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User: bpechter

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  1. www.google.com/ie gone -- also used by the blind. on Scroogle Has Been Blocked · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The wife used the www.google.com/ie interface for accessability reasons. It worked much better for her with her screen reader. She's totally blind. She'll miss the interface and I know there were others using it for the same reason.

  2. Time to bring back usenet on Spam Causes Microsoft To Kill Newsgroups · · Score: 1

    Time to bring back point to point newsfeeds which limit access. Spam control by knowing exactly who you'll feed -- and who you cut off for spam.

    Bring back the days before Eternal September and the great renaming.

  3. Re:ClearOS on What Advice For a Single Parent As Server Admin? · · Score: 1

    ClearOS (I used the earlier ClarkConnect 3.x and 4.x) was ok but a bit more than I needed (web shares and pages were more than I
    needed).

    I've added most of what I need on top of IPCOP. Filtering, time based controls are available.

    I put in my own dhcp and dns to allow me to redirect the gateway to a non-existant IP so I can have a time period when my kid can use the network based printer and computer for homework -- but not get to the outside world to screw around with Social Networking or games... I ssh in and run a script to restart dhcp to allow access to the outside when the work's done.

    Having openvpn so I can get to the home network securely was a plus.

  4. Re:FreeVMS on OpenSolaris Or FreeBSD? · · Score: 1

    Also... take a look at the early Unix varients for PDP11 for SimH. You wouldn't recognize it.

  5. Re:FreeVMS on OpenSolaris Or FreeBSD? · · Score: 5, Informative

    Instead of FreeVMS which isn't ready for prime time... Get the OpenVMS hobbiest edition, load up SimH and run OpenVMS on a real emulated Vax. For fun you could boot OpenBSD, NetBSD or BSD4.x on the emulated Vax.

    As far as Solaris vs. BSD -- I run 'em both here. Solaris mostly on Sparc and BSD on x86. I've done Solaris x86
    and it's ok, but it's really fun to set up a jumpstart server and load up some old Sparcs.

    I've even got SunOS 4.1.4 up...

    Take a look at the software available on the http://www.openvmshobbyist.com/ site. A ton of VMS languages including C, ADA, Pascal, Macro32... TCP/IP and Clustering.

    http://simh.trailing-edge.com/

  6. Old Linux on Installing Linux On Old Hardware? · · Score: 1

    Use only old Linux.

    Corel 1.2 is quite nice on my Pentium 166 with 60Mb.
    RH6.2, Slackware, older Debian. I ran FreeBSD 3.x on a Thinkpad 365 with 486 and 28 mhz. I usuallly rebuild the OpenSSL and OpenSSH from source to avoid major security holes for when I need to ssh to a work site.

    I'm amazed how much more power even these $250 Netbooks have.

    Bill

  7. Re:Getting old in IT is the kiss of death. on Moving Away From the IT Field? · · Score: 1

    Having been in IT for 25 years now and looking a lot like the description... Thank you 8-).

    The main thing is there are good techies and bad techies. A lot of folks jumped for the high salary without having the skill set needed to troubleshoot or communicate effectively.

    I came to IT after a couple of years in Journalism and PR. I retrained after a period of unemployment on my dime becoming an electronics tech and working through from Field Service on minicomputers to Minicomputer Hardware Instructor to Unix Admin and Sys Admin trainer.

    The problem is that in the old days the folks that ran IT came up the line from operator to systems programmer/administrator/manager to IT operations head and CIO.

    Now the folks running stuff often don't have the technical background and experience or the will to fight the corporate battles with the bean counters who demand instant quick fixes and ROI before the implementation is complete.

    Give me an old pre-pc computer type who understands how an ALU works or how software paging and swapping work and I think I've got a better chance of getting something fixed.

    There are few professionals out there who can read a crash dump or run with a debugger on an app or even run tcpdump/wireshark and lots of "I reboot and reload the app and server completely" to try to get it up.

    --another old greybeard.

    >>> B DBA0

  8. Re:Take the ISP's and Corpoartions OUT OF THE LOOP on US ISPs Announce Anti-Child-Porn Agreement · · Score: 1

    Bring back USENET the way it was supposed to be.
    Drop the binaries and pictures and move it by modems again or UUCP over TCP inside of an ssl or ssh tunnel.

    My Telebit is ready.

    They'll take my alt.folklore.computers away when they pry the keyboard from my cold dead hands.

  9. IPCop and Cop+ with Dans Guardian on How To Configure Real PC Parental Controls? · · Score: 1

    If there's a reasonable old PC available that can run IP Cop it's fairly easy.
    I've done it with my Daughter and IPCop, Clark Connect, Smoothwall.

    It takes some maintenance and effort, though. Perhaps it should be a business opportunity for me -- but most folks think the PC software packages like McAfee's Privacy Manager would work. My kid got through that one in 15 minutes when she beat the password manager into submission and got my admin password on it.

    The Linux firewall method with content filter works well. Perhaps the commercial ClarkConnect would work since the Point Clark networks folks would support her and you wouldn't have to.

  10. Re:GPL vs. BSD on TiVo Says It Could Suffer Under GPLv3 · · Score: 1

    I guess they should move the Tivo to FreeBSD then...

  11. Re:Heard this before... on Sun CTO Predicts Internet Consolidation Endgame · · Score: 1

    Ken Olsen at DEC had an early view of the problem of too many amateurs and non-professionals having interconnected computers. Virus problems, lack of backups, remote controlled spambots... Ugh.

    He issued the quote below... It seems to me many companies would be better served with simpler web based access to services provided by ASPs. The problem is the current ASPs are putting far too much crap on the web eating bandwidth and demanding faster and higher end clients.

    Less graphics is good. Less flash is good. Streaming video is good for support and training. Putting television type commercials on the web is bad. Eats too much network resources. How about some good PDFs instead.

    I remember the old text based CompuServe and fairly lightweight AOL Geoworks and think far too much has been integrated into browsers with plugins.

      "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
        home."
                                    -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, World Future Society
                                          Convention, 1977

  12. They are already available -- retail. on Could I Run a TV Station on Linux? · · Score: 1

    There are companies selling servers to do this already. It can and has been done and is available for purchase. http://www.princetonservergroup.com/about.php

  13. Re:Where is the Cluster? on Cray Co-Founder Joins Microsoft · · Score: 1

    They also have Craig Mundie -- who was the head of Alliant (and an ex-DG guy) who did a vectorizing 68k look-alike parallel processor box in the 86 timeframe.

    Bill

  14. Re:Never mind your long post -- Who Pays RedHat? on McVoy Strikes Back · · Score: 1
    There's nothing wrong with Open Source -- but as far as the article goes -- McVoy is completely correct.


    Support for products where it all works as designed is pretty much for the shrink-wrapped market.


    Plenty of companies are using Fedora Core and Whitebox, CentOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD etc... without support as the basis of products and services because they can't see the benefit of paying RedHat support licenses... especially if they have the talent in-house (which most companies using FOSS do) to do their own support.


    I'm not sure how many non-MIS shops in big companies are paying RedHat yearly for updates and support.

  15. It's a Sun IPC... or IPX... on Intel Flaunts Mac mini Knock-off · · Score: 1

    Nothing new here...
    I wish I could just find a PC motherboard with SCSI for all my old IPC/IPX cases.

    Bill

  16. Re:Impressed with Solaris on Comparing MySQL Performance · · Score: 1

    Not with AIX on x86.
    8-)

    I've used Solaris 1.x-9 and Aix 3.2.x->4.1.4
    and I've had good luck and results with both.
    I'm sorry IBM didn't put AIX on x86 and went with Linux. I'd have liked the availability of both.

    I think AIX is easier for non-tech heavy sites with the gui based admin tools.

    Webmin's not quite as slick. And when an RS6000
    dies with numbers in the LED's it's rather cool.

    Bill

  17. Time for someone to put real "Tech" in "Tech TV" on G4 Drops TechTV Name · · Score: 1

    I watched tech tv in the early ZD days and it was ok, but I figured with the amount of people doing real technology IT stuff in the world there should be a channel on broadband with room for REAL serious tech stuff... Linux, *BSD, server load balancing, Cisco, VOIP.

    I keep wondering if there's enough interest to fund programs like that in today's environment.

    Would some IT tech companies sponsor a webcast site for independant reviews and coverage?

    This ex-Vax geek turned Unix admin would love a real news show (kind of stuff from http://www.theregister.com, slashdot, http://www.theinquirer.net etc.

  18. Re:What's so great about FreeBSD 5? on The State of the Demon Address · · Score: 1

    File system snapshots like NetApps so you can back up open file systems and recover deleted files are pretty slick

  19. There goes VMS on the desktop again... on HP Terminates Itanium Workstations · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The only reason I'd consider IA64 on my desktop was if it was a VMS Workstation...

    Damn... First the Alpha killed then this.
    Guess it's up to SimH on Athlon or P4 to emulate one.

    I wish the hell HP ported VMS to IA32 instead 8-).

    Bill

  20. Re:4 for 4 -- Well with McAfee Firewall it won't on Windows XP SP2 Still Rough Around the Edges · · Score: 1
    Two for two no boot after McAfee Firewall was installed.

    Luckily I could reinstall one (it was a clean install before that) and the other one I was able to get into safe mode and deinstall that program.

    So far I'm not impressed.

    Bill

  21. Re:Recruit CEO's of corps benefitting from OSS on Ken Brown Responds to His Critics · · Score: 1

    How about Steve Wozniak, he's got no axe to grind and is very non-political and isn't involved in it as a major OS/Software/Hardware vendor.

  22. Re:Better served by a standard *nix shell on Microsoft's new CLI · · Score: 1

    Unix Services for Windows does NIS...

  23. Re:Better served by a standard *nix shell on Microsoft's new CLI · · Score: 1

    That may be true.

    Does this look like DEC VAX DCL or what?

    $p = get/process FileName
    $p[5].ToString()
    foreach ($p) { $p.ToString() }

  24. Re:What linux needs is dump/restore on What High End Unix Features are Missing from Linux? · · Score: 1

    No, like real incrental dump and restore with
    the ability to do interactive file restore with dump -i on all supported filesystem types.

    Bill

  25. What linux needs is dump/restore on What High End Unix Features are Missing from Linux? · · Score: 1

    Linux needs a 100% bulletproof dump and restore set for each filesystem type available on the OS...

    Like ufsrestore for Solaris and dump/restore on BSD.
    Cpio and tar only go so far for backup.

    I'd like to see a minimum linux install cd that would allow a bare metal restore (with miniroot on cd) for Linux.