Form letter responses don't mean anything. You can believe that it means a lot of people have been complaining, but the reality is that some intern probably read your letter and then picked the form letter that fit best to your plea. It often is rare for a congressperson to reply individually to a request.
I wrote to my congresswoman about a year ago regarding the DMCA. To my surprise, I didn't receive a form letter (regardless of who actually wrote it), and it did have her signature. My guess, though, is that she wrote it herself by the way things were worded (I had spoken to her in person a couple of times prior).
My guess is that your congressman was just trying to blow you off. What does he care, if as you say he's in a conservative district and very likely the best way to get re-elected is to be a prick to civil liberty nuts? He can't just not respond--that's rude and that will get him in trouble with his constituents. Instead, a form letter at least gives you some feeling that he "cares" about your views.
If you really want to get an honest response from a congressperson, I have a few tips. I'm certain that you followed a few of these, but other readers might enjoyt them as well. First, actually type your letter, and sign it in BLUE ink so that it shows you took the time to write a personal letter. Second, always say that you voted for the individual; and that for the most part you are happy with his/her performance (no one wants to read a hate-letter from some right or left wing zealot). Third, say that you understand that the life of a congressperson is not easy; and that often it is difficult to know everything there is to know about every single issue that Congress will take up. Some people feel that their representatives need to be god-like in their knowledge; but reading mountains of paper and trying to create your own legislation at the same time is darn near impossible. Lastly, bring your concerns up with regard to a SINGLE issue. Explain your reasons in as much detail as possible (without taking up several pages), and never resort to "dirty politics" by threats or other nasties. Congresspersons love to write people off as nuts when 95% of their incomming mail is hate mail from the 5% of their constituents that are loud and obnoxious.
I goofed. The maximum radiated power is set at 1W. Not 1mW. Here's the FCC rules that apply, for those interested:
Part 15.247 covers intentional Radiators in the ISM bands that are the frequencies 902-928 MHz, 2400-2483.5 MHz, and 5725-5850 MHz. Besides covering the modulation schemes this part also covers the various power restrictions that the FCC has for devices like 802.11b. The critical section is 15.247(b)(1) through 15.247(b)(3)(i) quoted below:
"(b)The maximum peak output power of the intentional radiator shall not exceed the following:
(1) For frequency hopping systems operating in the 2400-2483.5 MHz or 5725-5850 MHz band and for all direct sequence systems: 1 watt.
(2) For frequency hopping systems operating in the 902-928 MHz band: 1 watt for systems employing at least 50 hopping channels; and, 0.25 watts for systems employing less than 50 hopping channels, but at least 25 hopping channels, as permitted under paragraph (a)(1)(i) of this section.
(3) Except as shown in paragraphs (b)(3) (i), (ii) and (iii) of this section, if transmitting antennas of directional gain greater than 6 dBi are used the peak output power from the intentional radiator shall be reduced below the stated values in paragraphs (b)(1) or (b)(2) of this section, as appropriate, by the amount in dB that the directional gain of the antenna exceeds 6 dBi.
(i) Systems operating in the 2400-2483.5 MHz band that are used exclusively for fixed, point-to-point operations may employ transmitting antennas with directional gain greater than 6 dBi provided the maximum peak output power of the intentional radiator is reduced by 1 dB for every 3 dB that the directional gain of the antenna exceeds 6 dBi."
Generally, the FCC only cares that you are within specified guidelines. I believe (and someone will correct me if I'm wrong here) that the 2.4GHz spectrum is limited in radiated power to 1mW. You can play all kinds of tricks with that by using highly directional antennae, and thus concentrating your 1mW power into one small cone. Or, you can spread the love around and try and radiate the 1mW spherically from a point source (hard to do).
Most of the 802.11b devices don't radiate nearly as much as 1mW. This keeps them well below the FCC specs, and thus out of harm's way. Cranking your radiated power up to the full 1mW is perfectly fine. The caveat, of course, is that now you're sharing your traffic with much more of the planet.
Yeah, okay... I'm a nerd. Sure, I can take apart a computer in less than thirty seconds in most every instance. That's just the nature of the beast.
Cars are different. Don't get me wrong, I do work on my car often--usually aided by my brother, who is a mechanic. Why not do it all myself? Tools. A computer can be nearly completely taken apart with a single #2 phillips screwdriver. A single screwdriver won't get you anywhere on a car. We always like to say "the right tool for the job", but in the car industry nearly every job has its own specialized tools. And those tools can be expensive. My brother's tools ended up costing him over $15,000 when all said and done; and that's not even everything.
I think geeks (like most people) simply don't bother working on their cars because that would mean buying more tools. My garage is full enough with two cars, thanks--I don't want half of that taken up with Ryan's Full Service Center. If I can get my car up to my brother's, I'll work on it there. If not, I'll pay to have the service done locally--only because I don't want pay $50 for necessary tools to replace a $15 part and it will only cost me $40 to get it taken care of. Sure, the tools pay for themselves over time, but I'm just not interested in the losing my car's place in the garage.
Agreed. Typical vacation times really do make wonderful times to update machines or make other drastic changes to systems.
Here where I am, though, the department morons spent all last week reconfiguring the web server, mail server, and department firewall. They were nice and didn't commit the changes until 5:00pm on Friday. Then they left. The firewall is blocking access to all critical systems, the web server is rejecting requests randomly, and the mail server simly won't accept or transport mail--period. The guys resposible haven't answered phone calls, e-mails, or knocks on their doors. They all seem to have left for the holidays and who knows when they will be back.
They were doomed from the begining. I mean, people go to their site _only_ to view and laugh over, of all things, advertisements. How in the heck do you sell quality ad space on there? Maybe the Amazon.com solution would have worked better for them:
People who liked this ad also found these ads enjoyable:
The new Pepsi Commercial "Do-dad"
The new "Wazzup" Commercial
I just don't see them really making money unless the advertisers paid to be listed on the site.
I'm not generally in the habit of defending my comments to those that comment to me. Usually, others fill that role nicely. In this case, though, I think it would be a good idea to respond. Others might find my thoughts beneficial as well.
I do agree that at times, one needs to try and consolidate machines. After all, it's a pain to configure several boxes. Plus you have to monitor them all. And then there's those times when something breaks. In my situation, I feel that I have consolidated as much as I care to.
First, there is my router. It has only one job--and that's to route packets. It's extremely simplified, runs LRP, and I've got a "backup" waiting if anything ever fails. It's just a 486 with 16MB of RAM, two NICs and a floppy drive. This is by far my most "mission critical" machine, since if it don't work, my wife and others that depend on my cable modem will get unhappy quickly. It is independant only for simplicity's sake--even my moron brother-in-law could hit the reset switch to get it up and going again.
Second, there is my WinNT machine. It's there for legacy purposes. I haven't felt comfy using Samba as a PDC yet, and I don't know if it yet supports WINS replication. It's just a stripped down P-133, 64MB RAM, and 2GB hard disk. Nothing fancy, it's just a PDC. Once I'm more comfy with Samba, I'll discard this box.
Third, my "login" server. It's the box that's actually viewable from the outside world. Scripts try to hack it every hour of the day. It runs my web server, sshd, and other externally-needed services. I give friends accounts on this machine if they need a *nix environment. It's a self-contained DMZ--just like what people are supposed to have in business. It keeps haxors one more step away from my critical data. If that machine gets hosed, I can re-image it within about an hour or two. No big loss.
Finally, I have my main "server". It's another Linux box and it handles everything internal. That includes all file serving (even home directories for the login server), DNS, DHCP, and other various internal funtions. It also gets used a lot as an X-Client, since it has a good proc and lots of RAM and mass storage.
Now, all of these functions could be contained within a single system. The problem is one of containment of disaster. My router has never been hacked (no services), but my login server has on two occations. Sure, say what you want about poor management or whatever--but everyone gets a computer hacked once in a while. I'm not sure it's possible to prevent every attack--some patches just don't make it out in time. In the worst case, though, someone will get my login server. At that point, power gets killed to it via an X-10 module. I can then hold things together until I have time to determine what happened. No one in my house or otherwise sharing my connection to the internet loses connectivity. My router stays up. The NT box stays up. The file server stays up. Okay, the website is down; but that's not a big deal. And users can't log into their shell account. Oh well. At least a haxor can't get to my data and other user's data. Deleting that would be slightly more than annoying.
A good home server room is just as good as the design behind it. That's probably why it's an AskSlashdot question. An apt one, too.
In my home, I set up my server room before we even officially moved in. I can get pics if people desire, but I'll give the gist here.
First, it needs to be in the basement. Some people think it's only a heat issue, but the reality is that server rooms are noisy. I've only got four machines whirring about, and that alone is enough to sound like a wind tunnel.
Second, build shelving such that you can walk around it and access equipment from the rear. How many tower cases have RJ-45 connectors on the front side? Didn't think so. I built shelving out of 2x4's, 3/4" plywood, lag bolts, and drywall screws. Some day I'll get around to putting formica all over everything (it's not that expensive and easy to do). Everything is strong enough to hold me jumping up and down without any wiggle.
Third, carefully design how your wires are going to run. Raceways are a great idea, though you can also go the cheap route and use ziptie loops that have screw holes. Also, network wires should not be in the same raceway (and not parallel) to power cables.
Finally, place your equipment. Servers should be placed where they most make sense, e.g. don't put the internal file server next to the router and the public webserver on the other end. People should get a "feeling" of what your machine's duties are visually. Also, keep networking gear all in the same area--hubs, switches, and even modems and your incoming ISP equipment. That's also the best place for your router.
In addition, consider a KVM. They really are helpful, and cut down a lot on heat (and space needs). Some even have remote extenders--with mine I can work on any machine in my server room from my desktop in my office area. Definitely beats working in the wind tunnel.
I'm not so sure that the intent was for a national stereotype. I really think that they were taking inspiration from Judy Chicago's 1971 art piece known as "Red Flag". I personally wouldn't go looking there, though. It's not for everyone, that's for sure. Maybe it's best to forget I even mentioned it.
Post graduate degrees are work experience. I don't know how many times people have asked why I didn't decide to go out to the "real world" and get experience. The truth is, graduate school isn't so much schooling as it is work. Hard work. Sure, you will probably get paid for the work but it's barely enough to live on. Don't get me wrong--it's worth every bit of the pain.
Of course getting a Master's degree or PhD will get you higher pay. But it also sets the "ceiling", if you will, for how far up in a major company you can go. How many Fortune 500 companies are run by persons with their Bachelor's degree? Not many, unless they were the founder. And successors almost always have at least an MBA; but a PhD certainly helps. If you want to be a monkey all your life just following other's leadership and writing what they tell you, then your bachelor's is fine. But if you want to get into management, you really should consider an MBA. If you want to ever be a "director", VP, or whatever, you really want an MBA AND a post graduate degree in a technical field. The extra money earned is because you're worth every penny at that point.
The external box is connected to the motherboard via a PCI Bridge. Any PCI bus can have several "slave" bridges all connected back to the master bridge that actually interfaces with the motherboard chipset. The reason for the reduction in performance is that the bridge must act as a regular device on the PCI bus.
Any devices that need high bandwidth should always be placed nearest to the master PCI controller. Devices strung off a bridge must first negotiate to talk on the bridge's PCI bus, then the PCI bridge will negotiate to talk on the master PCI bus. These negotiations get very complicated, and take time. Hence the slowdown. The only reliable way to increase performance across the bridge is to tweak how the PCI bus is controlled so that certain devices (bridges) will receive a higher priority. No easy task, however.
Okay, I'll probably not make friends here, but I actually like Open Magazine. First, it's free... but at the "price" of lots of advertisements and very little "meat". Sure, I read Linux Journal, too. But Open Magazine has lots of eye candy--racks, SANs, even clusters. That's actually how I found out about a couple of hardware vendors that specialize in Linux products... and I've been extremely happy. All of the articles are also written so that you can read them easily enough and your boss might actually understand it, too. Just don't expect to become a CIO of a Fortune 500 company by just reading Open Magazine, though;)
The place that you are referring to is very likely Mendelson's Electronics. They are located in downtown Dayton, Ohio, and you can also buy things over the 'net. I've been there a few times. I usually just buy wire since it's so cheap; but they have everything from computer racks to water pumps to restaurant tables. Some people call a lot of it junk. Your mileage may vary.
If your domain name was a trademark, copyrighted, or otherwise protected as intellectual property (shudders), then you could fight this. The fact is, though, that the domain got dropped. Everyone around here hates it, but there are companies that look for opporunities like this and "snatch" up domains as soon as they become available again.
On the plus side, if you don't do anything, the current owners will likely drop the domain in June 2003. If you can wait that long, you can be pretty sure no one's going to snatch it up again. If you absolutely want the domain back, there's a link on the current site (not the Euro Teen Sluts link) that will let you buy the domain back from them. Maybe it's worth just paying the price to get it back. I just don't know.
Probably the best thing you can do is change domain names completely. Don't ever speak of this older domain; and don't ever let any domain you want to keep expire. It would be pretty bad if mothers, kids, and grandparents went to the current site. Then again, maybe Euro Teens are what they're after...
Most everyone and his brother is recommending that you use a simple IDE adapter. Do this.
Once that's done, SELL YOUR FRIGGIN' LAPTOP! I'm not kidding here. Put the thing on E-Bay for $50 to start; say what's wrong and don't offer any guarantee:) If you're not wanting to fix that laptop, I can bet that someone will. Please, for the rest of us that love to play with "dead" electronics, sell this baby to someone that could get some use out of it. Or, if you prefer, try and fix it yourself. I'm sure you could get some help from those of us here on/.:)
I've wanted something like this myself--but not for nearly as many devices. The basic problem is that there isn't really any standards across all manufacturers or devices. Think about your power requirements in more detail:
(1) Laptop: 19VDC @ 75 Watts (typically)
(2) Phone: 5VDC @ ~2.5 Watts (yours may be different)
(3) Walkman: Hopefully 5VDC, maybe 9 (Seen both)
(4) Camera: 5VDC, 9VDC, or 12VDC. Depends on camera.
(5) Razor: Mine takes 9VDC. I switched to Mach3s, recommend you do the same.
(6) Speakers: Who knows. Probably 5 or 12VDC.
Regardless, only you and maybe 50,000 other people have those exact same devices. For a company to design something for such a small market, they would need to charge an arm and a leg (and then pray people would buy it). Most people just deal with all their chargers.
Most people. But you're a nerd, geek, whathaveyou. You can't have all these chargers because you know there's a better way. And you're right.
Okay, my problem was that I had a laptop, nice external speakers, a small 5-port 10/100 switch, and my Palm. The laptop needed 19VDC at 75 Watts, which was by far the most demanding item I had. I picked up an electronics book that showed how to make a good AC-DC power supply from the library and then got a Jamecocatalog and worked out all the parts I'd need. I ended up needing a really big board for just all the parts to the 19V supply, but I could sqeeze in the other supplies I needed (5V and 12V) without too much trouble. Then, put the whole mess into a vented box and into my laptop bag. Now I just plug my bag into the wall and everything starts working. The whole deal probably cost me a hundred or so, but it sure makes everything look nice.
I totally agree with you. Simulation doesn't prove that things will be all peachy cream later on in the "real world".
Then again, if a 1/100th scale model does a nose dive in the wind tunnel when they throw a little turbulence at it, you can bet the ranch that plane will be redesigned. Testing and modeling only show the existence or non-existence of very particular problems. We just usually hope that we can "test" out as many likely problems as possible.
"Real time" is always a misleading term--at least it is for me. A full 1ms delay through the system really doesn't sound like a lot but you're times are going to get killed through those A/D convertors. Right now, just for sampling, I use a Lineartech LTC1296DCN. It's got 8 input lines, and gives me 12-bit precision (+- one half bit). These little guys are great. You can get over 1500 samples per second out of them--but that's if you're only looking at one input. If you start checking input 1, then 2, etc I don't think your throughput goes down much but you're only getting about 1/8th the samples per second. So now each input is being checked 185 times a second, or 5.33ms between samples.
Now, you can get an A/D that is dedicated to each input and you'll see 12-bit precision in about 0.5 to 0.7ms for each sample. That doesn't give you a lot of time for processing and then getting a reasonable output. Of course, 8-bit precision may be all you need in your application--I can't say for sure, though only 256 voltage levels on the input means roughly (unless you're really good) 256 semi-discrete outputs. An eel may not notice that the signals are not "continuous", but when we try this with humans you can bet it'll be very noticeable. Don't get me wrong--I am not saying that this is impossible, but your design critereon do make this a tough challenge in general.
If this were my project, I would forget about the term "real time" for right now. Worry about that once you actually have a system that has some real delay and you can optimize or work around some of the problems you want to deal with. Fact is, a delay of 10ms _may_ be okay. If that's the case, you'll have plenty of time for A/D, some processing, and D/A. I think a previous poster mentioned something about using a DSP--that's probably a good idea. Using a single PIC or multiple PICs may be possible as well. If you attempt to control via the computer, you'll likely end up with huge problems in communications being too slow for proper control. That's likely to screw with the eel really badly.
We've got a bunch of undergrads working right now on a way to flash PICs once with a program that knows how to talk to the computer. Then, when the PIC is reset, it will request an "operating system" if you like from the RS-232 interface. The computer sends the PIC's program and things happily run along, with the PIC checking for updates to it's program every so often. It can even do I/O through the same port if so desired. This would allow for the program to be "modified" as the program is running--something that might be very desireable in your situation. Of course, the RS-232 bus may be a bit too slow for your application; but it could be made to work with other busses as well.
If you're anything like the rest of us grad students, your new look is much worse than last year. I used to think I was poor when I was paying my way through undergrad. Now, I'm getting paid to go to school and I find myself without a dime. $1400 a month sounds like a lot for a stipend; but it really doesn't go very far in the end.
I actually used to wear button-up shirts and khakis/dockers every day for class as an undergrad. Now, I wear a Hanes T-shirt (6 in a pack for a few bucks), old worn out jeans, and a tattered hat. I just can't afford to go out and buy those $20 shirts anymore. Most grad students I know do similar things--it's our way of saying "we're hungry, feed us more please" instead of going on strike or something.
I purchased a couple of 80Gb firewire drives for my backup needs. They ran about $275 each after shipping, though I'm sure it's cheaper now. Every day I bring one to the office with me and replace it with the one that was plugged in the previous day. This allows me to do full backups every night and data recovery takes almost no time at all.
On the other hand, this isn't a perfect solution for most companies. First, it would be easy for me to bang the hard drives and have them not spin up. They also are a lot bigger than a tape cartridge. But they do save me lots of time--and that means a lot. I really don't expect these drives to last forever with the "trashing" that gets done to them every night; but since they aren't terribly expensive (for my company) I don't really care if I have to buy another.
From what I'm reading, it seems to me that the poster simply wants to run a game server. This really only requires two things: a place to put the machine, and an ISP with a big pipe and easy-going attitude. CoLo is usually only a good idea when you absolutely, positively have to have a server (or several) running 100% of the time. CNN is a great example. Companies that don't want to waste employee bandwidth sometimes choose CoLo as well. It's pretty rare for individuals to get CoLo service, mostly because it's so expensive but also because it's not quite as important that the server be accessible 100% of the time.
Almost certainly, you can find an ISP in your area that will give you a fat pipe for an extra $100 a month from what you pay now. Since it would be a business-type of connection, you would be allowed to run any type of server you wanted... though with some exceptions (kiddy porn, spam, etc). The actual server would be your business, so you would have to ensure availablility there. This is almost certainly the cheapest solution one can find.
On the other hand, if you desire to have the security of having the server located remotely; then by all means find someone to do colocation for you. Heck, for $100 a month I'd let you put whatever machine you want in my basement with my other servers (though I'm in Columbus, OH). I'd place bets that some of your friends would feel the same way.
Check out these guys I purchased one of the ADC-3 units for the lab I work in to monitor some gauges. If you want to work on this somewhat collaboratively, let me know. This sounds like a fun little project.
Okay, my $0.02 will likely cost you a large amount of money; but hey... if the data's so important to require self-destruct devices then I can understand that money isn't the biggest concern. Perhaps some of my ideas will prove useful.
Some of the previous articles mention using vacuum or pressure. This isn't a bad idea; though it could potentially be defeated by extremely carefully poking a small hole (about 5 microns in diameter) and then getting a pressure monitor on there. It may take hours for the gauge to read anything of use; but supposedly attackers may have that long. The hole itself would just look like a very small leak on 200 foot of pipe--and so you would believe that it's not an attacker.
Instead, you really should use a multi-layered configuration. Start with a fiber--they are a pain to tap without splicing; and I'll assume you could monitor each end and check for signal degradation that would be indicative of a splice. Then, the fiber should be insulated already, so jacket it in copper or aluminum sheeting (like grounded CAT5) with insulation on top of that. To top off the internal layer, send this "wire" down the smallest metal tube you can; with Great Stuff or other spray-in insulator filling the gap. Note that the fiber et al should be running nearly down the center of this conduit.
That's the first layer. Outside of that, fit the conduit inside another one (again, metal)--this one should be have a good vacuum on it. 10e-3 torr is easy to reach with a roughing pump, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting there. And then one more pipe outside of that. The final pipe should have a high pressure on it, 75 or 100 psi can be reached by a common air compressor. So this gives a total of three metal conduits to go through before reaching the fiber. Obviously, monitor the pressure from both ends--and those numbers should match up (with some error).
Yes, I realize this seems like over-kill. But, with this set up you can do some really cool things to check for intrusion. First, one can put different voltages across each of the 4 metal layers (fiber jacket included). If any of those are the same, you've got an attacker. You also can connect two layers on one end and gauge the resistance from the other. If this number doesn't match what it was yesterday, then there is an attacker. My personal favorite, though, is checking the capacitance between the different layers. If someone somehow figures out how to cut through the pressure and vacuum jacketting, the resistance test might be able to catch it. If you check the capacitance, there's almost no way they can not be detected. If this were me, I would configure both sides to randomly check different combinations from my list.
Finally, you likely will have a few seconds from when an attacker is detected and when he/she could be possibly be listening. This means that you can fully trust the computer on the other end even just after an intruder detection. Use this time for "Oh my God! Cut the line! Shut up and don't talk again!!!" as well as any other last-second transactions you need.
It's interesting, but true, that most companies have policies such that they can't give their old equipment away easily. This is especially true of some of the larger companies.
What most interesting still, is that almost no companies are against "dumpster diving". You can't do it while you're on company time or during regular business hours (for fear of a client seeing a marketing guy in the dumpster), but if you come back that evening and root through the trash it's all yours. Heck, I've done this several times myself. I usually ask the guy that's throwing them out to be "careful" and let him know what I'm planning on doing. Sometimes I even offer to give him anything of his choice--as a form of payment. Never had someone toss the monitors or hard drives yet.
Once you've got the equipment--you can do whatever you want with it. Just make sure you peel off any company identification logos. As an added bonus, if you donate them to a school you can get the tax benefit:)
Oddly enough, Duke Nuke'm is a great choice. It has a simple interface (mouse and some keys) and the play is relatively simple. It's also not graphic-intense and that's one thing my wife really appreciates.
As another plus, my wife gets absolutely giddy when she puts an RPG round up my nose. Guess she appreciates being able to "kill" her husband every now and then. So long as it's never a real weapon, it's all good.
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Form letter responses don't mean anything. You can believe that it means a lot of people have been complaining, but the reality is that some intern probably read your letter and then picked the form letter that fit best to your plea. It often is rare for a congressperson to reply individually to a request.
I wrote to my congresswoman about a year ago regarding the DMCA. To my surprise, I didn't receive a form letter (regardless of who actually wrote it), and it did have her signature. My guess, though, is that she wrote it herself by the way things were worded (I had spoken to her in person a couple of times prior).
My guess is that your congressman was just trying to blow you off. What does he care, if as you say he's in a conservative district and very likely the best way to get re-elected is to be a prick to civil liberty nuts? He can't just not respond--that's rude and that will get him in trouble with his constituents. Instead, a form letter at least gives you some feeling that he "cares" about your views.
If you really want to get an honest response from a congressperson, I have a few tips. I'm certain that you followed a few of these, but other readers might enjoyt them as well. First, actually type your letter, and sign it in BLUE ink so that it shows you took the time to write a personal letter. Second, always say that you voted for the individual; and that for the most part you are happy with his/her performance (no one wants to read a hate-letter from some right or left wing zealot). Third, say that you understand that the life of a congressperson is not easy; and that often it is difficult to know everything there is to know about every single issue that Congress will take up. Some people feel that their representatives need to be god-like in their knowledge; but reading mountains of paper and trying to create your own legislation at the same time is darn near impossible. Lastly, bring your concerns up with regard to a SINGLE issue. Explain your reasons in as much detail as possible (without taking up several pages), and never resort to "dirty politics" by threats or other nasties. Congresspersons love to write people off as nuts when 95% of their incomming mail is hate mail from the 5% of their constituents that are loud and obnoxious.
I goofed. The maximum radiated power is set at 1W. Not 1mW. Here's the FCC rules that apply, for those interested:
Generally, the FCC only cares that you are within specified guidelines. I believe (and someone will correct me if I'm wrong here) that the 2.4GHz spectrum is limited in radiated power to 1mW. You can play all kinds of tricks with that by using highly directional antennae, and thus concentrating your 1mW power into one small cone. Or, you can spread the love around and try and radiate the 1mW spherically from a point source (hard to do).
Most of the 802.11b devices don't radiate nearly as much as 1mW. This keeps them well below the FCC specs, and thus out of harm's way. Cranking your radiated power up to the full 1mW is perfectly fine. The caveat, of course, is that now you're sharing your traffic with much more of the planet.
Yeah, okay... I'm a nerd. Sure, I can take apart a computer in less than thirty seconds in most every instance. That's just the nature of the beast.
Cars are different. Don't get me wrong, I do work on my car often--usually aided by my brother, who is a mechanic. Why not do it all myself? Tools. A computer can be nearly completely taken apart with a single #2 phillips screwdriver. A single screwdriver won't get you anywhere on a car. We always like to say "the right tool for the job", but in the car industry nearly every job has its own specialized tools. And those tools can be expensive. My brother's tools ended up costing him over $15,000 when all said and done; and that's not even everything.
I think geeks (like most people) simply don't bother working on their cars because that would mean buying more tools. My garage is full enough with two cars, thanks--I don't want half of that taken up with Ryan's Full Service Center. If I can get my car up to my brother's, I'll work on it there. If not, I'll pay to have the service done locally--only because I don't want pay $50 for necessary tools to replace a $15 part and it will only cost me $40 to get it taken care of. Sure, the tools pay for themselves over time, but I'm just not interested in the losing my car's place in the garage.
Agreed. Typical vacation times really do make wonderful times to update machines or make other drastic changes to systems.
Here where I am, though, the department morons spent all last week reconfiguring the web server, mail server, and department firewall. They were nice and didn't commit the changes until 5:00pm on Friday. Then they left. The firewall is blocking access to all critical systems, the web server is rejecting requests randomly, and the mail server simly won't accept or transport mail--period. The guys resposible haven't answered phone calls, e-mails, or knocks on their doors. They all seem to have left for the holidays and who knows when they will be back.
Sigh....
They were doomed from the begining. I mean, people go to their site _only_ to view and laugh over, of all things, advertisements. How in the heck do you sell quality ad space on there? Maybe the Amazon.com solution would have worked better for them:
I just don't see them really making money unless the advertisers paid to be listed on the site.
I'm not generally in the habit of defending my comments to those that comment to me. Usually, others fill that role nicely. In this case, though, I think it would be a good idea to respond. Others might find my thoughts beneficial as well.
I do agree that at times, one needs to try and consolidate machines. After all, it's a pain to configure several boxes. Plus you have to monitor them all. And then there's those times when something breaks. In my situation, I feel that I have consolidated as much as I care to.
First, there is my router. It has only one job--and that's to route packets. It's extremely simplified, runs LRP, and I've got a "backup" waiting if anything ever fails. It's just a 486 with 16MB of RAM, two NICs and a floppy drive. This is by far my most "mission critical" machine, since if it don't work, my wife and others that depend on my cable modem will get unhappy quickly. It is independant only for simplicity's sake--even my moron brother-in-law could hit the reset switch to get it up and going again.
Second, there is my WinNT machine. It's there for legacy purposes. I haven't felt comfy using Samba as a PDC yet, and I don't know if it yet supports WINS replication. It's just a stripped down P-133, 64MB RAM, and 2GB hard disk. Nothing fancy, it's just a PDC. Once I'm more comfy with Samba, I'll discard this box.
Third, my "login" server. It's the box that's actually viewable from the outside world. Scripts try to hack it every hour of the day. It runs my web server, sshd, and other externally-needed services. I give friends accounts on this machine if they need a *nix environment. It's a self-contained DMZ--just like what people are supposed to have in business. It keeps haxors one more step away from my critical data. If that machine gets hosed, I can re-image it within about an hour or two. No big loss.
Finally, I have my main "server". It's another Linux box and it handles everything internal. That includes all file serving (even home directories for the login server), DNS, DHCP, and other various internal funtions. It also gets used a lot as an X-Client, since it has a good proc and lots of RAM and mass storage.
Now, all of these functions could be contained within a single system. The problem is one of containment of disaster. My router has never been hacked (no services), but my login server has on two occations. Sure, say what you want about poor management or whatever--but everyone gets a computer hacked once in a while. I'm not sure it's possible to prevent every attack--some patches just don't make it out in time. In the worst case, though, someone will get my login server. At that point, power gets killed to it via an X-10 module. I can then hold things together until I have time to determine what happened. No one in my house or otherwise sharing my connection to the internet loses connectivity. My router stays up. The NT box stays up. The file server stays up. Okay, the website is down; but that's not a big deal. And users can't log into their shell account. Oh well. At least a haxor can't get to my data and other user's data. Deleting that would be slightly more than annoying.
A good home server room is just as good as the design behind it. That's probably why it's an AskSlashdot question. An apt one, too.
In my home, I set up my server room before we even officially moved in. I can get pics if people desire, but I'll give the gist here.
First, it needs to be in the basement. Some people think it's only a heat issue, but the reality is that server rooms are noisy. I've only got four machines whirring about, and that alone is enough to sound like a wind tunnel.
Second, build shelving such that you can walk around it and access equipment from the rear. How many tower cases have RJ-45 connectors on the front side? Didn't think so. I built shelving out of 2x4's, 3/4" plywood, lag bolts, and drywall screws. Some day I'll get around to putting formica all over everything (it's not that expensive and easy to do). Everything is strong enough to hold me jumping up and down without any wiggle.
Third, carefully design how your wires are going to run. Raceways are a great idea, though you can also go the cheap route and use ziptie loops that have screw holes. Also, network wires should not be in the same raceway (and not parallel) to power cables.
Finally, place your equipment. Servers should be placed where they most make sense, e.g. don't put the internal file server next to the router and the public webserver on the other end. People should get a "feeling" of what your machine's duties are visually. Also, keep networking gear all in the same area--hubs, switches, and even modems and your incoming ISP equipment. That's also the best place for your router.
In addition, consider a KVM. They really are helpful, and cut down a lot on heat (and space needs). Some even have remote extenders--with mine I can work on any machine in my server room from my desktop in my office area. Definitely beats working in the wind tunnel.
I'm not so sure that the intent was for a national stereotype. I really think that they were taking inspiration from Judy Chicago's 1971 art piece known as "Red Flag". I personally wouldn't go looking there, though. It's not for everyone, that's for sure. Maybe it's best to forget I even mentioned it.
Post graduate degrees are work experience. I don't know how many times people have asked why I didn't decide to go out to the "real world" and get experience. The truth is, graduate school isn't so much schooling as it is work. Hard work. Sure, you will probably get paid for the work but it's barely enough to live on. Don't get me wrong--it's worth every bit of the pain.
Of course getting a Master's degree or PhD will get you higher pay. But it also sets the "ceiling", if you will, for how far up in a major company you can go. How many Fortune 500 companies are run by persons with their Bachelor's degree? Not many, unless they were the founder. And successors almost always have at least an MBA; but a PhD certainly helps. If you want to be a monkey all your life just following other's leadership and writing what they tell you, then your bachelor's is fine. But if you want to get into management, you really should consider an MBA. If you want to ever be a "director", VP, or whatever, you really want an MBA AND a post graduate degree in a technical field. The extra money earned is because you're worth every penny at that point.
The external box is connected to the motherboard via a PCI Bridge. Any PCI bus can have several "slave" bridges all connected back to the master bridge that actually interfaces with the motherboard chipset. The reason for the reduction in performance is that the bridge must act as a regular device on the PCI bus.
Any devices that need high bandwidth should always be placed nearest to the master PCI controller. Devices strung off a bridge must first negotiate to talk on the bridge's PCI bus, then the PCI bridge will negotiate to talk on the master PCI bus. These negotiations get very complicated, and take time. Hence the slowdown. The only reliable way to increase performance across the bridge is to tweak how the PCI bus is controlled so that certain devices (bridges) will receive a higher priority. No easy task, however.
Okay, I'll probably not make friends here, but I actually like Open Magazine. First, it's free... but at the "price" of lots of advertisements and very little "meat". Sure, I read Linux Journal, too. But Open Magazine has lots of eye candy--racks, SANs, even clusters. That's actually how I found out about a couple of hardware vendors that specialize in Linux products... and I've been extremely happy. All of the articles are also written so that you can read them easily enough and your boss might actually understand it, too. Just don't expect to become a CIO of a Fortune 500 company by just reading Open Magazine, though ;)
The place that you are referring to is very likely Mendelson's Electronics. They are located in downtown Dayton, Ohio, and you can also buy things over the 'net. I've been there a few times. I usually just buy wire since it's so cheap; but they have everything from computer racks to water pumps to restaurant tables. Some people call a lot of it junk. Your mileage may vary.
If your domain name was a trademark, copyrighted, or otherwise protected as intellectual property (shudders), then you could fight this. The fact is, though, that the domain got dropped. Everyone around here hates it, but there are companies that look for opporunities like this and "snatch" up domains as soon as they become available again.
On the plus side, if you don't do anything, the current owners will likely drop the domain in June 2003. If you can wait that long, you can be pretty sure no one's going to snatch it up again. If you absolutely want the domain back, there's a link on the current site (not the Euro Teen Sluts link) that will let you buy the domain back from them. Maybe it's worth just paying the price to get it back. I just don't know.
Probably the best thing you can do is change domain names completely. Don't ever speak of this older domain; and don't ever let any domain you want to keep expire. It would be pretty bad if mothers, kids, and grandparents went to the current site. Then again, maybe Euro Teens are what they're after...
Most everyone and his brother is recommending that you use a simple IDE adapter. Do this.
:) If you're not wanting to fix that laptop, I can bet that someone will. Please, for the rest of us that love to play with "dead" electronics, sell this baby to someone that could get some use out of it. Or, if you prefer, try and fix it yourself. I'm sure you could get some help from those of us here on /. :)
Once that's done, SELL YOUR FRIGGIN' LAPTOP! I'm not kidding here. Put the thing on E-Bay for $50 to start; say what's wrong and don't offer any guarantee
I've wanted something like this myself--but not for nearly as many devices. The basic problem is that there isn't really any standards across all manufacturers or devices. Think about your power requirements in more detail:
Regardless, only you and maybe 50,000 other people have those exact same devices. For a company to design something for such a small market, they would need to charge an arm and a leg (and then pray people would buy it). Most people just deal with all their chargers.
Most people. But you're a nerd, geek, whathaveyou. You can't have all these chargers because you know there's a better way. And you're right.
Okay, my problem was that I had a laptop, nice external speakers, a small 5-port 10/100 switch, and my Palm. The laptop needed 19VDC at 75 Watts, which was by far the most demanding item I had. I picked up an electronics book that showed how to make a good AC-DC power supply from the library and then got a Jamecocatalog and worked out all the parts I'd need. I ended up needing a really big board for just all the parts to the 19V supply, but I could sqeeze in the other supplies I needed (5V and 12V) without too much trouble. Then, put the whole mess into a vented box and into my laptop bag. Now I just plug my bag into the wall and everything starts working. The whole deal probably cost me a hundred or so, but it sure makes everything look nice.
I totally agree with you. Simulation doesn't prove that things will be all peachy cream later on in the "real world".
Then again, if a 1/100th scale model does a nose dive in the wind tunnel when they throw a little turbulence at it, you can bet the ranch that plane will be redesigned. Testing and modeling only show the existence or non-existence of very particular problems. We just usually hope that we can "test" out as many likely problems as possible.
"Real time" is always a misleading term--at least it is for me. A full 1ms delay through the system really doesn't sound like a lot but you're times are going to get killed through those A/D convertors. Right now, just for sampling, I use a Lineartech LTC1296DCN. It's got 8 input lines, and gives me 12-bit precision (+- one half bit). These little guys are great. You can get over 1500 samples per second out of them--but that's if you're only looking at one input. If you start checking input 1, then 2, etc I don't think your throughput goes down much but you're only getting about 1/8th the samples per second. So now each input is being checked 185 times a second, or 5.33ms between samples.
Now, you can get an A/D that is dedicated to each input and you'll see 12-bit precision in about 0.5 to 0.7ms for each sample. That doesn't give you a lot of time for processing and then getting a reasonable output. Of course, 8-bit precision may be all you need in your application--I can't say for sure, though only 256 voltage levels on the input means roughly (unless you're really good) 256 semi-discrete outputs. An eel may not notice that the signals are not "continuous", but when we try this with humans you can bet it'll be very noticeable. Don't get me wrong--I am not saying that this is impossible, but your design critereon do make this a tough challenge in general.
If this were my project, I would forget about the term "real time" for right now. Worry about that once you actually have a system that has some real delay and you can optimize or work around some of the problems you want to deal with. Fact is, a delay of 10ms _may_ be okay. If that's the case, you'll have plenty of time for A/D, some processing, and D/A. I think a previous poster mentioned something about using a DSP--that's probably a good idea. Using a single PIC or multiple PICs may be possible as well. If you attempt to control via the computer, you'll likely end up with huge problems in communications being too slow for proper control. That's likely to screw with the eel really badly.
We've got a bunch of undergrads working right now on a way to flash PICs once with a program that knows how to talk to the computer. Then, when the PIC is reset, it will request an "operating system" if you like from the RS-232 interface. The computer sends the PIC's program and things happily run along, with the PIC checking for updates to it's program every so often. It can even do I/O through the same port if so desired. This would allow for the program to be "modified" as the program is running--something that might be very desireable in your situation. Of course, the RS-232 bus may be a bit too slow for your application; but it could be made to work with other busses as well.
If you're anything like the rest of us grad students, your new look is much worse than last year. I used to think I was poor when I was paying my way through undergrad. Now, I'm getting paid to go to school and I find myself without a dime. $1400 a month sounds like a lot for a stipend; but it really doesn't go very far in the end.
I actually used to wear button-up shirts and khakis/dockers every day for class as an undergrad. Now, I wear a Hanes T-shirt (6 in a pack for a few bucks), old worn out jeans, and a tattered hat. I just can't afford to go out and buy those $20 shirts anymore. Most grad students I know do similar things--it's our way of saying "we're hungry, feed us more please" instead of going on strike or something.
I purchased a couple of 80Gb firewire drives for my backup needs. They ran about $275 each after shipping, though I'm sure it's cheaper now. Every day I bring one to the office with me and replace it with the one that was plugged in the previous day. This allows me to do full backups every night and data recovery takes almost no time at all.
On the other hand, this isn't a perfect solution for most companies. First, it would be easy for me to bang the hard drives and have them not spin up. They also are a lot bigger than a tape cartridge. But they do save me lots of time--and that means a lot. I really don't expect these drives to last forever with the "trashing" that gets done to them every night; but since they aren't terribly expensive (for my company) I don't really care if I have to buy another.
From what I'm reading, it seems to me that the poster simply wants to run a game server. This really only requires two things: a place to put the machine, and an ISP with a big pipe and easy-going attitude. CoLo is usually only a good idea when you absolutely, positively have to have a server (or several) running 100% of the time. CNN is a great example. Companies that don't want to waste employee bandwidth sometimes choose CoLo as well. It's pretty rare for individuals to get CoLo service, mostly because it's so expensive but also because it's not quite as important that the server be accessible 100% of the time.
Almost certainly, you can find an ISP in your area that will give you a fat pipe for an extra $100 a month from what you pay now. Since it would be a business-type of connection, you would be allowed to run any type of server you wanted... though with some exceptions (kiddy porn, spam, etc). The actual server would be your business, so you would have to ensure availablility there. This is almost certainly the cheapest solution one can find.
On the other hand, if you desire to have the security of having the server located remotely; then by all means find someone to do colocation for you. Heck, for $100 a month I'd let you put whatever machine you want in my basement with my other servers (though I'm in Columbus, OH). I'd place bets that some of your friends would feel the same way.
Check out these guys I purchased one of the ADC-3 units for the lab I work in to monitor some gauges. If you want to work on this somewhat collaboratively, let me know. This sounds like a fun little project.
Okay, my $0.02 will likely cost you a large amount of money; but hey... if the data's so important to require self-destruct devices then I can understand that money isn't the biggest concern. Perhaps some of my ideas will prove useful.
Some of the previous articles mention using vacuum or pressure. This isn't a bad idea; though it could potentially be defeated by extremely carefully poking a small hole (about 5 microns in diameter) and then getting a pressure monitor on there. It may take hours for the gauge to read anything of use; but supposedly attackers may have that long. The hole itself would just look like a very small leak on 200 foot of pipe--and so you would believe that it's not an attacker.
Instead, you really should use a multi-layered configuration. Start with a fiber--they are a pain to tap without splicing; and I'll assume you could monitor each end and check for signal degradation that would be indicative of a splice. Then, the fiber should be insulated already, so jacket it in copper or aluminum sheeting (like grounded CAT5) with insulation on top of that. To top off the internal layer, send this "wire" down the smallest metal tube you can; with Great Stuff or other spray-in insulator filling the gap. Note that the fiber et al should be running nearly down the center of this conduit.
That's the first layer. Outside of that, fit the conduit inside another one (again, metal)--this one should be have a good vacuum on it. 10e-3 torr is easy to reach with a roughing pump, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting there. And then one more pipe outside of that. The final pipe should have a high pressure on it, 75 or 100 psi can be reached by a common air compressor. So this gives a total of three metal conduits to go through before reaching the fiber. Obviously, monitor the pressure from both ends--and those numbers should match up (with some error).
Yes, I realize this seems like over-kill. But, with this set up you can do some really cool things to check for intrusion. First, one can put different voltages across each of the 4 metal layers (fiber jacket included). If any of those are the same, you've got an attacker. You also can connect two layers on one end and gauge the resistance from the other. If this number doesn't match what it was yesterday, then there is an attacker. My personal favorite, though, is checking the capacitance between the different layers. If someone somehow figures out how to cut through the pressure and vacuum jacketting, the resistance test might be able to catch it. If you check the capacitance, there's almost no way they can not be detected. If this were me, I would configure both sides to randomly check different combinations from my list.
Finally, you likely will have a few seconds from when an attacker is detected and when he/she could be possibly be listening. This means that you can fully trust the computer on the other end even just after an intruder detection. Use this time for "Oh my God! Cut the line! Shut up and don't talk again!!!" as well as any other last-second transactions you need.
It's interesting, but true, that most companies have policies such that they can't give their old equipment away easily. This is especially true of some of the larger companies.
What most interesting still, is that almost no companies are against "dumpster diving". You can't do it while you're on company time or during regular business hours (for fear of a client seeing a marketing guy in the dumpster), but if you come back that evening and root through the trash it's all yours. Heck, I've done this several times myself. I usually ask the guy that's throwing them out to be "careful" and let him know what I'm planning on doing. Sometimes I even offer to give him anything of his choice--as a form of payment. Never had someone toss the monitors or hard drives yet.
Once you've got the equipment--you can do whatever you want with it. Just make sure you peel off any company identification logos. As an added bonus, if you donate them to a school you can get the tax benefit :)
Oddly enough, Duke Nuke'm is a great choice. It has a simple interface (mouse and some keys) and the play is relatively simple. It's also not graphic-intense and that's one thing my wife really appreciates.
As another plus, my wife gets absolutely giddy when she puts an RPG round up my nose. Guess she appreciates being able to "kill" her husband every now and then. So long as it's never a real weapon, it's all good.