When I got my Slot A Atlon a while back when they first came out, I got a heatsink that had 3 fans on it. Its a great setup - fans blowing across the entire surface area of the heatsink. I run Motherboard MOnitor and noticed my temp had risen a bit (like 10 or 15 degrees) so I figured I'd check it out - sure enough, one of the fans that DIDN'T have an RPM sensor on it since it powered off the PS had died. I tossed in a replacement and my temp dropped back down.
Which makes me wonder why only now are heatsink companies installing dual fans? Yes the Socket A setup means smaller or boxier heatsinks, but still, it seems a no brainer the way small fans die all the time to have a backup. Heck - I have a 4 drive RAID 5 tower on one of my servers and I touch the drive trays constantly to see if they are warm meaning the small fan on the tray is probably dead - now I shell out the $$ for a drive tray with dal fans and a fan monitor circuit to alarm if one dies. I mean given the speed that these suckers died - you have to wonder if you were lucky enough to HAVE a BIOS that would shutdown on a fan failure coudl do it fast enough even if the heatsink was still attached.
I love AMD processors and use Athlons in all my machines - but what was AMD thinking when they left out the thermal diode or an overheat circuit?
Back before we had a real fileserver at my old job, we had a home built box - Dual Pent II 300 with Tyan mobo hooked to a tower of 8 of the original 9GB Seagate Cheetahs - talk about HEAT! That tower pumped out so much heat we didn't worry about hte HVAC in the winter!
Well, one day we start getting hammered with calls from folks - file server is down. We walk into the server room and the first words out of my mouth: "What's burning?"
TUrns out it was the server. We powered it down, pulled it apart - the power supply cable had overheated and burned (yes BURNED) from the mobo socket about 6" up the wire. OooooK. Talk about a head scratcher - we had NO idea WHY the system had failed, er, burned. SO we start poking around (literally) and notice - one of the heatsinks had come off one of the CPUs ever so slightly, had overheated, and had drawn excessive current (though why teh PS didn't pop a fuse, shut down, etc is still a mystery) WE reattached the heatsink, replaced the power supply - system came right back up. Unreal. I know for a fact that the CPUs are still running systems today - amazing.
There's not a thing I've seen Bugzilla do that doesn't exist in any other professional tracking db product, and there's several features from even an ancient version of remedy that I liked
Which goes to show you that YMMV. Personally, I lvoe Bugzilla, use it for personal projects and business development. Its great, I can hack it if I want, and it does the job. I used Remedy in a previous life - what a nightmare. Yes, it had some nice features like the custom UI and stuff, but in teh end it was so sumbersome. They had APIs but we weren't allowed ot use them. We finally got them, they wouldn't compile on HPUX. It was a mess. Remedy was fine if you used the GUI, but try to integrate it with a web front end, some type of script (say a test suite which would open bugs on tets failures, etc) and it was tricky and convoluted.
Look, nobody is saying Bugzilla is the best bug/trouble ticket system out there. But for the price, its damn good one. I knwo companies out there using Remedy who hardly use any of the advanced features but pay millions for it - in their case Bugzilla could be a real cost saver. Again, every situation is different.
Me? I was SO glad when I didn't have to use Remedy products anymore - my tic went away!
Re:It's been said before...
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I respectfully submit that spouting 200 year old quotes about liberty is not helpful or applicable in the least.
Sure it is. Events like this open up the potential for society to give up liberties for perceived safety which probably isn't all that real. I for one worry about the future of our liberties in teh name of 'preventing another WTC'
I submit that these bastards could STILL get the weapons on board even with all the changes. No curb side checkin? LIke thats gonna make a DIFFERENCE? Its SO simple to make a weapon - just as a prisoner. Consider this:
Shaving kit - inside, one normal razor that uses a double edged blade. Blade installed, no spares. Elsewhere in your bag, a plastic or wooden handle of some kind with slot for blade, by itself or with other stuff that looks innocent. Maybe a little super glue. GO to a stall in a terminal bathroom. Take blade, insert in handle, glue in place. Slit someones throat when necessary and take over whatever vessel you're on. Think about it - you can probably come up with plenty on your own. Thats just one way and there are plenty others. These guys planned this for MONTHs as the reports of flight training indicate. You wouldn't even NEED to bring weapons with you - maybe one of your pals works IN THE TERMINAL past the checkpoints and cna give you a weapon of some kind. Banning plastic knives? OK - thats gonna help!
Face it folks - no matter WHAT happens, the only thing that could prevent something like this is sky marshals on EVERY flight in civilian clothes. And even then, they may not be able to overpower 5 guys with weapons (since shooting guns in the air is er, not a great idea)
So in short, I think our forefathers wisdom IS applicable and helpful to remind folks that we may be fooled into giving up liberties for supposed security that doesn't really exist
An interesting commentary
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I received this this mornign and found it an interesting viewpoint from our friends up North.
This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing.
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given
recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from
Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television
commentator. What follows is the full text of his
trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the
Americans as the most generous and possibly the least
appreciated people on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and
Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the
Americans who poured in billions of dollars and
forgave other billions in debts. None of these
countries is today paying even the interest on its
remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956,
it was the Americans who propped it up, and their
reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets
of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the
United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59
American communities were flattened by tornadoes.
Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped
billions of dollars! into discouraged countries. Now
newspapers in those countries are writing about the
decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that
is gloating over the erosion of the United States
dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country
in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo
Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10?
If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the
International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting
a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese
technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German
technocracy, and you get automobiles.
You talk about American technocracy, and you find
men on the moon -! not once, but several times -
and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs
right in the store window for everybody to look at.
Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded.
They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless
they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American
dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India
were breaking down through age, it was the Americans
who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and
the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an
old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced
to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name
me even one time when someone else raced to the
Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside
help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one
Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get
kicked around. They will come out of this thing with
their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled
to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating
over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of
those."
That's the Democrat in you too.
Funny, I thought using up the SS surplus and running defecits were something Republicans loved! Sure seem slike it anyway.
For an excellent and moving piece - you may catch flak for your writings from all sorts of people, even myself aat times. But you and the rest of the/. team have done a great job today in filling a void left when the news sites crumbled.
Absolutely! The Democrat in me says we take all teh $$ Bush wants for missle defense and rebuild the towers since now its OBVIOUS missle defense is a folly. They will find a way to attack America. Sure a nuke would have flattened NY, not just the World Trade Center. But those billions could be spent on much better things, even just in a security arena.
But the American in me says -> raise taxes, SS surplus, bonds, even a short term defecit. We need to show the world we will rebuild. We will NOT be cowed. And hte idea of a third tower in teh middle giving the bird to the terrorists - I love it:) It was one of the few times I smiled on this tagic day. And if we find the bastards that did this, let jail them and then toss them off the new WTC buildings into the rubble below:)
I really hope we rebuild the buildings - bigger and better than ever. Tempting fate? Maybe - but its not like fanatics lack targets!
May we find the bastards and wipe them out. God Bless America.
You go boy, time to start kicking some terrorist ass...
AMEN! You set off a bomb, kill a few people, maybe a couple hundred - you might get away without retaliation. You destroy the World Trade Center Towers, smash a plane into the Pentagon, and kill thousands of Americans - you've gone to war with the United States. Whoever you are, you may be pretty happy with yourself, but you can't imagine what an event like this will do to the American psyche, ESPECIALLY if it was an Arab sect that did this (and even if it wasn't - Palestinians dancing in the streets???). Support for a free Palestine? GONE. Somewhat restrained responses to things like the Saudi apt bombings, the USS Cole Bombing? GONE. Americans don't take attacks like this lightly. One guy with a truck bomb changed the way America viewed terrorism and safety. This event will have a much broader impact.
All I know is IF bin Laden did this AND the Taliban continue to turn a blind eye, I for one will happily press the launch button of an ICBM to level the whole freaking country. No pin point attack with minimal collatoral damage - you harbor a terrorist you ARE a terrorist. Yeah, yeah, nukes, fallout, sucks for neighbroing countries and I realize that but you have to realize that many Americans WILL have these inflamed feelings and they won't be thinking about 'innocents' Call us hypocrits, callous, whatever. But if President Bush (first time I've called him that!) wants to drop every freaking conventional bomb we have on a country that knowingly harbored the people that did this - amen. If it was an American group that did this - I'll pull the switch myself or behappy to load the rifles.
My only hope is perhaps this will show missle defense to be the joke it is and maybe we can apply the billions Bush wants to spend on it on other more important things like finding the bastards that did this and improving security where we can without living in a police state. Oh - and I for one am MORE than happy to take a few billion from Missle defense, Social Security, WHATEVER to rebuild the World Trade Center in ALL its glory - we will NOT be cowed.
This will make programmers WANT to put holes in software, then they will be a part of this and somehow "FIND" these holes at a later date
They pulled this stunt at NORTEL one time and IIRC it worked fairly well. We all laughed and said the same thing - designers will just toss in bugs to fix for moeny later - but they did have some smart rules and it seemed to work fairly well - the designers sure spent a LOT more time in teh lab tested the betas:)
Because during a setup.exe-type install under Windows I can *easily* tell the program where to install itself,
This is a double-edged sword IMHO. I too used to be one who ALWAYS clicked custom and always made sure programs went into Program Files, etc, etc. But some vendors still haven't caught on and I've run into too many troubles not allowing a program to install where it normally wants to. On Linux evven more so. Sure, you CAN install stuff in various places, but more times than not you'll just end up breaking some other poorly written config script and have to search for all those custom places you stashed stuff it depends on. With RPMs you have to create sym links and junk.
So with Linux, I've started a shift to letting stuff install where it wants to - I've found it reduces trouble down teh road. Yes in an ideal world it shouldn't matter, but right now its just not worth it to me to specify special install directories vs the trouble it can cause later. However, kudos to teh Mozilla team for trying to adapt the GUI installer concept for their package - its worked well for me so far even though it doesn't do a whole lot:)
To those of you who say "Its replacing Solaris - big deal" It IS a big deal. Having such a well known institution go with Linux and not a Windows SERVER solution is huge. The publicity alone is a goldmine.
To those of you who say - 'Big deal, they still use Windows on teh desktop' Heh - Desktop OS sales do not have huge profit margins - OEMs & large companies get huge discounts. Microsoft needs to rule the backend because server software margins are much higher. SO this IS a hit to them. A potential conversion from *nix to MS hurts them. Sure, in this case one Unix replaces another, but MS still loses a potential slient for lots and lots of server licenses.
Re:Wow...score one more HUGE client for IBM.
on
NYSE Goes To Linux
·
· Score: 2
Could mean both. When I still worked there (late 90's) CEO John Roth did a major suck up to Bill and stated that 'All future NORTEL products will be based on Win NT' At the time most NORTEL deisgners used HP-UX, our flagship product ran on Mac processors and a proprietary OS & language) WIndows was only starting to replace the MAcs of Sales and Mgmt types. What an uproar that caused. But he pushed it through and many of the new products they are developing (VoIP, next gen switches, etc) run on Windows based servers - its pretty scary (given my experieince with MS cluster servers back in WinNT SP6 days:) ) Its been toned down a bit and some products are being done on Solaris and such (supposedly due to NT stability concerns of the customers), but the push to Windows in that company was absolutely brutal and heavy handed. I almost lost my job for suggesting at the time they go with an Internet stds based email server backend instead of the MS Exchange setup the CTO wanted to deploy to replace our old in house setup. They prevailed - used Exchange and deployed $80K Alpha servers for every 200 users or so - scary stuff.
you did nothing to protect them... you're a pretty shitty designer,
err, read my post - I stated I didn't do the original design, it was inherited. and later in my post I speak the praises of using ESD and surge protection in a circuit design - but thanks for the description of my abilities all the same. I'll admit that some early designs of mine as well didn't have ALL aspects of ESD covered, but you learn as you go - or did you know it all from the start?;)
As for straps - they are a PIA. Agreed. But we also provided shoe straps (slip it on in the morning - take off when you leave) which wern't too bad. The HW techs got static sneakers to drain away charges since they were always swapping stuff out - the shoes used to be klunky but had become fairly stylish and felt like normal sneaks. And the bottom line is - tough shit. Your fooling around with millions of dollars of corporate hardware and you work for the company - deal with it or take a walk/find new job. I can't tell you how nervous my HW techs got holding processor cards worth hundreds of thousands of dollars - its scary! And I can tell you the heat from on high if the company faild an ISO inspection because of folks in teh computer room without ESD protection would have been immense.
I'm still amazed that Mobo makers don't toss in dispoable straps with their retail boxed boards - hell they only cost 50 cents or so.
if you connect your strap to a case and DONT plug it in, that is fine. the strap is there to allow you and the case to be at the same potential. As long as this is the case, you will NOT zap anything.
Wrong - when you pick up that motherboard sitting on teh table and zap it (cause you may not be at the same potential) you still hate it. Ground a strap to GROUND is important. Why? Because it disappates the charge from your body. Storing boards in ESD bags? They disappate any stored charge on teh board when you picj it up. Grounding your PC case - again, disappates any charge in the case.
So yes, if you strap yourself to an ungrounded case, you won't zap the case cause you are at the same potential, but you can still zap external compnents you pick up. Yes its rare and something is betetr than nothing - I agree. But for proper protection every thing MUST be grounded. But at the bare minimum, always touch the metal of the case before messing with a PC - that helps but you STILL can zap something in a dry environment.
Most people don't realize this - but computer ports are VERY exposed. Why?
Serial ports (I'll stick with RS-232 and 485 - I'm most familiar with them) use voltage & logic shifters to handle the conversion of the port voltages to internal logic voltages. For years, most RS_232 ports on PCs used the MC148x or MAX232 type serial inetrface chips - got news for you, NONE of these chips have ESD hardening. RS-485 ports were even worse - they used a chip called a 75176 - those things would blow when you pulled one out of a pack to insert it in place of a blown chip. Ever notice how many cards with 1489type interface ICs had them in sockets? There was a reason - I've replaced a fw in mine.
I've designed embedded boards for Home automation and our boards used RS_485 which gives you long distance (1000-4000') over twisted pair at decent speeds for system control. The original design (which I didn't do and which was done BEFORE ESD variant chips were available) used the 75176. I had customers calling for replacements all the time. Those long twisted pair cables connecting nodes together were asking to induce surges AND when folks wired them up with bare hands and no static strap - they induced charges into the wires connected to all other nodes!
Maxim IC came to the rescue by developing the MAX232E and MAX485E which were ESD hardened interface ICs for RS-232 and 485 respectively. These things are amazing. One article I read had a guy sending massive (like 40kV) pulses into these chips and they survived. They are rated for +15kv and man do they work. When we switched to these chips (our main controller had both RS_232 and RS-485) our serial bus failures went away. TO dtae I have not had a customer complain about a failed ESD hardened chip from Maxim. Only problem is they ARE more expensive - about double. But WELL worth it IMHO.
Obviously - anyone handling motherboards or any other bare electronic board without using a static strp is an idiot - you're just ASKING for it - and um if you unplug your PC and then ground your strap to the case - it doesn't help much sinc ethe case is only grounded when its plugged in! You have ot ground your strap to somethign thats grounded!
But ddesigning your system with external ports and not using ESD haardened ICs and surge supressing devices is just asking for trouble - but these things cost money. Surge problems are worse than ESD often. But the savings in customer satisfaction and warranty repair costs often outweigh the extra pennies - but its hard to measure.
As for static straps - its amazing how people hate them so. I managed a 10k sq ft data center with almost 700 servers, from small $5000 machines to monster Auspex boxes costing millions. We implemented a policy that every tech in teh room had to wear a static strap on theri wrist, shoe, or static shoes and had to test the device when they entered (testers at every door) This was for ISo compliance but it was also smart. A single board for an Auspex might cost $50,000 to $250,000!!!! Yet I constantly had to police the situation and hassle people because they refused to wear the straps. The worst were the Sysadmins - they figured since they didn't touch teh cards themselves it was OK, yet they were plugging serial cables into exposed serial ports to hook up root terminals (before we had a networked root term setup) It was amazing the resistance I encountered for such a simple thing.
The bottom line is, if you are design a device for end use - spend the $$$ on ESD and surge suppression. If you are a tech or even a hobbiest working on teh guts of a PC or even hooking UP a PC that might not have said ESD protection, wear the strap or shoes. All it takes is one zap and thousands of dollars go up in a spark!
Be totally honest, would you have preferred to buy a computer with BeOS installed or without it? If you plan on using something other than Windows and/or BeOS, consider it a tossup...
Personally, I think it would have been kinda cool - heck if I'd have had the money I probably would have bought a neXt cube way back. So yes, I probably would have purchased a PC with Windoze and BeOS (or Darwin if Apple ever got that brave) Back in 98, I'm not sure because drives still weren't that big. But good lord, PCs are shipping with 40-75GB hard drives! That is HUGE! So slicing off 5GB for each OS and using the other(s) for data would be sweet and I wouldn't have worried about the secondary OS using up a little space. Again, think about it. Joe 6-pack consumer doesn't have a clue. But if Dell sells a PC with just WIndows and Gateway sells an equivalent PC in HW and price with an extra OS, the customer would probably pick the Gateway EVEN if they had no plans of trying it. But hey - joe 6-pack is getting computer literate these days - there is no denying this. So one night he tries out BeOS for kicks - he likes what he sees and gives it a whirl. He may or may not think its worth it, but imagine if 1 in 10 or even 1 in 20 tried BeOS and LIKED it. They tell a friend who tells anothe rfriend, and the OS gains users. Heck - how do you think Linux spread (and even WWW serve software) Killer app or purpose served, folks try it out and more and more people try it out.
So being totally honest, this DID hurt Be - they could have gotten some decent exposure through the OEMs - in teh end it may not have mattered - but there's no telling. Heck - Apples still slive - who'd have thought?
The problem is that even if they decided to drop the Windows licensing altogether and provide only Linux (as an example of a 0 cost OS) systems, they would quickly find their profits disappear
Again - nobody was saying OEMs wanted to just sell Linux. OEMs wanted to offer multiple operating systems on the hard drives. Windows - which customers expect and perhaps Linux or BeOS if they felt adventurous. But Microsoft forbids this. That is monopolistic. The OEMs shoudl be able to do WHATEVER they want with the hardware they build and sell. Talk about viral licensing! I have to admit that in the online services case, Microsoft has some right to dictate whats on the desktop of their OS since it IS their OS. But dual booting does NOT change the Microsoft OS ONE bit. So here you have an OS maker dictating what OEMs can and can't do with teh computers THEY pay for and build and sell. Again - THAT is monopolistic. Microsoft has no right to tell OEMs that they can't install another OS in a complete SEPARATE partition on a PC PEMs sell.
Not true. Many OEMs load Windows without the OEM discount (try your local PC shop, though many these days have OEM deals also).
Right - and those are the only shops that ARE experimenting with dual-boot setups just like mentioned in teh article:
Yes, you can get dual-boot machines at some of the smaller shops, but these are the ones that slip under Microsoft's radar, and there's no guarantee that Microsoft won't decide to take action against these vendors at some point.
The bottom line is any large OEM cannot dual boot their systems because they will lose the OEM discount which will cost them millions of dollars in an already low margin business - thus Microsoft forces them to have ONLY single boot systems.
They aren't under Microsoft's thumb because of licensing issues. They are under the thumb of the licensing issues because their customers demand Windows. Any OEM could end their agreement at renewal time and start pumping out Linux systems alongside Windows systems (which would undoubtedly cost much more) and proceed to go out of business.
The OEMs are at their customers' mercy, and that means no Linux machines.
Bull - its obvious OEMs see some potential for non Windows OS as some have tried it (and yes some have stopped doing it *cough* Dell losers *cough* But custoemrs wanting Windows does NOT mean Microsoft has to forbid OEMs from giving customers a CHOICE! RIght now customers have NO CHOICE of OS so you say they demand Windows - I say they never had a choice. So Microsoft aims to keep it that way by preventing OEMs from dual booting alternate OSes just like they prevent OEMs from having non MS ISP icons without Microsoft's. Microsoft has a monopoly and they use that monopoly to threaten OEMs into doing what they want (Sure - try dual booting BeOS - We'll drop your license - you can't install WIndows and you'll go bakrupt) That, AC, is a Monopoly and its illegal for obvious reasons.
Windows is the only OS that anyone will pay money for nowadays
Hardly anyone PAYs for an OS these days. The bulk of the OS licenses come from new hardware. All BeOS wanted was to allow OEMs to install BeOS on teh hard drive - didn't cost the OEMs anything. In fact it gave them somethign else to tell teh customer (Not only do you get WIndows, but you also get...) It got BeOS some exposure.
Yes, the OS as a market in terms of buying the OS is a joke, but the cash cow (at least according to Gates) will be the services the OS offers. So again, we're still beholden to MS. If some other OS vendor develops and OS witha service fee centric architecture, they STILL can't compete in the new service market that is evolving.
On a feature-by-feature list with Win2k, BeOS gives a very poor showing.
So what? Its still anti-competitive. I don't care if all BeOS could do is print "Hello World" The bottom line is the hardware vendors are completely under Microsoft's thumb because of licensing issues. Think of all teh times you've heard of vendors paying BIG bucks becuase they said "Do this for us or we'll stop selling to you" I recall cases involving TOys R Us and others. This is the same cut and dried issue. Microcosft is telling OEMs they can't sell another OS alongside Windows - plain and simple. The fact that BeOS may or may not have been comparable to Windows is irrelevant. The HW OEMs are completely at Microsoft's mercy and cannot do anything Microsoft doesn't approve of.
I'm guessing both - the gov't is talking about some serious deployment of Linux on teh desktop and in sensitive areas, I'd epxect they'd use a distro blessed by teh gov't security folks (ie NSA LInux)
I see the ISP starting to limit the number of computers that can share a link.
They already do this - one IP/MAC address - but NAT and MAC spoofing renders this limitation pointless. What are they going to do, ban NAT (which is questionable that they could even do it)
somebody decides they want something for nothing.
Something for nothing? The person with the ISP connection is paying for it. The ISP is getting paid for that connection and bandwidth. What they want to do with it is up to them (or at least should be IMHO) I doubt that TOS said "You can only consume X amount of bandwidth, etc" Heres a stickler for you, whats the TOS going to say - onyl family members may use the connection? What about roomate situations then. OK so they the connection can only be used by systems on teh premises - OK, so that means a coffee shop can do it. See how its not so black and white?
Slashdot Mirror
Which makes me wonder why only now are heatsink companies installing dual fans? Yes the Socket A setup means smaller or boxier heatsinks, but still, it seems a no brainer the way small fans die all the time to have a backup. Heck - I have a 4 drive RAID 5 tower on one of my servers and I touch the drive trays constantly to see if they are warm meaning the small fan on the tray is probably dead - now I shell out the $$ for a drive tray with dal fans and a fan monitor circuit to alarm if one dies. I mean given the speed that these suckers died - you have to wonder if you were lucky enough to HAVE a BIOS that would shutdown on a fan failure coudl do it fast enough even if the heatsink was still attached.
I love AMD processors and use Athlons in all my machines - but what was AMD thinking when they left out the thermal diode or an overheat circuit?
Back before we had a real fileserver at my old job, we had a home built box - Dual Pent II 300 with Tyan mobo hooked to a tower of 8 of the original 9GB Seagate Cheetahs - talk about HEAT! That tower pumped out so much heat we didn't worry about hte HVAC in the winter!
Well, one day we start getting hammered with calls from folks - file server is down. We walk into the server room and the first words out of my mouth: "What's burning?"
TUrns out it was the server. We powered it down, pulled it apart - the power supply cable had overheated and burned (yes BURNED) from the mobo socket about 6" up the wire. OooooK. Talk about a head scratcher - we had NO idea WHY the system had failed, er, burned. SO we start poking around (literally) and notice - one of the heatsinks had come off one of the CPUs ever so slightly, had overheated, and had drawn excessive current (though why teh PS didn't pop a fuse, shut down, etc is still a mystery) WE reattached the heatsink, replaced the power supply - system came right back up. Unreal. I know for a fact that the CPUs are still running systems today - amazing.
Which goes to show you that YMMV. Personally, I lvoe Bugzilla, use it for personal projects and business development. Its great, I can hack it if I want, and it does the job. I used Remedy in a previous life - what a nightmare. Yes, it had some nice features like the custom UI and stuff, but in teh end it was so sumbersome. They had APIs but we weren't allowed ot use them. We finally got them, they wouldn't compile on HPUX. It was a mess. Remedy was fine if you used the GUI, but try to integrate it with a web front end, some type of script (say a test suite which would open bugs on tets failures, etc) and it was tricky and convoluted.
Look, nobody is saying Bugzilla is the best bug/trouble ticket system out there. But for the price, its damn good one. I knwo companies out there using Remedy who hardly use any of the advanced features but pay millions for it - in their case Bugzilla could be a real cost saver. Again, every situation is different.
Me? I was SO glad when I didn't have to use Remedy products anymore - my tic went away!
Sure it is. Events like this open up the potential for society to give up liberties for perceived safety which probably isn't all that real. I for one worry about the future of our liberties in teh name of 'preventing another WTC'
I submit that these bastards could STILL get the weapons on board even with all the changes. No curb side checkin? LIke thats gonna make a DIFFERENCE? Its SO simple to make a weapon - just as a prisoner. Consider this:
Shaving kit - inside, one normal razor that uses a double edged blade. Blade installed, no spares. Elsewhere in your bag, a plastic or wooden handle of some kind with slot for blade, by itself or with other stuff that looks innocent. Maybe a little super glue. GO to a stall in a terminal bathroom. Take blade, insert in handle, glue in place. Slit someones throat when necessary and take over whatever vessel you're on. Think about it - you can probably come up with plenty on your own. Thats just one way and there are plenty others. These guys planned this for MONTHs as the reports of flight training indicate. You wouldn't even NEED to bring weapons with you - maybe one of your pals works IN THE TERMINAL past the checkpoints and cna give you a weapon of some kind. Banning plastic knives? OK - thats gonna help!
Face it folks - no matter WHAT happens, the only thing that could prevent something like this is sky marshals on EVERY flight in civilian clothes. And even then, they may not be able to overpower 5 guys with weapons (since shooting guns in the air is er, not a great idea)
So in short, I think our forefathers wisdom IS applicable and helpful to remind folks that we may be fooled into giving up liberties for supposed security that doesn't really exist
This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing. America: The Good Neighbor. Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record: "This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars! into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon -! not once, but several times - and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
That's the Democrat in you too. Funny, I thought using up the SS surplus and running defecits were something Republicans loved! Sure seem slike it anyway.
As a fellow American - I thank you.
Absolutely! The Democrat in me says we take all teh $$ Bush wants for missle defense and rebuild the towers since now its OBVIOUS missle defense is a folly. They will find a way to attack America. Sure a nuke would have flattened NY, not just the World Trade Center. But those billions could be spent on much better things, even just in a security arena.
But the American in me says -> raise taxes, SS surplus, bonds, even a short term defecit. We need to show the world we will rebuild. We will NOT be cowed. And hte idea of a third tower in teh middle giving the bird to the terrorists - I love it :) It was one of the few times I smiled on this tagic day. And if we find the bastards that did this, let jail them and then toss them off the new WTC buildings into the rubble below :)
I really hope we rebuild the buildings - bigger and better than ever. Tempting fate? Maybe - but its not like fanatics lack targets!
May we find the bastards and wipe them out. God Bless America.
AMEN! You set off a bomb, kill a few people, maybe a couple hundred - you might get away without retaliation. You destroy the World Trade Center Towers, smash a plane into the Pentagon, and kill thousands of Americans - you've gone to war with the United States. Whoever you are, you may be pretty happy with yourself, but you can't imagine what an event like this will do to the American psyche, ESPECIALLY if it was an Arab sect that did this (and even if it wasn't - Palestinians dancing in the streets???). Support for a free Palestine? GONE. Somewhat restrained responses to things like the Saudi apt bombings, the USS Cole Bombing? GONE. Americans don't take attacks like this lightly. One guy with a truck bomb changed the way America viewed terrorism and safety. This event will have a much broader impact.
All I know is IF bin Laden did this AND the Taliban continue to turn a blind eye, I for one will happily press the launch button of an ICBM to level the whole freaking country. No pin point attack with minimal collatoral damage - you harbor a terrorist you ARE a terrorist. Yeah, yeah, nukes, fallout, sucks for neighbroing countries and I realize that but you have to realize that many Americans WILL have these inflamed feelings and they won't be thinking about 'innocents' Call us hypocrits, callous, whatever. But if President Bush (first time I've called him that!) wants to drop every freaking conventional bomb we have on a country that knowingly harbored the people that did this - amen. If it was an American group that did this - I'll pull the switch myself or behappy to load the rifles.
My only hope is perhaps this will show missle defense to be the joke it is and maybe we can apply the billions Bush wants to spend on it on other more important things like finding the bastards that did this and improving security where we can without living in a police state. Oh - and I for one am MORE than happy to take a few billion from Missle defense, Social Security, WHATEVER to rebuild the World Trade Center in ALL its glory - we will NOT be cowed.
They pulled this stunt at NORTEL one time and IIRC it worked fairly well. We all laughed and said the same thing - designers will just toss in bugs to fix for moeny later - but they did have some smart rules and it seemed to work fairly well - the designers sure spent a LOT more time in teh lab tested the betas :)
This is a double-edged sword IMHO. I too used to be one who ALWAYS clicked custom and always made sure programs went into Program Files, etc, etc. But some vendors still haven't caught on and I've run into too many troubles not allowing a program to install where it normally wants to. On Linux evven more so. Sure, you CAN install stuff in various places, but more times than not you'll just end up breaking some other poorly written config script and have to search for all those custom places you stashed stuff it depends on. With RPMs you have to create sym links and junk.
So with Linux, I've started a shift to letting stuff install where it wants to - I've found it reduces trouble down teh road. Yes in an ideal world it shouldn't matter, but right now its just not worth it to me to specify special install directories vs the trouble it can cause later. However, kudos to teh Mozilla team for trying to adapt the GUI installer concept for their package - its worked well for me so far even though it doesn't do a whole lot :)
You're right - my bad....
To those of you who say - 'Big deal, they still use Windows on teh desktop' Heh - Desktop OS sales do not have huge profit margins - OEMs & large companies get huge discounts. Microsoft needs to rule the backend because server software margins are much higher. SO this IS a hit to them. A potential conversion from *nix to MS hurts them. Sure, in this case one Unix replaces another, but MS still loses a potential slient for lots and lots of server licenses.
Could mean both. When I still worked there (late 90's) CEO John Roth did a major suck up to Bill and stated that 'All future NORTEL products will be based on Win NT' At the time most NORTEL deisgners used HP-UX, our flagship product ran on Mac processors and a proprietary OS & language) WIndows was only starting to replace the MAcs of Sales and Mgmt types. What an uproar that caused. But he pushed it through and many of the new products they are developing (VoIP, next gen switches, etc) run on Windows based servers - its pretty scary (given my experieince with MS cluster servers back in WinNT SP6 days :) ) Its been toned down a bit and some products are being done on Solaris and such (supposedly due to NT stability concerns of the customers), but the push to Windows in that company was absolutely brutal and heavy handed. I almost lost my job for suggesting at the time they go with an Internet stds based email server backend instead of the MS Exchange setup the CTO wanted to deploy to replace our old in house setup. They prevailed - used Exchange and deployed $80K Alpha servers for every 200 users or so - scary stuff.
err, read my post - I stated I didn't do the original design, it was inherited. and later in my post I speak the praises of using ESD and surge protection in a circuit design - but thanks for the description of my abilities all the same. I'll admit that some early designs of mine as well didn't have ALL aspects of ESD covered, but you learn as you go - or did you know it all from the start? ;)
As for straps - they are a PIA. Agreed. But we also provided shoe straps (slip it on in the morning - take off when you leave) which wern't too bad. The HW techs got static sneakers to drain away charges since they were always swapping stuff out - the shoes used to be klunky but had become fairly stylish and felt like normal sneaks. And the bottom line is - tough shit. Your fooling around with millions of dollars of corporate hardware and you work for the company - deal with it or take a walk/find new job. I can't tell you how nervous my HW techs got holding processor cards worth hundreds of thousands of dollars - its scary! And I can tell you the heat from on high if the company faild an ISO inspection because of folks in teh computer room without ESD protection would have been immense.
I'm still amazed that Mobo makers don't toss in dispoable straps with their retail boxed boards - hell they only cost 50 cents or so.
Wrong - when you pick up that motherboard sitting on teh table and zap it (cause you may not be at the same potential) you still hate it. Ground a strap to GROUND is important. Why? Because it disappates the charge from your body. Storing boards in ESD bags? They disappate any stored charge on teh board when you picj it up. Grounding your PC case - again, disappates any charge in the case.
So yes, if you strap yourself to an ungrounded case, you won't zap the case cause you are at the same potential, but you can still zap external compnents you pick up. Yes its rare and something is betetr than nothing - I agree. But for proper protection every thing MUST be grounded. But at the bare minimum, always touch the metal of the case before messing with a PC - that helps but you STILL can zap something in a dry environment.
Serial ports (I'll stick with RS-232 and 485 - I'm most familiar with them) use voltage & logic shifters to handle the conversion of the port voltages to internal logic voltages. For years, most RS_232 ports on PCs used the MC148x or MAX232 type serial inetrface chips - got news for you, NONE of these chips have ESD hardening. RS-485 ports were even worse - they used a chip called a 75176 - those things would blow when you pulled one out of a pack to insert it in place of a blown chip. Ever notice how many cards with 1489type interface ICs had them in sockets? There was a reason - I've replaced a fw in mine.
I've designed embedded boards for Home automation and our boards used RS_485 which gives you long distance (1000-4000') over twisted pair at decent speeds for system control. The original design (which I didn't do and which was done BEFORE ESD variant chips were available) used the 75176. I had customers calling for replacements all the time. Those long twisted pair cables connecting nodes together were asking to induce surges AND when folks wired them up with bare hands and no static strap - they induced charges into the wires connected to all other nodes!
Maxim IC came to the rescue by developing the MAX232E and MAX485E which were ESD hardened interface ICs for RS-232 and 485 respectively. These things are amazing. One article I read had a guy sending massive (like 40kV) pulses into these chips and they survived. They are rated for +15kv and man do they work. When we switched to these chips (our main controller had both RS_232 and RS-485) our serial bus failures went away. TO dtae I have not had a customer complain about a failed ESD hardened chip from Maxim. Only problem is they ARE more expensive - about double. But WELL worth it IMHO.
Obviously - anyone handling motherboards or any other bare electronic board without using a static strp is an idiot - you're just ASKING for it - and um if you unplug your PC and then ground your strap to the case - it doesn't help much sinc ethe case is only grounded when its plugged in! You have ot ground your strap to somethign thats grounded!
But ddesigning your system with external ports and not using ESD haardened ICs and surge supressing devices is just asking for trouble - but these things cost money. Surge problems are worse than ESD often. But the savings in customer satisfaction and warranty repair costs often outweigh the extra pennies - but its hard to measure.
As for static straps - its amazing how people hate them so. I managed a 10k sq ft data center with almost 700 servers, from small $5000 machines to monster Auspex boxes costing millions. We implemented a policy that every tech in teh room had to wear a static strap on theri wrist, shoe, or static shoes and had to test the device when they entered (testers at every door) This was for ISo compliance but it was also smart. A single board for an Auspex might cost $50,000 to $250,000!!!! Yet I constantly had to police the situation and hassle people because they refused to wear the straps. The worst were the Sysadmins - they figured since they didn't touch teh cards themselves it was OK, yet they were plugging serial cables into exposed serial ports to hook up root terminals (before we had a networked root term setup) It was amazing the resistance I encountered for such a simple thing.
The bottom line is, if you are design a device for end use - spend the $$$ on ESD and surge suppression. If you are a tech or even a hobbiest working on teh guts of a PC or even hooking UP a PC that might not have said ESD protection, wear the strap or shoes. All it takes is one zap and thousands of dollars go up in a spark!
Personally, I think it would have been kinda cool - heck if I'd have had the money I probably would have bought a neXt cube way back. So yes, I probably would have purchased a PC with Windoze and BeOS (or Darwin if Apple ever got that brave) Back in 98, I'm not sure because drives still weren't that big. But good lord, PCs are shipping with 40-75GB hard drives! That is HUGE! So slicing off 5GB for each OS and using the other(s) for data would be sweet and I wouldn't have worried about the secondary OS using up a little space. Again, think about it. Joe 6-pack consumer doesn't have a clue. But if Dell sells a PC with just WIndows and Gateway sells an equivalent PC in HW and price with an extra OS, the customer would probably pick the Gateway EVEN if they had no plans of trying it. But hey - joe 6-pack is getting computer literate these days - there is no denying this. So one night he tries out BeOS for kicks - he likes what he sees and gives it a whirl. He may or may not think its worth it, but imagine if 1 in 10 or even 1 in 20 tried BeOS and LIKED it. They tell a friend who tells anothe rfriend, and the OS gains users. Heck - how do you think Linux spread (and even WWW serve software) Killer app or purpose served, folks try it out and more and more people try it out.
So being totally honest, this DID hurt Be - they could have gotten some decent exposure through the OEMs - in teh end it may not have mattered - but there's no telling. Heck - Apples still slive - who'd have thought?
Again - nobody was saying OEMs wanted to just sell Linux. OEMs wanted to offer multiple operating systems on the hard drives. Windows - which customers expect and perhaps Linux or BeOS if they felt adventurous. But Microsoft forbids this. That is monopolistic. The OEMs shoudl be able to do WHATEVER they want with the hardware they build and sell. Talk about viral licensing! I have to admit that in the online services case, Microsoft has some right to dictate whats on the desktop of their OS since it IS their OS. But dual booting does NOT change the Microsoft OS ONE bit. So here you have an OS maker dictating what OEMs can and can't do with teh computers THEY pay for and build and sell. Again - THAT is monopolistic. Microsoft has no right to tell OEMs that they can't install another OS in a complete SEPARATE partition on a PC PEMs sell.
Right - and those are the only shops that ARE experimenting with dual-boot setups just like mentioned in teh article:
Yes, you can get dual-boot machines at some of the smaller shops, but these are the ones that slip under Microsoft's radar, and there's no guarantee that Microsoft won't decide to take action against these vendors at some point.
The bottom line is any large OEM cannot dual boot their systems because they will lose the OEM discount which will cost them millions of dollars in an already low margin business - thus Microsoft forces them to have ONLY single boot systems.
The OEMs are at their customers' mercy, and that means no Linux machines.
Bull - its obvious OEMs see some potential for non Windows OS as some have tried it (and yes some have stopped doing it *cough* Dell losers *cough* But custoemrs wanting Windows does NOT mean Microsoft has to forbid OEMs from giving customers a CHOICE! RIght now customers have NO CHOICE of OS so you say they demand Windows - I say they never had a choice. So Microsoft aims to keep it that way by preventing OEMs from dual booting alternate OSes just like they prevent OEMs from having non MS ISP icons without Microsoft's. Microsoft has a monopoly and they use that monopoly to threaten OEMs into doing what they want (Sure - try dual booting BeOS - We'll drop your license - you can't install WIndows and you'll go bakrupt) That, AC, is a Monopoly and its illegal for obvious reasons.
Hardly anyone PAYs for an OS these days. The bulk of the OS licenses come from new hardware. All BeOS wanted was to allow OEMs to install BeOS on teh hard drive - didn't cost the OEMs anything. In fact it gave them somethign else to tell teh customer (Not only do you get WIndows, but you also get...) It got BeOS some exposure.
Yes, the OS as a market in terms of buying the OS is a joke, but the cash cow (at least according to Gates) will be the services the OS offers. So again, we're still beholden to MS. If some other OS vendor develops and OS witha service fee centric architecture, they STILL can't compete in the new service market that is evolving.
So what? Its still anti-competitive. I don't care if all BeOS could do is print "Hello World" The bottom line is the hardware vendors are completely under Microsoft's thumb because of licensing issues. Think of all teh times you've heard of vendors paying BIG bucks becuase they said "Do this for us or we'll stop selling to you" I recall cases involving TOys R Us and others. This is the same cut and dried issue. Microcosft is telling OEMs they can't sell another OS alongside Windows - plain and simple. The fact that BeOS may or may not have been comparable to Windows is irrelevant. The HW OEMs are completely at Microsoft's mercy and cannot do anything Microsoft doesn't approve of.
I'm guessing both - the gov't is talking about some serious deployment of Linux on teh desktop and in sensitive areas, I'd epxect they'd use a distro blessed by teh gov't security folks (ie NSA LInux)
They already do this - one IP/MAC address - but NAT and MAC spoofing renders this limitation pointless. What are they going to do, ban NAT (which is questionable that they could even do it)
somebody decides they want something for nothing.
Something for nothing? The person with the ISP connection is paying for it. The ISP is getting paid for that connection and bandwidth. What they want to do with it is up to them (or at least should be IMHO) I doubt that TOS said "You can only consume X amount of bandwidth, etc" Heres a stickler for you, whats the TOS going to say - onyl family members may use the connection? What about roomate situations then. OK so they the connection can only be used by systems on teh premises - OK, so that means a coffee shop can do it. See how its not so black and white?