Anyone got Evolution working on Cygwin/Win32? Even just Win32 on it's own?
I'd really like to be able to get rid of all these Outlook users, by giving them something decent to use like Evolution. Unfortunately we need to use Windows here at the office (well regularly at least, we develop software for Windows - makes sense really).
Of course, this makes a great case for migrating to Linux too, as once they've used it, gotten hooked, and we switch them to Linux, they can keep using the apps with less re-training. Also great for those dual-boot machines if the data resides in a common directory shared between Linux/Windows. No matter what OS you're in, you can access mail without any issues.
One of these (one side and mouse, or both, using the second "like" a mouse) could be a pretty good controller for games. Admittedly Tribes2 would have issues, as would games that use a lot of keys (well, unless you can touch type), but for those FPS's that require not too many keys, it could be a lot more comfortable than a Claw, the MS Strategic Commander, etc. You could possibly run Tribes2 with a modified keymapping, and/or in combo with a traditional keyboard.
It'd be interesting to see how fast they react to movement, and how good a response they could give. If they work off muscle movements, they could also be a boon for disabled people.
BTW: Re: How would it know when you are typing or not. It probably would only work when the pads have pressure applied to them, in the classic "wrists down" approach for touch typing. All those hunt and peck typists would have problems though. (Admittedly it'd be a great way to kill your bosses productivity!)
I ended up in System Administration because I've lived the classic "jack of all trades" life that prepares you for pretty much all that the job eventually throws at you.
In secondary school, I excelled at math, science (particularly physics), electronics, computers, and did reasonably well at trade classes (woodshop, metalwork). Realised at the end of secondary school that I could skip a year and go straight into external training in Electronics, and jumped at the chance. Also kept up honing my computer skills, which I saw as a possible "backup job" if the Electronics field fell through for me - interesting note was that as part of electronics, we had to deal with low-level logic, and even assembly language, so my computer knowledge helped immensely.
Started playing with computers in 1982 (ok, so I was 12). By 1985 I was into comms using modems. In 1988, I was running a 5 line BBS using propritory software that had a lot of ASM code in it, and that cost a bit. When I closed it down in 1996, it had 7 lines, and way too many users. I closed it down for personal reasons, and because I thought that it was "the right time" to move on.
From 1988 to the end of 1991, I worked in various jobs: Electronics Tech and Storeman on Fire Alarm systems, Electronics Tech repairing data collection equipment (Barcoding and PABX Monitoring), Electronics Tech in a local modem company, and working on a Disabled Bus helping the kids on and off (while the electronics industry was in a lull).
Started at my current workplace at the end of 1991, as an Electronics Tech/Engineer. Repair and custom hardware design. The company was small, working with Point Of Sale software and hardware, which made moving to new positions reasonably easy. I'm just coming up on my 10th year at this place, which is a little milestone to be somewhat proud of I guess.
Moving from one job to another within a company is probably the best way to get into the job. It also gives you time to work out "can I work with these people as a Systems Administrator?", which is always a thorny question.
I did a little bit of sales groundwork, found it not to my taste. Tried a bit of programming, and while I could do the work, I wasn't grabbed by the job. By 1994, we had a central server (using Windows) for files, regular backups, and it was installed by the boss. In 1995, they were looking at connecting to the net for e-mail, and of course, that central server was dialled up to the net, and in 6 months we'd expanded to the point we needed a dedicated e-mail system and Systems Administrator, and so being versed in running a BBS, I had a fair bit of knowledge under my belt and accepted the job.
Evaluated a few options, and settled on a Linux box running our mail and routing needs. Since then, we've gotten a lot of Linux boxes, but it's not all we use. AIX, Solaris, Windows, and others all play a part in my job - it's just a matter of selecting the right horse for the job. Linux works well for most of what I do, because of it's "swiss army knife" nature, which fits well with someone who is a "jack of all trades" like me.
If there is anything I think my above experiences have taught me, is that you need to have diverse abilities, and that any sort of experience helps, no matter how irrevelant it may seem. Having such experience in many cases allows you to laterally think around a problem and come up with the best solution. It can also allow you to better understand other people's reasoning behind what they do, which if you ever have to maintain any system, you really need.
Sorry about the life story, but I wanted to show you how diverse a background I've had, so there it is. Good luck with it all.
Of note: I'm in Australia, and it takes 4-7 days to get stuff shipped here from Loki, using their standard international service. Last stuff I ordered from Loki took 4 days, so I'm hoping I'll have it in about 24-48 hrs.
Loki sent me a note on the afternoon of the 27th (their time, morning of the 28th here) telling me my copy had shipped.
If anyone in Melbourne (Australia) goes to the PC-IT trade show, you can probably get to see the game in action, assuming it turns up in time, on the LUV (Linux Users of Victoria) stand.
2. Bluetooth and 802.11b interoperability. Without breaking one standard or the other, it ain't going to happen. And even if you do break one standard, it won't be backwards compatible. The two standards conflict too much. 802.11b has a back-off mechanism. Bluetooth doesn't. I actually did some work looking into building a Bluetooth/802.11b AP that would try to cleanly give both Bluetooth and 802.11b time on the air without breaking either standard. It's too difficult. Bluetooth is just to strict on the timing (not to mention the big problem that some Bluetooth cards refuse to give up being the Master).
This is due to the Frequency Hopping (FH, as apposed to DS, Direct Sequence) nature of Bluetooth. It could be possible to build a dual-mode (or since you have an FH mode transmitter, tri-mode, as the original 802.11 spec allowed for FH or DS Spread Spectrum) that would do this, but it would definately have to be ONE CARD, as the transmitter/receiver sections would need to know exactly what frequencies are in use and avoid them. A dual card system simply would not be able to keep up.
Such dual radio systems have been proposed (Bluetooth FH/802.11b DS, and 802.11 FH/802.11b DS), but the costs associated with making such a beast, even after the initial development work - which is severly costly in itself, are horribly expensive, totally outweighing the benefits of such a device.
It is also interesting to note that the 802.15 TG2 group is working for co-existance. This is not the same as interoperability, but simply handling the presence of other signals on the same frequency band. For those that dont know, 802.15 is the IEEE sanitised version of Bluetooth.
3. 802.11 security was not broken. WEP was broken. Badly. But WEP is not the end-all, be-all of security. And yes, the industry _is_ working on better security, and has been for some time. IEEE 802.11 Task Group e is still in the process of agreeing upon a method for point-to-point security, with dynamically session keys, including a username/password setup. This is what the industry has wanted for some time. WEP was only meant to slow down the script kiddies who would just sit in parking lots with their cards set to associate to "ANY". I really wish people would stop assuming that WEP is the entirety of wireless security. It is not, and was never intended to be. One more note on this: it was not 802.11x that was broken. I'm not sure what 802.11x is, but it isn't a security standard. 802.1x is a LAN security standard, but even that isn't what was broken. Just WEP.
This is spot on the ball. The new standard they are working on sounds like it will be called 802.11i. The TGe group , which was working on MAC layer enhancements, decided to split into 2 task-groups, where the E group is to follow Quality of Service (QoS), and the I group is to follow Security. These were originally to be one standard, and breaking them up into 2 seperate standards IMHO is a GOOD THING.(tm)
Of note here is that most, if not all Access Points can be set up to NOT allow Mobile Units with no *SSID set to bind to them. They can still snoop on some data (it's their card receiving it), but it just takes them that little bit longer. Some Access Points allow you to provide Access Control lists for particular MAC Addresses of Mobile Units, which is a damn good idea if you have a reasonable number of mobile units. Remember: They can always listen in somehow, but wether they can access your network is another matter entirely.
4. 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11. 802.11 is the general IEEE group for Wireless LAN networking. 802.11b is the 11Mbps standard. 802.11a is the 5GHz 54Mbps standard (once they decide exactly what that standard is). TGe, which should translate to 802.11e will be the new security standard. There are others (including a standard for 22Mbps in the 2.4GHz band, which I _think_ is 802.11h), but I don't remember what most of them are.
As I mentioned, TGe has been split into 2 groups. The TGg group is working on 22+ Mbps standards in the 2.4 Ghz range, and currently look to be using Orthagonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (or OFDM, which is different again from DS and FH). More information about the 802.11 Standards can be found at the 802.11 Standards homepage at the IEEE.
Of note: OFDM looks to be the new 'holy grail' in not only wireless, but optical, and possibly even wired technology, as it allows much more of the usable "available" spectrum to be utilised for data transmission, with higher signal to noise ratio's. The 3G Cellular standards looks like they will be using OFDM, and new optical technologies that Lucent are trying to get off the ground will also be using it.
Think about it. Dynamix close their doors. Tribes2 is doing ok for Loki, but now without Dynamix about to pay guaranteed money for patches and upgrades, they don't have the money to stay with their current financial setup.
I'm guessing this is what some of the companies that Loki have ported games for were obligated to, assuming here that the patches were GAME fixes and not PORTING fixes. I'd expect porting issues to be the responsibility of Loki, and game design changes to be the company that wrote it in the first places problem. I may be wrong, but it seems rather likely to me.
Plus, there is no maintenance money for Quake3Arena now that ID Software have taken over the support for the Linux port themselves (happened a while back). This probably makes things a little hairy, and now that Dynamix have gone down the tubes, it sounds like they have just been pushed over the edge, and need a little security, hence the Chapter 11 reorganisation.
Well, I'm off to buy more Linux games from Loki, because while they are still around, I'm still going to support them. And this time I'm buying them direct from Loki. None of these places in the middle that absorb some of the cost themselves. Every little bit helps.
PS: Those that suggested cutting down on manuals and stuff, and putting PDF manuals on disk, well thats what they did with Tribes2. You get the CD in a plastic DVD-style case (the semi-decent ones), an 8 page (4 x A5 sheets of paper with double sided black and white print, stapled down the center) guide that tells you your Tribes2 Serial Number, the minimum system requirements, a quick "Getting started" install guide, how to register online with the Tribes2 system, tech support info, customer service info, a quick guide to the in-game voice menu keys, and a keyboard layout map of all the keys in the game. Everything else is in the PDF. I've yet to even open that PDF file though. *grin*
The Aplio/Pro is Linux based, and the Aplio/Phone is not (dedicated hardware). Aplio chose to head away from dedicated hardware simply because of the development costs.
All it seems as though they have done is to point the unit at their Gateway/Gatekeeper, which is how the calls get to/from the IP network to phone lines. These devices should quite easily be capable of talking to any gateway/gatekeeper that meets the specs, like Cisco, Ericsson, OpenH323, etc.
If you want to learn more about VOIP, and the H.323 protocol, check out http://www.openh323.org/ which has a wealth of information and links.
The ILID Partnership (or what they are doing) may be what you were thinking of. They have their Indoor Light Interactive Display system, which uses the Fluorescent lighting already present in a building to transmit data to electronic shelf labels, keeping their prices accurate. They did a lot of R&D proir to the systems being made available to consumers/businesses in 1999.
Something that I can see this having a use for, is for boxes that are going to soon (very probably) reach an 'end of life' in the IBM OS camp. True there is Project Montery, but some of these 64 bit machines could definately end up lying in the dust. Especially with a whole new OS and designers that may decide that the earlier systems are too 'hard' to support easily.
I'd much rather see IBM make sure that something decent still runs on older boxes, than having no shipping OS at all that will support such platforms.
And I'm not saying IBM will drop support for these platforms anytime soon, but it's much easier to get the thing started now, than later, when it could be too little, too late.
HP's PA-RISC's are a prime example. Linux runs on these, as various numbers of the machines fell into the hands of Linux developers that have experience in kernel code/porting. Unfortunately the machines never really made it, but at least the people out there have something that runs and is probably better supported than what you would otherwise get. It was the thing, just too late in the game. At least IBM aren't making the mistake of leaving people lingering with unusable hardware.
Also remember that IBM has a considerably large Second Hand group that reconditions trade-in systems and then sells them to more disadvanged groups or countries - and if they don't have an OS to ship on those machines, what do they do with them?
Of course, what contributions they get from some of the truely bright sparks in the community with the Linux port, may actually improve the way their own code monkeys write/implement their next OS kernel, which they can only view as a win-win situation.
Re: your comment... Unforunately, all my forays into Linux gaming have shown that the Linux version of the game is slow, klunky, and occasionally buggier than the windows version. I've purchased two Linux games so far, and I wont again for a little time until that particular market stabailises, and decent graphics accelleration happens for Linux.
What card are you having the particular problem with, and what basic setup do you have? A lot of the video drivers had lots of issues, and X4 and new driver architechures have fixed a lot of this.
Stock-standard distributions that were released 9-12 months ago are just not going to have the stuff that works well, but then again, how many times on Windows do you need to install new video drivers, run Windows Update, or install new versions of graphics API's (DirectX)?
I've got a Nvidia GeForce DDR (32Mb) and on my K6/2-550 I used to get better (on average) frame rates than I used to get under Windows. Parsec just blows me away, with TWICE the frame rate as I get under the Windows version. Quake3Arena and Unreal Tournament run a lot more stable under Linux than they have ever done under Windows on my machine. YMMV, of course.
There are lots of people willing to help you get your setup working, so check out your local User Group and see what they can do for you. You might be pleasantly suprised.
I'm a member of the Linux Users of Victoria (here in Australia) and our Games Sig does all it can to help people run games on their Linux platform. From helping people simply install Linux, helping with driver issues and configuration, general information about games and hardware, and of course, fragging each other silly in LANs.
As it is, we're running a LAN soon called Blast Radius 3 that is catering specifically to gaming under Linux. We're allowing Windows and Mac users as well, but the idea is to showcase Linux as a Gamers Platform, and give them a taste of all the things we can do under Linux.
So do your part, Linux gamers. Organise a special interest group specifically for Games at your User Group. Start organising Tech Nights to help people get their systems up and running, informal and then formal LANs, and help other people catch the fever that is Linux Gaming.
There is also a large amount of elements that would be very useful, mainly as propellants and chemicals for orbital factories. Many of these chemicals are plentiful on Jupiter and Saturn, unlike here. There is also a lot more of Jupiter/Saturn available.
Jupiter also throws out some of the most devastating electromagnetic radiation, and if humans or human-made equipment is to survive under those sort of conditions, we need to research it!
What I want to know is when we are sending stuff to the asteroid belt to get some idea of the mineral composition that these asteroids have. They are our closest 'space-bourne' mineral source, and the least likely to be missed (as compared to the mountains on Mars, or some other feature).
Well this has sort of flattened out now, and Australia is doing a lot better, but it's still interesting to note whats probably happened here.
1. Earthquake/plate shift (and it seems like an earthquake/plate shift) has disrupted the cable between Jakarta and Singapore. Because of the way the cable is arranged, this will mean Jakarta and Australia are effectively getting zero bandwidth from Singapore. Earthquake/plate shift is highly suspected due to the recent (not long after the cable break) earthquake in Papua New Guinea. Telstra didn't allow for any real redundancy (by running dual cables seperated by a few hundred feet or more) in their cable run. One cable handles all the traffic, so a single break causes complete data loss. (Southern Cross uses a two cable system to allow redundancy in the case of a cable break).
2. The night of the cable break, a power station in Paddington, a suburb just east of Sydney (NSW) burnt down, dropping 20,000+ homes and businesses into a blackout. Paddington is where Telstra routes most of it's eastern states traffic, and indeed all traffic destined to go through the previously existing pipes from Sydney goes through Paddington. A simple hiccup or loss of power caused by failing generators could have caused havoc. Such a scenario seems very likely given the problems that appeared on Telstra's network that night. Any sub-system that kicked in may have not been able to handle multiple failures dealing with traffic problems (eg: fibre to Singapore being down, which goes via Perth, Western Australia), causing more headaches.
3. Due to floods, much (approximately one-third) of the NSW outback is under water, making any problems with cables running across this area difficult. Cables that might be under 6 feet of dirt are under an additional 12 feet of water making any repair hard. Microwave links running across this area could also suffer, due to power outages, or possibly tower foundations shifting and throwing communications out of whack.
Anyway, things seem a lot better for Aussie internal traffic, and external traffic isn't TOO bad (apparently). Fortunately I'm with Optus Cable (who have their own link to the US) at home, and UEComm (One of the many companies who use Southern Cross) at work. *grin*
Fat pipes, IPv6... next they'll announce affordable satellite links to the whole country, lead-into-gold machines, etc.
The place I work at actually has a 10 meg Fibre connection through UEComm. One thing that startled us at the time we found out about them (around March) was that they could get us a 2 Meg fibre link at about the same cost as a 128k ISDN would cost (rent wise). ISDN is just way too expensive over here, and ADSL is not usable yet, and in some places won't be simply because of transmission distance from exchange to user. It took 3 months to get the damn thing connected, but we haven't looked back (we got 2 Meg, and then uppped to 10 Meg cos it was simply cheap enough that we could).
UEComm also have a fairly decent network behind it, and the fibre is reasonable quality (they believe that with current technology they'll happily get 2 Gigabits down each fibre linking the network together, and they've got a LOT of fibres linking places together. They ran 16 pairs into our building, and they're at least capable of 622 Megabit. I don't think the place I work at will have much of a bandwidth problem for a while anyway!)
Btw: Affordable satellite links? Define affordable. There are a few ISP's running such services here in Australia, with moderate success. Data pretty much comes direct from the US, so Overseas traffic tends to be faster.
...Meanwhile back at the ranch, Poncho disguised as a door has had his knob shot off... - TISM
Management making completely uninformed decisions is what causes a lot of stress. And once a project rolls out, clueless clients make up most of the rest of the stress. And both the clients and the management do not know how to express their problems or requests well enough so that everyone will actually know what is going on, and what is required.
People should plan for problems as well, which is another major lacking. Plan for that project to blow out, plan for the service to fail, plan for disaster. Doesn't have to be by much, but a few days here and there make a HUGE difference to the stress on the people working on it when there are those last niggling things to rectify that just won't dissapear!
This is what happens when people get into areas they have no understanding of. Up and beyond their level of competence. Wether it is because of lack of training or because they just don't know is no excuse. It exerts pressure on the people that the problems fall onto, and that is usually the technical staff. It is more prevalent in the IT Industry, but it happens everywhere.
It is amazing just how many managers really do act like the PHB's in Dilbert.
Unfortunately a lot of ISP network roll-outs are done by people with very little IP network experience, or by "high paid" consultants.
The people without network experience are somewhat excused, but they should have gotten someone to look it over, and actually try some sort of penetration tests. They'd probably find a lot more wrong with it than routing non-routable IP's.
The consultants don't tend to bother unless asked, as it adds to their already high workload, plus they most likely think "I'm not getting paid enough to do that as well!". Some even just assume that the routers won't even route this sort of traffic unless told to.
A lot of routers don't help in this situation either. The training courses and/or materials for setting them up in many cases are rather badly written, don't cover a huge number of setup scenarios, and usually don't even bother to bring up these sorts of things at all.
On top of all this, you get things like the Managing Director of the company connecting a modem up to his PC and dialling out to his home account cos the connection to the net through the filewall is too slow (which is actually cos someone is trying to launch a DOS attack on your firewall), and then someone gets to his local files cos of some piece of software that he shouldn't have on the laptop in the first place.
Regardless, even if they did block the non-routable IP's, you should still "trust no one" and block whatever you can. If it's connected to the outside world, then there is a possibility that somehow, you could lose out.
The only way to truely protect your data is to grind up your hard drive into powder, magnetize it all, then heat it into a liquid. Cool and grind it up again, scatter it into the wind, and just HOPE entropy does the rest.
Just a note that the Symbol PPT 2700 has their Spectrum24 Wireless Networking as an option on the unit (PPT 2740). Spectrum24 is an IEEE 802.11 certified system for wireless communication over short distances using the 2.4 Ghz ISM band.
The Symbol units also have an integral barcode reader which aims the device at data collection. This is quite understandable given that Symbol have been working with barcoding technology for many, many years. (You can also use the barcode reader as a laser pointer.)
However, Symbol also have another unit that runs PalmOS (SPT 1500 and SPT 1700) and also has a Spectrum24 Wireless Networking option (SPT 1540 and SPT 1740), and also ships with a radio capable version of the HotSync product. The SPT 1700 series is a ruggedised version of the SPT 1500 series product, and more resembles the shape of the PPT 2700.
Whoever wrote this patent has a very good understanding of Power Supply construction, specifically in relation to Switch Mode Power Supplies. Wether the rest of the premise is actually viable is not for me to guess.
The way they are talking about using accelerators, magnetic fields, and a heat source tends to give me the idea that this thing could be re-arranged to look like some big "Flux Capacitor" from Back to the Future. *grin*
File system support is a very touchy area for most, but few see the real potential, and why we need so many file systems supported in Linux.
Just think if you had a box in the office, that if any one of your big iron machines (IBM, SGI, Compaq, etc) decided to up and fail, you could just plug the drive into, and get at your data immediately to get things done. Granted it might not be as fast as the traditional system that you use for every day operations, but this is an "emergency backup". You live with reduced performance instead of no performance at all.
I can see Linux becoming that box. That all purpose box of tricks that a System Administrator can use to his disposal. It's already there in the network doing just that job, and gaining ground. There is a lot more this little system can do that even the big irons can't compete with. And if we want Linux to be the best... *grin*
As for kernel support, all that the many systems will do is provide a very decent API system for passing data to/from the kernel for these Journalling/High Performance systems. Sure everyone does the final product differently, but if the kernel can output a generic, yet fast method for all the file systems to use, then we gain some instant advantages. Firstly we can run all these systems, which is a must, but secondly it opens up an interface that can be exploited by a newly developed system to the max, giving us the best performance possible.
This is not going to be easy, and as people improve their programming techniques and new people get into the kernel code, there is bound to be new revisions, and mebbe even total rewrites. Just look at the networking code. Major revamps by dedicated people have produced now a significantly faster network layer. True a lot of it got re-written, but that is the price you pay for progress.
So instead of bitching about it, lets just let them get on with the job of doing it, and where possible help out. When they make mistakes, don't abuse, just give them a prod in the right direction.
--- Every decision is right, it's just a matter of whose right we are refering to.
Wireless is insanely useful for the portable market. Portable devices that aren't tethered by a cable are becoming more and more prominent in the workplace. The cost however is somewhat justified (note that I said somewhat - read below).
There is a lot of processing power in those little cards to implement the IEEE 802.11 spread spectrum model. They're not cheap for that very reason. Plus you don't have as huge a cable infrastructure, which is a cost most places forget about.
There are on average about 3-4 times as many components/transistors on a wireless card as there are on a comparable network card. You also have to remember that almost all PCI/ISA wireless cards are really a PCMCIA card in a PCMCIA adapter. Compare the cost of a PCMCIA network card to a PCMCIA wireless card and the difference isn't as great as it first seemed.
Why stick with PCMCIA and use adaptors? Well for a start, developing 2 cards in completely different technologies tends to take way too much time, and leads to revision problems. Add to this that the greatest market for wireless is actually portable devices that have PCMCIA slots, and you can see the economics that cause the choice.
However, I'd still like to see a Compact Flash version of these (and using a CF to PCMCIA adaptor, you can still stick with one version), even if it sticks out of the Compact Flash slot. This would bring wireless solutions to devices that could really benefit them. e.g. Cameras - you take a pic, it stores it locally, and then sends it over the wireless link to a box nearby to store it. PDA's - allows you to access network resouces when in range. And so on.
There are also H.323 compliant phones available that use IEEE 802.11 spread spectrum. They operate across your normal wireless network to provide wireless telephony. Now if only the cost would come down, I'd be happy! *sigh*
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Anyone got Evolution working on Cygwin/Win32? Even just Win32 on it's own?
I'd really like to be able to get rid of all these Outlook users, by giving them something decent to use like Evolution. Unfortunately we need to use Windows here at the office (well regularly at least, we develop software for Windows - makes sense really).
Of course, this makes a great case for migrating to Linux too, as once they've used it, gotten hooked, and we switch them to Linux, they can keep using the apps with less re-training. Also great for those dual-boot machines if the data resides in a common directory shared between Linux/Windows. No matter what OS you're in, you can access mail without any issues.
One of these (one side and mouse, or both, using the second "like" a mouse) could be a pretty good controller for games. Admittedly Tribes2 would have issues, as would games that use a lot of keys (well, unless you can touch type), but for those FPS's that require not too many keys, it could be a lot more comfortable than a Claw, the MS Strategic Commander, etc. You could possibly run Tribes2 with a modified keymapping, and/or in combo with a traditional keyboard.
It'd be interesting to see how fast they react to movement, and how good a response they could give. If they work off muscle movements, they could also be a boon for disabled people.
BTW: Re: How would it know when you are typing or not. It probably would only work when the pads have pressure applied to them, in the classic "wrists down" approach for touch typing. All those hunt and peck typists would have problems though. (Admittedly it'd be a great way to kill your bosses productivity!)
I ended up in System Administration because I've lived the classic "jack of all trades" life that prepares you for pretty much all that the job eventually throws at you.
In secondary school, I excelled at math, science (particularly physics), electronics, computers, and did reasonably well at trade classes (woodshop, metalwork). Realised at the end of secondary school that I could skip a year and go straight into external training in Electronics, and jumped at the chance. Also kept up honing my computer skills, which I saw as a possible "backup job" if the Electronics field fell through for me - interesting note was that as part of electronics, we had to deal with low-level logic, and even assembly language, so my computer knowledge helped immensely.
Started playing with computers in 1982 (ok, so I was 12). By 1985 I was into comms using modems. In 1988, I was running a 5 line BBS using propritory software that had a lot of ASM code in it, and that cost a bit. When I closed it down in 1996, it had 7 lines, and way too many users. I closed it down for personal reasons, and because I thought that it was "the right time" to move on.
From 1988 to the end of 1991, I worked in various jobs: Electronics Tech and Storeman on Fire Alarm systems, Electronics Tech repairing data collection equipment (Barcoding and PABX Monitoring), Electronics Tech in a local modem company, and working on a Disabled Bus helping the kids on and off (while the electronics industry was in a lull).
Started at my current workplace at the end of 1991, as an Electronics Tech/Engineer. Repair and custom hardware design. The company was small, working with Point Of Sale software and hardware, which made moving to new positions reasonably easy. I'm just coming up on my 10th year at this place, which is a little milestone to be somewhat proud of I guess.
Moving from one job to another within a company is probably the best way to get into the job. It also gives you time to work out "can I work with these people as a Systems Administrator?", which is always a thorny question.
I did a little bit of sales groundwork, found it not to my taste. Tried a bit of programming, and while I could do the work, I wasn't grabbed by the job. By 1994, we had a central server (using Windows) for files, regular backups, and it was installed by the boss. In 1995, they were looking at connecting to the net for e-mail, and of course, that central server was dialled up to the net, and in 6 months we'd expanded to the point we needed a dedicated e-mail system and Systems Administrator, and so being versed in running a BBS, I had a fair bit of knowledge under my belt and accepted the job.
Evaluated a few options, and settled on a Linux box running our mail and routing needs. Since then, we've gotten a lot of Linux boxes, but it's not all we use. AIX, Solaris, Windows, and others all play a part in my job - it's just a matter of selecting the right horse for the job. Linux works well for most of what I do, because of it's "swiss army knife" nature, which fits well with someone who is a "jack of all trades" like me.
If there is anything I think my above experiences have taught me, is that you need to have diverse abilities, and that any sort of experience helps, no matter how irrevelant it may seem. Having such experience in many cases allows you to laterally think around a problem and come up with the best solution. It can also allow you to better understand other people's reasoning behind what they do, which if you ever have to maintain any system, you really need.
Sorry about the life story, but I wanted to show you how diverse a background I've had, so there it is. Good luck with it all.
You could just prepend a 0 to the front of the old filenames, and it'll sort them all correctly.
See what happens when you don't use leading zeros? *grin*
Oh no! I made a mistake and accidently posted it with a +1 bonus. Now I'm going to get abused by the Karma Vigilantes!
F/X: Staples hand to forehead
What will I do now??????
</sarcasm>
It was a mistake. I can't change it either, otherwise I WOULD have. Live with it.
Some of us don't actually care that much about Karma. I post most of the time because I usually have some information to impart.
Sorry if I act human. It's mainly because I am.
Sheesh, my mistake.
Sorry for giving you information.
Just a note that I pre-ordered my copy about 2 weeks ago, just after the Chapter 11 thing.
The subject says it all really.
Of note: I'm in Australia, and it takes 4-7 days to get stuff shipped here from Loki, using their standard international service. Last stuff I ordered from Loki took 4 days, so I'm hoping I'll have it in about 24-48 hrs.
Loki sent me a note on the afternoon of the 27th (their time, morning of the 28th here) telling me my copy had shipped.
If anyone in Melbourne (Australia) goes to the PC-IT trade show, you can probably get to see the game in action, assuming it turns up in time, on the LUV (Linux Users of Victoria) stand.
Good stuff, but to clarify some of your points...
2. Bluetooth and 802.11b interoperability. Without breaking one standard or the other, it ain't going to happen. And even if you do break one standard, it won't be backwards compatible. The two standards conflict too much. 802.11b has a back-off mechanism. Bluetooth doesn't. I actually did some work looking into building a Bluetooth/802.11b AP that would try to cleanly give both Bluetooth and 802.11b time on the air without breaking either standard. It's too difficult. Bluetooth is just to strict on the timing (not to mention the big problem that some Bluetooth cards refuse to give up being the Master).
This is due to the Frequency Hopping (FH, as apposed to DS, Direct Sequence) nature of Bluetooth. It could be possible to build a dual-mode (or since you have an FH mode transmitter, tri-mode, as the original 802.11 spec allowed for FH or DS Spread Spectrum) that would do this, but it would definately have to be ONE CARD, as the transmitter/receiver sections would need to know exactly what frequencies are in use and avoid them. A dual card system simply would not be able to keep up.
Such dual radio systems have been proposed (Bluetooth FH/802.11b DS, and 802.11 FH/802.11b DS), but the costs associated with making such a beast, even after the initial development work - which is severly costly in itself, are horribly expensive, totally outweighing the benefits of such a device.
It is also interesting to note that the 802.15 TG2 group is working for co-existance. This is not the same as interoperability, but simply handling the presence of other signals on the same frequency band. For those that dont know, 802.15 is the IEEE sanitised version of Bluetooth.
3. 802.11 security was not broken. WEP was broken. Badly. But WEP is not the end-all, be-all of security. And yes, the industry _is_ working on better security, and has been for some time. IEEE 802.11 Task Group e is still in the process of agreeing upon a method for point-to-point security, with dynamically session keys, including a username/password setup. This is what the industry has wanted for some time. WEP was only meant to slow down the script kiddies who would just sit in parking lots with their cards set to associate to "ANY". I really wish people would stop assuming that WEP is the entirety of wireless security. It is not, and was never intended to be. One more note on this: it was not 802.11x that was broken. I'm not sure what 802.11x is, but it isn't a security standard. 802.1x is a LAN security standard, but even that isn't what was broken. Just WEP.
This is spot on the ball. The new standard they are working on sounds like it will be called 802.11i. The TGe group , which was working on MAC layer enhancements, decided to split into 2 task-groups, where the E group is to follow Quality of Service (QoS), and the I group is to follow Security. These were originally to be one standard, and breaking them up into 2 seperate standards IMHO is a GOOD THING.(tm)
Of note here is that most, if not all Access Points can be set up to NOT allow Mobile Units with no *SSID set to bind to them. They can still snoop on some data (it's their card receiving it), but it just takes them that little bit longer. Some Access Points allow you to provide Access Control lists for particular MAC Addresses of Mobile Units, which is a damn good idea if you have a reasonable number of mobile units. Remember: They can always listen in somehow, but wether they can access your network is another matter entirely.
4. 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11. 802.11 is the general IEEE group for Wireless LAN networking. 802.11b is the 11Mbps standard. 802.11a is the 5GHz 54Mbps standard (once they decide exactly what that standard is). TGe, which should translate to 802.11e will be the new security standard. There are others (including a standard for 22Mbps in the 2.4GHz band, which I _think_ is 802.11h), but I don't remember what most of them are.
As I mentioned, TGe has been split into 2 groups. The TGg group is working on 22+ Mbps standards in the 2.4 Ghz range, and currently look to be using Orthagonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (or OFDM, which is different again from DS and FH). More information about the 802.11 Standards can be found at the 802.11 Standards homepage at the IEEE.
Of note: OFDM looks to be the new 'holy grail' in not only wireless, but optical, and possibly even wired technology, as it allows much more of the usable "available" spectrum to be utilised for data transmission, with higher signal to noise ratio's. The 3G Cellular standards looks like they will be using OFDM, and new optical technologies that Lucent are trying to get off the ground will also be using it.
Think about it. Dynamix close their doors. Tribes2 is doing ok for Loki, but now without Dynamix about to pay guaranteed money for patches and upgrades, they don't have the money to stay with their current financial setup.
I'm guessing this is what some of the companies that Loki have ported games for were obligated to, assuming here that the patches were GAME fixes and not PORTING fixes. I'd expect porting issues to be the responsibility of Loki, and game design changes to be the company that wrote it in the first places problem. I may be wrong, but it seems rather likely to me.
Plus, there is no maintenance money for Quake3Arena now that ID Software have taken over the support for the Linux port themselves (happened a while back). This probably makes things a little hairy, and now that Dynamix have gone down the tubes, it sounds like they have just been pushed over the edge, and need a little security, hence the Chapter 11 reorganisation.
Well, I'm off to buy more Linux games from Loki, because while they are still around, I'm still going to support them. And this time I'm buying them direct from Loki. None of these places in the middle that absorb some of the cost themselves. Every little bit helps.
PS: Those that suggested cutting down on manuals and stuff, and putting PDF manuals on disk, well thats what they did with Tribes2. You get the CD in a plastic DVD-style case (the semi-decent ones), an 8 page (4 x A5 sheets of paper with double sided black and white print, stapled down the center) guide that tells you your Tribes2 Serial Number, the minimum system requirements, a quick "Getting started" install guide, how to register online with the Tribes2 system, tech support info, customer service info, a quick guide to the in-game voice menu keys, and a keyboard layout map of all the keys in the game. Everything else is in the PDF. I've yet to even open that PDF file though. *grin*
Just of note:
The Aplio/Pro is Linux based, and the Aplio/Phone is not (dedicated hardware). Aplio chose to head away from dedicated hardware simply because of the development costs.
All it seems as though they have done is to point the unit at their Gateway/Gatekeeper, which is how the calls get to/from the IP network to phone lines. These devices should quite easily be capable of talking to any gateway/gatekeeper that meets the specs, like Cisco, Ericsson, OpenH323, etc.
If you want to learn more about VOIP, and the H.323 protocol, check out http://www.openh323.org/ which has a wealth of information and links.
The ILID Partnership (or what they are doing) may be what you were thinking of. They have their Indoor Light Interactive Display system, which uses the Fluorescent lighting already present in a building to transmit data to electronic shelf labels, keeping their prices accurate. They did a lot of R&D proir to the systems being made available to consumers/businesses in 1999.
For more information, see http://www.ilid.com.au/
Something that I can see this having a use for, is for boxes that are going to soon (very probably) reach an 'end of life' in the IBM OS camp. True there is Project Montery, but some of these 64 bit machines could definately end up lying in the dust. Especially with a whole new OS and designers that may decide that the earlier systems are too 'hard' to support easily.
I'd much rather see IBM make sure that something decent still runs on older boxes, than having no shipping OS at all that will support such platforms.
And I'm not saying IBM will drop support for these platforms anytime soon, but it's much easier to get the thing started now, than later, when it could be too little, too late.
HP's PA-RISC's are a prime example. Linux runs on these, as various numbers of the machines fell into the hands of Linux developers that have experience in kernel code/porting. Unfortunately the machines never really made it, but at least the people out there have something that runs and is probably better supported than what you would otherwise get. It was the thing, just too late in the game. At least IBM aren't making the mistake of leaving people lingering with unusable hardware.
Also remember that IBM has a considerably large Second Hand group that reconditions trade-in systems and then sells them to more disadvanged groups or countries - and if they don't have an OS to ship on those machines, what do they do with them?
Of course, what contributions they get from some of the truely bright sparks in the community with the Linux port, may actually improve the way their own code monkeys write/implement their next OS kernel, which they can only view as a win-win situation.
Re: your comment...
Unforunately, all my forays into Linux gaming have shown that the Linux version of the game is slow, klunky, and occasionally buggier than the windows version. I've purchased two Linux games so far, and I wont again for a little time until that particular market stabailises, and decent graphics accelleration happens for Linux.
What card are you having the particular problem with, and what basic setup do you have? A lot of the video drivers had lots of issues, and X4 and new driver architechures have fixed a lot of this.
Stock-standard distributions that were released 9-12 months ago are just not going to have the stuff that works well, but then again, how many times on Windows do you need to install new video drivers, run Windows Update, or install new versions of graphics API's (DirectX)?
I've got a Nvidia GeForce DDR (32Mb) and on my K6/2-550 I used to get better (on average) frame rates than I used to get under Windows. Parsec just blows me away, with TWICE the frame rate as I get under the Windows version. Quake3Arena and Unreal Tournament run a lot more stable under Linux than they have ever done under Windows on my machine. YMMV, of course.
There are lots of people willing to help you get your setup working, so check out your local User Group and see what they can do for you. You might be pleasantly suprised.
Blast Radius 3 - http://br3.dual-enforcers.net/ - Australian LAN showcasing Linux
Well as for promoting Linux, we're trying.
I'm a member of the Linux Users of Victoria (here in Australia) and our Games Sig does all it can to help people run games on their Linux platform. From helping people simply install Linux, helping with driver issues and configuration, general information about games and hardware, and of course, fragging each other silly in LANs.
As it is, we're running a LAN soon called Blast Radius 3 that is catering specifically to gaming under Linux. We're allowing Windows and Mac users as well, but the idea is to showcase Linux as a Gamers Platform, and give them a taste of all the things we can do under Linux.
So do your part, Linux gamers. Organise a special interest group specifically for Games at your User Group. Start organising Tech Nights to help people get their systems up and running, informal and then formal LANs, and help other people catch the fever that is Linux Gaming.
There is also a large amount of elements that would be very useful, mainly as propellants and chemicals for orbital factories. Many of these chemicals are plentiful on Jupiter and Saturn, unlike here. There is also a lot more of Jupiter/Saturn available.
Jupiter also throws out some of the most devastating electromagnetic radiation, and if humans or human-made equipment is to survive under those sort of conditions, we need to research it!
What I want to know is when we are sending stuff to the asteroid belt to get some idea of the mineral composition that these asteroids have. They are our closest 'space-bourne' mineral source, and the least likely to be missed (as compared to the mountains on Mars, or some other feature).
They've put a Wine Bladder (as in a cask bladder) in a keg. BIG DEAL!
Why bother with the air in the first place. Just use a cask bladder anyway!
Anyway, back to being drunk. *grin*
Well this has sort of flattened out now, and Australia is doing a lot better, but it's still interesting to note whats probably happened here.
1. Earthquake/plate shift (and it seems like an earthquake/plate shift) has disrupted the cable between Jakarta and Singapore. Because of the way the cable is arranged, this will mean Jakarta and Australia are effectively getting zero bandwidth from Singapore. Earthquake/plate shift is highly suspected due to the recent (not long after the cable break) earthquake in Papua New Guinea. Telstra didn't allow for any real redundancy (by running dual cables seperated by a few hundred feet or more) in their cable run. One cable handles all the traffic, so a single break causes complete data loss. (Southern Cross uses a two cable system to allow redundancy in the case of a cable break).
2. The night of the cable break, a power station in Paddington, a suburb just east of Sydney (NSW) burnt down, dropping 20,000+ homes and businesses into a blackout. Paddington is where Telstra routes most of it's eastern states traffic, and indeed all traffic destined to go through the previously existing pipes from Sydney goes through Paddington. A simple hiccup or loss of power caused by failing generators could have caused havoc. Such a scenario seems very likely given the problems that appeared on Telstra's network that night. Any sub-system that kicked in may have not been able to handle multiple failures dealing with traffic problems (eg: fibre to Singapore being down, which goes via Perth, Western Australia), causing more headaches.
3. Due to floods, much (approximately one-third) of the NSW outback is under water, making any problems with cables running across this area difficult. Cables that might be under 6 feet of dirt are under an additional 12 feet of water making any repair hard. Microwave links running across this area could also suffer, due to power outages, or possibly tower foundations shifting and throwing communications out of whack.
Anyway, things seem a lot better for Aussie internal traffic, and external traffic isn't TOO bad (apparently). Fortunately I'm with Optus Cable (who have their own link to the US) at home, and UEComm (One of the many companies who use Southern Cross) at work. *grin*
Fat pipes, IPv6 ... next they'll announce affordable satellite links to the whole country, lead-into-gold machines, etc.
The place I work at actually has a 10 meg Fibre connection through UEComm. One thing that startled us at the time we found out about them (around March) was that they could get us a 2 Meg fibre link at about the same cost as a 128k ISDN would cost (rent wise). ISDN is just way too expensive over here, and ADSL is not usable yet, and in some places won't be simply because of transmission distance from exchange to user. It took 3 months to get the damn thing connected, but we haven't looked back (we got 2 Meg, and then uppped to 10 Meg cos it was simply cheap enough that we could).
UEComm also have a fairly decent network behind it, and the fibre is reasonable quality (they believe that with current technology they'll happily get 2 Gigabits down each fibre linking the network together, and they've got a LOT of fibres linking places together. They ran 16 pairs into our building, and they're at least capable of 622 Megabit. I don't think the place I work at will have much of a bandwidth problem for a while anyway!)
Btw: Affordable satellite links? Define affordable. There are a few ISP's running such services here in Australia, with moderate success. Data pretty much comes direct from the US, so Overseas traffic tends to be faster.
Management making completely uninformed decisions is what causes a lot of stress. And once a project rolls out, clueless clients make up most of the rest of the stress. And both the clients and the management do not know how to express their problems or requests well enough so that everyone will actually know what is going on, and what is required.
People should plan for problems as well, which is another major lacking. Plan for that project to blow out, plan for the service to fail, plan for disaster. Doesn't have to be by much, but a few days here and there make a HUGE difference to the stress on the people working on it when there are those last niggling things to rectify that just won't dissapear!
This is what happens when people get into areas they have no understanding of. Up and beyond their level of competence. Wether it is because of lack of training or because they just don't know is no excuse. It exerts pressure on the people that the problems fall onto, and that is usually the technical staff. It is more prevalent in the IT Industry, but it happens everywhere.
It is amazing just how many managers really do act like the PHB's in Dilbert.
Can you tell I had a really bad day today?
Unfortunately a lot of ISP network roll-outs are done by people with very little IP network experience, or by "high paid" consultants.
The people without network experience are somewhat excused, but they should have gotten someone to look it over, and actually try some sort of penetration tests. They'd probably find a lot more wrong with it than routing non-routable IP's.
The consultants don't tend to bother unless asked, as it adds to their already high workload, plus they most likely think "I'm not getting paid enough to do that as well!". Some even just assume that the routers won't even route this sort of traffic unless told to.
A lot of routers don't help in this situation either. The training courses and/or materials for setting them up in many cases are rather badly written, don't cover a huge number of setup scenarios, and usually don't even bother to bring up these sorts of things at all.
On top of all this, you get things like the Managing Director of the company connecting a modem up to his PC and dialling out to his home account cos the connection to the net through the filewall is too slow (which is actually cos someone is trying to launch a DOS attack on your firewall), and then someone gets to his local files cos of some piece of software that he shouldn't have on the laptop in the first place.
Regardless, even if they did block the non-routable IP's, you should still "trust no one" and block whatever you can. If it's connected to the outside world, then there is a possibility that somehow, you could lose out.
The only way to truely protect your data is to grind up your hard drive into powder, magnetize it all, then heat it into a liquid. Cool and grind it up again, scatter it into the wind, and just HOPE entropy does the rest.
Just a note that the Symbol PPT 2700 has their Spectrum24 Wireless Networking as an option on the unit (PPT 2740). Spectrum24 is an IEEE 802.11 certified system for wireless communication over short distances using the 2.4 Ghz ISM band.
The Symbol units also have an integral barcode reader which aims the device at data collection. This is quite understandable given that Symbol have been working with barcoding technology for many, many years. (You can also use the barcode reader as a laser pointer.)
However, Symbol also have another unit that runs PalmOS (SPT 1500 and SPT 1700) and also has a Spectrum24 Wireless Networking option (SPT 1540 and SPT 1740), and also ships with a radio capable version of the HotSync product. The SPT 1700 series is a ruggedised version of the SPT 1500 series product, and more resembles the shape of the PPT 2700.
Whoever wrote this patent has a very good understanding of Power Supply construction, specifically in relation to Switch Mode Power Supplies. Wether the rest of the premise is actually viable is not for me to guess.
The way they are talking about using accelerators, magnetic fields, and a heat source tends to give me the idea that this thing could be re-arranged to look like some big "Flux Capacitor" from Back to the Future. *grin*
File system support is a very touchy area for most, but few see the real potential, and why we need so many file systems supported in Linux.
Just think if you had a box in the office, that if any one of your big iron machines (IBM, SGI, Compaq, etc) decided to up and fail, you could just plug the drive into, and get at your data immediately to get things done. Granted it might not be as fast as the traditional system that you use for every day operations, but this is an "emergency backup". You live with reduced performance instead of no performance at all.
I can see Linux becoming that box. That all purpose box of tricks that a System Administrator can use to his disposal. It's already there in the network doing just that job, and gaining ground. There is a lot more this little system can do that even the big irons can't compete with. And if we want Linux to be the best... *grin*
As for kernel support, all that the many systems will do is provide a very decent API system for passing data to/from the kernel for these Journalling/High Performance systems. Sure everyone does the final product differently, but if the kernel can output a generic, yet fast method for all the file systems to use, then we gain some instant advantages. Firstly we can run all these systems, which is a must, but secondly it opens up an interface that can be exploited by a newly developed system to the max, giving us the best performance possible.
This is not going to be easy, and as people improve their programming techniques and new people get into the kernel code, there is bound to be new revisions, and mebbe even total rewrites. Just look at the networking code. Major revamps by dedicated people have produced now a significantly faster network layer. True a lot of it got re-written, but that is the price you pay for progress.
So instead of bitching about it, lets just let them get on with the job of doing it, and where possible help out. When they make mistakes, don't abuse, just give them a prod in the right direction.
--- Every decision is right, it's just a matter of whose right we are refering to.
Wireless is insanely useful for the portable market. Portable devices that aren't tethered by a cable are becoming more and more prominent in the workplace. The cost however is somewhat justified (note that I said somewhat - read below).
There is a lot of processing power in those little cards to implement the IEEE 802.11 spread spectrum model. They're not cheap for that very reason. Plus you don't have as huge a cable infrastructure, which is a cost most places forget about.
There are on average about 3-4 times as many components/transistors on a wireless card as there are on a comparable network card. You also have to remember that almost all PCI/ISA wireless cards are really a PCMCIA card in a PCMCIA adapter. Compare the cost of a PCMCIA network card to a PCMCIA wireless card and the difference isn't as great as it first seemed.
Why stick with PCMCIA and use adaptors? Well for a start, developing 2 cards in completely different technologies tends to take way too much time, and leads to revision problems. Add to this that the greatest market for wireless is actually portable devices that have PCMCIA slots, and you can see the economics that cause the choice.
However, I'd still like to see a Compact Flash version of these (and using a CF to PCMCIA adaptor, you can still stick with one version), even if it sticks out of the Compact Flash slot. This would bring wireless solutions to devices that could really benefit them. e.g. Cameras - you take a pic, it stores it locally, and then sends it over the wireless link to a box nearby to store it. PDA's - allows you to access network resouces when in range. And so on.
There are also H.323 compliant phones available that use IEEE 802.11 spread spectrum. They operate across your normal wireless network to provide wireless telephony. Now if only the cost would come down, I'd be happy! *sigh*