I am STILL in my rackspace. I was here when all the overhead lights went out.
First reaction: I see happy LEDs, whew.
Second Reaction: when the overhead lights came back on seconds later, you see 10 techs looking at their hands as if the ethernet cables they plugged in caused the problem! Funny.
This is the most comfortable place in Manhattan right now. Sleeping here on Sun cartons and bubble wrap in the AC due to zero transport home to CT.
Verio's got all generators working, and should weather this. For this I am eternally grateful. Let's take a moment to praise the folks who plan for this kind of problem in our data centers!
I tagged along with a road crew for Tufts House, Pierce Hall, in '88. Biggest bummer was driving to Windsor, Canada to find a Canadian Happy Meal, only to find out that these special Happy Meals were not being sold. We had missed the promotion by 24 hours or so.
On our way back into Detroit, the customs guy looks at the motley crew, each bearing ID from a different state, and asked us how long we had been in Canada. We looked at our watches, and all of a sudden we were 'randomly' selected for an intensive drug search! Good thing we did not steal that bale of hay we saw near Hell, Michigan that afternoon, that would have taken some explaining.
Going to Hell and photographing the Touchdown Jesus at Notre Dame on the same day was worth the trip, though.
Glad that the NYT would almost say something nice about U of C. Mostly the alma mater gets bad coverage there.
Webs and nests collect moisture.
on
Ants Invade iBook
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Back when I was a Mac hardware repair guy, this person came in with an SE30 that would fail "only in the mornings". We thought it might be an odd time-sensitive extension like an anti-virus app, but we opened it up, and it had some big bug habitat in there. Even though the bugs seemed absent, their nests would collect the morning dew and short out the board.
http://www.ostel.com/ Mostly geared toward being your IVR rather than responding, but they might be worth looking at, in case their cards and software can fill your need.
I hear that. I should have been clearer. I am talking about Apple only shops, the smaller dedicated ones, the ones that remember what a Mac User Group is!
You make good points. I have heard that Apple staff gets put through a lot of coursework, but I am not hearing that they have anything like the management structure and software experience like the smaller shops who still keep Quark running on Quadra 950s, because that is what the client has.
Replacing trivial parts on a Mac should be practically a while-you-wait service, like getting my new StarTac antenna every month or so at Verizon.
I assumed a Mac only shop, so your points on competency are taken, but there is more to an Apple fix than that:
Mac users use more pronouns per repair than anyone else, because usually, macs just work. Example: I'd get a call, the entire report would be "I just clicked on this thing and it didn't work."
For the user, try being on hold with Apple for three hours to give that report. I'm not saying that Apple is bad at repair. But for Apple to totally succeed they need all three layers of help:
1. web or phone based FAQs, and generic help
2. local talent, a vendor whom they can get to know and form a mutual vocabulary, and possibly show up on site. (I know Kodak used to do this for Apple, but still, they were partswappers only.)
You'd be surprised how long it takes to figure out that what sounds like a bad font addition was really a SCSI problem because the font came with their new scanner.
3. Apple Depot part swapping and 1-800 phone walk throughs.
It sounds like you care about service too, and I am not saying that Apple retail should not try to do service. But it is my opinion that these small dedicated outfits should get as much access to Apple Service Parts as they have a credit rating for, without having to sell a large retail quota.
Disclaimer: I do not run an Apple Service shop, so this should be verified by folks who do.
AFAIK, In order to service Apple computers and get access to Apple parts, you need to sell units. Lots of units.
If you care at all about Apple service, you have to beat the chains, mailorder, and now Apple at their own game and make the numbers, for the privilege of gaining access to Apple Service parts.
If you do no service, like a large national chain, or you are content to relay all service to Apple, and have someone lose their laptop for a week to replace the keyboard or to do a clean system install, then you just focus on the slimming margins for box sales, hire lamer sales staff, push product.
Apple users get hurt by this. So Steve, when you open a retail store next door, talk to your area shops, and give them access to parts based on different criteria.
I would love to believe that. But I just do not see what good Larry has ever done for Apple. I would welcome any facts along that line. Ever since the PowerPC I have been hearing that Oracle is just about to offer deep dev tools for the Mac.
Of course, WebObjects is an incredible dev environment that works with Oracle, but you can't easily find Mac software that allows you to control your Oracle install.
On the other hand, maybe Steve has been promising Larry hardware he hasn't seen yet. Apple makes some of the best hardware out there, but they still need to issue a server with redundant power supplies, for example.
Also I don't see Mac shops breaking the door down to spend many $K on a db license.
On the other hand, I've had pgsql running on my laptop since OSX could be installed!
I just started using fink two weeks ago. It works and does not destroy the system in the process. If the only cost of the software is time for education and time for giving thanks to the author, then what is all the user whining about?
Running apps like gnumeric, the GIMP and Dia on the Mac makes my mac much more useful.
apple fans, projects like these come just in time, as the old way of just pirating software won't cut it soon, so get used to a little work to make good software happen on your mac. Get used to the fact that good software is sometimes made by difficult people and there is no marketing to shield you from them. It is a small price to pay.
Thanks chrisp and all of you who actually contribute to authoring, testing, supporting software like this.
Q? Any CBers or HAMs that took part during this event?
After the first impact, I hit the web for corroboration.
No cnn.com, no nytimes.com, natch. I got to slashdot after just two tries and got a clue.
When the chips are down, switched traffic gets stuffed. Give me broadcast every time. Radio is all we've got that'll work anywhere and with AA batteries, or no batteries, if you've got the fresh wind-up model.
I realize later that we do not hear a single Emergency Broadcast System session.
Radio stations were dropping everywhere, or evacuating and removing to borrowed facilities. FM pop stations have given up on programming and are simply relaying ABC TV or 1010 WINS, an AM all-news station, and there is none of that two-tone signal interruption sqwaking the opposite of "If this were a real emergency..."
I found the web frustrating when emergency info might have been needed, but later it was very useful as you'd expect.
Has anyone praised Google for allowing their putting their cache farm in service?
Email was flowing freely, and served to be a great thing for folks needing a quick ping check to see if their friends were alive.
After the linux revolution has pretty much run out of gas for the consumer desktop (although the linux PDA wave should revive it from that direction), Apple is stepping up and doing something very brave: betting the farm on a Un*x-like OS, trusting that they will perfect the desktop.
At the risk of sounding like a broken (vinyl!) record, after watching the smooth transition from 68K to PPC, I believe that this will be a success in the long-term.
If you have been a Mac and Unix user, OSX on a laptop is a godsend. If you aren't, maybe you won't be drawn to it.
Bad Stuff:
Who is the @zz4013 who decided that cmd-N does not stand for New Folder anymore? That little fact kills me. Why not use the extra key press for the new finder window, and make it that much easier to move forward? I can't believe that made it out of the usage lab!
I could be wrong here, but my main beef with OSX so far is that I do not see a mandatory CLI interface for basic operations in OSX binaries.
Ex: Who is going to run Filemaker on an OSX server if you can't ssh in and restart it with the right environment?
Other than getting my mind around the netinfo world, all the controls are very well placed, you can just will your Mac to be a web server and/or ftp server. And ssh is right there! I'm sick of sneaking PuTTY onto every PC I hog time on.
Now for the off-topic hardware sucks/rules stuff going on...
In the last few days, someone made the excellent point that outsiders view Apple laptops as closer to fair price because no one is doing a DIY laptop like we do x86 towers.
Otherwise you get what you pay for. Apple has made some lemons, but they do outrageous things like allow you to trade them in for a great price on the latest hardware. I'm not sure who else does that.
Oh well.
OK, But it's the only way to watch sports.
on
The ASCII Cam
·
· Score: 1
A friend used this to alter the display of the World Series in a bar. That was interesting.
Except for the bit about filesystems, which I appreciated, there was no real news that would of use to anyone -even investors, such as plans are for the 2.4 rollout.
With tux and 2.4 coming up, RH should be saying much more about their philosophy with respect to kernel dev and release, filesystems, and releasing lab results, etc...
It'll be a bit scarier in the next upgrade cycle, and their target markets (RH serves too many) will be very anxious. At least I will be.
I visited the advanced link, and I'm wondering where the best beginner's guide to IPsec could be. How is the reviewed book on that score?
I'm reading the ora "Building Internet Firewalls" book now, has anyone tried the "Building Linux and OpenBSD Firewalls" book? It covers OpenBSD 2.5, will it be relevant for 2.8?
I haven't read all the docs I could have, but it seems obvious. If the goal is website availabilty, then they might be testing for anthing that will knock the majority of users to the arms of Dr. Watson and his ilk: javascript errors from developers who use Macs and do not test on windows, download times based on certain IE and NS versions, etc...
The voting tech in NYC is pretty old school. Today I have woken up to the fact that other voting channels need to be established/hyped. Folks should be able to log into a kiosk or home terminal and do their thing. I'm more cloudy on the prospects for the telephone, but we can't just have 'Net voting, because there needs to be access for lower income folks, too.
The ancient voting booths let a lot of otherwise capable people down. If they failed to drag the big voting lever all the way to the right, they were allowed to select votes, but then when they returned the big lever to the left, it showed an empty ballot.
That sucks. I think the U.S. voting public should know more about mailing-in ballots, etc. I think the one-day emphasis is only good for the TV networks.
The floppy drive is the best air intake for a box with case fans or power supply fans blowing out. They end up looking like something from a B horror movie after a few months. And cleaning them, even with canned air, can mess with the heads. So cover your floppy slot with external cardboard and a piece of tape, like a pet door, if necessary!
Slashdot Mirror
Oops, the address is really 111 8th Ave, the old Port Authority.
they say it could last for over a week!
I am STILL in my rackspace. I was here when all the overhead lights went out.
First reaction: I see happy LEDs, whew.
Second Reaction: when the overhead lights came back on seconds later, you see 10 techs looking at their hands as if the ethernet cables they plugged in caused the problem! Funny.
This is the most comfortable place in Manhattan right now. Sleeping here on Sun cartons and bubble wrap in the AC due to zero transport home to CT.
Verio's got all generators working, and should weather this. For this I am eternally grateful. Let's take a moment to praise the folks who plan for this kind of problem in our data centers!
I tagged along with a road crew for Tufts House, Pierce Hall, in '88. Biggest bummer was driving to Windsor, Canada to find a Canadian Happy Meal, only to find out that these special Happy Meals were not being sold. We had missed the promotion by 24 hours or so.
On our way back into Detroit, the customs guy looks at the motley crew, each bearing ID from a different state, and asked us how long we had been in Canada. We looked at our watches, and all of a sudden we were 'randomly' selected for an intensive drug search! Good thing we did not steal that bale of hay we saw near Hell, Michigan that afternoon, that would have taken some explaining.
Going to Hell and photographing the Touchdown Jesus at Notre Dame on the same day was worth the trip, though.
Glad that the NYT would almost say something nice about U of C. Mostly the alma mater gets bad coverage there.
Back when I was a Mac hardware repair guy, this person came in with an SE30 that would fail "only in the mornings". We thought it might be an odd time-sensitive extension like an anti-virus app, but we opened it up, and it had some big bug habitat in there. Even though the bugs seemed absent, their nests would collect the morning dew and short out the board.
http://samsungcontact.com/en/
http://www.linuxtelephony.com/
good starting point. Pointers to perl modules that allow you to control a voicemodem.
http://www.ostel.com/
Mostly geared toward being your IVR rather than responding, but they might be worth looking at, in case their cards and software can fill your need.
This makes colocation more doable. So now, we can have total control over CLI and GUI apps. Makes those GVS servers look better and better....
One big bummer, I saw no mention of encryption. Good thing I ordered a cisco 3005. (won't THAT be speedy...)
I hear that. I should have been clearer. I am talking about Apple only shops, the smaller dedicated ones, the ones that remember what a Mac User Group is!
You make good points. I have heard that Apple staff gets put through a lot of coursework, but I am not hearing that they have anything like the management structure and software experience like the smaller shops who still keep Quark running on Quadra 950s, because that is what the client has.
Replacing trivial parts on a Mac should be practically a while-you-wait service, like getting my new StarTac antenna every month or so at Verizon.
I assumed a Mac only shop, so your points on competency are taken, but there is more to an Apple fix than that:
Mac users use more pronouns per repair than anyone else, because usually, macs just work. Example: I'd get a call, the entire report would be "I just clicked on this thing and it didn't work."
For the user, try being on hold with Apple for three hours to give that report. I'm not saying that Apple is bad at repair. But for Apple to totally succeed they need all three layers of help:
1. web or phone based FAQs, and generic help
2. local talent, a vendor whom they can get to know and form a mutual vocabulary, and possibly show up on site. (I know Kodak used to do this for Apple, but still, they were partswappers only.)
You'd be surprised how long it takes to figure out that what sounds like a bad font addition was really a SCSI problem because the font came with their new scanner.
3. Apple Depot part swapping and 1-800 phone walk throughs.
It sounds like you care about service too, and I am not saying that Apple retail should not try to do service. But it is my opinion that these small dedicated outfits should get as much access to Apple Service Parts as they have a credit rating for, without having to sell a large retail quota.
Disclaimer: I do not run an Apple Service shop, so this should be verified by folks who do.
AFAIK, In order to service Apple computers and get access to Apple parts, you need to sell units. Lots of units.
If you care at all about Apple service, you have to beat the chains, mailorder, and now Apple at their own game and make the numbers, for the privilege of gaining access to Apple Service parts.
If you do no service, like a large national chain, or you are content to relay all service to Apple, and have someone lose their laptop for a week to replace the keyboard or to do a clean system install, then you just focus on the slimming margins for box sales, hire lamer sales staff, push product.
Apple users get hurt by this. So Steve, when you open a retail store next door, talk to your area shops, and give them access to parts based on different criteria.
That's the last time i fail to preview!
openfts.sourceforge.net
Check out OpenFTS
openfts.sourceforge.net
Of course, WebObjects is an incredible dev environment that works with Oracle, but you can't easily find Mac software that allows you to control your Oracle install.
On the other hand, maybe Steve has been promising Larry hardware he hasn't seen yet. Apple makes some of the best hardware out there, but they still need to issue a server with redundant power supplies, for example.
Also I don't see Mac shops breaking the door down to spend many $K on a db license.
On the other hand, I've had pgsql running on my laptop since OSX could be installed!
http://search.cpan.org/doc/MSCHWERN/Test-More-0.08 /lib/Test/More.pm
This kind of yeoman's work is representative of the stuff Schwern does to make Perl better. Complements the Conway.
Yes indeed.
Rsync periodically, use the ssh transport and if one site gets burned down, your data lives.
It's the best thing about the OSX upgrade, being able to rsync my laptop to a server.
Rsync is very efficient. We also use it to back up many RAIDed servers to a cheap huge HD on a dedicated server, which gets DATed.
I'm sure that for home any old machine can keep a massive IDE drive in there, and all your other machines can use rsync to update only what changes.
Or rsync to a firewire drive mounted locally. If you do this every night, the incremental only takes minutes.
I just started using fink two weeks ago. It works and does not destroy the system in the process. If the only cost of the software is time for education and time for giving thanks to the author, then what is all the user whining about?
Running apps like gnumeric, the GIMP and Dia on the Mac makes my mac much more useful.
apple fans, projects like these come just in time, as the old way of just pirating software won't cut it soon, so get used to a little work to make good software happen on your mac. Get used to the fact that good software is sometimes made by difficult people and there is no marketing to shield you from them. It is a small price to pay.
Thanks chrisp and all of you who actually contribute to authoring, testing, supporting software like this.
Q? Any CBers or HAMs that took part during this event?
After the first impact, I hit the web for corroboration.
No cnn.com, no nytimes.com, natch. I got to slashdot after just two tries and got a clue.
When the chips are down, switched traffic gets stuffed. Give me broadcast every time. Radio is all we've got that'll work anywhere and with AA batteries, or no batteries, if you've got the fresh wind-up model.
I realize later that we do not hear a single Emergency Broadcast System session.
Radio stations were dropping everywhere, or evacuating and removing to borrowed facilities. FM pop stations have given up on programming and are simply relaying ABC TV or 1010 WINS, an AM all-news station, and there is none of that two-tone signal interruption sqwaking the opposite of "If this were a real emergency..."
I found the web frustrating when emergency info might have been needed, but later it was very useful as you'd expect.
Has anyone praised Google for allowing their putting their cache farm in service?
Email was flowing freely, and served to be a great thing for folks needing a quick ping check to see if their friends were alive.
I made the same correlation. I could get better reception on my little DX-360 doing shortwave than I can on my stereo rocking FM here in Phathattan.
Of course, hearing BBC's US commentary is not much different from Radio China's, (I'm not kidding) but hey...
I hear they were a leading force in killing micro-FM stations too.
Good Stuff:
After the linux revolution has pretty much run out of gas for the consumer desktop (although the linux PDA wave should revive it from that direction), Apple is stepping up and doing something very brave: betting the farm on a Un*x-like OS, trusting that they will perfect the desktop.
At the risk of sounding like a broken (vinyl!) record, after watching the smooth transition from 68K to PPC, I believe that this will be a success in the long-term.
If you have been a Mac and Unix user, OSX on a laptop is a godsend. If you aren't, maybe you won't be drawn to it.
Bad Stuff:
Who is the @zz4013 who decided that cmd-N does not stand for New Folder anymore? That little fact kills me. Why not use the extra key press for the new finder window, and make it that much easier to move forward? I can't believe that made it out of the usage lab!
I could be wrong here, but my main beef with OSX so far is that I do not see a mandatory CLI interface for basic operations in OSX binaries.
Ex: Who is going to run Filemaker on an OSX server if you can't ssh in and restart it with the right environment?
Other than getting my mind around the netinfo world, all the controls are very well placed, you can just will your Mac to be a web server and/or ftp server. And ssh is right there! I'm sick of sneaking PuTTY onto every PC I hog time on.
Now for the off-topic hardware sucks/rules stuff going on...
In the last few days, someone made the excellent point that outsiders view Apple laptops as closer to fair price because no one is doing a DIY laptop like we do x86 towers.
Otherwise you get what you pay for. Apple has made some lemons, but they do outrageous things like allow you to trade them in for a great price on the latest hardware. I'm not sure who else does that.
Oh well.
A friend used this to alter the display of the World Series in a bar. That was interesting.
http://anux.angel.net/asciicam/
The article was pure brochureware.
Except for the bit about filesystems, which I appreciated, there was no real news that would of use to anyone -even investors, such as plans are for the 2.4 rollout.
With tux and 2.4 coming up, RH should be saying much more about their philosophy with respect to kernel dev and release, filesystems, and releasing lab results, etc...
It'll be a bit scarier in the next upgrade cycle, and their target markets (RH serves too many) will be very anxious. At least I will be.
I visited the advanced link, and I'm wondering where the best beginner's guide to IPsec could be. How is the reviewed book on that score?
I'm reading the ora "Building Internet Firewalls" book now, has anyone tried the "Building Linux and OpenBSD Firewalls" book? It covers OpenBSD 2.5, will it be relevant for 2.8?
Thanks.
I haven't read all the docs I could have, but it seems obvious. If the goal is website availabilty, then they might be testing for anthing that will knock the majority of users to the arms of Dr. Watson and his ilk: javascript errors from developers who use Macs and do not test on windows, download times based on certain IE and NS versions, etc...
Man,
The voting tech in NYC is pretty old school. Today I have woken up to the fact that other voting channels need to be established/hyped. Folks should be able to log into a kiosk or home terminal and do their thing. I'm more cloudy on the prospects for the telephone, but we can't just have 'Net voting, because there needs to be access for lower income folks, too.
The ancient voting booths let a lot of otherwise capable people down. If they failed to drag the big voting lever all the way to the right, they were allowed to select votes, but then when they returned the big lever to the left, it showed an empty ballot.
That sucks. I think the U.S. voting public should know more about mailing-in ballots, etc. I think the one-day emphasis is only good for the TV networks.
The floppy drive is the best air intake for a box with case fans or power supply fans blowing out. They end up looking like something from a B horror movie after a few months. And cleaning them, even with canned air, can mess with the heads. So cover your floppy slot with external cardboard and a piece of tape, like a pet door, if necessary!