TimeWarner/RoadRunner in Tampa Florida has software, but they're usually too lazy to install it, which is a good thing. They used to have the required authentication software, but that's a different animal.
TimeWarner/AOLCable in the Tampa area is actually RoadRunner. You can switch providers, save $5/month, and use the AOL auth software. Unfortunately it's an obnoxious set of popups and banners that drives me absolutely nuts. From what I understand that's all they do.
Charter Communications in the Los Angeles area *DOES* have a spyware package, which sounds like what you have.. My girlfriend was putting in the order for my cablemodem, and they asked her "What OS are you using." The phone was handed off to men, and I told them Linux. They aren't allowed to even install with a Linux machine.. I had used on e on their network 2 weeks prior, so I knew it wasn't a technical problem. I finally gave in, and told them Win98, and brought a workstation back to the house for them to see when they installed..
The Charter installer went to put the CD in to start installing software, and I told him "NO!" Then I asked what it was.:) He only answered "SpyWare". He put the disk in the box, which I still have, and they had a long waiver form that I had to sign. Basically it was that I understood that I wasn't taking full advantage of my PC, and I fully acknoledge that I should install the software at a future date, so I can make the most of my experience..
Funny thing, I guess I made it clear enough that I only want a connection. They never even gave me my Email account info. Not like it matters, I never checked my TimeWarner/RoadRunner Email in the years that I had it.
Their spyware wouldn't have done much good. They would have put it on a freshly installed 98 box, which would have gotten formatted later. I took that machine down, and put up my Linux firewall, and reassembled my home network (3 machines, for 3 people. Imagine that. hehe)
It is obnoxious that they feel it's ok to push their software on you, but it's just as obnoxious as buying a new laptop with their choice of OS and software packages, that you're good enough to pay for. Did I really want WinXP Home and MSOffice 6000? Nope. But I don't have a choice.
Ok.. You maintain one machine, and it only manages 1 to 2 months uptime..
From my point of view (i.e., how I manage servers), there are two types of machines. 1) Servers, which people don't sit on the console of 2) Workstation, which people do sit on the console of.
Pretty easy, huh.:)
So, you can generally have Windows, Unix, or Mac workstations..
We have quite a few Windows workstations (say 20-30), running 98 through XP. We have several workstations running *nix (say 10), and a few Mac workstations (about 4)..
The Windows ones are guaranteed to crash mysteriously. Mysteriously I say, because I *DO* know the in's and out's of Windows, as every OS I have to deal with daily. We've gone so far as to call Microsoft for some of these problems. Microsoft's solution to a frozen machine is to reboot. "It just happens."
If I go back to my bosses and tell them that something "just happens", they aren't very happy. I definately couldn't get away with it on any of my Unix workstations or servers. But when Microsoft's definitive answer is "It just happens", then that's the truth.
And don't even go into the realm of flaky hardware. I usually take retired Windows workstations, and make them into nice shiny new Unix workstations. One quick format, and all is fixed.
"My" in this refer to all the networks I'm responsible for. A few hundred machines.
My Unix workstations go down usually because of power outages, or I decide to start swapping out hard drives. My Unix servers don't go down, unless there's a hardware issue.
My Windows workstations usually manage 1 week before some mystery problem arises. I rarely do I see more than a month in them. Those users use MSIE and MSExchange client. No outside softwares.
An old WinNT PDC, with no other responsibilites does the best, and had about 6months uptime before it last needed to be rebooted.. Every time we got on the console of it (roughly once a month), it would perform pathetically slow, but since it was still doing it's job (authenticating), we wouldn't reboot it. The other NT servers range between 1 week and 2 months between *NECESSARY* reboots.
We have 16 servers in a colo in New York that are a few years old. One had a power supply failure. One was rebooted because we did a kernel upgrade, and the third was rebooted by accident by someone thinking it was another machine (he failed to read the full description on his pager). 13 machines have been running for over a year. Last time we rebooted, we upgrade memory, and installed a fresher OS on them (They were Slackware 7.0.x, now they're 8.0.0
Anyone care to show me stats like that from a Windows server that has been pushing serious traffic? I've been holding out on upgrading kernels, just so I can see the mythical uptime wrap-around that I heard was around 400 days up. Then they'll get kernel updates.:)
Back in the early 80's, I knew a guy with a linear amp on a CB, with a large antenna mounted on the back of a van. One of his hobbies was to be close to a police car in traffic, and key the mike.. It would kill the engine.. But that was the same time period that any EM pulse would kill 'em.. I haven't heard of anything working like that on any recent vehicles..
Well, except for maybe those prototype Volvo's (??) with the Win98 machines in the trunk. I may be wrong about the manufacturer, but anyone interested can go look back in the/. archives, it was posted here a few months back.:)
You've never had a Nextel phone, have you? They emit a very strong signal, and makes an audible noise through any powered speakers, and will tweak any TV or monitor they're close to. If you know anyone with one, just put it close to your monitor and call the phone.. That's exactly what would send wierd signals back to the flight computers.. You just have to have it close enough to the unshielded signal wires in the plane.. I have powered speakers on my desk at home and work, and have to remember to keep my cell phones far enough away to keep them from making a [thump][thump][thump] every time it tests for new voicemails and text messages (about once every minute or so).
If you have one, once you're used to the sounds, you can tell the differences between incoming calls, voicemails, and text messages. During calls, the noise is almost constant.
If it's close enough to a cordless phone, you get interference there too.
I'm fairly sure I was flying Delta, maybe 5 years ago, they wouldn't let me listen to a portable CD player.. I hadn't even turned in on yet, and the stewardess freaked out and told me electronics were forbidden by federal law.. {sigh} Someday people will start getting proper education in their own industry.
Pretty much they're saying having a transmitter (typically cell phone) can make the plane do funny things, but they also cite instances of other devices doing the same. Any electronic device can emit electronic noise. Aparently the aircraft manufacturers didn't do a very good job of shielding their aircraft. Maybe they should take a clue from auto manufacturers.
Back in the early 80's when GM and Ford started equipping cars with computers to run the engine, close lightning strikes, or driving under high-voltage power lines would occasionally make the car shut off. That was very quickly fixed.
It seems to me that the golden rule of constitutional [civil] rights is that you are to be able to excersie your rights, unrestricted until you come to the point of trampling on others rights. Again, the example of excersing your free speech in yelling "fire!" in a crowded place, puts other people in real danger.
But, what if the place is on fire? The way American's rights are going, the person who yelled fire will be
Charged with speech of a forbidden word (fire)
Instigating a mob
Terrorist Activities
Arson
Of course based on the third charge, they can be held indefinately without trial on federal charges.
Now in America, you'd be better off quietly walking away hopefully without being seen, and never admit you were there. Anyone who was there is a suspect. Are you safe because you had nothing to do with it? No. Sound unreasonable? Ask the hundreds at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or in other American detention facilities world wide.
It would make me worry that much more about a Windows machine "Crashing". I don't think I've ever seen one shatter before.:).. too early.. need coffee..
I agree.. None of our servers have keyboards attached, unless we plug one in. We don't reboot the machine just to plug the keyboard in. I'm afraid to even contemplate how many thousands of machines I've done, or how many times it's been done to them..
Of course, PS/2 mice are a completely different critter.. About 50% of the machines I've tried (un)plugging while it's on will crash..
Re:Error,Cannot Close Application, Click OK to clo
on
Gnarly Error Messages
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I still put those in for giggles.. Usually in something like this:
if ($a > 0){
#something }elsif($a 0){
#something }elsif($a = 0){
#something }else{
die "Error: You shouldn't see this." };
Ok, so you're not with the company any more. Do you have something to sue for? Do they still have something of yours, or owe you something?
If you feel that you may someday want to sue them, don't sign it.
You can always play rougher with them.. Tell them that you won't sign it as-is, and you do want your severance pay. If they won't change the wording to your liking, and won't pay, tell them that you *WILL* sue them if they don't pay your severance.
Seems like a pretty easy decision.. They change the wording and you don't sue, or you drag the company into court and make life a little more difficult for them..
Of course, you said they're the traditional dot-com failure, so they probably have $0.35 in the bank, and the corporation is probably well seperated from the owners. It's your call. If you decide to sue, you may get the court telling you that you're entitled to all of their assets, which may at that point be your old desk chair and an old coffee maker.
Well, here's a quick test to see if the line is over-utilized. Ping.:) Or traceroute.
Trying transfer speeds from other sites simply doesn't work. Not only are you dealing with your own latency, but with latency of every connection between you and where you're going.
A quick traceroute would give you what you're looking for. Run the traceroute to a known T1 customer on their network. The last few hops will go something like this:
5) Some router on the Teir 1 provider. 4) Connection between the Teir 1 provider and their equipment. 3) Their equipment (router) going towards the customer. 2) The customers router. 1) The customer's host machine.
Stop reading at the first place you see bad numbers (say above 150ms), or "*". Anything after that is caused by the problems previous.
If you see shitty times before 5, it could be your provider or theirs.
If you see shitty times at 5, that's their providers problem, don't use them.
If you see shitty times at 4, they may be overextending their available bandwidth or a line problem. Don't use them.
If you see shitty times at 3, there's conjection on their LAN. Don't use them.
If you see shitty times at 2, that particular T1 may be overextended or there's a line problem. This isn't bad, it's that customers problem.
If you see shitty times at 1, there's problems on that customers LAN.
Everyone oversells their bandwidth. If I have 45Mb/s to resell, I may have 100 T1 customers who never exceed 100Kb/s each. There's no reason if I (as the bandwidth provider) can't sell more T1's on that connection, if I'm only utilizing 10Mb/s now.. It's my responsibility as the bandwidth provider to be sure that we never exceed a limit (my provider is 40% utilization).
It doesn't really matter if it's a huge provider, or a local provider, shit happens. Some huge providers have really shitty bandwidth. They'll have an OC3 in a city, and sell literally thousands of T1's on it. At peak traffic times, you'll see tremendous packet loss (>50%) and huge latency (>500ms).
I've personally flooded a few T1's I'm responsible for, just trying to transfer too much at the same time to a place with better connectivity (Gigabit fiber). When that happens, I've overused the bandwidth, and you'll see packet loss and latency.
1) Give away stuff. Free books, free CD's, whatever it takes to get your product out.
2) Make the product affordable. If the competition is selling for $29.95, sell yours for $19.95.
3) Market it to the wrong crowd. Upper management always likes to think they're making some great technical decision, even if they don't know what the hell they're talking about. Look at how many businesses are using Windows servers, because the bosses told their techs that it's what is better.
I've seen countless decisions passed down towards me, which were the direct result of the boss getting some flashy flyer or reading in a magazine about some great product. That's why Microsoft keeps putting out those glossy ads about %99.99999999999 uptime.. The boss will see that, and remember your server going down once for any reason (including power outages), and tell you to switch.
But it was a nice fantasy.. It would be an ideal world for MS not to continue development on a perpetually broken application, but to start bundling very functional free packages.. As I recall, they have interest in Perl too (ActiveState)..
Of course, they'll find a way to completely mess it all up, but I'll remain optimistic.
Re:Powerful Industry Group Lobbies for Spam
on
Spam Doesn't Work?
·
· Score: 1
I was under the impression that if Windowz was installed into a nice, simple, controlled environment, it would have no problems.
Muvico in Ybor City (Tampa) uses Embedded Windows for their automated ticketing kiosks.. Touch a movie, swipe your card, and it prints a ticket..
Every time we've gone by there, they're crashed with some error. Most recently, 2 had black screens (lit, but not showing anything), one had a screen that said "Try another kiosk", and the 4th was the best. It displayed the hardware and software specs, as well as the IP and netmask.
I looked behind the kiosk, and there were 2 ethernet cables plugged into wall jacks..
Hmmmm.. I have an IP on the network, and physical access to it.. What more could they possibly want to give me?
Of course, if Windows hadn't crashed out and left that screen up, they wouldn't have problems with hackers getting on their private network.:)
I wonder if Volvo will provide any sort of connectivity for automated updates.. GM gives cell phone service (of sorts) with OnStar.. That'd be hillarious. A Volvo/Windows-Update automatically runs, and the car stops moving.. Tow it back to Volvo for the OS's to be reinstalled on all 5 machines.. heheeheheheheheeee
Sorry guys.. If I have to trust my *LIFE* on something, it's not going to be a Windows machine.. I'd rather know that a good programmer wrote a propriatory os for my vehicle, rather than wondering when the next time the air bags will mistakenly inflate, and the brakes will automatically lock.. I could have a beautiful one-car accident in the middle of a road without touching anything.
I get the feeling the operators at (800) 822-9009 are about to be slashdotted themselves.. Can AT&T take 1/2 mil simultanious calls to their security hotline? hehe
We've been knocked out with hurricanes in Florida and snow storms in New York (14 blocks from a couple big building falling too.).. One NOC isn't enough.. Diversify your physical locations, or expect something to be down sometime.
Here's a few machines. It's this low because of hardware upgrades last September.. We took one or two down at a time, which left 10 or so serving the site, therefore creating no downtime. hehe Most of these are web servers that frequently do between 20Mb/s and 80Mb/s, depending on their task. voy03 handles voting, which gives it a slightly higher load.. It only counts a few million votes daily (read: a few million CGI hits)..
Slashdot Mirror
TimeWarner/RoadRunner in Tampa Florida has software, but they're usually too lazy to install it, which is a good thing. They used to have the required authentication software, but that's a different animal.
TimeWarner/AOLCable in the Tampa area is actually RoadRunner. You can switch providers, save $5/month, and use the AOL auth software. Unfortunately it's an obnoxious set of popups and banners that drives me absolutely nuts. From what I understand that's all they do.
Charter Communications in the Los Angeles area *DOES* have a spyware package, which sounds like what you have.. My girlfriend was putting in the order for my cablemodem, and they asked her "What OS are you using." The phone was handed off to men, and I told them Linux. They aren't allowed to even install with a Linux machine.. I had used on e on their network 2 weeks prior, so I knew it wasn't a technical problem. I finally gave in, and told them Win98, and brought a workstation back to the house for them to see when they installed..
The Charter installer went to put the CD in to start installing software, and I told him "NO!" Then I asked what it was.
Funny thing, I guess I made it clear enough that I only want a connection. They never even gave me my Email account info. Not like it matters, I never checked my TimeWarner/RoadRunner Email in the years that I had it.
Their spyware wouldn't have done much good. They would have put it on a freshly installed 98 box, which would have gotten formatted later. I took that machine down, and put up my Linux firewall, and reassembled my home network (3 machines, for 3 people. Imagine that. hehe)
It is obnoxious that they feel it's ok to push their software on you, but it's just as obnoxious as buying a new laptop with their choice of OS and software packages, that you're good enough to pay for. Did I really want WinXP Home and MSOffice 6000? Nope. But I don't have a choice.
{cough} {cough}
:)
Ok.. You maintain one machine, and it only manages 1 to 2 months uptime..
From my point of view (i.e., how I manage servers), there are two types of machines.
1) Servers, which people don't sit on the console of
2) Workstation, which people do sit on the console of.
Pretty easy, huh.
So, you can generally have Windows, Unix, or Mac workstations..
We have quite a few Windows workstations (say 20-30), running 98 through XP. We have several workstations running *nix (say 10), and a few Mac workstations (about 4)..
The Windows ones are guaranteed to crash mysteriously. Mysteriously I say, because I *DO* know the in's and out's of Windows, as every OS I have to deal with daily. We've gone so far as to call Microsoft for some of these problems. Microsoft's solution to a frozen machine is to reboot. "It just happens."
If I go back to my bosses and tell them that something "just happens", they aren't very happy. I definately couldn't get away with it on any of my Unix workstations or servers. But when Microsoft's definitive answer is "It just happens", then that's the truth.
And don't even go into the realm of flaky hardware. I usually take retired Windows workstations, and make them into nice shiny new Unix workstations. One quick format, and all is fixed.
Oohh, 3 weeks..
/proc/cpuinfo
/proc/meminfo
:)
"My" in this refer to all the networks I'm responsible for. A few hundred machines.
My Unix workstations go down usually because of power outages, or I decide to start swapping out hard drives. My Unix servers don't go down, unless there's a hardware issue.
My Windows workstations usually manage 1 week before some mystery problem arises. I rarely do I see more than a month in them. Those users use MSIE and MSExchange client. No outside softwares.
An old WinNT PDC, with no other responsibilites does the best, and had about 6months uptime before it last needed to be rebooted.. Every time we got on the console of it (roughly once a month), it would perform pathetically slow, but since it was still doing it's job (authenticating), we wouldn't reboot it. The other NT servers range between 1 week and 2 months between *NECESSARY* reboots.
We have 16 servers in a colo in New York that are a few years old. One had a power supply failure. One was rebooted because we did a kernel upgrade, and the third was rebooted by accident by someone thinking it was another machine (he failed to read the full description on his pager). 13 machines have been running for over a year. Last time we rebooted, we upgrade memory, and installed a fresher OS on them (They were Slackware 7.0.x, now they're 8.0.0
The rest look something like this:
user@voy02 (/user) uptime
6:44pm up 416 days, 4:48, 1 user, load average: 0.21, 0.12, 0.13
Those machines serve between 20Mb/s and 80Mb/s, depending on their usage, and serve more hits/day than I even care to count (read "millions+")
user@voy02 (/user) uname -a
Linux voy02.voyeurweb.com 2.4.9 #1 Mon Aug 20 17:33:40 EDT 2001 i686 unknown
user@voy02 (/user) cat
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
...
model name : Celeron (Coppermine)
...
cpu MHz : 567.971
...
bogomips : 1133.77
root@voy02 (/root) cat
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 524898304 521756672 3141632 0 14417920 432467968
Swap: 131600384 3903488 127696896
MemTotal: 512596 kB
MemFree: 3068 kB
MemShared: 0 kB
...
Anyone care to show me stats like that from a Windows server that has been pushing serious traffic? I've been holding out on upgrading kernels, just so I can see the mythical uptime wrap-around that I heard was around 400 days up. Then they'll get kernel updates.
Back in the early 80's, I knew a guy with a linear amp on a CB, with a large antenna mounted on the back of a van. One of his hobbies was to be close to a police car in traffic, and key the mike.. It would kill the engine.. But that was the same time period that any EM pulse would kill 'em.. I haven't heard of anything working like that on any recent vehicles..
Well, except for maybe those prototype Volvo's (??) with the Win98 machines in the trunk. I may be wrong about the manufacturer, but anyone interested can go look back in the
You've never had a Nextel phone, have you? They emit a very strong signal, and makes an audible noise through any powered speakers, and will tweak any TV or monitor they're close to. If you know anyone with one, just put it close to your monitor and call the phone.. That's exactly what would send wierd signals back to the flight computers.. You just have to have it close enough to the unshielded signal wires in the plane.. I have powered speakers on my desk at home and work, and have to remember to keep my cell phones far enough away to keep them from making a [thump][thump][thump] every time it tests for new voicemails and text messages (about once every minute or so).
If you have one, once you're used to the sounds, you can tell the differences between incoming calls, voicemails, and text messages. During calls, the noise is almost constant.
If it's close enough to a cordless phone, you get interference there too.
I'm fairly sure I was flying Delta, maybe 5 years ago, they wouldn't let me listen to a portable CD player.. I hadn't even turned in on yet, and the stewardess freaked out and told me electronics were forbidden by federal law.. {sigh} Someday people will start getting proper education in their own industry.
A quick search on Boeing's web site found this page. http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero _10/interfere.html
Pretty much they're saying having a transmitter (typically cell phone) can make the plane do funny things, but they also cite instances of other devices doing the same. Any electronic device can emit electronic noise. Aparently the aircraft manufacturers didn't do a very good job of shielding their aircraft. Maybe they should take a clue from auto manufacturers.
Back in the early 80's when GM and Ford started equipping cars with computers to run the engine, close lightning strikes, or driving under high-voltage power lines would occasionally make the car shut off. That was very quickly fixed.
But, what if the place is on fire? The way American's rights are going, the person who yelled fire will be
Of course based on the third charge, they can be held indefinately without trial on federal charges.
Now in America, you'd be better off quietly walking away hopefully without being seen, and never admit you were there. Anyone who was there is a suspect. Are you safe because you had nothing to do with it? No. Sound unreasonable? Ask the hundreds at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or in other American detention facilities world wide.
It would make me worry that much more about a Windows machine "Crashing". I don't think I've ever seen one shatter before. :) .. too early .. need coffee ..
The rough translation would be: "I'm a troll, and wish I could use *nix".
(For those who didn't read it, don't bother.)
In Perl, die gives the line number.
user@home (/user) cat test.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
die "You Shouldn't See This Error (tm)";
user@home (/user)
You Shouldn't See This Error (tm) at
I agree.. None of our servers have keyboards attached, unless we plug one in. We don't reboot the machine just to plug the keyboard in. I'm afraid to even contemplate how many thousands of machines I've done, or how many times it's been done to them..
Of course, PS/2 mice are a completely different critter.. About 50% of the machines I've tried (un)plugging while it's on will crash..
I still put those in for giggles.. Usually in something like this:
if ($a > 0){
#something
}elsif($a 0){
#something
}elsif($a = 0){
#something
}else{
die "Error: You shouldn't see this."
};
Ok, so you're not with the company any more. Do you have something to sue for? Do they still have something of yours, or owe you something?
If you feel that you may someday want to sue them, don't sign it.
You can always play rougher with them.. Tell them that you won't sign it as-is, and you do want your severance pay. If they won't change the wording to your liking, and won't pay, tell them that you *WILL* sue them if they don't pay your severance.
Seems like a pretty easy decision.. They change the wording and you don't sue, or you drag the company into court and make life a little more difficult for them..
Of course, you said they're the traditional dot-com failure, so they probably have $0.35 in the bank, and the corporation is probably well seperated from the owners. It's your call. If you decide to sue, you may get the court telling you that you're entitled to all of their assets, which may at that point be your old desk chair and an old coffee maker.
Well, here's a quick test to see if the line is over-utilized. Ping.
Trying transfer speeds from other sites simply doesn't work. Not only are you dealing with your own latency, but with latency of every connection between you and where you're going.
A quick traceroute would give you what you're looking for. Run the traceroute to a known T1 customer on their network. The last few hops will go something like this:
5) Some router on the Teir 1 provider.
4) Connection between the Teir 1 provider and their equipment.
3) Their equipment (router) going towards the customer.
2) The customers router.
1) The customer's host machine.
Stop reading at the first place you see bad numbers (say above 150ms), or "*". Anything after that is caused by the problems previous.
If you see shitty times before 5, it could be your provider or theirs.
If you see shitty times at 5, that's their providers problem, don't use them.
If you see shitty times at 4, they may be overextending their available bandwidth or a line problem. Don't use them.
If you see shitty times at 3, there's conjection on their LAN. Don't use them.
If you see shitty times at 2, that particular T1 may be overextended or there's a line problem. This isn't bad, it's that customers problem.
If you see shitty times at 1, there's problems on that customers LAN.
Everyone oversells their bandwidth. If I have 45Mb/s to resell, I may have 100 T1 customers who never exceed 100Kb/s each. There's no reason if I (as the bandwidth provider) can't sell more T1's on that connection, if I'm only utilizing 10Mb/s now.. It's my responsibility as the bandwidth provider to be sure that we never exceed a limit (my provider is 40% utilization).
It doesn't really matter if it's a huge provider, or a local provider, shit happens. Some huge providers have really shitty bandwidth. They'll have an OC3 in a city, and sell literally thousands of T1's on it. At peak traffic times, you'll see tremendous packet loss (>50%) and huge latency (>500ms).
I've personally flooded a few T1's I'm responsible for, just trying to transfer too much at the same time to a place with better connectivity (Gigabit fiber). When that happens, I've overused the bandwidth, and you'll see packet loss and latency.
What seems to always work fastest is this:
1) Give away stuff. Free books, free CD's, whatever it takes to get your product out.
2) Make the product affordable. If the competition is selling for $29.95, sell yours for $19.95.
3) Market it to the wrong crowd. Upper management always likes to think they're making some great technical decision, even if they don't know what the hell they're talking about. Look at how many businesses are using Windows servers, because the bosses told their techs that it's what is better.
I've seen countless decisions passed down towards me, which were the direct result of the boss getting some flashy flyer or reading in a magazine about some great product. That's why Microsoft keeps putting out those glossy ads about %99.99999999999 uptime.. The boss will see that, and remember your server going down once for any reason (including power outages), and tell you to switch.
---
:)
#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Hello World\n";
---
That seems much easier..
But it was a nice fantasy.. It would be an ideal world for MS not to continue development on a perpetually broken application, but to start bundling very functional free packages.. As I recall, they have interest in Perl too (ActiveState)..
Of course, they'll find a way to completely mess it all up, but I'll remain optimistic.
You're aware "The Onion" is satire news, right?
I was under the impression that if Windowz was installed into a nice, simple, controlled environment, it would have no problems.
:)
Muvico in Ybor City (Tampa) uses Embedded Windows for their automated ticketing kiosks.. Touch a movie, swipe your card, and it prints a ticket..
Every time we've gone by there, they're crashed with some error. Most recently, 2 had black screens (lit, but not showing anything), one had a screen that said "Try another kiosk", and the 4th was the best. It displayed the hardware and software specs, as well as the IP and netmask.
I looked behind the kiosk, and there were 2 ethernet cables plugged into wall jacks..
Hmmmm.. I have an IP on the network, and physical access to it.. What more could they possibly want to give me?
Of course, if Windows hadn't crashed out and left that screen up, they wouldn't have problems with hackers getting on their private network.
I wonder if Volvo will provide any sort of connectivity for automated updates.. GM gives cell phone service (of sorts) with OnStar.. That'd be hillarious. A Volvo/Windows-Update automatically runs, and the car stops moving.. Tow it back to Volvo for the OS's to be reinstalled on all 5 machines.. heheeheheheheheeee
Sorry guys.. If I have to trust my *LIFE* on something, it's not going to be a Windows machine.. I'd rather know that a good programmer wrote a propriatory os for my vehicle, rather than wondering when the next time the air bags will mistakenly inflate, and the brakes will automatically lock.. I could have a beautiful one-car accident in the middle of a road without touching anything.
Hmmmmm.... Give Windows away, and charge for software like Office..
:)
Wouldn't that be like installing a free OS like Linux, and then buying an office suite like StarOffice?
But, could Microsoft turn their whole strategy around? Probably not.
I get the feeling the operators at (800) 822-9009 are about to be slashdotted themselves.. Can AT&T take 1/2 mil simultanious calls to their security hotline? hehe
We've been knocked out with hurricanes in Florida and snow storms in New York (14 blocks from a couple big building falling too.).. One NOC isn't enough.. Diversify your physical locations, or expect something to be down sometime.
Here's a few machines. It's this low because of hardware upgrades last September.. We took one or two down at a time, which left 10 or so serving the site, therefore creating no downtime. hehe
Most of these are web servers that frequently do between 20Mb/s and 80Mb/s, depending on their task. voy03 handles voting, which gives it a slightly higher load.. It only counts a few million votes daily (read: a few million CGI hits)..
voy01 # uptime
4:55pm up 292 days, 24 min, 1 user, load average: 0.71, 0.44, 0.36
voy02 # uptime
4:56pm up 307 days, 3:04, 1 user, load average: 0.15, 0.17, 0.17
voy03 # uptime
4:56pm up 306 days, 8:25, 1 user, load average: 13.70, 12.11, 10.17
voy04 # uptime
4:56pm up 306 days, 19:40, 1 user, load average: 0.45, 0.38, 0.32
voy05 # uptime
4:56pm up 307 days, 3:16, 1 user, load average: 0.25, 0.35, 0.39
voy60 # uptime
4:57pm up 262 days, 23:57, 1 user, load average: 0.33, 0.37, 0.35