more on the journey of Bilbo Baggins. The ring was just a magic ring that made anyone who wore it invisible. Gollum was just a cave dweller of a creature, and wasn't revealed to be twisted by power. I know it's hard to keep these things at that when the trilogy was filmed first, but I think to really tell the story properly, these things need to be kept in their places in context of the story... I'm crossing my fingers this happens, because if they get it right, this could be one of my all time favourites.
What do you mean by "nobody has the "freedom" to subject others to their point of view"?
The word "subject" has some contention. Does this mean nobody should be able to display their faith? I think that would run afoul the 1st Amendment. I can certainly agree nobody should be able to "impose" their religion on somebody.
Should we even be discussing religion, or lack thereof, on a forum like Slashdot? It could be construed that we are subjecting unwilling participants to their views, and that may make people uncomfortable. It might even offend some people. We can't have that, can we?
Enough of my rhetorical questions...
I think there is fault in both sides of this argument. Religious fanatics want their faith, and most of the times, only their faith to be displayed and forced on people, because after all, they feel they are right. The secular government people want to have people of faith to bury that faith and only practice or show it behind closed doors. To them, any display of religion is akin to public fornication. I guess I'm more in the middle. I don't want religion forced on me either. I've learned how to say to people "While I appreciate you are trying to save me soul, I have my own beliefs that I like to keep." Usually that's the end of the discussion. If it's not, I tell them I'm calling the cops. There are a few nuts out there, but most Religious people I run into respect my rights, even if they think I'm probably going to burn in hell.
What I personally can't stand is how out of hand this whole thing has gotten. My parents both had a belief and faith in God, but never disowned me for differing from there views. Maybe because they were taught some core Christian values of tolerance, love and forgiveness that seems to defy a lot of debate on the issue at hand. What I truly think is the more one side tries to unwit the other, the higher the flames seems to go. If people could actually agree to live and let live, then we may see some progress.
As far as my beliefs... Maybe their is a God, maybe not. I just know I'm not the center of the universe, and maybe that makes my less offendable than a lot of people in this debate.
Alls I know is that was one magic loogie..
I'd give them more credit than just a commodity PC maker. They have made some significant acquisitions that run a lot of data centers. Equallogic is a fairly big player in mid-size data centers. They also picked up a fairly sizeable software distribution house in ASAP. Dell's problem has been getting away from what they were once superior at: Support. They still sell support, but don't seem to back it up like they used to, and a lot of people are starting to shy away from that.
The problem with TV is the cost to get what I want. My FiOS TV costs half of my $200 Verizon Bill (Internet and Phone are also on it). Which isn't much value to me, but is to my wife and son. I watch 3 shows regularly: Daily Show w/Jon Stewart, Pawn Stars, and now for some reason American Horror Story. I also watch the NFL and sometimes Baseball. If it wasn't for my wife, I would definitely cut off TV out of the equation, but she is a stay at home mom (cost of Daycare doesn't justify her working and having someone else raise our kids). Things like Sesame St. and Disney programming are great for my son. But of 150+ channels, we maybe hit 6 or 7 of them in a week.
Here is how you improve TV: Offer A la Carte programming. Let me choose about 20 channels, and cut my bill about 70%. Right now, the Internet is a pain in the ass to watch TV on, but it's the best way to get the programming I want. If I could choose the channels I want, with the simplicity of DVR and a remote, for a cost that is reasonable, then TV would be in the golden age.
Also, being double sided was more than a convienence, especially for BBS SysOps who couldn't just flip disks 24/7 but needed extra storage for file transfer sections or door games. While IBM PC's took over the BBS landscape early in the 90's, Commodore I remember being an early front runner in the 80's because of decent BBS software and ease of setting one up. It took BBS's from the mainframe systems and let home enthusiasts have some of the fun, or frustration depending how you look at it.
I really miss those days. Online was way more personal, because it was way more local being confined mostly to an area code.
've been hit by credit card fraud (was actually a debit card). Yes I got my money back, after weeks of fighting the bank. I'm not living bad, I try to live within my means, but something like this set me way back. I have a wife who lost employment and 2 kids. It wasn't an easy time at all when I had to scrape for diapers and formula for the baby. Granted, I made it out ok, and I'm not comparing my plight to the struggles of someone in poverty, but it wasn't just the bank that got hit. I got money back in my account, but they didn't cover late fees, bounced check fees from my utilities, and the overall hassle that I basically had to live for 3 weeks with no money and a family of 4. I wish anonymous would see who they are really hurting with this type of shit, especially seeing the options are getting slimmer and slimmer for not paying bills online and having some type of primary debit account.
I've done this. The problem is, most systems have some type of proprietary connector that allows you to plug a SATA or SaS drive into whatever hot swappable format the manufacture has concocted. So if the drive goes, you are fine and can just reuse the connector, but a lot of my failures (especially on EMC SAN's) has been with the connector itself.
Also, even though the drives are outrageous, we buy support for whatever we need to protect, not just the drives. Whether it be a server or a storage array, we need support on everything. Plugging in third party drives is usually a no-no when it comes to manufactures warranties.
On the other side... We have been following closely the efforts of OpenDedup to finally be able to build cost effective arrays with off the shelf components as backend storage for our VMWare clusters. It's looking very promising, and we are starting to test. We've seen a 10 fold increase in storage usage in the past 3 years, and SAN storage is crippling our budget. At least in this case, we are close to making consumer grade technology work in an enterprise level system.