Sockets are expensive and would add considerably to the height of the component. Everything is surface mount now.
Give the cost of a new system (or components), adding $1.00 per socket (approximate cost for sockets of this size) for parts that are likley to fail (I know the cost of sockets is less than this); this statement doesn't hold water.
I'm glad that every one of your flash updates has worked. I've performed MANY upgrades successfully. I follow the directions, make sure the power is good, etc. Success not the question here, but - what happens when one is advised of an upgrade (not just a casual... look it's late) and the upgrade fails?
LSI: I ran into problems with later hard drives being recognized. I was advised to flash the BIOS. It bricked the controller. After the advice of "buy another"; I removed all of the (in service) LSI controllers, as the risk of data loss (and the need for later hard drive compatibility) forced me to remove them.
Which part to remove? In the system, there are four parts that have "copyright" stickers on them. Once I get the part removed, where to I get a "true" image of the BIOS to replace? (Dell only gives install via GUI, no image that I can find).
System: Dell PE 1950; critical update for the BMC controller.
... BTW: EMS firmware upgrade for the BSM V 2.50 bricked two motherboards. The motherboard for system #1 *may* have had a faulty BMC, however system #2 was working perfectly.
One problem with that: Actually getting the media from the OEM. I've not checked with Win 7, but you cannot get Win XP from any OEM. MS told them to no longer make it avaialble. They've done the same with Win 2K3. I had a damaged media - (at different times), both Win XP & Win 2K3, and had to go to eBay to get the media replaced (with the annoying "hardware").
I'm running into a problem -- Company "A" is good, they use standard 8 1/2 x 11. Company "B" uses something else, and won't scan (or loot right if I do need to print it out). Company "C" will send my information, on pdf, with the email encrypted. Company "D" will encrypt the PDF, with the last 4 of my SS#. Company "E" will send me an email invoice, company "F" will attached a PDF, company "G" expected me to print the invoice/information out from a web page (No, I don't have Adobe Acrobat).
Windows Home Server is a viable option. You can choose the power of the server... from a Dell PE 1900 class to a Atom processor.... or more or less. In addition to homing all of your media (MP3, Vid etc) it can allow remote access to your system(s), perform nightly backups of (windows) based systems. It is expandable (add another multi-TB drive whenever you want to). It can be headless (depending on the home layout, find a nice 'cool' place in the basement). There are also many 3rd party add-on's to enhance your network.
As a small business owner, I don't have time to edit / mange / update much of the mundane work with my webserver (Work to be done at a "developer level" -- right now it is so out of date, it isn't funny). I was hoping to use SharePoint for the, and to use its document management abilities. Though I will look at “SharePoint Foundation”, I suspect that as it is "free", it will be hobbled to the point that I won’t be able to use it for my needs.
As a small business owner, I was looking to implement SharePoint Server. I've downloaded the evaluation, getting the hardware together (have the server, need the drives/more RAM). Now I see that this already bloated {overpriced} software is going to go up by 38%.
I don't know where I'm going to turn to, but it was on the outside edge of what I could afford. Now, to research the market for other options. Viable suggestions would be appreciated. Is it time to add a section to Slash that would have replacement recommendations options or for overpriced [MS] software?
There is. But I'm not a writer. I can point out the facts, but articulation is not my specialty. How to say that there is no GSR (or stippling powder burns) on her... anywhere? Or a burn mark on the entrance wound? Or that the bullet trajectory doesn't work? Or that the police won't perform luminal tests? Or that the police have not questioned the person in the room at that time? Or that a revolver /.22 sounded like a cap gun when it went off? Or that he left the state the next morning? (and that he didn't say around for the memorial service, that afternoon?) Or that the bullet is typical for a shot of about two feet away? Or that there is an unexplained blood stain? Or that he refused to render first aid? The list goes on and on. I've talked to three people so far in detail, and to outline... just the key parts - questions takes about two hours. Yet most of the questions could be answered if the police were to investigate.
Just over a year ago, my daughter was murdered. I was told initially, that it was suicide. Then I was told it was a bad accident. I was threatened by the police not to investigate it, or I would be charged with obstruction. Through some irregularities with her brief hospital satay, I was presented with facts that do not add up. So, I started asking the police some questions. Quickly, they stopped answering, and then lied about their responses.
I’m not just another father grieving over his suicide daughter. For those that I’ve talked to about it I just barely get into the details (19 bruises, lack of GSR, plans for the next few days – and so very much more) and I’m asked if he is still being held in prison. My answer is no: They ‘interviewed’ him twice for a total of 60 minutes, and let him leave the state.
Rose was murdered in a small county, with a sheriff that refuses to investigate (or respond). I (we) cannot afford to hire a private investigator, or a PR company. The ‘big city’ news agencies will not return phone calls. How does one motivate a lazy, small hick down, with a lying sheriff to do the right thing? I know that they cannot afford to do a full “CSI” stile investigation, but dam, get the evidence that has been there for over a year. Talk to witnesses that were with her that day. Keep in reasonable contact with the family
Perhaps piggy back on another story, in hope that someone will be able to render some assistance?
Part of the story can be found here - Remember Rose French
There is another article... Time-twisting test stuck in limbo that I read about, and I was wondering if the articles might be related - or the experiment might be related to this article and they didn't know about the relationship?
Having just started cleaning my house, this story comes close to my heart. Looking around, I have 6 boxes of old “documents”. What to do with them?
First to cover the common areas: Video:
I have two TIVO boxes, one is high definition, both recording constantly.
I have one system with 8TB of storage to sort/organize the incoming TIVO recording.
I’m setting up two 60TB servers for my “movies and TV shows”. (Each will handle 26 hard drives). I use the term “setting up” as I’ve run into some issues with these systems.
Binary:
I have a 2TB system set up for binary files. (This would be development, OS, drivers, patches and the like). You never know when you will need a DOS bootable disc.
Music:
I have one system (with 2TB storage) to handle my MP3’s. (Still need to sort/organize/remove duplicates). Currently this one also houses my image collection, important documents and the like. It is acting as kind of a catchall for everything else.
Data:
I’ve recently set up a system to handle “data” (document based); with 130 GB of space. I’m using “Home Document Manager” . Though not mature, they are more amenable to fixing the problems.
And now to the point:Organization. Overview
The first – glaring issue is lack of a good storage house. Most management systems sort a single file in a single location, sometimes with tags. A good example of the problem that I found: what if I have a Medical Bill, which is being kept for Legal reasons, which I will need at Tax time? What if I have a MP3, Music Video and Movie that I would like to tie together (or heaven forbid multiple playlists)? Or Movie props that I’ve purchased off eBay.
I would not like to keep the medical bill after 3 years, but for legal reason would like to keep it for seven. I don’t want to delete the “item”, but I no longer need to be reminded about the “bill”. I don’t want to have multiple copies of the same item, which makes searching a nightmare. And “tags” are a start, but are not granular enough.
Video organization:
Extreme Movie Manager. Ok, it has some bugs, but it does a VERY good job. With its multiple views, and multiple ways of keeping track of movies, it is the best one that I’ve seen.
Music: Currently I’m (just) using Media Monkey and MS Media Player. Media Money has a severe limitation in that it does not handle video (read music videos-Watch "Vertical Lines" by Leather Hands to get the point). I attempted to use an “automated sorting” system, however it has significant issues, the biggest being it took MPS’s from a known group (1970’s for example), and moved them to “Unknown”, “Unknown”. Can’t use that. I also used Clone Master, and found that I have almost 2500 duplicate (MP3) files. Unfortunately, it “guesses” the wrong one most time for the likely file needing to be deleted.
Binary is actually the most straightforward simple file structure
Other issues:
Video Servers: I’m also running hard drive selection into issues with the video servers. The problem is: Enterprise class SATA drives are expensive, “small” (only 2TB), fast (as such they use a lot more energy). “Green” drives are cheap and plentiful and use a lot less power (and generate a lot less heat) however they are not compatible with the RAID controllers needed.
Video Playback: I have a decent system to handle the Blue-ray, high def requirements. However the software also has problems: In/with high def you can’t read the “default” fonts displayed
MS Excell also has other... issues. Try sorting with ASCII some time. Which brings up a related topic: Everyone (okay, not Microsoft/excel) can sort find/compare with ASCII. Unicode? I spend two days fighting postgresql trying to get unicode chars to match.
Can a program be written to notify if it's information is being 'given' out? Anyway, this is one more reason to NOT get one (cell phone). I was finally going to break down, and get one. With this report, it one more reason to just say no.
I've not seen it directly mentioned here, but there is another problem what should also be addressed - software compatibility. I can think of three types of problems, and at least being aware of the problems would be a start; though a 'formal solution' would be better.
Example #1: Hard drive limitations - CorelDRAW for example; in earlier versions, the setup would fail with a vague error message. After fighting through tech support, I was able to find out that they didn't expect to have hard drives as large as 1GB. The solution was to setup a partition (with OS) that was less than 1GB. (Required me to setup another system). After the install is completed, a different utility ("Ghost" for example) could be used to transfer the entire OS to a larger drive.
Example #2: Copy protection based on outdated ideas. Some games used copy protection based on the speed / access to the CD-ROM drive. The first versions of Command & Conquer don't like fast CD-ROM drives. Finding an old 1 to 6x CD-ROM drive is not always a practical option. I'm sure that there are fixes / hacks for this particular problem, but the idea / concept needs to be aware for anyone working in this type of issue.
Example #3: Software that is dependent on the speed of the CPU. Gapper is a great example of this. The game was written for an 8088 CPU. On a 80286, it is a challenge, on a 386 it is almost impossible. Anything else, forget it. Short of finding an older system, I don't know of any viable work around for this type of problem. (I've tried to use "cpu slowdown" software, which did NOT slow the system down enough).
This could be setup as a compatibility "web page" somewhere, with the compatibility problem, and solutions. One would have to watch out that the line of "piracy" (and/or breaking of copy protection) is not crossed.
Slashdot Mirror
Sockets are expensive and would add considerably to the height of the component. Everything is surface mount now.
Give the cost of a new system (or components), adding $1.00 per socket (approximate cost for sockets of this size) for parts that are likley to fail (I know the cost of sockets is less than this); this statement doesn't hold water.
For the Dell system - Windows exe (for the BMC upgrade, listed by Dell as "critical")
For the LSI it was a boot disk
However: the question is about the failure -- when advised to upgrade, and the upgrade fails what to do then.
Right! That's why I hold on to Netscape Navigator 1.0.
Dang right! And my rotary phone with the long extension suites me just fine!
Not legal in this state... HOWEVER: I believe that Dell does record every conversation....
I'm glad that every one of your flash updates has worked. I've performed MANY upgrades successfully. I follow the directions, make sure the power is good, etc. Success not the question here, but - what happens when one is advised of an upgrade (not just a casual ... look it's late) and the upgrade fails?
LSI: I ran into problems with later hard drives being recognized. I was advised to flash the BIOS. It bricked the controller. After the advice of "buy another"; I removed all of the (in service) LSI controllers, as the risk of data loss (and the need for later hard drive compatibility) forced me to remove them.
Which part to remove? In the system, there are four parts that have "copyright" stickers on them. Once I get the part removed, where to I get a "true" image of the BIOS to replace? (Dell only gives install via GUI, no image that I can find).
System: Dell PE 1950; critical update for the BMC controller.
One problem with that: Actually getting the media from the OEM. I've not checked with Win 7, but you cannot get Win XP from any OEM. MS told them to no longer make it avaialble. They've done the same with Win 2K3. I had a damaged media - (at different times), both Win XP & Win 2K3, and had to go to eBay to get the media replaced (with the annoying "hardware").
I'm running into a problem -- Company "A" is good, they use standard 8 1/2 x 11. Company "B" uses something else, and won't scan (or loot right if I do need to print it out). Company "C" will send my information, on pdf, with the email encrypted. Company "D" will encrypt the PDF, with the last 4 of my SS#. Company "E" will send me an email invoice, company "F" will attached a PDF, company "G" expected me to print the invoice/information out from a web page (No, I don't have Adobe Acrobat).
Can we all just standardize and get along?
Windows Home Server is a viable option. You can choose the power of the server... from a Dell PE 1900 class to a Atom processor.... or more or less. In addition to homing all of your media (MP3, Vid etc) it can allow remote access to your system(s), perform nightly backups of (windows) based systems. It is expandable (add another multi-TB drive whenever you want to). It can be headless (depending on the home layout, find a nice 'cool' place in the basement). There are also many 3rd party add-on's to enhance your network.
As a small business owner, I don't have time to edit / mange / update much of the mundane work with my webserver (Work to be done at a "developer level" -- right now it is so out of date, it isn't funny). I was hoping to use SharePoint for the, and to use its document management abilities. Though I will look at “SharePoint Foundation”, I suspect that as it is "free", it will be hobbled to the point that I won’t be able to use it for my needs.
As a small business owner, I was looking to implement SharePoint Server. I've downloaded the evaluation, getting the hardware together (have the server, need the drives/more RAM). Now I see that this already bloated {overpriced} software is going to go up by 38%. I don't know where I'm going to turn to, but it was on the outside edge of what I could afford. Now, to research the market for other options. Viable suggestions would be appreciated. Is it time to add a section to Slash that would have replacement recommendations options or for overpriced [MS] software?
This one by State Farm is better... and it shows the ice in the oil trick!
There is. But I'm not a writer. I can point out the facts, but articulation is not my specialty. How to say that there is no GSR (or stippling powder burns) on her... anywhere? Or a burn mark on the entrance wound? Or that the bullet trajectory doesn't work? Or that the police won't perform luminal tests? Or that the police have not questioned the person in the room at that time? Or that a revolver / .22 sounded like a cap gun when it went off? Or that he left the state the next morning? (and that he didn't say around for the memorial service, that afternoon?) Or that the bullet is typical for a shot of about two feet away? Or that there is an unexplained blood stain? Or that he refused to render first aid? The list goes on and on. I've talked to three people so far in detail, and to outline ... just the key parts - questions takes about two hours. Yet most of the questions could be answered if the police were to investigate.
Just over a year ago, my daughter was murdered. I was told initially, that it was suicide. Then I was told it was a bad accident. I was threatened by the police not to investigate it, or I would be charged with obstruction. Through some irregularities with her brief hospital satay, I was presented with facts that do not add up. So, I started asking the police some questions. Quickly, they stopped answering, and then lied about their responses.
I’m not just another father grieving over his suicide daughter. For those that I’ve talked to about it I just barely get into the details (19 bruises, lack of GSR, plans for the next few days – and so very much more) and I’m asked if he is still being held in prison. My answer is no: They ‘interviewed’ him twice for a total of 60 minutes, and let him leave the state. Rose was murdered in a small county, with a sheriff that refuses to investigate (or respond). I (we) cannot afford to hire a private investigator, or a PR company. The ‘big city’ news agencies will not return phone calls. How does one motivate a lazy, small hick down, with a lying sheriff to do the right thing? I know that they cannot afford to do a full “CSI” stile investigation, but dam, get the evidence that has been there for over a year. Talk to witnesses that were with her that day. Keep in reasonable contact with the family
Perhaps piggy back on another story, in hope that someone will be able to render some assistance?
Part of the story can be found here - Remember Rose French
There is another article ... Time-twisting test stuck in limbo that I read about, and I was wondering if the articles might be related - or the experiment might be related to this article and they didn't know about the relationship?
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Having just started cleaning my house, this story comes close to my heart. Looking around, I have 6 boxes of old “documents”. What to do with them?
First to cover the common areas:
Video:
I have two TIVO boxes, one is high definition, both recording constantly.
I have one system with 8TB of storage to sort/organize the incoming TIVO recording.
I’m setting up two 60TB servers for my “movies and TV shows”. (Each will handle 26 hard drives). I use the term “setting up” as I’ve run into some issues with these systems.
Binary:
I have a 2TB system set up for binary files. (This would be development, OS, drivers, patches and the like). You never know when you will need a DOS bootable disc.
Music:
I have one system (with 2TB storage) to handle my MP3’s. (Still need to sort/organize/remove duplicates). Currently this one also houses my image collection, important documents and the like. It is acting as kind of a catchall for everything else.
Data:
I’ve recently set up a system to handle “data” (document based); with 130 GB of space. I’m using “Home Document Manager” . Though not mature, they are more amenable to fixing the problems.
And now to the point: Organization.
Overview
The first – glaring issue is lack of a good storage house. Most management systems sort a single file in a single location, sometimes with tags. A good example of the problem that I found: what if I have a Medical Bill, which is being kept for Legal reasons, which I will need at Tax time? What if I have a MP3, Music Video and Movie that I would like to tie together (or heaven forbid multiple playlists)? Or Movie props that I’ve purchased off eBay.
I would not like to keep the medical bill after 3 years, but for legal reason would like to keep it for seven. I don’t want to delete the “item”, but I no longer need to be reminded about the “bill”. I don’t want to have multiple copies of the same item, which makes searching a nightmare. And “tags” are a start, but are not granular enough.
Video organization:
Extreme Movie Manager. Ok, it has some bugs, but it does a VERY good job. With its multiple views, and multiple ways of keeping track of movies, it is the best one that I’ve seen.
Music: Currently I’m (just) using Media Monkey and MS Media Player. Media Money has a severe limitation in that it does not handle video (read music videos-Watch "Vertical Lines" by Leather Hands to get the point). I attempted to use an “automated sorting” system, however it has significant issues, the biggest being it took MPS’s from a known group (1970’s for example), and moved them to “Unknown”, “Unknown”. Can’t use that. I also used Clone Master, and found that I have almost 2500 duplicate (MP3) files. Unfortunately, it “guesses” the wrong one most time for the likely file needing to be deleted.
Binary is actually the most straightforward simple file structure
Other issues:
Video Servers: I’m also running hard drive selection into issues with the video servers. The problem is: Enterprise class SATA drives are expensive, “small” (only 2TB), fast (as such they use a lot more energy). “Green” drives are cheap and plentiful and use a lot less power (and generate a lot less heat) however they are not compatible with the RAID controllers needed.
Video Playback: I have a decent system to handle the Blue-ray, high def requirements. However the software also has problems: In/with high def you can’t read the “default” fonts displayed
MS Excell also has other ... issues. Try sorting with ASCII some time. Which brings up a related topic: Everyone (okay, not Microsoft/excel) can sort find/compare with ASCII. Unicode? I spend two days fighting postgresql trying to get unicode chars to match.
The slashdot article "How To Verify CD-R Data Retention Over Time?" covered this a LONG time ago...
Can a program be written to notify if it's information is being 'given' out? Anyway, this is one more reason to NOT get one (cell phone). I was finally going to break down, and get one. With this report, it one more reason to just say no.
And I'll bet that most of them played video games as a child.
I've not seen it directly mentioned here, but there is another problem what should also be addressed - software compatibility. I can think of three types of problems, and at least being aware of the problems would be a start; though a 'formal solution' would be better.
Example #1: Hard drive limitations - CorelDRAW for example; in earlier versions, the setup would fail with a vague error message. After fighting through tech support, I was able to find out that they didn't expect to have hard drives as large as 1GB. The solution was to setup a partition (with OS) that was less than 1GB. (Required me to setup another system). After the install is completed, a different utility ("Ghost" for example) could be used to transfer the entire OS to a larger drive.
Example #2: Copy protection based on outdated ideas. Some games used copy protection based on the speed / access to the CD-ROM drive. The first versions of Command & Conquer don't like fast CD-ROM drives. Finding an old 1 to 6x CD-ROM drive is not always a practical option. I'm sure that there are fixes / hacks for this particular problem, but the idea / concept needs to be aware for anyone working in this type of issue.
Example #3: Software that is dependent on the speed of the CPU. Gapper is a great example of this. The game was written for an 8088 CPU. On a 80286, it is a challenge, on a 386 it is almost impossible. Anything else, forget it. Short of finding an older system, I don't know of any viable work around for this type of problem. (I've tried to use "cpu slowdown" software, which did NOT slow the system down enough).
This could be setup as a compatibility "web page" somewhere, with the compatibility problem, and solutions. One would have to watch out that the line of "piracy" (and/or breaking of copy protection) is not crossed.
When I left MS back in 'bout 81, I had an extra ROM pack for the Atari 400/800. Wow, I wonder if I should give it back?